Respectfully, your Steel server blows.

[Overheal]

Seriously. I dont know what it is about cp_steel, but not many servers out there are willing to run a vanilla 32 slot game of steel. I couldnt tell you why that is, but I love it.

But whats more infuriating than seeing a bunch of shyte instaspawn bullshit on the list is joining a "31/32" player server to find it devoid of life.

Now, I love steel. But hate being conned. I would leave it right there but the truth is, damn guys. You probably have the best potential steel server on the East Coast. Its just being wasted.

So Help me help you: I have added the CP_Steel server to my favorites: If you agree to remove the fake values, I will try and populate with real people any time I start a gaming session of TF2. You're more than aware at this stage that with an average 4 odd players at a time in that server that its going to tank the way its going right now.

I assure you that adding some honest tags (vannila,maxplayers,hlstatsx, etc) and getting rid of the deceiving player count that there are enough people out there that will be more than willing to jump on an honest 32 player steel server.

[Derek]

What makes you think we should listen to you after you saying "Our Server Blows". We are not forcing you to play our server nor do we care if you play our server. Life sucks get over it.

[Overheal]

Respectfully, your server blows ;)

But hey if you want part of that $500 a month to go to running a dead server be my guest. I'm just trying to help you out here.

[Derek]

Respectfully, your server blows ;)

But hey if you want part of that $500 a month to go to running a dead server be my guest. I'm just trying to help you out here.

You could have came off in a more respectful way. FakeClients hurt no one if you don't like it we wasted about 5 seconds of your time but they do help every gamer out there due to the fact it does fill servers and its more servers for us gamers to play on. If servers owners didnt pay for servers what servers would there be to play on? You should be thankful we are saving you $500 a month.

[Overheal]

I apologize about the first impression.

The problem with the FakeClients though is yeah, it doesnt harm too much to the individual player. But I know I'm not alone as I sit there in the server either waiting for more players to be 'tricked' or looking for a new server, that when we do get 4-6 players in the server it has never lasted more than 15 minutes. First one guy will leave because he feels violated, then another, then another.

Is there a way to lower the count to something lower so that it only bypasses the "has users playing" filter? So when 4 or 6 people really are playing people know it, and are more inclined to stay when they join, knowing what they are coming in to. After all expecting a full server slaughterhouse and getting a tumbleweed race is a big letdown :)

edit: i AM thankful thats why i think its terrible to see the server being put to waste. Id love nothing more to see it full up.

[Derek]

I apologize about the first impression.

The problem with the FakeClients though is yeah, it doesnt harm too much to the individual player. But I know I'm not alone as I sit there in the server either waiting for more players to be 'tricked' or looking for a new server, that when we do get 4-6 players in the server it has never lasted more than 15 minutes. First one guy will leave because he feels violated, then another, then another.

Is there a way to lower the count to something lower so that it only bypasses the "has users playing" filter? So when 4 or 6 people really are playing people know it, and are more inclined to stay when they join, knowing what they are coming in to. After all expecting a full server slaughterhouse and getting a tumbleweed race is a big letdown :)

I understand. I will lower the fake clients on the steel server to 8? How does that sound?

[Overheal]

That sounds fierce decent of you sir. I'll go hop on and try and get a game rolling now. Thank you for your time.

[Mike]

Overheal,
I think what Derek is trying to say, is that the plugin we use has been shown effective to get players in the servers. And while it may irritate some who come in expecting a full server, it really helps get players in. And even if only 1/10 players stays thats better then 92% of the other servers out there can do. So rather then be aggravated about the lack of players, stay there and play with the other people who join. Yes its a gimmick, yes its a bit shady, but it works, and eventually when people start adding it to their favorites the fake clients won't matter.

As far as tags go, this is a very new feature that we don't have much experience with. But we will see what we can do to add some tags if you think it will help.

Edit: While I was typing this beast of a reply, I didn't notice you and derek had posted 3 or 4 replies. Yes perhaps lowering the fakeclient count could be a good option. But removing the plugin altogether would be a bad idea.

[Mike]

Also,
Welcome to XFactorGaming :)

[Overheal]

Thanks Mike, and Derek,

Aye Im still on the server but its as you say Mike: out of the 8 or so people that have logged on beside myself in the last 30 minutes, 1 stayed on for about 15 minutes to fool around, 2 more stayed on for less than 5 minutes but once the round ended they were gone :/ everyone else involved didnt seem up to playing.

I wouldnt suggest removing fake clients because it does have a proven track record but if i think of additional ways to entice people to stay on i'll let you know.

[Derek]

You can add me to steam overheal and I will give you a message when we do our daily "Fill the TF2 servers" where we get 5-6 of us to go fill our servers.

[Overheal]

oh man theres a lot of dereks on steam :D

steam id is Overheal, fire away.

[-sk-]

My SteamID (http://steamcommunity.com/id/thegreatsk/)

I love Steel and I'm always up for it. Even when we're not filling the servers, send me a message anytime you want to play and you'll have at least one other player on the map. ;)

[Overheal]

neat-O

k, for the hell of it, I launched a thread loosely related to this topic on the steampowered forums:

How do you populate an empty server? (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=730570)