[crossfire] Metaserver reporting and accuracy

[Alex Schultz]

Robin Redeker wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 11, 2006 at 11:15:18AM -0500, Rick Tanner wrote:
>> Per the feedback from other people on IRC and other means, I've put
>> together a list of requirements that people want to see with the
>> metaserver reporting.
>>
>> So, with this post I am asking public server admins to cooperate on the
>> following:
>>
>> * All information must be as accurate as can reasonably be (IP Address,
>> hostname, number of players, server version, etc.)
>
> I wondered: maybe wizards and afk people should be not listed as 'number of players'?
>
> Because the number that interestes the people who look at the 'number of players'
> is the number of active players. A server with 10 afk users is as active
> and interesting as a server with 0 users.
>
> Also wizards should not be reported, because a dungeon master that is administrating
> the server is not an 'active' player in means of interacting with him.
I would agree with that, however in my experience, very few players
actually make use of the afk flag. This may have changed since I was
actively playing though, back when I was actively playing, the default
who command output would not include afk status, which it now does, so
perhaps players are using it more now.
Either way, perhaps another thing that would be good on servers, would
be automatically setting the afk flag if they are idle for more than a
certain amount of time, and if they become active again, it will unset
the afk flag, unless they turned it on manually. IMHO that behavior
would make not including afk players in the count, much more useful.

I would agree that most players won't really be caring for the player
count including the number of online wizards. One interesting idea
though, is perhaps in addition to a player count not counting those,
perhaps the metaserver could also be sent the number of afk players, and
number of wizards, as though active players is usually what most people
would care about, the amount of afk players and wizards are also
indicators of the level and type of activity on the server that some
players might find interesting.

Alex Schultz