empty server advice

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Re: empty server advice

Post by disconnect »

Highest (past month): 11th Lowest (past month): 422nd :?
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Re: empty server advice

Post by turbo1 »

We were ranked Highest (past month): 14th Lowest (past month): 410th with a ranked server. If I turn PB on and run ranked now, and get 4-6 clan members on and play for over 1 hour, our server will be lucky to get maybe 1-3 people from the master server list. If I shut off PB and ranked it has filled up and stay filled. Why do we pay to have a server that is empty all the time? My clan mates ask me this daily as they pay for the server. How does this get fixed? How do some servers with PB and ranked on stay full and I can't even seed? I don't believe most poeple are looking for non-PB/non-ranked servers as they won't get any ranks. Everyone wants to rank up. Everyone wants new guns, achievements, pins, and insignias. That's the enticement of the game. Answers are needed. Fixes are needed or failure will occur which is already happening. Failure=no more people renting servers from NFO or other hosts.
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Re: empty server advice

Post by disconnect »

It's a shame really, I actually went a head and canceled one of our servers. It became impossible to seed both of them. It is no fault of NFO, but the price tag on a 32 man server is to steep to allow it to sit idle all the time.

I hope we can make a decent run with one server. It's still tough, but we've been managing to get it full from like 8pm - 12am. A far cry from the 24/7 traffic we once had in multiple servers. :?
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Edge100x
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Re: empty server advice

Post by Edge100x »

It mostly seems to come down to two things: A serious erosion of the player base without a corresponding decline in servers, leading to a massive excess of capacity; and a broken "Play now" button that just does a very poor job of selecting where to put people.

Player usage now is crazy low -- we're seeing less than a third of the nightly maximum number that we were just a week ago! Going back further, the decline gets even more noticeable.

"Play now" likes to put single people into either completely full servers or those with just one other player, and it doesn't take latency or region into account.

These causes will supposedly be improved a bit with the next patch (more players will come in to experiment, and "Play now" will be retooled, though they're not saying much about how). That patch keeps getting pushed back due to QA concerns.
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Re: empty server advice

Post by maelstrom »

haha yeah EA/DICE really dropped the ball on this game. it was a lot of fun too :/

4 months paid for...i think i had a full server population for a total of 1 week lol. yeah...screw that.
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Re: empty server advice

Post by TimeX »

Hopefully soon they will have this new patch out. One of the reasons for the delay is they are taking the time to do it right.
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Re: empty server advice

Post by PowersGaming »

TimeX wrote:Hopefully soon they will have this new patch out. One of the reasons for the delay is they are taking the time to do it right.
I think the "Play Now" is most of the problem.. Why not completely eliminate that option and just let players choose like they used to. Another huge problem concerning empty servers is the fact that you can't accumulate points unless 4 players occupy the server. So you're sitting there with 3 guys just wastin' time. :roll:

Does DICE have any plans to fix these two problems ?
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Re: empty server advice

Post by Edge100x »

I imagine that "play now" was created mostly with console gamers in mind -- with all console-oriented servers configured identically, there's no need for a list. When they ported it to the PC, they left that in and bolted on some old-school server list functionality, as well. Perhaps their thought is that some players would prefer the simplicity and familiarity (to console gamers) of "play now", and with so many people choosing it when they play, they're probably right.

I haven't heard of any plans to remove or retool it in a future version, but DICE/EA is very secretive when it comes to how way "play now" works.
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Re: empty server advice

Post by PowersGaming »

Edge100x wrote:I imagine that "play now" was created mostly with console gamers in mind -- with all console-oriented servers configured identically, there's no need for a list. When they ported it to the PC, they left that in and bolted on some old-school server list functionality, as well. Perhaps their thought is that some players would prefer the simplicity and familiarity (to console gamers) of "play now", and with so many people choosing it when they play, they're probably right.

I haven't heard of any plans to remove or retool it in a future version, but DICE/EA is very secretive when it comes to how way "play now" works.
WOW... VERY IMPRESSIVE. I always wondered if you were aware of the fact that BC2 was a console port, and how you stood on the matter.

PC players for the most part have become disenfranchised with DICE and their Console port. Hopefully it's a lesson they learn from; all the negativity posted in the PC forums come from game glitches, tweeks, and the simple fact that BC2 was ported from console and does not utilize PC hardware correctly still to this day. It still runs the game in a Console fashion utilizing the CPU; failing to recognize the capabilities in our sound, networking and video cards because 80% of the game is run on your CPU. Sound, FX, destruction, and networking are all handled by the CPU with this engine, and the video card does nothing but render, while soundcard is merely a thru-put to your speakers. That's how consoles work: Harddrive, CDrom, CPU, and a crappy video card. That's what this engine is designed for. Hopefully they fix that with BF:3; if not, they're gonna see a HUGE *facepalm* in the PC gaming community.

That said, I agree with you on why the "Play Now" option is in the game, but seriously it's another bad idea. Is it easier ? Yeah I guess so, but for those of us trying to keep servers full it's ridiculous. I'm really sick of how EA/DICE controls what we can and cannot do when it comes to servers.

Please tell them to eliminate all things "console port" when BF:3 comes out.
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Re: empty server advice

Post by Edge100x »

From their perspective, the problem is that they don't have the time or resources to rewrite large portions of game for each platform. I don't know officially how it works, but I suspect that they fork every platform from a codebase designed for a lowest-common-denominator system (i.e., a console) and then do as much as they can to customize for the other platforms in the time allotted. That time is severely limited by competitive pressures and their budget from EA, and they spend most of it with the basics, like adjusting menus and settings options, adding a server browser, and testing and fixing bugs that crop up because of the wide variety of hardware that is available.

Instead of starting with a shared codebase designed around a console, EA could choose to initially target the PC. But, it is more work (due to the fundamental optimizing and feature-hacking necessary) to go from PC->console, and they'd likely have to delay the game release further.

Since MoH is based on the same engine (Frostbite) and they've had more time to refine it, my hope would be that it will have higher performance and take advantage of the hardware better. I would imagine that some future titles will be based on an enhanced version of Frostbite, as well.

It'd be nice if they committed more resources and freedom to the PC side of things, though. It should help as more gamers rediscover the PC, making it more appealing to game publishers as an investment -- and making your voice heard as a customer doesn't hurt either, so keep that up!
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Re: empty server advice

Post by abcclanadmin »

The best way to keep your server populated is for YOU to be in it. I realize that nobody wants to sit in an empty server and HOPE that players come in. But keep in mind that the same is true for your guests as well. They don't want to go into an empty server and wait either. With as busy of a schedule as people have these days, some folks have a limited amount of time to be able to play their favorite game. And they certainly don't want to waste it in an empty server. We have the same struggle in our clan. But what we have found is that even if 4 or 6 of us hop into BC2, it doesn't take more than 10 to 20 minutes for the server to be nearly full. Then, once it becomes full, it stays that way for hours - usually until the wee hours of the morning. It takes a good conscious effort on the part of your members to keep your servers populated, regardless of what game it is.
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