New Servers?

[Reyll]

They should offer free world transfers off certain excessively popular worlds; no problems on mine even with my ping since it's not bursting full of half the population of the entire game all in one place.

That would be relying on a lot of people to move off of one or two servers onto the others which hardly have any population in the first place when people want to play with their friends and see active people running around. It would just be another bandaid to the problem instead of fixing the problem itself. I'm honestly surprised that people are so complacent with SE and how much it seems they skirt by on stuff like upgrading their servers and not being able to add more inventory space until the 2nd expansion of a game. :\

[Reyll]

Honestly, they should just split Balmung and Greg into 2 servers each and move half of the split servers to Primal, then lock them to transfers for awhile. Splitting them would allow for them to add housing to both of the new servers, so people wouldnt lose those.

That would cause a riot if people got separated from their friends and they weren't able to transfer. I don't want to sound mean but that sounds like a terrible idea. Why not just face the fact that Balmung and Gilg are going to be the two dominant servers in population and spend resources to upgrade them as needed? For instance, in terms of housing, they could implement extra server capability to open up new housing wards as they fill up. In that case, server resources are only called upon when they are needed for high pop servers, none are wasted on extra empty wards and housing wards on lower pop servers stay the way that they are which requires no extra resources from SE.

[Belhi]

I believe the whole expanded inventory thing they talked about at Fanfest is part of a server upgrade.

[MisterLucie]

I'm honestly surprised that people are so complacent with SE and how much it seems they skirt by on stuff like upgrading their servers and not being able to add more inventory space until the 2nd expansion of a game. :\

It absolutely baffles me. As much as I hate to make comparisons, if in 2017 Blizzard was having 3-4 emergency maintenances per week because of constant server crashes the public would have their head. This service is seriously awful.

[Reyll]

It absolutely baffles me. As much as I hate to make comparisons, if in 2017 Blizzard was having 3-4 emergency maintenances per week because of constant server crashes the public would have their head. This service is seriously awful.

This is more or less what I was referring to. SE makes more than enough money to do what they need to do, but all I see are constant bandaids. Personally, I find it a bit sad that one of the major selling points for their next EXPANSION is increased inventory. That should honestly be part of a small quality of life patch with server upgrades that should have been done...a year ago? With the same subscription fees, there really isn't an excuse and watching nobody else speak out about it doesn't really raise my hopes up that it will ever match the same kinda' quality.

[Moonlite]

They should offer free world transfers off certain excessively popular worlds; no problems on mine even with my ping since it's not bursting full of half the population of the entire game all in one place.

They take a lot of money from people buying onto those servers. Someone tracks the data somewhere. They don't seem to care about the consequences as long as they can cash in. Anyone who argues this point will only have a leg to stand on when they lock those servers for real. Hell you don't even need pay transfer just login a few minutes after maintenance.

[Belhi]

It absolutely baffles me. As much as I hate to make comparisons, if in 2017 Blizzard was having 3-4 emergency maintenances per week because of constant server crashes the public would have their head. This service is seriously awful.

You realise this is only really an issue with one datacentre, not the entire server set up. Upgrading servers and maintaining the existing servers are two different things. Infact an upgrade offers more challenges since new hardware and software to accommodate it is more prone to bugs and issues and therefore at the inception generally less stable. That's why they said they probably won't role out the server upgrades with the launch of 4.0. The player numbers will already be putting strain on the server load and they want to ensure server stability.

This is more or less what I was referring to. SE makes more than enough money to do what they need to do, but all I see are constant bandaids. Personally, I find it a bit sad that one of the major selling points for their next EXPANSION is increased inventory. That should honestly be part of a small quality of life patch with server upgrades that should have been done...a year ago? With the same subscription fees, there really isn't an excuse and watching nobody else speak out about it doesn't really raise my hopes up that it will ever match the same kinda' quality.

WoW has a vastly bigger budget because it has a vastly bigger subscription base. WoW will also go for a year an a half without a content update except for cash shop items. Lets not pretend WoW doesn't nickel and dime less than SE. I might also add that FF14's inventory space is actually pretty competitive with WoW until Legion released and only because of the Wardrobe feature, a feature they worked on for like 3 and a half years from the time they first mentioned it.

Unstable servers are unacceptable but as I said above, stable servers and upgraded servers aren't necessarily the same thing. They are apparently spending $35 million on Stormblood, almost 3 times what they did on HW, so its not like they aren't making any effort to reinvest.

Server upgrades aren't minor, particularly on a program as complex as an MMO. There are a huge amount of programing, networking and testing that needs to be done to ensure the servers handle the software correctly without bugs and that they handle the load without issues or lag. They are a very large investment of time and money and certainly not a small QoL life thing.

[RoseOfTheRaven]

For instance, in terms of housing, they could implement extra server capability to open up new housing wards as they fill up. In that case, server resources are only called upon when they are needed for high pop servers, none are wasted on extra empty wards and housing wards on lower pop servers stay the way that they are which requires no extra resources from SE.

Honestly if they changed housing completely to be an instance based thing, similar to Black Desert Online, it'd probably help quite a bit with the lag issues. One ward, you can buy any one house (everyone is able to) and when you enter it's your house or u can choose a different option (like apartments) to visit someone else's on the door.

[MisterLucie]

You realise this is only really an issue with one datacentre, not the entire server set up. Upgrading servers and maintaining the existing servers are two different things. Infact an upgrade offers more challenges since new hardware and software to accommodate it is more prone to bugs and issues and therefore at the inception generally less stable. That's why they said they probably won't role out the server upgrades with the launch of 4.0. The player numbers will already be putting strain on the server load and they want to ensure server stability.

Do you think World of Warcraft doesn't have massively overpopulated servers? Several times larger than Gilgamesh and Balmung, even? Do you think they crash several times on a weekly basis?

SE has the resources to make this game operate smoothly. They choose not to allocate them here.

[Moonlite]

You realise this is only really an issue with one datacentre, not the entire server set up. Upgrading servers and maintaining the existing servers are two different things. Infact an upgrade offers more challenges since new hardware and software to accommodate it is more prone to bugs and issues and therefore at the inception generally less stable. That's why they said they probably won't role out the server upgrades with the launch of 4.0. The player numbers will already be putting strain on the server load and they want to ensure server stability.

They can also cash in on returning players when they come back with the retainers and pay double the sub amount. Retainers are a worse cash grab then anything in the cash shop. "oh we have itemizing/inventory issues, pay for it suckers.