Deep Think: Is there a reason why SSG favors smaller sized servers?

[thegreatcthulhu]

Based on my understanding, the servers are running on vms inside a data center that Sev / SSG keeps on site. The data center is responsible for both LOTRO and DDO and that LOTRO itself takes up the brunt of the hardware resources. DDO supposedly gets less of the resources (smaller vms and maybe even due to load balancing bias). If all of the above is the case, it isn't a surprise that the DDO servers are better off small.

[superevbully]

Seroiusly dude, whats with you and the one man circle J over Orien?

You love it, great, go enjoy it...why is it so important to you that everyone else adopts your playstyle too?

This is the sixth hagiography you've started extolling the munificent magnificence and unimpeachable glory of Orien and portending the doom of all lesser servers. You're starting to sound like Ebony Maw when he first came to Earth...

lolololololol

[Stradivarius]

Based on my understanding, the servers are running on vms inside a data center that Sev / SSG keeps on site. The data center is responsible for both LOTRO and DDO and that LOTRO itself takes up the brunt of the hardware resources. DDO supposedly gets less of the resources (smaller vms and maybe even due to load balancing bias). If all of the above is the case, it isn't a surprise that the DDO servers are better off small.

But you can glean the reasoning here though by SSG. We're basically expected to stay small regardless. Like if our numbers for each server grew to like Orien levels it would be a cause for concern and not celebration by SSG.

I personally think that's kinda screwed up.

[Mindos]

Seroiusly dude, whats with you and the one man circle J over Orien?

You love it, great, go enjoy it...why is it so important to you that everyone else adopts your playstyle too?

This is the sixth hagiography you've started extolling the munificent magnificence and unimpeachable glory of Orien and portending the doom of all lesser servers. You're starting to sound like Ebony Maw when he first came to Earth...

hagiography
noun
1. the writing of the lives of saints.

munificent
adjective
1. characterized by or displaying great generosity

From wikipedia:
Ebony Maw is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a prominent member of the Black Order, a team of aliens who work for Thanos.
The character has made several appearances in media, such as animated television series, the Marvel Cinematic Universe live-action films, Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), voiced by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, and video games.

Just in case anyone else was wondering...

[Ereshkigal]

Orien, is like a dream within a dream. It is undulating waves of dopamine on tap. We're getting several instances of the same area (like Marketplace), the nostalgia and feels of an earlier time is undeniable, LFMs are active night and day and across all the time zones.

So why not merge a couple of servers here and there to create this affect for everyone else? Maybe leaving 1 server as a "solo-er" server (which I think everyone here knows which one that should be.)

So why do you think SSG wants to keep each of the server sizes under 500? That seems to be soft cap judging by the data from DDOaudit for everyone except Orien which was a deliberate creation of a mega-server by the players themselves.

Discuss (politely please! )

The last server merge took nearly 2 years to sort out all the issues that came with it. Now, with more data per character, more characters per server, and less manpower, I think they want to avoid another merger at all costs.

Also, yes, if they merge the server, they will likely never be able to expand them again, so it could be viewed as an irrevocable step towards oblivion. One, that with the popularity of 5e, and now the success of the most recent movie, might be a bad move.

*IF SSG could enhance their new player experience by deleting the out-of-date premade character paths, adding something to the tutorial that would incentivize new players to join a guild - even if they plan to play solo - so they could interact with the community - even if only when not questing, and maybe eventually creating 3 or 4 premade paths - one for each major playstyle - and not concern themselves with doing one for every character -- then we could see all servers grow and they might even have to rotate the starter servers again. having a small number of premade paths would make it less time consuming to update in the future - but having zero paths would require no manpower and would be significantly better than having some that only hinder a new player's ability to play the game.

The excuse that "anyone can play ddo on casual with the most gimped build" is complete bullhockey. Being able to accomplish something while being gimped should not be the goal you set for a new player experience. Stop saying that. Stop believing that. It's madness.

DDO's content updates are quite consistent, and enough to keep players coming back imo - I have to believe that the initial learning curve is what hurts retention of new players -- and that joining a guild, and removing the premade paths that make new players feel inadequate would be wonderful first steps.

[Stradivarius]

I whole-heartedly agree about the need to revamp the new player experience. I think they should dedicate at least 1 dev full time solely for the new player experience.

[spifflove]

I dont think Orien is that dream. It has its own issues.
.

I cant play on prime hours anymore too much lag on those hours.

The lag on Orien was bad today. Can only play during off hours so most of my time is spent on my home server.

A google search for dnd video games has no ddo on first page and nothing on the top 20 video games list related to dnd. So unless they advertise I wouldn’t cross my fingers over the movie.

[NemesisAlien]

I dont think Orien is that dream. It has its own issues.

I'm a orien citzen since before the free transfers.

It looks to me we have too many players for too few pug raid leaders now. Joining pugs now is actually harder as they get filled too fast to swap toons. And I'm not ready to lead anything .

I cant play on prime hours anymore too much lag on those hours.

I dont think SSG favors smaller servers. Its just not worth for them to do that yet.
SSG is playing the safe cards for a long time now . Have you noticed how updates are just more of the same?
More content, new enhancment trees, new quests , the meta can change but how the game functions at the software level never changes.
I believe the next "big " thing is the UI revamp that in the end wont be that big aside from supporting 4k.

Changes in the infrastructure of our servers needs investment and planning and it prolly poses some level of techinical challenge that they are not ready to take on.

Sorry, I TR-ed, cant post epic and legend raid lfms now. Wait for Baulder to post. Or Tres Krondor.