Is 3 Shards Enough?

elderock67

Looking at the post and the amount of people planning on playing this game, is 3 Shards enough? I foresee overcrowded shards happening pretty fast. I could be wrong, and im sure they will have some extra's ready to go if needed. I just would hate to see people not give it a chance because of a 4 hour wait time to log on.....

mandodo69

elderock67 wrote: »

Looking at the post and the amount of people planning on playing this game, is 3 Shards enough? I foresee overcrowded shards happening pretty fast. I could be wrong, and im sure they will have some extra's ready to go if needed. I just would hate to see people not give it a chance because of a 4 hour wait time to log on.....

4 hour wait to log on would suck!

derressh

Well, everyone and their mother seems to want to go to the Mindflayer server (which sort of defeats the purpose of them doing this 3 shard thing in the first place). So I can foresee a lot of log-in problems for the people playing that server, but personally I'll be picking one of the others.

silvergryph

Cryptic's single shard instancing tech can handle many times the load of a traditional MMO server. (I would estimate 5 to 10 times the capacity of a WoW server, for example.) And do it with far more reliable performance. I think 3 of those will be ok.

ravenrabbit

Considering their technology will allow them to merge the servers to create one large one, I'm sure it will be fine.

aandrethegiant

Besides nowhere NEAR the GW2 playerbase at the same juncture...

zurkhon

mandodo69 wrote: »

4 hour wait to log on would suck!

That's what Hero of the North package is for!
Of course if the entire shard has Hero of the North package then who gets to be at the top of the queue? hmmmm :mad:

aandrethegiant

Still, there will certainly be issues. It's beta still, after all.

We'll need to practice patience as all game launches have issues of some sort. However, this server technology can handle many more times the number of players that will be present on the 25th-30th.

imivo

Are all the servers (individually or combined) physically located in the US? I'm a bit concerned with the ping if that's the case. I get 50 or below in Europe, but US servers are usually 250-350ms for me. It certainly was noticeable when I played WoW on an US server in the beginning.

ambisinisterr

It's a single server architecture. Not single server.

The specifics of such is not readily avaiable but let me put it to you this way...

I have seen thread started complaining about the lag being caused because the servers are in the US and the player is in the UK...
And then get a reply of 'I'm in the UK with no lag. The issue is not the server.'

The server location is not an issue. It's a misconception stemming from a familiarity with old technolodgy which is far outdated.

timm4444

imivo wrote: »

Are all the servers (individually or combined) physically located in the US? I'm a bit concerned with the ping if that's the case. I get 50 or below in Europe, but US servers are usually 250-350ms for me. It certainly was noticeable when I played WoW on an US server in the beginning.

The way Cryptic has set up their "one global server" in their other two MMO's is that while there is one server it has multiple "Shard" farm clusters

Meaning players in Europe have clusters America has clusters and Oceania has a cluster.

The difference it that these clusters are all linked to a "home" cluster that handles relatively light stuff like the AH and the various different language chat channels while the local clusters handle the "heavy lifting."


I believe the plan for open beta is to have the 3 local clusters act like their own server until they merge them into one global superserver with multi local clusters at launch.

jetah

I'm just wondering how the merge will happen when you have 2 different AH and ADEx to migrate. I'm surprised that the AH and ADEx aren't shared as well.


It'd be better for the community to gather together and pick 1 shard to join.

somebob

timm4444 wrote: »

The way Cryptic has set up their "one global server" in their other two MMO's is that while there is one server it has multiple "Shard" farm clusters

Meaning players in Europe have clusters America has clusters and Oceania has a cluster.

The difference it that these clusters are all linked to a "home" cluster that handles relatively light stuff like the AH and the various different language chat channels while the local clusters handle the "heavy lifting."

I believe the plan for open beta is to have the 3 local clusters act like their own server until they merge them into one global superserver with multi local clusters at launch.

That is completely and totally incorrect.

CO, STO, and NW's servers are all located on one location on the planet, no doubt near/at their HQ in California, USA.

Their server technology allows them to create more 'instances' of any crowded zone on the fly. So if Town Instance 1 is near capacity, it'll suddenly have a second instance created to move players into it. When you talk in Zone chat, you'll see Zone #5 or whatever before a player's name - that is what version of that instance they're in.

And what they're doing for these 'shards' is basically three 'uber-servers' that work exactly as above. Also, they'll all be located in the exact same location, as mentioned above. The only part of said uber-servers that'll talk to one another is for player names (so you as a player can only have a player called Bob@AccountName on one server), as well as guild names (so if you made a guild called UberGuild there can not be another guild named UberGuild on the other servers).

bluedarky

somebob wrote: »

That is completely and totally incorrect.

CO, STO, and NW's servers are all located on one location on the planet, no doubt near/at their HQ in California, USA.

Their server technology allows them to create more 'instances' of any crowded zone on the fly. So if Town Instance 1 is near capacity, it'll suddenly have a second instance created to move players into it. When you talk in Zone chat, you'll see Zone #5 or whatever before a player's name - that is what version of that instance they're in.

And what they're doing for these 'shards' is basically three 'uber-servers' that work exactly as above. Also, they'll all be located in the exact same location, as mentioned above. The only part of said uber-servers that'll talk to one another is for player names (so you as a player can only have a player called Bob@AccountName on one server), as well as guild names (so if you made a guild called UberGuild there can not be another guild named UberGuild on the other servers).

I was going to say, if his server architecture was correct then I'd never have been able to play Star Trek Online with friends in Australia, Germany, UK and the US at the same time.

gillrmn

somebob wrote: »

That is completely and totally incorrect.

CO, STO, and NW's servers are all located on one location on the planet, no doubt near/at their HQ in California, USA.
...
.

That is not exactly true. In fact it is opposite of the truth.

These days a lot of cmpanies buy space on various servers which are off-peak. They have a cluster of such servers which never operate at more than 20% of their specification. So they buy extra space optimizing the servers, saving costs and getting better services - a win win for all.

That does not means that they have a UBER SERVER.

It is not one server, it is ONE SERVER ARCHITECT, which consists of many servers connected as one.

ambisinisterr

Gillrmn is correct.

There is, absolutely, more than one server and they are located in more than one location in the world.

v3lon

So, there are servers in EU countries as well? Cause the latency for EU players would be bad if the server was located in the US.

aullah12

I dont really understand this shard things. So i guess a shard is not 1 sercer placed on eu or us, but multiple servers connected all over the world? If not, what is it?

gillrmn

aullah12 wrote: »

I dont really understand this shard things. So i guess a shard is not 1 sercer placed on eu or us, but multiple servers connected all over the world? If not, what is it?

There are many physical servers all over. All these servers are integrated into a design so that the interface which appears to you is like one server.

So for all purposes, what a developer working at frontend has is one server, while at the backend, there can be any number of server at many places of the world.

Now the 'virtual' shards come into picture after that. This one server architect (which is integration of many physical servers at backend, but appears as one on frontend) is split into three shards. It is like have a single monitor and using multiple virtual desktops to manage the open applications(if you are familiar with linux).

In that OS(linux) you can split your monitor to 4,6,8 or 20 vitual desktops and switch them from a small GUI sitting in tray. You can split them anytime, join them, merge them in any way you want. It is not consequential because they are "virtual". They are just there for convenience to manage your stuff. When you open one virtual desktop, it shows you the applications which you opened in it. When you merge two desktops, it transfers the open application display to other virtual desktop.

In the same way we have shards. So:-



Backend
Multiple Physical Servers
They transfer data amongst
themselves with high speed

Frontend
The servers appear as one
UI of servers is one


Design Level
For convinience the devs split them
to multiple instances and name them
shards.

Player (UI level)
Player creates a character in one server in the frontend which is virtually seperated by shards at design level.
Devs can merge the shards anytime without any change to Frontend.




Something like that. There was a press article sometime back explaining one server architect. Basically it is faster, cheaper to maintain, reliable and better in almost every way. Except that you don't really have your own servers but kind of shared servers on lease (somewhat different than that but in my understanding that is a good analogy).

~~~~~~

Secondly about latency. It does NOT depend on distance unlike what is common perception. It depends on INFRASTRUCTURE between two systems.

When we are talking about two servers in urban area, the infrastructure between them is good. This causes almost no latency issue.

The distance comes in picture because on an average when two system are using ordinary infrastucture, there is more probability that larger the distance, the worse the infrastructure will get. To rectify it, if cryptic has a physical server in EU and one in AUS with a private cable between them you will never feel any difference between the three servers. Infact a person living in coutryside in US may have more problems than an EU person in city.

x0y1

v3lon wrote: »

So, there are servers in EU countries as well? Cause the latency for EU players would be bad if the server was located in the US.

There is only one point you can change on your setting:




All the rest is fully automatic, point to gilrmn post

v3lon

x0y1 wrote: »

There is only one point you can change on your setting:




All the rest is fully automatic, point to gilrmn post

Thank you

l1zardo1

That proxy is solely for patching. It doesn't effect your game server.

The 3 are getting merged, so I don't think they are worrying about load. (as they use dynamic mega servers anyways)

aullah12

gillrmn wrote: »

There are many physical servers all over. All these servers are integrated into a design so that the interface which appears to you is like one server.

So for all purposes, what a developer working at frontend has is one server, while at the backend, there can be any number of server at many places of the world.

Now the 'virtual' shards come into picture after that. This one server architect (which is integration of many physical servers at backend, but appears as one on frontend) is split into three shards. It is like have a single monitor and using multiple virtual desktops to manage the open applications(if you are familiar with linux).

In that OS(linux) you can split your monitor to 4,6,8 or 20 vitual desktops and switch them from a small GUI sitting in tray. You can split them anytime, join them, merge them in any way you want. It is not consequential because they are "virtual". They are just there for convenience to manage your stuff. When you open one virtual desktop, it shows you the applications which you opened in it. When you merge two desktops, it transfers the open application display to other virtual desktop.

In the same way we have shards. So:-



Backend
Multiple Physical Servers
They transfer data amongst
themselves with high speed

Frontend
The servers appear as one
UI of servers is one


Design Level
For convinience the devs split them
to multiple instances and name them
shards.

Player (UI level)
Player creates a character in one server in the frontend which is virtually seperated by shards at design level.
Devs can merge the shards anytime without any change to Frontend.




Something like that. There was a press article sometime back explaining one server architect. Basically it is faster, cheaper to maintain, reliable and better in almost every way. Except that you don't really have your own servers but kind of shared servers on lease (somewhat different than that but in my understanding that is a good analogy).

~~~~~~

Secondly about latency. It does NOT depend on distance unlike what is common perception. It depends on INFRASTRUCTURE between two systems.

When we are talking about two servers in urban area, the infrastructure between them is good. This causes almost no latency issue.

The distance comes in picture because on an average when two system are using ordinary infrastucture, there is more probability that larger the distance, the worse the infrastructure will get. To rectify it, if cryptic has a physical server in EU and one in AUS with a private cable between them you will never feel any difference between the three servers. Infact a person living in coutryside in US may have more problems than an EU person in city.

Mother of answers...


Thank you very much!

v3lon

l1zardo1 wrote: »

That proxy is solely for patching. It doesn't effect your game server.

The 3 are getting merged, so I don't think they are worrying about load. (as they use dynamic mega servers anyways)

Hmm, so if servers are located outside the EU, aren't we gonna be lagging like hell? Delays or lag spikes?

alfinpogform

Where did they announce that there will be three shards?

ambisinisterr

alfinpogform wrote: »

Where did they announce that there will be three shards?

In the FAQ.

erideita

imivo wrote: »

Are all the servers (individually or combined) physically located in the US? I'm a bit concerned with the ping if that's the case. I get 50 or below in Europe, but US servers are usually 250-350ms for me. It certainly was noticeable when I played WoW on an US server in the beginning.

Just to say, in addition to all the useful stuff gillrmn posted, that as a European player I had absolutely no lag whatsoever during BWE. If you ever do have lag, it would be because of your own ISP, not because of the physical location of Cryptic servers.

syberghost

somebob wrote: »

CO, STO, and NW's servers are all located on one location on the planet, no doubt near/at their HQ in California, USA.

The US server cluster is located in a data center near Boston, actually.

l1zardo1

Good to know. I have to tunnel in, due to my HAMSTER ISP in SEA

Been using LA, since my IP lookups were showing near SJ I think ..

I had horrible lag sometimes, and not others. Feel it is Pacific Pipe related and whatever loads/issues are happening on it. VPN at least gets around my ISP's low international bandwidth rentals lol

trollsparrow

zurkhon wrote: »

That's what Hero of the North package is for!
Of course if the entire shard has Hero of the North package then who gets to be at the top of the queue? hmmmm :mad:

lol, after waiting for 2 hours last night to get in I decided it was time for me to suck it up and buy the Hero of the North. I will play it all summer for more than 500 hours. So 200 dollars doesn't seem like to much if you think about it.

novakayn

I will be interested to see how well the wait times go today. Their instancing of areas did really well with Champions launch and I expect it will work well here. These large wait times are probably not related to the server as they have stated numerous times. They may have just uncovered a bit of a bug in the log in and server instancing.

Their system should scale the number of instances based on the number of players in an area. I recall seeing upwards of 20 or more in the Champions heyday with only one server. Basically means the server can host up to 20 times what the old WoW or EQ servers of days gone by. So, try not to think in those terms.