Queue system for joining dispatcher stations

[hoppturee-]

I think a nice feature would be a queue system where you can wait to join one of the selected dispatcher stations whenever one becomes available to play.

Maybe this system could also have a popup every 3 minutes to check if you're still available so you don't just pointlessly occupy the queue.

When the station becomes available a sound goes off and you have 15 seconds to join, otherwise you lose the position.

You could also think of another system to complement this one, where if you play one of the less popular dispatcher stations for some time (30-60 min) before you join the queue you get (some) priority on joining the more interesting/hard ones.

[Der_Jannik]

I think this will only make it harder to join a dispatcher.
It will likely end up with 3-4 people per dispatcher waiting in queue during peak hours, resulting in long wait times. For instance, I don't want to start the game and have to wait for 30 minutes just to join a dispatcher station.

Additionally, if you get kicked from the server for some reason, there is still a relatively high chance of rejoining your station. With a queue, this would no longer be possible. I actually like it the way it is currently. Sometimes you're lucky and sometimes not.

Initially, the concept didn't seem like a bad one, but I don't think it will actually be beneficial.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Der_Jannik

[hoppturee-]

Those are fair points. It basically boils down to "get lucky joining as dispatcher" vs "joining as dispatcher in an organized (although slower) way".

I don't think it will make much difference for less popular dispatcher stations, as people will likely not wait for those. Maybe queueing could be implemented only for dispatcher stations in high demand. Also, we could limit queueing to only 1 station, in order to lower wait times.

I think I should mention the problem I wanted to solve with this suggestion: sometimes I want to play dispatcher in a more interesting station while having actual players driving trains around, as dispatching bots is not as much fun. This is an issue on EN servers, as on the European continent only EN1 has a decent number (20+) of players driving. As you can imagine, being able to join as dispatcher on EN1 is really hard.

Now, after work I join and wait 5-15 min to find a decent dispatcher station. If I don't find any, I just close the game and probably will not return to it for the day.

I'm not sure how common this is, maybe it's only a me problem, but I think it would be convenient to know if I have any chance of joining, as that will greatly increase the chance of me taking the time to actually play.

It's basically a casual player request. I think it's a non problem on DE and PL servers, as usually 3-4 of these servers always have 40+ drivers.

Edited January 30, 2023 by hoppturee-

[SurvivorSean]

You could also have a message show up when playing another desk when other desks become available and/or taken.

Thanks

Sean