Pop cap

[Lithera]

The cap is likely only reachable during the Odin and Behemoth FATEs so what would be the point of channels? You want SE to waste time and money for something that will only be used for 30 min stretched a handful of times per week. Some servers probably won't even see the cap. I am curious about teleport fees and logging in though. In FFXI the cap was only ever seen in Beseiged which was technically an instance so logging in in al Zhabi just kicked you to Whitegate.

[Ramzi]

Not sure if someone has mentioned yet, but why not at least make Behemoth and Odin spawn in their OWN zone rather than MD and Coerthas? At least then the regular people who are not there for FATE will not be interrupted by intense lag and zone restrictions. It's just silly to have unique rare fates spawn in already populated zones. It would not solve the problem of too many people rushing to fight them, but it would at least aleviate some of the stress of having harvesters, questers, and people looking for dungeon groups around.

[Rivienne]

I think a large part of this thread is a mistaken belief that channels are easy, and thus the correct fix. Note: they aren't. They are an additional infrastructure complexity, even if the system was built from the ground up with them in mind. Just because something looks easy to the user, doesn't mean it is to develop or support. Similarly just because something looks complex to the user, doesn't mean it is.

Some thoughts on the various possible arguments:

1) SE should have had some form of solution from day one: valid point.
2) SE should have added channels in the hot fix: not valid. (or even realistically possible. no one would release something of that magnitude in a hot fix.)
3) SE should have emphasized channel development over other types of infrastructure and content development before release: I am sure I know how well that would go over here.
4) SE should stop development now on other improvements and content for indeterminate amount of time to develop this right now (if they aren't already working on it): same as above. No one wants that.

So should they have had some form of solution in place at launch of 2.0? Yes, but they didn't, moving on..... Should they have implemented channels between 1.0 and 2.0: maybe yes maybe no, I would lean towards no. The type of overhaul they did to the infrastructure was a massive undertaking, and adding this on top would have added months of additional time for development and testing, when clearly they already were months behind on release (see CT).

Further based on the launch, it was clear they never anticipated this volume, so it never would have occurred to them 2 years ago to prioritize this type of design. Should they implement it now/in the future? I honestly don't know. It is an interesting question. Part of it is going to depend on future growth and long term sustainability. Will this be a long term problem? Or is it a problem now only because of launch spike? I don't know the answer. I don't know if the development team has any statistics to support such a clear cut answer either. So then it becomes "do we risk it on the assumption we will need such a system long term, or do we instead focus on other things such as DX11 client, overall engine improvements, and general new infrastructure/content like pvp?". My guess is unless they have strong evidence to support this being a long term problem, they won't prioritize it over other types of issues.

Also regarding population density in given areas: I have never seen even close to 500 people in Coerthas at a time, worst I have ever seen is maybe 300. Unless your world is actually seeing that kind of load already 500, or worse, you aren't going to see this issue anywhere except the big FATES where people drop whatever they are doing and all rush in, to watch or join in.

[Tooth]

What's a main city?

[VitaminMT]

I'd still like to hear of someone actually being afflicted by the population cap, and less of this random theorycrafting.

[MachammondtheXXXII]

I'd still like to hear of someone actually being afflicted by the population cap, and less of this random theorycrafting.

lol, this so much. People act like the zone cap is 20 or something, when it should be at least 500 or more.

So many rustled jimmies here, calm down folks

<^.^>

[TheRac25]

SE needs to send a couple of their "server team" to take some software preformance engineering classes, oh and stop using python

[Rivienne]

SE needs to send a couple of their "server team" to take some software preformance engineering classes, oh and stop using python

Python? Is there confirmation they are using python for server code? I find that rather hard to believe......

[TheRac25]

Python? Is there confirmation they are using python for server code? I find that rather hard to believe......

its the only thing i know of that runs so slow besides poor coding, oh wait

[Sadebreth]

Seems to be the way SE fixes anything. "Our servers can't handle the load. Lock them out." "Mobs are disappearing with too many people in the zone. Lock them out." They can't implement zone instances right now because they put bare minimum in place to handle the dungeon instances. Way to look toward the future. Seems they only want the bare minimum players to be able to play their game.