Servers with 150+ players ruining the game...

[kata78]

*** DELETED ****

[TMarc]

Kata, last warning: you stop posting your complaints in such a unfriendly way.
It does not help that you write it every day, and it is not Nadeos fault at all.

Even if there was a blinking arrow " See also the next pages for other servers", the people would not go there.

You have to accept this. Or simply stop running your servers, if you don't like it that much.

[kata78]

O.k. were hard words .... but you don't understand it, if it is explained to you ...

[kata78]

Turning off the servers ... yes that will help the game ...

I try to explain one last time ...

Coding a game is a very complex thing and trackmania/shootmania are exceptional
good games.

Coding a scrollable serverlist with sort buttons on the top is a piece of cake ...
Just go to any other online game and take a look ....

And thanks we got enough visitors on our servers...

But escpecially Trackmania is for most players a casual game they play some minutes a day or
some hours a week.

So they only see the first servers with the same old maps and think "oh thats Nations Forever with better
graphics" so they play as long as it is free and then think "not worth 10 bucks for better graphics"..

If you take a look on the empty servers you see new maps, with custom objects, new mods etc..

People who love the game like i do put hours and hours of their spare time in creating maps and servers
to keep the game alive....

If you don't understand i'm sorry ... that was the last time i try to explain

[Rots]

This was much better explanation without tons of smileys nor bad words... Now, tell in the same way what would you do to improve server browsing and suggest players new servers? (As we already know a 15x15 meter LED blinking arrow with a $ sign would not make people switch to next page)

Personally I'm thinking of a maniapub system but for servers, with hourly ad rotation... An image gets through the eyes and a small description can be read and suggest players to join a server -marketing basics- Server admin have to "sell" their servers if they really think/want they deserve players.

@nadeo: images database relied to a serverlogin, check servers online status, rotate images (like maniapub) hourly or so

IMPORTANT: This is not "freezone" like in tmnf, again, don't get me wrong... If you think it's not a good idea or it could be improved tell me why/how, I might be wrong ^^)

[TMarc]

yeah, much better now

What about automatic scrolling through pages with populated servers, say after 5s of user inactivity?

[zocka]

I don't really see a problem with the serverbrowser pages. If you read to the bottom, there is an arrow to click next. Maybe have something like <page> of <pages> to show the masses of pages ^^

The empty servers are a real issue though imo: looking at the server statistics at http://www.maniaviewer.com/ always is a bit sad as the ratio between players and servers is nowhere near natural.

kata78's post actually made me think and compare the browser with over games' server browsers. In other games I usually don't have any clue which server to join, so I join pretty full servers as I expect a lot [of fun] going on.
In most cases I would be glad to have like a button to just play and join any server.
In TM however I think this is a bit difficult because of the amount of styles (FS/Tech/lol/Fun/...).

A system where players are somewhat matched to servers according to [ Play Mixed ] [ Play FS now ] [ Play Tech now ] etc. comes to my mind. This however would require further (reliable!) server information by the respective owners.
The problem I see with that though is, that (newer) players might have their problems with more difficult maps and thus not like a server where they are matched to.

I like Rots' suggestion with the server advertisement. I could imagine it on a page along "All", "Matchmaking", "Favorites", "Featured" or something.
The problem I see with that however is, that most likely the already big servers could afford advertisement campaigns. A problem which could be overcome I guess


And as to the topic's title:
New/Casual players might get a bad impression seeing either tons of empty servers or really full servers, where they lag as their PC struggles to show ~100 players and they don't know, there is a way to hide other players

[kata78]

In my opinion just a sort by lowest ping and country would already spread the users more and would let them see more different servers in the list ....

So default sort criteria: Ping, Country, Users on Server ....

So new users would see no empty servers, but automatically more servers would be populated and more
user would aready try more servers ...

What do you think?

[zocka]

Sorting by country/zones sounds quite a lot like the discontinued legacy browser

In the end you mostly clicked your way up to Continent/World to find decently populated servers. You could be able to avoid high pings, when you see that you are about to join a server on the other end of the globe, but other than that I don't see much of a reason to sort by country. I mean I don't skip a server because I don't like a certain country (or it's people) ^^

I don't think these criteria would solve the problem

So new users would see no empty servers, but automatically more servers would be populated and more
user would aready try more servers ...

I usually don't see empty servers either when I don't go through the pages

[kata78]

Ok .. you dont understand that this is ruining the game ...

i tried to explain many times ... you dont get it ...

what else can i say if you dont SEE THE POINT

Madmax is a friend of mine and had a great server with great maps with custom objects
and lots of visitors IF HE COULD MANAGE TO BE ON FIRST PAGE ....

else ... server empty ....

There are people loving this game .. making servers for you ... 50+ pages and are empty
and its no excuse that there are too less players ... 500 players on the first page with 1000+
bad maps ... nobody tested this maps ...

Its a SLAP IN THE FACE of your customers ...