Why do we have to do realm mergers anyways?
Xeeg
Member
Why can't we just let low pop realms be low pop realms?
Is it just the cost of hosting the realm that is the problem? Like not enough people to pay for running it?
Or the users themselves? I could see some people actually enjoying a low pop realm, shrug.
Is it just the cost of hosting the realm that is the problem? Like not enough people to pay for running it?
Or the users themselves? I could see some people actually enjoying a low pop realm, shrug.
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AoC is special because it specifically requires a minimum number of players to actually work on a given server, not just a maximum like most MMOs have.
The problem with this is that low population servers break the game.
Running caravans is supposed to be a risk. That risk doesn't exist if there aren't any players to attack you. Same with naval content.
Building a metropolis up is supposed to take a lot of players, a low population realm may not be able to maintain even a single metropolis- let alone multiple as the game is designed to have.
Gaining corruption from killing a green only matters if there is someone there to attack you while you are corrupt.
Basically, a low population server would play as a totally different - broken - game.
This would make oceans shrink...the land mass shrink, until the low pop isn't as much a problem.
Just a thought.
It would suck to merge realms, and everybody losses everything they had land/homes, etc.
I believe the low pop would merge with a high pop. Does this mean the low pop has to fight as a homeless to get land in a high population server? Is it a wipe, and everybody has to start fresh...wow wouldn't that suck for the high pop server...you didn't do anything wrong. Realm is running great...then bam...little guy wants a house...so sorry...WIPE time
So if a server starts to go to lower pop, let's say 500 active users, would intrepid force them to merge with another server even if they didnt want to?
What is it exactly that excites you about a low-pop server, Xeeg?
Is it the possibility of farming resources or doing questing without being bothered?
Because that's not the spirit of Ashes of Creation.
Risk versus reward means you are a daring adventurer and you occasionally like to foster meaningful conflict.
I'm not saying that I want to play on a low pop. I'm just asking that if people enjoy it, would intrepid force them to merge anyways?
You're waffling now ... why would you post a thread in the Forums about it if you have no interest in playing on low pop?
Regardless, most players and (most importantly) the devs aren't interested for the reasons already explained in the replies.
Low population means the server will struggle to do the basic events that are core to Ashes gameplay: node upgrades, caravans, raids, elite quest unlocks, and so on ...
Important note here; your stuff would be extremely limited on a low-pop server. Node size is determined by the people contributing to the node. Node Size determines what resources are available in its zone of influence, what dungeons are available, what other polities you're interacting with. Metropoli are the only places the highest end of auction house and university are located.
If you have a low population, you may not be able to hit high level nodes, which would cripple basically everything. You'd have fewer dungeons available, you'd have worse resources available, you wouldn't be able to master profession skills due to the inaccessibility of universities, your economy would be a shadow, the resources you gather would rarely go to anything because the weaker economy means that players can't expect to actually get the resources they need, everything would be lower level since node strength determines monster spawns, some quests only open up at certain node levels, and probably some things I'm missing.
This isn't like most MMOs, where the experience is fundamentally unchanged if you have a small number of players, because in those games quests, locales, monster spawns, and more are static. They don't change based on player input. Ashes requires a minimum input for things to be available, and that means a minimum number of players. Low pop servers literally just do not work in AoC
It's more about the logic behind the server merger in the first place. Everyone hates the idea, so why are we doing it exactly?
OK, that is what i was asking about - "The Reason."
So it's not because hosting a low pop realm is expensive, and it's not because the users on that realm want it.
It's because intrepid has an ideological bias against low pop realms in their game and will force them to be merged with others.
Got it.
The problem with this approach is that it's just going to drive more players away from the game unless it's handled perfectly (which I don't think is actually possible honestly) because of how AoC is designed. If I have a guild that's spent a lot of time and effort on building up some nodes and other people stop playing on my realm to the point where it gets merged with another, what happens to the nodes my guild has been building up? Is there an attempt to merge them into the other realm? Or are they just gone? If they're gone, do we get compensated in some way?
A lot of people are going to quit if they get forcibly merged into another realm and they lose potentially months of work to something entirely outside of their control.
The was a thread a while back about "apocalypse" scenarios that either forced players into portals to another realm or would slowly destroy one continent on two servers so that servers could end up merging 50/50.
Well yeah but in most games there isn't a realm history that you have helped shape and have some attachment towards. All the people wanting "PVE" servers could just join these low pop ones instead. Solves multiple problems just by leaving them alone and letting the realms survive.
If people want to join another server that is higher pop then start up a new character... Shrug
I would hope so.
Imagine starting the game on that server...
It will take concentrated player response to prevent this from happening. If the server population is low, there could be insufficient player activity to prevent Verra from being overrun.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Corrupted_areas
My expectation here is that the name reservations were for the games launch.
Once the game is launched and you have your name, Intrepid have made good on that.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Name_reservations
In my humble Opinion,
every Server in Ashes needs a certain minimum Number of People to :
- Fill a lot of Spots in the Open World so that People can rise up Nodes
- So that these Spots have enough People for Node War's/Sieges
- So that there are always enough People around for Caravan's, World Bosses, the Open Sea's, etc ... ...
I could imagine the Game/Community even being put on a SINGLE SERVER if enough Hesitation to play the Game comes to Shove - but i earnestly hope Intrepid won't be forced to put Everyone on a single Server. That would be a bit fatal.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
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Do you think with all this dynamic server meshing stuff they are talking about it could actually be cheaper to run lower pop realms? The minimum servers would just spin up for the few people that are in the realm.
Shrug.
The minimum servers required to host a full realm will still be significantly more than the extra servers those players might take up in an active realm. Just to run all the actors on that servers that aren't players.
OK, sorry. Didn't want to hijack someone else's thread. I am just asking if we really need to merge them in the first place. Not sure if that was the topic of the other threads.
Most people are coming at this with the expectations of mergers because that's what other games do. But does Ashes have the same reasons to do so as the other games?
I can imagine some subsement of people preferring low pop realms, so do they really have to kill them?
If only because it feels like you're fighting phantoms, and if you actually picked out one of the recent threads where merger solutions were discussed, you'd probably find that they can work out pretty great when done right, and don't need to be prevented at all cost.
There will be realms with lower pop than others. The minimum amount to keep a realm alive will just be higher than "realms" in other games, and even the players who prefer peaceful/quiet/cozy communities will want their economies and nodes to be populated enough to be functional.
In regards to the cost to maintain servers - if a given server is open, hardware needs to be allocated to it. The world simulation (as it were) would need to be running.
There is a base level of compute needed to just have a game world function, and with Ashes, the nodes, events, seasons and just the general way the world changes, Ashes will require more compute to maintain each world than any other game I can think of other than perhaps EVE (which only has the one world).
That is a financial reason to do it, but the main reason to merge servers in a game like Ashes is about gameplay. As pointed out above, a low population server where there just aren't enough people around to provide the risk elements that Ashes is built on would essentially be broken.
In case there are some who haven't read up on it, there is a wiki page on this topic (with some quotes from Intrepid Studios staff on the subject
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Server_merges
The financial reason i can understand. The gameplay stuff I can only agree to if the userbase on the low pop realm is actually requesting a server merge.
Ashes is a game where not everyone gets everything. A lot of people are already resigned to that. People on a low pop realm that like that way may not care about the things they are missing out on because they weren't planning on doing that content anyways.
Some people may only want to craft things in this game and sell them to people and not do the caravans, should they get kicked because they don't want to do all the content?
Not only that, but there may be userbase fluctuations throughout Ashes of Creation's lifecycle. Do they really want to kill a whole bunch of realms with <30% regular pop (3k users) that have realm histories where people care about their contribution, only to bring back fresh realms half a year later because of increased interest in the game?