The whole idea is rather strange. I would call it an attempt to measure a spherical horse in vacuum. If server is interesting to players - it is full. If server is not interesting or unfair to players - it is empty. It is as simple as that, no need to reinvent the wheel.
Players do not join empty servers so there is no point in delisting any servers based on some artificial rank which should reflect whether players like server or not because empty servers are empty already (players don't like it, remember that?) and we already have a "has users playing" option in server browser which is on for most players. You want to fight servers with fake clients or broken game experience? No problem - just give players one large button in server browser "do not show this server to me ever again" so it becomes player's decision, not some else's (we are VERY concerned with player's comfort and freedom of choice, remember that?). Don't want to bother players with extra buttons in UI and still want to fight fake clients? No problem - check number of players reported by server against number of SteamID validated by this server and if where is major difference then delist server. Personally I consider this idea as a waste of resources and potential source of problems for server operators. It may be an interesting extra bit of Steam stats but nothing more than that. Regards, Roman On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 2:14 AM, Andrew Armstrong <and...@mammoth.com.au> wrote: > Check out http://teamfortress.com/ > > > > "One of the things we've been thinking about for a while now is how to > improve the player experience around finding a server to play on" > > > > . > > > > "After kicking around some proposals, we came up with a simple system built > around the theory that player time on a server is a useful metric for how > happy the player is with that server." > > > > "The very worst servers attract a large number of connections, mostly > because they're lying in ways that make them look like a very attractive > server at all times." > > > > "Our first step in improving this part of the player experience has been to > delist all the really bad servers. The master server will simply stop giving > these to you when you fire up the serverbrowser. After that, we're going to > keep improving our ability to measure this kind of problem." > > > > This sounds very cool, and I look forward to see what Valve can come up with > in using these stats. > > > > - Andrew > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please > visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds > _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
