A sneaky idea

[morl0ck]

The admins should find a way to get fake player names into the tab window. There could be like 20-30 'bots' logged in, to create the illusion of more players. That way when the real players log in, they'll stay a little longer and not leave immediately upon seeing a 2-5 player count. Maybe there could even be pre-recorded chats to make it look really active.

Or maybe everybody could log into their alts, and have them afk in another window to accomplish the same effect. Of course, this would confuse everyone as to whether someone was a bot or a legit player. Perhaps a server command like 'listreal' would list the non-bots.

I know it's a dishonest tactic but I'm curious to see if something like that would work.

[LoneSoldier55]

Just make simple bot players with AI.
I know that in source games people would always add one or more bots to the game that was a city scanner that would float around the map and had a basic chat-based AI. You could say it's name, it would give a response indicating it aknowleged you, then you could say whatever you wanted to it. If it detected an insult or praise it would use a random premade response, and would also spout random things people have said before on the server.

But this is minecraft so getting bots logged in would probably be dumb and hard to do.

[A. Pippenger]

So what happens when new players log in and find that 90% of players won't talk to them?

Honestly this idea creeps me out. I would hate to wonder if I was alone, playing with a bunch of barely functional robots.

I'm willing to consider any idea that could increase player amounts, but my gut tells me no on this one.

[morl0ck]

I wouldn't suggest this as a long-term thing, just a short experiment to see if it would work. I like Lone's idea of the automated responses as well.

[FoSchnizzle]

I don't think 20-30 would be a good idea. 5-10 is understandable, because there are quite often quiet players that don't talk much, but if there were hardly any real players online, say 2 or 3, and there were 20 users that didn't chat or any of that, it would get eerie. 5-10 players with the occasional death message from one or two of them would be nice. Something like "bot x tried to swim in lava" or even "bot y was slain by bot x".

[A. Pippenger]

So what if people try to talk to these bots for more than a sentence? Ever heard of the Turing test? It's a test to see if computers can trick people into thinking their human for a few minutes. It is used to test the world's best AI, and they only succeed for very short times. We do not have literally the best AI in the world, which is what we would need to even attempt this.

I do not agree with the implicit idea that anyone who found a particular server later than I did is an idiot who can't tell they're talking to a bot.

Seriously, is this a joke? This is one of the weirdest ideas I've ever head. April 1st was over a month ago, guys.

[Elocphant]

i guess they would kind of be like the grunts in titfall (crappy fps). its not really dishonest or creepy in execution, its just used to make something feel more alive and active.

[FoSchnizzle]

Like I said, they shouldn't try to talk if they are implemented. It would just be a terrible idea. The occasional death message would be easy enough to facilitate, though, and it would make it seem like they're at least semi-active quiet players. Again, that's all if they're implemented.

[deflowvesper]

I have mixed feelings to this idea. This is either a genius idea that could bring back the server to life or would sink it down completely, We could use the bots to make the illusion that the server is an active and decently populated server but making an AI that could "chat" will just have a negative effect as it will just drive more players off the server once they find out about the trick.

Somehow i think its worth a try to use of bots to populate the player list on tab for let say a month but i am completely against with the use of AI, otherwise just leave the server as it is and hope for the best.

[A. Pippenger]

I think death messages might be bearable. Eery silence is preferable to annoying/creepy bot talk. I still do not like this idea though. I think a spawn move/reset would have a better effect, or more voting, or doing something about all the lag. This has always been a server that treats players like intelligent adults, with honest and fair admin policies, where you could have real interaction with other players, even if there were only a few on. I don't want to change that.