Why not having 2 servers?

tomaswille

I've checked if there were more threads about this, but nope.

Maybe someone could explain me very simply, but i was wondering why STO don't have more servers?
I mean, 1 server. So when maintenance is being done, there is no gameplay.

Looking at other MMORPG's with more servers, they close one down to update, patch and test, while the other
server is still running the "old version", so people still can play. After the new update, they close down other servers
so there will be always time to play the game.

I can't believe this is a money related issue, looking at the expensive in-game items and subscriptions.

But like i said, maybe it's very simple. But i love to know the answer.

chasebears

STO's main 'server' is actually a cluster of a bunch of servers, infinitely expandable to most any load through sharding. Having enough servers to run the game for players while upgrading a bunch of other servers would essentially mean having twice as many servers as they need which is pretty damn expensive even leaving aside all the technical issues with that approach.

thlaylierah

MONEY,

Plain and simple.

Right now they run to the bank with ALL the gravy instead of investing it into quality of life features like a backup server.

If I had it my way there would be an MMO Oversite Commitee and that would be one of the required features for any game company marketing in the US. There would also be steep fines for unwarrented down time.

That said, SWTOR doesn't seem to suffer from even 1% of STO's incessant continuous downtime so maybe they should look into copying some of their features which probably feature backup servers.

tomaswille

chasebears wrote: »

STO's main 'server' is actually a cluster of a bunch of servers, infinitely expandable to most any load through sharding. Having enough servers to run the game for players while upgrading a bunch of other servers would essentially mean having twice as many servers as they need which is pretty damn expensive even leaving aside all the technical issues with that approach.

I realize its not one computer running the world lol. I know it's a chain setup, but i am seeing more games doing this.
But like i said, i can't believe they can't afford it. It's probably the case of: WON'T afford it. STO is one of the MMORPG's that asks excessive amounts of money for their items. I cannot compare it with WoW, but i can compare it with EVEonline for example. And they can have more servers (shards, how do you want to call it )

tomaswille

thlaylierah wrote: »

MONEY,

Plain and simple.

Right now they run to the bank with ALL the gravy instead of investing it into quality of life features like a backup server.

If I had it my way there would be an MMO Oversite Commitee and that would be one of the required features for any game company marketing in the US. There would also be steep fines for unwarrented down time.

That said, SWTOR doesn't seem to suffer from even 1% of STO's incessant continuous downtime so maybe they should look into copying some of their features which probably feature backup servers.

Jup.. Scrooge McDucks.

praxi5

STO simply does not have population nor revenue generating capabilities to warrant two servers.

tomaswille

praxi5 wrote: »

STO simply does not have population nor revenue generating capabilities to warrant two servers.

So they overprize items, isn't that a tactic when you have enough population? I mean now it would seem as a scare tactic. Something they shouldnt be doing. So i assume they have plenty of people in their digital world.
Do not forget it's not only STO, but also their other games that generates income. Same bank account i guess.

praxi5

tomaswille wrote: »

praxi5 wrote: »

STO simply does not have population nor revenue generating capabilities to warrant two servers.

Do not forget it's not only STO, but also their other games that generates income. Same bank account i guess.

That's why they put that money back into the games that are more likely to make them that investment back, and more.

Otherwise, we wouldn't see Dev comments like "We lost money the last time we made a KDF/Rom/(I can't remember which exactly) ship" and we'd actually see them put out more content for the lesser used Classes (Sci/Eng) and Factions (KDF/Rom) instead of going with the surefire Tac-focused Fed sales.

xxnosxx

Sorry but STO CAN afford another server. In my opinion, there should be a U.S. server and a European server. That would stable many issues. Dont tell me it wont... been there done that.

xxnosxx

Sorry but STO CAN afford another server. In my opinion, there should be a U.S. server and a European server. That would stable many issues. Dont tell me it wont... been there done that.

datalives

Time zones = active server most of the time - spread and not having people upset that theres no one on at 1am to help on queue events... Cluster way of STO is fine as it is and does not require multi servers. And as the internet speed for home users /europe-usa get faster, why waste resources when they can be spent on developement, like these forums, event episodes and game changing updates.

kittyflofy

Ow, so many paragraphs and the real answer is just as simple as - MONEY - . As simple as that. They need to invest money to do that, so that will never happen.

thlaylierah

By "wasting resources" to provide a stable functioning experience for their players they will profit greatly in the long run.

I'm pretty sure even they are surprised by it's longevity, but that's the power of the IP which they should respect more by working on quality of life issues like excessive down time and planning for the future to profit in the long run.

lan451

tomaswille wrote: »

I've checked if there were more threads about this, but nope.

Maybe someone could explain me very simply, but i was wondering why STO don't have more servers?
I mean, 1 server. So when maintenance is being done, there is no gameplay.

Looking at other MMORPG's with more servers, they close one down to update, patch and test, while the other
server is still running the "old version", so people still can play. After the new update, they close down other servers
so there will be always time to play the game.

I can't believe this is a money related issue, looking at the expensive in-game items and subscriptions.

But like i said, maybe it's very simple. But i love to know the answer.

What MMO does that? All the MMOs I've ever played that had multiple servers (and it's a lot of them) have always taken down all the servers at the same time to apply patches. I've never heard of an MMO updating that way before.

chasebears

Sorry but STO CAN afford another server. In my opinion, there should be a U.S. server and a European server. That would stable many issues. Dont tell me it wont... been there done that.

A euro server offers almost no advantage over an east coast server with a dedicated London pipe.

tomaswille

lan451 wrote: »

tomaswille wrote: »

I've checked if there were more threads about this, but nope.

Maybe someone could explain me very simply, but i was wondering why STO don't have more servers?
I mean, 1 server. So when maintenance is being done, there is no gameplay.

Looking at other MMORPG's with more servers, they close one down to update, patch and test, while the other
server is still running the "old version", so people still can play. After the new update, they close down other servers
so there will be always time to play the game.

I can't believe this is a money related issue, looking at the expensive in-game items and subscriptions.

But like i said, maybe it's very simple. But i love to know the answer.

What MMO does that? All the MMOs I've ever played that had multiple servers (and it's a lot of them) have always taken down all the servers at the same time to apply patches. I've never heard of an MMO updating that way before.

World of Warcraft, Eve Online 2 already. And i have witnessed it

lan451

tomaswille wrote: »

lan451 wrote: »

tomaswille wrote: »

I've checked if there were more threads about this, but nope.

Maybe someone could explain me very simply, but i was wondering why STO don't have more servers?
I mean, 1 server. So when maintenance is being done, there is no gameplay.

Looking at other MMORPG's with more servers, they close one down to update, patch and test, while the other
server is still running the "old version", so people still can play. After the new update, they close down other servers
so there will be always time to play the game.

I can't believe this is a money related issue, looking at the expensive in-game items and subscriptions.

But like i said, maybe it's very simple. But i love to know the answer.

What MMO does that? All the MMOs I've ever played that had multiple servers (and it's a lot of them) have always taken down all the servers at the same time to apply patches. I've never heard of an MMO updating that way before.

World of Warcraft, Eve Online 2 already. And i have witnessed it

Everything I can find says that EVE has one server cluster called Tranquility, are there more that aren't being listed?

For WoW, it looks like they do regional updates with all of the servers in a region going down at once. Is that what you're talking about?

tomaswille

lan451 wrote: »

tomaswille wrote: »

lan451 wrote: »

tomaswille wrote: »

I've checked if there were more threads about this, but nope.

Maybe someone could explain me very simply, but i was wondering why STO don't have more servers?
I mean, 1 server. So when maintenance is being done, there is no gameplay.

Looking at other MMORPG's with more servers, they close one down to update, patch and test, while the other
server is still running the "old version", so people still can play. After the new update, they close down other servers
so there will be always time to play the game.

I can't believe this is a money related issue, looking at the expensive in-game items and subscriptions.

But like i said, maybe it's very simple. But i love to know the answer.

What MMO does that? All the MMOs I've ever played that had multiple servers (and it's a lot of them) have always taken down all the servers at the same time to apply patches. I've never heard of an MMO updating that way before.

World of Warcraft, Eve Online 2 already. And i have witnessed it

Everything I can find says that EVE has one server cluster called Tranquility, are there more that aren't being listed?

For WoW, it looks like they do regional updates with all of the servers in a region going down at once. Is that what you're talking about?

I do not play eve online anymore, but back then there were 2. (edit: i have searched and its called singularity, they made it into a test server now. )
And about WoW, one regional cluster went offline, but you were able to log in a different region cluster. Yes.

lan451

Gotcha. Never heard of it done that way before so I had to check it out.

vegeta50024

thlaylierah wrote: »

By "wasting resources" to provide a stable functioning experience for their players they will profit greatly in the long run.

Unfortunately STO has always been run as a "Fly By Night" operation, pocketing ALL the incoming cash and waiting for it to fail.

I'm pretty sure even they are surprised by it's longevity, but that's the power of the IP which they should respect more by working on quality of life issues like excessive down time and planning for the future to profit in the long run.

If this was a reddit post, you'd be downvoted quickly.

They do work on quality of life issues. The 4 hours added on to maintenance today was something unexpected with patching.

tomaswille

lan451 wrote: »

Gotcha. Never heard of it done that way before so I had to check it out.

Eh gotcha what? Still saying it's true. So what is different then what you said? lol

gameshogun

I for one doesn't want another server. I mean, look at sector space, since the revamp, it's rare to see ships flying around.

Simpler answer, the galaxy is huge and we haven't filled it yet to warrant a different server.

gaevsman

STO Could have more regional servers, but its practical for them?, financially i mean?, don't know, would be great thou, i offer my house for the new server!... Tribble party!

tomaswille

gameshogun wrote: »

I for one doesn't want another server. I mean, look at sector space, since the revamp, it's rare to see ships flying around.

Simpler answer, the galaxy is huge and we haven't filled it yet to warrant a different server.

Sector space? Can i eat that? Seriously tho, isn't sector space just a way to get from one place to another? I would expect even in a full server that it is quiet in sector space. After the revamp it only got bigger. Have you seen Risa? ( ok bad example today ) Drozana? ESD? DS9? All these maps have multiple instances and most of them are packed. The ones you don't see are persons doing missions, pve or pvp which takes them away from global map. Further more, have you even seen their facebook page? There are LOTS of people. I am not saying they are all paying customers, but they are present! It is really hard to see how much players there actually are, but guessing the amount of people, seeing the costs of items, and from experiences with others that pay for stuff, i genuinly believe they are capable of buying new server cluster. The problem is, they rather have that money in their pocket instead of spending it, and make people happy. and happy people is spending more, and spending more is money back + marge.

But like i said, i am guessing. I could be totally wrong, that is why i asked the question. Thanks for the replies

gaevsman wrote: »

STO Could have more regional servers, but its practical for them?, financially i mean?, don't know, would be great thou, i offer my house for the new server!... Tribble party!

Haha, anything that costs money is not practically for a company. If they had a choice they rather sell dirt in a jar for 4000 dollars each. Question is: can they afford it.. I think so.

shadowwraith77

gameshogun wrote: »

I for one doesn't want another server. I mean, look at sector space, since the revamp, it's rare to see ships flying around.

Simpler answer, the galaxy is huge and we haven't filled it yet to warrant a different server.

This issue, stems primarily from the limitations applied, to each instance. Not because there aren't lots of people on! STO doesn't allow for hundreds - thousands of people in one instance, if they did, it surely wouldn't appear empty.

kittyflofy

Well i must be the only one that think the sector space revamp is even worst than before, practically speaking. Yup, we saved a few loading screens.. at what cost? does it look better? maybe, maybe not, some textures make me think "meh" when i fly besides those planets. And more than once i need to switch off my slipstream drive because i keep crushing into stars.. not to mention all the times i need to re-apporach my destination because the auto pilot will never let me in the right spot... i mean... zzz.

lan451

tomaswille wrote: »

lan451 wrote: »

Gotcha. Never heard of it done that way before so I had to check it out.

Eh gotcha what? Still saying it's true. So what is different then what you said? lol

Ah sorry. Where I'm from "gotcha" can also be slang for "I understand." I really need to stop doing that, it's a bad habit. My bad.

jerichoredoran

Maybe ppl are talking about different things here. A separate "server" wouldnt have much use. We would have to level different characters there, get/grind every asset a second time and so on.
But they could extend their existing cluster to patch a part of it up while ppl still play. After that it would only take a reboot/rerouting to the new version. So maybe about 15min downtime...
Actually other services manage even uninterrupted uptime while still updating their software.

greyhame3

The cost of running parallel servers and managing the data synchronization between them is not really worth the cost for how long maintenance normally is.

bravecatherine

I don't think there is a population to compensate the cost of running two servers.

tomaswille

Funny thing is: When i ask this kind of questions on WoW forum or any other kind of big com

kittyflofy wrote: »

Well i must be the only one that think the sector space revamp is even worst than before, practically speaking. Yup, we saved a few loading screens.. at what cost? does it look better? maybe, maybe not, some textures make me think "meh" when i fly besides those planets. And more than once i need to switch off my slipstream drive because i keep crushing into stars.. not to mention all the times i need to re-apporach my destination because the auto pilot will never let me in the right spot... i mean... zzz.

Lol the endless rotational auto navig

sopwithsnipe wrote: »

bravecatherine wrote: »

I don't think there is a population to compensate the cost of running two servers.

Yes there is.

City of Heroes ran 16 separate servers (12 US, 4 Euro) for 8 years with only a fraction of the player base STO has. What we've got here is the result of Cryptic's decision to host all their games at the same location on the same server farm.

Exactly, and we shouldnt be forgetting that are lot's of players gone JUST because of the downtimes. So this could be a solution to get those players back. Heck, even get alot of new players. And simple rule: The more players, the money it brings with it.