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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Server Queue Transparency
blazebot7000
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Learning from Archeage: Unchained being an absolute mess upon launch I have a proposition for the AoC dev team.
In the weeks leading up to the release of the final MMORPG, post an interactive poll on which players can declare which servers they intend to play on.
By showing players what the server capacities are and the number of people intending to play on each server, players can naturally distribute themselves among the servers in such a way that keeps friends and guilds together.
Allow players to change their declared intent so that if one server looks like it will be too full a guild can make the decision to change their intended server before launch.
Theoretically, by players distributing themselves in this way before launch, we can avoid outrageous queues, character creation locks, players getting separated from friends/guilds, and keep the servers naturally balanced in population from the start..
I would also limit each user to be able to declare their intent for their primary character, because if you allow users to declare multiple characters guilds can maliciously work together to make a server more full than it really will be in order to reduce competition on the server.
Please let me know what you think!
In the weeks leading up to the release of the final MMORPG, post an interactive poll on which players can declare which servers they intend to play on.
By showing players what the server capacities are and the number of people intending to play on each server, players can naturally distribute themselves among the servers in such a way that keeps friends and guilds together.
Allow players to change their declared intent so that if one server looks like it will be too full a guild can make the decision to change their intended server before launch.
Theoretically, by players distributing themselves in this way before launch, we can avoid outrageous queues, character creation locks, players getting separated from friends/guilds, and keep the servers naturally balanced in population from the start..
I would also limit each user to be able to declare their intent for their primary character, because if you allow users to declare multiple characters guilds can maliciously work together to make a server more full than it really will be in order to reduce competition on the server.
Please let me know what you think!
7
Comments
That said, the problem with this is that unless it is required, most people simply won't declare.
Having a system where guilds can reserve character slots for 48 hours so they are all able to play on the same server has merit though.
I can't remember a single mmo launch that did not have a "which server did you and your guild choose" thread.
It may or may not help if, let's say, they release the server list together with this aforementioned poll. As long as you can change your vote I think it wouldn't hurt.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Formerly T-Elf
First, this allows players to see approximate server loads at a glance. This is much less effort than scrolling through long threads and trying to piece together the exact same information.
Second, at least in my experience, the devs never actually post what the server capacity is. Doing so and showing players approximately how many spots are left on a server/seeing just how overloaded a server is gives fantastic transparency to players who will inevitably cry out and demand refunds since they weren't able to get on the server they wanted. It will also help them make the decision to wait for their desired server to depopulate or to simply choose another server.
To Noaani's point, I do not think allowing guilds to reserve any number of spots on a server is a good way to go. It's easy enough for a guild leader to post a poll link to discord and have their players look at it/fill it out. But to give them the power to just declare X number of spots for themselves could easily lead to malicious efforts by people to depopulate a server at launch time for their own gain.
To T Elf's point, the reason guilds change last minute is because they panic thinking that their server will be overcrowded and they want to keep their guild together. Hopefully the poll helps ease their panic and they will be less inclined to change servers last minute. And if they did, they would have the option of changing their intention poll vote to reflect the change.
The point of this system is simply to facilitate what players already naturally want to do, and what the devs really want players to do, and that is to spread themselves out evenly among all servers while keeping social groups intact.
https://imgur.com/a/pfuo7cQ
Literally any suggestion along these lines could lead to this - with one exception.
Tie accounts to the server they have declared on, without the option to change declaration.
If you are not forcing it, you will end up with the above issue.
Don't outright make it a one time decision, just let it run for the last month before your launch and lock it in a few days before the servers go life with the condition, "declaring a server locks you out of all other servers for a week." Or something.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
I think we would want to tie accounts to poll so that we could limit people to declaring their intention only once per account they own. I would be against limiting a user's ability to change their declaration at anytime.
In the scenario where a guild wants to join an under-populated server during launch, how would they go about using poll changes to do that? If they all declare for one server and then change last second, they would just be jumping onto a more populated server, which I assume would be the opposite of what they want to do.
If it were an option to reserve a spot I think each account should only be allowed to reserve one spot.
If a guild has issue with their peeps being spread across multiple servers that only effects them, not other players. So somehow granting them the option to reserve more spots for future mates seems lame.
If a spot can be reserved it should lock you to that server. They should be options to switch though. Like if the server hits 96% or higher or if the server falls under 60% of the max. This way players could avoid the under/over pop issues.
Please note by %'s are examples to show a point, I have not looked into what would be 'optimal' or minimums required to make a sever worth it.
As I've said, I like the idea of having a way to keep guilds on the same server at launch.
Thing is, if there is a chance that new character creation will be disabled on some servers in the days after launch, the only way to make this happen is to reserve character slots on those servers.
Anything just left to players will be abused in multiple different ways, unless there is some form of lock to it.
Yes, but please explain how any number of guilds working together could game this system. In general, people will make their declarations evenly spread among the servers. If people stick to those declarations you will have a clean launch. If people do not stick to those declarations, it's the people who do not stick to them that will be hurt the most, as they will be joining more populated servers. Only way I can think of people to game the system is if they WANT to join over-populated servers.
I don't agree with that. A player will always try to do what is best for them individually or what is best for their guild. Since declaring your server properly is the most effective way to make sure the server you actually choose has a low queue and is less populated, that's what players will do.
If I am being stupid and there is an obvious way players/guilds could take advantage of this, please let me know.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Name_reservations
Some guilds (PvE focused, as an example) may want lower population. Others (PvP focused) may want the highest population they can.
I seriously hope you can see how several of such guilds could attempt to work together to manipulate things to their liking. Yes they will. And if what is best for them and/or their guild is abusing a system that has no safeguards in place to stop it being abused, then that is what they will do.