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RIFT EU servers are GhostTowns during peak hours now
There as been alot of talk lately about RIFT population sever instabilites. Some server are said to be crowded - but now more and more posts are coming out that alot of servers are emptying really fast.
Trion has now found a reason to start closing topics that point out that some servers are totally empty- even during peak hours.
Its actually very easy to check how many ppl are online on each server when they become so totally empty. The /who is limited to 28 lines. Over the past 3-4 days.. my server has NEVER had 28 characters at lvl 50 for each class in game. I did a total headcount on the server last monday 19:30-20:00 (server time) on guardian site and we had 359 ppl online. Thats in TOTAL.
The solution that Trion is finding atm is to hide these facts. Close posts about it and try instead to show images with server full msg - that happened during an awfull World event - where the solution from TRION was to limit the number of players online to few hundreds to prevent server collapse.
Here is an example of a post that is on General chat that has been closed.
http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?170188-Trion-merge-servers-right-away-plz
Comments
They closed it and gave you a response as to why they closed it along with linking you to not one, but 5 other forum threads dealing with the same issue, stop trying to make it sound like they are running damage control. They closed it just like they would any topic that it a repeat thread.
Also why do people who scream that their server is dying, never mention what server they are actually playing on?
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
The post was about server merger - NOT on server transfers. The MOD closed it right away when the talk turned into how FEW ppl were on servers - instead of how long the Q times were during Wold event.
And your welcome to go to Overlook EU and count for yourself. Players are talking facts here. IN fact there are 9 lvl 50 warriors online right now. Go check.
Lol, plenty of peeps on Blightweald. Started a new toon so I could try a warrior build, still a fair number of people in the starting zones too. Try again as peak time theres loads.
One server haveing Q times does not mean that another one can't be totally empty.
Its called population imbalance across servers. Trion is not doing anything about it. The problem atm is that they reduced the number of ppl that can be online ALOT during WOrld event. My server did not have Q time there - whe had about 100 ppl in P3. Alot of those have since quit since the event was so totally crap. No raiding guilds are even close to be formed. And for ppl that want to progress - thats just not acceptable.
Time for server merge I guess. Nothing special in the MMO genre.
http://riftideas.com/shardwatch/
Is a side showing the load on each server.
Overlook shows a medium server load when there are about 350 players of 1 faction online. in TOTAL.
This early? The game went live only 2 months ago.
Honestly, what's the big deal?
If you enjoy playing RIFT, then play it. Don't go around spewing garbage about this or that.
Empty servers were bound to happen....
Iirc TRION added a lot of extra servers at release, to lower the waiting queue (can't and won't blame them for that - I even praise them for the extra servers), just like Aion did at release. But then the next problem pops up: when half your playerbase can hit the maximum level in 2 weeks without too much playing / grinding, you need to have a good 'end-game' to keep those maxed out players entertained. But from reports on this site, all I hear is that ppl are bored becasue you only have a few daily quests and instances to run and they refer to it as "I did not leave WoW for the same thing over again".
Personally, I think new MMORPG developers should think about what they're offering their players. Why make a 'copy' of an already super successful game and hope enough players hop and 25% of those will stay on your game instead of return to the 'original'. Ppl thought that RIFT would be a real 'next gen' MMORPG, but only see that some mechanics are 'refreshing' (not even 'next gen'), and the 'end game' when you hit maximum level is the same sh!t each day over and over again.
Just when will developers see that their players are not looking to do the same repeatative daily quests and instances over and over again, waiting for a new expansion, after which they hit the new cap in a week and are on the saim repeatative dailies & instances again. As much as I dislike WoW, I can't disagree with those saying that they didn't leave WoW to find the same mechanics at maximum level again, but only with a newer shine...
Developers should have to really add the 'next gen' to their games instead of only advertising of their game to be 'next gen'. They could hold on of the daily & instance mechanics, but also have to add something new and refreshing, which is new each time you do it. There I found the sieges in Lineage II very 'next gen'. Though the castles & fortresses are on fixed locations, each siege is different from the last one. Same thing with Aion to gain control over the fortresses (PvPVe) in the Abyss (never got past 25 in AIon, but I know how the game mechanics work in the Abbyss).
This is what I call next gen - a developer that puts real new aspects to the set standard of WoW (Aion) or leaves that standard completely and keeps the development of their game that's as old as WoW in it's original form (Lineage II).
For this reason, I think TERA might be more of a success then most ppl might realize. TERA will give the standard 'end game', but enhance it with new aspects by adding player controlled cities.
...just my 2 cents...
Can't say I've noticed, my server Argent seems well populated, the raiding guilds seem fairly active. Always enough people to take down massive invasions etc
The thing is ALL MMO developers CAN control the flow of players at start. They just dont choose to do so. Would it not have been much better for TRION to just release a set number of accounts at start? Instead they allowed overfow of players - onto to few servers. There is no excuse for that. Thats greedy and lazy.
Part of MMO managment is to control the server flow. We have seen some horrible failures of that over the years. WAR creating duplication servers at start.... and we are now down to 6 WAR servers in total now ?
The game devrelopers CAN control this IF they so choose. In fact a game that doesn't have a clear plan based on diffrent scenarios isn't really a sub based quality game is it?
For me it should be part of your subscription to be allowed to move server if it doesn't produce the same quality of gaming experience as other servers might.
What am I paying for with my sub ? Exactly - and thats why I unsub and quit a game that can not offer the gaming experience that I expect from my sub. And asking to play on a healthy populated server is not something that sounds unrealistic in a sub based game. Is it ?
Then drop your subscription and move on. Problem solved.
This sounds more of a retaliation since your post got locked/deleted. I have not played rift and I refuse to belived suddenly the game went thru a black hole.
Of that I know Rift's offers daily quests,10 expert instances and one raid (someone correct me if i missed somthing out). Wow has less than 10 heroics (that matter) right now, 3 raids and daily tol barad quests (which i dispize now) If people left wow for rifts for example, the content rifts has quite matches up with what wow currently has to offer. Those who left wow were just burned out at the current content and rifts brought somthing new to the table. For them it will be go back to wow or stay with rifts.
Before rifts came out wow has had the same content as it does now, yeah looming in the corner will be 2 new heroics and later on another raid, but that doesnt mean trion wont have any content rdy themselves.
I did already.
Pointing out the ongoing issue is still needed tho. And it needs to be pointed out until a game developer gets the population flow across server right at launch.
Trion screwed up at server population balance at launch..... We are no longer at launch - these things need to be fixed. A sub based game can not justify such glaring issues that are becoming so blatantly obvious. If it does not they wil just loose more and more subs.
Let me point out the scenario as it really is on a RIFT overlook server. It is not the least populated server - but here is the thing.
Last Sunday 19:30 - 20:00 server time.
Level 50 characters online - Guardians
14 Warriors
26 Clerics
25 Mages
27 Rogues
There were a total of 4 groups (20 players) in dungeons at that time. Remember there are no cross server dungeons so that was IT.
No raids were happening.
THis is the ENTIRE endgame population on the server.
Again - the /who command shows 28 lines of players. This search results did not even fill those 28 lines and thats shows you how totally desperate things are.
Have any factualy data, are all the servers showing up as low and not med or high. We all know there is no way to measure the population of a server. How do I know your making this all up? For me your just pulling numbers out of thin air. You posted many times in this threads with the "take my word for it" You have nothing to back up your claim.
Let me add this. I can pull the same numbers as you with wow. On moonguard which is the most populated rp server. I can do a who in oggrimar and only get 50 people. I can do a /who to every class and only get 50 people on each. I can go to each zone and will only get 50 people tops. Heck i guess wow is going downhill it might only have 750 players tops on both sides.
You do not have to take my word for it - Go and check it yourself if you have account.
Just like WOW - RIFT has a /Who search option. WOW shows 49 lines of players when you search - RIFT only shows 28 lines of players. THen in the search options - you can choose range on levels and classes and you can see who is in what instance.
So how can you determine the entire population on the server ? Not easy if 1000s of players are online - but on low populated servers its fairly straight forward.
Do a lvl 50 search - Put lvl 50 into min box in search options
then choose Warriors - and count the results - if its more than 28 lines of text you are not seeing them all. ON my server the numbers were below 28 so I got an exact number of warriors.
THen do the same for cleric and mages and rogues.
Then if you want to find out the total populations on your faction on all level do a search on classes and ranged levels that are lower than 28 lines of players.
For example for warriors you can do range lvl 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 and so on.
I did that on my server and its showed total fo 359 players online on my faction.
If you want to do the same on the oposite faction - then just create new character for that faction and use search to find the outcome.
The search system is exactly the same as WOW uses. The main diffrece beeing that WOW allows 49 lines of players to be shown - and usually you can not get a relyable account of wow players because there are much more than 49 players online at top lvl for each class.
Rift only shows 28 players - and when you have such low populations as Overlook server has - that is more than enough to show the true stats... Since not even those 28 lines are filled in /who warrior 50 for example. And yes - we are talking peak hours. On the time that my server showed to be on "medium" load.
You know , wow has many servers on medium. That means it is going down. Since it only shows 28 lines of data , opposed to wows 50, then that is not a method of measureing a population. Many go by the assumption every server can hold from 3000 to 5000 players at once. By your numbers that means the server is on low . So if it is medium, your just pulling numbers out of thin air.
You have not shown any proof to back up your claim, you just saying you did a /who and your basing the population on that. How do I know if your just typing random numbers.?
You cannot measure players in instances unless rift actually tells you there are x amount of groups in instances. (which i can bet my soul it does not) There are many other factors also. Sorry but you need to bring up somthing more convincing then what your portaying.
My proof is that you can go and have a look for yourself - I told you exactly how I did it.
I could post endless amount of screenshots and you would just say I was photoshoping them. It would be no good.
Go do it yourself at peak times tomorrorow - Bring back the facts - thats all Im asking for here.
Remember that RIFT does not have cross server dungeons. So doing a simple (who "dungeon name" shows the exact number of players that are in the instance at that time. Since 5 players are needed in every group in instances then its very easy to calculate how many groups are going... Also remember that search results shows what level players are so you can tell who is doing an expert dungeon run and who is doing lower level dungeons.
And also remember that you are compareing numbers of 3000-5000 to the simple fact that Im watching a RIFT server that has less than total of 400 players online during peak hours.
If we go by servers can only hold 3000 players at a time, 400 will be low pop. You claimed the server you on is medium pop. so it can be anyware from 1200 to 1800 players.
You are here assuming that server loads is based on fixed numbers of medium meaning 1200 - 1800. You are forgetting that sever loads is something that the developers can tweak to their liking - like happened in WARHAMMER when some of the duplicated servers started to show low numbers. Then the values were simply changed and 50 players online ment the server had medium load. And ofc all servers had medium loads almost all the time then. But by that time Mythic had removed all ways of seeing how many players were online in search options cause they didn't want facts about it to come out.
Also - dont forget IM talking about 1 faction here. If about 400 players are online of 1 faction - it could mean that 700 -1000 players are online in total. Thats spread over 50 levels. I can not play with half the players cause they are other faction - And since IM playing endgame content I have only lvl 50 players available. And since it doesn't have cross server options on Dungeon grouping - Im down to bare minimum of less than 100 ppl that I can play with for the content Im after. (And big part of them might want to PVP instead of doing dungeons)
And dont forget that dungeons in RIFT are T1 and T2 in expert so in truth half of those players are not even looking for the same dungeons at lvl 50. SO.. unless IM tanking it myself.... there are 2-5 tanks on the server that are doing the same content as me.
Now.... THATS when you realise that a MMO game isn't really a MMO game...
I want to see endgame PVE content in RIFT - I play on a server that has close to zero chance to see raid content in next 2-3 months - meaning it will never see it since more and more ppl will quit when they realise it. And TRION is right now trying to prevent players from realising what is really going on on these low populated servers.
They are down to only 5 or 6 servers on high during prime time on week days, the population has dropped quite a lot even if people want to refuse to admit it.
Why do you care?