3GuysGameStudio recently asked some great questions about the upcoming "queueing" feature. We're posting the answers here so everyone can refer to them and plan accordingly.
IMPORTANT CAVEAT. This feature is still in development. Anything and everything might still change. All that said, here's some detail about how it's working at this time.
Queuing is an upcoming feature where players can sign up to join a game, and then browse and play other games until enough people have queued to fire. This is a big deal because it means team-based games can ensure they have enough players to have a fun match. It also is a big deal for Home World, since players can hang out while waiting.
On to the questions:
Q: will we be able to queue people via script from in game?
A: As currently imlpemented, any attempt to join a game that requires a queue will be considered an attempt to join a queue, even if that game join is done via script in game. HOWEVER, this is still in testing, and we cannot guarantee it will work this way on release.
Q: will people be able to queue in groups?
A: No, solo queueing only for now. Grouping is a separate feature we are considering.
Q: will queuers add to servers already with people or always wait and start a brand new instance?
A: Depends on if the creator has server-locked the game. a.) If a queued game is not server-locked and is full, it will bring in queued players to fill in slots that open up. If no slots open up but enough players are queued to launch a new instance, then a new instance will spin up. b.) If a queued game is server locked and is full, then players waiting in the queue will start a new instance when there are enough of them.