LordArtemis Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 It will be interesting to see what happens with this. There are many things they could do with this. I am leaning toward the idea that they are planning some kind of cross server mechanism that allows players to join each other in play while still preserving the server identity. It should be very interesting. I will say this much....for every time the dev team indicates something is not possible based on the engine, or the system setup/former work by the prior dev team they seem to find some way around the game's limitations. Hat's off to them for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raansu Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 I really hope someone at Bioware still understands German, or at least knows how to use Google Translate. While this thread in the English forums has been mostly positive, looking at it from an American standpoint (one megaserver for US-WEST, one for US-EAST, one for Europe), for European players the situation is very much different. I recommend the Community Team to also read the German thread (with Google Translate if you must), because all 5 pages deal with the repercussions of mixing German, French, English and other European languages together. While I can understand the need to reduce queue times, it should not come at the cost of reducing understandability. Yes, there are German and French players who do not understand English at all, and you can't just put a German, a French, a British and an Italian player in a HM groupfinder flashpoint. Unless everyone knows what to do, it will be hard to explain bosses. For PvP, the situation is not as bad, but for flashpoints and operations, I hope that the queues will not be mixed. RP also only makes sense in your own language. If you really don't have the budget to run three European servers, I hope you'll still separate the chat. So instead of the current General chat, we'd now have three General chats for each area/planet, one for English, one for French, one for German, and you'd only see your own language's chat unless you specifically opt-in to the other ones. And no, just creating "/cjoin german" will not work. There's a reason why fleet chat is only on fleet and not in LFG. If you have a question, you can ask it on fleet, no need to spam the whole server with it. And I'm not even talking about the whole channel join/leave messages. Anyway, my point is that Bioware needs to be aware of the European servers as well. I know they laid off the German Community Managers and only play on U.S. servers so they don't know what's going on in the other side of the pond, but for a large change like this, they should contact the few remaining European CSR peeps in Ireland and ask them about the European player population. FFXI servers were worldwide. There were no regional servers at all and it worked fine there. For group finder they can just do what square-enix did with FFXIV and add language check boxes. If you only want to queue with german speaking players then check that box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSaberMaster Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 i know i don't speak for everyone on this, but please don't put "full time" pvpers in with the dedicated pve'ers. Many of us don't like to be harassed buy pvpers looking to bully us into a fight we are destined to lose. I don't like traveling around oricon blasting aoe damage just to have a pvper come out of stealth and i inadvertently attack them. Now i have to return to a rest area for 5 min and wait for my pvp flag to fall off... Don't get me wrong i like pvp, but only on my terms. That is why i am on a pve server. I enjoy the warzones, i dislike open world pvp and i hate gankers, troll's and bullies. The guys who are flagged and just follow you everywhere you go for 15-20 min get on my nerves. If you combine all servers into one big mega server then this is going to happen more often. Most of the pve crowd leave and you will be left with mostly just your pvpers... Then again swtor panders to the pvp community an awful lot... I am a long time swtor defender, i love this game and i really love playing it, but i can't agree more with this statement. I didn't ask for my pve experience to be ruined by changes made to classes as a whole just to benefit qqing pvpers crying about balance. You want class balance, fps's have perfect balance. Pvp in a fps is all player skill, no need to worry about one ability being stronger than another because if you have the skill then you get the win, plain and simple. If you want pure balance and for player skill to be determining factor of a win then play a game that focuses on pure player skill. This is an mmorpg, it is supposed to promote teamwork and using the strengths of one class to balance the weaknesses of another. Pve'ers have to learn this to be successful in ops. I played cod, halo etc for years and had a great time going against other players. Pvp in swtor leans heavily on you working as a team using the strengths of each class to succeed. Pvpers don't really want to work as a team, they want individual achievement. How about make bolster cause every player to have the exact same hp, their abilities all do the exact same amount of damage/heals and everyone is exactly equal. When you leave the wz the pvp affect goes away and you get all your pve abilities returned to normal? But as i've said before, this game panders to it's pvp crowd more and more with each patch. So we are more likely to see the game go to a more pvp balanced model and pve will just have to adapt or leave. So you enjoy bullying and picking on folks who don't enjoy the same play style as you? That is what makes you the kind of player that pve players dispise. I spent 20 years in the army experiencing real life person vs person (not player vs player), i chose not to relive that experience in my video game. Who are you to judge that choice? hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerba Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) FFXI servers were worldwide. There were no regional servers at all and it worked fine there. For group finder they can just do what square-enix did with FFXIV and add language check boxes. If you only want to queue with german speaking players then check that box. That's easy to say as an American, but I can assure you that the majority of German players would not agree to that, we'd rather keep our own German server than be mixed in with other European players. The situation would be different of course if there had been international servers since release, but we've had specific servers for German and French players for three years now, so they would weaken the community by suddenly throwing all players together. Right now, there are many discussions in general chat in German. I'd hate it if it happened that General chat would be in English then and we could only speak German in guild chat. There are enough German players that they can keep the General chats for each language separated and don't need to combine them. I really hope that they'll add a checkbox to group finder like you said; that's the minimum I'd expect, plus keeping the chat separated. The cross-server/mega-server/whatever are still early in development, so now is the phase when they decide what to do, and I hope they make the right decision. Edited December 18, 2014 by Jerba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heezdedjim Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) That's easy to say as an American, but I can assure you that the majority of German players would not agree to that, we'd rather keep our own German server than be mixed in with other European players. The situation would be different of course if there had been international servers since release, but we've had specific servers for German and French players for three years now, so they would weaken the community by suddenly throwing all players together. This can be solved in very straightforward ways, and it has been, in single-shard games. TSW handles the national languages by just shunting you into instances that use your preferred language when you zone in, so the general chat that you see is always with players who have the same language flag set. Just like the ruleset (PvE / PvP) and theme (normal / roleplay), this stuff can be handled by just smartly grouping players who have the same preferences into the same instances on the fly. Segregated multi-shard servers were a broken and obsolete architecture when the game launched, and they're a broken and obsolete architecture today. They've never solved any problem that couldn't be solved better without them, and they have created an endless series of problems that the game would never have had if it had used a single-shard (or at least a regional megaserver) system from the start. Edited December 18, 2014 by Heezdedjim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raansu Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) This can be solved in very straightforward ways, and it has been, in single-shard games. TSW handles the national languages by just shunting you into instances that use your preferred language when you zone in, so the general chat that you see is always with players who have the same language flag set. Just like the ruleset (PvE / PvP) and theme (normal / roleplay), this stuff can be handled by just smartly grouping players who have the same preferences into the same instances on the fly. Segregated multi-shard servers were a broken and obsolete architecture when the game launched, and they're a broken and obsolete architecture today. They've never solved any problem that couldn't be solved better without them, and they have created an endless series of problems that the game would have if it had used a single-shard (or at least a regional megaserver) system from the start. This. Multiple servers are a thing of the past due to technological limitations. In todays networking and hardware standards there's no reason to split MMO communities with multiple servers....and there's definitely no excuse to launch without cross server if you insist on having regional servers. At the end of the day though I feel all future MMO's should have megaservers. That was one of the few things I think ESO did right at launch. Edited December 18, 2014 by Raansu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) This. Multiple servers are a thing of the past due to technological limitations. In todays networking and hardware standards there's no reason to split MMO communities with multiple servers....and there's definitely no excuse to launch without cross server if you insist on having regional servers. At the end of the day though I feel all future MMO's should have megaservers. That was one of the few things I think ESO did right at launch. Gotta agree!!! This issue was solved long before SWTOR launched...and given how SWTOR instances everything here anyway, it should be solved here as well. Edited December 18, 2014 by TUXs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartwriter Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) We want to keep our German Servers. All 3 Servers (RP,PVE,PVP) can be put together to one megaserver. Edited December 18, 2014 by smartwriter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orizuru Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Sounds like mega server.... Could be. But it sounds like they still plan to keep server types, so its either mergers for small servers of the same type with cross server queues, or PVE Megaserver, PVP Megaserver and so on. I think the merges for smaller servers and cross-server queues are probably the most likely. It could even end up being cross-server queues without any server merges as well. Regardless, its an exciting prospect that I will have to keep an eye out for the next update! I'm not a huge fan of Megaservers, but if they do one for each server type I think it could work, providing they don't make the Harbinger problems part of the PVE Megaserver. A Megaserver structure with the combined population of Harbinger and Shadowlands would be terrifying if it doesn't include a major upgrade to the hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raansu Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 All this speculating is annoying. I wish BW would be less vague about this. Who cares if it doesn't end up exactly what they had planned but at least tell us what you have in mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrdann Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) i lost my original name when i was forced off rubat crystal, i got a different spelling of it that is acceptable from the name purge a year later but if i lose my name again just after just getting it back , thats the last straw for me and i have other things to do with my life because if that happens bioware really doesn't give a flying fungus about their player base and identity. But if they did the player@playeraccount with a toggle to turn it off and on that would also be acceptable Edited December 18, 2014 by Mrdann Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eartharioch Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 I'm pretty sure forced name changes wouldn't be popular, especially with people who have paid for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Projawa Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 (edited) Given the persistant issues they've had with lag especially on servers like Harbinger, I don't see how they will manage to implement megaservers that do not suffer from massive lag. They want to supersize an existing template without first solving one if its core issues. Sounds like a good way to multiply the severity of that issue. Edited December 20, 2014 by Projawa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savej Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 Given the persistant issues they've had with lag especially on servers like Harbinger, I don't see how they will manage to implement megaservers that do not suffer from massive lag. They want to supersize an existing template without first solving one if its core issues. Sounds like a good way to multiply the severity of that issue. Almost all servers have less than half Harbinger's pop and some have much less than 1/5th Harbinger's pop. It's not a good example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raansu Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 Given the persistant issues they've had with lag especially on servers like Harbinger, I don't see how they will manage to implement megaservers that do not suffer from massive lag. They want to supersize an existing template without first solving one if its core issues. Sounds like a good way to multiply the severity of that issue. The current servers were not designed to handle the amount of people that harbinger is holding. Between many people transferring to it due to dead servers and the reputation of harbinger being a populated server + being a republic dominated server appeals to many players from a mostly imp dominated game + the asian pacific players etc.....The server is stuffed. With that said, if they were to merge into a single server one would obviously assume they would obviously make upgrades to the system to handle a larger population and probably change the pop limits to create more instances to lessen lag. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DyreMaker Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 With that said, if they were to merge into a single server one would obviously assume they would obviously make upgrades to the system to handle a larger population and probably change the pop limits to create more instances to lessen lag. "Obviously assume"? No, it is not obvious and one would not 'assume' more money would be put into the infrastructure of a game that is providing little revenue. In the past these "mega servers" were equivalent to laptops when a game is fading away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highsis Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 Can we move to different types of instances within mega server? The only reason I chose PvE was because PvP servers were depopulated. If queing is no longer an issue, I want to play in PvP server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 IMO, a mega-merger would be a bad idea. It would have to be done perfectly to avoid a giant tangle of issues, and given the mess that is 3.0 and SoR in terms of bugs, unintended consequences, etc... I think we know where that goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Couhslapr Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 (edited) Given the persistant issues they've had with lag especially on servers like Harbinger, I don't see how they will manage to implement megaservers that do not suffer from massive lag. They want to supersize an existing template without first solving one if its core issues. Sounds like a good way to multiply the severity of that issue. The term Megaserver is logical. A megaserver could be a single box, but more often than not it's a cluster of servers running as one logical server. So It would actually be easier and cheaper to upgrade hardware to handle any performance issues. With that being said, I do agree with the problems concerning instances and PVE/PVP political issues would be more complicated than the hardware side. Complicated but not impossible to resolve. Snow ball! Edited December 20, 2014 by Couhslapr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordArtemis Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 There are ways this can be done and still preserve current server and name. Using a "starwarsguy@shadowlands" as your actual name is one way. This also allows folks on a conglomerate shard to use unique names even when those names are taken on other servers, but still have the ability to que together. For group content I think this is a wise move across the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmericanNate Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 "Obviously assume"? No, it is not obvious and one would not 'assume' more money would be put into the infrastructure of a game that is providing little revenue. In the past these "mega servers" were equivalent to laptops when a game is fading away. I'd love to see all that proof of little revenue you have, considering in their 3rd quarter they were barely under ESO, a game that just launched this year, and makes more money than 80% of of other mmos currently available. They were barely out of the top 10 grossing mmos, before SoR launched. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raansu Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 "Obviously assume"? No, it is not obvious and one would not 'assume' more money would be put into the infrastructure of a game that is providing little revenue. In the past these "mega servers" were equivalent to laptops when a game is fading away. Little revenue? You realize this game pulled in over 100 million this year right? The population is spread out too much through the servers and imo all mmos should do what eso did and run a single server, but as far as revenue goes swtor is doing prety well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmericanNate Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 Little revenue? You realize this game pulled in over 100 million this year right? The population is spread out too much through the servers and imo all mmos should do what eso did and run a single server, but as far as revenue goes swtor is doing prety well. And that figure was before the year was out, and before the launch of 12xp/SoR. I think the figure was about $107 mill. Which, averaged out comes to about $35 mill give or take a quarter, which stands to believe that the game (after the 12xp/SoR revenue is added in) will be at least close to what it made last year. Are there problems that the game could stand to overcome. Yes. Financially in dire straits? No. As I heard it, STO operated off of a $25 mill revenue from last year, just to put things into perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evalyn Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 I'm okay with mega servers, I think it would help a lot of population issues some servers have. I just hope I don't lose my names again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rappeldrache Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 (edited) We want to keep our German Servers. All 3 Servers (RP,PVE,PVP) can be put together to one megaserver. I play SWToR after a real hard day. I don't want do speak english. Sorry, great language, but after a hard-wokring-day I just want to talk my mother-language, and this is German. One important reason to play SWToR (at release) was: German translation, German servers, No language problems. I played a few weeks ago Archeage, with NO language servers. It was HORRIBLE! No-german servers means to me: Communication ONLY with my guild members. If I have to chance ALL my character names (again!!) I will leave this game. Seriously. It was hart enough to find names in the Twi'Lek Lexicon I still could take. . Edited January 1, 2015 by Rappeldrache Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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