COMMUNITY, Too many servers

[Rommel 2]

Well we've all heard it before, it can strike up many arguments, but in summary.

There are too many servers.

Looking at a current snapshot from the SWEC:

Players Online: 432

Servers Online: 714

---

All this rant about PR being the one to bring the community back together, made me wonder, why can't we atleast attempt it ourselves?

A lot of these 714 (currently online) servers have been up for over 4months, with at most 6 missions played. Private clan servers, fine, we all understand 100% that they will never get constant use due to timetables, and the only reason they run them when not being used is probably for advertising, or some kind of 'presence'.

But the server : player ratio at any one time is still >1. Which is possibly the worst case.

Perhaps we should drive to minimize the amount of servers out there, or as suggested in another thread currently, create an index for time zoned and used community team play / pvp / coop / domination servers so we start centralizing the player base a bit more.

[nuxil 2]

i dont care about the amount of servers. i only play on 2-3 servers anyway.

but i do think that the mp screen nees a total workover. if you look at armas mp server list screen compared to other games.. its like 5 years behind them..

its a total mess as it is now.

imo we need better filters. new favoritte section. mod filter on/off.

it would also be nice to have some sort of search function that spesify what your looking for. example if you have a clan server . you could tag your server as a clan server. or if you want it public you tag it as public. then in filter we set it to clan or public on a dropdown box. like "server type", just an idea. "hopefully a dev sees it and implement it ""

this way we could use filter better to spesify what we are looking for.

Perhaps we should drive to minimize the amount of servers out there

i dont see how we can "enforce" people to shutdown ther servers.

maybe forbid servers from running usermade mission like warfare be | domination | aas ?? and only allowed sertan server to have them! but then it needs to be lisenced diffrently. and who going to contole this and what action is taked against thouse who do not have premissions but still running it. imo this would not be practical..

i think the low number of players online is bis own fault. many people gave up the game because it was released with such amount of bugs and they never returned to it.

if the game was released in the state its now. i guess the numbers would have been double.

or as suggested in another thread currently, create an index for time zoned and used community team play / pvp / coop / domination servers so we start centralizing the player base a bit more.

i dont think time zones is a big issue. most players in arma are from europe. according to a poll that was made a while back..

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=86663

Edited March 20, 2010 by nuxil

[Lhowon 10]

I feel this is more the result of not having anything to attract large numbers of people, rather than the cause of it.

You might be right that having a slimmer server list would encourage people to join a smaller group of servers rather than spreading out over a bunch, but it won't make large numbers of people suddenly appear. The people who are playing presumably know what they like, and the people who aren't playing obviously don't like what's on offer enough to make the effort.

The only way, in my opinion, to significantly increase player counts and concentrate those on particular servers is to offer a better PVP game mode. Co-op more or less takes care of itself in private or semi-private server, or in public Domination games, and I think too many people like their co-op with good teamwork to want to play on a public server much.

People do sort by players in the server list easily enough, but they clearly don't find the available options interesting enough to stick around.

Edited March 20, 2010 by Lhowon

[terox 316]

There is also a timezone element to when a server is active.

Would I expect to see an Aussie or a west coast U.S guy playing on a server during the European evening hours?

As for too many servers. That is way preferable to too few

and gamespy does allow filtering.

There is more to ArmA2 than warfare, domination, evolution and the commercialised mission types.

The engine is capable of so much more, it just takes imagination and a bit of coding to achieve it.

[Pulverizer 1]

maybe forbid servers from running usermade mission like warfare be | domination | aas ?? and only allowed sertan server to have them! but then it needs to be lisenced diffrently. and who going to contole this and what action is taked against thouse who do not have premissions but still running it. imo this would not be practical..

If some mission maker really wanted to be such a giant douche, he could simply keep all server-side scripts on a server-side addon (or folder) that the mission would not work without. And to further complicate making unauthorized versions, obfuscate the client-side scripts by regex-replacing all human-readable variable and script names with stuff like var001, var002 etc.

[11aTony 0]

I have to agree with OP to some point. I see a lot of servers empty nearly all the time or just 1 dude on it. Some of them may even have 2, 3 guys on it. Back 2007, 2008 it was different. Wasnt so meny servers I think but the most important part is that there was 5, 10 servers constantly full. 20, 30 people on it. It was really great times. Now I dont know what the problem is. Is it too meny servers? Or maybe lack of good missions on them? Some say that lack of keys for sound mods etc is the problem so they make their own server which is always empty. Sometimes the problem is these guys that join just to destroy the server. Maybe the thing is too that there is sooo meny versions of the same mission and people dont like that? I was saying in the past too that if you dont like something go join a clan and problem solved. But now when I think about it there was like 50 guys online nearly every day. They didnt even have each other emails or any contact but were online on one of these servers and it was great public gaming. Were playing evolution and warfare and it never got old. There is absolutely no public gaming left in ArmA 2 whatsoever and I miss that.

[Pulverizer 1]

The number of servers isn't really the problem as you can sort the list by player count and filter empty servers. That's what people do in most games with a server browser, join the most populated server with an acceptable ping/game type/map/mod.

[Alex72 1]

I tried to say that before but people went bananas. Server admins could at least let soundmods and other non gameplay changing addons through. Just add the keys and done. Not allowing at least soundmods through seems a bit ignorant to me.

BUT, maybe host the keys for download somewhere? Bit much hassle for a server admin having to download a soundmod or any other mods of hundreds of meg's each just to get the key to allow people on.

[jw custom 56]

I tried to say that before but people went bananas. Server admins could at least let soundmods and other non gameplay changing addons through. Just add the keys and done. Not allowing at least soundmods through seems a bit ignorant to me.

BUT, maybe host the keys for download somewhere? Bit much hassle for a server admin having to download a soundmod or any other mods of hundreds of meg's each just to get the key to allow people on.

This thread is about there being too many servers, even more than players at times so i dont really see how this could change that :p

Alex have you been drinking red wine with The.D :p

[Defunkt 431]

The only way to address the surplus of servers is for mission makers to take the initiative and limit the distribution of missions while possibly also setting terms over the way they are hosted (standardised server & client, guidelines for administration) ala Project Reality. As Pulveriser has pointed out above there are ways to make missions non-downloadable though I completely disagree as to the douche-baggery inherent, model-makers aren't pilloried for releasing their models binarised why should a mission maker not have the same choice? Good missions are a great deal more scarce than good models.

People will of course be outraged, it being their assumption that it is their God-given right to mix'n'match everything. However an infinitely varied combination of mods on an unlimited number of servers offering as many takes on mission design hasn't exactly worked out so far for multiplayer ArmA which is what we're talking about here. The situation is the inevitable product of too much choice and the only way it's going to improve is to limit some of those choices. Look at www.rp-mods.com, I've seen people here bitch and moan because they don't distribute the server-side component of their game but nobody at all would get to play if they did because the same audience would be split amongst 20 servers.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Well this is how I looked at it when I first started playing this series in August.

I went to PVP after playing Arma 2 for about 50 hours or so training and learning the mechanics and controls.

Saw that there was tons of servers many of them that dont allow any mods and are Only X gametype which is usually a custom.

I had no idea how to play when I got into a domination map, spawned in the middle of this gigantic airfield, couldnt get into any vehicle except for a HMMV got quickly frusterated due to the fact that there was little direction as a newcomer except for sticking around for hours, running around the damn world.

I think its a huge misconception. I thought well this is garbage, theres hardly any Official maps that dont require all this knowledge about user made missions, I had no direction when I did get into a usermade mission, there was WAY too many limitations like not being able to use vehicles, very generic play. So I lost all interest.

I agree there are way too many servers seeing how alot of them will never peak above 24 players at once, theres little variety for the noobies like me, you always start with an m16a4 and thats it.

Thats pretty much How I think of the whole situation, Time zones are deffinetly a problem though, I joined a clan only to leave it because they were based in the Czech republic a 13 hour time difference is not easy to compensate for.

*sigh* :(

I hope a miracle happens though the Multiplayer could be alot of fun, also alot of people arnt into the CLAN business having to dedicated a good amount your time on a weekend just to play the MP. Its just not practical.

Edited March 20, 2010 by Flash Thunder

[NoRailgunner 0]

Take a look at country distribution at arma2.swec and timezones too. ;)

It seems that people on public servers like to play warfare, domination, evolution and berzerk missions. Try to get those people and admins interested in different scenarios. Advertise other/new gamemodes with good + convincing ingame footage and arguments.

[jw custom 56]

Thats pretty much How I think of the whole situation, Time zones are deffinetly a problem though, I joined a clan only to leave it because they were based in the Czech republic a 13 hour time difference is not easy to compensate for.

*sigh* :(

I'm pretty sure there's clans/squads located elsewhere than the czech republic you could join...

also alot of people arnt into the CLAN business having to dedicated a good amount your time on a weekend just to play the MP. Its just not practical.

Agree which is why i joined CAP where people join in whenever they can(my sig) ;)

[Tankbuster 1747]

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I have to ask 'Why would you want less servers?'.

You are assuming the players are all too spread out and that having less servers will crowd them together more AND this would improve the multiplayer experience.

If that is your hypothesis, I think it's flawed in a number of ways. Here's an analogy - sometimes, I take my daughter to the safari park and the highlight is the section where we drive through the lions enclosure. It's a big place where the lions lounge about doing very little, as lions are wont to do. While our experience might be improved by having a smaller enclosure, but I'm not sure the lions would be all that keen.

The reason the players gather in small groups is that the vast majority of internet gamers are fickwuts kids who are idiots and piss about, not playing the game as intended. And the larger a group of players you gather in one place, the bigger the chance of getting one of these retards in your game, screwing it up for everyone else. So players gather in exclusive groups with their clan mates and friends.

Servers are not free, people don't run them for the fun of it. They run them because for whatever reason, they don't want to play on someone else's server. If you're playing on another server and one of our kids join and the owner is away, you're all screwed. Again.

I'd be interested how you propose to go about closing peoples servers down? Infinity Ward got it right.

Just because you look at a server list, and the swec on is useful, but realtime, it 'aint, and see mostly empty servers, it doesn't mean they are used.

Edited March 21, 2010 by Tankbuster

[zyklone 1]

Just because you look at a server list, and the swec on is useful, but realtime, it 'aint, and see mostly empty servers, it doesn't mean they are used.

Well, it's about as close to real time as you can get.

If you have information suggesting it's not I'd love to hear it.

[Tankbuster 1747]

Well, it's about as close to real time as you can get.

If you have information suggesting it's not I'd love to hear it.

Well, it's not. The game server browser is real time, the SWEC page was still showing my personal home server a week after I took it down.

[Evil_Echo 11]

Well we've all heard it before, it can strike up many arguments, but in summary.

There are too many servers.

...

I kept looking for the smiley on this posting. But you are serious, aren't you?

I have no problem with the server count, wish the user count would be higher. But any snapshot of a world-wide list of servers is going to show a lot of idle machines.

BTW Rommel, the world does not revolve around 3-6 missions. There are plenty of fine missions out there and servers that host them. I'd be encouraging diversity to enrich the community instead of demanding others to think like you do.

Edited March 21, 2010 by Evil_Echo

[hellfire257 3]

I can see your argument - but how could we solve it?

[Taxman 10]

Not forgetting that NOT all of these are dedicated servers, JOE bloggs running one on his own machine for His mum, sister and brother cant really be counted can they... ?

I wonder how long it will be before someone is complaining that there isnt enough servers (prob when OA comes out :) )

[-Total- 0]

Another reason for the multiple servers is the different combinations of addons required for many of these servers.

The NA server doesn't require any addons. We try to cater to that sect of the community who actually likes the stiock game, new players, or those who don't know the how/where behind addons.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

I wonder how long it will be before someone is complaining that there isnt enough servers (prob when OA comes out )

Good point. I don't think the community should do anything until OA comes out and we see what kind of influx the servers might get. Last thing we want to do is lower the number of servers only to have new players coming here and complaining that they can't find any servers because they're all full.

Personally I don't see a problem at all with the way things are at the moment. I've found a set of servers I enjoy playing on with missions I enjoy playing, why should that change? We fill the server every night with 30 people without fail, most of these people are new players too.

I had no idea how to play when I got into a domination map, spawned in the middle of this gigantic airfield, couldnt get into any vehicle except for a HMMV got quickly frusterated due to the fact that there was little direction as a newcomer except for sticking around for hours, running around the damn world.

50 hours of learning the game and it never occured to you to open the map and read the notes/briefing which explains to you exactly what to do?

[Freeborne 10]

I completely agree with your concerns Rommel (as you know I've voiced the same debate many times).

I cannot recall what OFP/ArmA was like on a global scale, but I know in my country (Australia) the 'good old days' involved all the players on only 2 or 3 main servers. The community was SMALLER then it is now, but it seemed bigger, and it was definitely more fun because you didn't have to sit and wait for a decent number of players to fill a server so you could play. There were 20-30 people in a server every night. Now we get 6-8 people on 3 different servers all playing Domination :rolleyes:

Now the real debate here is whether any of this is relevant to the number of servers we have available.

Someone needs to post numbers and stats. These are quick counts I took about 2 weeks ago:

33 Australian servers

6 NZ servers

Canada has 10 servers

China has 3 servers

Checz has 6 servers

Japan has 7 servers

Russian has 32 servers

Germany has 150+

UK (prob 150'ish)

USA (prob 200+)

How many players are active every night in your respective countries? It's about 70 here in Australia on a busy night.

Possible solutions:

- In next ArmA2 update, by default, hide password protected servers. Don't see why the whole world needs to see password protected clan servers.

- Allow filtering by country (like you can in YOMA) and save these settings. For instance I just want the ArmA browser to show me Au/NZ servers.

I can understand how this isn't such a problem for larger countries like USA/UK. Sure there's a huge amount of servers, which has the same effect as spam in your inbox, but these countries have enough players to sustain several busy servers every day. I think the server clutter is more damaging to smaller populated countries like Australia. Here we often have 5-7 servers running every day with players in them. 1 server has 25-30 often (Warfare), the rest have 2-5, with the odd one having 10-15 players a few times a week.

Regardless, BIS could make a few tweaks to game browser to reduce the 'visible' server spam.

[Vick 19]

server spam.

thats all it is for me, when EVERYTIME i get on 80-90% of the servers are empty, or have 1-2 people in them

and i especially love those guys who like playing by themselves, but online...? lol.

[Guest]

and i especially love those guys who like playing by themselves, but online...? lol.

Yeah, thats like masturbating in the red light district.

[Taxman 10]

EVERYTIME i get on 80-90% of the servers are empty, or have 1-2 people in them

.

We (as a team) use our server 3 nights a week, occasionally some of the guys might pop on on other nights and get a quick game going,,,, but the rest of the nights = empty, but there is no way we are going to switch the server off for those other nights wehere we dont play just to clean up the server listing,,,,,,,,,,

And neither are all the other teams out there,

What im trying to say is yes a lot of the servers you see are empty when you are on, BUT that doesnt mean they are not used,... just not when you are about.....