How many players will ET:QW suppoer?


(Latrosicarius) #1

Hopefully AT LEAST 64? … maybe 128? God I hope it’s not another 16-player game. If a game this good-looking is wasted on 16 players, I’ll go insane


(carnage) #2

its been said around 12v12 to 16v16 i think is the recormended amount of players

thats not to say it wont suport more however as SD have made the good point in many inteviews about ETQW than in most online multiplayer games if u have too many players you create a leming run where there is so many explosions and random fire that your going to die as soon as you put your head up

ime sure some people would think thast briliant but i think most people prefer more orgonised chaos


(Latrosicarius) #3

Well, 16v16 would be OKAY, but it should be the server admin’s choice how many players he wants to support. SD should not limit the max players just because THEY think nobody will want to play with more.

Because I know for a fact that people love to play the 40-player servers on CS:S and they are NOT always lemming runs. The 40-player servers are ALWAYS full because it’s FUN to play with a lot of people.

Besides, most admins who host 40-player servers are clan owners and the clan members communicate with VoIP headsets to eachother for very coordenated interaction. So there is no “lemming running” associated with a server just because it has a lot of players.

That is just an excuse to do a poor job on the netcode. Don’t be a lemming and believe that they can’t do better than 32v32.


(kamikazee) #4

There are ET servers out there taking 64 players at a time. Last one I’ve seen was a baserace one, not that it’s a bad map, but you got out in the field or tried to climb out of a trench and you were MG’d, sniped or simply blown to pieces because of an airstrike you didn’t see.

It depends on the map. I’m told radar was designed for 4vs4, but it gets played with way more on big servers. If maps are now designed 16vs16, to what amount can you scale it? *3 = 32vs32?


(Latrosicarius) #5

If ET:QW is 32v32 (64), I’ll be happy. If it’s 16v16 (32), I’ll be dissapointed, but I’ll still buy the game. If it’s anything less I won’t buy it. If it’s more than 32v32, I’ll be extatic, and probably wet my pants playing it.


(Joe999) #6

i wonder how a match with 32+ people can ever be fun except everyone is ramboing, one or two go for the objective and the rest has no plan of what to do. i prefer smaller numbers as smaller numbers eg 12v12 are mostly fun. the more players the more the risk rises that you have one player who ruins the game like eg today in goldrush we had an axis who repeatedly went into the allied spawn, blocked the door and fired his panza. i wonder where the fun is in that. and this was only one single person who ruined the whole game for 25 other players. in 32+ games this isn’t different. well, if one wants 32+, they can as well play bf2 because who cares bout teamplay there? 64 players is way toooooooooooo much to enjoy. 40 players in CS? where’s the fun in that? spawn, run, get killed by some noob or aimbotter, wait 3 minutes until next round starts. the player limit has nothing to do with netcode or whatever, it’s about gameplay and fun imo. another keyword is balance: from a certain playernumber on you can’t balance a game anymore. that’s impossible.

as far as i’ve read the info about et:qw the maps will be designed for 32 players max, imo this is more than sufficient for good team- and gameplay.

cite from telefragged: Splash Damage is targeting 24 to 32 players going at it on a server.


(ouroboro) #7

hopefully if the game attracts competition, they will only be 12v12 AT THE MOST. sure, 64 players might be fun on a pub because there’d be more strogg to run over with your tank, but you will never see an organized 32 man team with real strats. notice i said REAL STRATS. before you try to argue the point, ask yourself if your definition of strategy is up to snuff.

a roster with 12 starters would be pushing it already. i suppose it would allow a team to be more lax in it’s criteria, and pick up some questionable players just to fill the roster. you could put those people in a support position, etc. but fielding 12 highly skilled players would be incredibly difficult.

also, voice comms would be a nightmare. teams would have to get pretty hardcore with their vent/ts rules, lol. “say anything not match related, and ur cut”.

the perfect size for a team game is 5v5. for some insane reason, rtcw used 7v7, then 6v6. et did the same. now there’s rumblings about going to 5v5. this would make even more sense in a game with lots of spam like rtcw/et. i hope it happens. but with ETQW the maps are apparently going to be huge, so you probably will need bigger teams. but as you go up in team size, you go up in difficulty when fielding a team. so i’d hope competitive ETQW would use as few players as possible without making the maps feel too thinly populated. 8v8? 10v10? 12v12?


(Joe999) #8

on the other hand, large player numbers can be fun, as this ET video shows (7 MB):

http://rapidshare.de/files/4436146/lofipanza.avi.html

well, at least fun for one player, i wonder what the others thought :smiley:


(Kendle) #9

^^ what ouroboro said…

The decision to play ET was easy, it was free, but BF2 has shown me that big maps just don’t work, even with vehicles to get you around. If ET:QW can’t be played 6-v-6 I might not bother with it.

/offtopic, ouroboro, are their rumblings about 5-v-5 (in ET) on your side of the pond?


(carnage) #10

Well, 16v16 would be OKAY, but it should be the server admin’s choice how many players he wants to support. SD should not limit the max players just because THEY think nobody will want to play with more.

Because I know for a fact that people love to play the 40-player servers on CS:S and they are NOT always lemming runs. The 40-player servers are ALWAYS full because it’s FUN to play with a lot of people.

Besides, most admins who host 40-player servers are clan owners and the clan members communicate with VoIP headsets to eachother for very coordenated interaction. So there is no “lemming running” associated with a server just because it has a lot of players.

That is just an excuse to do a poor job on the netcode. Don’t be a lemming and believe that they can’t do better than 32v32

well before you go saying SD cant program there own games well maby you should consider your not going to be the only person playing this game and the majority will probably want the 13v13 size so its likely that SD will try please the largest crowd. also there are lots of player who wont be able to get good enough conections to large servers

The decision to play ET was easy, it was free, but BF2 has shown me that big maps just don’t work, even with vehicles to get you around. If ET:QW can’t be played 6-v-6 I might not bother with it.

i think big maps work but the bf2 and ETQW aproach are very differnt, in bf2 its get all the flags so the player are scaterd around the map, sounds good but when your playing it sucks cos there is no teamates or no1 to kill. ETQW is said to use the “sweet spot” so all players are focused around one objective so even if they have less players than a bf2 match it could seem like there are a hell of a lot more

Besides, most admins who host 40-player servers are clan owners and the clan members communicate with VoIP headsets to eachother for very coordenated interaction. So there is no “lemming running” associated with a server just because it has a lot of players.

ok so the server owner doesnt do a leming run but everone else does, you have to look at this from everyones point of view not just the clanbase

hopefully if the game attracts competition, they will only be 12v12 AT THE MOST. sure, 64 players might be fun on a pub because there’d be more strogg to run over with your tank, but you will never see an organized 32 man team with real strats

u neva no, if it was a large organised clan, in say three squads each squad with there own voiceIP so they are not overrun by radio chatter and have the squad leaders in comunication so each squad can work individualy but manover to help each other. however it would be a hell of a job just to find two clans that big with that level of organsation, would be fun to watch though


(kamikazee) #11

Just noted this funny part to the end: better than 32v32. If I still know some basic math this is 2 * 32 = 64.
Up to the 100 players per server then?


(SCDS_reyalP) #12

For pub play, how many players is good depends almost entirely on the game and map design. To say that 32v32 is Good and 10v10 is Bad is not very meaningful. Since very little has information has been released about ET:QW gameplay, it seems a bit premature to be demanding a particular number of players.

The BF2 method of having variants of the maps for different numbers of players isn’t a bad idea (I find the BF objective system a bit blah regardless, but the basic idea of removing some of the objectives for smaller teams is sound.)

For competition, teams with more than 8 or 10 players are likely to be an organizational nightmare, so if ET:QW is to have a serious clan following, it should play reasonably well with those numbers (or less). Of course, to some extent this is something that can be done by mods or custom maps after the fact. 3v3 ET would be pretty horrid with stock etmain on the stock maps, but is quite fun with weapon restrictions and mostly custom maps.


(carnage) #13

For competition, teams with more than 8 or 10 players are likely to be an organizational nightmare, so if ET:QW is to have a serious clan following, it should play reasonably well with those numbers (or less). Of course, to some extent this is something that can be done by mods or custom maps after the fact. 3v3 ET would be pretty horrid with stock etmain on the stock maps, but is quite fun with weapon restrictions and mostly custom maps.

agreed, back in the rtcw i remeber making a very small map foucsing around one main area with several smaller areas that alow you to reach differnt levels of heigh

there were no objectives but it made for some realy fun 3v3 play, i actauly got coments that it was like a q3a style map (gameplay wise) however the added teamplay were you depended on you comrades for ammo and revives made it realy interesting and great for max lives matches

The BF2 method of having variants of the maps for different numbers of players isn’t a bad idea (I find the BF objective system a bit blah regardless, but the basic idea of removing some of the objectives for smaller teams is sound.)

i dissagree, all this does is thin out the players accross the map and creat more problems of traveling longer distances, i dont like the way that a lone enemy can suddenly take a flag at the other side of the map and you have to go all the way over to get it back, i expect ETQW sweet spot will be more predicatable so there is likely to be more killing than traveling


(ouroboro) #14

actually, i based that on what i’ve heard from your side lol. i can’t remember where but somebody from EU was making a case for it iirc. i wish i’d heard it over here though. but i figure if it happens there it’ll happen here too eventually. i hope.


(Kendle) #15

That was the reason I asked, I made a case for it recently on xfire

http://www.xfire.be/?x=article&mode=item&id=110


(bani) #16
game/Game_local.h:#define       MAX_CLIENTS                             32

i’m assuming this is a hardcoded engine limit in d3.

i dont really like servers > 30 or so players, as they tend to end up being spamtastic spawncamps. not to mention they need lots of bandwidth.


(SCDS_reyalP) #17

As I said, I’m not fond of the BF2 objective system, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. The way BF2 changes maps for smaller teams is by reducing the playable area, and remove some of the objectives/bases. So in the 16 player version of the map, not only is the area of the map you can use less, but there are less tanks etc spawned, and there might not be aircraft etc that spawn on the 64 player version.

Reduced size maps are also better to quicker rounds, which is a good thing for competition, IMO.


(bani) #18

you mean you dont enjoy 3 hour double full holds? :smiley:


(jaybird) #19

A lot of the people I play with and mod for will not play on a server with less than 30 slots. There are a good amount of players that like very organized, team-minded play, perhaps in a competition setting, but you cannot disregard those who want to get on with a ton of people and just have fun. I find on the server I run that teams of about 22 each are an optimal balance of teamplay and borderline crazy play.

To each his own, but ignoring the pub crowd may not be wise. I’m sure SD is working on good middle ground for all of us.


(Sauron|EFG) #20

Assuming ETQW won’t be subscription based (:uhoh:) I really hope at least some of the stock maps are designed for 6-8 players per team. Otherwise even a “small” server will be pretty expensive to host, and fewer servers => fewer players => shorter shelf life.

I don’t mind (or care) if it “supports” 1000 players though. :slight_smile: