Server queues?

[Dancso]

Hey guys.

I thought of something that might help make all servers more populated.

Personally, I think one of the biggest obstacles for growing our playerbase is that nobody wants to join an empty server and wait inside for others to get it going.
Any brave soul that tries would often go AFK and passers by will probably leave when they realise he or she is not actually present.
I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people who'd want to play on servers that seem like the "underdogs" of our time (classic, unmodded gamemodes mostly), but refuse to wait inside for more players.

So why are things like FNF and SNS popular? Because people know when they're supposed to be attending it! The first few players are guaranteed to have others accompany them very soon.
But what if you randomly wanted to play some Possession? You'll be like "Shit, there's never anyone playing that stuff, ever!".

That being said, my idea revolves around servers tracking a "queue" of players, making lightweight communication with clients that are interested in playing on the server.
The clients wouldn't actually connect to the gameplay or have the game running at all, instead they'd notify the server of their interest, and the server would tell them whenever someone else joins the queue.
A sound notification could be played when the client's specified criteria would be met for the joined queue(s). (In example, someone could specify not to receive an alert unless at least 3 others are interested in playing)
For the record, it could tell players whenever a spot is freed up in a full server.

Server browsers could inherit such a feature as it would only seem logical to me, but zandronum itself would most probably need some additions to support this.

Let me know what you think!

[one_Two]

Yeah usually I just lurk duel servers for a while and people start piling in, so a feature like this would be good so I can know immediately when someone joins one.

[katZune]

a big idea! bravo!

[Dancso]

a big idea! bravo!

Why the sarcasm, lad?

[katZune]

a big idea! bravo!

Why the sarcasm, lad?

no its not, it is a good idea, i like more dm and ctf but there never are players and for sure this will help :D

[Ijon Tichy]

this would be a doomseeker/IDE feature, not zandronum

anyway, it's a cool idea, but I doubt it'll make it in

[Luke]

I find this a wonderful idea!

[Dancso]

Why the sarcasm, lad?

no its not, it is a good idea, i like more dm and ctf but there never are players and for sure this will help :D

Sorry about that, then. It's just I think the word "bravo" is meant to be said to someone who performs well.. and all I did was share an idea. :P

this would be a doomseeker/IDE feature, not zandronum

On the client side, of course. But each server would have to keep track of their own queue, unless the master server gets involved.. personally I'd say the former is preferable, especially since some server owners would probably want to abstain from using the feature.

"Supporting" this on the server side for zandronum would mean listening for and accepting these specific connections and communicating with them in a simple manner somewhat like how pinging works, except the connection would be kept up until the client cancels, or the server refuses it for some reason, or either the client or server "disappear".
I'm pretty sure it couldn't be done without the Zandronum devs stepping in, and of course, there could be a bunch of security risks to be aware of.

[Watermelon]

I've been working on this in the background, though I don't have an ETA.

[Cruduxy]

Ide server gadgets would've been a lot more useful in this regard if they notified me whenever the server has +3 players :p