Daniel Erickson on Server Population.

Digression = It’s very hard to believe there is no malice behind some “TOR’s future” post.

On IMDB, when a show is low rated, and some of its fans are hoping for another season, there’s a bunch of Television Grim Reapers that seemingly delight in telling people that the show is going to be cancelled. It’s like saying “Maybe there will be another season” makes it open season to squelch any hope for the future.

It’s like the people posting about the cancellation want to knock on the fan’s home, tell them personally why the show in question will be cancelled, then tell the kids there is no Santa Claus… just for good measure.

I'm not saying those people are factually wrong, and maybe it's all my head, but I hear = "Your favourite show is being cancelled... HA!"

Ditto that with TOR and its future. The posts may be factual, but it’s hard (if not impossible) for me to believe there is no malice there.

Back on topic = Merge the servers, or don’t, doesn’t affect me much. I played throwaway characters for the first 3 weeks until I found out which server(s) had the LOWEST population. I picked RP because, as per some posters, RP gets a bad reputation i.e. I was hoping people would avoid it. I picked the RP one that was consistently lowest in population (Kath Hound, at the time), and there you go.

Yes, I’m part of THAT crowd, the KOTOR-3 crowd.

Now, as a constructive part =

(and apologies for the lack / wrongness of technical terms, I’m an old French dude... new fangled confusing technology stuff... /waves cane)…

I’ve seen in some games where it’s all one server and instancing just offers up new copies of the specific zones. (ex = Tython 1 through 6, Coruscant 1 though 10, Corellia 1 through 15, and so on). You picked randomly or didn’t pick at all (game did it for you). But, if you were in a group, the whole group got “merged” into 1 instance. Some games were automatic. For others you had zone out, then zone back in as a group. Or you’d auto-merge with the group leader. Stuff like that.

Has anyone heard of a game going from Servers to instancing of zones? I think that would be more useful than server merge. You merge servers, and you’re hoping the populations move as predicted. You can have surprises. For example : You can merge 2 light servers, and it becomes a new Fatman. Or merge 2 standard servers, and, instead of a heavy, it somehow becomes light through new attrition.

We need a mechanism for people wanting lots of people in their game to have it consistently. Is instancing (if I understand the concept right, of making a new copy of a zone when it’s 80% ish full) off the table? Or can the game be converted to that?

I’m honestly trying to be helpful here. I just think transfers and merges doesn’t seem to be a good fix, unless you are constantly merging and splitting servers, since server populations won’t stay static.

Either way, it won’t affect me at all. I’ll be playing KOTOR-3, alone, “over there”, but, hopefully, I am showing I am TRYING to relate to “the other side” and give a solution that would make people happy.

I’m certainly no Game Grim Reaper, that’s for sure, accurate though they may be…

"One of the problems we’re running into right now is kind of a classic MMO problem, which is that our overall population of players has not changed, but our peak concurrent users has changed," Erickson told NowGamer following last week's 1.2 Legacy update.

Only because people where waiting to see some fixes and changes in 1.2.

Since they made the ops harder and derailed their game even more by listening to people on these forums, the game is dead in the water now.

I’m honestly trying to be helpful here. I just think transfers and merges doesn’t seem to be a good fix, unless you are constantly merging and splitting servers, since server populations won’t stay static.

Either way, it won’t affect me at all. I’ll be playing KOTOR-3, alone, “over there”, but, hopefully, I am showing I am TRYING to relate to “the other side” and give a solution that would make people happy.

welcome to MMOs that aren't WoW, the most stagnant troll-filled elitist game of all time.

WoW isn't for elitists. It's designed most casualy it is possible. Maybe it was for elitis but that was long time ago, before TBC

going off on a non-whiny tangent ...

ignoring implementation details but assuming a multiple server shard model, what are all the problems we associate with population (too high or too low)?

Here is a starting list:

1. long queue times when (re)connecting (too high)
2. not being able to find players to group with for a mission (too low)
3. long WZ queue times (too low)
4. items don't sell in the GTN (too low)

What other major issues are associated with population?

Neither have the Legacy system. Just sayin'.

Moal

Digression = It’s very hard to believe there is no malice behind some “TOR’s future” post.

On IMDB, when a show is low rated, and some of its fans are hoping for another season, there’s a bunch of Television Grim Reapers that seemingly delight in telling people that the show is going to be cancelled. It’s like saying “Maybe there will be another season” makes it open season to squelch any hope for the future.

It’s like the people posting about the cancellation want to knock on the fan’s home, tell them personally why the show in question will be cancelled, then tell the kids there is no Santa Claus… just for good measure.

I'm not saying those people are factually wrong, and maybe it's all my head, but I hear = "Your favourite show is being cancelled... HA!"

Ditto that with TOR and its future. The posts may be factual, but it’s hard (if not impossible) for me to believe there is no malice there.

Back on topic = Merge the servers, or don’t, doesn’t affect me much. I played throwaway characters for the first 3 weeks until I found out which server(s) had the LOWEST population. I picked RP because, as per some posters, RP gets a bad reputation i.e. I was hoping people would avoid it. I picked the RP one that was consistently lowest in population (Kath Hound, at the time), and there you go.

Yes, I’m part of THAT crowd, the KOTOR-3 crowd.

Now, as a constructive part =

(and apologies for the lack / wrongness of technical terms, I’m an old French dude... new fangled confusing technology stuff... /waves cane)…

I’ve seen in some games where it’s all one server and instancing just offers up new copies of the specific zones. (ex = Tython 1 through 6, Coruscant 1 though 10, Corellia 1 through 15, and so on). You picked randomly or didn’t pick at all (game did it for you). But, if you were in a group, the whole group got “merged” into 1 instance. Some games were automatic. For others you had zone out, then zone back in as a group. Or you’d auto-merge with the group leader. Stuff like that.

Has anyone heard of a game going from Servers to instancing of zones? I think that would be more useful than server merge. You merge servers, and you’re hoping the populations move as predicted. You can have surprises. For example : You can merge 2 light servers, and it becomes a new Fatman. Or merge 2 standard servers, and, instead of a heavy, it somehow becomes light through new attrition.

We need a mechanism for people wanting lots of people in their game to have it consistently. Is instancing (if I understand the concept right, of making a new copy of a zone when it’s 80% ish full) off the table? Or can the game be converted to that?

I’m honestly trying to be helpful here. I just think transfers and merges doesn’t seem to be a good fix, unless you are constantly merging and splitting servers, since server populations won’t stay static.

Either way, it won’t affect me at all. I’ll be playing KOTOR-3, alone, “over there”, but, hopefully, I am showing I am TRYING to relate to “the other side” and give a solution that would make people happy.

I’m certainly no Game Grim Reaper, that’s for sure, accurate though they may be…