concurrent player ratio

A bit of concern on the 50,000 accounts to 10,000 concurrent players ratio - how are you going to ensure the first weeks/months of the game are not simply people stuck in queue; and how does this work given the prime time idea for scheduled events?

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Noaani

Samson wrote: »

I mean, of course the people with priority will have the most time played... because THEY are the ones that are able to access the server and play! Their time played will, of course, continue to accumulate as others are left to twiddle their thumbs while watching their queue timers slowly tick down.

This is why I said in my above post that this idea would work great for DLC, but not so much for initial launch of the game.

Apply it to WoW, since that is a game most are familiar with. We would be talking about this suggestion first applying when Burning Crusade came out, which means people that played the game all through vanilla would have priority to log in to their server over people that just came to check out the new expansion. This is a very good thing for the people that have been continuous subscribers to the game - who are the people any MMO company should be trying to do right by.

People were able to play the game as much as they wanted during vanilla, there were no server queues for most of that time, so there's no scope for the self-perpetuating scenario that you are thinking of - and that I already talked about above - from happening.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

@Noaani
In order to get any benefit at launch they would have to start the "playtime timer" in alpha.

I'm not super keen on the idea of anything from alpha/beta giving players an acta advantage once the game goes live.

If they did it this way, people that were in alpha/beta, both of which cost money to get in to, would have a real advantage once the game is live.

I'm sure you can see how that wouldn't be a good thing for Intrepid.

Yeah I thought more about it since Sampson pointed it out. You would have to start the timer in an open-alpha/beta for it to not be "Pay-to-Win". I don't think ashes has any open testing. So no dice.

Still, I can't help but think there is something a little off about all of this. I mean "Founders" bought into a system where they can log in early. The founders que is not going to be a problem. That whole system could be argued to be "Pay-to-Win", but it is too late to have that argument because the founders packs are already sold.

I don't even see a real "Stress test" in the release schedule. It would be quite the feat to have a smooth launch after slamming the servers with only 27k players in beta (Assuming everyone logs on at once). I really hope that the 8-10k expected server population has like 40-50k worth of headroom or something. If not we will get through it. Again...

Warth

Measures that encourage the players to stay logged in while not actively playing are usually rather bad for server queues in general

maouw

Can someone confirm: I read somewhere that AoC will be using Amazon services for their servers?
I believe Amazon's architectures can be pretty flexible when it comes to handling heavy loads in bursts?

Then again... New World's beta test was also maxed out, wasn't it?

AntVictus

Being someone who is going to be in A1...no i'm against server priority. It's not a good look for the game to be doing that to people straight out the gate, and I get why it would be done but it's just shitty. I'll take a rough launch over that any day really. >.> plus you've got to think about guilds, that will quickly split guilds up right off the bat and since being a guild is a more than big part of the game...again no.

Don't even care about the guild? K, then think of your friends (if you have any), same issue here. It's not good for the game and it's not good for the players at that point.

Noaani

maouw wrote: »

Can someone confirm: I read somewhere that AoC will be using Amazon services for their servers?

Can confirm.

AntVictus wrote: »

Being someone who is going to be in A1...no i'm against server priority. It's not a good look for the game to be doing that to people straight out the gate, and I get why it would be done but it's just shitty. I'll take a rough launch over that any day really. >.> plus you've got to think about guilds, that will quickly split guilds up right off the bat and since being a guild is a more than big part of the game...again no.

Don't even care about the guild? K, then think of your friends (if you have any), same issue here. It's not good for the game and it's not good for the players at that point.

This is why it wouldn't work for the initial launch, but is also why it would work in relation to future DLC.

It isn't good for guilds or existing groups of friends to not be able to log in to play together. The best way to ensure they can do this with a DLC that is seeing large numbers of players coming back temporarily to look at the game is to ensure those people that have been playing the game continually (and thus are in guilds and have in game friends) are able to log in first.

Again, not a good idea for the initial launch, but a great idea for any added DLC.

Atama

I think having “veteran rewards” based on play time is fine, and having a faster queue is a fair advantage.

That said, I don’t know a single MMO that has a real queue. That’s something I remember dealing with in days of yore but that doesn’t happen in modern games. Maybe briefly during a special event but it’s rare. I think it’s a pointless exercise to speculate about how Intrepid will deal with an issue that doesn’t exist.

Maezriel

Atama wrote: »

I think having “veteran rewards” based on play time is fine, and having a faster queue is a fair advantage.

That said, I don’t know a single MMO that has a real queue. That’s something I remember dealing with in days of yore but that doesn’t happen in modern games. Maybe briefly during a special event but it’s rare. I think it’s a pointless exercise to speculate about how Intrepid will deal with an issue that doesn’t exist.

If there's a queue it'll be b/c of the launch. Shadowlands had a queue for about a week until the initial buzz petered out

Atama

Maezriel wrote: »

Atama wrote: »

I think having “veteran rewards” based on play time is fine, and having a faster queue is a fair advantage.

That said, I don’t know a single MMO that has a real queue. That’s something I remember dealing with in days of yore but that doesn’t happen in modern games. Maybe briefly during a special event but it’s rare. I think it’s a pointless exercise to speculate about how Intrepid will deal with an issue that doesn’t exist.

If there's a queue it'll be b/c of the launch. Shadowlands had a queue for about a week until the initial buzz petered out

That’s my point. If there’s a queue it will be rare and temporary. It’s really not worth wasting time on something that will almost never happen.

This is like stressing about buying meteor insurance in case a meteor hits your car while driving.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

Atama wrote: »

I think having “veteran rewards” based on play time is fine, and having a faster queue is a fair advantage.

That said, I don’t know a single MMO that has a real queue. That’s something I remember dealing with in days of yore but that doesn’t happen in modern games. Maybe briefly during a special event but it’s rare. I think it’s a pointless exercise to speculate about how Intrepid will deal with an issue that doesn’t exist.

If there's a queue it'll be b/c of the launch. Shadowlands had a queue for about a week until the initial buzz petered out

That’s my point. If there’s a queue it will be rare and temporary. It’s really not worth wasting time on something that will almost never happen.

This is like stressing about buying meteor insurance in case a meteor hits your car while driving.

You're not wrong, it is something that would only happen every so often.

However, with Ashes plan for DLC, as far as I remeber, that "not long" would well be once every three months.

Even that isn't worth the effort to maintain a system if that system needed constant maintanence, as meteor insurance requires constant payment of a premium.

However, if someone offered me meteor insurance for life, for the cost of one of those payments, it would me far more attractive (meteor insurance still wouldn't be worth that, but other forms of insurance that would otherwise not be worth it suddenly would be).

With a system like this, Intrepid would only need to implement it once, and that is the only time it needs any attention. After that, it is just "there" doing it's thing when it is needed.

Jeetoph

There are "queues" and "queues". I tend not to mind them at all but I had the exception in a game where when an expansion came out I wasn't able to play during week until it was fixed. Coming back from work and having 4 hours of queue when it is actually the time you could afford to play in the first place is unfortunate.

Also if there are long queues players will want to stay online if there are long queues even if they aren't playing. A forced logout for inactive players could help a little at launch.

bloodprophet

During Burning Crusade(WoW) the server I was on had a typical 15-20 minute queue every evening. Down side waiting 20 minutes to play upside server was always full. Players everywhere. Never had a hard time finding a group to do stuff. I personally would not mind seeing a short queue like that just so the server is always happening during prime times

AntVictus

Noaani wrote: »

Again, not a good idea for the initial launch, but a great idea for any added DLC.

Can we stop calling expansions DLC? It already got muddied enough with ESO doing that, an expansion is an expansion. If it isn't an Expansion then it is DLC, you don't have DLC in MMO's since the "content" in question is already downloaded whether you are using it or not. It's still not really a good idea for an expansion either because of newer players, it's really just a form of gate keeping at that point so again, no.

FuryBladeborne

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I personally would prefer a system where the game looks at play time and uses that to prioritize position in the que to login.

I think this is a great idea. It looks like it would be much easier for IS to manage server populations and avoid opening too many new servers too early using this system. The option would probably work even better if some servers still used the first come, first serve waiting line for people that want a server that does not require a high amount of commitment to get through the line.

I see this as a launch day (or up to a month) solution and a solution for expansion crowding. If it does make it easier for IS to avoid opening too many servers, then individual servers will last longer as well.

Noaani

AntVictus wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Again, not a good idea for the initial launch, but a great idea for any added DLC.

Can we stop calling expansions DLC? It already got muddied enough with ESO doing that, an expansion is an expansion. If it isn't an Expansion then it is DLC, you don't have DLC in MMO's since the "content" in question is already downloaded whether you are using it or not. It's still not really a good idea for an expansion either because of newer players, it's really just a form of gate keeping at that point so again, no.

To me, the difference is in size and scale. An expansion should add new levels, new abilities, new lands, new dungeons, new mechanics, new models, new skins and new animations. A DLC, on the other hand, is much smaller in comparison, and may only include a few of the things above.

Intrepid plan on releasing DLC every 3 months or so (their words). I straight up can not bring myself to call content additions on that scale expansions.

So, DLC it is.

Edit; since most single player games push the content of smaller DLC out with patches these days anyway - whether you have access to that content or not - that definition of DLC is antiquated now anyway.

Vhaeyne

Why are we using the term DLC. Yes, I get that any patch is "technically" DLC(Downloadable Content), and also the DEV are using it in their release schedule. It just don't sound right in the context of MMOs, especially PC Exclusive MMOs.

As I understand it:
The real difference is that DLC should be optional whilst patchs are not. Even when a new optional expansion comes out for a MMO, a mandatory patch comes with it to make sure that the different account states work together. The term DLC should not apply if it is required for the new version of the game to work.

I think @AntVictus is right ESO ruined the lexicon. I would also throw some blame at Destiny for this as well. What is insane to me is that FFXI and FFXIV has been on the consoles for years, and has always used the term patch which has always been correct in the context of how those games update.

I feel like Bethesda and Activision wanted to use terms that their caveman brain console pleb audience would understand. Now it is creeping into respectable games.

Atama

Noaani wrote: »

Atama wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

Atama wrote: »

I think having “veteran rewards” based on play time is fine, and having a faster queue is a fair advantage.

That said, I don’t know a single MMO that has a real queue. That’s something I remember dealing with in days of yore but that doesn’t happen in modern games. Maybe briefly during a special event but it’s rare. I think it’s a pointless exercise to speculate about how Intrepid will deal with an issue that doesn’t exist.

If there's a queue it'll be b/c of the launch. Shadowlands had a queue for about a week until the initial buzz petered out

That’s my point. If there’s a queue it will be rare and temporary. It’s really not worth wasting time on something that will almost never happen.

This is like stressing about buying meteor insurance in case a meteor hits your car while driving.

You're not wrong, it is something that would only happen every so often.

However, with Ashes plan for DLC, as far as I remeber, that "not long" would well be once every three months.

Even that isn't worth the effort to maintain a system if that system needed constant maintanence, as meteor insurance requires constant payment of a premium.

However, if someone offered me meteor insurance for life, for the cost of one of those payments, it would me far more attractive (meteor insurance still wouldn't be worth that, but other forms of insurance that would otherwise not be worth it suddenly would be).

With a system like this, Intrepid would only need to implement it once, and that is the only time it needs any attention. After that, it is just "there" doing it's thing when it is needed.

People are not going to go nuts every 3 months and flood the servers for new content. Not gonna happen. They are not going to be releasing enough game-changing content to draw that much attention. It's not like these are major expansions that will bring people in droves. They won't be releasing The Burning Crusade every 3 months.

If Intrepid can't handle a very small bump every few months (and it'll just be a bump) then their technology is garbage and the game will fail the way Shadowbane did. I think there's no reason to be that pessimistic years before we need to worry about it.

VmanGman

Launch will be crazy and many people will be stuck in a queue for a long time. That is to be expected with MMOs as hyped as AoC. There is really nothing the developers can do about it since layering or phasing would not really work in AoC (due to the node system). The best thing the developers can do is to estimate how many people will be playing and to therefore open enough servers.

Warth

vmangman wrote: »

Launch will be crazy and many people will be stuck in a queue for a long time. That is to be expected with MMOs as hyped as AoC. There is really nothing the developers can do about it since layering or phasing would not really work in AoC (due to the node system). The best thing the developers can do is to estimate how many people will be playing and to therefore open enough servers.

Scale up the cloud server solution to accomodate for 20k people, instead of 10k, just for the first 2-3 days at launch.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

People are not going to go nuts every 3 months and flood the servers for new content. Not gonna happen. They are not going to be releasing enough game-changing content to draw that much attention. It's not like these are major expansions that will bring people in droves. They won't be releasing The Burning Crusade every 3 months.

While true, it is likely that Ashes will end up having to do things more like ESO. There will need to be some fairly major DLC added to the game, because the developers have said they will raise the level cap.

This means new abilities, spells, gear, monsters, dungeons, raids, potentially even a new tier of node progress. That is a fairly major DLC, and I absolutely can see people coming to the game in very large numbers for it.

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