Chris (Re-LaX) emailed me to ask me about their CoD4 server @ http://www.lzservers.com/ and asked me if there was anything I could think of to improve their popularity.



I was on your Texas server Saturday. There was someone from LZ in spec (I think you, Chris) which is a great thing...cuz that's what attracts players. Once there, within literally 3 minutes it filled to about 10 people.

That's pretty awesome, it means your server is known and is probably showing up on browsers. People may not be coming in cuz they dont see many in there. The key is to get as many in the clan as possible to sit in spec - if theyre not playing/home...etc.. Believe me that works.

You guys play a stock-ish game, so the folks you will attract nowadays are a bit more of the noobish types. Either they ve just picked up the game or they are a younger group. I think most of the players there would be interested in the fun aspect of the game rather than some more serious clans.

In fact, most of these serious gamers and those that put in a lot of hours have moved on to either modded or competitive servers. TBH, there's only so much a person can take of the airstrikes falling on you. However, if your team likes that style of game then you should continue to play it. Sounds like you cater to a particular clientele and you seem to do well. You have had a great run-up the past few weeks...and your server has really gained popularity. Obviously there are many out there that enjoy the fun factor on your servers.

The only things I can add are as follows:

1. You need to either enable voice or get TS/Ventrilo to make the game more interactive. Get all the LZ guyz on voice preferably ON THE SERVER itself.

2. I didn't see a website advertised. If you have one advertise it.

3. Ask the guys that play on your server WHY they play there. And ask them what they don't like.

4. Look around the community and invite similarly sized clans to play on your server - exchange the favor.

Sundays are a good day for this...that's when many players are looking for servers...when they see 10,15,20 people on one server...theyre more likely to remember it.

By inviting a clan over...you immediately boost your server's rankings and you get it seen by many folks looking for servers in their browsers.

5. The server in TX was a bit laggy. I know its cheap down there, but it's too far away from the densely populated NE. Consider moving to Chicago. Obviously if your from down there...never mind.


Advertising your website if you have one is always a good thing...let me know if you are interested in that side of things.

Good luck with the server...looks like you are on the right track.


...he replied as follows:



Chicago is about midway between population centers. Most of the big servers are located there.



This question is all about taste. Take a poll on your website and if the LZ guys are interested go to custom maps.
Having said that, there aren't many custom maps I would want to play in CoD4.



You seem to draw a younger crowd. Having FF off will cause you less headaches. I'd leave it off.

The obvious question you didn't ask...stock vs hardcore. For me...I can't play with helos or airstrikes, they drive me nuts. But the crowd youre trying to attract are probably liking that style.




When i was there...it was very well behaved and it was fun to play there.

Good luck

Is the link you included, a link to his clan site? If so, I don't think the normal suggestions will apply based on the size of that roster. Hope all those servers aren't on the same box either. Been quite confused so far by the whole thing.

Not sure I understand your confusion TwoFingers, but let me explain one thing...

When LZ asked me these questions they had not told me anything about their clan. I was not sent a link to their site.

The comments were based on what I saw when I was on their server.

I added the link to their site when they responded with it.


Looks like they are an established clan with quite a few servers and quite a few interests.

The CoD4 server seemed to cater to a younger crowd who would probably be more into the fun aspect of the game and probably aren't too serious about the whole thing. I do agree though the folks at LZ need to give us a few more pieces of information to make our responses more useful.

I should have explained a bit more. What you posted was on point and covered many things. I was just expecting to see a newer clan with a handful of kids struggling like usual. Spend 10 or 15 minutes looking at what they have and see if you don't have an imaginary question mark stuck over head on why they can't fill that sucker.

Below is my original reply before I visited their site:
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Good looking website. Everything seems to have a nice flow and plenty of info/images to catch your eye. You also seem to to know your way around using that CMS better than most. Looks like a few copyrights are missing. Other than that, excellent work.

On the server side of things, Jock covered most of it. I think he's more of an objective player who likes to test drive the latest mods where as I am one of those casual, stock, keep it simple players.
As Jock said, Chicago seems to be the most popular choice for server placement in our part of the world. I'm located in the mid atlantic region. Quite a few players check the ping area of the server list before they decide to join. For me, I only see a 10-15 spike when connecting to a texas server over a chicago based server. I assume that players up north in the US and in Canada will see a much larger jump and that alone could sway many gamers to connect to something a bit closer to home.
With that in mind, Don't jump to another location just yet. Remember that when you change server locations, you change ip addresses. This means that if you were starting to slowly populate, you now get to start over again. If anyone had you on their favorites list, all gone now. Then you get the task of going through your site and updating any server info with the new ip and spamming the news to the world.


As for maps and mods, I would stay away from most of it for now if you are just looking for people to connect and apparently already have been seeing a few players. I have assisted in running many servers over the years and had to go through the populating phase for all of them. In most cases, unless the players know you guys, they are more likely to disconnect when they have to start downloading maps and mods. Plenty of gamers will sit through and download 1 or 2 smaller files, but your chances of getting your average gamer to download multiple large maps and whatnot is much more difficult than filling a server with no mods. Many gamers are lazy and want to see action as soon as they attempt to join. However, there is a large group who due enjoy custom maps and mods as I'm sure you have seen across the net. Once you build a solid base of players, then I might start thinking about adding a few things or even adding a new custom server if its in the budget once you have succeeded with populating your first servers. Use your stock server to grab ideas from everyone and find out what other features they would like to see added in the future.


The game has been out long enough now that many of the competitive players already have a list of servers they frequent and already belong to clans/communities. If you wanted to appeal to that type of crowd, you will most likely have to keep on advertising and reaching out like you have done here. If you have a scrim team, don't wait for people to challenge you, go challenge them.


I'd definitely do as Jock suggested and go over things with your members. Review some of the things Jock has posted and help them step back to see things not only as they want, but what might attract the average gamer aswell. It might be worth going server hopping as a team one night on some of the popular servers just to do a bit of research and see how some of these other servers are setup. Pay attention to small things like how many players disconnect during map switches to see which maps do a better job at keeping people around. Keep an eye out for the usual complaints you see, go check a few large community sites for favorite map polls and items of that sort, etc. You could even try a mixed rotation like a quick 20 minute warmup TDM match followed up by a round of CTF or something along those lines. That would have you appealing somewhat to two different classes of players. There's a ton of options, it's just a matter of finding the right combination to keep the majority of your players entertained.


In all, if you have the support of your entire team, you stand a better chance than most. You can do all of the research and prep in the world and still fail with out some support from your team/friends. I've seen many clans/communities where only 1 or 2 people try to get a server going and end up getting so frustrated when they can't get their buddies to join that they begin to become really negative towards the whole process. I have been there myself. Try to stay positive, hangout in the server often with as many people as you can grab and hopefully your servers will turn into a nice virtual escape from reality.

Hopefully I posted something useful and didn't go too far in the other direction on some of what Jock has posted. Was just reading over the thread and started thinking about all the triumphs and tragedies my fellow gamers and I used to go through. Going on by what Jock wrote, looks like you are already getting some players so most of what I typed is pretty much just me rambling. Good luck!
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After seeing what they currently offer, I just feel that most of tips do not apply to them right now. They need to think about cleaning house and figure out how many people they have there that want to play CoD4. I really don't know what to tell them other than to forget about CoD4 and stick to what has been working for them so far. If 100+ members can't team up to populate a server, what is left to suggest?

Awesome tips there Twofingers. You should do some server consulting as a job!

I give you five fingers out of five fingers for that one.

haha, I just had to learn a lot of stuff the hard way and many of the simple things tend to get over-looked. For these guys, their ip's look very similar and a saw a post that makes me want to say they have their own dedicated box in Texas with a dozen or so games on it. If that's the case, that alone is a nightmare waiting to happen and could easily explain any lag you might have experienced. It also makes moving the server to another location, a bigger pain in the butt.

haha thanks very helpful, and I am guessing you guys know how to make server cfgs? Really I dont know much about cod 4 server cfgs, more about Enemy Territory and Et Quake Wars. Can you guys help out with that? If you can it would be great if not I will see what I can pull off.

I'm sure we could help you come up with something to fit the type of server you are wanting to run. I would suggest that you start a new thread in the CoD4 section so we don't get too off topic in this thread.

haha thanks how about you just email me? or add my xfire?

xfire: wdlax11

email: wdlax11@gmail.com


Everyone come and play some cod 4 on the server!! =D

post what you think!