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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning News - Winds of Change on Dark Crag
Posted by Keith Cross on Apr 28, 2009 | 14 comments in our forums
Mythic Entertainment is testing a new system on the Dark Craig server called the "Winds of Change." The system is designed to move players to the nearest safe are in Open RvR as a preemptive action to stop server crashes.
In our efforts to improve server stability and performance in Open Realm vs. Realm combat, the players of Dark Crag will have the opportunity to participate in a live test of a new system called "Winds of Change."
The goal of this system is to ensure the best Open Realm vs. Realm experience for as many people as possible and to prevent server crashes. Overall, this system will only take effect in the most extreme server load situations, and will only happen as a last measure before the zone would actually crash.
In order to accomplish this goal "The Winds of Change" will now teleport a small number of players in Realm vs. Realm lakes to the closest "safe point" when crowds are large enough to threaten the stability of the server. This will generally be the nearest Warcamp, however, it may also be a Chapter Hub within the zone depending on where performance is being impacted the most.
Read more here.
I sounds like it's very similar to Asherons Calls "Portal Storms".
I remember that when I used to play AC, never liked it much and I don't think I'l like this change to WAR either.
Bingo, the first thing I thought. Portal Storms are back, in lame form. Seriously, AC got away with them, and I remember people huddling in houses to avoid them in the larger cities =p, but there is simply no excuse for this kind of crap in a modern MMO short of if you were trying to add some kind of lore/mechanic based on it, and they're clearly not, they're just trying to cover up yet another failure of this struggling turd.
PS: Hooray run on sentences
oh this sounds just TERRIFIC, punish the large guilds for fielding WBs why dontcha
This has to be the absolute worst idea for a MMO of all time, they will loose a LOT of hardcore players from this one, I dont see much of a "sub" future for this game, more a small community like shadowbane.
This looks to me like the evolution of the "fort capping" measure used to make Forts less prone to crashing.
All it really does is serve as yet more evidence that the game was not built to provide large scale battles originally at all, showing the flaw of switching the focus of a game whilst in development without properly re-addressing the underlying systems, & the engine in order to correctly serve the new focus.
To me it looks like Mythic is doing everything they can to avoid instancing, but all it is going to do is cause greif in gameplay. Kicking people out of the party once they are having a good time is not the solution.
If their systems can detect when there are to many people in one area, then give the players a reason to divide forces instead of forcing it onto them. Maybe open up another battle point a short distance away that aids in the fort battle or something like that. Maybe it is loot, maybe it is NPC reinforcements, maybe it is damage/healing buffs, maybe it is something that opens a backdoor to the main fort, but that really doesn't matter as long as it works as incentive for players to spread out themselves.
It is just a rough idea, but the concepts should be to put the game into the players hands and not remove them from it.
I don't want to bash Mythic, because I think they've made some very nice patches since launch, but this "fix" tells us a lot about their game engine. We can expect that kind of temporary solution after launch to help until the engine is more optimized but 7 months after launch? This just screams bad engine. I was hoping that 1 year after launch this game would be stable enough and improved enough to warrant subbing but I'm getting worried that they just can't fix the lag problem.
It's a real shame considering how many improvements they've made in other areas since launch. No feature can redeem bad performance, even the best game in the world become worthless if you can't play it right.
If there was ever a time for this, it is now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYr7hFjs3wo
I understand Mythic is trying to create a more stable game, but removing people from a fight is just going to destroy the playerbase morale. Entire guilds left months ago due to the siege limitations and this is just making it worse for the remaining population.
In a "RvR focused" game preventing people from participating in RvR is just going to create a lot of mad customers.
I must say, this game has been a pleasure to WATCH. Just when you think Mythic can't top their last stupid design choice, something like this is made public.
erhmm... Perhaps I did not get it....but it is horrible...what if my healer get ported in the middle of the fight...GG
Tell me that I misunderstood the concept.
Can't really find much positive about it. Sure it's better than crashing, but a poor substitute for better stability. I thought Mythic knew how to handle heavy loads with DOAC?
yeah i hope they can be really flexable ........ this is poor news to those on Dark Cragg
but one thing i see from this....there is not a population shortage....as i was fighting today on Iron ROck and destro had a good three or four WB with order with a good two or three.....not that much lag ..only a bit when Destro was huddled in the South Keep in CW..
but i guess i can always try and find the good