[Mauzen]

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Originally Posted by Mionee Accidentally voted for option 1 even though I wanted to vote for option 2. I think you should disallow people from joining when only a few people are left or the time is almost up though. EDIT: How about a lobby/spectating system for people that join when a round is almost over, or for people that died during it?

Yep locking it close to the end will be important to prevent spoiling and exploitation. I also had that spectating option in mind but forgot about it here, thanks for reminding me, Ill probably add that no matter what option ill decide for.

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Originally Posted by Basssiiie If I were you I would go for a wider solution: run multiple "games" at once. Only one game is open for public at all time. For example; players join like with option 1. When there are enough players and the round starts, the current game is locked off for new players and a new "game/lobby" is created for the players who join next. So in the end you'll have like 5 "games/lobbies" running simultaneously on the same server. In the end, when a game finishes, you just dump everyone into the current open game lobby. In short: There is always one game lobby open, at every possible time. In the background, there are multiple games running filled with players. It would require a strong server than option 1, but this doesn't scare people away when a game is already running. Edit: you could split the games up with virtual worlds and limit chat only to the game the player is in.

That would probably be the best solution. The main problem about this is indeed the performance of the server. Im not sure yet how "heavy" a single round exactly will be, but it will definitely need a great bunch of NPCs. How many NPCs exactly is a matter of balancing, and im still far away from gameplay balancing
Virtual worlds would help reducing the server load as it wouldnt need to stream all the players, but just some smaller independent groups. But Im rather concerned about what the samp server itself can handle. Even without the player/NPC streaming theres a lot of work for the server. Considering the independent rounds and virtual worlds would also be extra work for the server, and its also a big scripting effort, as I completely designed the gamemode to run just one game at a time so far.
Thats why I thought about several samp servers. That would be easier and a sure thing performance-wise. A global lobby would still be possible via sockets between the servers. Spectators just couldnt jump between the single rounds without joining a different server, and people would eventually need to switch the server to join a new round on a different one. But that wouldnt be much extra work for the players, especially if the server tells them which server to join.