Merging the servers

[LucasLemley]

Hello,

I'm sure this suggestion has been made or at least some of you have talked about it. However, I suggest merging all the servers (Argonnessen, Cannith, Ghallanda, Khyber, Orien, Sarlona, Thelanis, & Wayfinder) together.

Now with that suggestion, there a few Pros but with Pros, comes Cons.

PROS
Player Base Increase (Increase in LFM, More social in general, help, and trade, increase in auction house)
Decrease in server lag (Due to running less servers, it will help the data base be able to put 100% performance into one server)
New players will be more attracted to the game due to higher Player base

CONS
Character name change and transfers (whether it be by when the character was made or by the highest level/life will get the character name)
Guild transfers/Guild name changes



Now, I'm sure DDO players and staff can think of a lot of different PROS and CONS but as of right now, these are the few main ones I can think of that will have effect on the players.

I will begin explaining the player base.

- Player Base

I will show you a player base weekly review of all the DDO severs, from the weekly review you will see that Thelanis will have the highest player base Sunday - Saturday with the highest player base being just over 400 players on Sunday. There is also Orien having the lowest player count Sunday - Saturday with the highest player base being just over 250 players on Sunday & Saturday.

Lets take the busiest day for all server for the most part, SUNDAY. If we add all the players online on all servers together we get just about 1,919 players. I'm not sure what kind of server and data base DDO is running with all the different instances and such in the game, I do believe it should be able to handle that many players.

Lets take a look at the day with the lowest player count. Which is Wednesday. Total players through all servers on a Wednesday is about 1,574 players. That is still more players than the highest player count on Thelanis.

What makes a game is the player base, as we all know. DDO is struggling in player count. Between only 500 players on the most popular server to a lot of players soloing now a days. If it can be done, merging is going to play a key point in DDO's player base and future.

https://i.imgur.com/3YvnYSg.png



- Guild/Character Names

Now, with guild names. That is simple. The guild that was created first will get the name, any other guild with the same name must change the guild name.

Shall we go to character names?

I believe character names would be one of the biggest issues. As some players make characters for banking and never play on them and other players may have the same name they like on a different server that they actually play on. However, I think the most fair point is to go with which character was made first.



I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, I assume so but I think it'd really help.

I'd like to hear more opinions and such on this subject and if any knows if this has been shot down in the past, please feel free to explain why.

Thank you.

[timmy9999]

Hello,

I'm sure this suggestion has been made or at least some of you have talked about it. However, I suggest merging all the servers (Argonnessen, Cannith, Ghallanda, Khyber, Orien, Sarlona, Thelanis, & Wayfinder) together.

Now with that suggestion, there a few Pros but with Pros, comes Cons.

PROS
Player Base Increase (Increase in LFM, More social in general, help, and trade, increase in auction house)
Decrease in server lag (Due to running less servers, it will help the data base be able to put 100% performance into one server)
New players will be more attracted to the game due to higher Player base

CONS
Character name change and transfers (whether it be by when the character was made or by the highest level/life will get the character name)
Guild transfers/Guild name changes



Now, I'm sure DDO players and staff can think of a lot of different PROS and CONS but as of right now, these are the few main ones I can think of that will have effect on the players.

I will begin explaining the player base.

- Player Base

I will show you a player base weekly review of all the DDO severs, from the weekly review you will see that Thelanis will have the highest player base Sunday - Saturday with the highest player base being just over 400 players on Sunday. There is also Orien having the lowest player count Sunday - Saturday with the highest player base being just over 250 players on Sunday & Saturday.

Lets take the busiest day for all server for the most part, SUNDAY. If we add all the players online on all servers together we get just about 1,919 players. I'm not sure what kind of server and data base DDO is running with all the different instances and such in the game, I do believe it should be able to handle that many players.

Lets take a look at the day with the lowest player count. Which is Wednesday. Total players through all servers on a Wednesday is about 1,574 players. That is still more players than the highest player count on Thelanis.

What makes a game is the player base, as we all know. DDO is struggling in player count. Between only 500 players on the most popular server to a lot of players soloing now a days. If it can be done, merging is going to play a key point in DDO's player base and future.

https://i.imgur.com/3YvnYSg.png



- Guild/Character Names

Now, with guild names. That is simple. The guild that was created first will get the name, any other guild with the same name must change the guild name.

Shall we go to character names?

I believe character names would be one of the biggest issues. As some players make characters for banking and never play on them and other players may have the same name they like on a different server that they actually play on. However, I think the most fair point is to go with which character was made first.



I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, I assume so but I think it'd really help.

I'd like to hear more opinions and such on this subject and if any knows if this has been shot down in the past, please feel free to explain why.

Thank you.

All I want to do is meet Slarden and hug him, I'm actually a really nice guy IRL .

[Visty]

whats your solution to the massive amount of duped Astral Shards on Sarlona (think it was Sarlona)?

merging that with other servers will crash the ASAH for everyone instead of just a few poor souls on that one server

[LucasLemley]

whats your solution to the massive amount of duped Astral Shards on Sarlona (think it was Sarlona)?

merging that with other servers will crash the ASAH for everyone instead of just a few poor souls on that one server

I was unaware of an Astral Shard dupe, that's interesting.

[bowwoww]

I prefer cross-server party so we still have more player base...
but yeah...lag issue is depressing

[BloodWynn]

I'm up for anything that increases the amount of fellow players we can interact with in our guilds, LFM, parties / raids, etc.. but am opposed to anything that might increase lag (which can be painful at times). If the latter is solved by the former, I'm on board!

- Skarr

[Therrias]

Megaserver.

This is the way.

[Zeleron]

Don't worry people still won't group with ya.

[Mindos]

I suggest merging all the server

I will show you a player base weekly review of all the DDO severs, from the weekly review you will see that Thelanis will have the highest player base Sunday - Saturday with the highest player base being just over 400 players on Sunday. There is also Orien having the lowest player count Sunday - Saturday with the highest player base being just over 250 players on Sunday & Saturday.

Lets take the busiest day for all server for the most part, SUNDAY. If we add all the players online on all servers together we get just about 1,919 players.


2000 players peak online at once, if each one opened a help ticket, let's say once per month, DDO would need to close out 2000 tickets a month. Assuming a brisk 20 mins per ticket, 2000 tickets X 20 mins = 40,000 mins. 30 days in a month, but assume 5 working days a week, so about 22 days of work a month. 40,000 mins divided by 22 equals 1818 mins per work day roughly. Assuming 8 hour work days, but probably only 6 hours of pure work with meetings and breaks and such, 1818 mins divided by 60 mins in an hour equals over 30 hours per day. So in order to keep up with 2000 tickets per month, 30 hours of work divided by 6 hours of total work in a day, equals about 5 people needed in the Customer Service department, never calling off, never taking vacation, never do anything other then answering tickets.

Now who knows how many tickets really get made. That 2000 players online peak? Well, there could be 2000 completely different players on the next hour. And maybe people make tickets once a week on average instead of once a month.

My silly point is this: The Customer Service department should be the LARGEST department, IN-house, and with an abundance of people. It's not enough just to have enough, you've got to cover sick outs, emergencies, surges in demand. And you need not only just for tickets, but for online GM's, and in addition you need higher level Customer Service employee's, with special training and entrusted permissions for harder tickets, such as payments, punishment, legal, etc. Then you need (few but some) customer service dedicated managment.

The customer service department should never be contracted out. It should dwarf any other department compared head to head, and it should darn near equal all other compartments combined employee total. The cost isn't anywhere near the other departments however. I would imagine customer service would double duty as playtesters, in house focus group, etc.

Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread. I just wonder about these long, long wait times and I daydream about staffing and management, budgets and personnel. Did the Sims ever come out with a Game Development Studio Simulator? :)

[Hogdog5]

I feel like cross-server grouping would have all the benefits with none of the drawbacks (assuming, of course, that they could do it without increasing lag). Everyone could keep their names and guilds, but would have the opportunity to quest with anyone on any server.

[LucasLemley]

2000 players peak online at once, if each one opened a help ticket, let's say once per month, DDO would need to close out 2000 tickets a month. Assuming a brisk 20 mins per ticket, 2000 tickets X 20 mins = 40,000 mins. 30 days in a month, but assume 5 working days a week, so about 22 days of work a month. 40,000 mins divided by 22 equals 1818 mins per work day roughly. Assuming 8 hour work days, but probably only 6 hours of pure work with meetings and breaks and such, 1818 mins divided by 60 mins in an hour equals over 30 hours per day. So in order to keep up with 2000 tickets per month, 30 hours of work divided by 6 hours of total work in a day, equals about 5 people needed in the Customer Service department, never calling off, never taking vacation, never do anything other then answering tickets.

Now who knows how many tickets really get made. That 2000 players online peak? Well, there could be 2000 completely different players on the next hour. And maybe people make tickets once a week on average instead of once a month.

My silly point is this: The Customer Service department should be the LARGEST department, IN-house, and with an abundance of people. It's not enough just to have enough, you've got to cover sick outs, emergencies, surges in demand. And you need not only just for tickets, but for online GM's, and in addition you need higher level Customer Service employee's, with special training and entrusted permissions for harder tickets, such as payments, punishment, legal, etc. Then you need (few but some) customer service dedicated managment.

The customer service department should never be contracted out. It should dwarf any other department compared head to head, and it should darn near equal all other compartments combined employee total. The cost isn't anywhere near the other departments however. I would imagine customer service would double duty as playtesters, in house focus group, etc.

Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread. I just wonder about these long, long wait times and I daydream about staffing and management, budgets and personnel. Did the Sims ever come out with a Game Development Studio Simulator? :)

So, I'm not adding any more players to my count. 2000 players online, right now, that's 2000 players between each server therefore, they are already getting that kind of tickets if that is the case. Just split between different servers. Merging the servers isn't going to change that.

[HungarianRhapsody]

2000 players peak online at once, if each one opened a help ticket, let's say once per month, DDO would need to close out 2000 tickets a month. Assuming a brisk 20 mins per ticket, 2000 tickets X 20 mins = 40,000 mins. 30 days in a month, but assume 5 working days a week, so about 22 days of work a month. 40,000 mins divided by 22 equals 1818 mins per work day roughly. Assuming 8 hour work days, but probably only 6 hours of pure work with meetings and breaks and such, 1818 mins divided by 60 mins in an hour equals over 30 hours per day. So in order to keep up with 2000 tickets per month, 30 hours of work divided by 6 hours of total work in a day, equals about 5 people needed in the Customer Service department, never calling off, never taking vacation, never do anything other then answering tickets.

20 minutes to mark a ticket as "player not online, ticket closed" is a huge overestimate. :P

[TimTowtiddy]

I'm sure this suggestion has been made or at least some of you have talked about it. However, I suggest merging all the servers (Argonnessen, Cannith, Ghallanda, Khyber, Orien, Sarlona, Thelanis, & Wayfinder) together.

Now with that suggestion, there a few Pros but with Pros, comes Cons.

PROS
...
Decrease in server lag (Due to running less servers, it will help the data base be able to put 100% performance into one server)
...


I don't think merging would help with lag; if anything, it could possibly make it worse. All of those connections need to be serviced by the server hardware, and the more demand there is (in terms of concurrent player population) the less CPU clock cycles, memory, bandwidth, etc. there will be to go around.

Yes, SSG could invest in more robust hardware, but it's not just the physical costs: There would be additional power considerations, cooling, and so on.

Also take into consideration redundancy; if there's one server, and it suffers an outage, the entire game is offline. At least if, say, Argo suffers a problem, the others are (probably) still online. I don't know DDO's infrastructure architecture so I can't say for sure, but I can take an educated guess.

Honestly, if DDO started merging servers, I expect it would be because the player base has started dropping so low that it becomes financially infeasible to maintain X servers when cutting to Y will save them money. It would probably signal the death spiral of the game, though.

Now, I haven't played WoW in a while, but I seem to recall that if player 1 was on a given server, but they wanted to play with player 2 who was on another server, the system just... Brought them together, at least for the current session. Perhaps DDO could implement something like that? A per-session server transfer? Maybe a VIP-level or paid-pass sort of thing.