Incredible that people talk about vectors and pixels while the real revolution in server based MMORPG design is skipped over....
LOL
It reminds me of that mmorpg editor that talked about a certain old WOW patch and skipped the part that stated something about cross realm dungeon play through a new LFG tool.
Luckily this editor did notice the new revolution hidden within the patch.
Ever populated worlds. No more low pop problems. yeah ... real trivial ... and pixels are more important (not).
The pixels are more important to some of us. Ever populated worlds, yay, now there will be more people to tag my mobs half a second before I can attack because Blizzard never fixed the one thing they should have that most new games have already resolved. That's right, I don't CARE about population. There were always plenty of people to play with in WoW, and since they almost never invited me to a group or vice versa, with the archaic mob tagging system it's just competition anyway.
Humhum: CRZ now functions within the new virtual realms with a shared economy and ditto Guild recruitement.
I thought this site was called MMORPG. The more players the better.
And no more pop problems for MMO's: the Holy grail really.
So typical you talk about pixels and mob tagging: the most trivial aspects of MMO technology.
Incredible that people talk about vectors and pixels while the real revolution in server based MMORPG design is skipped over....
LOL
It reminds me of that mmorpg editor that talked about a certain old WOW patch and skipped the part that stated something about cross realm dungeon play through a new LFG tool.
Luckily this editor did notice the new revolution hidden within the patch.
Ever populated worlds. No more low pop problems. yeah ... real trivial ... and pixels are more important (not).
The pixels are more important to some of us. Ever populated worlds, yay, now there will be more people to tag my mobs half a second before I can attack because Blizzard never fixed the one thing they should have that most new games have already resolved. That's right, I don't CARE about population. There were always plenty of people to play with in WoW, and since they almost never invited me to a group or vice versa, with the archaic mob tagging system it's just competition anyway.
Humhum: CRZ now functions within the new virtual realms with a shared economy and ditto Guild recruitement.
I thought this site was called MMORPG. The more players the better.
And no more pop problems for MMO's: the Holy grail really.
So typical you talk about pixels and mob tagging: the most trivial aspects of MMO technology.
rest is now history.
That's so cool, it's almost like we both have different opinions of what's important.
I'm a little out of touch here but does the virtual realms idea just seem to be a bandaid for the ever depleting subscriber numbers in an attempt to repopulate the servers without having to actually close servers? Of course it's cheaper (for Blizzard) and simpler than doing free server transfers.
I'm not attempting to put down WoW in any way (I love the game) but why even have to create this virtual realm system if the servers were well populated? Joining 10 servers together does not mean that your friends will be on one of those servers either.
I understand this is an absolute necessity as I logged on a month ago after not playing for a year. My server had a massive Horde population and was maybe 15-1 against the alliance. When I logged onto my horde main Orgrimmar was almost deserted. I couldn't believe that the server appeared to have lost maybe half or even more of its population within this time.
I have a couple of questions on this. Is the AH shared within the virtual realm and secondly, does this virtual realm idea allow for many more players to interact than say 1 server that is fully populated?
Seems like they are going out of their way not to do server merges...
By doing something that at least on paper is superior to server merges.
They are effectively merging servers without any of the negative impacts on players. No guild and player name loss, no losing your server name (some identify with their server)...
People say WoW doesnt do anything original, well this is pretty damn innovative and I suspect we will see this from other games int he future
I'm a little out of touch here but does the virtual realms idea just seem to be a bandaid
I have a couple of questions on this. Is the AH shared within the virtual realm and secondly, does this virtual realm idea allow for many more players to interact than say 1 server that is fully populated?
Answers:
1. No it is not a band aid as it seriously would be great for ANY realm based MMORPG, even 3 months after launch.
2. The AH is shared within the virtual realm as is the guild play. The virtual realm behaves like a single realm in play mechanics.
3. Yes, the virutal realm regroups ALL players of all clustered realms, effectively multiplying the number of players by the factor of X number of realm servers.
So you will have MORE players than a single realm can hold.
In practice Blizzard lets you play in real time and with no loading screen with a population that could be as big as 10 full single realms.
The load balancing of the realms in the open world is done by the CRZ technique introduced in 2012. (both for underpopulation of worlds as overpopulation).
But with patch 5.4 these players ALSO share the economy as well as Guild play etc. The virtual realm behaves exactly like one GIANT server with X times the number of players as there are server(realms) within the cluster.
And all this is done without loading screens or other techniques to let these players play together (all is seamless).
Unseen in landscape based MMORPG's until now.
Tell again Blzzard is not innovating: In one single blow they solved the eternal population problems of single server based MMO's.
I'm a little out of touch here but does the virtual realms idea just seem to be a bandaid
I have a couple of questions on this. Is the AH shared within the virtual realm and secondly, does this virtual realm idea allow for many more players to interact than say 1 server that is fully populated?
Answers:
1. No it is not a band aid as it seriously would be great for ANY realm based MMORPG, even 3 months after launch.
2. The AH is shared within the virtual realm as is the guild play. The virtual realm behaves like a single realm in play mechanics.
3. Yes, the virutal realm regroups ALL players of all clustered realms, effectively multiplying the number of players by the factor of X number of realm servers.
So you will have MORE players than a single realm can hold.
In practice Blizzard lets you play in real time and with no loading screen with a population that could be as big as 10 full single realms.
The load balancing of the realms in the open world is done by the CRZ technique introduced in 2012. (both for underpopulation of worlds as overpopulation).
But with patch 5.4 these players ALSO share the economy as well as Guild play etc. The virtual realm behaves exactly like one GIANT server with X times the number of players as there are server(realms) within the cluster.
And all this is done without loading screens or other techniques to let these players play together (all is seamless).
Unseen in landscape based MMORPG's until now.
Tell again Blzzard is not innovating: In one single blow they solved the eternal population problems of single server based MMO's.
Tell again Blzzard is not innovating: In one single blow they solved the eternal population problems of single server based MMO's.
Now why did you have to poke that badger?
To be fair, ANet (and several other companies) have worked some similar solutions to the same problems, too. In the future, a lot of arguments will take place over who was "first", probably including lots of revisionist-history-post-facto squabbling (as usual).
Simple to just observe "it was time". The Super-Servers general notion has been evolving (with different details) all over the place for a while now.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Comments
Humhum: CRZ now functions within the new virtual realms with a shared economy and ditto Guild recruitement.
I thought this site was called MMORPG. The more players the better.
And no more pop problems for MMO's: the Holy grail really.
So typical you talk about pixels and mob tagging: the most trivial aspects of MMO technology.
rest is now history.
That's so cool, it's almost like we both have different opinions of what's important.
I'm a little out of touch here but does the virtual realms idea just seem to be a bandaid for the ever depleting subscriber numbers in an attempt to repopulate the servers without having to actually close servers? Of course it's cheaper (for Blizzard) and simpler than doing free server transfers.
I'm not attempting to put down WoW in any way (I love the game) but why even have to create this virtual realm system if the servers were well populated? Joining 10 servers together does not mean that your friends will be on one of those servers either.
I understand this is an absolute necessity as I logged on a month ago after not playing for a year. My server had a massive Horde population and was maybe 15-1 against the alliance. When I logged onto my horde main Orgrimmar was almost deserted. I couldn't believe that the server appeared to have lost maybe half or even more of its population within this time.
I have a couple of questions on this. Is the AH shared within the virtual realm and secondly, does this virtual realm idea allow for many more players to interact than say 1 server that is fully populated?
By doing something that at least on paper is superior to server merges.
They are effectively merging servers without any of the negative impacts on players. No guild and player name loss, no losing your server name (some identify with their server)...
People say WoW doesnt do anything original, well this is pretty damn innovative and I suspect we will see this from other games int he future
Answers:
1. No it is not a band aid as it seriously would be great for ANY realm based MMORPG, even 3 months after launch.
2. The AH is shared within the virtual realm as is the guild play. The virtual realm behaves like a single realm in play mechanics.
3. Yes, the virutal realm regroups ALL players of all clustered realms, effectively multiplying the number of players by the factor of X number of realm servers.
So you will have MORE players than a single realm can hold.
In practice Blizzard lets you play in real time and with no loading screen with a population that could be as big as 10 full single realms.
The load balancing of the realms in the open world is done by the CRZ technique introduced in 2012. (both for underpopulation of worlds as overpopulation).
But with patch 5.4 these players ALSO share the economy as well as Guild play etc. The virtual realm behaves exactly like one GIANT server with X times the number of players as there are server(realms) within the cluster.
And all this is done without loading screens or other techniques to let these players play together (all is seamless).
Unseen in landscape based MMORPG's until now.
Tell again Blzzard is not innovating: In one single blow they solved the eternal population problems of single server based MMO's.
Cheers Sportsfan,
I really appreciate you clearing this up for me.
PS4? What is "PS4"? :-))
Now why did you have to poke that badger?
To be fair, ANet (and several other companies) have worked some similar solutions to the same problems, too. In the future, a lot of arguments will take place over who was "first", probably including lots of revisionist-history-post-facto squabbling (as usual).
Simple to just observe "it was time". The Super-Servers general notion has been evolving (with different details) all over the place for a while now.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.