About the CLQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

How can I add my (favorite) server?

There usually is no need to add your server. We automatically keep track of 45,560,444 players on 773,819 servers. If we somehow missed a server or we did not yet add it automatically or you're simply impatient you can manually add the server. Just click on the "add server" tab in the servers list. E.g. you can add Team Fortress 2 servers here.

How can I give feedback or ask questions?

You can use this forum for that.

How can I start the game by clicking on the server address?

First of all the game has to be installed on your PC. Second for some games (e.g. Unreal Tournament 3) you need an extra piece of software to be able to start the game from your web browser. You can find more information on this here.

How often are the statistics updated? What is "high speed scanning"?

Live statistics are updated once every few minutes. Player statistics are updated once every 24 hours. Individual player ranking is determined for every week for all game servers on the planet. As soon as someone looks at the statistics of a server it immediately switches to "high speed scanning" mode. This means the server will be scanned once every minute (as long as it is online).

Does the site see everything? Can it be some stats are missing?

Since servers are scanned once every few minutes we do not see everything. We might just have missed one of your magnificent moments. Since the same applies to all players and a lot of statistics are collected in the end you still get a fair ranking.

Some servers are greylisted, what does that mean?

We have a greylist of servers to keep our statistics accurate. Examples of servers which are greylisted are single servers pretending to be multiple servers (clones) and servers which have large amounts of (hard to detect) virtual players (bots). This does not mean there is anything wrong with those servers, but it does mean we ignore them for our server ranking. This also means they will not be in the live servers list to make sure only servers with real human players are shown there.

Examples of servers we ignore are the Fragmasters.co.uk TF2 servers, EuroServer COD4 servers, the csGamer.com Counter-Strike servers, the ASD und Zuckerl Enemy Territory: Quake Wars servers and the You Knows It! UT2004 servers. If we missed something (e.g. a server should or should not be greylisted), please let us know.

How does the server, speed, top, PPH and junkie ranking work?

All ranking is week based. So what happened last week determines the official rank during the current week.

Server ranking is based on server popularity (how much people play there). A lot is done to eliminate bots and only look for real humans.

CLQ ranking is the classic CLQ ranking method. It is based on determining someones peak performance. Getting as much points as possible in as little time as possible.

Top ranking is based on the ability of players to get more points than the rest. The more players you defeat (are below you on the list during the game) the higher you will rank. Just like CLQ ranking it is based on peak performance so losing a few games or entering in the middle of the game has no disadvantages.

PPH ranking stands for points per hour and is based on the total number of points and played minutes in a week. So people who chat a lot will never get a high PPH rank, since overall performance determines your PPH rank. PPH is only determined for players who played at least 30 minutes.

Junkie ranking is for players who spend a LOT of time playing on a server.

What is the technology behind this site?

Everything is running on 2 single CPU servers, 1 server for scanning and processing and 1 server for the site. Software used is Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, QTracker, Gslist and Qstat. To keep the more than 1,000,000 database tables needed for this up to date a custom storage system has been created based on a combination of superscalar processing, hashing, caching, data compression and data transformation. More details about this (a lot of details actually) can be found here. We are still using the amazing Qstat software made by Steve Jankowski to actually scan all the game servers. Without Qstat this site would not be possible. Everything else is brand new since the new CLQ (2008-2010) uses Open Source technology where the classic CLQ (1998-2003) used Microsoft technology. Also new are Gslist by Luigi Auriemma and Qtracker by Ronald E. Mercer which are used to locate new game servers. These tools allow us to bypass the GameSpy monopoly that broke the old CLQ site.

What about privacy?

The ads on The CLQ are delivered by Google. In the course of serving ads, Google may place or recognize a unique cookie. This cookie does not contain personally identifiable information. If you want, you can block or delete cookies. For more information about Google, Google's use of cookies, and how to "opt out" please click here.

Who is behind all this?

This site is made by Nico "BattleMode" de Vries. The original CLQ site (stats) was made with help from UCC, T. "MAJOR PUNKatron[CYBA]" Boersma and Mark "Painless[pd]" H. The new The CLQ site is made with a lot of useful input from the BBS and Titan online gaming communities and from Nico's colleagues from OpenIMS / OSICT.

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