Seeding, should we stop?

[GardenGroveVW]

I believe we should stop, and acutally have people playing in the servers vs having people in spec.

I personally believe its hurting us more then helping us.

Take the poll leave some comments.

 

[king killer]

Yes- it gets us a higher rank there for it will get more people playing.

 

[!Woodstock!]

Yes we should stop.

Or at least limit it to two seeders per server.

Joining a server with 6 players, then finding out that they are all AFK, will highly discourage me from ever coming back.

For example, there was a WaW server that I loved to play on, but they started using fake clients. The server list would say 36(45) and I would join only to find maybe a 4v4 game. I would then leave. Now I don't even go back to that WaW server.

 

[PepperRabbit]

I think we should, it isn't really helping us too much anymore. Our server rankings have dropped if not everyday for the past month or so. Although it would be nice if we had some seeders during the night time. If I'm needed, I can be on and playing (not seeding) on any map mondays from 11 am to 1 pm est, which I have been doing on blackmesa. Or tuesdays and thursdays after 2 pm est.

 

[GingaNinja]

I also agree because when I join a server that has at least a couple people in there im not then going to go and spec I'm going to play. As to when there arent people in the server and one person joins only to go AFK the next person who comes along is going to join for a minute or so and then leave so that the server is pretty much back where is started...only now its a couple ranks down.

 

[Sharpe]

There just needs to be a set limit for everyone. If I was a normal player, I wouldnt want to come into a server, and find out that everyone was afk.

Im going to vote no, But we need to do it differently at least. Not completely stop all together. Just rethink how we are doing it.

 

[Quaffer]

We should stop. I am always annoyed when I join a server with less people playing than the server reports.

 

[ToiletPastries]

Yes and No. I think we should have server starters instead but it doesn't hurt to have 2 or so seeders in a server with 10 people playing.

 

[Noise]

Yes we should stop.

Or at least limit it to two seeders per server.

Joining a server with 6 players, then finding out that they are all AFK, will highly discourage me from ever coming back.

For example, there was a WaW server that I loved to play on, but they started using fake clients. The server list would say 36(45) and I would join only to find maybe a 4v4 game. I would then leave. Now I don't even go back to that WaW server.

This.

To many Seeders is not fun, and its annoying,

Sometimes I join a server with around 5 other people, none seeding.

We are having fun, playing it as if it was full,
sooner or later 2 or 3 eGO members come in and seed without joining, while people are already playing.

I'm not saying its rude, but it doesn't really have a point, I mean people are playing, and it doesn't make sense either... :|

 

[QB]

I understand the original purpose behind seeding. However, I believe that seeding has no net positive effect on our server populations.

If a player enters a sever that is filled with only seeding players, that player will quickly leave for another server.

What we need is a comprehensive strategy to fill servers in preparation for prime-time. I believe we need large groups of Edgegamers to "start up" the necessary servers. If 8-10 players enter an empty server at the right time, they could attract more players to that server at the necessary time. Of course, we have already used this very strategy in the past.

Perhaps someone can speak on the past success or failure of such efforts.

Edit: As others have said, I believe it is helpful to have 2-4 seeders in a not-full server. Having 6+ seeders and no players is completely pointless.

 

[Planeswalker]

Kinda.

I think we need to do something to enforce maybe a two-person limit to seeding. By the same token, even if a server has two people in it seeding, no one's going to want to join when they see those two aren't playing.

It was mentioned in your "What's up TF2?" thread by mrcool that I don't know if it got any attention. If there was some way to set up server starter squads, groups of four-six people who have a chunk of time regularly available and who'd be willing to set up shop on a server and play.

It would be an awful lot to demand people do this, and I wouldn't expect 4-6 man teams for all of our servers, but in some way, it might be workable to get a base formed on a server that might entice pubs or other eGOs to join. If no one ends up joining, it has the side benefit of giving members a chance to interact and start connecting with one another in a smaller, less-hectic environment. For me lately, I've had more days off of work andI've been on during the daytime in a server with 5-7 people. Things get a little unorthodox and silly with the other members, but it's all fun and I'm meeting/connecting with other people in the clan.

My $0.02 ^_^

 

[.:cake:.]

We should, or limit the amount of seeder per server.

 

[batlbot]

If by seeding we mean, just log on to spec. then yes we should stop. I hate nothing worse than joining a server that shows lots of people, and find I am the only one "playing". I typically will remember the clan and the server and not visit again. THAT is a bad thing for server ops, I think.

Seeding by joining and playing for a while is different. I do understand the need to get people playing, but I think word of mouth or other methods would be better? Not sure what those other methods would be but there are a lot of smart people around here...

 

[Louis VI]

I think that we should stop seeding,

Let me explain myself, first of all seeding of course helps our ranks up, but we should limit the number of seeders to 2 or 3 because having more than that is really pointless, I would prefer having 4 people playing than having 6 people seeding the servers. It would help us getting a bit more active and starting maybe doing shifts of people playing one certain server at a time and after switching to another. I think shifts would be more enjoyable than having seeders. But the negative part is that our ranks would go a bit down but now too much if we remove seeders.

In conclusion, I think we should do shifts rather than seeding and maybe have a 2 to 3 seeders limit on every server.

 

[Fearless888]

In my experience it only seems to hurt the server when there are very few people playing in the server. Perhaps playing until enough people join to get a game going (4-6 ppl usually) before seeding would be more beneficial. I have joined a server with one seeder in the game and no one else and have gotten the server full just by conversing with the first person that joins and keeping them engaged until more people join. Whereupon you can convince the subsequent joiners to stay because more people will come if they are patient. So I don't think seeding is bad unless they are the only person(s) in the server, or if there are like 6 seeders in the game.

P.S. I dont think seeding has anything to do with server ranking directly. Only in the sense that it helps get more people to join, thus raising the average ppl per month in the server.

 

[Black cat]

I've usually been against seeding. In my experience, I hate it when I log onto a server 5/32 people full and they're all 36 hour long seeders.
However, I do believe we should actually keep them. Server rankings help keep our servers popular, and therefore more people may want to play on them. Moreover, when you actually do get the first 2 people trying to start the game up it appears to others that there is a substantial amount of players starting to play, and are more likely to join.

Which would you rather join, a 3/32 server, or an 8/32 server?
If this is to work though, we'll need dedicated eGO'ers to go into the server to be those active players that start the ball rolling. Pubs wont come in and wait around like we may do to save our favourite map.

 

[!Woodstock!]

Here is a post I made a while back concerning seeding.

O's only:

http://www.edgegamers.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1044206&postcount=16

 

[PhIxX]

Digging the Rangers idea getting tossed around. Also, without seeders, we have a better of idea of how a server is really doing.

'course we could always just make a server CP_Toy_Fort_Alt3, then we'd never have to worry about seeding.

 

[Shizao]

I only really with seeding to keep numbers full and not start a server, for example seeding a server with 10 or so people in it already

There really needs to be a limit on people seeding. But also we basically need more people to go on maps other then Blackmesa or 2fort. I'm not blaming anyone of this, since I'm kin of guilty of this as well. So what we need is people, when they want to go on tf2, is to round up more people and visit an empty server. Almost like a server starter team but for anyone and it takes less organizing.

 

[Dreadmaker]

I voted no, because static seeders really are bad ideas, I believe.

However, the concept of beefing up servers most certainly isn't.

My thought is that we need a team of people to run in and revive servers. They could be called 'server recovery ninjas'. It would only need to be about 4-6, but anything higher would be solid too. These guys are fun, and they come in and start doing melee only or something; just something interesting to keep the masses who come in on the server, and not immediately disconnecting. Once the server has been confirmed as rooted (say 24/32) the ninjas vanish and appear on another dead server.


Of course, this assumes dead servers, and of course, this assumes people willing to do it. But, in the very least, we need to get dead seeds out of spec, and put in people who are there to play the game.