ServerList, Overcrowded?

[Zac]

there seems to be an excess of maps on the server-list, now we all love to see a new map come out, its part of this game, but the seemingly endless server-list, has a large amount of maps that are never used, i think in order to drastically increase the numbers of players on maps, several ports need be removed so that players who browse, will find a lower number of maps with higher numbers of players.

this is something that would take careful planning, and server owners would have to collaborate.

Certain things that would be of particular importance in order for this clean-up to occur:

- First and foremost, which servers definitely go and which definitely stay. (if certain hosts, such as norang, removed several maps which are rarely used, there would be a large deduction in the number of servers on the list)

- An agreement would have to be reached as to "who hosted what", in particular, the "better" host's would host the more popular maps. location would also have to be taken into account, with certain maps attracting different players, location wise.

- there would also have to be a large community participation, with players posting maps that they think should be removed or kept.

of course this is entirely down to the community, im just suggesting it. however, i think that in order to create the amazing team games we used to experience, such as 15vs15 pillbox, or 24players on badgerking, certain servers must be removed in order, to prevent individuals, joining and playing with one or 2 players on an uncommonly used map, that will attract players for a short amount of time, and then cause them to get bored, with the possibility, that new players will have bad opinions of the game. with larger numbers on a server, there is also a higher chance that there is someone who can instruct new players in the ways of the game, such as basic dodging skills, and how to utilise a flag.

people, this is not something that can happen overnight, it would require careful planning and a gradual dropoff of maps, please post opinions, and/or support with ideas on servers, particularly a way to allow new maps to be tested. possibly, a 3-4 week trial and then if players dont seem to enjoy, take it down and try again!

happy discussions!

[blast]

Or just make the in-game list better... The one in version 3 would allow better sorting (you can sort by ping time to the server, for instance).

[Zac]

hmm, players would still head to the unused servers, wouldnt it simply be better if there werent so many servers?? especially when they have a large amount of players, in general, people are less inclined to leave.

[Yrogirg]

would it be possible in 3.0 to sort by server uptime to track new maps/servers (or smth like that)?

[Avatar]

I was thinking more like giving multi-map servers (norang springs immediately to mind) a "category" slot in the listings and selecting the server opens a new sublisting for the various maps hosted there. That way there's fewer items on the main page and it doesn't feel so overwhelming to browse maps (this is essentially using one of the same lines of logic that led to the creation of folders/directories in early operating sytems).

[SkillDude]

Nice idea Avatar. I wish I could take all my maps and have a subdirectory that says "sig's Awesome Maps Here!" or something humorous like that. If we just had tabs for every player's servers instead of as a whole, that may simplify matters in terms of finding maps.

Of course, how would we sort by popularity then? Maybe we could have a filter, "Top 5" / "Top 10" servers that are currently online will be shown normally, not in folders. The rest you can go search for. Maybe next to the folder name, is the number of total players on those servers. For example: "sig's Awesome Maps Here! (4)" So players would know that there are 4 players total on all the maps.

I am not sure if customizing the folder name would be very valid though...Instead just the server names then? I mean, I have servers hosted across a range of various servers (Well, only 4 I can think of), but I guess server domain name folder sorting could still work. I would be fine with "sigonasr2.servegame.org (2)" displayed on there or something. The list would show the Top X amount that the player has filtered at the top of the list, and then the rest of the pages will be the rank of servers as a whole, from top to bottom. So say, "bzbattleground.com (27)", "bzflag2.norang.ca (16)", etc. would end up being the list. Players would open that to get a player-sorted list of the servers from those domain names.

Sounds like a very reasonable option to me actually. I would like to see: Domains found: 47/47 , Servers found: 249/249. 47 is a much smaller number than say 249. I am sure there's a larger number of domains, but just reducing the numerous servers that are all hosted by one server would serve a much more reasonable purpose and still we can contain all of the servers without as much clutter.

[trepan]

I'm fairly sure that I've added enough access via the lua scripting
to allow you to create your own server list GUI. You can use the
lua HTTP.request() call to get the server list data, the OpenGL
calls to render the GUI, and bz.JoinGame() to join a game. I've
even included bz.SendServerPing().

Hm, looks like I restricted bz.JoinGame() and bz.SendServerPing()
to the luaBzOrg script. Maybe the luaUser script should have access
to it as well.

P.S. It's not unlikely that BZFlag 3.0 is never released

[Bullet Catcher]

The simplest way to encourage others to play a map is to seed it (be the first player) yourself, which will automatically move it near the top of the list and ensure that anyone else who joins will find at least one opponent.

To take that a step further, conspire with other players to show up at a chosen map at a particular time. Feel free to make such plans here.

On the supply side, if the the most popular map were to have occasional scheduled outages it would help expand the horizons of newer players who may have little other experience.