The Dreaded Server Combine

Comments

• sepher Member Posts: 3,561

  May 2007

  Originally posted by Cerpent
  
  
  I do not know the exact numbers of people on each servers, but if SOE follows what it has done in the past, there is always the possibility that during this time of "re-assessment and regrouping" that they will perform the dread server combine. 
  All of us who have suffered through the server merging of past games know the pains that the player base suffers.  In the long run many times the new influx of players on a server is a real help.  In the short term, it is nothing but chaos and frustration.  In EQ my server was deleted and moved to another.  In EQ2 I got lucky and was on a surviving server.  But I remember the total choas of both.
  What would you do if SOE does a merge?
  The Ancient One
  There is nothing Fool-Proof to a sufficiently talented fool.
  

  Rejoice. Mergers are needed. It's exactly what you said though, hectic in the short term but it ultimately pays off later on.
  
  
  
  The sooner Sigil does it the better I think; mainly because an issue of overlapping housing plots come to mind, and that issue increases by the day.
  
  
  
  There's also the issues of there being four different rulesets, only "normal" has multiple servers of the same type. So I believe if Sigil merged all the normal servers now and they reached "high" capacity one day, the FFA PvP, Team PvP, and RP servers might benefit from a population overflow from the other servers of folks more inclined towards their rulesets, without having to do something like merge a PvP server with a normal server.
  
  
  
  In general, the sooner the better, but something about Brad saying he was only a year off in his calculations from that 500k subscriber mark he wanted to hit with Vanguard tells me they might just leave the servers as is and actually count on having to add more servers later.
• josh8211 Member Posts: 11

  May 2007

  If they're smart they'll do it similar to when DAoC merged servers, make duplicates of any player effected areas (ie. housing).  I don't know if you can build houses anywhere in Vanguard but I'm assuming there's only certain places.
  
  
  
  Actually DAoC just made duplicates of EVERYTHING except the PvP areas at first and it really wasn't chaotic or frustrating.  I'd be extremely worried if they did that with such a new game though.
• sepher Member Posts: 3,561

  May 2007

  Originally posted by josh8211
  
  If they're smart they'll do it similar to when DAoC merged servers, make duplicates of any player effected areas (ie. housing).  I don't know if you can build houses anywhere in Vanguard but I'm assuming there's only certain places.
  
  
  
  Actually DAoC just made duplicates of EVERYTHING except the PvP areas at first and it really wasn't chaotic or frustrating.  I'd be extremely worried if they did that with such a new game though.

  Something Vanguard really can't do, since it's chunking works a lot different than DAoC's typical usage of "zones". Creating duplicate chunks or some-such would break that seamless mold they're adamant about keeping. I imagine duplicating a chunk would be similar to being asked about how to pen a new grid square in the center of an existing grid.
• Amathe Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630

  May 2007

  They need server mergers because the game is unpopular and people have trouble finding groups. But they also have problems with lag, etc., so increasing the population, especially in towns, will be an issue.

  EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
• josh8211 Member Posts: 11

  May 2007

  I'm pretty sure nothing about that game won't be an issue.  It's a shame because I really liked the Disciple class.  It was pretty unique and the whole offensive/defensive targets thing made it very practical to be an offensive healer.  But yeah, I really can't stand putting money into things that are far from finished or even optimized.