L4D & dMw

[Benny]

Please don't spam this thread, we have enough of the L4d threads full of inane comments.

Great game, but....

I'm struggling to see what benefit we get in having it public. Can someone translate it into English? We had a good game last night, albeit on Mat's server, from there we couldn't get across to the dMw server as it filled up and/or it's impossible to make L4D go where you want it to.

I've tried both techniques from the other thread and no real joy, I have to use  the join friend technique. I'm not complaining about BB's setup and I realise this is issues with the game.

What I guess I want is for someone to tell me that;

1. Here's a shortcut to join our password protected server.
2. If more than 4 people want to play it switches to versus and everyone can join in / or we run two 4 player servers?

Apologies for the rantyness, it's not dMw I'm pished at, it's the fact that I really enjoy the game and want to play it with you lot rather than a load of pubs.

[Dr Sadako]

I agree with what you are saying. To add to your list:

3. Could we maybe have two L4D servers or are there any problems with that? I counted at most 7 players playing at the same time from my friends list.

[T-Bag]

I'm not sure about other people but I just join a game where one or more of my friends are playing. My friends with L4D are generally from here, occasionally my brothers. Anyway, my point is if most others do this too then the server played on makes little difference. So if someone starts on a non-dmw server it tends to pull everyone over to that server.
Good thing is when starting a game only one person has to get onto the server and everyone will easily be able to flock to it.

[Dr Sadako]

I'm not sure about other people but I just join a game where one or more of my friends are playing. My friends with L4D are generally from here, occasionally my brothers. Anyway, my point is if most others do this too then the server played on makes little difference. So if someone starts on a non-dmw server it tends to pull everyone over to that server.
Good thing is when starting a game only one person has to get onto the server and everyone will easily be able to flock to it.

Thanks for thinking of non UK members ... :eyebrow:

A dedicated server vs a server that you create yourself is a huge difference when it comes to latency. We saw that clearly yesterday when I was hosting a game. I still have a 3 Mbit upline.

[Anonymous]

In an ideal world we should be able to

1. Set a password

AND

2. Use the lobby to join OUR server

Valve don't have the brainpower to work this out because setting a password means you cannot join from lobby (and I've tried setting password in config before joining and it still keeps searching without finding the server).

There seems to be only 1 way to do this at present and that is to password the server and set it to play as versus only (allowing 8 people to connect)

The only other thing is to wait for valve to release a fix but frankly I would prefer to play the game before I retire :sideways:

[b00n]

I agree with what T-Bag said, if you want to play with friends set up a lobby and invite them.  If you have your search key set up correctly and our server isn't being used, it should join the server with the settings you specified, otherwise you'll get another empty server (but does that matter?).

That said, I'd say if people will be doing the 4 player campaign a lot then maybe a second server would be a good idea, as it can sometimes be difficult to find free servers with good pings.  However IMHO Versus mode is much more fun and I think most would agree from our excellent run through Blood Harvest last night that it requires a fair amount of teamwork to succeed.

From that perspective, a single 8 player server would usually be more than enough for the number of players we have right now.

I agree that switching from Campaign to Versus is a real pain right now as you can't even vote to return to lobby to change the settings (you can't change game mode there).  You need to get everyone to leave the game, start a new Versus lobby, get at least one person back in the lobby (since you can't start a Versus game on your own), then start the game, at which point it *should* be in versus mode and everyone else can join.

Also, if the dMw server is being used, you might want to check the setting sv_search_max_ping (or something like that) which I believe is used when finding another server to play on.  It defaults to 250 which is rather high IMHO.

[b00n]

Thanks for thinking of non UK members ... :eyebrow:

A dedicated server vs a server that you create yourself is a huge difference when it comes to latency. We saw that clearly yesterday when I was hosting a game. I still have a 3 Mbit upline.

Starting a game yourself doesn't mean it has to be a local server, you can choose dedicated server in the lobby and it'll try to find an empty server for you.  If the server is hibernating (is empty) then it should, as I understand it, reset to your lobby settings when you join.

Admittedly, I suspect the majority of server admins will be using search keys which might make it hard to find a dedicated server to join. :sad:

[T-Bag]

Thanks for thinking of non UK members ... :eyebrow:

A dedicated server vs a server that you create yourself is a huge difference when it comes to latency. We saw that clearly yesterday when I was hosting a game. I still have a 3 Mbit upline.

I wasn't ruling out non-UK members. I was saying only 1 player has to get on the server to make it easy for everyone else to join. If they join the DMW server you should be able to play just as easily as anyone else.

[Benny]

There seems to be only 1 way to do this at present and that is to password the server and set it to play as versus only (allowing 8 people to connect)

Thanks for all your efforts BB, they are appreciated from here. I know this must be a pita.

From my side I like the idea of the above...allows us to play through, and also have more players on.

[Anonymous]

From my side I like the idea of the above...allows us to play through, and also have more players on.

I'm more and more thinking along the same lines.

What does everyone else think?

FYI, BA3 is currently running 2 CoD servers, L4D server, Insurgency server, LFS server, and 6 instances of CSS. Consequently, I do not believe we can/should run 2 instances of L4D on BA3 just now as it is quite heavily loaded.
However, once BA4 comes on-line we could run a private L4D server on BA4 and a Lobbied server on BA3.

[OldBloke]

I'm more and more thinking along the same lines.

What does everyone else think?

Agreed.

[Benny]

I'm more and more thinking along the same lines.

What does everyone else think?

FYI, BA3 is currently running 2 CoD servers, L4D server, Insurgency server, LFS server, and 6 instances of CSS. Consequently, I do not believe we can/should run 2 instances of L4D on BA3 just now as it is quite heavily loaded.
However, once BA4 comes on-line we could run a private L4D server on BA4 and a Lobbied server on BA3.

Sounds good.....why do we have 6 CS:S instances?
Pub, Priv, Match, test......I'm struggling now..

edit....oh yeah...deagle. one short

[Anonymous]

Sounds good.....why do we have 6 CS:S instances?
Pub, Priv, Match, test......I'm struggling now..

edit....oh yeah...deagle. one short

You're right, the Zombie server is off-line just now.

[b00n]

I'm more and more thinking along the same lines.

What does everyone else think?

I also agree.  I find Versus mode much more fun.

[Anonymous]

Server converted to 8 player VERSUS mode and password applied. I'll edit joining post to reflect the change.