Servers. So what's the deal?

voltar77

So I'm a bit confused on whats going to happen with servers. First I heard that there was going to be one superserver and everyone was going to be on it, divided by instances if a region gets too full. Then beta launches with 2 servers, making us confused, furthermore they launched 2 new servers in alpha (1 german 1 french((is what i read on the thread about the oceanic server and in one of the interviews (which i can't find but it was a recent one) a developer talks about opening an RP server if there is enough demand for it (yes please!).

So what about that idea for a superserver is that cancelled? Also will there be a EU english server? What can we expect and has there been any new word from Cryptic on what has changed in their plans and what to expect?

karisch

There was an interview somewhere about, where they said they were going with the one big server, but are going with 2 for beta/launch so that they can definitely cope with the amount of users all login in at once, then it will be merged back down to one once things settle down.

im guessing the language servers are so they get the right persons in to test the translations.

th3mod

I have a quick question regarding this, will there be a seperate EU and US server? especially because of the latency issue thing, or will there be on big US server where everyone from the whole world can connect to?

Also I am from Europe, and I have been checking out both homepages (DE and the English one) and for example there is a difference between the 55€ pack (german site says, you get 3 character slots, the english one says you get only 1, whats up with that?) So if I am from Europe do I have to buy the Founders pack from the European homepage, or can I just buy the one on the english one? I am soo confused...

Thanks in advance

Danny

korbanhod

I sincerely hope they have more than two servers.

Ever since... forever, not a single MMO have managed to have enough capacity for the launch date.

Everyone playing action MMOs will try this and you would expect more than 10 mio players would try it the first few weeks.

karisch

As far as I am aware there will be only 1 server once things have settled down, more during the initial rush of players so that there are not issues, at least that is how it came across.

That means no segregation for RP servers, nor regions etc

karisch

for the character slots i believe you get 2 if you are f2p, and purchasing the guardian pack says you get 1 extra therefore 3 total.

bobcat1313

Wish they would have a RP, I read just one server though.

ashrox10

I'm sure details regarding servers will be changing all the time and I wouldn't expect concrete information on it, yet.

silvergryph

korbanhod wrote: »

I sincerely hope they have more than two servers.

Ever since... forever, not a single MMO have managed to have enough capacity for the launch date.

Everyone playing action MMOs will try this and you would expect more than 10 mio players would try it the first few weeks.

One of the advantages of Cryptic's instancing technology is that despite appearing as a single server their server clusters can support many times the concurrent logins of a more traditional architecture like in, for example, WoW. And from what I understand, they are much easier to scale up. Theoretically they could have the capacity of dozens of more traditional servers.

ambisinisterr

Cryptic has designed something they call 'multi-shard technology.'

Shards are different servers but at not locked in. They can add and remove (merge) shards at will so they could have 2-5 or more shards at launch to handle the massive loads of players which will undoubtedly show up to try out the game. However when they feel these shards are no longer necessary to support the large stress loads they can simply merge a shard with another.

Eventually the game will be a true single server such as CO/STO, more than likely, but to improve launch stability there will be multiple shards.
This was explained by Crypticmaplois towards the end of the Neverwinter Online Crossroads Show.

gillrmn

ambisinisterr wrote: »

... no longer necessary to support the large stress loads they can simply remove a shard.
...

Merge! Use the word MERGE!

Otherwise it would cause widespread panic!

deathreaper4u

Shards lol,, in computer engineering terms I think they mean

Cloud Mirrored Clustser Servers using hot swap blade servers ..

hopefully like DDO and others they use Mirrored clusters w Windows Server so they make changes and update each mirror individually without bringing down the server all the time, u make changes on one mirror cluster while players are playing on the other then u just switch players over to recently modified one and do the same to the other, seamlessly

this is what banks, credit card companies and large webservers do to avoid downtime w critical data..

spellwarden

technology: so much more than we understand

ambisinisterr

gillrmn wrote: »

Merge! Use the word MERGE!

Otherwise it would cause widespread panic!

When you're right, you're right.

keirkin

deathreaper4u wrote: »

Shards lol,, in computer engineering terms I think they mean

Cloud Mirrored Clustser Servers using hot swap blade servers ..

hopefully like DDO and others they use Mirrored clusters w Windows Server so they make changes and update each mirror individually without bringing down the server all the time, u make changes on one mirror cluster while players are playing on the other then u just switch players over to recently modified one and do the same to the other, seamlessly

this is what banks, credit card companies and large webservers do to avoid downtime w critical data..

Shard is not a word describing the hardware setup. Shard is interchangeable with the word server as it relates to server names in a mmo. If there are 40 different servers you can play a game on, it can also be said there are 40 different Shards.

The cool thing I think about the way that Cryptic has done this is that if they have multiple servers at launch thay can merge servers to keep server population up those servers without having to screw with every ones character names. I don't see any minus to a server merge in this system unlike other games in the past.

kusig

I love MMOs set up this way because it makes everyone feel as if they are in just one big world together instead of spread out across different ones. Only have played STO and CO briefly before but seems similiar to what they use for TSW which was one of the main things that drew my interest to that game. Had hoped before SWTOR launched that it would be like that but sadly it wasn't, think it would have saved them much headaches with their playerbase when they first launched and then when they got rid of servers later on due to opening way too many in the long run.

deathssickle

Did no one listen to NOCS!! We discussed this!

ambisinisterr wrote: »

Cryptic has designed something they call 'multi-shard technology.'

Shards are different servers but at not locked in. They can add and remove (merge) shards at will so they could have 2-5 or more shards at launch to handle the massive loads of players which will undoubtedly show up to try out the game. However when they feel these shards are no longer necessary to support the large stress loads they can simply merge a shard with another.

Eventually the game will be a true single server such as CO/STO, more than likely, but to improve launch stability there will be multiple shards.
This was explained by Crypticmaplois towards the end of the Neverwinter Online Crossroads Show.

At least Ambi did...

starkaos

The largest amount of servers that I have seen in STO is 3. The live server, the test server, and for another test server. One test server would be used for testing a huge content patch while the other test server is for minor patches that aren't part of the huge content patch. One of the test servers is usually disabled. There are other servers, but that is for internal testing. It will be surprising if Cryptic uses more than one server for beta or live.

voltar77

starkaos wrote: »

The largest amount of servers that I have seen in STO is 3. The live server, the test server, and for another test server. One test server would be used for testing a huge content patch while the other test server is for minor patches that aren't part of the huge content patch. One of the test servers is usually disabled. There are other servers, but that is for internal testing. It will be surprising if Cryptic uses more than one server for beta or live.

They had 2 servers for beta and they have expanded it to 4 by adding 2 european servers (german and french).

Back on subject, i can see point of them being easy to merge but how is that different then other games that have had server merges after launch? What if the game stays popular? Aside from that it brings headaches in that you still have to organise your guilds and communities and such at least in the beginning to go to the right place, for example to create an unofficial RP community.

ryger5

bobcat1313 wrote: »

Wish they would have a RP, I read just one server though.

And since they won't and since the game currently doesn't support walking, it would be really nice to have a simple RP flag you can throw up to let others know you are a role player. In previous games, this could just alter the color of your name plate, or would put a (RP) prefix or suffix on it. I am fine with either or something similar.

I believe one thing the RP community might want to convene on, is which instance number we're going to settle on. I know instance numbers are variable based on traffic, but in the main zones, where we know there's a minimum of 5 or 6, settling on "instance 3" or "instance 2" as the preferred RP instance, could go a long way to improving random RP encounters.

deathssickle

ryger5 wrote: »

And since they won't and since the game currently doesn't support walking, it would be really nice to have a simple RP flag you can throw up to let others know you are a role player. In previous games, this could just alter the color of your name plate, or would put a (RP) prefix or suffix on it. I am fine with either or something similar.

I believe one thing the RP community might want to convene on, is which instance number we're going to settle on. I know instance numbers are variable based on traffic, but in the main zones, where we know there's a minimum of 5 or 6, settling on "instance 3" or "instance 2" as the preferred RP instance, could go a long way to improving random RP encounters.

All you do is make a custom RP chat channel. It works cross instance.

deathssickle

Most likely it will stay at 3 at my best guess for like STO with a couple test servers and the normal "World" server, even though if it does shard a couple times, devs said characters be played cross-shards and you can talk cross-shards. You wont have to make a new Character for each shard

ryger5

deathssickle wrote: »

All you do is make a custom RP chat channel. It works cross instance.

There will be lots of RP channels I am sure, but I am talking about defining specific instances as "RP Preferred" so you know you have a higher percentage chance of running into RPers, also saving you from the, "hey what instance are we on?" and then having half the people on instance 2 switch to 3 and half the people on 3 switch to 2, which is the kind of confusion that sometimes took place in Champions.

I believe "instance 2" was generally the preferred instance choice in Champions, but it's been a while since I played, so my aging memory might be a bit fuzzy there.

keirkin

ryger5 wrote: »

And since they won't and since the game currently doesn't support walking, it would be really nice to have a simple RP flag you can throw up to let others know you are a role player. In previous games, this could just alter the color of your name plate, or would put a (RP) prefix or suffix on it. I am fine with either or something similar.

I believe one thing the RP community might want to convene on, is which instance number we're going to settle on. I know instance numbers are variable based on traffic, but in the main zones, where we know there's a minimum of 5 or 6, settling on "instance 3" or "instance 2" as the preferred RP instance, could go a long way to improving random RP encounters.

I agree lets give them a tag on their name. It will make them easier to round up and throw in the stockade!!!!

lordfuzun

keirkin wrote: »

Shard is not a word describing the hardware setup. Shard is interchangeable with the word server as it relates to server names in a mmo. If there are 40 different servers you can play a game on, it can also be said there are 40 different Shards.

The cool thing I think about the way that Cryptic has done this is that if they have multiple servers at launch thay can merge servers to keep server population up those servers without having to screw with every ones character names. I don't see any minus to a server merge in this system unlike other games in the past.

This is only a guess at their tech, but it's nothing radical. Cryptic is setting up multiple game server shards which are totally separate from each other. When they go to merge the shards, it's an application of their database character copy technology. It's the tech they use to copy characters from live game server to to test servers of their other games. It's insanely fast for a single character. And I imagine it's very efficient when copying the entire database to the merged shard.

seedyman42

Of course, there is no reason not to just have a centralized character database, and actually run the game/world on the shards. The characters never need copying, well except test, but that'll be running a different code base anyway; all interaction between the character and the world could just as easily be done across physical machines as in memory on one machine. Heck some "zones" need a whole physical server for each instance of them anyway, while some areas are sparsely populated enough to run several of them together on one server.
Game designers don't even have to write any of the sharing themselves, just break the world up into logical units, and run them on virtual machines with all the nifty load balancing stuff turned on. Then whichever instance needs the most power gets it, and the low demand are all getting what they need without wasting any cycles.

cherybomb8

I'm pretty new. level 6 on perfect world server dreamweaver. Is it normal to be denied conection? The past 2 days, whenever i try to login, it says, "Unable to connect". If i try to login a different server, will it re-start my account? I just want to play but can't get in.
comcast wifi is fast and i have no other programs running.

syberghost

cherybomb8 wrote: »

I'm pretty new. level 6 on perfect world server dreamweaver. Is it normal to be denied conection? The past 2 days, whenever i try to login, it says, "Unable to connect". If i try to login a different server, will it re-start my account? I just want to play but can't get in.
comcast wifi is fast and i have no other programs running.

You're posting this in the forums for Neverwinter, a totally different game that's currently under development. You want to click on "All Games" at the top of this web page, select "PWI", and go to that game's forums to check server maintenance status and ask questions about that game.

oberot

Ryger 5,
.../walk 1 turns on walking /walk 0 turns it off. The animation is a little wierd at the moment but it is what it is...

ryger5 wrote: »

And since they won't and since the game currently doesn't support walking, it would be really nice to have a simple RP flag you can throw up to let others know you are a role player. In previous games, this could just alter the color of your name plate, or would put a (RP) prefix or suffix on it. I am fine with either or something similar.

I believe one thing the RP community might want to convene on, is which instance number we're going to settle on. I know instance numbers are variable based on traffic, but in the main zones, where we know there's a minimum of 5 or 6, settling on "instance 3" or "instance 2" as the preferred RP instance, could go a long way to improving random RP encounters.

seawalker13

Rant redacted, Cryptic just ain't that smart.

kaltoum

They will most probably go with same system as CO and STO..well i hope so.