Solution for the excessive european serverload and que times

[Polarbear7]

Edit: Kudos to Piercy who apparently came up with the same idea some hours early and also got a comment by CM Seawolf

Regarding the new server region "EU West"

While deploying the new server region “Eu West” is a step in the right direction and will enable more players to enjoy the game, it most certainly won’t decrease the player numbers on the biggest servers to a reasonable amount. By reasonable amount I don’t mean that there won’t be any que times during prime time, but that you have to wait less than an hour (currently you can expect to wait for more than 4h30 if you que up at 16:00 on Asta).

Reasons why the new server region won’t drastically improve the situation

Biggest server load and que times are on the “fouderspack” servers. While the new server region will grant some compensation for moving, the majority who claimed their packs will lose money and are therefore very likely to stay in EU Central, leading to no major improvements.

The Solution - Launching EU West with a mirror image
In simple words: Create an identical copy of the current servers

While I do not know anything about the specific setups on the Lost Ark servers, beeing able to create a copy or load a older version of their server images should definitely be a thing (every sane company implements a way to create and load a back up of their servers in case some unpredictable events lead to data loss). So on a technical level it should be possible to build up the new server region and deploy said copy before launching the servers to the players.

Why is it the solution?

With no loss in progress or in money, there is no reason for players to stay on overloaded servers with long que times. The player base distribution will average out between the two server regions and secure population on both regions in the long term.
From an economical point the duplication should not have any impact, since the server are stated to be sepertaed from each other and therefore ressources cannot be exploited.
To prevent servers from running out of character slots, it could be considered to delete characters or accounts which have been inactive for ‘x’ months after the migration.

If I missed some important reason why you would not be satisfied with this solution, please leave a comment, and we might work this out

[Mozzle]

Little incentive to move to new EU west region when created

Just clone the current region , into another eu region then let people pick. They can keep all their stuff and communicate with friends to choose which to play on. Sure their char will exist on two regions but so what. Least people can keep their stuff and might bring queues down

I guess you read that and thought you will take the credit?:0 since the above had CM response?

[Polarbear7]

Honestly I didn’t read that post, but if someone already came up with that idea and it reaches the people who are in charge, that is everything I hope for.

[Piercy]

I just wanna add, it wasn’t my idea. I saw it from someone else (i cant remember who, a few different people), and saw an opportunity to put it to a CM.

Personally I think a clone is the only option based on the information we have.

1. AGS have said they have reached a hard limit regarding capacity. Something about the game, means they can’t increase capacity any further. AGS have said they are working with smilegate to fix this and come up with solutions

2. AGS have said that character transfers are not available, without smilegate development.

Now, even if we assume smilegate get right on this and start work right away. I can’t imagine either of the two things above being particularly easy, else they would have done it by now for the eastern release.

So, if we can’t do either of those things, the next obvious thing is a new region, like AGS have already said. The problem with their announcement is that there is literally 0 incentive (beyond queue times) to move to this new region. I’ll use myself as an example:

I am a level 50, sorc. I spent many hours getting there. I purchased founders (even though i only played 1 day before F2P). I purchased a mount. I’ve been gearing up, and enjoying the game with my friend.

So what, no I am supposed to up and leave? Leave behind my founders bonuses, leave behind my mount, leave all progress to be able to play the game? In no world is this acceptable. Game isn’t even released a week and I already lose money i’ve spent? Its an appalling joke from AGS,. I can only hope it was an ill thought out solution, because they were stressed and needed something fast.

Cloning the server solves all of the above problems. The only problem I cannot say if it will solve is server capacity and queues. I don’t know how over populated the game is… is it 2x, 3x or maybe even 4x over populated?

If its somewhere between 1x and 2x, a new cloned region will work, provided people distribute reasonably well. If its 3x or 4x, an exact clone of current region might not be enough.

I also, can’t comment on how technically possible cloning is. However, in every business i’ve worked in as a software developer. We have always been able to clone an environment into another one. Sometimes it takes a little time, but its possible. Now, im not saying they can 100% do this, just that I would be surprised if there isn’t a way for them to do this.