Empty Irish Servers

Keyzer

Lads,
Night after night I check the irish bf2 servers and they are empty.
Whats this all about? I reckon we should all come back to the Irish based servers and populate them. Whats the general consensus?

I'd much prefer to be playing vs lads on here than complete strangers.

No doubt they'll be shutdown, then we'll all be moaning about there being no Irish servers available.

What say we pick an Irish server and fill it tonight for a game?

Rev Hellfire

I personally think the need for 'Irish' servers has long gone, not just for battlefield but for all other games.
It was fine in its day when the number of games people played was smaller and connectivity was an issue. But these days servers are 10 a penny and the irish gaming population is spread across so many games that the justification for it no longer exists. The difference between playing on an Irish server to a UK server isn't that much.

I can see the idea of public servers disappearing as we knew them and really there just been clan servers which service a more formal grouping of players.

ghost26ie

we find it hard getting people onto our server(A.S.C.I.I). sometimes you get a couple of guys on it, but they leave quickly because they have no patience. i've on it for hours waiting for guys to join. when the new patch came out recently we had the server full each day, for 3 days straight because we were one of the few that didnt update straight away.

GreeBo

I usually join whatever server has the best ping, with a preference for UK/Ireland.
Usually ends up being UK as I am on NTL but I have never seen an Irish server appear on my list, I only have some there because I have manually added/filtered for them...
For example, last night I joined BTC and had some great games but only because I was on #battlefield.ie and saw thats where people were...

Big Nelly

To be honest the only real time I seen alot of boards guys on the same server was Viet Navan, I started my online gaming on that server after purchasing BFV and I loved it, became a BF addict and was playing everyday I had a chance, started to play other games then, Cod etc but in the last few months of been online I had seen the numbers online start to dwindle, including myself! it has got so bad sold on BF2 etc and selling PC. Only have time to give CoD a bash on the Xbox 360:(

TheHairyFairy

Stats Stats Stats. Thats what is causing a problem. Most players will only play on ranked servers, meaning that x number of players must be on the server before the game will start.

Having a ranked server means that most settings are hardcoded and cant be changed. I'd love to run a few unranked servers with huge ticket counts and really small maps.

Imagine a 64 player server running 16 player maps with 500 ticket counts. The games would be mental. But you can only do that on an unranked server, meaning players wont play on it as their stats are too precious.

Fairy

Dcully

Jaysus i dont know guys ,we have to kick people from our server to make room for members.
It is full every night of the week and that is no exaggeration.
We have built up a huge amount of regulars and they seem to fill the server themselves,sometimes even in the afternoon.
I even make sure i restart the server every day to make sure it performs well for what i know will be a full server later on.
Its been months since i played on another server which in itself shows how busy our one is.
A few times i wanted to join the tig infantry server but each time it was empty,a real shame as i love infantry warfare.

Maybe the fact our server isnt based in Ireland could be key?
In fairness most of our visitors are UK and Europe based apart from some boards guys,id take a guess that when UK and Euro folk see the Irish flag they just dont bother connect as theres so many UK and Euro servers they can play on.
Could also be the fact when this huge stable of players from uk and euro refresh their list they get servers from their own country pinging the best and therefore connect.
I know if i was in UK id join Uk servers only.
IMO an Irish based server will never fill a server of Irish players on a regular basis,it will always need Uk clients and this is where i reckon the problem lies for Irish servers.
Maybe you guys with Irish based servers should consider a move to UK based?
I think i recall tig having some connection with gaming 365 which explains there scenario.
The other guys imo should consider a UK server plus the fact they are cheaper than 365
I guarantee you more players if you have a UK based server.

Keyzer

Rev Hellfire wrote:

I personally think the need for 'Irish' servers has long gone, not just for battlefield but for all other games.
It was fine in its day when the number of games people played was smaller and connectivity was an issue. .

I didn't mean in terms of ping, I meant in terms of getting a bunch of regulars playing on the Irish servers.

DCULLY - Your server is the GFF one right?
I play on it all the time, great server and well admined.

I just think its a waste that we don't all play on the Irish servers.
Playing lads you know from boards etc. would be quality. I find it a bit weird talking on voip to team mates who are strangers, at least I "kinda" know you lot.

Anyway, I just think it would be savage...

jonski

We , over at BTC , put a lot of hard work into keeping our server going . We always try to keep it admined , and well admined at that , and also keep our players on it . But atm we have the resources to do that , not everyone has .

Most days we can pull the 10 needed to start the game from within the ranks of BTC & Friends so we don't need ramdoms , but once the game is going anyone & everyone joins in and is welcome . I blatantly promoted our server on here and in the irc channel for BTC's benefit , but also for the guys around here because I figured they would enjoy the kinda game we play and server we run .


But , at the end of the day , BTC is mainly made up of UK lads , ( although we do have a new Irish full member .....\o/ Silverfish/Viriconia ) , so it will stay a uk based server . And as Rev has said , the difference between the Irish based servers and UK based ones are now minimal , and I can see Irish based clans going for servers in whatever country gives them the best price/preformance and appeals to the gaming community within which they are based .

Dcully

DCULLY - Your server is the GFF one right?
I play on it all the time, great server and well admined.

Yeah Keyser thats correct,thanks for kind words.

Playing lads you know from boards etc. would be quality. I find it a bit weird talking on voip to team mates who are strangers, at least I "kinda" know you lot.

Anyway, I just think it would be savage...

Totally agree,lots of our server regulars register on our forums and really get to know the guys already in the community which means more often than not we know who we are talking to.

cance

the [NOG] server is always police'd and populated...

tbh we never really have to put much effort into it... people just kinda follow us...

anyways if ya want the ip get it here: www.thenogs.com

make sure to jump on teamspeak if the server is quiet, there are always people hanging around and waiting for a game.

projectmayhem

i play on servers that have people. i don't care where it is (ping does come into account, now and then ). played GFF a good few times. have had some great games there

Dcully

Sorry to go off topic,projectmayhem where can i get them bf2 player,hl2 player etc sigs?
They are kinda cool.

ghost26ie

TheHairyFairy wrote:

Imagine a 64 player server running 16 player maps with 500 ticket counts. The games would be mental. But you can only do that on an unranked server, meaning players wont play on it as their stats are too precious.

Fairy

i've seen that on the Tig server before, 40+people playing 16 player mashtuur city and strike at karkand.

Winters

Quitly simply supply of servers is outweighing demand of gamers. Europe is now filled with an amazingly large amount of servers but not everybody is playing the game. When the game was first released the tig.servers would be filled 24/7 as at that stage the game was new and not many people except those who were expecting the game had a server ready. Now, nearly a year on a lot of people who played other games like CS are jumping on the bandwagon and having a go of the game and setting up their own servers etc.

I'm now 2c poorer

TheHairyFairy

Yep, but because the server is running ranked the tickets are hardcoded to 100. Unless I run it for 4 rounds a map?

Fairy

Winters

Unranked 64man with 16 player maps and big massive ticket ratio's are t3h fun

Dcully

Unranked 64man with 16 player maps and big massive ticket ratio's are t3h fun

and empty unfortunately

SeantheMan

I find {GrIM}-[NOG] and [GFF] tend to usually be pretty populated during the evenings , os i tend to spend most of my time on either of them:)
Theyre also pretty decently adminned, and more than happy to help out if some smacktard is teamkilling or baseraping.:eek:

Keep up the good work.:cool:

IP: 83.142.229.136:16567 [GFF]
86.53.238.61:16567 {GrIM}-[NOG]

Add em to your X-Fire Server favourites:D

Hope yous dont mind me puttin your IP's up guys:o

Rev Hellfire

Winters hit the nail on the head, there is simply no point in running multiple irish servers for popular games.

While its nice to have a dedicated server for your clan, it's really a waste of money and to be honest in my mind it would make more sense for a group of clans to come together and pool their (financial) resources.
That way you would possibly kill two birds with one stone, you'd save money servers aren't cheap but also since you'd be increasing the target audience for the server (ie 2 or more clans using it) it would be more likely to stay used.

I've even long since come to the realisation that there's no need for the sort of public servers that iol and ign.ie used to offer either anymore, the irish players are too fractured and spread out to make them useful to anyone other than homeless german and polish clans.
Irish clan servers also suffer from this as well, but to a lesser degree.

Dcully

While its nice to have a dedicated server for your clan, it's really a waste of money and to be honest in my mind it would make more sense for a group of clans to come together and pool their (financial) resources.
That way you would possibly kill two birds with one stone, you'd save money servers aren't cheap but also since you'd be increasing the target audience for the server (ie 2 or more clans using it) it would be more likely to stay used.

Its not about finances or anything else it is simply the location.
Our 3 servers cost next to nothing between our members.
The bottom line is as ive said imo, Irish based servers will not get the numbers for reasons stated unfortunately.
I dont see clans that already have the financial resources,numbers and populated servers wanting or needing to pool together,why would they?
Our server like BTC and {GrIM}-[NOG] are successful because they are in the UK,they have built up regulars and untimately more members and ultimately more contributers to finances as a result [GFF contributers are 100% voluntery btw].

UK servers = more players,its simple really.

I find {GrIM}-[NOG] and [GFF] tend to usually be pretty populated during the evenings , os i tend to spend most of my time on either of them
Theyre also pretty decently adminned, and more than happy to help out if some smacktard is teamkilling or baseraping.

Keep up the good work.

IP: 83.142.229.136:16567 [GFF]
86.53.238.61:16567 {GrIM}-[NOG]

Add em to your X-Fire Server favourites

Hope yous dont mind me puttin your IP's up guys

Of course not m8
{GrIM}-[NOG] ip added to favourites

Rev Hellfire

Dcully wrote:

Its not about finances or anything else it is simply the location.

While what you say is true, its missing the point. Keyzer is I think looking for why irish players aren't playing on irish servers, its not a purely numbers thing.
I myself suspect if the irish clans had less servers to play on, their numbers alone would keep the server(s) full, but with each clan having 1 or more servers none fill since everyone is waiting for a certain volume of players which spread across the servers.

Keyzer

Rev Hellfire wrote:

While what you say is true, its missing the point. Keyzer is I think looking for why irish players aren't playing on irish servers, its not a purely numbers thing.
I myself suspect if the irish clans had less servers to play on, their numbers alone would keep the server(s) full, but with each clan having 1 or more servers none fill since everyone is waiting for a certain volume of players which spread across the servers.

Correct on the question I'm asking.

I checked the Irish servers every night this week in ASE and they were all empty, every night, when I checked of course. So I don't think its a matter of too many servers spoil the broth etc. It appears to me that there has been a migration of sorts to the UK servers. I used to love playing on the Irish TIG servers but they are always empty, a damn shame.
GFF is the only server I know that has people from here on it and is full every night...

Slightly off topic and directed to Cully - Any chance of increasing it to a 32 man server and sticking SF on it? Had come great SF games recently on the "Chosen Men" Clan server based in the UK...

December Son

Its like fairy said, if your server isnt ranked, its dead. NRG learnt this the hard way back when we bought an unranked BF2 server and had it up and running on release day. Little did we know about the whole ranked-unranked-statwhore thing. Server was dead a week later. People wont play on unranked servers, and its wrecked the game. EA will pull your ranking if you modify anything so there goes any kind of fun mods you could run if you still want server traffic (remember rifle/law only games of BFV? Or 1000 ticket rounds? how about huey only maps??) So there goes all the fun stuff and alot of people are only playing for stat padding and ego stroking.
TBH these infantry leage games are the most fun ive had in BF2, no chopper whoring, no stat padding, just downright fun.
It would take alot of organising but if theres a demand for it maybe one of us (tig, nrg, btc, 1st Ib etc) could setup a night per week of large ticket infantry games? After the inf league is over anyway.

Dcully

While what you say is true, its missing the point. Keyzer is I think looking for why irish players aren't playing on irish servers, its not a purely numbers thing.
I myself suspect if the irish clans had less servers to play on, their numbers alone would keep the server(s) full, but with each clan having 1 or more servers none fill since everyone is waiting for a certain volume of players which spread across the servers.

Agreed Rev,i was merely replying to what you said about need for clans pooling together.
I was referring to the bigger picture not just Irish players/servers.
Your idea is actually a good idea,rish clans with Irish servers coming together and not being spread across a number of servers makes sence but as you know every clan has its own ideas on what they want etc.
Personally id love to see a rocking Irish server that we can pop on to when we feel like it.
TiG,NRG,ASCII coming together?
Who knows?
Would be excellent for all three imo and the Irish community as a whole.

December Son

Dcully wrote:

Agreed Rev,i was merely replying to what you said about need for clans pooling together.
I was referring to the bigger picture not just Irish players/servers.
Your idea is actually a good idea,rish clans with Irish servers coming together and not being spread across a number of servers makes sence but as you know every clan has its own ideas on what they want etc.
Personally id love to see a rocking Irish server that we can pop on to when we feel like it.
TiG,NRG,ASCII coming together?
Who knows?
Would be excellent for all three imo and the Irish community as a whole.

*mel gibson in braveheart voice*
UNITE THE CLANS!! UNITE THEM!!

R0ot

The GFF is only server from the boards.ie list of ranked server i play on. Ill usually follow other people onto a server rather than choosing one for myself. Ive tried the TiG server a few times but its either full or empty probably just my luck. When it comes to unranked servers ill play on the NRG one over any other, we do get a few strangers on it but its mostly for the clan members

Berns

I remember the tig server was full when it was 64 man ranked but since then aint really had that many people about. Hardly any TiG seemed to be on it most of the time though. City maps idea seemed to get a bit of interest for a while but it soon died out. MoDs & SF didnt seem to attract many people either so they were scrapped as well afaik.

Ya see some servers listed as ranked & large maps, but maybe limited till 30 or less people on 64 man map. Seen it said here that this aint possible, but how come it showin up when search??? Or are they not actually ranked or whats the deal???

Pirates of portloaise used to pull in quiet a few, dunno what story is now as aint got bf1942 & bfv installed anymore. Think Viet-Naven worked mainly as it was seen as a neutral server in a way. But as was said , wasnt ranking back then.


My few cence

KdjaCL

Everyone is right !!!

Ranked to me means better guns and the promise of more guns, the numebrs and name beside them mean **** all, i just want bigger guns like most i would imagine.

TIG ASCII and Irishwan servers are alays empty ( i recall on another game always hoping to see the little irish flag in ASE awwww) but every night in IRC at least 10 guys jump on a server and play with each other (heh gaylords). But never jump to an irish server.

Rev over the years has provided a service for all irish gamers to enjoy and use from gay CS to Bf42 and now with "fad" servers like trackmania and any other game that comes out with a linux server. But still most of the irish flags in ASE remain empty. Fairy has got 4 servers running inf games on a sunday night from BTCs to NRGS to TIGS and all with players who post here or know of here or are banned from here.

The players are there but as pointed out above the servers remain empty and will so for a long time until ranked issues or other things happen to change it.


So berns sticking that map pack on i linked you too ??? < stuff like that fills em for a while


kdjac

meelick

KdjaC wrote:

...and Irishwan servers are alays empty...

Not empty on Wed nights, which is the only time our small group get together to have a game. Speaking of which, I should be in there now...

Cheers,
Dave

spooky donkey

Dcully wrote:

Jaysus i dont know guys ,we have to kick people from our server to make room for members.
It is full every night of the week and that is no exaggeration.
We have built up a huge amount of regulars and they seem to fill the server themselves,sometimes even in the afternoon.
I even make sure i restart the server every day to make sure it performs well for what i know will be a full server later on.
Its been months since i played on another server which in itself shows how busy our one is.
A few times i wanted to join the tig infantry server but each time it was empty,a real shame as i love infantry warfare.

Maybe the fact our server isnt based in Ireland could be key?
In fairness most of our visitors are UK and Europe based apart from some boards guys,id take a guess that when UK and Euro folk see the Irish flag they just dont bother connect as theres so many UK and Euro servers they can play on.
Could also be the fact when this huge stable of players from uk and euro refresh their list they get servers from their own country pinging the best and therefore connect.
I know if i was in UK id join Uk servers only.
IMO an Irish based server will never fill a server of Irish players on a regular basis,it will always need Uk clients and this is where i reckon the problem lies for Irish servers.
Maybe you guys with Irish based servers should consider a move to UK based?
I think i recall tig having some connection with gaming 365 which explains there scenario.
The other guys imo should consider a UK server plus the fact they are cheaper than 365
I guarantee you more players if you have a UK based server.

I think you hit the nail on the head there cully. Our clan have been looking into getting a ranker server also and we looked at hosting 365 and they had good prices and that. But when we saw how empty the tig servers were we decided that we will go for a uk based server. Pity that cause I was just on the boards.ie tig server and got a ping of 6, ive never seen that low a ping, well perhaps at a lan. There were a good few on that server too mid sunday afternoon.

Zillah

RopeDrink wrote:

when I was a Soft 56k CS'er and, even then, Irish CS servers gave little to no aid in lowering my ping so even back then they didn't appeal to me

Netshop ftw!

the_syco

IMO, the server has to be ranked + admined to get a healthy regular population.