Log In Queues: Right? Wrong? Other?

Skatty2007

With all the posts about server queues lately about a certain recently released game and all the chatter thereof, I was wondering what people's opinions are about log in queues in general?

Are they good because they ____________?

Are they bad because they ____________?

Are they not really good or bad because of _________?

What is everyone's thoughts about server queue's in general and why?  Do they cause more good than harm or vice versa?

Zandora2018

Did not vote because they are taken care of in todays patch. Thanks for the poll tho

Ilvaldyr

There's no justification for login queues; it's bad design.

Skatty2007

Zandora: This thread isn't specifically aimed at Aion, even though that is the trigger for this thread.  I'd still love to hear your opinion on log in queues in general :-)

Clandestine

Your other option is to have tons of servers opened at launch and then have most of them as ghost towns a month after release. I would rather have a short wait for a few days after launch personally.

Czzarre

Many of those  who complain that High login queues are inexcusable and hail 'poor game design' are the same who shout that underpopulated servers are inexcusable and are due to 'poor game design'

LynxJSA

Originally posted by Zandora2018


Did not vote because they are taken care of in todays patch. Thanks for the poll tho

 

Same. Able to log in and out of Zikel without any issues at all.

Inzra

If you get a message when you start on a new server that you may experience login queues because the server is maxed,

then it really is your own fault for choosing that server.

 

Also, at the launch of a game it's not uncommon to have queues, I doubt it's something people will unsubscribe to a game for, as long as it doesn't continue to be a problem.

Zandora2018

Originally posted by Skatty2007


Zandora: This thread isn't specifically aimed at Aion, even though that is the trigger for this thread.  I'd still love to hear your opinion on log in queues in general :-)

 

Hmmmm.... well here we go. LAG Vs. Waiting in line ???  In a PvP based game i'll wait in line so there will be less lag. Now if i was just crafting and farming i'll take the lag.

chesiremorph

 

They were a good (TEMPORARY) ideah specificly for game release .... but not letting players know that this is a possibility ahead of time .... and assuring them that it will be TEMPORARY is Ludacris.

heremypet

I read about some new technology that allowed you to merge multiple servers together into one big virtual server, called a "cloud computer cluster" IIRC.  I wonder if something like that would allow for high pop and low pop virtual servers to share the same array of physical resources.

Axehilt

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr


There's no justification for login queues; it's bad design.

 

It's not wise to give your customers the option of ruining their own gameplay experience (by all choosing to play on the same server and experiencing terrible game performance.)  So as bad as you think the design is, it's worse to not have queues.

Not all MMORPG design types need queues.  EVE lacks them.  But it's a different design, and I seriously doubt a developer is going to decide his game's entire design focus based on some trivial idea like, "Our game can't have queues!"  

In reply to OP:

Didn't vote because queues aren't there for "balance."  They're there as a sanity-check against the terrible customer experience you'd provide if you let everyone pile onto one server.

Skatty2007

For 'balance', I was trying to mean a couple of things:  balancing the bandwidthcomputing demand vs available bandwidthcomputing resources, balancing the population for even RvR fighting, and other such concepts.  Hope that clears up when I meant by balance.  Sorry for being ambiguous :-(

Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Axehilt 
It's not wise to give your customers the option of ruining their own gameplay experience (by all choosing to play on the same server and experiencing terrible game performance.)  So as bad as you think the design is, it's worse to not have queues.

I can see the logic in the first part of this statement, but I can't agree with the highlighted part.

I don't see queues as being a reasonable solution to the problem; not in 2009. With all the advances in networking and such in the past 10 years, there should be a less obstructive method of dealing with the problem, i.e. one that doesn't completely prevent one from playing the game.

kdkirmse

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr


There's no justification for login queues; it's bad design.

 

It's not wise to give your customers the option of ruining their own gameplay experience (by all choosing to play on the same server and experiencing terrible game performance.)  So as bad as you think the design is, it's worse to not have queues.

Not all MMORPG design types need queues.  EVE lacks them.  But it's a different design, and I seriously doubt a developer is going to decide his game's entire design focus based on some trivial idea like, "Our game can't have queues!"  

In reply to OP:

Didn't vote because queues aren't there for "balance."  They're there as a sanity-check against the terrible customer experience you'd provide if you let everyone pile onto one server.

 

Eve has or had a form of Log in Queues. They are less formal compared to what I have seen described for AION.

 

dirtyjoe78

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Axehilt 
It's not wise to give your customers the option of ruining their own gameplay experience (by all choosing to play on the same server and experiencing terrible game performance.)  So as bad as you think the design is, it's worse to not have queues.

I can see the logic in the first part of this statement, but I can't agree with the highlighted part.

I don't see queues as being a reasonable solution to the problem; not in 2009. With all the advances in networking and such in the past 10 years, there should be a less obstructive method of dealing with the problem, i.e. one that doesn't completely prevent one from playing the game.

 

lets do some quick math 400,000 pre orders 12 servers, aprox 33k people per server, given the history of mmo's do you waste a metric shiton of money knowing that the initial launch is going to level out within a week or two and knowing that your current servers can handle what you have projected to be your base number of players?  Or do you give your players more servers knowing that in a few weeks to a month some of those servers will be fairly empty thus ruining gameplay experience for those on those servers.  Or do you have log in queues to ensure some semblance of balance and not having 500 people waiting around for the same quest mobs to spawn?  You seem a bit impatient, understandable since Aion is a fun game to play and we would all like to maximize our play time and not have to wait to play but it makes sence to have server queues in this case to maximize the experience of the game for those that are going to stick around.

Mardy

Good or bad, I don't care the pros and cons of it.  I just know personally, I won't play a game with login queues.  I'm not going to pay to play game in which I have to wait to play.  It's one thing if it's free, it's quite another if I'm paying for it.

kdkirmse

All MMOs have to deal with peak and average numbers. Just about any online game on the market would crash if every subscriber could and did log in at once.

This is similar to the phone system. During disasters and some major holidays phone calls often cannot be made because the system is overloaded.

Nyast

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Axehilt 
It's not wise to give your customers the option of ruining their own gameplay experience (by all choosing to play on the same server and experiencing terrible game performance.)  So as bad as you think the design is, it's worse to not have queues.

I can see the logic in the first part of this statement, but I can't agree with the highlighted part.

I don't see queues as being a reasonable solution to the problem; not in 2009. With all the advances in networking and such in the past 10 years, there should be a less obstructive method of dealing with the problem, i.e. one that doesn't completely prevent one from playing the game.

There's this strange thing of players *demanding* that new servers are opened within the day, else it's the end of the world.

/sarcasm mode on

Of course, everybody knows that acquiring a new server, installing and configuring software on it, tuning the parameters for better performance, synchronizing all the servers between each other, can be done in a few minutes. In fact, a student could do it. It's common sense, isn't it ?

/sarcasm mode off

Preparing more servers for the initial rush ? How do you decide how many servers are needed for that ? You can only do rough estimations, for example how do you estimate how many hours a player will stay logged on in average ? There are dozens of unknown factors, and developers don't have a crystal ball. The overhead would cost a lot more to the company too, so financially it wouldn't be a good operation.

After the dust settles, players still won't be happy. Server merges ? Have fun with the complaints, between "they're already merging servers, epic fail", "my friends/clan members ended up on a different server", "I now have bad latency", "poor design", etc.. And following the student's rule, everybody knows that merging servers is free and takes no effort.

If you haven't understood yet, I'm of the opinion that, yes, server queues are bad.. but they're the lesser of the two evil..

The only thing that I'd like to see changed from the way the company's handling the problem, is to add a few days of free play time to those that can't connect or have waited for many hours in the queue.

 

 

TheHatter

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr


There's no justification for login queues; it's bad design.

 

QFT Anyone who says differently is just messed up in the head.

Loira

I am kinda neutral on this.  I don't think it is the que that is really the problem, I think it is how the comany react to it.

If a que is because a game launched and is more popular then expected, this is good.  But it is bad if the company does not react quickly and add new servers.

If a que is because they are trying to make an artificial means of balance, this is bad.  But Why is the balance uneven?  Is the one side not as appealing?  Does the company react quickly to alieviate this issue?  If they can get to the root of the imbalnce quickly and react to counteract the que, it is good.

They can have a place, but if you get a que every time you login for several weeks, then I blame the company for not reacting quickly enough to a problem.  I would not call it bad design though, but poor planning.

svann

A queue is an admission that the company let too many players roll toons on the server. 

laokoko

It happens in other game too.  Server queue is long, people cried for new server, they added new server.  A few month past, alot of server become ghost server.

mmoguy43

I think queues are a good thing to have instead of constant server crashes but if Aion continues to be popular after 2 months and continues to grow, I do hope they add more servers.

drbaltazar

Originally posted by mmoguy43


I think queues are a good thing to have instead of constant server crashes but if Aion continues to be popular after 2 months and continues to grow, I do hope they add more servers.

aion as 1 more server it is at low but player would ratrer wait in line to play on other server 

not much ncsoft can do about player not wanting to go on any server but server X

LynxJSA

Originally posted by Mardy


Good or bad, I don't care the pros and cons of it.  I just know personally, I won't play a game with login queues.  I'm not going to pay to play game in which I have to wait to play.  It's one thing if it's free, it's quite another if I'm paying for it.

 

They've explained the reason for the login queues. We've seen that they have effectively balanced the initial run on the servers (aion site server stats) and we have seen the queues disappear for all but the heaviest pop servers.

 

The argument on these boards from the people against the queues always seems to be about population and current tech and... well, everything OTHER THAN the actual reason that the queues were present, which was load distribution for the sake of preventing over pop servers and dead servers within a month. This has been spelled out for people time and again, but it seems that the fingers-in-the-ear "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" system has been effectively employed by those who have no desire to move past this and just either play or not play a darn video game.