Advanced Filters can be one of the nicest things that you can use when finding servers on GameSpy Arcade.

They allow you to filter very specifically what you do and what you don't want. Tired of pass worded servers showing up in the list? Don't want to see any game versions but the one you have installed? Want to see Friendly Fire servers only? All this, depending on the game, can be achieved with advanced filters. First, we need to know what we are going to base the filter on. Every game reports information differently the another game. For example, one game may give it's version information in the "Version" variable, some may use GameVer, and some may use Protocol. It's all up to whatever the game designers wanted to use. So we need to know which information to use. Start by pulling up the server list for the game you want to setup filters for. You should notice a bunch of green arrows next to the server names. Clicking on one of those arrows should make it point downwards, and have it bring up the:

Server Information Window.This window has A LOT of information in it in regards to what information is reported by the server. This for example, is what BattleField 1942 reports to GameSpy. As you can see, there are a lot of variables to choose from: Dedicated server, Time Limits, Friendly Fire, the list goes on and on. For this example, I want to create a filter that prevents pass worded games from being shown, and shows only servers that are running version 1.1 of the game. If you look, there are actually TWO places where I could get the version from: the Version field, and the GameVer field. I'm going to choose the Version field, but as I said earlier, this can really differ from game to game. Normally, information in these fields can be stored in a number of ways. It can be a number, like maxplayers 24, it can be a word, like gamemode openplaying, or it can be a binary on/off, like password 0. The number 0 means no, the number 1 means yes. So, I want to find servers that do not have a number 1 for the password variable. This is where the various expressions come into play.

An expression is a way of telling GameSpy how to compare items. For example, we said we did not want password to have a number 1. For this, we use the "DOES NOT" operator, which is labelled != (exclamation mark, equal sign). So, the full expression would be: version != 1. We also can use the operator LIKE, which is often used for parts that have wording or letters in them, like the Version does. Most operators are written with common mathematical marks, and some are written in uppercase. When you look at the filter window, it has the Valid operators listed. Greater then, less then, does not, greater then or equal to, and so on and so forth. Looking at the filter listed, there are two things being compared. The Version has to be LIKE (contains) the value 1.1, and the password DOES NOT EQUAL 1. The two expressions are enclosed in parentheses to keep them separate from one another, and the operator AND combines the two. So this would show only servers who vers is 1.1, AND do not have a password. The percentage marks around the 1.1 act as a wildcard, saying "This can have anything before the 1.1, and after the 1.1, just as long as 1.1 is present somewhere." Whenever you use the percentage marks, you must surround it with single quotes. You can expand on this a bit, for example, if I were to create a filter that said "Any server with EA and OC-142 in the hostname" I would write: hostname LIKE '%EA%OC-192%'. Be careful when using filters in this way though, since EA would have to come before the OC-192 to match the filter. Another way would be: (hostname LIKE '%EA%') AND (hostname LIKE '%OC-192%').

It's not as difficult as it sounds, and you can always see your results as soon as you leave the filter window. If you have your expressions done incorrectly, say if you leave out a parentheses or forget a single quote, the filter window will give an error and will not let you continue on. At worst, it will let you continue but something will be wrong with the filter, and it will filter out ALL of the servers! But, it's easy to go back, wipe out what you just added in, and try again. Good luck!

By [HELP]Coldstone