US players?

[Johnny_Red]

Does anybody in the continental US fly this sim? Every time I go online there are zero players in the US servers.

Not a big seller in the United States?

I'd be interested to know what percentage of the early access purchasers are based in the United states.

[dburne]

I am in the US, however not really much into multiplayer so have not logged on to check that part of the sim out yet.

[gx007]

I have the same issue too. So I fly European servers. A little laggy at times but playable.

 

It could be the theater appeals more to the home market than US. 

[caryatid23]

I'm US but really not ready for Multiplayer yet. Mostly Single player for me until I am more comfortable with the aircraft.

[oneeyeddog]

I've noticed the same Johnny Red. I also fly the EU servers as the US servers are quiet.

[otherlank]

If I'm going to fly online, I'm going to go where there are other pilots. If the EU servers are full, that's where I choose to go. Maybe I'm contributing to the problem with the lack of full US servers but the community is small enough and I want a bigger game to play in. I'm sure many US players are also joining the EU ones so they don't end up flying alone.

[Soarfeat]

Yep, it appears the European server stay a bit more active than the US, so being the glutten for punishment, I grab a can of bandaids and commence to flying and getting shot down-- regardless, it is quite fun.

I agree with 007, the European server can get a bit laggy at times.

[Volkoff]

I am in the USA and I would rather play on the US Expert server.  MJ

Edited April 27, 2014 by =69.GIAP=MIKHA

[No_85_Gramps]

I'm in the US and at some point will look at the multiplayer side of things. Just learning to work w/BOS and not sure I'm ready for MP.

[SeaQuark]

I'm in the U.S., but I won't be on multiplayer much until the Yak-1's available.

[Requiem]

I'm based in the US as well, and while I fly on the EU servers sometimes, I prefer flying on the US servers because the US servers perform better than the EU ones. I think the US servers are on better hardware or have less instances of dserver running... I'm not sure, but US servers definitely perform better.

Edited April 28, 2014 by SYN_Requiem

[FuriousMeow]

US here, just on US Expert - 7 people were on, with individuals coming and going, such as MIKHA above.

 

Considering the current alphaness and constraints due to it being only testing/seeing how far the progress has come, this is by no means a gauge on the MP numbers once BoS is at "release time."

[Johnny_Red]

US here, just on US Expert - 7 people were on, with individuals coming and going, such as MIKHA above.

 

Considering the current alphaness and constraints due to it being only testing/seeing how far the progress has come, this is by no means a gauge on the MP numbers once BoS is at "release time."

Don't get me wrong I fully understand the alpha state of the game. I just think k it's unfortunate that the U.S. players fly the EU servers. I myself am guilty of leaving the U.S. servers empty for the more populated EU servers. 

I.m glad there are plenty of US players. Bodes well for the future

Edited April 28, 2014 by Johnny_Red

[FuriousMeow]

I meant that in general the numbers are low online. I'm fairly certain that's due to the mid-way development of the game. I've jumped on the Expert EU server once, but I've never seen more than 9 people on any of the servers when I've looked, and I only jump on during a small window on the East Coast timezone. During the week if I have time, its usually around 8 or 9PM and only for an hour. I'll bet once scores/stats are tallied, longer mission durations are present, wider mission variables are available, then we'll see a surge of online activity.

Edited April 28, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[LastRightsXIII]

Hello all, S!

Hope we can all get on at the same times. 

To those that don't quite feel they are ready, I can't think of a better or funner way than MP to learn the ropes. No one here is going to hold it against you for shooting us down. I've been working over time on evasion

I hope to see you soon.

I'm on and off throughout the afternoon and evenings. pst

Edited April 28, 2014 by LastRights13

[otherlank]

I meant that in general the numbers are low online. I'm fairly certain that's due to the mid-way development of the game. I've jumped on the Expert EU server once, but I've never seen more than 9 people on any of the servers when I've looked, and I only jump on during a small window on the East Coast timezone. During the week if I have time, its usually around 8 or 9PM and only for an hour. I'll bet once scores/stats are tallied, longer mission durations are present, wider mission variables are available, then we'll see a surge of online activity.

 

During prime playing hours, I'll regularly see 20+ players per side on the EU servers

[KodiakJac]

I'm in the U.S. and have dabbled on the U.S. MP servers but want to do more than dueling so I'm looking forward to the SP campaign.  If they add mission based or campaign play in MP I'll be there!

Edited April 28, 2014 by Bucksnort

[ShamrockOneFive]

I'm from Canada so I'd probably play on the US servers... but I haven't had a chance to get online so far. I'll be sure to check it out sometime.

[WindyCityZeke]

From the US, and I jump in as much as I can.  I noticed that online flyers were scarce this weekend.  Could be that they were elsewhere? I know another IL2 game had another patch released this week.

[Feathered_IV]

I prefer to play on the US server if at all. The European crowd to a man seem obsessed with vulching and griefing over the opposing base. Players routinely exit a game to avoid getting bested by somebody else, then reconnect straight after. The conduct in general is extremely poor and it seems like the product is completely wasted on your average MP player. Sure, they all seem to like discussing the finer points of tactics and flight models on the forums, but it all seems to go completely out the window once they hit the Start button. I'm really beginning to think that multiplayer is going to be the death of flight simulations.

[Kleinburger]

I am also a US player but find myself joining EU servers despite the occasional lag spike for more people to shoot down. The main thing that has me not playing more MP though is the 25min mission time thats only enough time for 2 or 3 sorties from the air start location.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Kleinburger

[KodiakJac]

I'm really beginning to think that multiplayer is going to be the death of flight simulations.

MP dogfighting seems to be the gameplay style most promoted by developers lately, but less popular with players than great MP and SP campaign/mission play historically. I think flight simmers are for the large part history buffs who are looking for more than a QMB. I hope BoS is developed with this in mind. I only owned a few planes in RoF until Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator came out at which point I bought all RoF products. Pat said it took him about 1000 hours to develop PWCG...not unrealistic for 1C to produce something similar for BoS.

[Feathered_IV]

Two or three sorties in 25 min? Wow. I can only manage two-thirds of a sortie.

[=AVG=Zombie]

US here as well, I am stuck flying the EU servers for lack of players, when there is people in the US servers it is always 4 or 5 in 109's and 1 or 2 in Laggs..... at least the EU servers seem to stay balanced... I agree 25 min is not enough, but do understand they are collecting data..

[Capt_Hook]

I've jumped on the US servers in later weekend prime time and occasionally the weekday when it's 8-10 people on, and that's enough to have some fun. Most of the weekend seems dominated by the EU servers, but some of that is how the time zones work. The EU players are up and filling the EU server very early from a NA perspective, and then when the NA players decide to jump on they see a heavily populated EU server and go that way, and there's not enough draw with the current test implementation to get enough people playing to really populate the NA server.

Once we get a better balanced planeset (any minute now, I hope...) that will hopefully change quite a bit. I think the LaGG vs. F4 matchup is the biggest single obstacle to most people getting motivated to play a pure dogfight server.
 

 

The European crowd to a man seem obsessed with vulching and griefing over the opposing base. Players routinely exit a game to avoid getting bested by somebody else, then reconnect straight after. The conduct in general is extremely poor and it seems like the product is completely wasted on your average MP player.

 

That's not an EU issue, it's a map issue.  If the US servers had 40 people on that tiny, short map you'd see the same behavior.  It's literally designed to promote just that style of gameplay.  Once the larger Stalingrad map is available and the base AAA is tuned a bit better then I'd expect to see that kind of play drop off considerably.  Once we get to release and get some dedicated servers going with stat tracking (like Warclouds, Spits vs 109s, etc.) to where there's actual longer-term consequences to how one flies and ground-pounders can see the results in stats and server rankings then we'll see gameplay improve to at least where it is in 1946 and better.  That probably won't be around till near the end of the year, though. 

 

Even in a small, niche community like ours you HAVE to build the game to push the kinds of behavior you want with the game design itself.  It won't magically happen out of the goodness of people's hearts... multiplayer is and always has been about competition, and people play to win.  We know how to do it... we've done it well for many years now with the IL2 engine.  It'll just take some time and getting the right kinds of tools into the hands of the community.

[Grifter]

Guilty as charged. I have found I just don't have the time to set aside in order to keep up with the necessary Alpha changes, learning to fly the sim ,etc. So, I am not participating as much as I thought I would last fall. My schedule at work isn't helping matters either. 

 

In a nutshell, I find myself swimming in a glut of good games with no where near enough time for all of them. Oh, to be in my 20's with all that idle time again! (not sure I'd like the no money bit though...)

[71st_AH_Hooves]

Let me preface this with the fact i know certain aspects are being controled simply for testing purposes. That being said:

 

Im a US player as well, but wont be back at my PC for another month. Work has me away. But when i was home, the big limiter for the us side was the 25 min servers. And the team balancing. It took nearly the whole round to get enough players in the server so that i could fly with my friends. And then the round would end and the server population would go back to 3 or 4. Longer rounds would fill the server. And a less restrictive team balancing would allow more friends to play together.

 

Im hoping the game is released by the time i get home. So i can fly unrestricted with my squad.

Edited April 28, 2014 by SYN_Hooves

[Brano]

Hmm,I found myself several times not willingly switching to US server as EU was full of americans

[VBF-12_Snake9]

MP dogfighting seems to be the gameplay style most promoted by developers lately, but less popular with players than great MP and SP campaign/mission play historically. I think flight simmers are for the large part history buffs who are looking for more than a QMB. I hope BoS is developed with this in mind. I only owned a few planes in RoF until Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator came out at which point I bought all RoF products. Pat said it took him about 1000 hours to develop PWCG...not unrealistic for 1C to produce something similar for BoS.

+1  History and playing games, my two loves.  This game combines both. 

[ShamrockOneFive]

Let me preface this with the fact i know certain aspects are being controled simply for testing purposes. That being said:

 

Im a US player as well, but wont be back at my PC for another month. Work has me away. But when i was home, the big limiter for the us side was the 25 min servers. And the team balancing. It took nearly the whole round to get enough players in the server so that i could fly with my friends. And then the round would end and the server population would go back to 3 or 4. Longer rounds would fill the server. And a less restrictive team balancing would allow more friends to play together.

 

Im hoping the game is released by the time i get home. So i can fly unrestricted with my squad.

We found with the Battlefields1 server that the ideal time limit was somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes depending on the scenario. That gives everyone enough time to join and be comfortable for a good playing session. Not everyone likes the long time limit but compromise as it was... say 75 minutes would be a great spot for the servers to be set to. Instead of 25 minutes. Unless there is a testing scenario that requires them to keep the time short or the server runs into a memory issue or something... at the Alpha stage I'll accept anything.

[=FI=Blue2]

Another US player here, also guilty of flying mostly EU servers when I've flown MP, which hasn't been as often as I'd like due to travel & other RL stuff lately.  Generally agree with the comments above & thought my fellow north Texas dweller, Nervous Energy, summed it up prettty well on timing, planeset, maps and scenario design.  I'm confident overall activity will rise nicely with time as the sim keeps growing.

 

In the meantime, you guys with more time to play - or ability to plan ahead for it - might try posting a thread here and proposing a time block or 2 to "pile on the US servers" at some point over the weekend.  Can't speak for anyone else, but if I knew i could expect a decent crowd during a given time period, I'd be more inclined to at least try & plan on showing up then rather than more randomly.  Just a thought.

 

As for server mission times, I really think that map size, layout, and mission goals should determine mission length most of the time, and it would be ideal to have a good variety of all the above to choose from down the road.  Also agree that 60-90 min is best in most cases.  My bladder, butt or both are usually ready for a break by then!     However, I've played campaign missions I thought could have used even more time.

[Uriah]

US here.

[oneeyeddog]

It seemed like the US Expert server was getting more visitors just as I had to sign off last nite, around 9:30 EST. 

[BraveSirRobin]

I'm in the US but I've actually been getting better ping times on the EU server recently.

[6./ZG26_Gielow]

They all have been shot down by Luftwaffe boys  

Edited April 29, 2014 by JG62Gielow

[=RkSq=Hulkbeard]

US here, I tend to get on about twice a week but usually not till around 12am pst.  The server (US Normal) is usually pretty dead but picks up a little after my wing man and I are in there for 30 minutes or so. Hopefully they will be able to increase the time limitation soon, but even with it I have had some phenomenal sorties. 

[otherlank]

It seemed like the US Expert server was getting more visitors just as I had to sign off last nite, around 9:30 EST. 

Inspired by this thread, I logged into the empty US expert server last night.  Within 5 minutes there were 5 others, yourself included.  I think there are many US players that are just waiting to see other players on a server before joining.  Maybe now I'll join and just wait to see who shows up.

 

It seems easy to keep a server populated once it gets going...it's the initial players that are hard to come by.

Edited April 29, 2014 by otherlank

[kongxinga]

Would anyone be interested if we had a way to coordinate or at least see the number of "shadow" US players? I have the same problem here and in the many other niche games. I see an empty lobby, but I know and this thread seems to support that there are players out there who are ready to join or play at a moment's notice. Been away from WT for a while but  I remember it was also a problem there. The Simmers often had ridiculously long waits (or timeouts) at certain dry periods, and had to jump into RUS or EU servers to get a game, while mouseaimers could get a game anytime. Mind as well let everyone jump in when critical mass is reached and save the wait.

 

I am asking because I was asked to test some app that aims to do this , and I am lobbying the dev team to release it to test on small niche communities like flight sims, since there is a need, whether to get warm bodies to fill up a server or warm bodies for formation flying. Going to let you guys know how that goes, but PM me if this sounds interesting and you want in so I can have something to show indications of interest.

[=LD=Rulo]

Soth america, therefore, my ping will be more or less the same to US or Europe. I just pick the one with more players.

 

Rulo

[Original_Uwe]

Lots of players on just now, but no one on TeamSpeak. Makes it pointless