The Server Solution

[EVILPIG]

Without specific knowledge of how the servers will be set up, I have a suggestion as to how get more players into less servers. At this time, we believe that a continent will hold approximately 2000 players and we know that Planetside may launch with only 3 continents. Planetside 2 should draw so many players that many servers will need to be up to accommodate. Personally, I would want as many players on a server as possible. I'd have us all be in a single server if we could. Though I'm sure regional servers will be necessary, I would hate to see North American West Coast servers 1-20, so to speak. Without more continents, how can we fit more players into a server?

Since each continent is it's own instance (though permanent), why not have multiples of the continents as they fill up? For example, if all 3 continents become full, the server generates a new continental zone to fill. There would then effectively be 4 continents, though 2 of them may be Indars. As logins fluctuate throughout the day, continents can be added as needed, and when given an opportunity, folded back in.

I know it sounds kind of weird, but it would mean that the Planetside 2 community would be less divided. If 100,000 players are playing and only 6000 could fit on each server, there will be 17 servers up. There would be many, many outfits who would never see each other. So many other players you would never encounter. Such a mechanism would mean that all players would be exposed to each other.

There are logistical issues, and I am open to any suggestions that would put more players together. Even if you may have to choose between taking your outfit to Indar 1 or Indar 2.

If anyone is familiar with City of Heroes, the same was done with the city zones. It allowed for more players to be on the servers, given the hard limits each zone faced, and it worked really well.

[Stardouser]

Wouldn't this make it more divided, because after half of your outfit gets into a continent the rest of your outfit gets put in another instance? Or if someone gets on too late they can't join their outfit? Or even if that's solved, you'll never form a good sense of community because you will too rarely see the players that otherwise would have been your regular nemeses/nemesis outfits?

[Razicator]

What happens when half an outfit is logged into one of the lower level servers (like 1) and the rest log in when they're filled up, like up to server 17 for exampale? They can't wait to join the server because that means they have to wait for servers 2-17 to empty out, which is not happening anytime soon. The other option is to get everyone to log out and log back in to join server 17, but what if it fills up when they're logging out? Then you got again half the outfit in server 18.

It's a bit too hectic IMO if I'm understanding it right.

[Goku]

What happens when half an outfit is logged into one of the lower level servers (like 1) and the rest log in when they're filled up, like up to server 17 for exampale? They can't wait to join the server because that means they have to wait for servers 2-17 to empty out, which is not happening anytime soon. The other option is to get everyone to log out and log back in to join server 17, but what if it fills up when they're logging out? Then you got again half the outfit in server 18.

It's a bit too hectic IMO if I'm understanding it right.

As of right now I think a character is going to be a bound to a specific server like all other MMOs. Unless they have stated elsewhere. I don't see what you are talking about happening.

[NCLynx]

It would be pretty disappointing to take half of Indar only to see a message saying something like

"Population has decresed - This continent will close in 15 minutes."

[EVILPIG]

What happens when half an outfit is logged into one of the lower level servers (like 1) and the rest log in when they're filled up, like up to server 17 for exampale? They can't wait to join the server because that means they have to wait for servers 2-17 to empty out, which is not happening anytime soon. The other option is to get everyone to log out and log back in to join server 17, but what if it fills up when they're logging out? Then you got again half the outfit in server 18.

It's a bit too hectic IMO if I'm understanding it right.

Ya, you completely missed it. ;) You would not be logging in and out of servers, when you used a warpgate, you'd be given the option of where you are going.

As for outfits, yes, you may have to pull off of a continent and go to another to fit, but that is versus flat out not fitting on the server because it is full.

[The Kush]

This won't work.

[wraithverge]

First point I think server architecture is probably set in stone or close to it by now as they've already put up servers and this may require a large rewrite.

In addition if I won that base, log for 20 come back and can't get back into indar 1 I'd be really mad that I couldn't get back into that fight.

I think multiple servers is the way to go but your idea is not without significant merit.

Wow does this with the battlezones, maybe we could have specialty gametype islands at a later date that use this system? something where the actual tournaments/outfit wars can be played. IE Free air cav island where there's just a bunch of towers over open water and touching water kills you.

[EVILPIG]

It would be pretty disappointing to take half of Indar only to see a message saying something like

"Population has decresed - This continent will close in 15 minutes."

The mechanism for closing a continent would need tweaking, but if you are on Indar 2, you know that it is the first to go if pop decreases. It still seems a better option than flat not being able to log in to your preferred server because it is full.

[Blackwolf]

Multiple instances never really work out so well. Especially when communication cross between instances.

Squad would form up and then everyone would have to get onto the same instance and hope that there are enemies to fight on that instance.

It's a messy system for games with NPCs and crap, it's probably far less effective for a game like PS2 which relies entirely on players to act as antagonists to each other.

What they might have to consider doing is keeping multiple set servers, and tying character names to accounts rather then servers. So someone on server 1's character names are unique for all servers, not just his favored one.

This means that you pick a character, THEN you pick a server. As more continents are added, servers can then be merged or simply removed without the hassle of asking/forcing everyone to transfer their characters.

The way the DEVs seem to be going right now is worrisome though. I don't want to see 17 servers eventually merging into 4 as part of the master plan.

[Talek Krell]

Other than the logistical oddities of how to close a near empty continent and how to make sure people can hook up with their friends, I would say that the biggest issue is whether this would really benefit the community.

Separate servers would mean that a lot of People would never meet, but throwing everyone into one pot might result in people only meeting once, and that's hardly better.

[Dagron]

Ya, you completely missed it. ;) You would not be logging in and out of servers, when you used a warpgate, you'd be given the option of where you are going.
No metter the method through which you enter the continent, it's still an instance. It's pretty much the same thing as another server but with only 1 continent.


As for outfits, yes, you may have to pull off of a continent and go to another to fit, but that is versus flat out not fitting on the server because it is full.
Yes, that would be the same problem on both situations. Though i have no idea how to solve it short of having characters freely move through servers (and even that has it's obvious problems).

That's a tough one. :confused:

[Stardouser]

Ya, you completely missed it. ;) You would not be logging in and out of servers, when you used a warpgate, you'd be given the option of where you are going.

As for outfits, yes, you may have to pull off of a continent and go to another to fit, but that is versus flat out not fitting on the server because it is full.

So persistence gets screwed up because you are going to be on a different instance every time, what you fought for last night you aren't fighting for tonight.

I think the best solution is, MMO standard(or what it appears to be from outside looking in), ie, they need to decide what their do not exceed continent and server sizes are, say, 2000/6000, and try to encourage an average population of 1500/4500. For example, using whatever algorithms they use, from launch day, when a server hits X population(X being the desired average population) they declare it full, forcing characters to be made on other servers.

The above is a massive oversimplification, because in reality, it's not that simple, because once the first week is over, people won't be in a mad rush to play, and in order to support a 1500/4500 average maximum load, it might take 45000 weekly active characters. And yes, 45000 is a random made up number, for demonstration purposes only. Surely they've got number crunchers for that, although if they cause it to be too spread out and have a merge or two after the smoke clears, I'm sure we can forgive it.

Now, as for anyone who would say "OMG 1500/4500 is small", what? It was like 500 for PS1....

[Ailos]

It would be pretty disappointing to take half of Indar only to see a message saying something like

"Population has decresed - This continent will close in 15 minutes."

The mechanism for closing a continent would need tweaking, but if you are on Indar 2, you know that it is the first to go if pop decreases. It still seems a better option than flat not being able to log in to your preferred server because it is full.

This kind of instancing completely removes one of the biggest selling points of this game: PERSISTENT open-world war.

When Indar 2's population gets low and you're getting ready to close it, are you just going to remember the state of all the bases and capture points as it were? All the galaxy and sunderer deployments? What if the person who owned said galaxy is not online when the continent is brought back online?

Seems like more trouble than its worth.

I think for now, they'll need to go the old-school NA servers 1-17 route, and as they add more continents, they could merge that back down to NA servers 1-10, but each with 6 continents rather than just the 3 at launch.

[Blackwolf]

It seems like they are limiting their potential population sizes to the number of continents. When they introduce more continents then servers will be able to support more players.

I think they need to do more gauging as to how many players they are going to end up starting with, and start with a decent number of continents so that servers aren't so damn limited in size.

I guess we'll see what they do though.

[QuantumMechanic]

If I understand correctly what you are proposing, this is just creating new instances of continents on the fly, as needed based on population. This is pretty much standard MMO instancing. The first to do this that I recall was Anarchy Online. EQ2 does it exactly as you describe.

For me it ruins immersion. What does it mean when your faction controls the majority of Indar1 while your getting your arses kicked on Indar2? You can't truly have a sense of ownership or accomplishment, because you can't rightly say you are winning.

Squading with friends and outfit members becomes troublesome. Not to mention these continents are designed to have 2,000 players fighting over them. It's going to play odd when Indar1 fills up, and then Indar2 has only 15 players in it.

For me, the most immersive MMOs have been the ones with no instancing at all.

[Dagron]

This kind of instancing completely removes one of the biggest selling points of this game: PERSISTENT open-world war.

When Indar 2's population gets low and you're getting ready to close it, are you just going to remember the state of all the bases and capture points as it were? All the galaxy and sunderer deployments? What if the person who owned said galaxy is not online when the continent is brought back online?

Seems like more trouble than its worth.

I think for now, they'll need to go the old-school NA servers 1-17 route, and as they add more continents, they could merge that back down to NA servers 1-10, but each with 6 continents rather than just the 3 at launch.

I guess that would work best... specially later on with more continents. Though the name issue when servers were merged would upset some people, but that's not so bad. :p


Oh, btw:
I think they need to do more gauging as to how many players they are going to end up starting with, and start with a decent number of continents so that servers aren't so damn limited in size.

They'd better be careful with the number of servers too... Warhammer Online started with a crapload of servers and as the initial wave of curious people started to leave, they ended up with a crapload of ghost servers and that contributed to their downfall.

[Figment]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=41711

[Stardouser]

One thing I hope our more actuarially inclined players(and the devs, naturally) can do is figure out a way of analyzing the best ratio of players per square kilometer. For example, 2000 players with 64 square kilometers is 31.25 players per km square; and it might be determined that 20 per square km is better.

But also, determining that it has to be lesser doesn't mean that it has to be a lower population - continents could be changed to alter the transit routes(travel time or method matters), or simply add some territory.

Just thinking out loud here.

[Sledgecrushr]

I think this scenario lends itself to allowing the playerbase to server hop at will. If youre fed up with the long que times for western server 1, just move to the less populated western server 2. With the great communication tools that will be provided whole multi outfit alliances would be able to move from server to server raiding around the world. In this way great outfits could face each other since there will be no barriers to moving from server to server.

[Verruna]

Its a complicated and concerning problem, of which i think the devs have thought hard on already. But I really believe Planetside needs to stay as far away from instances as possible. 2k per cont seems limiting, although its crazy to consider PS1's conts only allowed 300 people total on them. I thought those battles were crazy large. Still, with the potential hordes of new blood entering the scene this is concerning. But a solution other than the normal server structure doesn't come to mind to me. More unity is great if theres a answer that works. :(

[Dagron]

I think this scenario lends itself to allowing the playerbase to server hop at will. If youre fed up with the long que times for western server 1, just move to the less populated western server 2. With the great communication tools that will be provided whole multi outfit alliances would be able to move from server to server raiding around the world. In this way great outfits could face each other since there will be no barriers to moving from server to server.

I guess, but that encourages hopping servers in case your faction is losing on the one you're at. Maybe a hop cooldown (like an hour) could help solve that, but i didn't really give it much thought and might be missing something.

[PsychoXR-20]

I've thought about this issue myself, and came up with a similar system, and while at first glace it seems great, when you get into some of the nitty details it breaks down terribly.

On the surface it looks great, one single server for everyone, as certain continents fill up, new copies are opened. This ensures that at all times there are large battles going on all over the place, and no matter what continent you want to play on, you can, there will never be a full continent.

That's where it ends.

First issue is server comradery. Anyone who played PS1 knows this, and anyone who played WoW pre-cross realm battlegrounds knows this. When you have a isolated server, even this size of PlanetSide and WoW, you get to know the people on that server, friendly and enemy. I was aware of lots of people in PlanetSide and their skills, and when I saw them I knew to expect trouble, conversely I like to think I had the same effect, that when people saw my name they got a little scared. You you create a system like the above mentioned, that comradery gets thrown out the window. Every time you log in you are playing with different people, you never learn who anyone is. It diminishes what you do, and (at least in the the case of WoW) greatly diminishes the quality of the community. When no one will ever see/play with someone else again they tend to act like asshats.

The second issue is during off-hours, or more importantly, the transition to off-hours. If three Indar servers were opened up during prime time, what happens when each of those servers drops from being full, to being 15% full? At what point (if any) do you say "Well Indar B and C, were closing you down and merging you over to Indar A, all the work you have been doing all night trying to control the continent is now invalidated and you will be thrown into whatever mess Indar A is in". That's pretty sucky. One of the prime philosophies with PlanetSide is that if you take facility A, you keep facility A until someone comes and takes it back, but with this system you are either relegated to playing with 28 other people on an entire continent (nothing wrong with that in my opinion, I love those little skirmishes) or you will be transferred to a different instance and everything you worked for all night will go away, without a chance for you to defend it.

I would love if there were a way to make one master sever, PlanetSide thrives on people more than any other game, and if a system could be created that managed to keep the entire community on one server, that would be awesome. Maybe in the future when there are 10 or 15 continents they will merge servers, not because of dropping populations, but because there is now enough space to contain 20,000 people, but with the current design of 3 continents, having a dozen servers is about the only way to do it, there's just not enough space for everyone.

[Revanmug]

Don't know that this matters but didnt RadarX strongly indicate all US servers would be in the same location and I believe that is in San Diego.

If that is the case, that is going to suck.

[kaffis]

I said it in the other "what if we duplicated continents" thread --

The difference between having 6 servers with 3 continents each, and one server with 6 copies of each of the 3 continents is zero. Just make the "instances" permanent, and they're just as persistent as the multiple servers.

Hell, name them different names instead of Indar 1, Indar 2, etc. Have Indar, Forseral, and Oshur that all look like Indar.

Then, as you create new continents, replace the copies with the new continent (and keep the name. So you just built Forseral? Patch! Now Forseral is Forseral, not a copy of Indar).


The only difference, then, between multiple copies and multiple servers is a larger player pool, which you'll want anyways as you build more continent content, and that with the servers players can't swap between the multiple copies of Indar, because they're on different servers. Better than merging, IMO.

Why is it better than merging? Two reasons: in the MMO community, "server merges" carries a serious stigma and aura of failure, even if you do it with healthy populations trying to populate a 9-continent server instead of 3 3-continent servers or whatever. Secondly, replacing duplicate continents can be done gradually as you build continents one at a time. Merging servers happens all at once, meaning you must have either built 3+ continents before releasing them with a merge, or you must have previously diluted the population of all your servers by adding continents WITHOUT merges.

If people just won't stand for this, then hopefully, the devs can at least take a look at their 5 year plan and figure out how much the population will dilute based on added continents. Then, they can take that and project how many servers they'll have to merge together to get back to target populations, and can create pools of that many servers which share a character namespace from the start.

[GTGD]

Don't know that this matters but didnt RadarX strongly indicate all US servers would be in the same location and I believe that is in San Diego.

Where was this? That would be a huge mistake and would screw everyone on the east coast, as well as any European players that want to hop on the US servers.

[Revanmug]

Well they claim lag compensation has improved to the point that multi-location server per region is unnecessary. Let me dig that up. It may take a while. Google search "lag compensation" if you want to learn more. Probably within 100-150ms it may be ok.

I have yet to see that "FPS" where over 100 ping is fine. I like having my movement/shoot/etc to be instant and not behind everybody else because I'm lagging. I have very little patience against people lagging and that also include myself. It could be the most amazing game (which look like it) but if I'm stuck with distant server (aka I'm in the southern region of quebec so, opposite side of the continent from california), I'm probably going to pass.

Though, 1 player ain't a huge lost to be fair¸.

[Revanmug]

I am on East coast US and ping to current PS server around 100-110ms and it isn't bad at all. Can't really tell a difference from when server was in East and I had 36ms ping. Now when they moved PS server from east to west, the European guys could really tell a difference. They went from 100-150 to 200-250. The Chinese however loved it :lol: SOE told someone in current game the reason for moving the ONLY PS1 server farm to SD was that was the plan to have PS2 farm located there.

I doubt I'll find that quote but RadarX said something to the effect that the current technology obviates the need to have east and west coast server farms. But you know this is all way before high level testing and as for now the only PS2 testing has been internal. I would take it is as a "this is what we would like to do but not necessarily what we will do" statement. I guess I'll use the often stated phrase "we'll know more during beta testing".

NO offence but 110 and 36 ping make a huge difference when doing precise shots or even avoiding people.
It's not that I don't want to believe you but on I have never seen that... ever... And I played soo many fps. Would we talking mmorpg, I wouldn't mind too much but fps? Nah! Not when split second mean life or death. And mostly not when there is such a simple solution as having server on the east coast somewhere. Ain't no places or players missing for that area.

Lag compensation is no miracle solution. At least not when the problem is distance.

[Revanmug]

That's the thing with Planetside. It has never been a low pop match based, KDR stat focused game. They are trying to combine it now with that structure, that is one reason you hear some doubters in the old PS community about promoting individual stats and team play on teams of hundreds of players. The only way to promote high accuracy is highly distribute the server model thus diluting the pop down to match based shooter levels. They are trying to have their cake and eat it too. I hope they have some magic icing on this cake, they might need it.

I don't follow your link with "not so good infantry mechanic" with "KDR fps". It got nothing to do with teamplay nor anything to do with a server.

High accuracy also got nothing to do with popution except if you mean too many people lag your server but that would be a huge flaw in the engine/server (yes, I wouldn't be surprise by some lag would 4000 people decide to go in one precise battle.)

And I just don't understand your "highly distribute server model". Fps server are usualy like this: Company has set servers point usually on west and east coast for exemple, OR, It deal with smaller renting company all around the world which then rent small specific server for customers. Distributing in many place has nothing to do with "diluting". It is about touching as many people as possible because playing with a high latency can be annoying mostly in shooters game. Your small server is cap anyway so you are force to have many more server. It is also a good way of profit for (not mmo) company...

No, the real question is: "How many server do they plan on opening at launch." How many server planetside got now? 1? 2? Of course you can't split that amount around the world but I doubt they plan on having only 2-3 servers for PS2... Placing all your eggs in the same baskets isn't briliant.

[Xyntech]

We are on the same page, I just worded it differently than you. Yes I would like server as close to me as possible as well. Let's just wait and see what they come up with. It's all about the beta feedback.

You're beginning to sound like me with that "wait for beta" talk. :p

Ask SkyExile if lag is too much of a problem though. Although I myself do like a sever as close to me as possible.

As much as there are problems with closing servers, I think it's just going to have to happen.

Hopefully they have so many servers that it doesn't really affect the game very much. 65 servers, add a new continent to each server, close 7 servers. That sort of thing.

Maybe we'll get lucky and enough new/returning players will populate the added continents for a while. But eventually I think we'll just have to merge some, even if populations stay stable.

This is why I want universal player names across all servers. It would make server mergers more seamless. When one server shut down, the players on it could pick any other server to transfer their character to. Maybe it would fracture some parts of that community, but I think it would be better to have a choice rather than just have two servers merge together. It would also allow for more options to close just a few servers to spread the population around to other servers.

[Raka Maru]

Imagine any server merge or split without universal ID's. Especially with a cash shop. Are they going to give refunds if you bought the same skins on 2 or 3 servers because you played there for a while when your home server was packed?

Universal ID's are very logical. Take all your things with you when you move.

Shards have to exist because of server limits. The idea of Zones will not work for Planetside in any way. Been stated many times before in this thread, but the summary is because the territory you are fighting for cannot be different in each zone. TR win the base, they need to see this is theirs until the NC take it back.

I personally would like to see less shards and more continents or planets, but this will not happen right away until the Devs have more time. Eventually, as more continents are hand crafted, we will more and more be fighting on fewer shards as shards merge. I hope they do merge the close shards as more continents are discovered. Maybe even dozens of continents eventually as the game expands through space.

[captainkapautz]

Gotta admit I like Figments idea about cloning the continents for release so we can have 1 big server.

I dislike the multiple server thing because of the already stated fact that you could go up against everyone.
I hate it when my server has no more new competion left, because you already fought against all the "good" clans/guilds/outfits, but see and hear from other servers about how awesome that one outfit over there is, which would force me to reroll to match myself against them.

Having everyone on one server would fix that.

[Sledgecrushr]

Gotta admit I like Figments idea about cloning the continents for release so we can have 1 big server.

I dislike the multiple server thing because of the already stated fact that you could go up against everyone.
I hate it when my server has no more new competion left, because you already fought against all the "good" clans/guilds/outfits, but see and hear from other servers about how awesome that one outfit over there is, which would force me to reroll to match myself against them.

Having everyone on one server would fix that.

This is why I think there shouldnt be any limitations on moving from server to server.

[captainkapautz]

This is why I think there shouldnt be any limitations on moving from server to server.

Then you'd just have people switching back and forth, depending on which server their faction actually wins.

[GuyFawkes]

Not sure about this at all. You could be winning on Esamir, and on my global map it show Amerish is ready for the picking . With this idea it just seems a lottery , I could go to Amerish, get sent to server 17 and find we are down to one base .

All respect to the OP , but is this more the logistical solution to have such a huge Outfit and ensuring they all have room to maneuver ? I like the idea you put this up for discussion . Surely adding more continents per server would be just as viable ? 10 continents = 20000 people .Just saying.

[Figment]

Again:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=41711

Seems like my thread had a better reception.

The idea is somewhat similar (keep as many players on one server as possible), but not with dynamic adding of continents in an instanced fashion like here. Instead with placeholder continents in a fixed global lattice (to be replaced by new continents) and a couple of solid footholds and capturable warpgate footholds (hold terrain around both ends of warpgate).

[ringring]

I think I like Figgy's idea better.

But how about this..... they open with 1 beta server on West Coast USA and 1 in Europe. All the old-time PS players and PC Gamer priorities go play there.

For launch they do a soft launch, those beta servers become live servers and SOE create additional server for the excess populations.

Now you have a situation where all the old-time players are on one server while the new people are on the others. Hmmmm, not good. Better to follow Figgy's plan. You could even rename Indar (copy 1) to Searhus and Esamir (copy 2) to Ceryshen.