If Thornblade and Mischief are full...

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Zansobar, May 24, 2021.

  1. Lateryn Augur

    This. 3 would be over kill. By week 3 or so its all calmed down. Aradune was only bad for so long because they were trying to run some stupid anti cheat at first.

    As for that 500 member guild, I expect half that at most to make it past the first 2 weeks and a decent chunk that are on that sign up to not even make it past the first day. So many quit early realizing they are not really into it. Also so many are joining gdkp guilds just to make krono, which will not be all that much in early EQ and will probably drop out after making an intial rush of krono farming things.

    Attrition is serious business on TLPs.
    Skuz likes this.
  2. Nolrog Augur

    No. They come up at noon. As for when someone can actually get on and play, well that's a different story.
    Skuz and Abrhum like this.
  3. Abrhum Journeyman

    Why is this a problem in the first place? Just curious. I'm assuming it's due to how antiquated the game is, but don't really know enough to understand why they can't put more resources into allowing more people on the server at one time. Ultimately, this won't be a problem because the servers won't stay full, I get that as well. But, during the initial launch, it would be nice if everyone that wanted to play, actually could.
  4. samenye Lorekeeper

    The load-balancing system is having different world servers...they've added one more. They can't add 20 more for just the launch week.

    The code is too old for elastic-trickery of the kind a modern game might deploy in a cloud.
    Skuz likes this.
  5. Abrhum Journeyman

    Thank you! My question is sincere, not trying to imply they don't care. When you say "elastic-trickery" , are you saying it's not possible to allow a larger capacity up front, then diminish it once demand is lower? I feel like that would be the best solution for every new TLP launch. There are a lot of returning players that want the nostalgia, only to get let down when they can't even get on the server. The beginning hype is one of the best parts!

    Edit : additional question. Does each server have its own capacity? I.e could mischief have a capacity of 10,000 , while a server like aradune for example have 5,000?
  6. Phati Elder

    Can't tell if serious...
  7. Captain Video Augur

    Devs can set capacity separately for each server, but no servers currently have a login threshold higher than 5K. For at least the last few cycles, the TLPs have started with a limit of 4K, I believe. The server code is very old tech and has hard-coded memory limits. Because of the addition of the /pick concept, i.e. the ability to run multiple instances of some zones simultaneously, that eats up a lot of server memory. The more players you have logged in, the fewer /pick zones can open without crashing the server. Devs monitor these things and make their best guesses on how to tune for demand, but the bottom line is that overall capacity per server is limited.

    When a new TLP launches, the biggest resource constraint is the beeline players make to certain specific zones where the highest-value loot is, and whole bunches of /picks (copies) of those zones get opened. Too many players on a server when that happens will guarantee a crash. Now the speculation is that randomized loot will spread out the player base across more zones, and maybe fewer /picks of the most contested zones will be needed, but even if that change saves a little server memory (and that's a big if until we see how this works after the new servers are up), it's not going to be enough of savings to push the login limit above the 4-5K range, per server.
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  8. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Cloud-based server tech for some modern games allows them to create a "virtual server" out of other servers so they can ramp up & down the required number of needed servers at will, at least up to the actual maximum they have available to use.
    Only MMORPG I know myself used that was The Secret World but I think Guild Wars 2 moved to that kind of setup. Amazon's New World MMORPG (in that game's case a Massive Mess Of Roleplaying Garbage) will use Amazon's cloud server tech - if it ever decides what genre of MMORPG it want's to be and launches.
  9. Dythan Ban Lev in Plane of Fire guy

    Server might handle 4k, but login and character creation servers are like 1k. Thats where the bottlenecks always have been.
  10. Lejaun Augur

    That joke went right over your head. I wasn't serious.
    Skuz likes this.
  11. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Then Darkpaw will be very happy.

    Highly unlikely they will need more than 2 servers anyway.

    Week 1 levels of interest are very short-lived, a big chunk of that activity will be people securing names that have no interest in playing on the server, they just don't want anyone else playing with a character name they consider belongs to them.
  12. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Yep, the bottleneck is definitely the login.

    They can go up to around 6k on the server but the lag after 4k is ridiculous so cap it at 4k.
  13. Abrhum Journeyman

    All great info. Thanks everyone. It's unfortunate the servers can't handle more. Was it like that back in 99 as well? I thought a lot of people were playing back then.
  14. Herf Augur

    I'm not going to play on either, but you can bet I'm going to login and go over and watch people screaming at each other over Orc hill being camped :D
  15. Captain Video Augur


    There were a >LOT< more servers back then, 50+. Plus there were no instanced zones back then, every server was one big open world, so they could accomodate more simultaneous players per server, in the 10K range.
  16. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    The servers back then could not handle as many players online at the same time as they do now, but there were a much larger number of servers.

    EverQuest Peaked at around 550,000 subscribers in late 2004 (prior to the release of GoD).

    As of September 2020 it was at around 62,000 Subscribers & 82,000 total monthly active users (aka subscribers+F2P) this was after some 5 years of growth after a long period of losing players, the 82k was about 50/50 Live vs TLP, so TLP had a slightly larger number of subscribers but you cannot play on TLP without a sub.
  17. Zansobar Augur

    You are quite the prophet.
  18. Accipiter Old Timer


    Just gonna leave this here...
    Fenthen likes this.
  19. Fenthen aka Rath

    !remindme
  20. Zinth Augur

    You do Realize Mepp said both servers were full? an official comment not just some forum hippie...