Regional Expansion

Sometimes I get people from Japan and South America playing on my server. They largely come in one by one- to try out the game and then quit playing shortly after because (I assume) the ping isn't great to play with. They don't exactly get together, and form a community and server.

What are your thoughts regarding this transient demographic of players?

There used to be a Japanese public server, it saw no activity for almost the entirety of its lifespan and was eventually closed to save on costs.
South America might be a bit different, as I've known a couple of players from that region, but the general issue is that the game isn't well known outside of European areas (and even then, you have to be looking for it to find it).

Regarding ping - most new players don't notice the difference between high ping and low ping, they just play wherever there's people. Of course, this is different if they're experienced FPS players, but that's not usually the case.

What are the system requirements to run a decent server for a few (<8) players? Would it run on a single-core system with 2GB ram and no GPU? There are some pretty decent cheap VPS like that with server locations around the world.

Would it run on a single-core system with 2GB ram and no GPU?

I've run a server on digital ocean with these specs.  The bigger issue with the cheaper hosting is good networking.  On DO, I'd get random PL, or network saturation/lag on occasion.  $5/mo though, so...

What are the system requirements to run a decent server for a few (<8) players? Would it run on a single-core system with 2GB ram and no GPU? There are some pretty decent cheap VPS like that with server locations around the world.

PsyX duel servers are cheap VPS like that.
Actually, the Latvian and Swedish servers only have 1GB of RAM and run flawlessly (there's occasional PL on the Swedish one, but that's probably a networking problem, as -z- pointed out).


I haven't tried with more than 2 players though, since duel is the only available gamemode :>

There used to be a Japanese public server, it saw no activity for almost the entirety of its lifespan and was eventually closed to save on costs.
South America might be a bit different, as I've known a couple of players from that region, but the general issue is that the game isn't well known outside of European areas (and even then, you have to be looking for it to find it).

Regarding ping - most new players don't notice the difference between high ping and low ping, they just play wherever there's people. Of course, this is different if they're experienced FPS players, but that's not usually the case.

They (Japanese) probably have to be looking harder to find it because most of Xonotic's discussion and material is in English. Meanwhile whichever search term or engine they're using is more inclined to pick up material in their language. They also have their own major video hosting site and a lot of Xonotic promotional material is on YouTube only.

And I think new players do notice ping, but they don't exactly say anything on the spur of the moment. There's been some Brazilian player running around on North American public servers for a few days lately, and after a while he's just voiced the complaint tonight.

Here is a good comparison of some VPS hosts with network speeds:
https://www.webstack.de/blog/e/cloud-hos...ison-2017/
Linode has a Japanese data-center for example.