Multiplayer Etiquette

[Helazak]

I have been poking around the topics and cannot find one on etiquette.

Lately I have been surfing the multiplayer servers. Just looking to make new friends and help out a bit when I have time to kill. '

So I am looking for games with no password. It may be a big assumption, but I assume if you have no password then you expect people to pop on and see what you are doing.

Then I look for games with at least one player on. (Not sure how you can have a game with zero players but they are there. a paid server makes sense but you would think a local machine would have to be on which means somebody would have to be playing. Would love an explanation of that.)

I am surprised at how may times I quickly get a "denied" or a "banned from server" notice. if you dont want people joining, why dont you use a password?

Not trying to be a pest but is there some etiquette I am overlooking?

[Guil]

I'd imagine most of the servers with 0 players online are probably dedicated servers rather than self hosted.

You need to find yourself a MP community and don't mess about in the public ones with no password. I'd say you could count yourself lucky to get a decent server in the ratio of 1/25

[Helazak]

It has been fun just popping onto people's games. I like meeting new people. Most of the time it is someone who is new and still figuring stuff out and I get to help learn the game.

I get the zero = dedicated server, but these are limited to 6 players, so i assumed that dedicated servers would have a larger limit.

[Guil]

Dedicated servers can be anything from about 4 players and up. Not sure what the limit is

[Helazak]

Is there a way to send a message to other people on the server who are not currently playing? Like send a message to the admin so when he logs he will see it?

[Guil]

Not that I am aware of