NCSOFT & Server Population Management

[bonflowers24]

The fact that they're separating the NA/EU servers isn't that surprising to me, and it doesn't bother me too completely because it seems to be the way that NCsoft runs their company. The way I see it is this, and this is probably because I've worked for large retail and corporate companies before. But they have their world head office in Korea, but Korea designates a head office for Europe, and a different head office for NA, possibly even country head offices. Each sect of the company has a president, be it the president of NCsoft for NA, EU, and K.

When I used to work in retail, even the department managers in the store were told to run their individual departments "like their own store". I think this is a similar idea to what NCsoft is doing, so keeping that in mind, since they have their companies separated that way, it's not surprising that they would govern the servers that way as well. It's unfortunate, because I too have friends from all over the world that I would like to play with.

I also wanted to point out a small fact that Guild Wars was developed by ArenaNet, who was bought by NCsoft. So, while NCsoft has their name on the Guild Wars title, they didn't actually develop it.

I really hope they make it easy for NA and EU players to play together.

[Calindor]

Me too, L2 has servers specifically for NA and Euro, however there are no restrictions on what you can join

Originally Posted by LethalGT

But euro's aren't restricted from going onto NA servers to play with there online friends, correct?

yeah thats right...but the way Aion is being played out it seems Euros will not be allowed to connect unless they order a game from north america...and who knows maybe they will go crazy and ban euro IP's from NA servers just like they ban asian IP's from L2 austin servers

[LethalGT]

Originally Posted by Calindor

Me too, L2 has servers specifically for NA and Euro, however there are no restrictions on what you can join





yeah thats right...but the way Aion is being played out it seems Euros will not be allowed to connect unless they order a game from north america...and who knows maybe they will go crazy and ban euro IP's from NA servers just like they ban asian IP's from L2 austin servers

Any foreign language user that doesn't even speak english should be IP banned from NA servers.

[MrDarkey]

Originally Posted by Ayase

I believe it's standard practice to create new servers only when needed, it's not in our interest to have any nearly-empty servers out there.

As for the channeling thing, I tried to explain it in another thread some time ago:

so youre saying, there will be channels in the newbie zone, but not the other ones?
for my sake id rather have the "city lag" L2 had, instead of the **** GW/AoC have whit difrent instances ...

[persepha]

Originally Posted by LethalGT

Any foreign language user that doesn't even speak english should be IP banned from NA servers.

Im an european (swe) and id never want to hear german, spanish, italian, greek, dutch and whatever language on the servers I play on either. So dont think its only the americans who feel that way, and no I dont speak swedish unless Im in a party with only swedes.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by MrDarkey

so youre saying, there will be channels in the newbie zone, but not the other ones?
for my sake id rather have the "city lag" L2 had, instead of the **** GW/AoC have whit difrent instances ...

No.

The may/will be channels in the first zone (perhaps the second one too) during launch because of the massive amount of people who are probably going to bombard the servers.

NCsoft doesn't care what kind of lag you like, and neither do I. They don't want their servers to die, and neither do I. Channels aren't going to kill you, GW was a great game and AoC...well I have no idea. Never touched it.

[Calindor]

Yeah the channels will only be in the starter areas, just like L2...they might have it restricted to say 25 people per channel, everytime one fills up a new one is created...once you leave the starting area and head out towards the nearest city, it will all become open world

Originally Posted by persepha

Im an european (swe) and id never want to hear german, spanish, italian, greek, dutch and whatever language on the servers I play on either. So dont think its only the americans who feel that way, and no I dont speak swedish unless Im in a party with only swedes.

exactly...you know i play on a L2 server thats probably 50% euro, 30% south america and 20% north america...they have a rule for only english in shouts, if you type a different language in a chat where other random people can hear it, you get a 60 minute chat ban, again will be a 24 hour chatban, etc...

The could just do something like that, have players petition GM's when someone breaks the rules. These are all minimal, easy to overcome reason you guys are suggesting servers should be region restricted.

[Jacarr]

Just for that Cal I'll have to spam German in guild chat!

[Calindor]

Don't worry, phent was shouting danish all day

[LethalGT]

I HATE being in L2 and everyone I see is brazilian portugese or greek. ONLY english on my server.

[Azza]

well i dont mind for channels at starting areas [get off my fckin mobs :@] lol

[buster]

Originally Posted by Calindor

Yeah the channels will only be in the starter areas, just like L2...

no channels in l2 m8, its one world for one server. no instances what so ever, not even antaras or frintezza.. etc.

[Calindor]

Originally Posted by buster

no channels in l2 m8, its one world for one server. no instances what so ever, not even antaras or frintezza.. etc.

I thought in one of the interlude expansions they added instanced starting areas for new servers ie: franz/luna

[eidolonnight]

Originally Posted by Calindor

wtf...the system in guild wars cant even be compared or used, its not a mmorpg

I agree. I loved guild wars (played from launch until NightFall), but it was a different game. One of the reasons I stopped playing is because the channels made the world seem disconnected.

"I'm standing right next to the banker."
"Me too."
"Where are you?"
"Where are you?"
...
...
"Oooooooh"

Changing channels took extra load time and it was just plain inconvenient. I accepted it because GW is free, but such a thing in Aion would be a deal breaker for me. An mmorpg needs a single continuous world without a a bunch of "alternate identical universes."

As far as having this in only the starting areas, I disagree. To maintain realism these places should be crowded. The logic behind making these places instances/channeled scares me because it can easily be applied to other areas as well. It's lke saying that New York City is too crowded so we should limit who can go to NYC. Part of a city's allure is the crowd. Taking that away takes away part of what a city is. As far as lag is concerned, well it mostly affects PCs that aren't able to handle all the action. Either upgrade or get used to it. It's kinda like driving in a major city. You're going to experience a lot of stop-and-go unless maybe you've got a police car with sirens.

[Solaire]

I'm actually really happy with the rumor/announcement of possible channels during starting areas. I really don't want to fight every other player in my region for mobs. That was actually something that made me love GW's instanced world. I refused to roll a blood elf in WoW the first day, because I didn't want to fight people. (And, my god, should've seen the lag!) I refuse to go to new places the first day of launch, too. Learned my lesson with the opening of the AQ gates back in the day. :P Half an hour to get off a wyvern, getting kicked multiple times in the process, was disgusting. lol! I waited a couple days before going to hellfire, I waited the same amount before going to the isle. I HATE lag.

And it's not even that my computer is bad. The one I'm on is my new baby; it's a brand new rig, I run everything on max graphics, get a steady 60 fps in any environment, and have very low (100-200) latency. But when the servers are stressing due to everybody being in one area at a time, it doesn't matter what you're playing on, you're going to lag like you've never lagged before. xD

So yes, I vote for newbie starting zone channels, for at least the first month or two of the game's release. And I vote for channels of new areas for each expansion. If anybody is on a bad enough computer they're actually crying about a load screen for a different channel selection... start mowing lawns or something, and buy a new computer. :P It's an awesome hassle free way of not having thousands of people in one area at a time so no one can even move. lol