I've tried to play on most evenings this week, even joining 1st and waiting for the 1 other person to turn up, and tonight with 3v3 then 2v2.
Not a lot of fun. It's hard to rush with 2 players.:sad:
I understand that there is a Punkbuster issue with some servers that prevents people joining, though I haven't seen any thing posted about it.
So c'mon folks, if you're gonna play bc2, play it on our server if you can.
start a game, post in the forum and use steam friends to invite.
Where are all the pubbies lately? why don't they come?
Is our server showing up in searches?
Somethings not quite right; with other games (CoD4, MW2 etc) the first few weeks were be really busy. so what is wrong?
The logs show the server is usually pretty full from early afternoon until about 17:30 when it looks like the entire server decided on an early dinner and departed. From the logs it looks like there was a 2 minute gap in server profile use, what that means I'm not precisely sure, but it probably involved most people losing connection with the server I am guessing. I suspect EA, but will dig a little at Multiplay to try to find out more.
It struggled to recover player numbers after that incident. Bottom line is we need to seed games on the server by being there and keeping our regulars happy so please do join the server when you want a game (the same always applied to our CS servers, they need to be seeded).
We already have regulars on our BC2 server, so we are seeing pubbies join us, but it's a slow process and the majority look for an almost full server first and rarely venture into low population servers. Let's hope our excellent ping pushes us into more peoples line of sight. The server defintely appears to be showing up though in the browser.
This was what killed the server population:
Quote from: MultiplayerBattlefield Bad Company 2 - Updated to R8
Mar 24 2010 17:26:24 by Killing
All Bad Company 2 servers have been updated to version R8 this build includes a number of crash fixes, so we hope all servers will be more stable now.
The full change list is:-
*
* Workaround for the "player manages to join server twice" crash. Now the server detects this and refuses the player entry. Client might hang but it will not take down the server as well.
* Workaround for the "cannot join player to any team" crash. Teams might get uneven, most notably SQDM sessions with 5v3 players, but the server should no longer crash.
* Game sends PB output to pbucon (so pb webtool can be used to run PB commands and see their results)
We lost the server for about 2 minutes at 17:21-17:23 and the population dropped from full to just a couple of people and never recovered during the evening.
Hopefully that update will improve out stability.
The server crashes we've been seeing have really killed the server population recently (once it's empty it takes quite an effort to get it going again).
Thanks for the info
Tried joining a couple of times last night, but ended up getting called by work :crying:
Hoping for a more peaceful evening tonight, so I can get a couple of rounds in! :boxing: :yahoo:
I'll be on tonight and I want a few hours of solid gameplay to get up the ranks a bit.
:)
It has been barren of late :/
I wouldn't know about server promotion but a couple other, lesser, servers seem to be fully populated more often than the dMw one.
Perhaps a rename to the server with tags such as [uk], [teamwork], [free syrup waffles] may jolt a few more connections?
Like I said, I'm no expert! :)
Quote from: acidrainy;306854It has been barren of late :/
I wouldn't know about server promotion but a couple other, lesser, servers seem to be fully populated more often than the dMw one.
Perhaps a rename to the server with tags such as [uk], [teamwork], [free syrup waffles] may jolt a few more connections?
Like I said, I'm no expert! :)
I like the waffles!! The UK tags and Team work is an idea that may well work. I am still not sure how many people are joining servers through the browser. The big problem seems to be the join now is not filling the server at the moment. It is certainly worth putting UK and Team play as part if server name. The .co.uk part of the name should give it away but....
Seems last night was pretty decent, we had a server population from before 18:00 through to about 24:00 and most of the time it was full or close to full. As you may have noticed the rename was done yesterday lunchtime to include the suggested keywords.
Also, it didn't crash :P
Indeed was a good night last night. I did crash to desktop 5 times but at least the server worked and was full! :yahoo: We can take another look at game mode rotation when ghost is back.
Well, That was more like it:D
some great battles with a full server.
Lets hope that it continues
:dmw:
Indeed, very nice battles last night, hopefully it will be like it every night (meh, one can hope).
We are not the only one to experience this sudden drop..
It would seem that they change the way the game prioritize, when people use the Play now function.. it used to be completely random which server you ended up on.. but now it seems they changed it so it sends people towards servers with atleast 10 people on it..
Once you get above that most servers i play on gets full within the next 30 mins
i also tested it a bit last night, joined about 30 servers and 80% i got on, had aprox 10-14 people on
Quote from: kregoron;306919We are not the only one to experience this sudden drop..
It would seem that they change the way the game prioritize, when people use the Play now function.. it used to be completely random which server you ended up on.. but now it seems they changed it so it sends people towards servers with atleast 10 people on it..
Once you get above that most servers i play on gets full within the next 30 mins
i also tested it a bit last night, joined about 30 servers and 80% i got on, had aprox 10-14 people on
I think Kreg is on a winner here.
Before we had around 2- 3 people on and the server would send a huge amount of players our way.
All we can do is say to multiplay why we no longer receiving high numbers of players as we did before.
Also Magnus can you have a word with your EA contacts to find out how we can improve our server visibility as before it was extremely popular!
Just asking Multiplay why we don't get people is fine but it's reactive.
I think acidrainy may be on to something here:
Quote from: acidrainy;306854It has been barren of late :/
I wouldn't know about server promotion but a couple other, lesser, servers seem to be fully populated more often than the dMw one.
Perhaps a rename to the server with tags such as [uk], [teamwork], [free syrup waffles] may jolt a few more connections?
Like I said, I'm no expert! :)
Perhaps a couple of tags would help? Worth looking into imo.
Well, I'm about to rage quit BC2 due to a lack of interest in our server.
I really don't know what's going on with our server.
There's never anyone on it.
I see 2 or 3 dMw's in-game in steam friends, but they're all on random servers.
I never see any of the admins trying to start a game on OUR server.
there's never a "game on" post, and the only times I've been invited to play recently has been on a different server.
C'mon guys, this game is failing to take off for us, BUCK UP!
C'est malheureusement Vrai..... :(
I haven't seen many people on Friends playing recently - has everyone gone off the game already?
I still play now and then, but I don't fancy sitting in our empty server for hours trying to get people to join.
I understand Friday night is our community night, which is probably our best night for getting the server busy, but it also happens to be the one night of the week I can't play :(
I think having a community night, but it a Friday night which is a night I generally busy. Thus not turning up for CS when that was running.
As for BC2 not played really, ArmaII has really got me hooked!!
I've not been around due to coursework, but seeing as I just had my last hand in, I'll be playing more!
But yea, Fridays doesn't seem to be working out :s
Now that Fridays are more freed up (Last Friday was final CSS night) I think the server will fill up more easily
I bet if you served cake or pie, people would join.
*hums* Its a wonderful day for pie... and it smells alot better than I..
My steam rating is terrible, 3.2 Hours in the past 2 weeks. I just haven't been playing games anywhere recently. No reflection of the server. Just been too busy. Yesterday was out, Tonight was marking (Atomic and Quantum optics II - I sure know how to have fun), tomorrow 5 hours drive (With potential break downs because my cars coolant leaks like sieve), Friday 5 hour Drive (In working car) & Party, Saturday 4 Hour drive, Sunday...might be around. My gaming takes place on a very Ad Hoc basis.
So Yeah, I'll miss Friday, but things will settle down soon and I'll be back gaming in no time, I hope you've not all gone up millions or ranks.
Quote from: Soon Jung;310215I bet if you served cake or pie, people would join.
*hums* Its a wonderful day for pie... and it smells alot better than I..
I like pie
Quote from: Blunt;310113Well, I'm about to rage quit BC2 due to a lack of interest in our server.
No need to quit the
game just because there's no one on
your server :) There's plenty of other servers to play on and as I posted in a different thread, the dMw server isn't anything special. There's plenty of excellent gaming to be found on other servers as well. So to quit the game because of failing interest in one server is a bit foolish IMO.
As for why the server fails to attract pubbies... it has been suggested to change the game mode or to have it mixed (which
is possible as there's other servers that do it) as well as to have it
not being displayed as being HC, but if you're not gonna listen to what people suggest then well... figure it out yourself :)
Bit harsh Obsolum. I'm sensing a lot of frustration.
Have you approached the BC2 Admins with your suggestions?
No frustration at all from my part, I'm playing the game regularly (daily if I can) and generally having a really good time. I'm getting more hooked every day, much to my girlfriend's dismay.
I did suggest to change the game mode (there's a seperate thread about it here) but it was decided the server would remain on Rush mode. The "no HC" isn't really my idea but I've seen it mentioned in another thread somewhere.
Mind you, I'm not saying that these are the reasons the server is not filling up. But seeing as it's not taking off I don't think it would hurt to try something different. There's tons of empty servers out there so it probably isn't something specific. Just more servers than there are players to fill 'em with, I suppose.
Can you please do me a favour and find those threads with those suggestions and we'll re-bump them as frankly we're pretty much at kill or cure now.
Thanks
I think we need to find out what changed, we used to have players on there, and for me it's one of the best pinging servers around.
We need to make more of an effort to 'seed' the server in the evenings - nobody's going to join our server if they see it completely empty.
I for one will be pestering people to join me on our server if I fancy a game, instead of just dissapearing into someone elses public server.
A a member of the community I'm dismayed by a few things..
1. Only one admin and one public admin have bothered to comment on what is clearly an important situation. If a Senior Admin like Blunt expresses something like he has, it's a recognition of a serious issue. I would have expected a detailed response from the Game Leader. Almost 48 hours has passed and not a peep.
2. Are the BC2 admins listening to the community? Suggestions have been made to remove the FF, put in a mixed rotation. It seems that it takes ages for the TGL and the BC2 admins to deliberate and make changes. When changes are made (I believe FF was taken off tonight?) there is no clear communication of the change and acknowlegement back to the community.
3. "Community night" again, are the admins listening? Several folks including one of the BC2 public admins have mentioned that Friday is not a good night.. Shouldn't the community have been asked? A simple poll thread could have sufficed.
As Pen has stated.. Kill or Cure. Do we have the Cure or do we let the game slip away?
NF
Remove HC mode tag and FF. (we saw the other night that people actually joined if removed, sadly it reverted back to be listed as HC and no more joined)
Mixed Mixed Mixed Mixed Mixed!
At the LAN we had a long discussion about BC2 and an agenda was posted up on this forum.
A whole host of positives negatives and ways to push forward the game were discussed.
The minutes of this meeting will be published and everyone will see what was talked about and what will be moved forward now that the bc2 admin section has been put back up i can get my version put up then checked and then published.
Overall the section is working well for a game that is changing almost everyweek.
We have a community and yes we are getting games going look at last night for instance.
If individuals want to play individually i can't stop them , some join TS some don't its their choice where they play not mine.
All i can do is provide a server that is for the good of the community and a meeting place.
At the meeting the Friday Night community night was discussed and we are going to continue with this after working out what we can and cannot do.
We are now in a position to relaunch this and this was going to be done last week but this week is perfect as last week cs clashed with it.
I have been in chats with multiplay who aren't the easiest or quickest people to get hold of this week and finally have a way to switch ff off.
If anyone of a number of settings are set to true or 1 then the server will show as hardcore.
Now that i know what to change i can edit the server config to do just that so it doesn't as hardcore or ff on and will draw players in.
Currently there is NO way of running two game modes simultaneously unless we use a third party tool which i was going to ask one of my bc2 admins to look into as multiplay doesn't support it.
Polls have been cast before for community night and friday won by a landslide so thats what went forward: http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?30574-What-is-your-preferred-night-for-bc2
In all the game is in a trial if it works we'll keep it if it doesn't we will improve the way we run it or it will be pulled and this was discussed at the open forum meeting at the lan.
heres a bit about HC listing
QuoteA server is marked as "hardcore" either when Friendly Fire is enabled, or when all the typical hardcore settings (hardcore, killcam, minimap, damage, hud etc) have been flipped
and if i recall the settings correctly
vars.hardCore (true or false) (default false)
vars.teamBalance (true or false) (default true)
vars.miniMap (true or false) (default true)
vars.crossHair (true or false) (default true)
vars.3dSpotting (true or false) (default true)
vars.miniMapSpotting (true or false) (default true)
vars.thirdPersonVehicleCameras (true or false) (default true)
vars.killCam (true or false) (default true)
friendly needs to be off.
Hello all! :)
I finally ahve a machine capable of playing BFBC2 - so tell me, what is the best night to catch you chaps online?
All the best - Ranger
Hi Ranger,
Friday is our official community night, but you'll find someone playing most week-nights.