Count how many people "want" to join a server

[kaffaljidhma]

Idea: Basically, have a status option that says you want to play on a specific server, and have the server total that information so people will join when they see that enough people want to play.


This started out as a letter, so the style might be a bit weird for a topic.

I am part of a loose online gaming community that regularly gets together to play games such as Team Fortress 2 and the like on community-owned private or custom servers. Our community is forum based and comprised of people in variable timezones, stages of life, and tastes; therefore games most successfully arrange spontaneously and not by steamgroup appointment (which we also have). At times between high interest in whatever game of choice, we find it hard to organize a substantial amount of players to get a decent game of TF2 going, because the only manageable way to show interest in a quick scrim is to join the empty server and sacrifice your time to show others monitoring the server status that we might get a full game going. Idling in the server to make the player count more appealing to others who have settled for less desired games or playing groups also introduces dyssynchrony as people are notified that the game is on (most of us have maxed out our friends lists), and people only interested in playing moderately full servers often leave while the idle players are contacted or others are invited to join.


Because there are many people who don't have the time or interest to play in the sparsely populated community server, I feel that there are a lot of missed opportunities for games because this player reservoir can only be tapped if there is some sort of guarantee or notification that the server will be filled. This disorganization has led to a few of our paid servers being closed down due to inactivity, which I suspect also has something to do with players queuing up for the first filled server instead of filling the others because they didn't know how many other people were also waiting.


Therefore, it would be nice if there was an "intention quota" feature on the server join dialog box that said something to the effect of "Please notify me/join immediately if at least ___ other people have checked this box" to signal a noncommital intent to join the game. That way, if the main server is empty, people can check how many are logged on AND are willing to devote time to play a fully populated game without having to join the server (usually leaving their current public or solo game) and check back frequently (assuming there is no idle kick code). If the main server is full, players can check the "notify me" box on backup servers and drop out of the queue for the full server to join the backup one in the full knowledge that several others will do the same. It would really help give the most bang for the buck for communities that invest in their own dedicated servers.


It may not even have to be in the server join dialogue, and can be a realtime survey on the steamgroup page (that is auto-canceled for the individual vote when they successfully join the server), but that's getting into a level of semantics and design better left to experts.



An additional simpler feature that I've heard requested is simply to enable players to make their steam API current game data collated within the steamgroup into a tally members can access: 16 members are playing TF2 on 192..., 25 members are playing TF2 on 205...., 25 members are playing CS on 293...., 12 members are playing Saint's Row, and 42 members are playing non-steam games (click to show input game names). It's an opt-in situation for people who feel comfortable sharing their "currently playing" information with all the people in their steamgroup in an easily interpretable format.



The intention quota and the now playing summary are two ideas best suited for gaming communities with large libraries, maxed friends lists, and no rigid gaming routine.


Let me know if this has already been suggested/rejected, as I am unsure how to search for it with generic keywords. Also let me know if there are third party solutions available, since I believe my community would be interested.

Also let me know if there's a better title for this, since I feel like it's a common problem deserving of a buzzphrase.