Am I the only EA sceptic here that thinks that this is a really cunning way to put a positive spin on server merges?

I guess I may not be as I did not read the whole thread having only a passing interest in SWTOR nowadays.

Originally posted by Gorilla

Am I the only EA sceptic here that thinks that this is a really cunning way to put a positive spin on server merges?

I guess I may not be as I did not read the whole thread having only a passing interest in SWTOR nowadays.

It's worth checking out the posts.

SWTOR "super server" = SWTOR normal server + more than 10 people actually playing.

IF they pull this off... and add a few patches to fill up the missing blanks and remaining bugs the game is saved.

Originally posted by Gorilla

Am I the only EA sceptic here that thinks that this is a really cunning way to put a positive spin on server merges?

I guess I may not be as I did not read the whole thread having only a passing interest in SWTOR nowadays.

I vote spin.

I don't believe they can optimize the engine to handle true mega servers. They have broken the engine beyond repair I think.

If they merge everything into more than 2 servers per play style (PVE, PVP, RP) then we know they are not true mega servers.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Yamota

Server merges 6 months after release. I guess it follows the normal triple A Themepark schedule.

That looks like it will happen with most every game now, especially triple A titles.  It's only been a themepark problem of late because those are the only types of major titles to have launched.  The MMO demographic has changed a lot in the last few years and there is a big game hopping crowd.  They come in and jam servers at launch, stay for one to three months and then move on to the next new thing.

I wouldn't necessarily say that.   It seems to me that this current wave of AAA MMOs is more about making 'cash-ins' and they're paying the price as they obviously released second-rate, half-done, let's rip off these gamers with gimmicks or 'cool IPs' MMOs.  

I love Star Wars.   I played until the end of my sub on this MMO just because I love Star Wars.   But the MMO...   If it weren't Star Wars, I wouldn't have made a week.  I've quit better MMOs as second-tier in shorter times.    I have little tolerance for crap games as life is too short to waste it on them.

I never understood how a game like tribes could hold hundreds of people in a single "zone" but today's games can only do like 150 before things go to crap...did we forget how to set up good networking or something.  I know today's games send aLOT more information than let's say tribes, but shouldn't the networking technology grow too?

Heck DAoC used to have 500 v 500 v 500 in the frontiers at it's prime....then the server would crash or people would start dropping like flies lol.  I got a pic on my old computer of over 500 midgard in a keep and all over the walls, defending it from tree huggers....I miss Relic Raids!

Originally posted by Skuz

This looks to be much more than a plain server merge because actual population caps are set to rise by a large degree, the existing servers had a stupidly low population cap & contributed to the population issues by forcing the spread over so many different shards.

I frankly don't give a toss for the naysayers becasue this will be good for the game even if it causes a few technical hiccups along the way, servers need a "critical mass" of players to enable warzones & flashpoints across the level spread to actually be feasible & lower wait times.

So, I see this as a popsitive move & hope it is implemented sooner rather than later, it will help any future growth of the game.

Considering sales drop every week, there is no reasonable projection for growth of the game.   At the current rate of churn (15%), and IF the sales remain at 10K a week (not likely), the population will stablize at under 250K  (227K) with in 48 months.

If they keep sales the same and cut the churn-rate by a third (which is highly doubtful, check the XFire thead and the rapidly decreasing player log-ins) and get it to 10%, they'll stablize at under 400K (366K).

But since sales continously decrease...   And churn, if XFire continues to be a good predictor of future churn  (and there is no reason to believe it won't)...   I just don't see anything bright in SWTOR's future.     Every single independent trend - sales, server-status, player-log-ins is harshly negative and, despite using different measurements, have pretty close to the same trends..

Originally posted by Warjin

If they can pull this off my hats off to Bioware, they just saved Swtor in one patch.

 Really?!?

So a mega server suddenly fills the glaring holes in missing gameplay and adds depth to the weak amounts of what it current has?

That really is amazing!

Who would have thought that just having a larger server filled with more people could do something like make a bad crafting system into a good one!

Originally posted by letsxhat

Originally posted by Warjin

Originally posted by ozmono

If I am to believe what I have been reading lately than they would either need to merge their current servers or find alot more players to make use of this tech.

Swtor is spread to thin, if they can pull this off by adding 4 Mega Servers PvP,PvE,PR & PvP-PR using zone sharding  this will in fact make the game a different game all together, picture a server where every zone has 300 players on each zone with multiple shards holding another 300 players, holy crap this would be crazy fun.

If they can pull this off my hats off to Bioware, they just saved Swtor in one patch.

Honestly this would be pretty damn cool, atleast a good start at cool. The thing is with swtor, if they could pull something like this off,fix their reward systems,performance issues, they might be all right. Their graphics and animation are ahead of the curve.so it will give them time.

graphics and animation are ahead of the curve?

so the last game you played was on an Intellivision?

while that is a bit of an exaggeration i found the graphics to be a major disappointment

Originally posted by gatheris

Originally posted by letsxhat

Originally posted by Warjin

Originally posted by ozmono

If I am to believe what I have been reading lately than they would either need to merge their current servers or find alot more players to make use of this tech.

Swtor is spread to thin, if they can pull this off by adding 4 Mega Servers PvP,PvE,PR & PvP-PR using zone sharding  this will in fact make the game a different game all together, picture a server where every zone has 300 players on each zone with multiple shards holding another 300 players, holy crap this would be crazy fun.

If they can pull this off my hats off to Bioware, they just saved Swtor in one patch.

Honestly this would be pretty damn cool, atleast a good start at cool. The thing is with swtor, if they could pull something like this off,fix their reward systems,performance issues, they might be all right. Their graphics and animation are ahead of the curve.so it will give them time.

graphics and animation are ahead of the curve?

 

so the last game you played was on an Intellivision?

 

while that is a bit of an exaggeration i found the graphics to be a major disappointment

 

the graphics are decent - ahead of most mmos today as they should be - and they look slightly better than GW2 did in the beta weekend. But their animations and excellent.. on par with WoW.

Originally posted by Warjin

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/05/23/the-old-republics-daniel-erickson-talks-legacy-system-update-group-finder-and-adaptive-gear/

 

 

PCG: Will they be cross-server at launch? Is that planned for the future?

DE: They will not be cross-server as we are coming up on a huge move to servers with massively higher population caps than we have today.

Well i hope for the sake of the players that if they do add single shard tech to the game they give the players the ability to shift to each other's shard or at least make it happen instantly after grouping because there's nothing more annoying then a game that has this feature that doesn't allow the players to actually meet up. Been through that hundreds of times.

It's officially been debunked at the MCM Expo in London http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/b/319398572 Daniel Erikson said it wrong.

I seem to remember about a year ago at this time, SOE tried the same spin and BS with their failure of DCUO as a P2P title.

That game was straight up not good enough for people to pay for, so they quit in droves. Then, some few months later, they come up with the same magical scheme to "create mega servers" and then everything would be great?

Nope.

Population continued to dive and it went F2P in less than a year.

The problem with DCUO, like TOR was the game play. It was shallow, one-dimensional, and once you leveled up, there was nothing else to do or reason to play.

Sound familiar?

Originally posted by Kabaal

It's officially been debunked at the MCM Expo in London http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/b/319398572 Daniel Erikson said it wrong.

You have to check the official Q&A on the swtor website. There it's correctly explained what they gonna do.

They basically gonna put up new super servers (aka most likely just servers with much better hardware, so they can increase the population caps) where everyone can migrate to.

Originally posted by Burntvet

I seem to remember about a year ago at this time, SOE tried the same spin and BS with their failure of DCUO as a P2P title.

That game was straight up not good enough for people to pay for, so they quit in droves. Then, some few months later, they come up with the same magical scheme to "create mega servers" and then everything would be great?

Nope.

Population continued to dive and it went F2P in less than a year.

 

The problem with DCUO, like TOR was the game play. It was shallow, one-dimensional, and once you leveled up, there was nothing else to do or reason to play.

Sound familiar?

 

 

yeah it sounds like 99% of every MMO on the market.

Originally posted by Chrisbox

Agreed, if they can do this it will save the game.

It has everything to do with game design as to why people are leaving in hordes. It won't save anything but good attempt on their part.

Originally posted by Mephster

Originally posted by Chrisbox

Agreed, if they can do this it will save the game.

It has everything to do with game design as to why people are leaving in hordes. It won't save anything but good attempt on their part.

2nd most played P2P mmo in the west.... it will be fine.. if its still standing after GW2 launches than it will be here a long time.

Under any other name this is just server merger's.  The hero engine cannot handle more than a few people in the same zone let alone 1000s on a mega server.

Originally posted by Wicoa

Under any other name this is just server merger's.  The hero engine cannot handle more than a few people in the same zone let alone 1000s on a mega server.

Nor can the cryengine but AIon pulled it off,  nor can the unreal engine but DCUO pulled it off.

Think of a game engine in the same manner as a car engine.

Give a stock Ford Focus engine to me and it would remain a stock engine give it to the Focus rally team and it becomes a 400BHP+ monster with the only thing original of it being the block.