Number of Servers at Launch?

[SgtMAD]

I don't think that PS2 will have 800k subs at release but that number is only 10% of the CoD number and this game should easily be able to pull that small a market share of the FPS market,

it will take some time but if the news spreads that the game is as good as everyone wants it to be then it should be easy to get those numbers within three months

[Meriv]

For that reason SKYeXile included growing stats that gives a n idea of how F2P grows.

When you mean reach that numbers you mean the 10% of Cod or the 800k refered one?

[Arcticus]

I think the fact that it's an mmofps actually helps things out.

The 3 most important things at release, throughputwise, are credentialing ( login servers), playing server internal resource utilization (CPU, memory, I/o ) and network load.

Credentialing and internal resource utilization are pretty linear. The way servers are virtualized these days makes it easier to add additional worlds. They key here is to have enough in reserve to handle everyone trying to get in at go live.

Network utilization, I believe, would be what normally would have the capability to create a logjam as it is exponential -- for a population of X in any given notifiable area, X (x-1) data is being sent to clients. If 100 players are shooting, for instance, then each of those 100 players' shots need to be notified to the other 99 clients.

I assume that the population cap is based on a near-worst case scenario of having a large chunk of the 2k continental cap fighting it out for the same base/hex.

However, in the beginning, one can assume the land grab would have the continent's pupulation fairly scattered so that most players' events (gunshot, vehicle movement, etc.) would only need to be sent to, say 200 other clients.

If one wants to be conspiratorial, one can imagine the automated (Non-player ) mission creation system being set up to slightly scatter players if the network load is about to be overwhelmed.

Also, if at the very beginning there are few people with command rank, then there's less player-created missions and less squad spawning, so at any given time the average player's events will have less clients that'll need notification.

Additionally, many of the new players would not even be in squads, let alone platoons or legions.

I'm not saying there's no potential for problems...SOE needs to be prepared. I'm only saying that the very nature of planetside 2 may help alleviate network problems at launch.

[SgtMAD]

Originally Posted by Meriv

For that reason SKYeXile included growing stats that gives a n idea of how F2P grows.

When you mean reach that numbers you mean the 10% of Cod or the 800k refered one?

its the same number,the last CoD sold approx 8 million copies PS2 should be able to pull that off ,hence the 800K number.

that's 8 million copies of a game that cost $60,why wouldn't a free game draw some of that market?

[kaffis]

The 8 million CoD figures are total for all platforms, though, aren't they?

When I was citing numbers, I was intentionally limiting myself to the PC FPS market. It doesn't matter if an X-Box Halo/CoD/BF3 player thinks Planetside 2 is awesome if he's got a 386 for his email and clan board surfing.

Also, sure, I realize that Skyrim was posting 200k Steam numbers when it launched. But.. it's not an FPS (so the market is different -- some overlap, to be sure, but there's no way for us to gauge how much). I realize that player populations usually peak early in the product lifecycle... however what typically happens is that bored gamers migrate to other games.

That's why I was quoting numbers for MULTIPLE FPS games. Even if the CoDMW3 players got bored of MW3, they probably went back to TF2 or CS:S or whatnot.. because they're FPS gamers, and they want to play FPS games. I don't know a lot of people who play the hell out of the new game in town, and then, when they get bored of it, stop playing games.