Hotte Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Generally speaking, a system like this should have been in the works side by side with game development anyway. Well, usually you don't want to have the hassle of arranging players from this server to that server in addition to the other launch craziness. There are more important things now. We don't know the actual server limits, so it is possible they still have lots of room to spare and really only don't use it, because they try to distribute the amount of players evenly onto the servers. So, if they are trying that and are offering server transfers now, that idea is out of the window. Because what happens if (just to name a few numbers) 500 players from server X all decide to transfer to server Z. They all apply for that transfer and it is accepted and everything is fine. Meanwhile server Z becomes the server of the day, because it is one of the non-full servers, so there are 400 chars created there. During the next maint-cycle the server transfer script is running through. Guess what could happen. Now Server X is not full, but server Z is. Mission accomplished, players...unhappy...again. So while I agree that such a system is good, and definitely should be offered to those who wish to use it later on, it should not be implemented right after launch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brene Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Well, usually you don't want to have the hassle of arranging players from this server to that server in addition to the other launch craziness. There are more important things now. We don't know the actual server limits, so it is possible they still have lots of room to spare and really only don't use it, because they try to distribute the amount of players evenly onto the servers. While I can agree with this... Just because you don't WANT to handle something, does not mean you do not NEED to handle something. Everything foreseeable should be accounted for, and properly address to the best of abilities before the hard launch of any software title. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarai Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 You need to remember (this is concurrent with your previous post as well) EA is still at the helm of development when it comes down to: What will make money, what will be needed to make money, what will keep money incoming. Those sorts of calls are made by the developers (including producers), typically, unless some moron decides to start micromanaging. EA's not going to get involved on that sort of decision, especially when you consider how many of those calls have to be made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarai Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 (edited) While I can agree with this... Just because you don't WANT to handle something, does not mean you do not NEED to handle something. Everything foreseeable should be accounted for, and properly address to the best of abilities before the hard launch of any software title. What should be done and what realistically can be done tend to be very, very different. Preparing for a feature at launch that you're probably not going to need for quite some time is an absolute waste of manpower. Edited December 21, 2011 by Inarai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaku Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 (edited) While I can agree with this... Just because you don't WANT to handle something, does not mean you do not NEED to handle something. Everything foreseeable should be accounted for, and properly address to the best of abilities before the hard launch of any software title. Just curious, what MMO has had character transfers right at release, if any? This is really just a question to anyone reading, not a direct question to the person I quoted. Edited December 21, 2011 by Jaku Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotte Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 While I can agree with this... Just because you don't WANT to handle something, does not mean you do not NEED to handle something. Everything foreseeable should be accounted for, and properly address to the best of abilities before the hard launch of any software title. Currently I don't see the NEED to do anything other than raising the server caps how they see fit and let queues even themselves out, like has happened on so many MMO launches before. And they will, make no mistake. I don't like waiting times either. My wife just sent me a mail, that she has a 50 minutes queue on her server. That was lunch time here in Germany. Now guess what it looks like, when I get home from work in about 2 hours. For sure not better. So no, I don't like them, but I will endure them. Because I know, it will be better in a bit. No need to shoot from the hip. How do I know? I've seen it before...and I'll see it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brene Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Just curious, what MMO has had character transfers right at release, if any? This is really just a question to anyone really, not a direct question to the person I quoted. RIFT had CTS within (IIRC) 3 months, clearly it was already in development. Most games also don't cap, admittedly at least, their servers to 25-50% of any proper servers operating capacity at launch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaku Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 RIFT had CTS within (IIRC) 3 months, clearly it was already in development. Most games also don't cap, admittedly at least, their servers to 25-50% of any proper servers operating capacity at launch. I really wouldn't consider 3 months to be "at launch". But if you do, then consider that we might have character trasnfers for TOR even sooner than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omaddon Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Just curious, what MMO has had character transfers right at release, if any? Probably none... but that is precisely why it should have been there. It was almost a given that this would be necessary as every other MMO (or close to that) has it now. WoW has a free server transfer if you transfer to a server that has a lower population. That is what should have been there at launch. I do not relish starting new characters all over again on another server because the one I chose (and it is impossible to know if one server will have a larger population than another) is now full and the queue is 40 minutes long. They activated new servers at launch. In the evening, a few east servers are lightly loaded. Those are the new ones. I have 3 level 10 characters on 2 servers that are always full... I do not like having to restart those characters from level 1!! I do not have hours everyday to play, I must plan my playing time around my other activities. And having to wait "till character transfer exists" is ridiculous! So, me, a now PAYING customer, must stop playing for, oh..., 3 months so that the transfer system in implemented and THEN i can transfer my characters to another less full server? There is no guarantee that even those servers will not fill out in 1 month and by then, perhaps the load will have balanced itself on all servers, which is what I think will happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmiond Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Probably none... but that is precisely why it should have been there. It was almost a given that this would be necessary as every other MMO (or close to that) has it now. WoW has a free server transfer if you transfer to a server that has a lower population. That is what should have been there at launch. I do not relish starting new characters all over again on another server because the one I chose (and it is impossible to know if one server will have a larger population than another) is now full and the queue is 40 minutes long. They activated new servers at launch. In the evening, a few east servers are lightly loaded. Those are the new ones. I have 3 level 10 characters on 2 servers that are always full... I do not like having to restart those characters from level 1!! I do not have hours everyday to play, I must plan my playing time around my other activities. And having to wait "till character transfer exists" is ridiculous! So, me, a now PAYING customer, must stop playing for, oh..., 3 months so that the transfer system in implemented and THEN i can transfer my characters to another less full server? There is no guarantee that even those servers will not fill out in 1 month and by then, perhaps the load will have balanced itself on all servers, which is what I think will happen. First, a new character takes about 5 hours to level 10, if the time investment is your only reason for not wanting to switch server you should seriously reconsider that stance. Second, any development task in a corporate environment is weighed down by a lot of "management". I spend more time trying to figure out -what- my boss whants me to develop than figuring out how and then doing it. Getting a decent specification of what my code/progam/script or w/e is supposed to do is a rediculous exercise. Then those specifications change and I have to evaluate how much needs to be rewritten, give estimates for how long it will take and the likelyhood of bugs etc. The actual solution finding and implementation might only take a day or two but will require a long time of back and forth with my boss before and during development and then a long time afterwards with testing and bugfixing. Even if everything works I will need to test extensively just to make absolutely sure I haven't missed anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verraxe Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Ho ho ho! No. I'm willing to bet important parts of my anatomy that a character is nowhere close to 'a record'. It's more like a million records spun together with all the other records in a spider web. Go ahead and try to move a spider web perfectly. I'll be here waiting. You see, I'm a database engineer. As one, I have a viewpoint through all the nice buzzwords like "database normalization" and "transactional integrity". Where most people err is to assume a vacuum environment. That's nice when you're solving theoretical physics, but has no place in database engineering. Every record is connected with the system. You don't just move one record, you move a whole section of the database, while having to preserve all the connections between the player, their items, their mails, their bank accounts, everything. That's the spider web I've mentioned earlier. Same character names are the least of your problem. It's the primary key by which you store it in a DB that's usually the problem. But it's all manageable. It's just not pretty, fast, or efficient. It's not something you'd want to be doing when your server array is already kneeling under load. I hear people are more upset over servers mother****ing exploding then waiting in the bloody queue for half an hour. Exactly. I'm not a database engineer, but I am a programmer and work quite heavily with databases. It's not just a single record, it's exactly like this "spider web" Naltharial has said. It's not just the name of the character, it's everything about the character that makes him who he is. It's not just the stats and the equipment, it's every single quest he's done, what choices he made (for any relevant questlines), what title's he's received, what gear his companions have, what choices he's made for his companions, what datacrons he's found, what he has in his bags and what he has in his cargo hold, what upgrades he has for his ship, and on and so forth. Not only that, but each server likely has it's own unique database cluster. You have to make sure you don't break any constraints or indexes. There's so many different variables that make up your character and everything about him that writing it off as just data, or a single record is pretty naive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trickstarr Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Simply u would **** up the economy on "newer" servers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parali Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Hello! Stephen Reid posted recently on the subject of long queues and requests for server transfers. Character transfer is a common request for these servers. The ability to transfer your characters is being worked on, but there is no ETA on when it will be available. Since there is high interest in this subject, we are asking everyone to please keep the discussion in one thread, already in progress: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=60893 Please refer to the OP for the official statement. We are closing this thread now. Thank you for helping keep our forums a little better organized! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts