PDA

View Full Version : Downsize Servers


CrazyCrazy
2003-07-15, 02:15 AM
I think it's time to merge Konried into Emerald, and Johari into Markov. I play on Konried, Johari and Emerald. Being on the first 2 there's 2 simple reasons why I think this needs to be done.

1) you really have to be on at a specific time of day to find a decent battle (I'm not talking about zerging here). This makes the game less fun, and as people get to BR 20 CR 5, they will find this game falls short. Unless they have good tactical warfare to satisfy their bloodlust and that puzzle-solving craving we all have, the subscriber base will continue to drop.

2) Sony overestimeated the number of subscribers, and now wiht SWG out, and the Matrix coming out soon, you can expect PS to stay at about the same number of subscribers or (knocks on wood) continue ot decline.


Let's get realistic. The size of each continent is huge, and whilst small squads playing agaisnt each other can be fun, even that happens less likely than it should. I don't know what would be involved in transferring all the character infoto another server, but its high time for a little downsizing.

If by some chance the subscriber base goes up, SOE can always add additional servers to accomadate new players.

slytiger
2003-07-15, 02:20 AM
Maybe not combine them but if one crashes then allow the other one to become operational to still allow the customers to use their service in their region without using another slower region's server.

SkintInc
2003-07-15, 02:42 AM
Ehh. Sorry, im new to the game but can you only go up to br20? Or is that when the game begins to get very hard and you can't find anything to do? *Shrugs* I dunno

CrazyCrazy
2003-07-15, 02:48 AM
Yes BR 20 and CR 5 is the maximum you can go. Somone said they might increse this later, but that would be a lame way to keep people addicted to this game. I see a lot of potential for entertaining things to do other than level.

Bad Mojo
2003-07-15, 09:31 AM
Originally posted by CrazyCrazy

2) Sony overestimeated the number of subscribers, and now wiht SWG out, and the Matrix coming out soon, you can expect PS to stay at about the same number of subscribers or (knocks on wood) continue ot decline.


As I recall, when PS first opened (before SWG was released), Emerald was SWAMPED nightly. To the point that each night I logged in, the population bar was 5 yellow dots. You can NOT tell me the over-estimated. SWG might have knocked that down a notch but they did not over-estimate the number of subscribers for their first month.

If you have a hard time finding battles, join Emerald. If everyone does that, Emerald will basically consolidate. There's also no reason to NOT play on more than one server and pick the one with the most people as you see fit.

pauljar1
2003-07-15, 10:33 AM
I agree that joining Emerald would probably solve the problems of not being able to find a good battle other then following the zerg, but, to be completely honest, I only have one character and he's BR18, CR2 and I don't want to start all over and build a new character from scratch...I shouldn't have to.

I believe it should be SOE to take care of this issue, not me.

Just my opinion...

Thanks.

MercFox1
2003-07-15, 10:35 AM
They oughta hold the Planetside games! Once every month SOE engages the PS Games where every Empire is represented by a group of people.

Sort of like the olympic games! I would love to go there and do wraith races or marksman contests or Gal jumping (jumping out of a galat max height!)

Bad Mojo
2003-07-15, 11:11 AM
Originally posted by pauljar1
I agree that joining Emerald would probably solve the problems of not being able to find a good battle other then following the zerg, but, to be completely honest, I only have one character and he's BR18, CR2 and I don't want to start all over and build a new character from scratch...I shouldn't have to.

I believe it should be SOE to take care of this issue, not me.


The problem is that where you see an issue, SOE does not.

CrazyCrazy
2003-07-15, 11:17 AM
Originally posted by Bad Mojo
As I recall, when PS first opened (before SWG was released), Emerald was SWAMPED nightly. To the point that each night I logged in, the population bar was 5 yellow dots. You can NOT tell me the over-estimated. SWG might have knocked that down a notch but they did not over-estimate the number of subscribers for their first month.

If you have a hard time finding battles, join Emerald. If everyone does that, Emerald will basically consolidate. There's also no reason to NOT play on more than one server and pick the one with the most people as you see fit.

_____________________

I DO play on Emerald, read above. However, I play a VS char on emerald, and would like to try out other empire's as well, that's why I play on the grossly underpopulated Konried and Johari.

The population bar was 5 yellow dots, true, but how many continents were ever locked at one time? If there weren't at elast 4 continents locked simultaneously during peak hours, I hardly consider that swamped.

Besides, I am talking about SOE overestimating the subscriber base in the long run by adding too many servers. Konried and Johari are rarely at 3 dots, even efore SWG was released.

Searo
2003-07-15, 11:20 AM
I never follow the zerg so it doesn't matter anyway. Yesterday with only two dots in Markov and Konried I had a blast. On Markov I grabbed a squad and we helped lock down Cyssor. Meanwhile Hossin was a lagfest, and the commanders kept yelling "All squads come to Hossin" using the ever popular lag the continent so much the other empire's computers explode tactic.

I LIKE low population. It eliminates lag, and makes zerging rarer. I know now to always avoid continents that have less than 100+ available slots.

This is just a laggy Reaver pilot's point of view.

Happy lil Elf
2003-07-15, 11:23 AM
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Emerald is just fine. You wanna consolidate? Do it somewhere else.

Bad Mojo
2003-07-15, 11:25 AM
Originally posted by CrazyCrazy

Besides, I am talking about SOE overestimating the subscriber base in the long run by adding too many servers. Konried and Johari are rarely at 3 dots, even efore SWG was released.

Either

1) They plan long term to only have enough people for 1 server. The game opens, twice that many show up, the server suffers horrible lag and now TWICE as many people leave for SWG leaving the one server even LESS populated.

or

2) They plan on meeting the demand at peak populations with two servers so gameplay isn't a total loss due to lag. Then, when SWG hits, the two servers have low and moderate population levels.

If PS merges the servers now, what will they do if SWG people start to return or new waves of people come in? Do they add a server and re-merge as the population shifts? I know from my own experience in the IT world that doing that would constitute a "nightmare" scenario. They would spend more time moving characters around and solving naming conflicts than working on the game.

pauljar1
2003-07-15, 11:33 AM
BadMojo:

I'm not sure what your character stats are (BR & CR), but I've been playing once character since launch. I'm not a firm believer in creating multiple characters. I just swap certs in and out every 24 hours and try different roles.

But, simply said, if Konreid continues down this path, where there are two population dots at peak time and the only time you can find a good battle is to go to a locked continent to follow the zerg, it will begin to become an issue in the minds of the players.

Some players don't mind following the zerg, but, me personally, I like the squad fights...more of a 10 on 10 or even 20 on 20. Less lag and more personal and up close fighting. It's just more fun to me. I love this game, believe me, I truly love this game. My girlfriend is starting to think that I'd rather be playing rather than be with her...which isn't true. :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to my point...I understand it's my own fault for not creating a character on Emerald in future thought of population sizes, but I think that this will become an issue in the minds of the players down the road, if, during peak time, there is only one blue dot, and their player is a BR20 and CR3 or something like that. Starting over is not a fun thing. Not sure if you played EQ, but starting over with a new character there was a complete chore and not entirely welcome.

Ok, I'm done rambling...

Thank all for listening!

Trebor95
2003-07-15, 11:58 AM
Can I add a point, probably not relevant but hey.

I am from the UK, we have one server that EVERYONE in western, southern, northern, eastern Europe connects to.

Surely the US can do with 1 or 2 less servers. Which would increase the fun people have, I mean the servers are supposed to handle load so there shouldn't be any problems with lag etc. (although I know there always is :()

pauljar1
2003-07-15, 12:07 PM
I mean the servers are supposed to handle load so there shouldn't be any problems with lag etc. (although I know there always is )

You're absolutely right. There shouldn't be any lag, but there is. :rolleyes:

sniper4evr26
2003-07-15, 12:43 PM
well i would like to say that i havent seen ANY yellow dots on the servers for quite awhile now. when the game launched there were always battles everywhere, and most of the servers had 3 dots or more, now on the underpopulated johari we can go cap as many continents as we want cuz no one from the other empires are logged on... hey it happened once the nc capped 5 continents only because there was no one to stop us.

P.S. i would like to see numbers not dots on the server list :D

pauljar1
2003-07-15, 01:59 PM
I, too, would love to see the actual number of players on the servers list, rather that colored dots, but SOE would never do that. That would possibly (and I'm saying POSSIBLY) indicate, over a period of time , the steady declination of players. No players, no game. That simple...

Hamma
2003-07-15, 03:04 PM
The number of yellow dots ended around the time of many people's free trials. :p I wouldent worry about it.

One of the problems was they only opened one East server on day one, which resulted in huge amounts of lag. That was a HORRIBLE move on SOE's part, they should have went live with at least 2 east servers.

Doppler
2003-07-15, 06:29 PM
Originally posted by pauljar1
You're absolutely right. There shouldn't be any lag, but there is. :rolleyes:

:stupid:

You people act like LAG is a palapable and devastating force that the devs choose to leave in the game. (Ok on Johari Liberty and Guns is a devastating force but thats neither here nor there) THere will always be "LAG" until every inch of the internet from your computers NIC to the line running through your local swamp is high parity fiber. Even then you will still see lag where the bandwidth meets the server untill we come up with a computer that can go straight from bandwidth to BUS with no slowdlown. Plus *GASP* the farther away from a server the more "Lag" there is. Plus if you have a crappy rig your system will begin to experience something misnomered "video lag" as it tries to keep up with everyone moving around.

In closing let me say while SOE is making great strides Lag will always be present in multiplayer games without some major improvements/revolutions in computing hardwar, or suspension of a few natural laws of the universe.

CrazyCrazy
2003-07-15, 09:57 PM
True lag will never be gone until we all have quatnum computers, and its also not alwyas hte fault of the Game server, or even your ISP. but the point of the original post was that Konried and Johari are too underpopulated, and it doesn't look like it will grow much more.

Revolver
2003-07-15, 10:57 PM
Originally posted by CrazyCrazy
If there weren't at elast 4 continents locked simultaneously during peak hours, I hardly consider that swamped. If the server is truly swamped, it'd be impossible to lock conts do to the sheer number of different empire players on all conts

Killmeeleon
2003-07-16, 01:57 AM
Who cares? This game really blows ass and I wish I hadn't uninstalled UT2k3 for it... Oh well now I'm hooked and I gotta at least get me br20 :)

Looking forward to The Matrix Online I will be the one ;)

pauljar1
2003-07-16, 01:52 PM
Doppler, whats with the "I'm with Stupid" smilie...no one was being insulted here, but, oh well. If it had to come from some little smacktard, it should be you.

Maybe I mistaken in saying that there shouldn't be "ANY" lag. What I should've said was that there shouldn't be as much lag as there is in the large battles.

And, to answer you post below, I'm not running a crappy rig...I'm running a P4 2.0G, ATI 9700 PRO and 1 GIG of RDRAM at 1024x768with DSL. Also, I have AA turned down to 2X. I shouldn't be seeing 7-9 FPS in large battles. Agreed? This significant drop in FPS came right after the last patch.

All I'm saying is that if they decide the merge servers (say, Emerald and Konried), they need to make some MORE and SIGNIFICANT headway on the lag thing otherwise, we're going to have a LOT more lag than we're seeing now.

Hamma
2003-07-16, 01:55 PM
Originally posted by Killmeeleon
Who cares? This game really blows ass and I wish I hadn't uninstalled UT2k3 for it... Oh well now I'm hooked and I gotta at least get me br20 :)

Looking forward to The Matrix Online I will be the one ;) You sure play allot for someone who thinks the game blows ass.

pauljar1
2003-07-16, 02:14 PM
Nice one, Hamma!

"This game sucks" coming from someone with 3,700 kills!

:rolleyes:

Hamma
2003-07-16, 02:20 PM
:rofl:

NCG JMan
2003-07-16, 04:49 PM
Well he did say he was wanting to get to BR20 :p

Happy lil Elf
2003-07-16, 05:02 PM
Doppler, whats with the "I'm with Stupid" smilie...no one was being insulted here, but, oh well. If it had to come from some little smacktard, it should be you.

Maybe I mistaken in saying that there shouldn't be "ANY" lag. What I should've said was that there shouldn't be as much lag as there is in the large battles.

And, to answer you post below, I'm not running a crappy rig...I'm running a P4 2.0G, ATI 9700 PRO and 1 GIG of RDRAM at 1024x768with DSL. Also, I have AA turned down to 2X. I shouldn't be seeing 7-9 FPS in large battles. Agreed? This significant drop in FPS came right after the last patch.

All I'm saying is that if they decide the merge servers (say, Emerald and Konried), they need to make some MORE and SIGNIFICANT headway on the lag thing otherwise, we're going to have a LOT more lag than we're seeing now.

Huh I'm running an AMD Athlon 95- with a GeForce4 MX 440 and 780MB RAM on a cable modem and I get no lag other than hardware lag in large fights. Sucks to be you I guess :)

pauljar1
2003-07-17, 11:16 AM
Elf:

You don't pay attention, do you? I also said that I only get the low FPS's in large battles. Same as you!

Read before you respond.