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Megaservers....why the hype?

ToxiaToxia Member UncommonPosts: 1,308

Seen a couple games coming out in the future or soon toting the 'feature' of having megaserver technology....

So i'm like" OH cool everybody'll be on same server like Eve!"

Then i learn the 'catch' to the feature is they are going to do shards.

So...why is a megaserver impressive enough to tout as a feature when you are effectively making more servers by having everyone split into shards?

Server A- Server B

Shard A- Shard B

 

Seems the same to me.

The Deep Web is sca-ry.

Comments

  • SuprGamerXSuprGamerX Member Posts: 531
    Some people got no freaking clue what EVE-Online is apparently.    There is nothing new in megaservers.
  • AcidonAcidon Member UncommonPosts: 796
    Originally posted by SuprGamerX
    Some people got no freaking clue what EVE-Online is apparently.    There is nothing new in megaservers.

    Their server farm is geek-worthy though.  <3

  • GruntyGrunty Member EpicPosts: 8,657

    Most of the time there is a way to move between shards just by the in-game menu. You can play on all of the shards with one avatar. With individual servers you have to have avatars on each server or have them transferred by the game publisher; usually for a fee.

     

    "I used to think the worst thing in life was to be all alone.  It's not.  The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone."  Robin Williams
  • asmkm22asmkm22 Member Posts: 1,788
    Virtualization.  They can save a ton on hardware costs by virtualizing their shards.  The "megaserver" aspect is more about having fewer databases scattered about.  With this type of setup, they can scale up and down much easier, by instantiating new virtual servers as needed to accomidate whatever the population is at that moment.

    You make me like charity

  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099

    Hype?  I must have missed the hype.  But I have noticed a lot of tech work around virtualization and server clouds.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,564

    If done properly, it's a markedly better server architecture than the traditional one of rigidly separate servers.  For starters, it effectively lets you immediately switch servers whenever you feel like it.  Want to group with someone on a different server?  Switch instantly and you can.  It also lets a game effectively have more "servers" for heavily-used zones than lightly-used ones, so that the lightly-populated zones don't feel deserted.  But that's something that ought to be in at launch.

    When it's hyped, it's usually the marketing department trying to cover up that they're bleeding players at an alarming rate and only have enough to fill 1/3 as many servers as they used to.  So the announce "megaservers" when they're doing server transfers.  If they don't take it down to one server period, or at most, one for each combination of a region and rule-type (e.g., PVP or PVE), then it's just stupid marketing hype as they're missing the "feature" part of a megaservers feature:  group with anyone, regardless of which server they rolled on.

    And if it means some characters are forced to change their names as part of a transfer to megaservers, it means that the company still hasn't figured out how to manage MMORPG servers and is just making things up as they go.

  • XiaokiXiaoki Member EpicPosts: 4,080


    Originally posted by Toxia
    So...why is a megaserver impressive enough to tout as a feature when you are effectively making more servers by having everyone split into shards?Server A- Server BShard A- Shard B 
    Seems the same to me.

    But its not.


    It will only split into more shards when population demands it.


    In a multiple server set up under normal circumstances someone from server A can not play with someone from server B.


    In a multiple shard set up someone from shard A can play with someone from shard B by moving to shard B.

  • danwest58danwest58 Member RarePosts: 2,012

     

    What people who like these megaServers do not get, nor the people that want MMO Lobby games get is this.  MMOs that have servers build communities.  These communities are what sets MMOs apart from A Lobby game like Diablo or a Massive Server like EVE.  The Reason it works well in Eve is this, its 1 huge ass galaxy so the population often times are not clustered in 1 or 2 major cities.  So it works well.  When you get 1 Massive server and you do Phases like SWTOR the world becomes much smaller you might get caught in an instance with only 30 or 40 people and not see anyone else around.

    The truth is this, because there are so many MMOs these days and they are ever vying for more and more subscriptions or people to buy from their “SHOP” MMOs are trying to make what is a REAL MMO more of a Lobby or Single Player game.  No more are MMO Communities important to an MMO company, only the bottom line making as much money as they can.  Yes there are a few out there trying to hold dear to what really MMOs are about, however more companies like ZeniMax Online Studios sees the money that Blizzard made by World of Warcraft and they think there is a market out there for having a 12 Million Subscription based game.  Well there is not because you know what made WoW so popular?  It was the community that was involved, players got friends involved the game had good content and people friended one another because you needed in some cases to play with other people.  WoW didn’t get is population from marketing which right not Blizzard is trying to do to recover the number of people it has lost and will never regain.  WoW didn’t release and having a huge fan base like SWTOR did or GW2 did, WoW release with a mid-size fan base, it’s their people that brought friends in and more friends and it went on and on.  I know I brought a dozen people into WoW back when it first released and a friend brought me.  The same goes for people I met. 

    I doubt that the MMO community will ever see a true AAA game again that will have the success of WoW, or even EQ, UO, DOAC or others before WoW.  I also do not think the MMO community will be what it was before MMOs tried to be Massive Single Player games, or Massive Lobby games where you queue up and run with people never communicating with them.  MegaServers will only add to the diluted MMO community.

  • danwest58danwest58 Member RarePosts: 2,012
    Originally posted by Xiaoki

     


    Originally posted by Toxia
    So...why is a megaserver impressive enough to tout as a feature when you are effectively making more servers by having everyone split into shards?

     

    Server A- Server B

    Shard A- Shard B

     
    Seems the same to me.


    But its not.

     


    It will only split into more shards when population demands it.


    In a multiple server set up under normal circumstances someone from server A can not play with someone from server B.


    In a multiple shard set up someone from shard A can play with someone from shard B by moving to shard B.

    Yea and you will never have a community that way.  It works in Eve only because its an entire galaxy not a small world with 10,000 people running around in 1 small area. 

  • DraronDraron Member Posts: 993

    The shards for megaservers will fill up as more people are playing and in most cases the world will always be populated. If you make friends with someone, at least in TESO's case, it seems it'll put you in the shard your friend's in whenever you log in. 

    Or it could be like Runescape - you get to pick the shard you play on though you can use the same character on all of them. But it has themed worlds. Want to do a specific endgame activity or looking for world PVP? Roleplaying? They have worlds set aside for just that.

    Guild Wars 1 had the same thing really, just seperate regions depending on where you played - but it was more because of the game's lobby based nature rather than being used for an actual feature.

    If it's implemented right it can only be good IMO. 

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,564
    Originally posted by danwest58

     What people who like these megaServers do not get, nor the people that want MMO Lobby games get is this.  MMOs that have servers build communities.

    MMOs that have a very small playerbase may have solid communities where you know a good fraction of the other people in the game.  But if your playerbase is too small to either have multiple servers or multiple shards on the same server, it doesn't matter which you would have done with a larger playerbase.

    But MMOs that artificially break up a large playerbase into rigidly separate servers?  Nope.  Most of the people on the forums or on wiki or other outside-the-game sources aren't on your server, so you can't build a tight-knit community that way.  Even if you only play on one server, there are likely tens of thousands of others who also play on your server, and you'll have little to no contact with the overwhelming majority of them.  You do get to know a handful of people in your guild or the chat channels where you hang out or whatever.  But you can do that just as well in a game with easy, instantaneous server transfers.

  • I can see why they use megaservers. If the playerbase hemorrages players like most new MMOs, the servers avoid becoming ghost towns. The downside is that it's very immersion breaking to have multiple copies of the same zone. It makes the world feel fake and cheap.
  • XasapisXasapis Member RarePosts: 6,337
    The megaserver design removes the limitation that is presented when picking a server. Your friends can be on any server and you can still play with them and so is your guild.
  • azzamasinazzamasin Member UncommonPosts: 3,105
    Originally posted by danwest58

     

    What people who like these megaServers do not get, nor the people that want MMO Lobby games get is this.  MMOs that have servers build communities.  These communities are what sets MMOs apart from A Lobby game like Diablo or a Massive Server like EVE.  The Reason it works well in Eve is this, its 1 huge ass galaxy so the population often times are not clustered in 1 or 2 major cities.  So it works well.  When you get 1 Massive server and you do Phases like SWTOR the world becomes much smaller you might get caught in an instance with only 30 or 40 people and not see anyone else around.

    The truth is this, because there are so many MMOs these days and they are ever vying for more and more subscriptions or people to buy from their “SHOP” MMOs are trying to make what is a REAL MMO more of a Lobby or Single Player game.  No more are MMO Communities important to an MMO company, only the bottom line making as much money as they can.  Yes there are a few out there trying to hold dear to what really MMOs are about, however more companies like ZeniMax Online Studios sees the money that Blizzard made by World of Warcraft and they think there is a market out there for having a 12 Million Subscription based game.  Well there is not because you know what made WoW so popular?  It was the community that was involved, players got friends involved the game had good content and people friended one another because you needed in some cases to play with other people.  WoW didn’t get is population from marketing which right not Blizzard is trying to do to recover the number of people it has lost and will never regain.  WoW didn’t release and having a huge fan base like SWTOR did or GW2 did, WoW release with a mid-size fan base, it’s their people that brought friends in and more friends and it went on and on.  I know I brought a dozen people into WoW back when it first released and a friend brought me.  The same goes for people I met. 

    I doubt that the MMO community will ever see a true AAA game again that will have the success of WoW, or even EQ, UO, DOAC or others before WoW.  I also do not think the MMO community will be what it was before MMOs tried to be Massive Single Player games, or Massive Lobby games where you queue up and run with people never communicating with them.  MegaServers will only add to the diluted MMO community.

    What people who advocate community do nto understand is that community comes from knowing and playing with people on a routine basis plus forming lasting relations in guilds.  None of those are absent in the presence of your so called "lobby game".

     

    But your so called "lobby game" terminology is actually nothing more then an ad hominum attack based on percieved issues and not fully understanding how something works.  Trust me, I was more then apprehensive about this mega server tech until I listened to a podcast from guys who are huge fans of old school MMO's like UO and the single player ESO RPG's.

     

    Basically their argument is this:  What is the difference between server/shard and mega server with countless "instances" of each area?  NONE, you can't play with anyone from another server, you cant speak to anyone from another server, and most of the times you cant interact with someone from another server.  However put into context, if you are assigned to a single "instance" of this mega server then you still cant do those things.  Now the downsides are few when placed into that context, none of it matters and no argements can made against having a mega server. 

     

    The positives are huge though, first you are grouped with like minded individuals based on your criteria, so no more getting stuck playing with a bunch of 12 year olds or 30 year olds losers living in their moms basement.  I get to chose who my friends are and now if at any time in the history of the game my buddy plays I can still play with him without rerolling.  We als ogain the advantage of never sitting in a queue to log in. 

     

    Edit: you act as if you can move freely amongst the differing instances.  From what we know they paln on putting in place limits between switching servers, in mcuh the same way as GW2 does.

    Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!

    Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!

    Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!

    image

  • OdyssesOdysses Member Posts: 581

    I think this idea works but you do need to keep a few servers seperate for language and gameplay style differences.  Like a pure pvp type server or roleplaying server.  For generic pve gameplay, take a game like Lotro or WoW and you could cut the servers down 75%.

    This tech would work nice on launches of new games where after the first couple months there are alot of empty server shards. 

  • Originally posted by Xasapis
    The megaserver design removes the limitation that is presented when picking a server. Your friends can be on any server and you can still play with them and so is your guild.

    Does anyone really have that problem in regular MMOs? When I and my friends start out on a new MMO we just create characters on the same server.

  • ShakyMoShakyMo Member CommonPosts: 7,207
    Exactly ax - its a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

    Anyway the play with your friends thing is marketing speil. The real reasons for the are.

    1 don't have to spin server merges
    2 don't need as powerfull engine with dealing with crowds and can disguise that better. E.g. people will notice if you have 20 servers that only house 500 players each. But they won't notice if you have one server running 40 phases of each world zone that can only hold 250 players each.

    Pure smoke and mirrors.
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