Negative effect on queues from staggering launch.

[Teuras]

So lets assume a quarter, or even 1/5 of the player base knows someone they want to play with. Be it just a one friend or a whole guild. Now part of the guild or some of the friends get in the game in early Early Access, settle in a server and rest are going to follow. This is pretty much what will and has happened, there is no two ways about it, unless the early Early Access players actually want to create another character or just wait before they start playing (probably not going to happen).

 

Now while the anchor-head of the guild or friend base have settled into a server, so have a bunch of random other players and thus they fill up the server. No problem for those without a guild or friends who are already playing, since EA/BW will just fire up new servers where they can go...

 

But for those who are following a guild or friends this means that the servers that are experiencing 3 hour queues as of now, will be looking at 5-6 hour queues come the actual launch day. Popular servers NOW will be massively overpopulated by 20th.

 

This was my first though when I heard about the staggering launch and I'm a bit confused how it didn't cross the minds of the developers

[Caithleen]

Yup, our server allready tends to be full in the evening and there is only about ~20% of us in yet ....

[Teuras]

Oh and I forgot that in Europe, people tend to join a server with a specific language group. Since there is no official support for certain languages, expect to see servers where for example Russians move, to be really, really full.

[BenjaminminU]

Oh and I forgot that in Europe, people tend to join a server with a specific language group. Since there is no official support for certain languages, expect to see servers where for example Russians move, to be really, really full.

 

In europe both of the english RP-PvE servers have been claimed. Hungarians took the Progenitor and the spanish took Trask Ulgo.

[Varkin]

So lets assume a quarter, or even 1/5 of the player base knows someone they want to play with. Be it just a one friend or a whole guild. Now part of the guild or some of the friends get in the game in early Early Access, settle in a server and rest are going to follow. This is pretty much what will and has happened, there is no two ways about it, unless the early Early Access players actually want to create another character or just wait before they start playing (probably not going to happen).

 

Now while the anchor-head of the guild or friend base have settled into a server, so have a bunch of random other players and thus they fill up the server. No problem for those without a guild or friends who are already playing, since EA/BW will just fire up new servers where they can go...

 

But for those who are following a guild or friends this means that the servers that are experiencing 3 hour queues as of now, will be looking at 5-6 hour queues come the actual launch day. Popular servers NOW will be massively overpopulated by 20th.

 

This was my first though when I heard about the staggering launch and I'm a bit confused how it didn't cross the minds of the developers

 

 

The same thing happened with Rift and it did not have a staggered launch. In all MMOs right around launch time there are servers with huge queues. The staggered headstart did not cause this problem.

[Teuras]

It did not cause it, no, but wasn't one the point of it that there would be less queues and stress on servers?

With little or no info on the access to the game, people could not even plan ahead on how they would handle the server selection.

 

Also with Rift, people had a choice to relocate as they all started at the same time. In SWTOR relocating after launch would mean that some folks would have to abandon a character, quite possibly in 20-30 level range.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Teuras

[Shadowkire]

The same thing happened with Rift and it did not have a staggered launch. In all MMOs right around launch time there are servers with huge queues. The staggered headstart did not cause this problem.

 

You are correct: it did not cause the problem.

 

It made it worse.

 

Now the independent players have a couple days of time invested in their server, making them less and less likely to leave. Meanwhile the as yet uninvited guild members are forced to either abandon their guilds or add to the already large population.

[Ariadna]

that s exactly why i hate european servers. they all end up becoming a huge babel tower at some point or another.

[Fubbik]

I am gonna give BW the benefit of doubt here. Hearing from friends online last night, during peakhours, that although there were short queues to get in-game, the zones were still less occupied than during the stresstest.

This makes me believe (and hope) that BW put soft caps on servers during EGA to get a wider distribution of the players "without server preference" and that they increase the caps as we go (probably on a daily basis).

 

If not, then I am not looking forward to the queues come Saturday.

 

Edit: As of right now they have added ZERO new servers since the same time yesterday. I find it hard to believe that they would keep giving 100'000s of players EGA to "full" servers without adding any. I think this speaks in favor of my statement above.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Fubbik

[Jeronas]

I am gonna give BW the benefit of doubt here. Hearing from friends online last night, during peakhours, that although there were short queues to get in-game, the zones were still less occupied than during the stresstest.

This makes me believe (and hope) that BW put soft caps on servers during EGA to get a wider distribution of the players "without server preference" and that they increase the caps as we go (probably on a daily basis).

 

If not, then I am not looking forward to the queues come Saturday.

 

I am currently playing on an EU English RP-PVE server. The moment it turns bad (invasion from players of a sertain eastern european country that start flooding the OOC channels in their own language), I am going to move to a US East Coast RP-PVE server.

I don't hate those people because of their nationality (would be rascistic), I just hate them for their utter disrespect towards other players!

 

I have been playing on a US RP server in Everquest 2 for many years, without any negative effects. The community also tends to be better most of the time.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Jeronas

[Teuras]

Bloodworthy had 3 hour queues last night at 8pm gmt. 30min around 6pm.

[Jianni]

I am gonna give BW the benefit of doubt here. Hearing from friends online last night, during peakhours, that although there were short queues to get in-game, the zones were still less occupied than during the stresstest.

This makes me believe (and hope) that BW put soft caps on servers during EGA to get a wider distribution of the players "without server preference" and that they increase the caps as we go (probably on a daily basis).

 

I hope you are correct.

[Kyus]

I hope you are correct.

 

I believe him to also to be correct, Bioware seem to have thought this through (I posted about 3 threads on this in october all of which got batted away without a comment whilst people argued over beta invites).

 

The Servers seem to be capped which will gradually increase each day so to encourage the population of unguilded/randoms to spread out a bit more. however non represented languages grabbing at certain servers does tend to spike it like we're seeing on freedom nadd, the only thing bioware did wrong here was to not release the server list sooner, so the alternative language communities could establish themselves better.

[Varkin]

You are correct: it did not cause the problem.

 

It made it worse.

 

Now the independent players have a couple days of time invested in their server, making them less and less likely to leave. Meanwhile the as yet uninvited guild members are forced to either abandon their guilds or add to the already large population.

 

I disagree, that it made it worse. 20+ mmo launches and the same problem happens. Now in 2 weeks or so I may revise my opinion on this but 2 days is not enough data to say if this made it worse. Do I accept that it has the potential to be worse, yup, however I believe that it has the potential to be better too. Only time will tell.

[Vialator]

You are correct: it did not cause the problem.

 

It made it worse.

 

Now the independent players have a couple days of time invested in their server, making them less and less likely to leave. Meanwhile the as yet uninvited guild members are forced to either abandon their guilds or add to the already large population.

 

Quoted for truth

[Asolar]

I think they made a softcap and will raise it higher in the following days, to make all those that might not have someone already playing choose another server.

But i agree some servers are going to be huge, because they choose this stupid way of a release. Think my guild have around 15 ingame and another 50ish waiting, and thats on one of the big ones. Queue is gonna be insane for awhile i guess, i sure hope its a softcap...

[Ghaiana]

When I logged on yesterday (8pm = primetime) there was no queue. I play on one of two European RP servers. I haven't seen an enormous amount of one nationality on that server yet. And I love it when people are from different countries on servers, that is just why I play MMO's. To get to know people that you would not encounter otherwise. It was not too busy and not too empty on the server.

[Jianni]

I believe him to also to be correct, Bioware seem to have thought this through (I posted about 3 threads on this in october all of which got batted away without a comment whilst people argued over beta invites).

 

The Servers seem to be capped which will gradually increase each day so to encourage the population of unguilded/randoms to spread out a bit more. however non represented languages grabbing at certain servers does tend to spike it like we're seeing on freedom nadd, the only thing bioware did wrong here was to not release the server list sooner, so the alternative language communities could establish themselves better.

 

I don't really mind the staggered launch but a bunch of my friends have settled into a full server. So this point has been my only real concern during this process. I actually hadn't considered this point so thanks for the hope.

[Jeronas]

When I logged on yesterday (8pm = primetime) there was no queue. I play on one of two European RP servers. I haven't seen an enormous amount of one nationality on that server yet. And I love it when people are from different countries on servers, that is just why I play MMO's. To get to know people that you would not encounter otherwise. It was not too busy and not too empty on the server.

 

Me too. But the problem often is, that if a very large group of people from a "sertain" country joins a server, they tend to disrespect everyone else by just speaking in their own language on all the public chat channels!

 

They can speak their own language in private tells, guildchat, groupchat, whatever... but people should stick to english on public channels on an English language designated server.

[Varkin]

It did not cause it, no, but wasn't one the point of it that there would be less queues and stress on servers?

With little or no info on the access to the game, people could not even plan ahead on how they would handle the server selection.

 

Also with Rift, people had a choice to relocate as they all started at the same time. In SWTOR relocating after launch would mean that some folks would have to abandon a character, quite possibly in 20-30 level range.

 

The levels are not relevant the time is and 1 to 7 days is 1 to 7 days. That does not change that if you relocate under either situation that people lose time invested. However under this system less people would actually lose time invested if a group of people switched servers as some of those people wll have 0 time invested So over all les time invested lost.

 

It all depends on your point of view.

[Varkin]

Quoted for truth

 

I love how opinion = truth.

 

 

That was sarcam in case you missed it.

[ghazneth]

Oh and I forgot that in Europe, people tend to join a server with a specific language group. Since there is no official support for certain languages, expect to see servers where for example Russians move, to be really, really full.

 

my guild is in alliance with a couple other guilds

bioware knew about that coz we all registered our guilds pre-lunch

for some reason every single guild that is my ally is assinged to a different server

 

we had to chose a netural server in order to play with each other

 

u know what happend when a 700+ ppl ninja land on the same side on the server?

5:1 ratio happends

 

so yeah if ur a rebel on my server i can guarantee u will never ever kill a single raid boss and u will be zerged in contested zones on a daily basis

 

have a nice day

[J_Five]

I am gonna give BW the benefit of doubt here. Hearing from friends online last night, during peakhours, that although there were short queues to get in-game, the zones were still less occupied than during the stresstest.

This makes me believe (and hope) that BW put soft caps on servers during EGA to get a wider distribution of the players "without server preference" and that they increase the caps as we go (probably on a daily basis).

 

If not, then I am not looking forward to the queues come Saturday.

 

Edit: As of right now they have added ZERO new servers since the same time yesterday. I find it hard to believe that they would keep giving 100'000s of players EGA to "full" servers without adding any. I think this speaks in favor of my statement above.

 

This is a well thought out observation, and most likely the reality of the situation. I'm sure they predicted that groups of people who want to play together want to play on the same servers, so as servers hit a 'soft cap' a queue gets enabled on the server. Independent players are less likely to create their first character on a server with a queue, than one without, as they want to start playing now. The ones who want to play with their friends, are willing to wait the queue times. It doesn't solve the problem completely for launch, but it certainly will alleviate the problem over the upcoming weeks.

[FieldMarshall]

Am i the only one who will willingly endure ridiculous queue times rather than going for one of the "less popular" empty servers?

The this with large queue times is that it evens out eventually. What you are left with is a thriving server with low queues at the most.

[lordharlock]

Perhaps all of this has been said already, but there it goes.

 

I understand that the launch of a new game is always difficult and has a lot of problems. Ok

 

But with the experience if EVERY new MMO, with ethernals queues generating the "30 days game-back to wow", i think it´s a lack of prevision from Bioware, EA, etc, not pre-fixing this.

 

It´s only an early game acces, and i still wait that everything goes right when launch comes. I hope. This is an awesome game, but a lot of fantastic games where garbage in 30 days with problems like this. If you sell 3000000 of copies, you NEED to make viable to play 3000000 players at the SAME TIME.

 

Actually in Europe:

5 servers Heavy, only one of them english(PVP)

9 Very heavy

Rest, Full, queues from 5 min (totally acceptable) to 2h 45 min (innacceptable)

 

And best of all. What server do i start, with EGA, with my friends no-EGA. Should I play 4 days of EGA and then delete chars and restart in a no-full server? ****

 

Last of all. Los españoles no INVADIMOS ningun servidor. Compramos el MISMO juego que el resto, y pagamos lo mismo tambien por jugar.

 

(Spanish people dont invade servers. We pay for the same game and the same money as anybody)