What makes a server popular?

[[GCA]Tim270]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Remove all the little BS rules like no arty and so on, just play no rules imo fighting on the carrier is the best part of bf2

How do you get the server to only randomize teams on map change?

Get some decent members that have the decency not to stack up each round?

[Steppenwolf428]

Re: What makes a server popular?

^^^ agreed carriers are the best. thats why the expansion pack has iron gator

[FPS[VT_NERD]]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Get some decent members that have the decency not to stack up each round?

First, stacking can easily go both ways.

Second, not all clan members have admin and autobalance is turned on for the server. This means that unless their team has more members it will be hard for them to switch themselves.

Now that we've answered the question I didn't ask, does anyone know if there's a modmanager script to randomize only on map change and not between rounds on the same map? Or can this be done in another way?

[Iron_Weasel]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Let me reiterate some of what has been said:

1) We have 2 rules: No Team Killing & No Flying Commanders. Anything else is "legal".
2) Friendly Fire is on, but for friendly mines / claymores it is off.
3) Autobalance is on, so we may end up with stacked teams and no way to immediately rectify the situation.

As it stands, we're going to do the team randomization and increase the rounds from one per map, to two. We've also been discussing perhaps tweaking the map rotation as well and maybe grouping a couple ground maps together, then an air map, or something along those lines.

[Gen.Vlade]

Re: What makes a server popular?

That's a pretty good summary. I especially like 1) and 2).

[Dairuka]

Re: What makes a server popular?

How do you make ping show up as zero?

I REALLY wish I knew. Apparently the only link I've figured out thus far, is that each of the 0 ping servers are hosted by Branzone or MyIS. My guess is that the servers in question are being blocked by a firewall, which prevents Gamespy from pinging it properly.

Considering it's a good thing, I'm surprised more servers out there don't do this on purpose.

How do you get the server to only randomize teams on map change?

I don't know if it's possible, because thats not really what I meant. Team Randomization usually happens like you said. It only occurs on the same map, not map changes. Thats why I think having multiple rounds on the same map are so important.

[jesus]

Re: What makes a server popular?

A lot of people play BF2 on low-end computers, and their load times are 5 minutes. Because of this, most people perfer to play on 24/7 servers. When I had a pentium 4 2.0ghz, 5200FX, 756mb ram, I ONLY played on 24/7 servers.

Even now, with the computer in my sig I still perfer to play on 24/7 servers. (my load times are like 5 - 10 seconds)

Because this game has unusually long loading times compared to other FPSs, map rotation wasn't a very good idea imo.

[Kayback]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Are you sure you can't randomise on map load and switch teams at each round? The server i play on use to do this, i think. It hasn't in a while so maybe it's not possible any more. SAIX gaming server.

[FPS[VT_NERD]]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Are you sure you can't randomise on map load and switch teams at each round? The server i play on use to do this, i think. It hasn't in a while so maybe it's not possible any more. SAIX gaming server.

I've never been able to do this in over a year of running a BF2 server. I think it would be possible with a custom modmanager script, but I don't know how to code in Python.

[Iron_Weasel]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Well, with the help of your suggestions, we finally managed to have a full server a good portion over the weekend. Yay! We changed the server name slightly and started using the Team Randomization option and may increase the rounds from one to two, I'm trying to talk the "powers that be" into doing that.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about the team randomization though. It does keep the teams from being stacked all the time, but it also has a few drawbacks that I noticed. The most irritating is the fact that it has weird effects on the squads. Secondly, some players are on the same team (US, China, MEC) twice in a row.

Overall though, you guys helped quite a bit in getting some working ideas going. Now hopefully we can keep it that way. :laugh:

[#1 LoGoS.^CyN.TV*]

Re: What makes a server popular?

There's a lack of good 24/7 Dalian servers. Have you looked into making an airmaps only server?

Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it to it.

[Iron_Weasel]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it to it.

Don't think that'll happen. We've already talked about making it a 24/7 server or even a city maps only server and decided against it..at least at this point in time.

[Rifocs442]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Read the thread and I agree strongly with increasing the number of rounds from one to something higher than one (two being a min).

The only idea I haven't seen is making sure the "start" time at the start of a round is at least 10 seconds to give eveyone a fair chance at appying for command, getting an initial chance at a vehicle and so you don't jump into a map where all the flags are already taken even though you played the prior round before the new map loaded. Thoughts on this?

[Iron_Weasel]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Read the thread and I agree strongly with increasing the number of rounds from one to something higher than one (two being a min).

The only idea I haven't seen is making sure the "start" time at the start of a round is at least 10 seconds to give eveyone a fair chance at appying for command, getting an initial chance at a vehicle and so you don't jump into a map where all the flags are already taken even though you played the prior round before the new map loaded. Thoughts on this?

Another good idea.
We do have several members (and regulars) that are running what seems like Commodore 64's and they usually get in well after the action has already started.

I have linked to this thread from our clan forums, so the "boss" guys are, and have been, reading...so keep the ideas coming.

[[GCA]Tim270]

Re: What makes a server popular?

Also just to pop another idea, i used to play on quite a popular server that played 2 rounds city, 2 round jets had a pretty good time on it.