Nezekan is Full

[soni]

It is all rather brick wall-ish in here isn't it?
You don't seem to understand that while queues aren't a good thing, they are the best alternative to an unplayable game for everyone.

No queue = struggling hardware = unplayable for everyone.
Queue = striking a balance = playable for everyone, else in queue.

It may not be ideal, but it is better than nobody playing comfortably at all.
Think of the bigger picture, not just what you want.
You say you want to play - The queue is actually helping this.

On the issue of more servers.. The balance between spreading a player base is a delicate one. I have played and witnessed countless games suffer launch hype, then 2 months later find themselves merging servers to balance the population.
You do not want this, it gets extremely boring when there is nobody around to do anything with. The population will naturally level out after such a successful launch, this is when you want the balancing to occur, not now.

Can we stop rehashing the same argument over and over and over yet?

[nudge]

That seems all well and good, but my understanding of Aion would be that it's channel/instance set up would mean that they can run more or less hardware on a particular server depending on load. Obviously it was very limited in its scope for this.

[planemas]

That seems all well and good, but my understanding of Aion would be that it's channel/instance set up would mean that they can run more or less hardware on a particular server depending on load. Obviously it was very limited in its scope for this.

I have no authority on the subject, but I think the channels feature is designed to reduce PC stress (graphical stress from too many players onscreen), and to alleviate mob and resource insufficiency (change channel, the mob hasn't been killed yet!).

could be stuck with your client querying the server every 5-10 seconds, if there's a free spot you get in

Best suggestion so far =P

[nudge]

I just recall a comment about them adding more channels for the release. Can't find it now though. Oh well.

[kargar]

ya they added more because 100 people trying to kill 5 of a mob when only 20 spawn is bad

[nudge]

ya they added more because 100 people trying to kill 5 of a mob when only 20 spawn is bad

I should stop even watching this thread...

They added more, meaning they can just add more hardware to fit more channels/more people in?

[kargar]

they didnt add more hardware they added more mini severs into the game they still run off the one sever

[Mekon]

I just recall a comment about them adding more channels for the release. Can't find it now though. Oh well.

You're right - they did add more channels on the same server instance... to spread the server population out into clones of the same area, to reduce spawn competition (less people fighting over the same spawns). Once everyone isn't clustered in the same starter areas, they can reduce the number of channels in those areas to ensure you can find groups easier.

A number of people have explained the reason channels were implemented, are you still not getting it?

[soni]

The open PvP areas have no channels, and this is where a majority of people will always be.
So just adding more channels to the places that have channels will not help, as the people will still end up in the same "single channel" open area, which gets us back to point 1: performance.

It is no good dividing one area down from 10 channels to 100 channels, only to have people move into a single channel when they want to play the most popular/important part of the game, open PvP and the abyss.

[nudge]

I just recall a comment about them adding more channels for the release. Can't find it now though. Oh well.

You're right - they did add more channels on the same server instance... to spread the server population out into clones of the same area, to reduce spawn competition (less people fighting over the same spawns). Once everyone isn't clustered in the same starter areas, they can reduce the number of channels in those areas to ensure you can find groups easier.

A number of people have explained the reason channels were implemented, are you still not getting it?

I get that, but is it hardware they are adding to do this? What limitation is stopping them from adding more to raise the population level of the server? The population of channels 1, 2 and 3 where full on release. Pre-release my understanding was that they could just add more channels and that queue's would be not exist.

It seems though that the channels are just a software implementation. Designed to spread out a population that is limited by the server anyway. I am merely disappointed at its lack of scope.

[Mekon]

I get that, but is it hardware they are adding to do this?

Nope. That would be massive overkill - deploying hardware is expensive, having hardware sitting there unused is a massive waste of money. Adding more servers as needed is a much more practical way of scaling based on users.

The only way your idea would really work is if there was one massive cluster and only one "server" (such as the way EvE works), delegating areas to various nodes of the cluster. That said, WoW does have multiple processes per game server, corresponding to the different landmasses (and instance servers), but it's not as granular.

It seems though that the channels are just a software implementation. Designed to spread out a population that is limited by the server anyway.

Correct. It's a solution to PvE constraints (and to a lesser extent client performance), not server constraints.