False Player Counts
Imagine that you had a frustrating day today. What happened that made it frustrating? Well, it could be anything. It could have been an annoying boss, angry wife, screeching 13-year-old kids, talkative taxi drivers, cheese pies, or cows.
Whatever it is that frustrated you so much today, you turn on Team Fortress 2, because you absolutely want to kill someone, or just burn ‘em all! So you look at the server list… oh my! Look at that server called “UltraAwesomeClan’s 2fort combat” and it’s the only server right now having 31/32 players! Now, you probably don’t like 2fort for a bunch of reasons. However, the map layout allows you to go Pyro and burn at least three players, so you probably think, “Oh well, I can still get to burn people!”
So you click on it twice and wait for the server to load up. What the… it’s downloading stuff? It’s downloading some outlandish rock song, and you’ve got the suspicion that it is not going to be the only thing it’s gonna download. Guess you got to wait for a while, so you should probably read something while waiting.
Fifteen minutes later, and it’s done downloading all of the stuff. The game is about to begin! You grab your mouse, puts your other hand on the keyboard, and prepares to spew flames of RAGING DOOM! The enemy team will regret not being on your team! They will learn how to truly fear W+M1!!!
…well, if there were any.
What the…
The server starts up… And you hear silence. You hear absolutely nothing that sounds like combat. What is going on? Is everyone turtling in the intelligence rooms?
Nope, there is nobody. The only one on the server… is you. You stare speechlessly at the screen. You are standing on the bridge as a pyro, wondering where everyone is. You’re in a real-life “Ignis Solus“.
“Where is everyone!?!?”
The truth
The player count you saw? The server client lied to you. It didn’t have 31 players. It had none. I do not remember how it works again, but the admins had changed the server client into showing a certain amount of players, usually 31, when there are, in fact, zero players.
The reason the admins do that is simple. They want more players to come to the server. Basically, it’s fake advertising. They want players to play on “UltraAwesomeClan’s 2fort combat” by using this, believing the server will be popular this way.
Ironically, it will have the inverse effect on people, making it unpopular fast. Major battles will almost never happen because of a untrustworthy client. Also, in a certain thread in the Steam forums, the admin is actually complaining that people won’t play on their servers, when they basically asked for it.
There were this admin who said something about “You should have stayed at my server! It got awesome stuff!” Mr. Admin? If you had never used the false player count in the first place, people would have experienced this “awesome stuff” that you claim is in your server. Hold on… if your server is lying about it’s player count… maybe you are lying about this awesome stuff?
I am not the only one who is frustrated to no end by this. There are, right now, people on the Steam Forum who are complaining about this, and made a list of all clans that use this (recently, I discovered the moderators requested the list to be removed. But the thread maker will send the list to anyone who asks him in a PM).
I would have mentioned names, but then I am afraid one of the admins would see this, go QQ’ing, and call me a “Immature, senseless, whining monster that eats babies” and say “You have no right to say that False Player Counts is wrong” …maybe I should have mentioned names just for the reactions.
In case of these Admins reading this.
Admins of these servers. Stop fake advertising! It will just give you and your clan a bad name, and nobody will play on your servers. Do you actually want players on your servers? Remove the friggin’ False Player Count. You know… people will actually *GASP* play on a trustworthy server!
Frustration Fuel
The worst part is that anyone that joins these servers effectively wasted their time loading into the server, and maybe even downloading (Though hopefully not a ridiculous time like fifteen minutes) which is a good reason why many players (me included) are frustrated by this.
Apparently, the admins expected players filled with burning rage to sit by in their server, waiting patiently for other players to pop up. What they haven’t figured in their thick heads is that players that join 32-player servers are impatient. They just want to kill, and they’re in love with stalemates.
Oh, and don’t even think about staying anyway, because any future players that join the server WILL ragequit upon seeing that there is only one player (you). Not even if you ask nicely him to stay, with the promise to let him kill you for achievements.
Grr… QUIT!
Okay. What would you do if you found a server that promised somewhat about 30 players, but then realised the server lied to you, and had actually only zero players?
I would ragequit.
This is how the typical gamer looks like upon the realisation that he is in that kind of server, just before he types into the chat “F&%¤ your server 4ever. Hope you and your s&¤/ server die in a fire” in the hopes that the admins will eventually see his message, and then ragequits.
You should quit the server as well, and then check if the Ubercharged.net server has some players. What? Only five? …oh well, at least there are some. After all, Ubercharged.net would never lie to you…
…or would it?
That question is left as an exercise to the reader. We’re not making any guarantees. Anyway – Eldrake’s taking the stand for the first time here on ubercharged, exposing a rather painful truth.
Stumble it!
Positronic responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 4:41 pm #
Very nice! Well written and nicely elaborated.
Ben Finkel responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 4:42 pm #
Let Ubercharged.net never lie. I think a part of my soul – that poor, trusting thing of mine – would break upon that deception.
Good article, and I agree with every point. Death to false player counts!
Ben
Coded One responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 4:43 pm #
I couldn’t agree with you more. That scenario where I’m already waiting for 5 minutes downloading shitty meme soundbits and then to pop in a completely depopulated is amazingly frustrating. I’d love to get that list of clans and servers that do this.
Another annoying server setting is bots. While I like bots in some circumstances, please let me know that that is, in fact, a bot. Don’t try to hide it with a fake playername. As soon as I spectate, I’ll know it’s a bot, and if I don’t like it, I’ll quit. Just name your Bots, BOT1 for all I care.
Also: “They will learn how to truly fear W+M1!!!”
lern2pyro
Ultraexactzz responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 5:06 pm #
An easy way to avoid servers that fake Playercounts is to right click on the server and select “View Server Info”, which will bring up a little window that shows the ping, playercount, and – most importantly – the player list. If there aren’t 30 names, then there aren’t thirty players.
Mailbawx responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 6:26 pm #
I play on servers with fake player counts, but I’ve never seen one with more than 10 fake players. Plus if you view server info it gives you the names of people who played there (I saw my self up once, what a dead give away) and a few ??? names.
Venom King responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 7:10 pm #
I totally agree, shitsucks, I wonder why people cannot realize this ? I know someone from a clan that do it to get players to play, and I never managed to make him stop, well I managed to make him lower the player count at least but yeah…
pigeonreaper responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 9:03 pm #
I totally agree, fake player counts annoy me HUGELY. As you say, if I am tricked into joining one, there’s no chance that I’ll ever play that server again, so it is totally counterproductive for the server admins.
Valkyr responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 9:31 pm #
@Ultraexactzz:
It doesnt work always, sometimes the server has bots, so there are actually some names, maybe from players who played on the server some time ago, but there are no real players. In that case, look at the playtime. -1 is always a bot, 30 people with the same playtime are also bots. Only if everything is different, then there are probably some REAL players on the server.
BURN IN HELL FAKE PLAYER SERVER ADMINS
soylent robot responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 10:04 pm #
you can demospam, facestab and sniper camp all you like, sure these things annoy me, maybe make me ragequit, but theres nothing more that’ll make me rage loudly than goddamn fake server player counters!
soylent robot responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 10:06 pm #
also, # coded one
learn2take a joke
Zanpa responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 10:26 pm #
There are also servers with 15 different names, 15 differents scores, 15 differents playtimes in “server info”, and still are empty as shit.
Either of your tactics don’t (always) work.
Name responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 10:39 pm #
…oh, so THAT’s what those were. I thought I mis-clicked on some other server. Should have known better.
General Goose responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 10:57 pm #
Good article.
I once went on two Dustbowl servers in a row. Both were as empty as the heads of the server admins.
Jazmeister responded on 18 Jan 2009 at 11:36 pm #
Yeah! Fight the power!
Anonymous responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 12:21 am #
haha that article was hilarious
Zorgulon responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 12:46 am #
I’ve never experienced this issue myself, as these days I tend only to play on the UC server, or if it’s empty, one or two pubs which don’t use this.
That said, a well-written article. Welcome, Eldrake!
Sarda responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 1:41 am #
I’ve actually had 3-4 of the servers on my favorites list TURN INTO this. There was no reason for it, except that maybe the admins saw that their server was only getting use 23/24 hours per day. That combined with the fact that most of the rest of my servers now have people who teamstack constantly means I’m forced to continually search for new servers.
Toxoplasma responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 2:44 am #
Clan XFG did this, don’t know if they still do. Annoyed me to no end that the few times I actually searched for a pub server, I’d have to look at their dishonesty and lying-bastard-admins.
Corodan responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 2:48 am #
I stick collapsable chopsticks in mah eye when this happens.
It’s frustrating to go through SIX BADWATER SERVERS, AND NOT A SINGLE… yeh.
Welcome Mexican Dragon!
Jonii responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 3:51 am #
=DiG= had good servers that were nearly always full, and then they switched to this 10/32-players-shown-when-empty crap. I haven’t gone back to any of their servers since. Even when I see they are actually full, something in the back of my mind just doesn’t want to trust them, so I don’t bother.
team fortress 3 responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 4:34 am #
thanks for posting this. i always manually check player activity before i join a server, but it’s sad that i have to do this. yeah, i can’t imagine this actually improves server traffic. whose dumb idea was this, anyway? I remember it was all over the day of defeat servers back when that game was a thing.
Sypheros responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 5:45 am #
Fake server counts frustrate, yes, but ive been dealing with them for awhile now, so im used to it. You are right though, I stop using that clans servers -Q- Clan lost my support when I jumped through three of their servers in a row and all were fake counts.
Just take them off your favorites, and move on with your actual good servers.
Jesusmart TM responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 5:53 am #
Fake player counts tend to be used in 32-player servers, which I hate with a passion. Arena servers do this as well. Good article
mew4ever23 responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 6:19 am #
I really hate false server info with a passion as well. I tend to get false current map info more than bad player counts.
Theminipanda responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 7:15 am #
great article!
SAC responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 1:18 pm #
Is this really true? I wouldn’t know; I only appear on a few specific servers. Rarely will I do a pub.
Sounds annoying as hell, though. GMod I can give a little slack, but when you download crap in TF2, it had better be worth it.
Azul responded on 19 Jan 2009 at 2:58 pm #
I’ve had this happen too many times as well… and it makes me really angry when 3 or 4 servers in a row do it.
Wyatt responded on 20 Jan 2009 at 4:19 am #
The endless useless downloads, that is always the worst part. Then blap, no action!
team fortress 3 responded on 20 Jan 2009 at 7:40 am #
this is a start…
deux11 responded on 21 Jan 2009 at 5:45 am #
Now we need a post on reserved slots.
29/32?
Oh cool!
“You have been disconnected due to reserved slots”
OMGWTFBBQ
Randomtime responded on 22 Jan 2009 at 8:49 am #
Thank you – I am sick and tired of these stuipd fake servers. Please admins, just stop!
eldrake responded on 27 Jan 2009 at 6:29 pm #
@deux11.
I can see why reserved slots are frustrating… especially if it first kicks in effect once you loaded most of the server up.
However, it do have a decent reason, and it’s because it is reserved for some members, which is understandable.
False Player Counts on the other hand…
Theory responded on 30 Jan 2009 at 6:38 am #
I hate false player counts, but I love this.
joe responded on 08 Feb 2009 at 5:59 am #
I admin a server and I manage the fake clients according to the number of players. You have no idea how much time I have played 1 vs 1 trying to get a server going. I can get a server going in 20 minutes if the tool is managed properly. If I am not around, there are no fake clients.
FRED responded on 24 Feb 2009 at 1:24 am #
Joe your existence makes TF2 less fun. You and all admins that use that shit can burn in hell
Aegis responded on 05 Mar 2009 at 6:55 am #
This is why this game NEEDS a “Server Blacklist” option. If a server fakes a player count on you again, simply add it to a blacklist and it’ll never show back up in your server browser list again.
Also, Valve needs to make it so a server cannot advertise the VANILLA tag if it is running ANY mods. Tired of joined “Vanilla” servers that have players blinded, drugged, zero grav’d or exploding for no other reason than some pissy “admin” thinks it’s fun.
ubercharged.net – An open letter to server admins responded on 17 Nov 2009 at 6:37 pm #
[...] no surprise that many people hate fake player [...]
Axe Murderer responded on 18 Nov 2009 at 3:46 pm #
yep. i used to join a server with no players on it alllll the time. then i gained friends, and was now able to experience the power of the “friends” tab.
Ian responded on 22 Jan 2010 at 9:15 pm #
Thing is, A LOT of the top ranked servers use fake player count plugin
and people do not even realize it unless they join at like 4 AM or something like that.
Their servers always display 33/34 to stay on the top of the list, and when people join, even if it is non-peak time and the server has only 25 people on it people will stay.
I really hope valve does something about those servers in the near future…
desynced responded on 19 Apr 2010 at 4:47 am #
You people know its not the server admins doing this but the buggy steam server software doing this right? It’s been doing this for 2 years now and Steam has yet to make a fix. Just google “tf2 wrong player count” and look at the multiple forums/mailing lists/etc of admins trying to fix this. Do some research before blaming everything on the admins.