Are there already servers with fake playercounts?

CrushaK

I saw a modded server in the server list today. Said it had 17/18 players on it, so it would seem like one of those that are desirable to play on in that very moment.
When I joined it, there were actually only two guys on the map, so I left immediately.

It reminded me in a bad way of TF2 where certain server owners would use some mods to make their servers always show 23/24 players, regardless of the actual count, just because they know that this will attract most players (players attract more players - always been like that in games) and thus get a somewhat unfair advantage over other servers and of course also fool players into false expectations that get disappointed then.

Maybe I was just seeing things, but maybe someone else already encountered something similar here.

Shahnaz

Yep same here. wanted to join a 15/16, when I did I was the only one there.

voogru

Yeah, it is possible.

There needs to be a client side blacklist, like what they have for TF2.

zolja

Or you could have the master server crosscheck the steamid of the users to make sure they really are in that server and online. I'm not sure that the devs would be motivated to do such a thing because it would lower (fake)player counts... But yes a halfass blacklist would do. The problem is that it's not that hard to change server ips or names.