FFXIV ARR is 3 this year, Server upgrades?

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Originally Posted by Colorful

Somehow I doubt their server guys are the same people from the various development teams on FFXIV.

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Well, no. But both are paid from the same wallet, right? Or else someone from the development team *coughYoshicough* would need to go to the people holding said wallet and go, "can we pretty please have some more money? it's an investment, really," and the stingy people holding said wallet (because let's face it, they're always stingy) would go, "um. we'll consider it." Because... it's not exactly a cheap thing to replace servers. Especially since, for inscrutable reasons, companies get charged more for services and products like that than a non-corporate person would. At least they are where I live.

WoW ran on the same server blades for about ... 7 years I think (the original servers that is). Then they finally upgraded them (Cata, maybe) and then turned around and auctioned the specific server blades off. My home server (Doomhammer) went for over $100,000.

Server blades don't need replacing like a home computer. Most reason to upgrade a home computer is because of performance with newer software. When it comes to servers, they generally work the same, especially since SE controls the software on them. The major need to upgrade will come when one dies off, or the community gets so large they need newer servers. I don't see this community needing new servers any time soon. Most of the bandwidth issues are due to the code (ie. the 3 second turn around from server to client), or the inventory issue where they feel the need to constantly update our inventory, limiting the space due to constant communication.

As a side note, the average PC costs around $500 - $700 depending on the power you need. Can go to $1,000 if you want to postpone needing to upgrade for several years.

Depending on the capacity and power a server blade needs, it goes from $1000 - $10000 or more sometimes. I doubt FFXIV runs on $1,000 blades, so I'd guess around $3,000 - $5,000 per server.

Disclaimer: This is all assuming they use blades, and not racks, as I'm more used to blades.

In those 7 years, how many times did WoW developers say they can't add something because of server limitations? That's why people feel there is a need to upgrade because the ffxiv team keeps saying they can't do stuff because of server limitations.

Lols. Better models is clientsided. It's not a limitation its just that. You already see how they are lazy with models due to lack of time. They could make more complex models aswell and reduce their complexity and have option so we can choose between the more detailed and less detailed version but they won't.


As op said above. Hardware nowdays isnt the issue but software in terms of server build.

As for client sided software is still a limitation as for older computers(especially in opengl before 3.2 due to no specificiations, anyway this game was written with dx9 api in mind). (its not like every computer has a good graphic card), but beliveme as for any 2012+ good desktop...... if you play your cards right when developing the game engine, you won't have a problem with perfomance for most things.


FFIX team limitations I suspect is because they are using a premade engine which itself has limitations which can only be expanded by the developer. (after googling, confirmed they are using Crystal Tools game engine). The people responsible for expanding the game engine are probably a different section from the ones responsible for creating the game.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

Don't forget, the whole reason they transitioned from 1.0 to 2.0 was because they already completely overhauled the server infrastructure and the client/server programming once. You think it's bad now, you didn't play 1.0 where a simple UI command took the server 5 seconds to respond because everything was done server side.

They've already done some hardware upgrades since 2.0 launched though. The EU data center basically got brand new hardware, and the old servers were (I imagine) re purposed back at the NA data center to help balance out the Primal/Aether loads. There have also been a few longer maintenances where they flat out said in the notes they were doing some hardware upgrades.

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one point concerning this, first when they did change the server for the 2.0 they was planning an exploitation at the same size than FF11, means maximum 1Million account, however since then.... we did come closeof the 5M that a huge difference. means the size of data that the server have to save and such are quite different of what it was planned at the start. and that what yoshida did talk most of the time when he was saying it was not possible to do stuff. because the load of data was too important or will have make the server crash.

then yes the server need to be changed and yes Yoshida do want to change them, for the one that didn't heard of it, it did talk while the live last august.

indeed, the change of server will not affect us right now, but will allows them to increase the number of residential area, the number of item per house and such or even bring new system that will recquire a lot of data transfer. in the end we will feel this change.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

In those 7 years, how many times did WoW developers say they can't add something because of server limitations? That's why people feel there is a need to upgrade because the ffxiv team keeps saying they can't do stuff because of server limitations.

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Blizzard doesn't tend to cite server limitations as a reason for not implementing a particular feature. I've played and followed WoW since Vanilla and can only recall data storage being brought up by the devs on one occasion when players were requesting additional Void Storage space (which we eventually got).

That's not to say that WoW has never really had server limitations, I'm sure they have, it's just that Yoshida tends to be a bit more candid about XIV's storage issues. Any server limitations that WoW may have had at one point or another seem to be gone at this point though, considering the past expansion added additional Void Storage, a guild bank-esque reagent tab to the standard bank and greatly increased stack sizes. WoW is also getting an account-wide transmog (glamour) log in the next expansion to automatically save item appearances for later use.

I really don't know if we need server upgrades at this time but it seems devs have some problems implementing some really necessary stuff and some highly requested content. They keep coming up with the excuse of "server limitations" "resource limitation" "memory limitations". PS3 is another limiting factor for this game but there are some cases which PS3 is really not the limiting factor. (more faces in character customization screen, inventory space etc). Don't get me wrong. Yoshi and his team did great job reviving a dead game and make it such a huge success but right now I feel we have many walls blocking devs from achieving further greatness. We really need extra inventory space and extra lots right now.
Too much housing content with only few ppl able to access it. What about the extra character customization options the community keep asking? Don't expect them o come out and reveal the server hardware is poor or that the PS3 is too weak and holds all the game back but its obvious we have some chains here holding the development back.
All I know is that over the last 2 years the dev team always comes up with the "limitations" excuses too much. More than any other game. it's clear we have some problems here although we may never know what exactly is causing this.

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Originally Posted by Alexftw

Lols. Better models is clientsided. It's not a limitation its just that. You already see how they are lazy with models due to lack of time. They could make more complex models aswell and reduce their complexity and have option so we can choose between the more detailed and less detailed version but they won't.

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I dont see the issue and why the current models are 'lazy'. They work perfectly as they are. You have fallen into the mindset that the original dev team had. You can;t develop an MMO like you do a shooter. MMOs put different loads on a system so you can't add every fancy feature to the game and expect it to run at a reasonable rate with so many people on the screen. Most people who play MMOs dont have a pair of titans so you have to make your game for that market. If you turn on the DX11 version you see it looks much better.

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Originally Posted by Alexftw

FFIX team limitations I suspect is because they are using a premade engine which itself has limitations which can only be expanded by the developer. (after googling, confirmed they are using Crystal Tools game engine). The people responsible for expanding the game engine are probably a different section from the ones responsible for creating the game.

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No, you confirmed that the original FF14 used the Crustal Tools engine. I believe that the current one uses a home-grown one and for an MMO engine it works very well.

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Originally Posted by Zofis

Blizzard doesn't tend to cite server limitations as a reason for not implementing a particular feature. I've played and followed WoW since Vanilla and can only recall data storage being brought up by the devs on one occasion when players were requesting additional Void Storage space (which we eventually got).

That's not to say that WoW has never really had server limitations, I'm sure they have, it's just that Yoshida tends to be a bit more candid about XIV's storage issues. Any server limitations that WoW may have had at one point or another seem to be gone at this point though, considering the past expansion added additional Void Storage, a guild bank-esque reagent tab to the standard bank and greatly increased stack sizes. WoW is also getting an account-wide transmog (glamour) log in the next expansion to automatically save item appearances for later use.

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I was really disappointed that no glamor wardrobe was being developed for FF14. One of the strengths of the game is it's fantastic artwork and with the relativly limited storage space - unless you pay extra on your sub - you can't keep the many different glamors in your inventory. Most MMOs now have some sort of wardrobe and the biggest will have one next expansion. The one that FF14 2.x is modelled upon.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

you could put off buying a new PC and within as little as 6 months the one you were looking at will be completely outclassed by something else at the same price.

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I'd just like to point out that this has never been true. I'd also say that three years is pretty fresh for game servers. They're not even at the end of their maintenance contracts most likely.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

With regard to gaming PCs, gamers might not upgrade their entire PC every other year, but I bet the switch their GPUs more often than their whole rig, given the influence the GPU has on performance.

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Every three years maybe for me. ヽ（´ー｀）┌

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Originally Posted by Jynx

It's not a totally foreign thing for MMOs to beef up their servers if required WoW has done it as have others if I'm not mistaken.

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I think it took WoW around 6-7 years to upgrade their first servers and hardware itself might have been slightly older than that, if I'm remembering my timelines right. They're still running their stuff on the 2010 bought servers.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

In those 7 years, how many times did WoW developers say they can't add something because of server limitations? That's why people feel there is a need to upgrade because the ffxiv team keeps saying they can't do stuff because of server limitations.

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I don't think they actually used that as an excuse even once.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

So with that 3 year mark advancing upon us, I wondered about server upgrades for FFXIV. With increasing network bandwidth and better server hardware, how many of the limitations we hear of might be overcome?

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Contrary to popular belief, but server upgrades are always happening. Hardware breaks down, get's replaced, sometimes even the whole setup gets replaced as well. That's all depends on the network architecture that they are using.

More or less what you are referring to is a re-write of the server code that runs the game, to take advantage of any new hardware updates that have been made along the way. :)

I could see that happening every once in a while, but I'm only guessing with no knowledge of the code base.