What will stop new people from rolling on the old servers?

[zazouman]

Simple, depending on the type of server you want to roll, you may have choice between light and ... light server (see population for RP server or in EU)

[Criiiiket]

Oh boy I hope not. I can imagine the backlash from returning players who come back and find that their character has just been deleted. Would be horrible for Bioware.

 

I don't think that's very realistic. If they were going to start deleting these servers in the immediate future they would've probably just done mergers rather than transfers. They're keeping these servers for, most people have guess around another six months. How many people do you really think will be inactive for six months, not check the site every once in a while to see whats going on, and then just one day decide to come back?

 

Chances are, someone like that who is somewhat interested in coming back in the future, is probably waiting for more content that interests them, and would be checking the site occasionally to see if any new content has been released to interest them.

 

Thats what i do when i leave an mmo that i liked but got bored of.

 

Anyways if you've left this game for six months and never look back at the site/ talk to other people about whats going on/read about stuff on gaming sites, you probably didn't have a lot of time invested into your characters.

[Goretzu]

Oh boy I hope not. I can imagine the backlash from returning players who come back and find that their character has just been deleted. Would be horrible for Bioware.

 

 

 

They won't delete the characters (hardly any MMRPGs do, and most that do only delete L1 or maybe L5 and below ones), it'll be like Warhammer Online I imagine; i.e. your toons are still on the database, but if you want to play them you have to first (free) transfer them to an ACTIVE server.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Goretzu

[llesna]

To answer the question: BW could just lock the lightest servers for new rolling.

 

I hope this is what they will do, as it's the simplest solution to the problem in the long-term.

 

Once everyone is moved, then the process of shutting down the empty servers can begin.

[HelinCarnate]

Transfers through end of June. Mergers early to mid July. Then open up the free to play up to lvl 15.

[HelinCarnate]

Im sure there will be some that roll on an empty pvp server and transfer to Fatman or whatever so they can level without getting ganked and then gank everyone leveling on their new server.

[thomasgallant]

Im sure there will be some that roll on an empty pvp server and transfer to Fatman or whatever so they can level without getting ganked and then gank everyone leveling on their new server.

 

im assuming that new characters wouldnt be eligable for a transfer... atleast thats how i would do it.. to limit that very thing from happening

[Emeda]

Its been said by the Devs that server transfers are optional.

 

What happens to the new guy who has never played this game and rolls on a ghost town of a server?

 

That shouldnt be a problem. I dont think anyone is going to buy this game anymore.

[thomasgallant]

That shouldnt be a problem. I dont think anyone is going to buy this game anymore.

 

except the popel who already confirmed they were returning to the game and resubbing:P

 

i suppose they didnt rebuy the game.. but they resubbed..

 

negative nelly.

[Arlbo_Nabbins]

Why would they lease servers instead of having their own.?

 

Because its generally cheaper unless the company needs enough hardware to fill a data centre by itself. A data centre benefits from economies of scale. Its cheaper to lease a room full of server racks that comes with all the necessary hardware and trained staff than it is to set up your own server farms, equip them, put all the necessary procedures in place and hire staff to provide 24/7 cover.

[Emeda]

except the popel who already confirmed they were returning to the game and resubbing:P

 

i suppose they didnt rebuy the game.. but they resubbed..

 

negative nelly.

 

I did not say anything about people resubbing. I said new players who have never played the game before. So to counter my you talk about people resubbing> Even with them they will be allowed transfers so again its no problem.

 

Also who are these people that confired they are resubbing? How did you hear about these people resubbing. Any link?

Edited June 14, 2012 by Emeda

[Crash-X]

That shouldnt be a problem. I dont think anyone is going to buy this game anymore.

 

Yeah...so is there any proof to you saying this?

 

Or is this more negativity from you? You seem to enjoy spreading that around on these forums.

[Emeda]

Yeah...so is there any proof to you saying this?

 

Or is this more negativity from you? You seem to enjoy spreading that around on these forums.

 

The proof is the server merges (oops transfers) that they just did. If new people were comming into the game then they wouldnt have too merge them all into 1 or 2 servers.

 

From how you guys make it sound just as many people are buying the game as there are quitting but somehow the population is dropping so fast they have to do transfers. Doesnt make sense does it.

 

I do give bioware or SWTOR credit when they deserve it so its not all negetive just most and the reason why is most of the things they do or dont do is wrong.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Emeda

[Vicrodhe]

Because its generally cheaper unless the company needs enough hardware to fill a data centre by itself. A data centre benefits from economies of scale. Its cheaper to lease a room full of server racks that comes with all the necessary hardware and trained staff than it is to set up your own server farms, equip them, put all the necessary procedures in place and hire staff to provide 24/7 cover.

 

Cheers thanks for the info.

[Nyla]

The proof is the server merges (oops transfers) that they just did. If new people were comming into the game then they wouldnt have too merge them all into 1 or 2 servers.

 

From how you guys make it sound just as many people are buying the game as there are quitting but somehow the population is dropping so fast they have to do transfers. Doesnt make sense does it.

 

Or maybe there's more people that leave than new people, population still decreases BUT there's still new people and seeing all thoses servers might be confusing for them.

[Crash-X]

The proof is the server merges (oops transfers) that they just did. If new people were comming into the game then they wouldnt have too merge them all into 1 or 2 servers.

 

From how you guys make it sound just as many people are buying the game as there are quitting but somehow the population is dropping so fast they have to do transfers. Doesnt make sense does it.

 

I do give bioware or SWTOR credit when they deserve it so its not all negetive just most and the reason why is most of the things they do or dont do is wrong.

 

Actually.

 

I'd say that they opened up WAY TOO many servers that would never sustain. I said it waaaay back when the game launched that perhaps this was too many servers.

 

They had a great launch, had great sub numbers only second to the behemoth that is WOW. Initial numbers drop though, always. So they already had too many servers when they were at their peak. There was still light servers the first month, that right there should have been proof that there were just a bit too many. So when the usual mass exodus happened (that happens with every new MMO) it immediately made the ghost towns. Their first mistake was too many servers...any ways Megaservers is what a MODERN MMO should have. The days of MMOs being played over numerous 'Scroll down' servers is pretty much over. The more players to you can get together the better.

 

How you make it sound that NO ONE is buying the game at all. I doubt that, of course we don't have any numbers recently but according to VGCharts it is still selling as of February. Compare it to that other big MMO, for the year of 2012 it is doing just fine.

 

The free trial will move some more boxes too so there will be some new people playing the game. Just look at the new player section...I know you want to claim DOOOOM but this game has done pretty well for itself thus far.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Crash-X

[Emeda]

Actually.

 

I'd say that they opened up WAY TOO many servers that would never sustain. I said it waaaay back when the game launched that perhaps this was too many servers.

 

They had a great launch, had great sub numbers only second to the behemoth that is WOW. Initial numbers drop though, always. So they already had too many servers when they were at their peak. There was still light servers the first month, that right there should have been proof that there were just a bit too many. So when the usual mass exodus happened (that happens with every new MMO) it immediately made the ghost towns. Their first mistake was too many servers...any ways Megaservers is what a MODERN MMO should have. The days of MMOs being played over numerous 'Scroll down' servers is pretty much over. The more players to you can get together the better.

 

How you make it sound that NO ONE is buying the game at all. I doubt that, of course we don't have any numbers recently but according to VGCharts it is still selling as of February. Compare it to that other big MMO, for the year of 2012 it is doing just fine.

 

The free trial will move some more boxes too so there will be some new people playing the game. Just look at the new player section...I know you want to claim DOOOOM but this game has done pretty well for itself thus far.

 

Mass Exodus? Only 300k people quit in the first month I thought and I think they said it was a 85% retention rate. So 15% of the players made it ghost town?

 

I didnt mean they were not going to sell any but I would be suprised if they sell more than 5k a month now.

 

Your using February as a point as in sales are still continuing? That was4-5 months ago

 

How many of the new player forums trials or friends accounts? I havent looked so I dont know but I imagine its not really that many. Also I though the only people who used the forums were haters and trolls but now we have all the new players on the forums also?

 

This game has not done well so far. It has been a disaster. Yes they have done some things correctly but most have been major screwups.

 

Losing over a million subs cant be doing that great.

Having to do a major server merge (when most of the servers were heavy or better at some other time) isnt doing that great.

Cutting your staff by roughly 33% when you didnt plan on cutting any of them isnt doing that great.

 

The only thing this game has done is make money. The only reason they made money is from all the hype the game got before launch.

[Master-Nala]

Why would they lease servers instead of having their own.?

 

Leasing is able to be fully carried as an expense in the current year. Buying a server requires that the company make a large initial outlay and then they can only depreciate the expense over a number of years. Furthermore, leasing allows you to hedge against uncertainty (like losing several hundred thousand subs).

[Crash-X]

Mass Exodus? Only 300k people quit in the first month I thought and I think they said it was a 85% retention rate. So 15% of the players made it ghost town?

 

I didnt mean they were not going to sell any but I would be suprised if they sell more than 5k a month now.

 

Your using February as a point as in sales are still continuing? That was4-5 months ago

 

How many of the new player forums trials or friends accounts? I havent looked so I dont know but I imagine its not really that many. Also I though the only people who used the forums were haters and trolls but now we have all the new players on the forums also?

 

This game has not done well so far. It has been a disaster. Yes they have done some things correctly but most have been major screwups.

 

Losing over a million subs cant be doing that great.

Having to do a major server merge (when most of the servers were heavy or better at some other time) isnt doing that great.

Cutting your staff by roughly 33% when you didnt plan on cutting any of them isnt doing that great.

 

The only thing this game has done is make money. The only reason they made money is from all the hype the game got before launch.

 

Well of course you would be surprised. All you ever do is talk about how the game has failed, every day I run into one of your doomsaying posts.

 

Well see. That's all I have to go buy. Unlike the doomsayers that roam the forum month by month calling out doom, I'm not going to just guesstimate and throw out random numbers that support my argument.

 

Yes, there is a whole part of the forums dedicated to new players.

 

Opinion. Game has been great so far for me. You also have no idea how much of a profit it has made for EA and they still featured the game at E3 and it was still one of their priorities. I still reached over a million subs (how many MMOs do this again?!)

 

Doing a server merge is not a sign of 'failure' there are ghost towns in WoW...everyone seems to ignore that. This is why WoW has xserver stuff because otherwise those players would just be stuck on their light populated servers.

 

Yeap, because no other MMO has ever cut it's staff...mmhmm..

 

I wonder when do you move on from these forums?

[Andarilhodoceu]

I don't get all this talk about leasing servers. Hasn't anyone heard of virtual servers? The code for a server doesn't take much space, so you have to balance them according to their load. If many servers are dead they all fit in a single physical server.

 

Even if Bioware hadn't heard of virtual servers, they could run the code in virtual machines inside the physical servers. Heck, you can even move a running virtual machine from one physical server to another without having to stop it and no one would be the wiser.

[Eanelinea]

Well, if Bioware is anything like some older MMOs, take EQ for instance.

 

Okay, old player quit and months or years go by. Bioware decides, hey we're going to close down and delete Server x because it's completely dead and the only people on it haven't played in years.

 

They won't delete those characters because they know that one day player A might come back and would be steaming mad if his/her toons are gone.

 

What they might do is transfer those inactive accounts to one of the other servers and email the owner 'hey, we've shut down server x, you can now find your characters on server z'

 

This way, the characters are still in Bioware's computers, but the customer who owns those characters didn't lose anything. I haven't played Everquest in YEARS, but my characters are still there. I received an email saying 'hey we merged servers again, you can now find your guys on server z'

[Nyla]

I don't get all this talk about leasing servers. Hasn't anyone heard of virtual servers? The code for a server doesn't take much space, so you have to balance them according to their load. If many servers are dead they all fit in a single physical server.

 

Even if Bioware hadn't heard of virtual servers, they could run the code in virtual machines inside the physical servers. Heck, you can even move a running virtual machine from one physical server to another without having to stop it and no one would be the wiser.

 

Hm, even with virtual servers/machines (and we don't know how BW chose to handle things), you still need physical servers. Unless you think the 200+ servers run on one physical server, reducing the amount of game servers means less load and so less physical servers are needed.

[BlazingApostle]

Interesting thread.

 

As a long-time MMO solo player (6 years in EQ, 1 in CoH, 1 in Rift), I really don't care about server population. Thus, I have no real incentive to move from my dead server. In fact I like it just fine. Yes, I know I'm an abomination and an affront to all that's holy in the world of MMOs, but that's okay by me as long as I'm having lots of fun. Looks like I'll have to transfer at some point though, and deal with all the unwashed masses who play the game as it was intended to be played.

[matzackjones]

Its been said by the Devs that server transfers are optional.

 

What happens to the new guy who has never played this game and rolls on a ghost town of a server?

 

Hopefully either the free transfer option would still be available or, by that time, even a paid transfer of a server of your choosing, I would guess. I understand your point though ... the continued existence of the ghost-town servers is a bit of a blight on the landscape.

[Reevax]

Hopefully either the free transfer option would still be available or, by that time, even a paid transfer of a server of your choosing, I would guess. I understand your point though ... the continued existence of the ghost-town servers is a bit of a blight on the landscape.

 

This thread is not abut server leases or whatever, why do people keep bringing that up? The question is how to stop people from rolling on a dead server.