Apologies if this has been discussed already. I only found out about Pantheon yesterday... as a former EQ player I got extremely excited and donated immediately. I haven't scoured the threads yet to know if this has been discussed.
I have played many MMOs over the last almost 20 years. One annoying constant I find is the inevitable server consolidation. Whether it be many years from launch (like EQ and WoW) or a few months (like SWTOR). Dense player population is a must in an social game/community.. which leads to server consolidation.
My hope is the team is aware of this and would set themselves up to maybe have 6-9 servers at most (one for each region NA/Europe/AP) (PVE,PVP,Role-Playing). On each server you can set up separate instances or shards for each area, and when the population exceeds an area cap, a new instance of that area is created to help alleviate any server strain.
In addtion, I know personally of players that have quit MMOs from server consolidations that creates a situation wherein a duplicate player name is created and they are forced to change their character's name.
Limiting the amount of servers, and allowing for a structure to create mulitple shards of specific in game areas would help solve this.
Thank you.
First of all, Welcome.
You have a very good point, but it's a bit too early to know for sure yet. Server load is something that they won't be able to truly address until at least Alpha (although Beta is more likely) when they get a better feel for how many people are actually going to be playing and how the servers respond to those populations. Regardless, Brad McQuaid is one of the most, if not THE most, veteran developers in the MMO industry, so I'm sure he has several good ideas to tackle this issue.
I belive it has been stated that the game will not use instances, or use very little instancing. The idea is to keep immersion and allow people to meet.
High population servers, even with instances, would probably also create an odd environment to play in, just as an empty server would. If the problem is primarily name change due to conflict on server merges, there may be a way to solve that. The solution however, would probably have to be a tight fit to the game, so going into solution mode at this current state of development is probably, as Bazgrim mentions, much too early.
I couldn't agree more that I do not want to see instancing. I would rather it be like EQ1 where nothing was instanced. No game since that I've played has been able to create that environment where organization, cooperation, and competition drove the community to do what I'm sure the developers never imagined was possible (both good and bad).
I'm just adding some insight that this is a serious problem that hits every single MMO at some point (some sooner than later). I've played dozens of these games and seemingly no thought is put into the community in this way, and it's a plague. For example, SWTOR launched with dozens of servers only to be downsized to a fraction of the servers later on due to population problems. Not only was this a community problem, but also an infrastructure cost problem to developer.
As I anticipate this will be a game that relies heavily on the community from what I've read, this issue will take some serious consideration.
Thanks for the replies, guys
BitCrunzh said:I belive it has been stated that the game will not use instances, or use very little instancing. The idea is to keep immersion and allow people to meet.
High population servers, even with instances, would probably also create an odd environment to play in, just as an empty server would. If the problem is primarily name change due to conflict on server merges, there may be a way to solve that. The solution however, would probably have to be a tight fit to the game, so going into solution mode at this current state of development is probably, as Bazgrim mentions, much too early.
I'm not so sure it would be too soon to go into solution mode. If the consolidation problem is charrictor names then it needs to be built into the Data Base now, that the "charrictor name" is not the identifyer. if the game is built that way to begin with, it's a huge change later on.
Easy change with small problems before the code is written.