The thing is, that we’re talking about clusters of servers with different tasks.
1 Problem: “Login/Authentication Server” → bottleneck to get into the game, because this “server” is responsible to handle a whole region e.g. Login for EU
2. Problem: “Market/Trade Server” → again bottleneck because the store and marketplace is EU wide
3. Problem: “Matchmaking/Raid/Dungeon Server” → you are able to play with people from other servers, next bottleneck because…
The “Game Server” itself is fine, the problems occur always when a whole region wants to do something together, because it is basically a DDoS attack.
Or simply: to many people in one region sometimes all want/need to use the same resources. Thus they have to wait in line.
And as explained in the game news: the only possible solution is a sperate region (like in the US) and thus trying to avoid the bottlenecks.
It just doesn’t help to simply get “more servers”, because there are technical limitations for the scalability.
You’re right. And yes, those statistics are on spot, but depends on what kind of free to play games it refers to. Lost Ark is a different breed among the free to play games in the sense that it has no real paywall and the pay to win elements are not so much in your face as in other free to play games. This game is made for both casual and hardcore players, and because PvP is equalized, competition is not that oppressive. You don’t get that urge to get strong quickly so that you can cope with your peers. You can play at your own pace, and due to the large amount of content this game offers, you can do a lot of things and never really get bored.
You’re right about the server dilemma. Having a lot of servers at the beginning makes the player base happy, but they can quickly become a liability when the player base dwindles. However, that is mostly the case with new MMOs that have little to no end game content. This one has a lot of that. And it has a lot of content that is not yet added in the NA/EU game version.
I understand that this game’s infrastructure does not allow a server transfer at the moment. If this were to be implemented it would be a medium term if not long term project. It is a necessary feature though, so they should not abandon it after they stabilize the current situation. Flexibility never bites.
I’m not into Server architecture but im a customer who pay for a service even in a free to play game - always remember if something is free of charge, you are the product. Everyone deserves a second chance. First one was new world, the second one this. I’m not satisfied with the service so i am moving on.
What do you all expect from a company that literally blew up GPUs because they didn’t have a clue as to what they were doing. Anything Amazon touches is garbage because to them it’s all about money and not quality. And you all will continue to play, and pay them and they will continue to produce a useless product. Funny how this game has been out in other areas for years and they still found a way to screw things up.
Do you think amazon like, grew developers from a plot in the ground or manifested them out of thin air?
There’s nothing to indicate the base product won’t provide people enjoyment, potentially for years. The bones of the game are phenomenal. If every MMO was judged by it’s first few weeks of launch no MMO would around today.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that releasing a game globally to a market 20-30x the size of the one it’s currently operating in could have issues.
Korea’s population: ~50 million
Population of Europe, NA, and SA: ~1.25 billion
Scale up the launch of anything to that size and you have a mighty job on your hands.
Also, so what if AGS messed stuff up? All companies are evil. That doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to abandons something you might otherwise enjoy for some principled stance that you probably don’t even really hold.
But the servers are operated by them, the same way they were able to open 6 additional servers AFTER people started getting 30k+ queues they could’ve opened those same servers just by looking at player metrics fro mthe 3 day founder pre-launch when we were already sitting in queue forthe more well known english speaking servers.
On top of that a lot of queue times would have been reduced if we had dedicated language tagged servers so communities dont get tangled up and people don’t just try and flood the 2-3 reputable english speaking servers.
The developers, no. Everyone at a management tier or above was plucked from a pool of chad investment bankers to make bank.
Its also not about the mess up. Its about how the handle it, no refunds, no server transfers (yeah they blame SG but that aint my problem), new region with no data cloned, lack of information in responses (CM’s respond but never any actual info).
Even with the bad planning around launch, the decisions after go completely against what this forum are saying. They have zero idea what they are doing, im sure there only mandate is to make as much money as possible. The rest doesn’t matter.
So since you chose to ignore it you I assume you don’t think releasing a game for a market 30x the size of the one it’s designed for could lead to any issues?
If you’re an IT BA for 15 years, you should have the solution that their own technicians haven’t thought about. Contact them immediately and save us all.
I do, but that’s called planning, and as you chose to ignore the part where I said “its not about the mess up, its about how they handle it”.
If they messed up, and then said:
hey guys, we messed up. If you want a refund please contact us here: … Were implementing a new region and we have taken your feedback on board. We will be cloning the entire region so no-one loses their purchases and progress. They won’t stay in sync, but please choose which region to play on going forward. Unused accounts on the other region will be disabled after 1 month
See look i just solved the entire forums problem. Wasn’t so hard was it.
You didn’t wolve anything though, it’s easy to just make up solutions without having to deal with pesky logistics lmao.
I mean you are suggesting that amazon dont have the ability to clone an environment? Because that would suggest they are unable to back and restore too? Which would be quite a big problem. It would be a massive worry for me if amazon are unable to do this, rather than unwilling. a really huge worry.
My comment is based on my experience that every single server environment has had for the last 10-20 years. Im not saying its easy, im saying its possible. just amazon dont care enough to do it, they already have our money and everything else is irrelevant.
For 8 years I worked for one of the largest airlines on the planet as a Regional LAN admin. Once we were copying data from our backup tapes to a different medium and it was a massive problem and even with our full breadth of engineering staff and HP themselves sending in techs it was still a nightmare.
The idea that they could just “copy over” an “environment” is just laughably simplistic.
Cloning seems like an obvious and easy solution, but:
it’ll take a long(-er) maintenance period and people are already rioting because of the 3h frames in the morning (okay this would only be a small shitstorm)
after the cloning process, you’d have to decide, if you want to use region A or B and disable/delete the other one → what if you can’t coordinate this with all of your friends/guildmates and end up in different regions (again shitstorm)
many accounts are linked to digital purchases done through Steam, that can’t easily by duplicated I guess. Just imagine it would look like a key you want to redeem and Steams says “already in use”. That’s exactly what would happen, by cloning the servers. I suspect that’s also one of the facts why they can’t easily clone all the founders packs. Maybe if one account is deleted and the other one is then persistent (by choosing region A or B) this could be done, but everything would’ need to be in sync with Steam to avoid duplication…this might even have fiscal implications and so on
because of all the “sync issues”, I believe it is not possible to run just clone and run both regions at the same time with exactly the same accounts. You’d have to implement a mechanism to let the players decide upfront, which region the want to use, then clean up the region servers, then start the servers (and fingers crossed, everything goes well)
…I guess there is a whole lot more to consider
In general your solutions sounds great, but if you’re think about it, it sadly gets more and more difficult.
Your right, the IT systems of an airline clearly match that of amazon, or for that matter, any software house worth their money. Obviously, an airline put a lot of resources into their IT… i mean just take a look at their websites… its really marvellous stuff.
I’m done with this conversation, i dont care for your opinion on the matter, your experience clearly shows your know what you are talking about. Amazon have handled this poorly, especially in the aftermath. I dont know what else there is to discuss.
Agree, but I mean, its already terrible, its only going to get worse.
True, but at least people have the option and dont lose anything. The first week might take a little time for people to settle. After that it should iron itself out.
Yes, but i doubt it would re-redeem from steam, it should already be available in inventories. If it does, that would be strange but a valid concern. Should be possible to iron out from AGS though.
Trading of items on the region not used. EUW person trades EUC person, and then they do visa versa on the other region. Also potential for AH problems with people selling cheap. However, these can also be worked out and resolved.
I’m not saying it free from problems but the alternative is everyone loses everything, including what they paid for.
