Server Merges

TheHiddenDaggerInn

Has it been discussed about how they will hand the merges of servers eventually? We all know this game will be very popular, but like most games at some point a server merge is needed. Now our houses can't possibly be put where they were on the other servers becausew I'm sure much of that land is taken. So do we do a land rush, the incoming server loses houses? Just something I'm thinking about when deciding how popular of a server to start out on . I have been away for some time so if this has been answered I apologize.

Taleof2Cities

It's still on the devs' plate to be discussed closer to launch, @Santanico.

Balanz

I would hope they plan for a wide range of populations, from an initial over population at launch, to much lower populations.

Computing resources could be temporarily given to servers initially to handle high population at launchreleasing those resources once the population settled down.

Low population servers could be seen as opportunities, and so attract new players.

Relics of past populations might persist as content, or exhausted resources might grow back faster in less populated areas.

Thecatslock

Steven in his 2018 panel at pax did mention that nodes would return to lvl zero after some time and that they would have control of event spawn and experiance in the node itself. If it ever came to low level pop servers from a reduced population they could increase the experiance from activities and later down the line do transfers, but I can't see it till those things become absolutly necessary.

PenguinPaladin

They just need to make sure server merges end up as an event. Even just a cut scene showing curruption retake the world or something. Reset all nodes but the 12 metropolis between the 2 servers, and knock down those metropolis to lvl 2 or 3, as like the survivers of the new apocalypse

HiddenDaggerInn

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

They just need to make sure server merges end up as an event. Even just a cut scene showing curruption retake the world or something. Reset all nodes but the 12 metropolis between the 2 servers, and knock down those metropolis to lvl 2 or 3, as like the survivers of the new apocalypse

I hope they somehow incorperate a "Land Rush" like Archeage, 1 of the most fun times ever

Liniker

There's just no good solution for this... if they need to merge, someone will get screwed, so I just hope they always go for as longer queues as possible, instead of opening servers that might drop population and need to be merged later on

Balanz

I think that with dynamic server resource allocation, servers could handle an initial overload until it settles down to the intended population. Server Mergers might be avoidable if the longer land on a server lies "fallow," the more desirable the server becomes. Combined with in-game server Transfers, them population could balance themselves.

Balanz

While I am not quite up to date with the modern cloud approach to computing, it seems to me that the fact that Terminus is zoneless, that computing resources are allocated according to where players actually are, as opposed to where they could be, and under those circumstances if there were a lot of players online, then more resources could be allocated for the same amount of in game geography. By dynamically, I mean as needed, not when the server is started up.

So, my notion is that at launch, more server resources could be allocated to handle temporary overpopulation, and as the population drops, these temporary resources could be released.

I haven't programmed much the last couple decades, but I watch technology, and it seems to me that such a scheme might be practical.

The basic idea is that Intrepid could architecture their servers so that mergers might be almost unnecessary, and this would be a huge advantage.

SongRune

Balanz wrote: »

So, my notion is that at launch, more server resources could be allocated to handle temporary overpopulation, and as the population drops, these temporary resources could be released.

I haven't programmed much the last couple decades, but I watch technology, and it seems to me that such a scheme might be practical.

The basic idea is that Intrepid could architecture their servers so that mergers might be almost unnecessary, and this would be a huge advantage.

The problem with this, is that server population affects far more than computing requirements. It affects...

- Economic patterns & resource balances
- Competition for grind spots (particularly problematic in the early levels, before anyone can spread out)
- The noise level of world or area chat
- Competition for node housing

Even if players spread out to account for this, if a large number of initial players leave, the remaining spread out players are now left with far fewer people in their nodes and areas than they should naturally have, and going from "wow there are too many people here" to "where'd everyone go?" makes for some solid whiplash that affects the game as well.

I'm not saying it's impossible to get right, but "world mergers" are much more than just a question of server resources, so the power of cloud scaling can only do so much. Intrepid will have to think carefully about how to handle this, as they start to get closer to launch.

Noaani

SongRune wrote: »

The problem with this, is that server population affects far more than computing requirements.

While this is true, dynamic resource allocation could prevent the need for launching new servers to cover any initial overpopulation.

If you can accurately assess the number of servers you will need to maintain your population at 6 months, and can then dynamically allocate resources to cover the initial population, a game may well be able to actually just avoid the first round of server mergers completely.

So basically, rather than using dynamically allocated resources to remove resources when they *are not* needed, you use it to add resources when they *are* needed.