What do you look for in a server?

I mentioned in another post that this might be a good thread, so here it is!

What do you look for when you join a server?

When picking servers, I check the scores of current players. If it's a map with the large possibilty for air dominance, I look for a few players on one team with a much larger score than anyone else (especially US side). Makes me think I'll get bombed/chaingun raped into the stone-age. . .look for a different server.

A large map with few players AND helicopters/jets. Forget it.

Is it playing Kubra dam? Keep looking 🙂

A bunch of lone wolves, or alternately 7 squads with one or two players apiece, are a bad sign. I'll join a few to see if anyone wants to play well with others. If not, new server.

A squad leader that spends the whole map as a sniper, or in a jet, or in a tank with another guy, is useless to me. New squad.

Squad doesn't travel together, I'm gone (although I'm frequently guilty of taking off when I hear a vehicle NEARBY that needs my attention). Its really tough as AT keeping up - shortest sprint in the game. If I'm not keeping up with the squad, I look to see if there's much I can do to change that. If not, new squad.

I LIKE to see at least one medic and one support in a squad. . .one other AT guy is helpful as well, especially on heavy armor maps. The medic and support guy must bother to heal/revive/give ammo.

What are YOUR red-flags?

:goodpost:

The first thing that I do is check the "Favorites" that I have. There are a few servers that I will pay a visit to first prior to general pubbing. After that, I tend to look for servers that have 20-40 players on them. I have trouble with the really big servers when they get full.

If the ping is good on a particular server then I check the map and if it is something that I like (generally avoid wake and Cleansweep only) then I look at the scores and the teams. If it doesn't look like it is at the end of a round and that one entire side is made up of a clan, then I join. I try to avoid joining squads with a sniper or pilot as the squad leader and if there are no other good candidates, I make my own.

If playing a mod though, most all of those things go out the window due to the difficulty in finding active servers in most mods.

Been thinking about playing just small maps for a while for kicks. Some of the ones that are totally air dominated in the 32 and 64 player versions become much more fun at the 16 player size - Dalian Plant for example is much, much better when small.

I look for a good ping and enough players 10+ only. I also try to keep under 50 players and I prefer city maps and 32 player maps. beyond that I go wherever. I also check my favorites first

If I'm waiting on you guys to join via xfire, then I'll try to find a server with under 100pings, autobalance turned off, and make sure there are plenty of empty spots still avail.

If by myself, medium maps, 20-40 players, ranked, and definately no kirkland loaded at the moment. I'm just sick of that map 🙂 Also prefer any air map over any ground map. Also I kinda prefer 20 players at times just so I have a chance to get equipment like tanks or choppers, forget it on a 64player server.

Not to cool with mods yet, but unranked doesn't bother me otherwise....
Yah, I know, this team loves mods and such, guess that makes me the odd man out.

I rarely play by myself to give it that much thought.

I usually play with you guys and we find servers together.

There are times though where I do have preferences. The one thing I do like is auto balance OFF. I also HATE playing against team mates. I have much more fun when we all play on the same team. One thing I always hated about Lexx, sorry man, is he usually goes to the opposite side just to kick my ass. 😉
The main reason I am in a clan is to have guys to play with as a team.

Size wise I admit I like both. Some times I really like 50+ players just because you have a lot of action and do not feel like you have to do everything yourself. I can stay back at a flag and defend and know there are others getting other flags.

Then I have games where I like it smaller, 20-32 players. As Lexx said I can get aircraft better and there is a lot more work to do. You usually cannot stay and just defend one flag the entire game.

I like all the maps so have no real preference there. There are some I like better and I do sometimes get sick of Karkand.

I do not like game where there are a lot of lone wolves or squad want to be’s.

See I have as much fun killing my buds as I do being on your team. There is nothing quite a satisfying as knifing a clan mate.

I think I knife you more than anyone bubba.

Indeed but it seems I get you alot too.

:duel:

Love that new "smilie"

So, what I look for in a server. I like a server that has nice subtle curves, I prefer an ATI, typically looking for a 9800 or newer. I get all revved up when I see a server with 2 Gb of Ram. I prefer dual xeons, but I have never turned down a nice Opteron. While most guys like a server with Windows, there is just something about a finely tuned Linux distro that does me in....

Ping first.. then I check the name of the server and who runs it.. in my experience of play I've come to know many of the clans out there.. which ones tend to be more of a joke then a force to be recokened with.. as well as the server rules.. I have a failry good idea which servers have rules their own members disregard.. but punish others for any infraction.. I stay out of the EA servers as unlike with the '42 EA servers the BF2 ones seem to be laggy for me..Current score usually doesnt matter.. my choice of side to play is usually determined by which ever side recieves the most action without relying on others.. I play US on Sharqi because they can lose all flags.. MEC will keep on coming no matter what.. It's fairly easy for MEC to win that map.. Operation Clear Sweep.. I do just the opposite because it's harder to nail down the whole Island then it is waiting for the US to travel via limited sources..

post-padding. . . 😀

Bubba. . . :scratch:

Oh dear god, what bad games tonight. . . almost everything I hate! Little to no squad work, ppl not paying attention to what's happening around them (or with the flags). I was on a couple servers with the classic "7 squads of 1 or 2 ppl" syndrome. On Wake island, we had ppl ON the island (as US) and not squadded up, so I just watched 'em try to take flags by themselves(on the minimap)

No damn plan, no cohesion, no logic, nothing but lone-wolf attempts to pwn. . .and I won't even go into the server that had the anti-semitic comments flying . . .from the ppl I think were admins (their names were orange)

Everclear, you play a lot. Can you recommend a few servers? I have two I can depend on a reasonable game from - and they're not always populated.

Bubbaspanky wrote:Love that new "smilie"

So, what I look for in a server. I like a server that has nice subtle curves, I prefer an ATI, typically looking for a 9800 or newer. I get all revved up when I see a server with 2 Gb of Ram. I prefer dual xeons, but I have never turned down a nice Opteron. While most guys like a server with Windows, there is just something about a finely tuned Linux distro that does me in....

Get a room!

DocJon wrote:post-padding. . . 😀

Shenanigans!!! Shenanigans!!!

This just proves you have an abnormal point whore mentality. 🙂

DocJon wrote:
Oh dear god, what bad games tonight. . . almost everything I hate! Little to no squad work, ppl not paying attention to what's happening around them (or with the flags). I was on a couple servers with the classic "7 squads of 1 or 2 ppl" syndrome. On Wake island, we had ppl ON the island (as US) and not squadded up, so I just watched 'em try to take flags by themselves(on the minimap)

No damn plan, no cohesion, no logic, nothing but lone-wolf attempts to pwn. . .and I won't even go into the server that had the anti-semitic comments flying . . .from the ppl I think were admins (their names were orange)

Where was that? With GRBs? Sorry I couldn't get back on guys, alot going on lately.

Paladin wrote:

DocJon wrote:post-padding. . . 😀

Shenanigans!!! Shenanigans!!!

This just proves you have an abnormal point whore mentality. 🙂

Thank you, Mr. Battatanigans.

Well, I AM the Shenanigans Coordinator. . . or maybe I just double-posted and couldn't delete one. . .MAY-be.

I think I have a perfectly healthy point-whore mentality. . .when I start jumping in front of clan-members vehicles so I can punish them and steal their gold/silver/bronze, then worry 🙂

Hey. . .that's not bad. . . hmmm. . .

Bubbaspanky wrote:

Where was that? With GRBs? Sorry I couldn't get back on guys, alot going on lately.

Oh no, that was after the UT games. I was flying solo, so to speak.

I wanted to get back on, but didn't dare as we had some kids puking and awake at all hours. Should be good to go for tonight though.

all right! I lone singled it onto a server last week to see if I could get some points and I seen the exact same thing on the exact same map. :-(

whats that Raze?

sorry was was running on a couple hours sleep yesterday. I meant to say that I jumped on a server earlier yesterday before the crew poped up in TS to try and get a couple points. I seen the same things that Doc did.

DocJon wrote:Oh dear god, what bad games tonight. . . almost everything I hate! Little to no squad work, ppl not paying attention to what's happening around them (or with the flags). I was on a couple servers with the classic "7 squads of 1 or 2 ppl" syndrome. On Wake island, we had ppl ON the island (as US) and not squadded up, so I just watched 'em try to take flags by themselves(on the minimap)

No damn plan, no cohesion, no logic, nothing but lone-wolf attempts to pwn. . .and I won't even go into the server that had the anti-semitic comments flying . . .from the ppl I think were admins (their names were orange)

I have yet to chime in....

- sub 100 ping.
- More than 50% full
- I prefer clan based servers because the competition tends to be slightly better than the average public server.
- I prefer 32 player maps with 40 slots.

Atomm wrote:I have yet to chime in....

- sub 100 ping.
- More than 50% full
- I prefer clan based servers because the competition tends to be slightly better than the average public server.
- I prefer 32 player maps with 40 slots.

I never mentioned ping, but that's obviously #1. I sort on ping, and go down the list until I find one that works for my other criteria.

I can go with 64 player maps, but I think your 32 player with 40 slots preference is a good one. I've had some great games under those conditions. I look for them to be almost full, however, unless there are a group of us.

I don't worry about competition. . .generally, I don't run rampant over the other players 🙂 I worry about cooperation. The game is set up so that you really need a squad that cooperates to be successful, and that's what is so hard to find.
I had a couple good games last night. Mashtuur & Sharkai (sp?) maps are my fav's and I played them back to back. :headbang:

I had to lone-wolf them, however. On Sharkai I did my usual "defend the surveillance post" (2nd flag from the MEC), with occasional trips to the TV station and the city entrance. I got my ground defense ribbon. A couple guys hanging out there really helps keep the MEC from marching across the map, especially if ppl remember to use the TOW when the tanks and APC's roll in/by. People REALLY underuse these things. Even as anti-tank, I used them first, and used the AT as a follow-up shot. The TOW is more powerful than AT. I even took out 3 snipers with the TOW!

One guy joined my squad, gave me a "No Sir!" when I used the map to give orders to defend that location. . .a few minutes later, it was gone. 🙁
We got it back though, and kept it most of the two maps.

Cooperation & working as a squad=good. I've visited 2 or 3 servers looking for squad cooperation some nights. I didn't bother last night, though, and it worked out OK.

Bubba and I had a small squad working pretty well last night playing some SF. Biggest issue was that I kept having to go AFK to check on my monsters and that kept throwing me off. We had a couple of random players join the squad and really want to work together and that can work very well.

We need to start trying to remember the guys that join up in our squads and want to work together (the cool ones anyhow) and then try and get them to come here. In other words, use the squads as a recruiting tool.

One thing we could try is to tell them we have fun playing and enjoyed the teamwork, then ask if they have XFire. If so, get their XFire name and let them know you'll add them so they can meet up again. After a few times doing this, then maybe bring up the website.

I only say this because most people will be interested, but not follow through. If we get their XFire name, it allows us to send them invites and let them know about upcoming events.

If they don't have XFire, then give the website.

Good idea

Doc you wanna invite our squad leader from Sat night... you know the guy who kept yelling??

Bubbaspanky wrote:Good idea

Doc you wanna invite our squad leader from Sat night... you know the guy who kept yelling??

Well, I applaud the guy's intensity, but I think he needs a new keyboard, so he's out of action for awhile. Actually, I think he needs to buy them by the case. . .

(Saturday night's squad leader, in case anyone missed Bubba's reference in the other thread)
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/hissyfit.html

LOL!