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How tough is it to consolidate servers?
EgaoNoGenki
Member Posts: 397
To address our thinning herds, a server consolidation could be in order. Otherwise, the players might get way too lonely in the emptying island-cluster.
Possibly consolidating them into 1/2 of what they were before might be a little fine. (1/3 might do better.) Then the players who already had characters on the said servers should get to have 10 slots of two consolidate and therefore keep all their characters that way. (15 if three consolidate to one of course.)
When it comes to cottage neighborhoods, maybe they'll just have to expand like how neighborhoods do in real life. (I'm not sure on how that'll work but hopefully someone could figure it out.)
Now what other issues are there when it comes to possible server consolidation? How much labor would it take to complete this move?
If the effort isn't worth it, then how do the game administrators deal with the dwindling population anyhow?
Warning: I could be on NoDoz caffeine pills so I hope I don't post anything outrageous!
Comments
I'm guessing by your two posts that you recently returned to AC.
If you had been here for the last few years you would know that late 2008 was essentially the lowest point in players numbers. Late 2009 they went up, and they are higher now then they were in 2009. The game is actually growing, and although they've only released a small amount of the info on November's patch, I can guarantee it will be a big patch that will make the number jump up again.
When I say growing I am not saying it's doubling and tripiling each year, it is instead steadily growing over time and that's a good thing.
As far as consolidating server there are really only 3 that this even matters with, VT, WB and LC. These have always been the 3 lowest servers. VT and WE were just bad judgement calls when they did the "Let's just add a new server and it will make tons of players come back" idea. It didn't work either time and for how late they did it on VT, the numbers just never showed up there at all. So yes combining these three server together to form one would be pretty cool, even though most of the small VT population always say they'd hate to be merged with a different server because they like the low numbers.
They have said many times that moving one player's server is very hard with how the game is setup, let alone merging whole servers. There are a ton of issues to be delt with and most of those issues no matter how they were handled would leave certain people upset. Either they couldn't have the name they've always had, or the house, or all their characters because they had characters on the server they were merged with, etc etc.
Basically they have to merge databases. That can be tough if there is any duplicate information. They'd have to create all sorts of new tables and then go into the code and add all new sections to reference the new tables.
Not an easy task .. especially since Microsoft was behind a lot of this and well.. you know how well they plan ahead in their coding.. not to mention Turbine..
Turbine has learned since then and made things modular but its too late for AC. Would require a major overhaul or they would have merged them a long time ago.
All they can do is maybe character transfers, which is what might happen.
I play on leafcull now and i've never seen more than 120 people on in the weekends at peak time. It is pretty lonely out there.
What he said ^
The reason they stated they have never merged servers is because of database issues. The way AC works, items all have 'unique' item numbers. The only issue, is that items across different servers may share the same number. Housing, items.. and well, that's about it as far as I remember.
But this means there are potentially millions of items that could share an ID. It sucks, but that's why they haven't merged servers. Merging servers would add a lot of life to the game, and it would be a positive thing for it at this point, but they simply can't do it for logistical reasons.
I'm pretty sure they could regenerate the ID numbers. I bet the bigger problems are names and housing. How many would quit because they lost their name and/or house? Also there would be some minor lore conflicts.
Server merges don't really solve the real problem: attracting players.
I disagree. A new player trying the game would be more inclined to keep playing if there were more people online. Honestly, ALL of the white servers could be combined down to one or two servers.
A new player trying this game out would see that barely anyone plays it, and they'd be turned away from that. I see it in forum posts all the time. A well populated server however, would certainly give the community some life, and as a former AC player, I would be more inclined to COME BACK to the game if there was more activity. I see server merges as a win-win situation.
Yes, the game needs other fixes, such as to its network code. I also feel the only way to truly INVIGORATE the game and give it an influx of NEW life, would be to adapt it to some sort of f2p system.
The game could survive, and even flourish, if merged down to either 1 or 2 servers (2 because of potential come-backs or new players, but 1 would certainly make the game feel ALIVE again for those who are still playing it). Also, not counting DT. It should always remain as it is.
You are assuming people are trying the game to begin with. You are assuming they are trying the game and are quitting or not subscribing because they see few people around. I bet AC has a bigger problem with people getting to try the game period., not just getting them to stick around. So, like I said, I think a better focus would be trying to attract players.
Consodilating servers isn't positive publicity. I know I avoid games that consolidate servers especially if they weren't very popular to begin with (e.g. Vanguard, DDO). DDO is only OK now because they changed the business model, making it free to play. If they had just considlated the servers with no bigger vision then I'm sure the number of subscribers would have continued drop.
A server merge by itself won't do much, but a server merge along with some other huge change may be beneficial. I just saw they were considering allowing people to play as Olthoi. It would be nice if playing as an Olthoi was completely free forever. (Also free to play Olthoi players wouldn't be able to hold items, own houses, play other races, etc.) I'm not sure how long that would hold peoples attention but it might get more people to just try out the game.
I think a server merge WOULD do much. I don't feel like hanging around much and playing when there is nobody online.. but Sunday nights there was 150 people .. holtburg actually had some people around it was fun again. I used to enjoy the times there was a lot of people int the subway, marketplace etc..
Having a lot of people around helps KEEP players from quitting. That is the problem..
I also almost didnt come back to the game when I heard 300 people per server were onine.. because it wouldn't be worth it.. imagine my shock to find out only 100 were on at any time..
Whats the use of playing?
In AC if we had 500-600 people playing on a server i'd be happy.
I dont' care I'll give up all my loot if i can just get some pyreal and all my characters transferred to a central server. Forget about merging..