3 ms·

I wonder if it would help to have the match-making server track and display online stats to players looking for other players, so they would know at which times

I wonder if it would help to have the match-making server track and display online stats to players looking for other players, so they would know at which times they'd have to log in to have the biggest chance of having lots of other people to play with.

PeterisP 13y ago
This is an useful feature that may help your remaining hardcore fans continue playing after all the "normal people" have left. I.e., this will make playing 'below critical mass' somewhat bearable, but it's just mitigating a failure - the goal should be so that players don't have to think about this. A new player trying out the game won't wait until the "right time", especially one that might be suboptimal for his time zone; they'll just pick another game instead. The key factors for short waiting times are : 1. lots of players (obviously) 2. high uniformity (low variation) of gameplay modes - if you don't have huge numbers, you don't want 30 separate tiny pools each waiting for players of somewhat different games, you want a single (or a few) common pool, so you can match anyone against anyone else. Nuanced matchmaking is for cases when you can afford it w/o sacrificing waiting time. 3. Quick round length, so that other players often return to matchmaking, giving a freshly logged-in player more chances to join-in. 4. If the game allows for it, ability to join already running games helps a lot. 5. Global reach - if your game is used in many timezones, then the peak/offpeak hours even out, and a player will be able to play at 5am on a thursday because it's prime time on the other side of the world. An example on how NOT to do this is World of Tanks historical battle mode. WoT does have a significant number of players (I see ~50k online players in the middle of the night), but they have made a new mode that is useless, as it (1) has separate queues, where each is below the critical mass to actually run any games in a reasonable time; (2) requires a high number of players to start (20+), so if the pool has a dozen players, then nothing will happen, ever; (3) there are restriction on what players may join which side, which reduce the matchmaking pool even further. On the other hand, if you optimize for ease of access, then you can have a healthy community with much, much smaller number of users.
ANTSANTS 13y ago
That's a neat idea, but as someone who has played a few niche online games before, players tend to figure out on their own what the most active hours are (e.g. evening to a bit past midnight EST for English speakers).

PeterisP 13y ago

This is an useful feature that may help your remaining hardcore fans continue playing after all the "normal people" have left. I.e., this will make playing 'below critical mass' somewhat bearable, but it's just mitigating a failure - the goal should be so that players don't have to think about this. A new player trying out the game won't wait until the "right time", especially one that might be suboptimal for his time zone; they'll just pick another game instead. The key factors for short waiting times are : 1. lots of players (obviously) 2. high uniformity (low variation) of gameplay modes - if you don't have huge numbers, you don't want 30 separate tiny pools each waiting for players of somewhat different games, you want a single (or a few) common pool, so you can match anyone against anyone else. Nuanced matchmaking is for cases when you can afford it w/o sacrificing waiting time. 3. Quick round length, so that other players often return to matchmaking, giving a freshly logged-in player more chances to join-in. 4. If the game allows for it, ability to join already running games helps a lot. 5. Global reach - if your game is used in many timezones, then the peak/offpeak hours even out, and a player will be able to play at 5am on a thursday because it's prime time on the other side of the world. An example on how NOT to do this is World of Tanks historical battle mode. WoT does have a significant number of players (I see ~50k online players in the middle of the night), but they have made a new mode that is useless, as it (1) has separate queues, where each is below the critical mass to actually run any games in a reasonable time; (2) requires a high number of players to start (20+), so if the pool has a dozen players, then nothing will happen, ever; (3) there are restriction on what players may join which side, which reduce the matchmaking pool even further. On the other hand, if you optimize for ease of access, then you can have a healthy community with much, much smaller number of users.

ANTSANTS 13y ago

That's a neat idea, but as someone who has played a few niche online games before, players tend to figure out on their own what the most active hours are (e.g. evening to a bit past midnight EST for English speakers).