Official SSG Mega-Server?

[mbartol]

Has there been any thoughts about SSG officially supporting a mega-server after seeing the outcome of the free transfer period?

Cordovan posted today that SSG will be turning the free transfers to Orien and Sarlona back on once the transfer issue is resolved. Given the amount of transfers that already occurred, and the likelihood that there will be a second wave of migrations, I was curious what SSG’s opinion was on this matter.

I don’t plan to leave Ghallanda since I’m a solo player, and population is a minor concern for me (there is the AH/Shard Exchange). But I think many other players would like to hear about SSG’s plans.

[Stradivarius]

Has there been any thoughts about SSG officially supporting a mega-server after seeing the outcome of the free transfer period?

Cordovan posted today that SSG will be turning the free transfers to Orien and Sarlona back on once the transfer issue is resolved. Given the amount of transfers that already occurred, and the likelihood that there will be a second wave of migrations, I was curious what SSG’s opinion was on this matter.

I don’t plan to leave Ghallanda since I’m a solo player, and population is a minor concern for me (there is the AH/Shard Exchange). But I think many other players would like to hear about SSG’s plans.

It doesn't make sense for them to do a Mega-Server. I think their current servers are capped out 'theoretically' at like 1,000 simultaneous players if that. What I hope will happen is LFM server sharing, this is expensive and doubtful.

Basically, in layman's terms, you would join an LFM which is shared across ALL the servers and then the game will find the most optimal (the lowest pop. I suppose) server at that moment and "host" the party and the quest there. Maximizes those servers being underutilized while at the same time allowing for the maximum LFMs a player can join.

[Oxarhamar]

It doesn't make sense for them to do a Mega-Server. I think their current servers are capped out 'theoretically' at like 1,000 simultaneous players if that. What I hope will happen is LFM server sharing, this is expensive and doubtful.

Basically, in layman's terms, you would join an LFM which is shared across ALL the servers and then the game will find the most optimal (the lowest pop. I suppose) server at that moment and "host" the party and the quest there. Maximizes those servers being underutilized while at the same time allowing for the maximum LFMs a player can join.

This is how modern games work with players gathering then entering a shared instance

[mbartol]

It doesn't make sense for them to do a Mega-Server. I think their current servers are capped out 'theoretically' at like 1,000 simultaneous players if that. What I hope will happen is LFM server sharing, this is expensive and doubtful.

Regardless of whatever sense it makes, the free transfer window affords the player base the opportunity to essentially create an unofficial mega-server on their own. Look at Orien after the first week of transfers.

I’m curious to know what the producers of DDO may plan after this plays out. Severlin talked about the possibility of a mega-server in the past, and the growing population of Orien could make it a candidate for further investigation. Additional resources may be provided to handle the large population and they can set up a framework for managing it like an official mega-server.

Perhaps cross-server grouping is something on their radar. I agree that it would probably be a better solution which allows guilds to remain intact, and players to keep their existing stuff (including friends) on their current servers.

Maybe the transfer window will pass, and nothing is done. We just happen to have one server that has a disproportionately large population. Right now, we can only speculate, and we saw how messy that can get.

So, I asked the question: Has there been any thoughts about SSG officially supporting a mega-server after seeing the outcome of the free transfer period?

[TedSandyman]

Regardless of whatever sense it makes, the free transfer window affords the player base the opportunity to essentially create an unofficial mega-server on their own. Look at Orien after the first week of transfers.

I’m curious to know what the producers of DDO may plan after this plays out. Severlin talked about the possibility of a mega-server in the past, and the growing population of Orien could make it a candidate for further investigation. Additional resources may be provided to handle the large population and they can set up a framework for managing it like an official mega-server.

Perhaps cross-server grouping is something on their radar. I agree that it would probably be a better solution which allows guilds to remain intact, and players to keep their existing stuff (including friends) on their current servers.

Maybe the transfer window will pass, and nothing is done. We just happen to have one server that has a disproportionately large population. Right now, we can only speculate, and we saw how messy that can get.

So, I asked the question: Has there been any thoughts about SSG officially supporting a mega-server after seeing the outcome of the free transfer period?

I personally wont be leaving Ghallanda until it is announced that there is a server merge and Ghallanda will be shutting down. I hope that any official merge would allow transfer of guild and ship.

I don't know if a merger is on the horizon. I have said in the past that I didn't think they ever would do a merger, but that was before the results of the free transfer.

I think that if a server merge ISN'T in the future plans then SSG should create some incentives to stay before opening the free transfers again. Give something to make people want to stay or at least make Ghallanda a bit easier for soloists in some way.

I don't know what those incentives would be, but maybe better loot tables or higher XP rates or even permanent grouping XP boosts.

[Valtan]

I personally wont be leaving Ghallanda

Big mistake. It already is a wasteland and even if you are a solo-ist, you will miss out on items, AH and player trading. Pack your bags and move to Orien or Sarlona as soon as they re-open.

[KoobTheProud]

It's not clear to me that Cordovan actually promised future transfers at this point.

We are currently working to resolve an issue that prevents us from opening World Character Transfers. At this time we do not have an ETA on when this service will return. We will announce an extension of the free transfer period to Orien and Sarlona in addition to an extension of transfers from the Hardcore server once we know more about this service's return.

This could easily be read as we don't know *if* the service will return with everything else dependent on whether that happens or not.

[Gordo]

"It doesn't make sense for them to do a Mega-Server. I think their current servers are capped out 'theoretically' at like 1,000 simultaneous players if that. What I hope will happen is LFM server sharing, this is expensive and doubtful."

This is interesting. Argo must be receiving remnants of other dead servers because there has been an uptick in "server full" warnings.

SSG is consolidating servers which in and of itself is a good thing but then what? With the savings of less servers, what will that do for the few servers remaining?

My guess - nada.

[KoobTheProud]

"It doesn't make sense for them to do a Mega-Server. I think their current servers are capped out 'theoretically' at like 1,000 simultaneous players if that. What I hope will happen is LFM server sharing, this is expensive and doubtful."

This is interesting. Argo must be receiving remnants of other dead servers because there has been an uptick in "server full" warnings.

SSG is consolidating servers which in and of itself is a good thing but then what? With the savings of less servers, what will that do for the few servers remaining?

My guess - nada.

If there is actually a cap at 1,000 simultaneous players per server that is a new cap that has resulted from changes in the game over the years.

Turbine reported adding more than a million new accounts between F2P launch in Sept 2009 and April 2010. No way no how there was any kind of 1k player cap on those servers.

https://mmohuts.com/news/dungeon-and...n-new-players/

[Gordo]

If there is actually a cap at 1,000 simultaneous players per server that is a new cap that has resulted from changes in the game over the years.

Turbine reported adding more than a million new accounts between F2P launch in Sept 2009 and April 2010. No way no how there was any kind of 1k player cap on those servers.

https://mmohuts.com/news/dungeon-and...n-new-players/

Interesting as well unless the million new adds dropped by 999,000 after 2010 which is also plausible.

[KoobTheProud]

Interesting as well unless the million new adds dropped by 999,000 after 2010 which is also plausible.

I believe they had 14 US servers and 5 EU servers so 19 total when F2P launched. A million accounts over 19 servers = 52k per server, with the obvious fact that some would be higher and some lower.

Figure that new accounts are fairly likely to at least try to play a few times a week and it makes it likely that those servers had somewhere between 2,500 and 5,000 accounts simultaneously connected at peak time. Probably higher than that.

[Ereshkigal]

Interesting as well unless the million new adds dropped by 999,000 after 2010 which is also plausible.

"Back in the Day..." There would be multiple instances of the same world. So like if I was trying to meet up with another player to do a player to player trade we could both be standing by the mailbox in the marketplace but not be in the same instance, so one of us would have to change our instance (from a dropdown menu) so we could complete the transaction. Perhaps it's 1000 per instance?

I remember there being at least 3 instances active at the same time on a server, though I usually didn't pay much attention to it, so there were probably times when there were more. I know that sometimes when you got into an instance that was just started up and had almost nobody running around in it - it was very strange - like a ghost town.

I see people saying that "there is no code implemented" to give VIPs priority for login, but I rather think it was active back in 2006 or 2007 and it has just been disabled now.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Cross server LFMs would be the way to go, to leave existing guilds and names intact on established servers -

Since DDO is instance based,
a multi-server instance LFM system allowing characters from any server to quest together in an instance hosted
on a temp server for that LFM would be ideal - this is what WoW does and it is very successful.

[Gordo]

"Back in the Day..." There would be multiple instances of the same world. So like if I was trying to meet up with another player to do a player to player trade we could both be standing by the mailbox in the marketplace but not be in the same instance, so one of us would have to change our instance (from a dropdown menu) so we could complete the transaction. Perhaps it's 1000 per instance?

I remember there being at least 3 instances active at the same time on a server, though I usually didn't pay much attention to it, so there were probably times when there were more. I know that sometimes when you got into an instance that was just started up and had almost nobody running around in it - it was very strange - like a ghost town.

I see people saying that "there is no code implemented" to give VIPs priority for login, but I rather think it was active back in 2006 or 2007 and it has just been disabled now.

Ahhh yes. I remember "instances"
It's been so long since I've seen one I forgot.... Sad.

[Sylvado]

Cross server LFMs would be the way to go, to leave existing guilds and names intact on established servers -

Since DDO is instance based,
a multi-server instance LFM system allowing characters from any server to quest together in an instance hosted
on a temp server for that LFM would be ideal - this is what WoW does and it is very successful.

Public areas were instanced, not the entire world.

Edit: and people spent more of their time in Marketplace before the expansions.

[KoobTheProud]

"Back in the Day..." There would be multiple instances of the same world. So like if I was trying to meet up with another player to do a player to player trade we could both be standing by the mailbox in the marketplace but not be in the same instance, so one of us would have to change our instance (from a dropdown menu) so we could complete the transaction. Perhaps it's 1000 per instance?

I remember there being at least 3 instances active at the same time on a server, though I usually didn't pay much attention to it, so there were probably times when there were more. I know that sometimes when you got into an instance that was just started up and had almost nobody running around in it - it was very strange - like a ghost town.

I see people saying that "there is no code implemented" to give VIPs priority for login, but I rather think it was active back in 2006 or 2007 and it has just been disabled now.

There were only VIPs in 2006 and 2007. No F2P. You had to have an active subscription to log in to the game.

I believe the instances were by game area not server. There would be multiple Marketplace instances if the number of players in the Marketplace was too high. Then you'd zone out into the Twelve and just one instance.

[DaviMOC]

Since servers transfers we are having multiple instances for the market area at Orien, specially when there is a LFM open for LVod. Got up to Marketplace-3 on the first few days of transfers.

[Oxarhamar]

Ahhh yes. I remember "instances"
It's been so long since I've seen one I forgot.... Sad.

The entire game is instance based even when there is only one of any instance

[Gordo]

The entire game is instance based even when there is only one of any instance

Not really the point of what the prior post was making nor what I was agreeing with but, OK.

[LightBear]

Public areas were instanced, not the entire world.

Edit: and people spent more of their time in Marketplace before the expansions.

For public areas you can choose which instance you want to populate.
Other zones are done for you as those are party based and need to be fresh when the first character enters it.

That said, nobody asking Cordo on his Friday at Four stream about this yet?