Thoughts on Populating Servers

[Slazenger]

Hey BC2 Division,

This has been brought up in the past, but it needs to be restated and expanded on. Lately our servers have not been getting started until much later than they used to and dying faster than usual at night. There are a few reasons that I see (and probably more that I am not aware of) causing this.

Reasons The Servers Are Not Being Started

• Interest in other games. Oftentimes BC2 Div members are hanging out on vent playing other games (myself included), and it's not being communicated to them that the BC2 servers need help to get them started.
• Requires several eGO members to stay on the server for around 45-60 minutes.
• Fewer eGO members on Ventrilo during the morning/early afternoon.
• Lack of communication between players attempting to start servers.

Reasons The Servers Are Dying Earlier

• Members split between Normal and Vietnam
• Lack of admins on Vietnam - Vietnam servers seem to have a much harder time staying populated.
• Frustration at the game/teams.
• Lack of time - Work/School schedules
• Interest in other games.

I'm on in the early morning and early afternoon (have classes from 9:30-12:30) and it seems as though it's the same handful of players attempting to start the servers every day. Of course time zones play a large part, as our European players are more able to hop ingame while Americans are sleeping/working/at school. Still, it seems like Towerladder, V-Fin, P3N, DesPlas, and I are trying to start up the servers every day, but we're not successful until 12pm-2pm Eastern usually. Sometimes other members are around to get things going as well.

I haven't looked at the numbers lately, but I can't imagine our servers are as highly ranked as they have been in the past. It seems like Regular Mixed is still quite difficult to populate at times.

What are your suggestions to try to get the servers jumpstarted in the morning (and keep them full through the night)? If we all just show a little bit of dedication and make sure we are letting other players in the division know when the servers are empty or we need some help getting them going. Maybe having sign-ups for dedicating some time to work on the servers each day would help or perhaps having more of the notifications through the Steam group would help.


Any feedback can help, but let's put a bit of thought and dedication into this to help our division and our servers!

 

[Austin]

I think if we have better communication, it will help us populate servers more quickly. We used to be very verbal about trying to get servers started, and now I don't really see that at all. If we can work on that, it will definitely be easy to get servers started up.

 

[Dutchoper72]

well when ever i see about 5 people in Vietnam i hop on it and play and soon then it gets filled. Whenever a steam message pops up i help it out unless i am very busy doing something else. I prefer Vietnam over Modern day. If you ever need help just call. Funny thing is i am not even Bc2 and i am always on vent lol

 

[gingertonic]

"Seeding" servers - DO NOT DO THIS. IT DOES NOT WORK.

That is all.

 

[Mayhem Death]

I have in the past (when I played BC2 a lot more then I do now) tried getting big packs of people into a ventrilo channel and went on a server filling campaign. Sometimes are more successful then others.

 

[Mewn]

I try and help get them started. which is usually around 5:00 central. The people in ventrilo are usually haveing a good time in their game though.

 

[Diezel]

Also Spawn camping on rush, using 1 shot kill weapons(this includes gustav's, sniper rifles, and etc), driving tanks, and just plain old rolling the opposite team DOES NOT fill servers. When we are filling servers we need to just take a loss on the chin and just fill the server. I dont care if you are trying to keep a good k/d or a high score. Filling the servers is more important, if we dont keep them filled we lose them.

 

[Lt. Towerladder]

Well I am going to add my two cents.....today I counted 24 people in the vent channel @ 1600 hrs. whether or not these people where in game is beyond me. There where a few in HC Rush - guys we need to get these servers up instead of everyone in 1 server it only takes a few minutes to get these servers up. If we dont fill them I am sure they will gert rid of them and then we can all wait in line for 30 mins to get into HC rush

 

[Slazenger]

This is dead on:

Also Spawn camping on rush, using 1 shot kill weapons(this includes gustav's, sniper rifles, and etc), driving tanks, and just plain old rolling the opposite team DOES NOT fill servers. When we are filling servers we need to just take a loss on the chin and just fill the server. I dont care if you are trying to keep a good k/d or a high score. Filling the servers is more important, if we dont keep them filled we lose them.

 

[KentuckyGhost]

This is dead on:

How true !

 

[LilShortstuf]

Well I am going to add my two cents.....today I counted 24 people in the vent channel @ 1600 hrs. whether or not these people where in game is beyond me. There where a few in HC Rush - guys we need to get these servers up instead of everyone in 1 server it only takes a few minutes to get these servers up. If we dont fill them I am sure they will gert rid of them and then we can all wait in line for 30 mins to get into HC rush

Yeah and then we will have a server with 16 eGO members and as much as i enjoy playing with you guys I do enjoy playing with pubbers (i actually get kills instead of getting rolled )

Let's fill these servers guys. It isn't that hard and sometimes playing on a non full server is a lot of fun. Just now I was helping Terrorist and Horton fill HC vietnam and although I knew we'd lose cause we were defending on rush it was a blast (ended with a nice kdr and 3000 points).

 

[Pensive]

Maybe since HC rush is the obvious best server, they should make a 2nd HC rush with a slight diff map lineup? That seems to be the most logical solution. If you want servers to be and stay full for longer then make them into servers that people like to play? That is just my two cents on the matter. I am tired of helping to fill servers that I don't even like playing on just to see that a few hours later they are empty again and it took that long to fill them.

 

[Kerak]

What servers need populated? I'll be there asap.

P.S. Nice post Slaz.

 

[viral_deathman]

At the moment my friend and I are at boarding school. When I get back in 3 weeks you will have two more recruits populating the servers