Pulling from side discussion in another thread. Why do we have so many light load servers? (I know the answer). Merge All the live servers together into one world (hence Norrath). Yes, a bunch of people will have to change their character and guild names. This will make them Sad. But then they'll have loads more people to play with. And that will make them Happy. And with free rename tokens handed out to everyone, the Sad should go away pretty soon. Players will be able to group up while leveling (yes, this is a thing that happens on Skyfire, at least). They could run dungeons as they go. Actually talk to people in world chat. All the things that theoretically happen now, but with FOUR TIMES the impact. There are ZERO upsides to playing on a light server vs a heavy one. Even if all you ever play is solo, just having more people around means more items on the broker for better prices. In theory, this should cut down operating costs as well, as some of the hamsters could retire. Seriously, what are the downsides?
Laziness, not enough ressources to do it or afraid of the PR hit would be my 3 main guesses. Server transfers have been talked about from the side of the players since a year after Befallen, Butcherblock, Crushbone, Innothule, Kithicor, Lucan D'Lere and Oasis were merged into Maj'Dul in the year god knows when but for some reason the people at Daybreak refuse to acknowledge that its needed, maybe because they dont actually play the game. Since PQs seems to be gone for good, overland lag(Lets be honest, they have never worked and were never fun with the lag) should no longer be an issue as servers just spawn additional layers of each zone, so I dont understand why there should be a technology limitation behind it now. Having other players to play with should be priority number one for every MMORPG on the market.
Lag for one, and not just from the number of people in any one zone, but overall performance with more people anywhere.. The server and /or ISP that Darkpaw uses does not have the capability that it had in the past. Why do you think zone times are as crazy long as they are, when at one point they were pretty fast? That and each character has more data associated with it than ever before. I am not at all certain they could do it without major performance issues.
Zone times are directly affected by your own character and the sheer amount of stuff you have accumulated of their lifespan. If you keep your inventory slots filled with temp adorns, potions, bardings, reducer potions, various runes, situational gear, and your bank slots filled with years upon years of holiday stuff that you're hanging onto "just in case", then your loading times will be much longer. My two-box alt barely has anything and zones incredibly fast. Ouka on the other hand, has so many years of accumulation that it takes 1.5 to 2.5 times longer to zone into Qeynos or Greater Feydark than it does my two box who was also sent there at the same time.
I don't doubt that has some effect on zone times, but I have new characters with little inventory that will still wait incredibly long times just contacting the zone server. There was a time many years ago that all my characters zoned extremely fast. Then one day it started taking way longer across the board. I believe they changed something in their ISP service or hardware, but I don't really know for sure. I do know the forums were flooded with complaints and everyone had theories, but nothing was ever confirmed.
I don't see zoning times as much of an issue. Even if it takes me an extra few seconds every time I zone, if there are more people to play with in the zone, that's an easy win.
I'm glad you feel that way. But I wasn't really talking about them (load times) increasing with more people. I was providing an example of how the existing hardware and ISP can't handle the traffic like it did in the past. The real issue is general performance lag. You mentioned PQs. Those are a nightmare for sure. But there is also just server lag that hits when too many people are on. The threshold number of people needed anywhere on the server to experience that is way lower than in the past. And I'm personally not interested in 1-3 second response lag from the server when hitting spells/CAs just to have a few more people LFG.
I have long zone times but virtually no lag even with a lot of people in the zone, some guild halls will cause me lag or even crash the game. Long zone times are even with a fresh toon with nothing on them. I think its dependent on how the zones are laid out on the servers vs how many people have been in the zones over a certain amount of time, I think the server goes to sleep for a particular zone after a set amount of time then has to wake back up when someone request to enter the zone. The lower the population the more the servers have to wake up before you can finish zoning. I could be wrong, but its just how it seems, Test server, Kalidum, Kael D are amongst the worst offenders for zone times due to the population being so low, I think virtually all of the zone servers are essentially asleep/standby With a merger more zones would probably stay awake and possibly zone times would be reduced. If I want to play on a low pop server I will run on test. Its odd to see AB having such a low population considering its been a dump for the TLE servers for years. I am for merging the live servers and unlike others I dont really care what its named. I see folks running around with Roleplay tags up but its been over a year since I have seen anyone actually roleplaying so that argument is moot. I say get the servers merged before they bleed out the little they have left of subscribers
Besides lag and zoning time issues if all servers were merged into one, I imagine the database would collapse too. Elder Scrolls Online, a much newer MMORPG with assuredly much heartier hardware than EQ2's got, has one US megaserver, and no auction house at all due to this issue (per its devs). Each guild has to try selling its stuff separately, without even a search function. I know our MMORPGs are set in medieval times, but I don't want to get flung back to the caveman era. I really don't feel like standing on the side of the road, trying to auction every unwanted drop to random passersby, ugh.
Button lag is the killer. You smash a hotkey, then go get a cup of coffee and get back at the time the spell actually casts. OK, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but there is button lag that can be several seconds, and it really destroys your DPS.
For some players I guess this may be all they need. Reading over the threads it seems like more and more players are struggling with the grind. Requirements, alts, ect. I feel like a few different servers are still needed and some of them haven't been beneficial because their missing the mark on what the players really want/need to be satisfied. I don't know what the answer is, but I hope they figure it out.
