A mistake is to leave people on queue on prime time. Merges are inevitable, get over it. Retention rate is 40% at best before MMOs start growing again. If they don't add the servers, they are denying the service people paid for.
I counted 4 servers on LOW and 8 on FULL on early US peak times, and 6 LOW servers and 10 FULL servers on EU peak times.
Adding a whole battery of servers doesn't solve all queueing. Although the diminishing of the number of LOW servers is a good sign, hopefully it continues. I even saw one of the formerly LOW recommended servers on HIGH.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
a lot of people will "get over it" and then you'll say "look how much has improved, please come back".
Why would I do that? It isn't my game, my playground, my whatever. I have no attachment to the game, no emotional involvement apart from the fun times I'm extracting out of it. Inevitably though the time will come where I will either find something more interesting or I'll get bored and leave.
So, don't expect me to say anything of the sorts. Right now I'm telling you that I don't care one bit whether you play the game or not. I'm playing it because I'm having fun right now and I have found like minded individuals who share the same feelings. You're not part of that group. You're as much a nobody as I am.
Bototm line, welcome to our party. I and others are willing to include you in our fun times, provided you give the whole thing a chance. If not, well, have fun to whatever else you chooce, but don't expect tears of sorrow.
This game is meant to cater for the casual crowd and the casual crowd who hold down jobs cannot afford the time to wait in queues. You make them do that they will leave the game so they had no choice but to put up more servers .It is that or lose people. So if they merge servers down the road must it always be the sign of failure. Which game has not lost people exception being WoW a few months later. This is typical in any MMORPG that is not WoW.
I feel in terms of busines it is better to merge servers later than to piss off your current potential customers who just bought the game. People are seldom charitable when they have just spent cash on a game to find they now have the added bonus of waiting to log in.
Xasapis, that's a great tool, thanks for the link!
Alright, things are starting to look good. The EU servers still had like 4 LOW servers while there were 6 FULL servers, so launch day didn't have as much impact, and it looks like headstart is becoming more and more the period of time that most interested MMO gamers get into the action. We'll see how it develops over the weekend and into next week.
However, the US servers has already only 2 servers on LOW, which is promising.
A shame that Rift is still not visible on Xfire, it'd be interesting to see what figures it would have. I did notice a dip of WoW figures to its lowest points I've seen in many months, namely 120-140k hours, where usually during a working week it'd hover around 170-200k and higher, especially post-CATA. Earlier this week there was only a gap of 15k hours preventing WoW being overtaken by the number 2 from its 1st spot. I can't recall WoW not having been the number 1 on Xfire for ages.
Also LotrO showed a dip in hours played.
How the trends will continue, we'll see in the following weeks.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Xasapis, that's a great tool, thanks for the link!
Alright, things are starting to look good. The EU servers still had like 4 LOW servers while there were 6 FULL servers, so launch day didn't have as much impact, and it looks like headstart is becoming more and more the period of time that most interested MMO gamers get into the action. We'll see how it develops over the weekend and into next week.
However, the US servers has already only 2 servers on LOW, which is promising.
A shame that Rift is still not visible on Xfire, it'd be interesting to see what figures it would have. I did notice a dip of WoW figures to its lowest points I've seen in many months, namely 120-140k hours, where usually during a working week it'd hover around 170-200k and higher, especially post-CATA. Earlier this week there was only a gap of 15k hours preventing WoW being overtaken by the number 2 from its 1st spot. I can't recall WoW not having been the number 1 on Xfire for ages.
Also LotrO showed a dip in hours played.
How the trends will continue, we'll see in the following weeks.
XFire does work with Rift, you just have to manually find it. See my Sig.
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
WAR didn't make a mistake by having alot of servers to begin with. Nor is Rift making a mistake. You allocate the number of servers you need at the time. As populations drop or grow, the server population follows. If you were to have a game that needed 10 servers to host all of the ppl, but kept it artificially low, say at 5, you create a whole set of problems with disgruntled players screaming because of the queues. The initial amount of servers doesn't reflect the ultimate success or failure of the game. Its more a reflection of a 'hype' meter when the game comes out. If in two years they have X number of servers and only need Y, then they will be making a mistake.
XFire does work with Rift, you just have to manually find it. See my Sig.
Ah? I read someone post that in Xfire it connects only the old beta client automatically, and that you have to manually redirect it towards the live client to make it detect the proper client.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
XFire does work with Rift, you just have to manually find it. See my Sig.
Ah? I read someone post that in Xfire it connects only the old beta client automatically, and that you have to manually redirect it towards the live client to make it detect the proper client.
That was a day or 2 ago though.
Yes that is a more articulate way of summing up what I posted.
It's too bad I have some kind of sinus ailment that is making me too miserable to play. I was loving the Head start.
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Had Mythic delivered the goods, it wouldn't have been too many. Rift delivers the goods...
I have to agree. Mythic, which was really just an office of EA at that point really blundered WAR. It wasn't the number of servers, but the quality of WAR that made people leave.
So far, Rift is delivering on the promises Trion made. Certainately, the launch went as planned as no servers crashing, no queues, no framrate issues or "stuck while looting" bugs that plagued other mmo launches.
I think they have way to many servers, probally won't even need more than about 10 maybe 20 tops after the free month if it follows the trend most mmo's do (Big initial wave for free month, then after that about 80-90% leave). Expect alot of server merges about 1-2 months after the game has to be paid to play. I'd actually prefer there to be not enough servers then add as needed, saves money for the devoloper/hoster. Not trying to troll just stating a fact since i've seen this happen in more than one MMOrpg that got overzealous with too many servers at launch.
Best advice I can give to make the process easy on you, is remake your chars on servers that have a very high pop at primetime, or popular servers, less chance it'll be ripped apart by merges in the future.
I myself am hesitant to buy Rift, since I play for 8+ hours a day, it doesn't take much time to hit the cap, least from initial reports.
Problem with Linear quest based games like Rift and WoW and such is that its increadbly boring going to cap the 2nd time due to the same linear quest path, then again I guess this is unavoidable in mmo's Best example I seen was Fallen Earth, there really is no linear quest line other than the initial story quest your on, besides that you can go to any town you want and do any quests u want.
"An MMORPG could be completely diffirent from WoW. Just look at games like Dofus, Wizard101 or EVE. But as it is, most of the Western MMOs are trying to succeed by out-WoWing WoW. It's like an army of 10 sports games made about same sports, and barely none about other sports. WoW clone is an accurate description of those games, it manages to convey much information with only two words." -Poster on mmorpg.com
Rift: World of Warcraft clone #9321 Nothing special to see here move along.
I just picked up my copy and most of the servers are High or Full, very few low servers. Ofcourse its only the first month and its too early to tell how the game will go.
There are currently no "low" US servers at the time of writing, and when it was primetime in EU earlier today, the EU was also without a single "low" server
There are currently no "low" US servers at the time of writing, and when it was primetime in EU earlier today, the EU was also without a single "low" server
Just remember:
It will fail on launch day
It will fail one week later
It will fail when it is time to resub
I suggest any GW2 or SWToR employee who reads these forums or any other take a hint. This is how you release an MMO. Don't hide information...don't restrict access. Deal with bugs on the spot. Keep contact...Right now in that dev tracker tech devs and raids devs are still communicating asking for feedback.
They did not release it wipe their hands and go throw a party. I have seen personally feedback about small details being put into small hot fix patches for 5 days straight. It takes impresive to a new level.
Always better to have too much of something than too little. If it gets to the point they need to merge servers, is that really a big deal?
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
For the rational? No, not at all. Its better to have a better experience for your players and be able to keep lines to a minimum. But you should ***KNOW** that as soon as they do a merge that the Haters and Trolls will start howling that "Rift is dying!!"...<rolls eyes>
Had Mythic delivered the goods, it wouldn't have been too many. Rift delivers the goods...
Could you elaborate on how rift has delivered the goods? I mean from what i've read the pvp isn't that good... WAR was a pvp game, pve 2nd. So how are they comparable?
There are currently no "low" US servers at the time of writing, and when it was primetime in EU earlier today, the EU was also without a single "low" server
Heh, maybe a bit too optimistic, I counted 3-4 LOW servers on EU peak times. But it certainly is looking up.
No LOW servers on US side anymore, 23 on MEDIUM (5 FULL).
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Had Mythic delivered the goods, it wouldn't have been too many. Rift delivers the goods...
Could you elaborate on how rift has delivered the goods? I mean from what i've read the pvp isn't that good... WAR was a pvp game, pve 2nd. So how are they comparable?
It delivers because to me, its an enjoyable , well polished game. As I have little or no interest in MMO PvP, I can't comment on that aspect.
Had Mythic delivered the goods, it wouldn't have been too many. Rift delivers the goods...
Could you elaborate on how rift has delivered the goods? I mean from what i've read the pvp isn't that good... WAR was a pvp game, pve 2nd. So how are they comparable?
WARS client wasn't optimized at all on release heck it probly still isn't.WAR your right primarly pvp that alone set it up to have a huge drop off after the first month people expected the pve part of the game to atleast be somewhat entertaining and enough of it to get from one area to the next and that just wasn't the case,I think IF mythic had made the pve experience not so shallow and more like rift/wow with there pvp alot more would have stuck around and played it.
People left WAR in most part because the pve 10000% sucked and they didn't wanna work on it because they listening to the vocal minority pvp crowd kept adding more pvp and have abandoned the pve part all together as they know now it is too late for war.
So of the two choices here: 1. Not opening lots of servers will lead to long queues and people who have bought the game will not be able to play. Option 2. Open more servers, now they will possibly have to merge some servers in 3 months, gives bad press.
What do you think is worse from a marketing perspective? The bad press gained from merging servers or the bad press gained from all the people not actually being able to play the game and use the service they have paid for?
This has already been mentioned several times in this thread and it should be an obvious option, but let me mention the third option, which is adding servers gradually instead of a batch: when you noticed as good as all your servers on high or full at peak times, you'll add a few more servers. As soon as those start to fill up and move towards high at peak times, add some more.
If the numbers rise, no biggie, you can add new servers by 2-3. If the numbers stabilize or have it their highest point, then you'll have had enough servers to deal with the highest peaks, without the problems of servers who were on LOW or barely reached MEDIUM losing too many players too soon, making a server feel like a ghost town too soon.
As the figures showed, there'll be servers with queues anyway even if there are alternate servers with much lower population, so a few servers at a time to provide the choice of low enough population to avoid the queue should be sufficient.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
Yes, they are making the same mistake. In 6 months time over half the servers will be low population. You heard it here first.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
A mistake is to leave people on queue on prime time. Merges are inevitable, get over it. Retention rate is 40% at best before MMOs start growing again. If they don't add the servers, they are denying the service people paid for.
I counted 4 servers on LOW and 8 on FULL on early US peak times, and 6 LOW servers and 10 FULL servers on EU peak times.
Adding a whole battery of servers doesn't solve all queueing. Although the diminishing of the number of LOW servers is a good sign, hopefully it continues. I even saw one of the formerly LOW recommended servers on HIGH.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Why would I do that? It isn't my game, my playground, my whatever. I have no attachment to the game, no emotional involvement apart from the fun times I'm extracting out of it. Inevitably though the time will come where I will either find something more interesting or I'll get bored and leave.
So, don't expect me to say anything of the sorts. Right now I'm telling you that I don't care one bit whether you play the game or not. I'm playing it because I'm having fun right now and I have found like minded individuals who share the same feelings. You're not part of that group. You're as much a nobody as I am.
Bototm line, welcome to our party. I and others are willing to include you in our fun times, provided you give the whole thing a chance. If not, well, have fun to whatever else you chooce, but don't expect tears of sorrow.
This game is meant to cater for the casual crowd and the casual crowd who hold down jobs cannot afford the time to wait in queues. You make them do that they will leave the game so they had no choice but to put up more servers .It is that or lose people. So if they merge servers down the road must it always be the sign of failure. Which game has not lost people exception being WoW a few months later. This is typical in any MMORPG that is not WoW.
I feel in terms of busines it is better to merge servers later than to piss off your current potential customers who just bought the game. People are seldom charitable when they have just spent cash on a game to find they now have the added bonus of waiting to log in.
Look what I found in Rift's official forums. Very nice looking tool.
http://riftideas.com/shardwatch/
and the thread where it comes from with explanations from the creator:
http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?106024-ShardWatch-1.0-See-charts-of-shard-population!
Xasapis, that's a great tool, thanks for the link!
Alright, things are starting to look good. The EU servers still had like 4 LOW servers while there were 6 FULL servers, so launch day didn't have as much impact, and it looks like headstart is becoming more and more the period of time that most interested MMO gamers get into the action. We'll see how it develops over the weekend and into next week.
However, the US servers has already only 2 servers on LOW, which is promising.
A shame that Rift is still not visible on Xfire, it'd be interesting to see what figures it would have. I did notice a dip of WoW figures to its lowest points I've seen in many months, namely 120-140k hours, where usually during a working week it'd hover around 170-200k and higher, especially post-CATA. Earlier this week there was only a gap of 15k hours preventing WoW being overtaken by the number 2 from its 1st spot. I can't recall WoW not having been the number 1 on Xfire for ages.
Also LotrO showed a dip in hours played.
How the trends will continue, we'll see in the following weeks.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
XFire does work with Rift, you just have to manually find it. See my Sig.
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
WAR didn't make a mistake by having alot of servers to begin with. Nor is Rift making a mistake. You allocate the number of servers you need at the time. As populations drop or grow, the server population follows. If you were to have a game that needed 10 servers to host all of the ppl, but kept it artificially low, say at 5, you create a whole set of problems with disgruntled players screaming because of the queues. The initial amount of servers doesn't reflect the ultimate success or failure of the game. Its more a reflection of a 'hype' meter when the game comes out. If in two years they have X number of servers and only need Y, then they will be making a mistake.
I self identify as a monkey.
Ah? I read someone post that in Xfire it connects only the old beta client automatically, and that you have to manually redirect it towards the live client to make it detect the proper client.
That was a day or 2 ago though.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yes that is a more articulate way of summing up what I posted.
It's too bad I have some kind of sinus ailment that is making me too miserable to play. I was loving the Head start.
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
Lol. Heh, sorry, read your earlier post wrong, I think.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I have to agree. Mythic, which was really just an office of EA at that point really blundered WAR. It wasn't the number of servers, but the quality of WAR that made people leave.
So far, Rift is delivering on the promises Trion made. Certainately, the launch went as planned as no servers crashing, no queues, no framrate issues or "stuck while looting" bugs that plagued other mmo launches.
I think they have way to many servers, probally won't even need more than about 10 maybe 20 tops after the free month if it follows the trend most mmo's do (Big initial wave for free month, then after that about 80-90% leave). Expect alot of server merges about 1-2 months after the game has to be paid to play. I'd actually prefer there to be not enough servers then add as needed, saves money for the devoloper/hoster. Not trying to troll just stating a fact since i've seen this happen in more than one MMOrpg that got overzealous with too many servers at launch.
Best advice I can give to make the process easy on you, is remake your chars on servers that have a very high pop at primetime, or popular servers, less chance it'll be ripped apart by merges in the future.
I myself am hesitant to buy Rift, since I play for 8+ hours a day, it doesn't take much time to hit the cap, least from initial reports.
Problem with Linear quest based games like Rift and WoW and such is that its increadbly boring going to cap the 2nd time due to the same linear quest path, then again I guess this is unavoidable in mmo's Best example I seen was Fallen Earth, there really is no linear quest line other than the initial story quest your on, besides that you can go to any town you want and do any quests u want.
"An MMORPG could be completely diffirent from WoW. Just look at games like Dofus, Wizard101 or EVE. But as it is, most of the Western MMOs are trying to succeed by out-WoWing WoW. It's like an army of 10 sports games made about same sports, and barely none about other sports. WoW clone is an accurate description of those games, it manages to convey much information with only two words."
-Poster on mmorpg.com
Rift: World of Warcraft clone #9321 Nothing special to see here move along.
I just picked up my copy and most of the servers are High or Full, very few low servers. Ofcourse its only the first month and its too early to tell how the game will go.
There are currently no "low" US servers at the time of writing, and when it was primetime in EU earlier today, the EU was also without a single "low" server
Just remember:
It will fail on launch day
It will fail one week later
It will fail when it is time to resub
I suggest any GW2 or SWToR employee who reads these forums or any other take a hint. This is how you release an MMO. Don't hide information...don't restrict access. Deal with bugs on the spot. Keep contact...Right now in that dev tracker tech devs and raids devs are still communicating asking for feedback.
They did not release it wipe their hands and go throw a party. I have seen personally feedback about small details being put into small hot fix patches for 5 days straight. It takes impresive to a new level.
For the rational? No, not at all. Its better to have a better experience for your players and be able to keep lines to a minimum. But you should ***KNOW** that as soon as they do a merge that the Haters and Trolls will start howling that "Rift is dying!!"...<rolls eyes>
Could you elaborate on how rift has delivered the goods? I mean from what i've read the pvp isn't that good... WAR was a pvp game, pve 2nd. So how are they comparable?
Heh, maybe a bit too optimistic, I counted 3-4 LOW servers on EU peak times. But it certainly is looking up.
No LOW servers on US side anymore, 23 on MEDIUM (5 FULL).
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It delivers because to me, its an enjoyable , well polished game. As I have little or no interest in MMO PvP, I can't comment on that aspect.
WARS client wasn't optimized at all on release heck it probly still isn't.WAR your right primarly pvp that alone set it up to have a huge drop off after the first month people expected the pve part of the game to atleast be somewhat entertaining and enough of it to get from one area to the next and that just wasn't the case,I think IF mythic had made the pve experience not so shallow and more like rift/wow with there pvp alot more would have stuck around and played it.
People left WAR in most part because the pve 10000% sucked and they didn't wanna work on it because they listening to the vocal minority pvp crowd kept adding more pvp and have abandoned the pve part all together as they know now it is too late for war.
So of the two choices here: 1. Not opening lots of servers will lead to long queues and people who have bought the game will not be able to play. Option 2. Open more servers, now they will possibly have to merge some servers in 3 months, gives bad press.
What do you think is worse from a marketing perspective? The bad press gained from merging servers or the bad press gained from all the people not actually being able to play the game and use the service they have paid for?
This has already been mentioned several times in this thread and it should be an obvious option, but let me mention the third option, which is adding servers gradually instead of a batch: when you noticed as good as all your servers on high or full at peak times, you'll add a few more servers. As soon as those start to fill up and move towards high at peak times, add some more.
If the numbers rise, no biggie, you can add new servers by 2-3. If the numbers stabilize or have it their highest point, then you'll have had enough servers to deal with the highest peaks, without the problems of servers who were on LOW or barely reached MEDIUM losing too many players too soon, making a server feel like a ghost town too soon.
As the figures showed, there'll be servers with queues anyway even if there are alternate servers with much lower population, so a few servers at a time to provide the choice of low enough population to avoid the queue should be sufficient.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It isn't even peak time and still EU servers are High/Medium with only 3-5 LOW servers atm.
I think they need to consider adding more servers soon.