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Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Post-Launch New Servers
JayGeL44
Member, Alpha Two
I know one of the biggest worries is having dead servers post launch, but I'm looking a little past that. Once servers have been established with metropolis nodes, new players will never get to experience developing a server from wilderness to metropolises. Are there any plans in place to periodically open new servers every few years? This would allow an established guild to migrate over and be at the forefront of a new server while allowing people who never experienced the launch to get that experience. Is this something intrepid should look into? Is it too early to tell? Is this a stupid idea? Should it be something thats only done like once after many years like 10?
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Maybe down the line, after several expansions, they can do a Classic server thing like other MMORPGs have done before them.
Yep, the whole concept of the node system is that is allows a server to be ever changing (in theory).
With that said, I do wonder if we will end up seeing stagnation in servers. ie: a metropolis becomes so influential that the community never lets it fall.
I hope IS shares this view for the future of AoC.
However, new players should be realistic about population levels and ping.
For example, a new OCE server shouldnt happen. If you are a new OCE player you should start on the new NA server in order to find a populated environment and develop nodes and so much more.
This logic should apply to other regions.
You cant have everything in life. Mmorpgs are alive. They arent instanced and they arent matches (mobas, fps). Life doesnt wait for those that are late.
The merging of servers is a different topic and has nothing to do with new players.
I understand where you're coming from, but the fact is that the launch experience will only really happen once. Alpha 2 and Beta will already spoil it a little bit, but the launch will only happen once. A few months after launch, even if new servers are added because the player base keeps growing (hopefully!), I expect many if not most of the early and mid game mysteries to already be solved, guides everywhere and min-maxing out the ass.
So I think that fresh servers can maybe try to replicate what launch felt like, but similarly to Classic WoW, it'll never be even close to the same feeling some of us had almost two decades ago.
On the other hand, opening new servers for the sake of allowing new players to have a new server experience can be dangerous. If old servers start dying because people are moving to the new ones, I don't think that the players from the now dead servers will be happy.
One thing I must say is that I am sure that Metropolises will seldom be burnt to the ground, sometimes even with the help of its own citizens. There are many reasons for this, but there is one specific reason which I am looking forward to because of its amazing design: Metros in every server will be "in the wrong place" and that means a dungeon or raid won't be available, therefore said Metro needs to go boom-boom for the Blue Eyes White Dragon raid underneath it to open up. When that happens, new players will be able to experience building Nodes from the ground up. That level of knowledge will take time, but I'm sure the community will have a map with all dungeons, raids and the conditions that need to be met for them to open up in the first year of the game.
Going off-topic since we're talking about servers in general, I believe Intrepid "only" needs to worry about two issues regarding creating new servers and decide what is going to be their strategy for dealing with them, before launch:
In my opinion, the first problem is absolutely guaranteed to happen. Back in the day, WoW's player base grew organically on a steady upwards curve which made Blizzard's life a lot easier. That will simply not be the case with Ashes. I'm not saying the player base won't grow over time, I hope it does, but the launch/hype period will be a spike in numbers that might never happen again (see previous examples).
I have no doubt in my mind that 10 (or more) of the biggest streamers will play Ashes during launch. That alone will encourage millions (not an exaggeration) of people to purchase one month of game time. Many of these people will only want to play on the same server their favorite streamer is playing, so let's forget about them, but many of them (and other people like us, caught in the crossfire) actually want to play the game. Leaving aside the streamer servers, if every server has a 5 hour queue (like Classic did for a week before Blizzard spun up dozens of servers), that will probably hurt the game quite a bit, even if only in the short term.
However, if you spin up a new server every time the last server you just spun up hit max pop, the second problem is probably going to happen in a few months.
Personally, I would rather have no queues during launch (except for the zerg servers and the streamer servers, those are doomed for months) and deal with server mergers later, which is less harmful than a shitty launch experience in my opinion.
My reasoning is because I think that the more people are able to play during launch, the better because it increases the number of people who will be able to experience the launch of a new game which is irreplicable, it maximizes the profit during launch/hype to make up for a possible decrease in numbers after some people realize that Ashes isn't for them and there's no backlash regarding 5 hour queues on every server.
Regardless of what I think it's best, I would love to know how Steven wants to tackle the issue of long queues and full servers during launch/hype.
Some new players will join old servers due to friendships or because they belong to a guild.
Server mergers is a solution for stagnation.
A conflict of interests between old servers and new servers for the sake of OLD PLAYERS is selfish imo.
Server merges have successfully happened in L2, just as new servers have succesfully launched in L2.
Take in consideration the node system which makes servers really come alive and you should have even more faith about the concept of merging and launching of servers.
All the mysteries of the game will be revealed come Beta 2.
So what's the difference for players starting on the original servers and those starting 2 years later in a new server, when it comes to systems and gameplay. Nothing. It shouldnt be used as an argument to measure pros and cons for merging and launching servers.
The experience that new players can go through in new servers is unique in the way that the market and nodes are not developed, high lv players cant interfeer and guilds can follow their own path in forging alliances and rivalries.
I am 10000% pro new servers opening later on, even though I have A1 access. Why? Because I know how it feels to start a new mmo without new servers. It's boring.
And I also KNOW that starting on a fresh new server of an existing mmo feels GREAT.
If they absolutely have to do this though then I'd suggest making one single "launch experience" server for the main regions after say 5 years
People who want a launch experience get their server and they can build it up from day 1, same with those people who are sick of current server politics and want to carve a new path. It'll be much more eventful because it will be a rarer occurrence and due to the limit of one new server a stable playerbase there should be easily achievable. And it gives the original launch wave and any "launch experience" servers time to run their course in terms of node expansion as well as it giving intrepid plenty of time to make new content and so forth.
Due to competition I think mmos should be allowed to try to attract new players sooner than 5 years.
Yeah I could see that. Every 3 years a new server opening up wouldn't be too bad. And yeah as I said people get their experience.
The one thing I don't like about this is it may detract players from the already established servers and diminish playerbases there faster (this will happen over time anyway but it's still sad to think about adding something that could speed up the atrophy)
I feel that what will end up happening is every 3 years everyone from every server still playing will just drop their original server and play solely on the new player experience one rather than continue whatever struggle they have to break the conventions of their old server that feels stale to them.
Perhaps there should be a limit on the new server for newly made accounts only?
I have to agree with you here.
Opening up new servers wont be a detriment to the older ones if it happens every few years - and is a good event to both get new people in to the game, as well as to encourage people that have previously played to come back for a while.
Another offtopic point (in addition to what I said about merges) I want to make is that expansions will be the drive for older players in older servers.
So you want new servers to have a "classic wow" beginning? Where they start with the content from years before the current playerbase and unlock the newer content at the original pace? Rather than a new server spun up with all the current patches but empty waiting to be populated?
Hmm. This certainly provides an incentive to keep the original servers going for sure if they've got the latest expansions and so on like wow it would diminish the amount of players leaving them and you'd certainly see the classic MMO cycle of people returning when new content is added.
I think this is an excellent way of adding those new servers.
Yeah sure pacing can be a thing on new servers.
But what I meant was that:
Players on old servers shouldnt look to new ppl joining, to bring fresh air. AoC should introduce yearly content. Expansions. That is the only thing that brings fresh air in the game.
In addition, server merges can happen, but that shouldnt be linked to new players or new servers.
There are already stated plans for monthly small content drops, and larger quarterly updates that are meant to function as "expansions." Remember, there is only the sub cost per month, there won't be a once a year or longer dlc or expansion a la WoW that you pay a separate cost for. Those expansions will come with new gear, new levels, and other changes.
good way to keep a dead game alive, by cannibalizing your own playerbase and constantly ruining previous servers
glad intrepid has people there that aren't dumb to make this kind of decisions
See, for AA it made sense, as barely anyone wanted to continue playing on the same server after a couple of months.
It just didn't have much longlevity.
Ashes is the polar opposite, by design
Dont bother... he didnt think it through
destroy the metroplis and players can experience the cycle again
That's developing a single node from wilderness to metropolis but it wouldn't even be a lvl 0-6 event, it would just allow a different lvl5 node to reach lvl 6. Maybe they can level the destroyed node to lvl 3 or 4, but I'm more talking about the experience of having no nodes leveled up, no cities, no anything. The entire world is wilderness. That fresh experience won't happen again unless every node is destroyed without leveling any up. I think the experience of a fresh start server is too unique of an experience to never happen again. Do I want a new server every year? No. Will I migrate over to a fresh server if one comes out after 5+ year? Maybe, maybe not.
there could just be new nodes on the outskirts over time?
but I am not as familiar with the nodes system so I may be off in left field.
It is GOING to have to go with new player demand. You cant just open new servers to give "new player" experiences to a few hundred players. Plus, even in "established" servers, things will always remain dynamic, so there will be no shortage of node building and evolution of the game.
Well said!