Broad idea about server selection when this game will launch in the future.
How Good/Bad would it be to have a listed server for more specific kind of player?
For Example :
A's server : X-Located server(Est/west/Europe and more) -- Y-Population (showing if server is crowded or not) -- Z-Server type (for example PvE-Casual player / PvE-Active / PvP-Casual / PvP-Active)
The server would be populated with people like themselves. Would that be Good? Have more idea?
Soulmort said:Broad idea about server selection when this game will launch in the future.
How Good/Bad would it be to have a listed server for more specific kind of player?
For Example :
A's server : X-Located server(Est/west/Europe and more) -- Y-Population (showing if server is crowded or not) -- Z-Server type (for example PvE-Casual player / PvE-Active / PvP-Casual / PvP-Active)
The server would be populated with people like themselves. Would that be Good? Have more idea?
They stated in one of the streams that they probably won't have regional servers. "In the old days" they had them because the Internet had latency issues, but the modern Internet doesn't suffer from that as much. They said that they have employees/testers/players from all over the world playing on the same servers and lag isn't an issue.
Only additional/optional server type I'd like to see in addition to the regular (PvP/PvE) is:
One IP allowed per account. IP can change daily, following the rules below.
IP must geographically match credit card address, to the postal code/zip code level.
Credit card address & credit card number can change twice per year, max.
RL name tied to the account and credit card can never change, and must always match.
Billing and subscription can be via credit card only, and monthly, only.
No boxing allowed (not two boxing, not multi-boxing), at all, ever, under any conditions. First offense and your character is transferred to a regular server.
You can transfer off the server, but not onto it.
Optionally, a monthly premium additional fee for the privilege of playing on this server type.
Optionally, the credit card can only be used from / come from a local bank (the continent/region the server is on).
Optionally, the credit card cannot be used on any other accounts if/while this premium service is in use.
Optionally, all logins are 2FA to the credit card billing phone number, only, in addition to the above.
Optionally, the credit card billing phone number can change twice per year, max.
That's probably enough. :)
Well regional servers and old days really doesn't jive. Chronicles of Elyria another NEW MMO has regional servers. As to round trip delay, well as someone whose worked the provider side telecommunications I can tell you this as fact;
I live on the east coast, round trip delay to the west coast is great. But my provider uses a mostly fiber network, my old provider didn't and ping times could, on occasion get close to 100ms to the west coast. Now that is not bad.
I also play onlines on a game called MWO, also a relatively new game that also uses regional servers. In the US their server is on the west coast and my pings are great (29-45ms). But to the UK and all those undersea cables it goes to over 100ms. To their asia pacific servers my team mates from the US as well as myself peg around 300ms, which ain't great for online gaming.
So yes, if they are just planning to service US customers then regional servers don't matter as much. But even in the US if you don't live in a major city your RTD is going to suffer.
As to the IP suggestion I would ask them not to go that way. I protect myself from snoopers and my IP changes often and also where I appear from changes a lot as well.
Any discussion of regional servers needs to define its terms to be meaningful. Regional by targetted population or regional by physical location of equipment?
Regional servers could mean servers physically located in different areas. But often such is far from the case. The LOTRO North American servers are housed in the U.S. - I had thought Boston but someone said the other day they were moved to New Jersey. The LOTRO European servers are housed in ...the same place. They said years ago they would move them to Amsterdam but that never happened.
My guess is that Pantheon will have all of its servers supported from the same location. If it has multiple servers using the same ruleset it can list one of them as a place Europeans or Oceanics are encouraged to play if they want to be with more people in their own time zones. Or not - experience tells me with a very high degree of likelihood that if all we get is a list of PvE servers the community will rather quickly designate one as the unofficial Oceanic server, one as the unofficial European server, one as the unofficial roleplaying server etc.
vjek said:Only additional/optional server type I'd like to see in addition to the regular (PvP/PvE) is:
One IP allowed per account. IP can change daily, following the rules below.
IP must geographically match credit card address, to the postal code/zip code level.
Credit card address & credit card number can change twice per year, max.
RL name tied to the account and credit card can never change, and must always match.
Billing and subscription can be via credit card only, and monthly, only.
No boxing allowed (not two boxing, not multi-boxing), at all, ever, under any conditions. First offense and your character is transferred to a regular server.
You can transfer off the server, but not onto it.Optionally, a monthly premium additional fee for the privilege of playing on this server type.
Optionally, the credit card can only be used from / come from a local bank (the continent/region the server is on).
Optionally, the credit card cannot be used on any other accounts if/while this premium service is in use.
Optionally, all logins are 2FA to the credit card billing phone number, only, in addition to the above.
Optionally, the credit card billing phone number can change twice per year, max.That's probably enough. :)
Someone else who's opposed to multi-boxing, quite the rarity it seems, which is strange to me since it goes against the very nature of a community-oriented online game where the purpose is playing with other real humans. I am all for a server with rulesets that explicitely disallow multi-boxing.
Sicario said:vjek said:Only additional/optional server type I'd like to see in addition to the regular (PvP/PvE) is:
One IP allowed per account. IP can change daily, following the rules below.
IP must geographically match credit card address, to the postal code/zip code level.
Credit card address & credit card number can change twice per year, max.
RL name tied to the account and credit card can never change, and must always match.
Billing and subscription can be via credit card only, and monthly, only.
No boxing allowed (not two boxing, not multi-boxing), at all, ever, under any conditions. First offense and your character is transferred to a regular server.
You can transfer off the server, but not onto it.Optionally, a monthly premium additional fee for the privilege of playing on this server type.
Optionally, the credit card can only be used from / come from a local bank (the continent/region the server is on).
Optionally, the credit card cannot be used on any other accounts if/while this premium service is in use.
Optionally, all logins are 2FA to the credit card billing phone number, only, in addition to the above.
Optionally, the credit card billing phone number can change twice per year, max.That's probably enough. :)
Someone else who's opposed to multi-boxing, quite the rarity it seems, which is strange to me since it goes against the very nature of a community-oriented online game where the purpose is playing with other real humans. I am all for a server with rulesets that explicitely disallow multi-boxing.
VR has claimed that they plan on combatting multiboxing by making the combat complex enough that one person could not effectively multibox with much success. Thus discouraging it, but not outright disallowing it. I feel like players would just multibox healers that stay back and heal, but maybe VR does have some tricky AI/mechanics that will make it very, very, difficult.
In my opinion, in the beginning, three server types:
PvE
PvP
Role Play
Variety is the spice of life, so the PvE servers should be a thorough mixture of PvE types. PvP is a very distinct playstyle and generally requires a type of ruleset, so they should have a specific type of server.
Role play should be made up of likeminded players to better ensure integrity of the experience on the server.
Adding any more versions would likely only make things more confusing for the playerbase as well adds additional convolution for VR and maintaining distinct identities for the variety of servers.
vjek said:Only additional/optional server type I'd like to see in addition to the regular (PvP/PvE) is:
One IP allowed per account. IP can change daily, following the rules below.
IP must geographically match credit card address, to the postal code/zip code level.
Credit card address & credit card number can change twice per year, max.
RL name tied to the account and credit card can never change, and must always match.
Billing and subscription can be via credit card only, and monthly, only.
No boxing allowed (not two boxing, not multi-boxing), at all, ever, under any conditions. First offense and your character is transferred to a regular server.
You can transfer off the server, but not onto it.Optionally, a monthly premium additional fee for the privilege of playing on this server type.
Optionally, the credit card can only be used from / come from a local bank (the continent/region the server is on).
Optionally, the credit card cannot be used on any other accounts if/while this premium service is in use.
Optionally, all logins are 2FA to the credit card billing phone number, only, in addition to the above.
Optionally, the credit card billing phone number can change twice per year, max.That's probably enough. :)
All of that just to aid in your competition to achieve server-firsts?
This server sounds like a waste of precious resources, not to mention the additional coding required to support those rules.
Come the day - perhaps VR will poll the community. Both we here, perhaps on the long awaited new forums, and the wider community through various gaming sites.
A decision on pvp cannot be made too close to release since a pvp server is different enough that some real work might be required. But regional servers (if that is even an option) require no extra coding unless one has a server using a different language. Roleplaying servers require little or no coding especially if the difference is naming rules and otherwise players there are as free to RP or not to RP as on any other server.
In the perhaps less likely event of more specialty servers they can probably set them up fairly fast. A server where leveling is harder or easier might just require a change in the amount of xp required for each level. That should be trivial to program. A server where all items are tradable (or where none are) probably not months of coding to change the item tables but I am less sure of that.
In any case if it is as simple to add and remove servers as VR has predicted, the harm from having different rulesets is not so much the cost of rolling out 4 more servers it is the fracturing of the community. Which means the critical equation is how many people they expect to play and what they consider the ideal size of a server.
Hypothetically assume they expect 200,000 people to be playing after things settle down a bit. Hypothetically assume they target 20,000 accounts per server. Each number wildly inaccurate I am sure since they were picked at random (and so that the arithmatic would be simple).
That means if 1/10 of the population says their primary server will be ruleset X if available, they can have that ruleset with no reduction to the population of the other 9 servers. They just need to determine what rulesets, if any, other than pure pve get a 10% or more credible vote.
Kass said:VR has claimed that they plan on combatting multiboxing by making the combat complex enough that one person could not effectively multibox with much success. Thus discouraging it, but not outright disallowing it. I feel like players would just multibox healers that stay back and heal, but maybe VR does have some tricky AI/mechanics that will make it very, very, difficult.
Oh, I'm well aware, yet we all know how that goes: unless there're explicit game design choices that make it extremely difficult to multi-box (e.g., no macros and no auto-follow + other measures), people will do it. There are even some here on these forums who've outright stated that they plan to multi-box on launch.
Akilae said:This server sounds like a waste of precious resources, not to mention the additional coding required to support those rules.
The rules might be a little excessive, but the gist is "servers with rulesets and protections against those who wish to multi-box." Doesn't have to be those examples provided by vjek, just has to be enough to prevent multi-boxers from being able to play on them.
Agreed, what I would like to see means putting forth a reasonable amount of effort on the billing side to ensure that each player in your group is an actual human. That's it.
They have /assist.
They have /follow.
Every tenet, video, post, stream, interview, gameplay description, newsletter, whatever, so far, indicates that there is nothing so far that won't be "/follow, /assist, press 1,2,3, win" style of game.
Which means, their current stance of "boxing will be allowed" will promote it within the community.
Coding up what I described? Trivial. Weekend busy work for an intern. All the API's, libraries and functions already exist. The subscription GeoIP service from maxmind is hundreds of dollars per year. I know, because I use it. :)
I'm painfully aware such an optional server wouldn't be for everyone. Yet, a No-Box optional rule-set server would likely be very popular, given the niche target demographic of this game.
The rules are excessive only because if you don't go to those lengths, having 6 unique IP's, via OpenVPN and GCP, is ~free, especially if you're willing to install the operating systems and packages yourself, is incredibly easy.
If you just say "This server is no-box" then all the multi-boxers will still be there, with 6 VPNs. Nothing will be different, unless you tie the restrictions back the way I outlined.
But for customers who are 1) in north america or the commonwealth, 2) have a credit card from a local bank, and 3) have a broadband IP address that changes at most once per day, there's absolutely nothing different about this optional ruleset server, if you don't change your credit card billing address more than twice per year. In my experience, that covers a significant portion of the customers, without causing any inconvenience.
And... wait for it.. it's optional. The regular servers would have no such restrictions. Change your IP every hour. Change your credit card daily. Use 6 VPNs, multi-box your life away. What's the problem? I don't care if players want to do that.
But I would like to have the choice to play with 5 other actual humans, too, and would be happy to pay a premium for that privilege.
vjek said:Only additional/optional server type I'd like to see in addition to the regular (PvP/PvE) is:
One IP allowed per account. IP can change daily, following the rules below.
IP must geographically match credit card address, to the postal code/zip code level.
Credit card address & credit card number can change twice per year, max.
RL name tied to the account and credit card can never change, and must always match.
Billing and subscription can be via credit card only, and monthly, only.
No boxing allowed (not two boxing, not multi-boxing), at all, ever, under any conditions. First offense and your character is transferred to a regular server.
You can transfer off the server, but not onto it.Optionally, a monthly premium additional fee for the privilege of playing on this server type.
Optionally, the credit card can only be used from / come from a local bank (the continent/region the server is on).
Optionally, the credit card cannot be used on any other accounts if/while this premium service is in use.
Optionally, all logins are 2FA to the credit card billing phone number, only, in addition to the above.
Optionally, the credit card billing phone number can change twice per year, max.That's probably enough. :)
There are multiple problems with your proposed methodology. I will outline some:
1. One IP allowed per account: The problem with this is that most home networks use NAT addressing for machines behind their route/firewall. That means that there could be LEGITIMATELY multiple playing from "the same IP address".
2. IP must geographically match credit card address: Some ISPs use regional IP addresssing. For instance, MY IP address traces back to a completely different city than I am actually in, and WAY outside of my zipcode.
3. RL name tied to the account and credit card can never change: Some people pay for other people's stuff. For instance, my daughter has her own cell phone, XBox Live account, and will have her own Pantheon account. But *I* pay for it as she lives in my household. If/When she gets married and moves out, her spouse can pay for it, then there's STILL be multiple accounts on the same credit card.
4. Billing and subscription can be via credit card only, and monthly, only: Some people do not have credit cards and may pay for things via network specific cards, like you can currently do on XBox Live, Battle.Net, etc.
5. No boxing allowed (not two boxing, not multi-boxing), at all, ever, under any conditions: Brad has already stated that there will be no in-game mechanic to stop boxing as they do not personally disapprove of it. They HOPE that the game will be challenging enough to preclude it, however.
6. You can transfer off the server, but not onto it: Huh? In order to transfer OFF of a server, you must transfer ON to another one.
Mod Edit: Removed personal attack.
We don't have anything on specific servers or rulesets yet guys, when we get closer to launch we will discuss options but it will be minimal to start with as we don't want to split the community up and spread them out over all different unique servers making the game seem dead.
We will most likely start with the basics: PvE across different regions, PvP across different regions.
We would like to look at an RP server or two and other possibilities but for launch, expect the basic PvE and PvP servers.
Kalok said:There are multiple problems with your proposed methodology. I will outline some:
2. IP must geographically match credit card address: Some ISPs use regional IP addresssing. For instance, MY IP address traces back to a completely different city than I am actually in, and WAY outside of my zipcode.
My ISP does this too. Shows up a whole city over from where I'm at.
4. Billing and subscription can be via credit card only, and monthly, only: Some people do not have credit cards and may pay for things via network specific cards, like you can currently do on XBox Live, Battle.Net, etc.
This is highly likely to be a thing as most MMORPGs offer it to some degree. There's also the chance folks could use rechargable credit cards as well. Given all the data breaches these days you can never be too careful.
All in all what Vjek suggested sounds similar to the EverQuest Legends server from a while back. Except that server didn't have quite that long a list of restrictions. I "think" if I recall it cost something like $40 to play on it and it came with a few perks. I never played on it but I do remember it. If VR wants to put something up there I could care less if it drums them up some extra cash. But I'll in all likelyhood be sticking with the basic servers. Cash gets tight sometimes. :)
Sicario said:Someone else who's opposed to multi-boxing, quite the rarity it seems, which is strange to me since it goes against the very nature of a community-oriented online game where the purpose is playing with other real humans. I am all for a server with rulesets that explicitely disallow multi-boxing.
............
Oh, I'm well aware, yet we all know how that goes: unless there're explicit game design choices that make it extremely difficult to multi-box (e.g., no macros and no auto-follow + other measures), people will do it. There are even some here on these forums who've outright stated that they plan to multi-box on launch.
I will absolutely be playing a warrior and cleric at launch. Unless they manage to make the game so difficult and combat so intensive that it's just not feasible. The reason for this, is that this game will not be challenging enough playing just 1 character. Much like eq isnt challenging enough unless I'm playing 6.
The speed of gameplay determines ability to multi box and honestly, from what we've seen. You would probably never know I was boxing if we were in a group unless I told you.
Also... see what I did there... "in a group". Boxers still play with other people. If I'm playing 2 chars, that leaves 4 spots for other people...
The notion that boxers are evil is akin to the notion that people of certain religious and geographical natures are all evil.
Porygon said:Sicario said:Someone else who's opposed to multi-boxing, quite the rarity it seems, which is strange to me since it goes against the very nature of a community-oriented online game where the purpose is playing with other real humans. I am all for a server with rulesets that explicitely disallow multi-boxing.
............
Oh, I'm well aware, yet we all know how that goes: unless there're explicit game design choices that make it extremely difficult to multi-box (e.g., no macros and no auto-follow + other measures), people will do it. There are even some here on these forums who've outright stated that they plan to multi-box on launch.
I will absolutely be playing a warrior and cleric at launch. Unless they manage to make the game so difficult and combat so intensive that it's just not feasible. The reason for this, is that this game will not be challenging enough playing just 1 character. Much like eq isnt challenging enough unless I'm playing 6.
The speed of gameplay determines ability to multi box and honestly, from what we've seen. You would probably never know I was boxing if we were in a group unless I told you.
Also... see what I did there... "in a group". Boxers still play with other people. If I'm playing 2 chars, that leaves 4 spots for other people...
The notion that boxers are evil is akin to the notion that people of certain religious and geographical natures are all evil.
I don't think you're evil, but I do think that you're doing something that's against the spirit of the core design of the game. These games are meant to bring people together to work as a group to complete content. For example, a dungeon where bosses drop rare loot are dropping loot for an expected group of 6 separate players who've worked together and thus are rewarded for that effort. You're making it easier by paying extra and removing the need to find and work with another person. Even if there are 4 spots for other people, you've fundamentally altered the expected experience by removing the need for another person, yet still retaining the benefits of that person being there.
There should be no situation in which a group of six separate players who've worked together are denied a boss or other mob they've progressed towards because a group of multi-boxers (even if only one person is multi-boxing) are killing that mob. Which is inevitable in a game where multi-boxing is allowed and possible
Given this, it is not unreasonable for PAYING customers to desire an opportunity to play the game with others who are playing the game as intended.
All that's being requested are a set of servers where multi-boxing is explicitly not allowed.
Sicario said:I don't think you're evil, but I do think that you're doing something that's against the spirit of the core design of the game. These games are meant to bring people together to work as a group to complete content. For example, a dungeon where bosses drop rare loot are dropping loot for an expected group of 6 separate players who've worked together and thus are rewarded for that effort. You're making it easier by paying extra and removing the need to find and work with another person. Even if there are 4 spots for other people, you've fundamentally altered the expected experience by removing the need for another person, yet still retaining the benefits of that person being there.
There should be no situation in which a group of six separate players who've worked together are denied a boss or other mob they've progressed towards because a group of multi-boxers (even if only one person is multi-boxing) are killing that mob. Which is inevitable in a game where multi-boxing is allowed and possible
Given this, it is not unreasonable for PAYING customers to desire an opportunity to play the game with others who are playing the game as intended.
All that's being requested are a set of servers where multi-boxing is explicitly not allowed.
If multi boxing was against the spirit, or core design of the game. It wouldnt be allowed.
Not "we will combat it with challenging gameplay".
You're living in the past and need to catch up. Part of the reasons people multi box is to be able to play if they dont have alot of time. If I log in and only have 2 hours. I dont wanna spend 45 mins traveling to and finding a group, when i can just kill by myself. Because the game is "solo unfriendly" you hinder players that ave short stints in which they are available to play.
And your arguement about 6 seperate players vs 5 seperate is just dumb. What if my group only has 5 characters, is it still the same? Or just because 1 person is playing 2 characters it somehow makes the group less deserving.
On a sidenote. The reason I box a healer and tank is because 95% of the MMO population is utterly terrible at the game. I do not want these people anchoring me into a group that cannot kill anything. It's much easier to find and replace dps than it is for tanks and healers.
Porygon said:If multi boxing was against the spirit, or core design of the game. It wouldnt be allowed.
Not "we will combat it with challenging gameplay".
You're living in the past and need to catch up. Part of the reasons people multi box is to be able to play if they dont have alot of time. If I log in and only have 2 hours. I dont wanna spend 45 mins traveling to and finding a group, when i can just kill by myself. Because the game is "solo unfriendly" you hinder players that ave short stints in which they are available to play.
And your arguement about 6 seperate players vs 5 seperate is just dumb. What if my group only has 5 characters, is it still the same? Or just because 1 person is playing 2 characters it somehow makes the group less deserving.
On a sidenote. The reason I box a healer and tank is because 95% of the MMO population is utterly terrible at the game. I do not want these people anchoring me into a group that cannot kill anything. It's much easier to find and replace dps than it is for tanks and healers.
Actually, I think your example supports my position better than it supports yours. They're taking a (reasonably) measured approach against multi-boxing. It's absolutely fair that they would rather first focus on creating challenging gameplay that makes it ineffective to multi-box, instead of immediately jumping to putting in (extra) explicit efforts to stop it, which would require additional resources than a combat system that is effective within itself. If they didn't think it was against the spirit and core design of the game, they wouldn't state that they're making efforts to combat it.
If anyone is living in the past, it's you. The old EQ community are primarily the ones that wish to multi-box because they got so used to it with EQ's combat and medding system. I've personally been an advocate for actual challenging combat and an interactive, engaging mana management/regen system that would make it nigh impossible to multi-box. Good game design also means that there are solo friendly activities available for those times when people don't have a large window to play. It's acceptable to expect that there will also be times where people just aren't going to have enough time to play certain content. That's the trade-off with games that have a heavy group/social focus.
If your group only has 5 players (and characters), that's completely different than stacking with an extra character. If you're able to accomplish 6-man group content with only 5, that's cool, that's a challenge and you've successfully done it. You should be rewarded for that. However, you should not be rewarded for paying extra and making that content easier without the need to go through what every other group of players has to, and that's navigating the difficulties that come along with social interactions and finding the players they want to group with. That's a part of the process of (older) MMOs that makes the time playing rewarding and what many of the people who are excited about Pantheon want: that difficulty that requires us to work together, to be social, to find people we want to play with, to create guilds with them and grow with them.
What you're wanting is something that negates those challenges and enables you to access content that's meant for players who have put forth the effort into those social bonds.
Again, this can be solved by giving players an option to play on servers where multi-boxing isn't allowed. That way you can do what you want while the others can get the intended experience they're paying for.
I really hope we get dedicated EU servers. Cultural reasons and high ping makes it incredibly laborious to play on NA servers IMO.
If people actually are saying that "lag isn't an issue" globally with servers in only one location then I'd be very much interested in seeing the actual ping. So far lag has very much been an issue in every game I've played that had me connect to a different continent (even in slow games like EQ/other MMOs).