Do we need more servers?

I started a server on the east side of the US because some US players told me that there aren't enough servers in this region to provide low ping, and such less-than-ideal experience yielded to fewer US players in Xonotic. I hope my server helped a little bit.

However, I also noticed that there are a lot of servers around, and most of the time they are empty.

I tend to join servers with more players because I'm not good enough to play duels (or provide good experience for the other player). I think most people make the same choice as I.

Questions:

Do we need more servers to further divide players?

As a player, do you usually leave if there aren't any players around? Or are you usually the first player in a game to wait for others?

We need moar servers.

I don't care what anyone says NA player base is dead as are the public servers, sorry pick up servers don't count. EU has always had a bigger player base for what ever reason.

I'm still ways away from finishing more vehicle maps so haven't decided whether keep the server in Canada or bring it back to EU where it use to run before I left.

ESK/SMB NA servers use to have 20-35 players on all the time now its just a desert town.

Do we need more servers to further divide players?

this is a loaded question, kind of like "have you stopped beating your wife every morning?" or "so you are in favor of death panels, huh?"

we think more servers is a good thing, no qualification needed. think about the commercial shops like quakelive: they have excellent servers running 24/7 for all the various gametypes, and where's the downside? so what if most of them are empty. what really matters is this: imagine you and your friend trying out the game for the first time, and you want to play together, so you log in and all you see is 12 dueling servers with hook... forget it. new players love to see quality servers for every niche, so fire them up whenever you feel like.

oh, and dividing players... we wouldn't worry about that. players will naturally flock to their faves no matter what.

Do we need more servers to further divide players?

this is a loaded question, kind of like "have you stopped beating your wife every morning?" or "so you are in favor of death panels, huh?"

Ah, you are right. It doesn't necessarily come with the side effects I assumed.

we think more servers is a good thing, no qualification needed.
... ...
new players love to see quality servers for every niche, so fire them up whenever you feel like.

oh, and dividing players... we wouldn't worry about that. players will naturally flock to their faves no matter what.

Good to hear! That helps! Thanks!

As a player, do you usually leave if there aren't any players around? Or are you usually the first player in a game to wait for others?

I usually sit around for like a minute or so before just leaving an empty server.

I recently set-up a Xonotic server (on the east coast too); I have it set so that bots will automatically fill in player slots up until 16 players join, so that way, anyone who joins in won't just join into nothing (they'll probably just be shot with an instagib rifle from max-skill bots :p)

I recently set-up a Xonotic server (on the east coast too); I have it set so that bots will automatically fill in player slots up until 16 players join, so that way, anyone who joins in won't just join into nothing (they'll probably just be shot with an instagib rifle from max-skill bots :p)

I wonder whether most people are happy playing without bots as long as there is 1 human player.

Problem with bots is they suck and lots of maps don't have the waypoints for them so the bots just sit around. I usually just leave one for a player.

I recently set-up a Xonotic server (on the east coast too); I have it set so that bots will automatically fill in player slots up until 16 players join, so that way, anyone who joins in won't just join into nothing (they'll probably just be shot with an instagib rifle from max-skill bots :p)

I wonder whether most people are happy playing without bots as long as there is 1 human player.

we like bots. some players are definitely averse to bots and ask them to be removed, so we've made it a votable option. but we think most players appreciate at least a few bots to keep them company while they are waiting for more human players. because of that, it's probably a good idea to make bots easy, so that even the weakest players can be entertained by them. the right number of bots depends on the game type, we think, and for vanilla dm the default minplayers 4 seems good enough, although 3 may be even better, since 3 human players already make for a very exciting game on pretty much any map. more bots may be needed for team play.

it does seem true that xonotic bots suck hard, which is a real shame. unlike openarena bots, they constantly get lost, stuck, or just completely refuse to move until one of them is kicked, and this is just on the stock maps that came with the game. we suppose most of the aversion to bots stems from their overall suckiness

I recently set-up a Xonotic server (on the east coast too); I have it set so that bots will automatically fill in player slots up until 16 players join, so that way, anyone who joins in won't just join into nothing (they'll probably just be shot with an instagib rifle from max-skill bots :p)

I wonder whether most people are happy playing without bots as long as there is 1 human player.

we like bots. some players are definitely averse to bots and ask them to be removed, so we've made it a votable option. but we think most players appreciate at least a few bots to keep them company while they are waiting for more human players. because of that, it's probably a good idea to make bots easy, so that even the weakest players can be entertained by them. the right number of bots depends on the game type, we think, and for vanilla dm the default minplayers 4 seems good enough, although 3 may be even better, since 3 human players already make for a very exciting game on pretty much any map. more bots may be needed for team play.

it does seem true that xonotic bots suck hard, which is a real shame. unlike openarena bots, they constantly get lost, stuck, or just completely refuse to move until one of them is kicked, and this is just on the stock maps that came with the game. we suppose most of the aversion to bots stems from their overall suckiness

You can create a waypoints file for each map but have to set the points manually as you play on the map. http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=4861