Where is everyone??

[gutterhead]

There's NOBODY playing on multiplayer! I think there are only 7 servers and only 3 have people in them. I thought the PC was the better choice. Even with the problems, I bet there are thousands on XBL.

What is this? :(

What happened to the community? What happened to MP?

COme on people. Get in the game! :flame:

:woot: It's an awesome game!

[JigenD]

I registered to ask this very question. Right now I only see 8 retail Prey servers, the rest are demos (which aren't listed in retail Prey)...

What's going on? This is the worst multiplayer launch I've ever seen. I've seen even horrible, horrible games have hundreds of times this number of people.

Is it because of Master Server problems? It just makes no sense to me...

[d3ad connection]

It could be people playing Single Player, like me(I'm replaying it)

[gutterhead]

Nah. Everyone tries out the MP game. This is WIERD.

[Tyranny]

What's going on? This is the worst multiplayer launch I've ever seen. I've seen even horrible, horrible games have hundreds of times this number of people.

Is it because of Master Server problems? It just makes no sense to me...

I totally agree, this IS the worst multiplayer launch in my 8 years of gaming

[avatar_58]

It seems the official servers are still only supporting the demo. Give it a few days and I'm sure it will be just like it was. ;)

[ADM]

Also you have to remember that not everyone has got the game yet. Basically only people in the US do and the UK and Australia (and their surrounding areas) should be getting it in the next day or two.

[Travis]

i went to see if anyone was playing it twice and no one was whatsoever.

[EuroBoss]

Without the Linux server files this game will die very soon. I will not buy it without Linux dedicated server support.

[gutterhead]

This sucks.

No TDM servers either...

I think I made a mistake getting the PC version. :doh:

[Nessus]

I couldnt believe it myself, the demo had tons of people playing and there is almost no one playing Prey at all. Lets see what happens in a few days.

[avatar_58]

Some of the official servers have returned. :)

[seithon]

Also if your wondering why the offical servers are empty thats because alot of people myself included cant seem to get PB to work >.>

[Sagi_y19]

Enter evenbalance.com to steup PunkBuster.

[pmacarthur]

Punkbuster:
When trying to join a punkbuster game you need to enable punkbuster on the client side (your side).

1) Select the game in the game browser
2) In the "Selected Server / Summary" window there should be a Punkbuster selection area
3) Switch PunkBuster to "Enabled"

Also, make sure you chose to install punkbuster when the game first installed. This is an optional component due to their End User License Agreement.
If your punkbuster selection switches back to Disabled, check the console for why it failed. (Control-Alt-Tilda~ to get to console).

Servers:
From my machine I see 27 servers as of right now. If you don't see close to that number I'd like to hear from you. Make sure your firewalls are allowing the traffic through (disable windows firewall or other software firewall to test).

[seithon]

Heya :)
I see the human head servers, some of them all with a ping of about 450 and about 3 others usually.

Also when playing the game lags horribly online, to the point where i cannot play it :(

[pmacarthur]

Where are you playing from? Can you ping the servers and see what kind of ping you get outside of the game? (IP should be listed in the details tab of the Selected server window of the multiplayer browser)

[picard17]

As i said ages ago the single player may be nice but the multiplay of the game would be a bust not enough modes {CTF,Domination,Instagib, etc etc}to get large communitys going and clans interested which are the life blood of multiplayer games. As it is at the moment you have DM and TDM which are fine for a 10 min kick about now and then but not much else.
When releasing a game with multiplayer option you have to offer as much as is viably possible to compete with the other multiplayer games out there and drag players from those games to your own. Also lack of dedicated servers files for download for either Windows or Linux upon release is a big mistake, what about all those GPS's out there that host multiplayer servers for games. This is why stand alone server files are supplied so those gsp's can actually host the servers.To add to this the problem of the master server going up and down has made the multiplay option come in far under par in todays massivly competative multiplayer market.
If you want a game for single play its fine.
If you are a multiplayer hard core player then its not for you.

[Ydiss]

It's out in the UK, got my copy yesterday. Haven't had the net at home temporarily and just checked it tonight and there's 3 servers with players on (and only one pings reasonably and that's full 8/8).

A mate of mine that got it yesterday as well said it's been very quiet.

Traditionally the first few days of any MP launch are the busiest, not the other way around.

From what I'm reading here it may be down to players just not being able to join/list servers.

To the last poster, it has nothing to do with the style of MP. Not everyone wants CTF and CS; I've personally had far too much of round-based games and want a nice and pure DM game. Prey offers that and is very fun (based on the demo) but the extremely low player population is similar to when the demo servers went down a couple of weeks back.

I'll check it out again when I get my internet back on my own PC (this one's horrible, no point playing Prey on it).

It'd be an incredible shame if this continues, Prey's a breath of fresh air and a lot of fun online. I highly doubt this is due to lack of interest, particularly as the demo was very popular.

[picard17]

Of course its a lack of interest there just isent enough offerd by MP to bring the competative clans/comunitys in. These are the ones that fork out the money for good servers to run at proper gsp's rather than trying to run it from your own pc. These are the ppl that make a lot of the mods. These are the ppl that run and compete in ladders and tournys. If you cant pull a lot of these players into a game then that game wont do well in multiplay period.
Ive been playing games online for over ten years now and have seen games come and go and what makes a MP do well and what dousent.

[DKo5]

I'd have my server back up again if they'd release the standalone dedicated server binaries :(

[bummerman]

Right now you have 24 ppl playing on 8 US servers. It doesn't look likw we are going to get the developer support needed to make this game viable, hope I'm wrong. I think the maps are great minus the vehicle maps, which are best reserved for objective based game modes. The fact that they let the master server go dormant for three days without a word of explanation before or after turns out to have been a telling sign me thinks.WHy wasn't a Standalone server provided with the game?I'm trying to limit or end voting on my server and cannot get a response about why the commands don't work,etc,etc

[seithon]

Sent you an Email but just noticed this.. I'm in ireland, The human head servers, presumably in the states seem to average abotu 400+ for me, the ones that are hosted in germany are about the same. (2kgames)
I can see some but not all of the servers..

[Randum]

yeah im not understanding why its not going off, there must be more people who have bought it!?

In any case, everyone should idle in the #preyscrim channel, and just start getting the community going. we all enjoy playing multi, and it is a blast, great DM play.

I would love to see CAL pick this up. So come on the server GAMESURGE and join #preyscrim to get P R E Y multi up and going, i will make a new thread too

[Zogger]

As i said ages ago the single player may be nice but the multiplay of the game would be a bust not enough modes {CTF,Domination,Instagib, etc etc}to get large communitys going and clans interested which are the life blood of multiplayer games

HL2DM

[SyntaxN]

It´s really strange, the demo mp had enough players...
I can´t see many servers either, maybe 30 or so (with Punkbuster enabled) and atm there are only 10 people playing :(

[SuicideRUN]

I can't believe how empty the online is. I thought the MP was great, but where are the people???

[seithon]

Like i said before.. MP is bugged right now, it doesnt play to well :/ Lag and soem peopels server lists are empty or wont update right...
the demo seemingly didnt have this problem

[Novelle]

I dont think that the Prey (PC) will ever get that many players..

Nothing wrong with the game, its great fun, but the times when there were lot of people playing DM games are history. Only UT2004, and Quake 3 can attract enough players to form a large multiplayer community because both games ignored the singleplayer, and were only made for multiplayer.

Quake 4 put more emphasize to Singleplayer and look what happened, Quake 4's MP is dead.

Tribes Vengeance did the same thing for a franchise that pioneered many elements of MP shooters of today, and it killed whole franchise. Sadly.

Doom 3? Did someone even try that MP game ever? I did not.

Its not only matter of game lacking features and content to keep players interested. Most of the people who purchased Prey, purchased it because of its singleplayer game, they will play the SP game but will most likely never touch the MP game. Prey have been marketed to people who want great SP experience, while games like ET:Quakewars will be marketed only as a multiplayer game. Thats how it is.

[KamisoriX]

I think most poeple, including me, have a hard time finding the PunkBuster setting. It took a while for me to finally see it. Why didn't they put it in the MP Option beats me but that's where it should be. Ah well, just had a nice lil DM but I'm more a TDM type...so hopefully there will be more people playing the MP part soon. :D

[FireFly]

To the last poster, it has nothing to do with the style of MP. Not everyone wants CTF and CS; I've personally had far too much of round-based games and want a nice and pure DM game. Prey offers that and is very fun (based on the demo) but the extremely low player population is similar to when the demo servers went down a couple of weeks back.
The demo 'population' didn't even register on the Gamespy stats (http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/) page, so Prey never had a chance of competing with the mainstream team-based MP games. Even Quake 2 had more players!

[avatar_58]

One thing I have to ask - I see dozens of people saying "Where is everyone?". Why don't all of you join a server? I don't get how a large number of people can complain about not enough interest.

Just because a sever says 0/8 players doesn't mean you avoid it, jump in and when more people get on they will too. I think too many people expect all games to be nearly full.

So in other words quit telling us how much it sucks and get in there and wait. I counted at least a few dozen users in all these threads asking about mp, so why aren't they all playing?

[Excelle]

I think there's lots of people eager to play MP. If you've got a decent connection, start a listen server for 4 or 5 players and watch how quickly it fills up! I had a great few games with people last night this way over my 4Mb connection, and they all had pings of around 40.

There is clearly something wrong with the server browser. I can only get 6 results every time I try - 5 servers hosted by K-Play in Germany, and one official HH server.

As for buying the game for the SP, I bought it for the MP, the SP is a bonus for me. Since I'm going to a LAN party at the weekend, and we're gonna have some gravity laughs. Those new maps would be nice by then ;)

[Ydiss]

The demo 'population' didn't even register on the Gamespy stats (http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/) page, so Prey never had a chance of competing with the mainstream team-based MP games. Even Quake 2 had more players!
I didn't say anything about the game being hugely popular, nor did I mention it competing with mainstream titles. I just said it was much better populated than it is now.

When I first tried the demo there was a lot of full servers. What people are saying here is virtually no one is playing it at all.

That's just not right, no matter what stats you consider.

The demo went silent when the master server went down. This is very similar to that. It seems more likely to me that MP is failing due to technical or user-end reasons than because no one likes it.

It only takes an average end-user to fail to get MP started once for them to never bother trying again. And that's fatal for a new MP game because, contrary to what some think here, the vast majority of players in a successful online game are casual gamers that try the SP and stay for the MP.

It's like when the master server went down for the demo; there was enough information here to enable users to download third party game search solutions and I did that myself. But there was only 2-3 servers with players in because the vast majority of users will not come here and will only try to use the in-game browser.

And when that fails for them they will probably lose interest.

Hugely successful online games of the past drew players into the online world and that's usually because it's not difficult to start playing online. If games like HLDM (TFC as well), Quake and UT had these kinds of issues then, potentially, games like CS may never have happened and online gaming may never have taken off.

Demos for games aren't always as popular as the game itself when it is launched. A new game tends to draw in a healthy MP population imediately after it is launched and then it will slowly degrade to a level and hold at that for a few years.

I've played online games since HLDM in 1998/99 and never once have I seen a game of the same caliber as Prey fall so solidly on its face at launch.

I don't think it's as simple as there being no CTF, or anything like that. Call of Duty 2 had CTF, HQ, SD, DM and TDM modes and the least popular modes were CTF and HQ. SD and the two DM modes were equally popular and this is a WWII game.

People still like to frag. Not everyone wants round based shooters.

More to the point, a game of Prey's quality with an MP mode which offers a unique spin on 3d gameplay (that actually forces you to play in 3d), some decently balanced weapons and smooth playability should not only have 2-3 servers occupied this early on.

If I came here and didn't see all of these "Cannot see serves" threads along with a good few threads complaining about connection issues I'd have to concede it was most likely all down to the game's lacking popularity.

But it's pretty obvious to me there's some tangible issues preventing players from playing and, as I said, that's likely to have turned away a bucket-load of casual players that may have ended up being addicted to the gameplay that MPrey offers.

And this is a shame because it's been a long time waiting for a decent DM shooter that doesn't try to emulate real life with silly physics and all that nonesense. MPrey demo was promising until the servers went down. Sadly, it seems a similar issue may well have prevented the game from taking off at all.

[DestroyerX61]

Guys, someone should help me populate the fast servers like Official Human Head, aagamingcentrals, and Triton

[Novelle]

Hugely successful online games of the past drew players into the online world and that's usually because it's not difficult to start playing online. If games like HLDM (TFC as well), Quake and UT had these kinds of issues then, potentially, games like CS may never have happened and online gaming may never have taken off.

That is not true. Quake did not even have any decent online play features out of the box other than basic peer to peer mp game options. Players had to get and install Quakeworld program, and lot of patches/mods in order to get to play DM/CTF/TF games.

If players want to play some game online, they will go thru number of issues just to get to play that game.

Atleast in PC version of the Prey, I dont see any technical issues that would keep players from playing it. There simply are not enough Prey owners that are interested about playing it online.

And it does not really help that the small community is divided to Xbox and PC players.

[CorteztheKiller]

If people want to see the MP supported for this game, they need to play it "as is" for now - simple as that.

With few exceptions, a successful MP game draws the attention of the mapping and modding community, which in turn drums up more MP player support and you get growth. The tech alone can attract the mappers/modders to some extent (D3 is a good example of that where a number of SP/MP mods were developed despite the MP vacuum) but it will not hold their interest for long. In the case of D3 you had experienced coders/mappers jumping in because they wanted to cut their teeth on the new engine. In the case of Q4, they jumped in because they anticipated patronage - this was going to be the "next Quake".

Prey is neither a new engine nor does it have the luxury of being a sequel that can springboard off past accomplishments (from an "MP interest" perspective). Given that mappers and coders need to know that their time and effort will be justified, only the players can do that here. Why put a mod team together and invest hundreds of hours to "build it" if they won't come?

[Ydiss]

That is not true. Quake did not even have any decent online play features out of the box other than basic peer to peer mp game options. Players had to get and install Quakeworld program, and lot of patches/mods in order to get to play DM/CTF/TF games.

If players want to play some game online, they will go thru number of issues just to get to play that game.

Atleast in PC version of the Prey, I dont see any technical issues that would keep players from playing it. There simply are not enough Prey owners that are interested about playing it online.

And it does not really help that the small community is divided to Xbox and PC players.
Forgive me, I wasn't specific enough.

I meant the games that kicked the whole thing off on a larger scale, such as HLDM (TFC and eventually CS), Quake 2 to some extent and so on. When Q1 was about the scene hadn't come close to the likes of CS popularity, forget I mentioned it.

HLDM was very easy to get into a game. It was the game that made me buy a PC. Back then it wasn't pretty, what with 56k modems being the norm, but if I wanted to play a game online I just had to click a few buttons and I was off. Loads of servers with loads of players to choose from too.

And this was way before CS even existed.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. To me, it's obvious the lack of MPrey players isn't just down to lack of sales or a lack of interest (except through an apathy for trying to connect to a game where the end-user cannot see any).