@Devs: Please allow us to travel at will between servers.

[Pseudopsia]

You appear to have some extensive knowledge of how games like this are built. I guess i have no choice but to concede to your wisdom. Maybe there is a big difference between creating an MMO and running a server system for a local school district that makes MMO's much simpler.

Trust me he doesn't have extensive knowledge. Try to get him to talk about the technical details and he will make mistakes. One thing I noticed when he goes into details some of his ideas don't scale. Also I noticed he just keeps arguing till you give up or the moderator locks the forum.

@Abriael what are your qualifications?

I'm a computer scientist who has 15 years of work experience. Right now I'm mainly focused on developing SOAP and REST web services integrating them with IBM's DataPower appliance. Is there a big difference? of course there is. However, this doesn't invalidate my extensive knowledge of how databases, networks and computers work.

[Abriael]

@Abriael what are your qualifications?

While I really dislike comparing resumes on the internets, have at it. Feel free to disbelieve any or all of it.

I've been a game writer and editor (on print and on web) for 16 years, and have between daily and weekly direct access to people that work on actual MMORPGs (of all sizes and scopes) and other online games, both for official interviews and simple questions, including the developers of the game that already implemented this system and those that are currently developing similar systems. My profession allowed me to follow the evolution of MMORPGs closely and pretty much from inside sources since Everquest, including the technological aspects and advancements.

I'm quite sure their experience (that I'm doing my best to relay) is a tad more pertinent than that of people that never saw a MMORPG server in their life.

I won't be able to go extremely deep in detail on how some things work (nor I try beyond simple theory), even because most of my contacts often cannot go in extremely deep detail on what's often trade secret, but you can be sure as hell that if I tell you that something is possible/doable/not overly costly/won't impact performance sensibly or similarily generic statements, it's true, because that information doesn't originate from me, but comes from someone (or more than one) that actually did it and/or is doing it in exactly the same field of application.

Besides that I also built and operated my fair share of servers and worked a lot with APIs for my own purposes, but that's not professional experience, so I'm using it just as reference.

I don't claim to be personally infallible (I'm so not), but I do know I can trust my sources.

[Pseudopsia]

I've been a game writer (on print and on web) for 16 years, and have between daily to weekly direct access to people that work on actual MMORPGs (of all sizes and scopes) and other online games, both for official interviews and simple questions, including the developers of the game that already implemented this system. My profession allowed me to follow the evolution of MMORPGs closely and pretty much from the "inside" since Everquest, including the technological aspect.

I'm quite sure their experience (that I'm doing the best to relay) is a tad more pertinent than that of people that never saw a MMORPG server in their life.

Ya a writer sounds right... you sure do write a lot.

You should link and quote from your and others articles and interviews rather than trying to go into technical details themselves.

I do like your idea. however still based on my experience at the end of an alpha it is a little late to ask SE to implement. And I'll add it may be very difficult to implement later on if the current design doesn't allow for it. Who knows, maybe SE did a very good design to to be able to implemented it later.

Personally I'm skeptical. I worked with good and bad designers with limited budgets. Sometimes we have to drop features to get it out the door. My friend experienced projects where they keep trying to add features, and a lot of the time these projects fail.

[Abriael]

You should link and quote from your and others articles and interviews rather than trying to go into technical details themselves.

Most of the info I'm talking about here doesn't come directly from interviews, but from personal conversation. This kind of details is normally not included in interviews, as the number of questions is often limited, and I have to go with more "juicy" stuff than server tech (which can be juicy, and a lot of devs *love* to ramble about it, but only to a very specific audience).

I do like your idea. however still based on my experience at the end of an alpha it is a little late to ask SE to implement. And I'll add it may be very difficult to implement later on if the current design doesn't allow for it. Who knows, maybe SE did a very good design to to be able to implemented it later.

Personally I'm skeptical. I worked with good and bad designers with limited budgets. Sometimes we have to drop features to get it out the door. My friend experienced projects where they keep trying to add features, and a lot of the time these projects fail.

That's a respectable point of view. That's why I proposed the implementation of the feature. I didn't *demand* it, nor I asked for it in any specific timeframe (even if I believe that with the way the MMORPG market is going, the market itself will demand it if SE wants to stay abreast of the competition, but that's a different issue). I know the system is feasible and it can be made very efficient and I also know of developers successfully retrofitting it or similar systems into older MMORPGs that didn't originally have it.

I can tell you I didn't talk with many developers lately that *aren't* at the very least looking very seriously into this kind of solution. It's starting to be seen as a critical issue by the MMORPG development community at large (even because server separation is a big issue for developers as much as it is for players, especially with server merges being a very common and traumatic occurrence for a game's well being).

Other than that, I will leave specific considerations on feasibility on this game and cost assessments to Yoshi and his team. No one else here can do them.

[Aion]

When Im looking on V2 pdf documents, I saw one of the point stated as "Worldless Server Model", is it a mere for content finder(cross server instance), or a hint for server design that you are talking?

[Abriael]

When Im looking on V2 pdf documents, I saw one of the point stated as "Worldless Server Model", is it a mere for content finder(cross server instance), or a hint for server design that you are talking?

I totally forgot about that actually. I believe at some point Yoshida associated it with the content finder, but the wording definitely suggests that it could evolve into something wider.

[Aion]

upon my searching, I found this blog

http://inanage.com/tag/serverless/

I think its similar to what you stated.

quote from the writer:

Essentially, set up the servers like an ice-cube tray and as each server fills up, it spills over into the next server, and divide it all into game regions. One huge benefit of this would be to allow there to always be a steady population of people leveling in every zone for group questing, etc.

Example: if I went to Borean Tundra right now, there may be 1 person questing there on Auchindoun, and maybe 5 on Maeiv, and 50 on Tichondrius. Under this methodology, there would be 56, up until an arbitrary cut-off. And if the cut-off is 100, I would have it start transferring people to a second zone instance at around ~70 so the 101st guy isn’t off by himself. The key would be to make it subtle, with no load-screen or anything. With phasing technology it should not be a problem.

I think it is interesting

[Sakasa]

@Sakasa: You absolutely don't need to "drag" all your data from one server or another. The system can copy over only the essential data, depending on the available bandwidth. You don't necessarily need to be able to access your achievements or item storage in a server on which you're just a guest (mind you, in other games you can, it's just not necessary)

Mind you, you're massively exaggerating the size and scope of even the non essential data. Character data in a MMORPGs is compact enough that MMORPGs can afford having it fished externally via APIs whenever someone pleases (including FFXIV with the Lodestone). So temporarily copying it over to other servers is no problem.

But in the case where all that data is not transferred your actually not switching servers and your character is now static entity because it would have to restrict you from accessing the data of server unless your going to have direct address to data or a call function. Both of which have innate and specific issues with data transfer as well as processing that would be addressed in the design.

And on the data exaggeration I'm not. Your just assuming I am considering the finite number of me and you and every poster in this thread or that you have seen on this forum. I am not the data I am referring to is all of it as if everyone that has ever played is playing and will play accessed the same system function at the same time because the system has to allow for it or it is flawed system. We can't account for the nth number of players but the system should be able to expand to fit that. A Server structure like single contained server clusters (virtual or otherwise) wouldn't support that because optimizing would be focused on pulling data from within itself as the world characters are all easily accessible in its secure bubble which is why a new server would be needed when optimal ranges of players are reached. Connecting those and not having a disconnection between the character and world would not only be inefficient but also cause issues with adding more space for players (More so with region specific servers)

And don't get me wrong I am not specifically against it but it making to alpha means the proof of concept has passed so the schedules set for any modern system design methodology they are using the hardware setup was the first nailed down to get their engine, memory requires, and processing speeds estimated to allow start designing. MMOs are a different beast then many other projects but the hardware should never constructed independently of the software just like software should be constructed independently of a design (Both of which contributed to early 1.0 and the misuse of the crystal engine for an mmo). The idea is not bad or even unlikely just the system used for cross server play in an instance is significantly smaller so the mimicked environment each server is presenting is no different then a monster hunter lobby where things that effect people on your server location (Damage, hit, miss, status effects, combos) or more accurately displayed then what you would see from those from other server but it does not mean they aren't doing and seeing the exact same thing from your side. For those that didnt play Monster hunter the position of player hit and damage of both mobs and your character were client side. Mob position were server side so you would get ghost steps or mobs attacking people no there on your screen. To expand that to a entire world even if it is sectioned off would require a different network design to sustain its high quailty.

[KoujiGeki]

The only problem with this Any content they make thats not Instances based would always be so go damn crowded, and nms would be next to impossible to get.

[Abriael]

@Sakasa: you're overcomplicating the problem massively, while as a matter of fact, you know absolutely nothing abaut the game's server tech and about what it can or camnnot support.

Here are a few facts for you:

1: other developers managed it wit no hitch on games that are visibly more data intensive that ffxiv will ever be.
2: other developers, like ccp, managed to store all the characters created by their userbase over 9 years on the same server cluster, an that system doesn't have a single problem, despite the fact that their characer data is immensely more complex than ffxiv's and is constantly fished out by a metric ton of external appli ations via API.
3: other devlopers are succesfully retrofitting this system or similar ones intheir older games, despite the fact that their server tech was not built for it.

ffxiv's dev team is made by pretty competent people. So why don't you leave the feasibility assessments to them, since they have the competence and all the necessary info, instead of cooking up makeshift ones based on thin air?

It obviously is possible, whether it's cost effective or compatible with their plans and tech it's for Yoshida and his team to assess and decide.

as I said before about cost assessments, I'm rather sure that they don't need help from the forums on that.