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Overflow servers, bye bye Que
ProfRed
Member UncommonPosts: 3,495
From;
ArenaNet
I see some of you concentrate on the really important stuff. 
Let me explain what an overflow server is and what it does. It is a technology we also use as our version of a queuing system. When a map or a world you want to log into is at capacity limit, the game will ask you if you want to play on an overflow server - so you can actually play while you are in a queue. Once space opens on your world, the game will ask you if you want to join your friends on your world. And you keep all the progress you made while you were playing on the overflow server.
From : http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1128627&postcount=346
These guys really seem to look at problems that plague most games and come up with pretty cool solutions.
Comments
bleh instancing sucks anyway.
My blog:
Nice fantastic idea, lets hope it works effectively, which knowing Anet.. it will
Sounds cool
Frankly, I'll take queues over being in a game that went server crazy anyways such as SWTOR and others. I'm so sick and tired of having to cross my fingers that I made the right choice server wise
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Yeah it really does and I think all fans and devs will agree. Technology though can only go so far to get X amount of people in an area. Especially when users can supply their own technology and you are trying to support a huge array of hardware. You then have three general options and a fourth added by Anet:
a) Do nothing until the server or client crashes
b) Only render the players close to you like FFXI. This generally worked until you had 400-500 people then message lag alone causes it to be almost unplayable. Also it still had a limit of 500 people.
c) Instance straight up with no que, just 14 versions of the same map
d) Create an overflow server while you are secretly que'ed to get back into the original that continues to keep the original full and also use this to eliminate login que's
D is pretty awesome if you ask me. I am sure there is more that can be done. Some questions come up like.. if I party with a friend in the normal map can they transfer to the overflow to play with me?
At least they are taking steps in the right direction.
This is a fantastic idea. There's nothing worse than sitting in a queue in the hundreds having to wait 20-30+ min in order to get into a game. With this, they can even afford to pack servers more than usual as well, which will help everything from pvp to finding people for dungeons. Great idea!
I think its about time someone made a character server and allow them (technically) to seamlessly move between servers. This will be how they are doing the W v W v W fights.
Possibly also a hacking threat!
Keep in mind that overflow servers for the WvWvW areas will still enrage people, if they are called to their realms defence because the ennemy is taking all their keep with a numerical advantage, and then you can't join your own servers WvWvW area because they are loaded...
It will take away some pain but not all pain.
(oldtime DAoC players will understand what i meant with being called to the deffence, if an ennemy decided to raid your relic keeps then everyone on the whole server dropped what they where doing, yes even PvE raids and rushed to the defence of the relic keeps)
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
It's a cool solution, I like it. Everyone complaining about it, please remember that the situation is such that you either get to play on an overflow server, or not play AT ALL. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than waiting in a queue.
Also, IIRC, GW2 will have free server transfers. So if your server is really full, you and your buds can always just move.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Everyone complaining about? What possible reason would they have for being against this assuming it works as intended? The 'ole instance bitch I take it?
Seems most are either indifferent to it or for it from what I have seen.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I simply don't think it will be possible that one side have a numerical advantage and the other is not allowed to enter. I am quite sure that ArenaNet will not allow a meta tactic in WvW there is about amassing enough players to keep opponents out. Instead i exspect each server to have the same max number of players there can enter each map. I am not sure they will have an overflow server for WvW at all - whats the point of guildcaping a fortress in an overflow server?
Though it may not be the perfect solution for everyone, I think it's an awesome idea. To me: some action > no action. They mentioned that "your progress would be kept" while playing on the overflow server...I have to wonder, would this progress still count toward my team's/server's efforts? For example...say that myself and a few other people take over a tower or keep, on the overflow server...once we got back to the 'main' server, would our faction at least get some sort of "credit" or "points"? It wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me, if it didn't work that way, but just something I'm curious about.
Hmm he may be implying that the experience, gear, achievements, and personal story advances you get are kept. Keeps are bound to the world, so I don't think any PvP action other than your character advances would be transferred.
It would almost be an exploit if the most populated server had its overflow players capping points in the WvW zone and then that progress transferred to the ACTUAL WvW server battle.
Quite true!
So, basically this is instancing being called overflow servers. Very innovative in the marketing.
I kind of like it. Most games just make way too many servers, and then in a few weeks have to merge, or play on a ghost town. I think this is a neat approach to fixing that issue.
Overflow server in general seems like a terrible idea, unless the player cap is really high. I'd hate to see this like Age of Conan, where the number of players per zone was so low that they had 6 copies of one zone. It made the game feel so small, and more of an online rpg, not an MMO.
I'd hate to see WvW with an overflow server. That would be ridiculous.
WvW should not have a hard cap on it. What if one of the servers have 3 organized guilds, while another server has a bunch of random people that aren't organized taking up player slots, while the organized guilds have to sit and wait in a queue or go play in an overflow server?
We don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that there isn't a dedicated "overflow server", but rather in overflow you will be sent to a less populated game server while you wait in the queue. You'll still have people there to cooperate with that are native to the server, not just other people in a queue and the dynamic events of the world will reflect an active server population, rather than a transient one.
Sounds great to me. Let's you play while you wait and adds some more bodies to a less populated server, even if temporarily.
You'll appear in the same place in the world as you last logged out, or would otherwise have been sent to. Might actually be really fun to see how different a state the zone may be in between the two worlds, as dynamic events have played out in different ways and content is on different links in the DE chains.
I wonder if you can temporarily extend your stay in the Overflow when you place in the queue pops up? Like an overflow "snooze alarm", "just give me five more minutes, I'm storming the castle"!
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
If the four WvW zones can each hold around 500 people, I'm guessing that the PVE zone caps are going to be more than sufficient to prevent any need for overflow triggers. From what I understand, this is about total server capacity, not zone to zone capacity. Plus, unlike other games, remember that PVE content scales up depending on the number of active participants and everyone gets full XP and their own loot for shared kills. (Plus, almost all DEs seem to have shared objectives, rather than requiring you as an individual to kill X or gather Y).
The content itself can handle and support a lot more people than a typical MMO, which is a bigger limitation than raw zone capacities for most MMOs that utilize multiple instances of game zones to handle masses of players.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I think your missing something
They're not talking about population caps on zones, they are talking about population caps on SERVERS.
I think you're thinking of "sharding" which means creating multiple instances of zones that players are sent to when a zone is too full. I'm not sure if GW2 will have sharding or not, but this is not what this topic is about.
This is about if you try to join your server and it says "Server is full, estimated wait time 30 minutes" and then you have to wait a half an hour to play. What they are saying is that instead of just waiting in a queue, you can actually PLAY THE GAME in an "overflow area" (probably shared between multiple servers if I had to guess) and then get a message telling you when you can join your actual server.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I thought it was backwards that they decided to have separate servers when GW1 didn't.
One server technology can work well with surnames and transparent instancing where you always see your friends and if LFG other people who are LFG and others who are close by to whatever limit the server can handle. I don't see why we aren't moving in this direction in mmos. No more merging, no more ghost towns, no more server full go reroll someplace else crap.
I actually like the separate servers better for the style of game that GW2 is though. I'm not going to talk about any technical aspects here because honestly, I don't understand them well enough. So instead, I'll just talk about why I like separate servers from a design point of view.
If the entire GW2 population lived on a single server, there would HAVE to be a lot of zone sharding just to fit everyone in. The world just isn't designed to handle millions of people. You wouldn't want, for example, 3000 people in a single area. Even if you ignore technical issues, it would just be waaaay too crowded.
This means that every time you play you would be randomly shunted off to a different shard. Because of this, it's extremely unlikely that you'll just randomly see the same people more than once. There will be no sense of community at all, it would feel like you are playing with strangers almost every time you login.
In addition, WvW wouldn't really work
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I think you missed something. This is adressing SERVER caps, not zone caps. Instancing is when caps are put on zones. Ques are for when caps are put on servers. This is an alternative to the QUE system, not the INSTANCING system.
So you'd rather twidle your thumbs for 60 minutes waiting in a que than playing the game and advancing your character until you can enter the server?
I don't understand this logic.
Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.
Awesome quote badspock