International research

[Hudson633]

There being many countries that host Gmod servers, it's difficult to research them all. Some have few players, so it's less likely to find and interview players that have experience in the scene of their country. To research them all would take a lot of time and energy.

It's nice to see the range of countries that contribute to Gmod culture though, and hopefully the research that's been done can offer a starting point for anyone wishing to do their own research. Beyond the in-game browser and the legacy browser, I've used what I call the main four server browsers (battlemetrics, gametracker, gmod-servers, and trackyserver) to find information. In particular, gmod-servers (if you scrolled down on their website) has an interesting page on statistics.

Steam groups are a valuable source of cultural information, as they often contain interesting comments going back many years, and likewise may contain announcements and discussions. The homepages are sometimes host to useful community links. They also help people connect with like-minded gamers (such as gamers from your own country). The Gmod store page has a button that links to Gmod Steam groups, which I use to search for particular countries (such as Garry's Mod australia):
https://steamcommunity.com/search/groups/?text=Garry%27s%20Mod#text=Garry's+Mod+australia

The in-game server browser can make the flags of certain countries look similar to eachother, mostly because they're so small and are not labeled. Examples of similar flags include:

• Austria and Latvia
  
• Ireland and Italy
  
• Indonesia and Monaco
  
• Bahrain and Qatar
  
• Netherlands and Luxembourg
  
• Myanmar, Taiwan, Samoa

Server flags can sometimes be verified by searching for the server on server browser websites, although the flag on the server browser is not always the same country as the one that'll appear on the websites. Clicking on a flag on the left side of the in-game server browser will show only servers that use that flag.

The "l" and "I" letters look the same on the server browser, so checking the servers on websites can clarify the text. One method to research a server from the in-game browser is to favourite it (by clicking the heart icon) and then check the legacy browser (reachable from a button on the Gmod menu) where the favourites tab can show the server (perhaps after clicking the refresh button) which then allows you to get the IP address (you might need to refresh it again), which can be copied and put into a website like google.

I suspect that some servers show a certain flag to convey the server language rather than the host country. You can sometimes narrow down a server's host location by checking the ping, as the ping should be low to countries near you, but high to countries further away. I tend to get around 25 ping to local servers (in the UK) but up to around 300 in Asia.

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