Server to Cloud move question

[akdonkey]

I see the Dev post that the server getting moved over to a cloud is still happening. My question is this. Will that move create another server move to one larger server? Or will there still be the separate servers we have now?  If that server merge does happen what about characters on the other servers? How many will we be allowed to carry over? Or do you even have any info on this yet? I have many alts on two servers. I would likely downsize so that info would be great soon as possible.

[Kristallia]

From what I understood, nothing will change directly in game and it is just a backend thing, and current servers would stay the way they are.

They have mentioned that they are evaluating options to open new servers sometime after the merge, like APAC region, but that should not change the current servers.

[Falonarion]

Take a wait and see approach, make sure your systems been upgraded to handle playing games on the Cloud.   

[Kristallia]

1 hour ago, Falonarion said:

make sure your systems been upgraded to handle playing games on the Cloud. 

I am planning to install huge wings to my laptop to make sure it can reach the cloud!

joking aside, what do you think should be upgraded? I dont know much about these things, but I dont fully understand why would it be different to connect to server that is hosted in amazons could than one hosted by bioware?

[Falonarion]

64bit systems Windows 10/11, lot of RAM. Good Broadband Connection.   Depending on what timezone you live, best to make sure that what ever server you play on can handle that timezone.  In the beta test for that Cloud test server, me being in Mountain Timezone average ping was in the 200's (kept crashing a lot that I just gave up and never log into the game.  Something to consider since I play on Darth Malgus as well and my ping there averages 140ms so it stands to reason that DM becomes a cloud server the ping will increase.  

I played a xbox game via the PC that was cloud based and ping was in the 190's and heavy lag, ended getting a refund since that game was unplayable.  

I play on Satele Shan (SS) and my ping averages between 20-50ms.  

So EA going to have to really work with Amazon in making sure players do not experience lag after moving to the cloud or EA going to see a exodus of players unsubscribing in a hurry that would make the exodus from SWG look tame in comparison. 

Best thing to do when BW makes the announcement is to make sure you have nothing on the GTN selling. Your mail boxes are empty.  Expect a long downtime and wait, expect that your characters might be lost during the move, make sure all assets including credits are in your legacy bank in just case something does happen to your characters.  Log off in a Planetary Cantina (do not log off in Fleet).  Guild banks?  who knows, just have to roll the dice and wait and see.  

Hope for the best plan for the worst     

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

1 minute ago, Falonarion said:

64bit systems Windows 10/11, lot of RAM. Good Broadband Connection.   Depending on what timezone you live, best to make sure that what ever server you play on can handle that timezone.  In the beta test for that Cloud test server, me being in Mountain Timezone average ping was in the 200's (kept crashing a lot that I just gave up and never log into the game.  Something to consider since I play on Darth Malgus as well and my ping there averages 140ms so it stands to reason that DM becomes a cloud server the ping will increase.  

I didn't realize that moving to cloud servers would increase the minimum requirements to play the game as they are presently.

Good thing I just got a new Alienware gaming desktop.

[Kristallia]

6 minutes ago, Falonarion said:

I played a xbox game via the PC that was cloud based and ping was in the 190's and heavy lag, ended getting a refund since that game was unplayable.

I think this one might be little different if it was like game streaming to another device, you are running the game in different device than you are playing it, so the game has to stream that from one device to another, but with my logic that wont be issue with swtor, since you will be running the game from your own computer like you used to, server is just hosted differently but the game server wont run the game for you. But again thats just my logic 😆

 

10 minutes ago, Falonarion said:

In the beta test for that Cloud test server, me being in Mountain Timezone average ping was in the 200's (kept crashing a lot that I just gave up and never log into the game.

I wonder where that PTS cloud test server was hosted in, if it was located in EU or US, because wherever it was, i think with longer distance to it you play from, bigger ping you should be having. For me I remember it running just fine from what I remember, but I dont think i checked ping so I cannot really tell.

 

16 minutes ago, Falonarion said:

So EA going to have to really work with Amazon in making sure players do not experience lag after moving to the cloud

New World's servers run on amazon's AWS cloud like SWTOR servers will be from what I understand, and that game actually works better for me than SWTOR

It might not be proof that SWTOR will run identically, but I think it means that it can work really nicely.

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, Kristallia said:

I am planning to install huge wings to my laptop to make sure it can reach the cloud!

joking aside, what do you think should be upgraded? I dont know much about these things, but I dont fully understand why would it be different to connect to server that is hosted in amazons could than one hosted by bioware?

Depends.  If they do it like GW2, the client runs on your PC and connects to AWS instances instead of fixed servers, so you won't need to upgrade anything at your end.

If they do it in the style of NVidia's Geforce NOW cloud gaming service, you'll need to be able to stream video from the client-connection servers as they play the game under your direction.

Based on what they've said, I'd expect that it will be like in GW2, so no upgrades necessary.  That's probably a good thing for the folks with wet-noodle internet access.

[SteveTheCynic]

40 minutes ago, Falonarion said:

Good Broadband Connection

It's unlikely to be more demanding than before.

41 minutes ago, Falonarion said:

In the beta test for that Cloud test server, me being in Mountain Timezone average ping was in the 200's

That was because they *deliberately* put the test server in the APAC region, on the other side of the Pacific from you, so yes, you should expect long pings in that case.  Light is fast, but not infinitely so, so physical distance has an effect, especially across big oceans.

42 minutes ago, Falonarion said:

Something to consider since I play on Darth Malgus as well and my ping there averages 140ms so it stands to reason that DM becomes a cloud server the ping will increase.

No, because they wouldn't move DM to Australia.  In fact, they'll probably just move it from EA's datacentre in Dublin just down the street to Amazon's datacentre in Dublin.

44 minutes ago, Falonarion said:

So EA going to have to really work with Amazon in making sure players do not experience lag after moving to the cloud or

You make that sound like it will be unbearably difficult for them.  It clearly wasn't that kind of difficult for ArenaNet to move Guild Wars 2 from Anet's own servers to AWS, and I've noticed no particular difficulty playing that game post-move.

[FlameYOL]

1 hour ago, SteveTheCynic said:

It's unlikely to be more demanding than before.

That was because they *deliberately* put the test server in the APAC region, on the other side of the Pacific from you, so yes, you should expect long pings in that case.  Light is fast, but not infinitely so, so physical distance has an effect, especially across big oceans.

No, because they wouldn't move DM to Australia.  In fact, they'll probably just move it from EA's datacentre in Dublin just down the street to Amazon's datacentre in Dublin.

You make that sound like it will be unbearably difficult for them.  It clearly wasn't that kind of difficult for ArenaNet to move Guild Wars 2 from Anet's own servers to AWS, and I've noticed no particular difficulty playing that game post-move.

To add on this I played on Shae Vizla from Brazil and also got double the amount of MS I get while playing on Star Forge, SF I average between 150 and 200 where as Shae Vizla I was having 300 to 400. 

[Char_Ell]

6 hours ago, akdonkey said:

I see the Dev post that the server getting moved over to a cloud is still happening. My question is this. Will that move create another server move to one larger server? Or will there still be the separate servers we have now?  If that server merge does happen what about characters on the other servers? How many will we be allowed to carry over? Or do you even have any info on this yet? I have many alts on two servers. I would likely downsize so that info would be great soon as possible.

Good questions.  I suspect BioWare is not yet ready to provide answers regarding what will happen when they migrate SWTOR servers to Amazon Web Services.  My sense is the studio transition has caused the AWS migration to drop on the priority list though Keith Kanneg made it clear they still plan on making the transition to AWS.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Char_Ell
spelling correction

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, Kristallia said:

but I dont fully understand why would it be different to connect to server that is hosted in amazons could than one hosted by bioware?

As a player, there is no real difference. You’re current laptop can handle either. 

It’s really just a cost saving benefit for the game producer. 

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

didn't realize that moving to cloud servers would increase the minimum requirements to play the game as they are presently.

It won’t. What ever you can play swtor with now, will be fine for AWS.

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, Falonarion said:

In the beta test for that Cloud test server, me being in Mountain Timezone average ping was in the 200's

The ping was only that high for you because they were testing out the viability of setting up an APAC server too. It had nothing to do with it being an AWS server vs a EA run data centre. 

[DWho]

1 minute ago, TrixxieTriss said:

The ping was only that high for you because they were testing out the viability of setting up an APAC server too. It had nothing to do with it being an AWS server vs a EA run data centre. 

Ping is however one reason they are unlikely to combine all servers into one mega-server (cloud servers still have a physical location which does impact lag based on your location). At worst you could expect one North American server and one European server and possibly an APAC server (though there really isn't a reason not to have an APAC server if they consolidate EU/NA servers to one each - it's still only 3 servers instead of the current 5)

[TrixxieTriss]

45 minutes ago, FlameYOL said:

To add on this I played on Shae Vizla from Brazil and also got double the amount of MS I get while playing on Star Forge, SF I average between 150 and 200 where as Shae Vizla I was having 300 to 400. 

That’s because Brazil has no direct pacific network connection to Australia (where Shae Vizla was set up).
So your connection would have had to first travel to the US & then across the pacific to Australia.
From the West Coast of the US to Australia, it’s a minimum of 150ms ping. If you already have a 150-200ms ping to the US, then 300-400ms from Brazil to Australia is to be expected. 

[TrixxieTriss]

3 minutes ago, DWho said:

Ping is however one reason they are unlikely to combine all servers into one mega-server (cloud servers still have a physical location which does impact lag based on your location). At worst you could expect one North American server and one European server and possibly an APAC server (though there really isn't a reason not to have an APAC server if they consolidate EU/NA servers to one each - it's still only 3 servers instead of the current 5)

I totally agree. I doubt they’d combine them all in one geolocation. 

[TrixxieTriss]

34 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

My sense is the studio transition has caused the AWS migration to drop on the priority list though Keith Kanneg made it clear they still plan on making the transition to AWS.

I wouldn’t be surprised if being able to migrate to AWS is a prerequisite for the deal going through. Which means this switch to Broadsword has probably been in the works for awhile.

Edited June 21, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Char_Ell]

I wonder if BioWare has painted themselves into a corner with the AWS migration and the possibility of an APAC server for the game.  I feel like BioWare has created a situation where APAC players have gotten their hopes up with the test of an APAC server in the production server environment and continued references to APAC server being evaluated.  I don't know what options AWS can offer in terms of server infrastructure that BioWare are evaluating but if one considers the simple option of adding an APAC server to the game in addition to the existing servers what will happen?  How many APAC players would transfer from Satele Shan and Star Forge to the new server?  I feel Star Forge would be fine but I'm not so sure about Satele Shan since it seems to have significantly less active players than Star Forge.  SWTOR could end up with 2 low pop servers in this scenario.  But if BioWare doesn't do something that gives APAC players lower latency than what they currently get I think this would result in a lot of angry APAC players.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Char_Ell
forgot to add concluding sentence

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

5 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

It won’t. What ever you can play swtor with now, will be fine for AWS.

Well I know you know your stuff. I'll go with you.

[Balameb]

14 hours ago, DWho said:

Ping is however one reason they are unlikely to combine all servers into one mega-server (cloud servers still have a physical location which does impact lag based on your location). At worst you could expect one North American server and one European server and possibly an APAC server (though there really isn't a reason not to have an APAC server if they consolidate EU/NA servers to one each - it's still only 3 servers instead of the current 5)

While i agree one mega server is unlikely. "Mega Servers" do not neccesary need to have all its components running in the same physical location. Not saying SWTOR can do it, but potentially you could have one "mega server" in NA that has the "login server" in US Central while having instances in US East and US West at the same time.

14 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I wouldn’t be surprised if being able to migrate to AWS is a prerequisite for the deal going through. Which means this switch to Broadsword has probably been in the works for awhile.

I agree. Even if the particular deal with Broadsword came after, the idea to move SWTOR to another studio certainly was in the works and having the game tied to BW infrastructure would have made things more difficult. Having it running in the "public" cloud is easier to change hands.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Balameb

[akdonkey]

Lots of good thoughts and Theories here. I am curious. I did the cloud test the game ran smoother so I was not worried about requirements.  I am however a self-proclaimed ALT-A-HOLIC. I have 68 on Star Forge and I think 43 on the Satele Shan server. I mainly play on Star Forge It would not bother me too much to wipe Satele Shan for a merge. I however alt hop on all on Star Forge Most are level 80.

[ThanderSnB]

3 hours ago, akdonkey said:

Lots of good thoughts and Theories here. I am curious. I did the cloud test the game ran smoother so I was not worried about requirements.  I am however a self-proclaimed ALT-A-HOLIC. I have 68 on Star Forge and I think 43 on the Satele Shan server. I mainly play on Star Forge It would not bother me too much to wipe Satele Shan for a merge. I however alt hop on all on Star Forge Most are level 80.

When they did merges before (United Forces update), they increased the server character cap from 52 to 100. I'd expect they'd double that to 200 if they were merging servers again.

[DWho]

1 hour ago, ThanderSnB said:

When they did merges before (United Forces update), they increased the server character cap from 52 to 100. I'd expect they'd double that to 200 if they were merging servers again.

The cap itself is less of an issue than the number of unlocked slots. If you have been through several merges, you can easily have more playable characters than you have unlocked slots. This means to create a new character you have to delete characters to get down below the number of unlocked slots. Depending on how long you have been around you have either 12 or 24 "free" unlocked characters slots (as a subscriber) per server which are not added together when merges occur.

[ThanderSnB]

29 minutes ago, DWho said:

The cap itself is less of an issue than the number of unlocked slots. If you have been through several merges, you can easily have more playable characters than you have unlocked slots. This means to create a new character you have to delete characters to get down below the number of unlocked slots. Depending on how long you have been around you have either 12 or 24 "free" unlocked characters slots (as a subscriber) per server which are not added together when merges occur.

Unlocked slots could be worked around by buying more character slots. It could be expensive, but there would an option. On the other hand, if the cap wasn't increased, the player has no option. They just can't make any more characters without deleting some.