Dedicated Servers?

[moriandrio]

This time i have to totally agree with Abriael, cause if you split up the community it would be almost impossible to bring them together again. And all those servers with a very small population would die in a few months.

[Dannythm]

Sorry. This is a terrible idea. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Third wasn't a charm

Scattering the population between a lot of different server types only serves to fragment the community. Server division between regions and new/old players is already a terrible idea and scattering the community even further between several different server types is even worse.

Anything beyond a roleplay server is just a waste of server farm space.

This is NOT an FPS. MMORPGs are strongly based on their communities. A fragmented community is a bad community.

This time i have to totally agree with Abriael, cause if you split up the community it would be almost impossible to bring them together again. And all those servers with a very small population would die in a few months.

Well it would depend on how many players you have, right? If the game is successful, and we all want it to be, there should be enough people playing it for this fragmentation to not matter, because the hardcore will have their community, the casual other (or whatever server differentiation should be made), and everyone would be happy.

If you assume the game will have few players, then I don't even know why are you guys bothering on supporting it, but as Yoshi said in a letter or an interview, when taking the FFXIV project there were 2 options: Let it die or bet on it all the way, and they bet on it all the way. Obviously something like this won't be of much use if only a small population plays ARR, but that's not the correct mindset.

[Abriael]

Well it would depend on how many players you have, right? If the game is successful, and we all want it to be, there should be enough people playing it for this fragmentation to not matter, because the hardcore will have their community, the casual other (or whatever server differentiation should be made), and everyone would be happy.

If you assume the game will have few players, then I don't even know why are you guys bothering on supporting it, but as Yoshi said in a letter or an interview, when taking the FFXIV project there were 2 options: Let it die or bet on it all the way, and they bet on it all the way. Obviously something like this won't be of much use if only a small population plays ARR, but that's not the correct mindset.

No. I assume nothing. The idea of splitting servers in many little rulesets, different regions and to segregate old players from the new is terrible whether there are 200k players of four million.

The more you splinter the community, the more you create situations in which people have to bend over twice in order to play with their friends, because every one of those friends has his own ruleset of choice, his own region (who really has friends only in his own region?) and his own friends pulling him towards other servers (and those friends have their own friends and so forth).

Other developers (like funcom with the awesome server tech implemented in TSW, that lets you travel to any server at will, at any given time, or Zenymax with the megaserver tech that will be implemented in TESO) are making server segregation obsolete, and it's really a pity to see that SE is taking a step back by going against the flow with segregated regional servers.

Of course those that implement server-joining techs have to give up the income from server transfers, but hey, some time giving up income to make things a LOT more convenient for your players isn't a bad thing.

The internet is becoming more and more a globalized community. Situation like the one I describe below should really never happen anymore:

Player 1: Hey, you're fun, we should play together.
Player 2: Sure what server are you on?
Player 1: Gungnir
Player 2: Oh crap, I'm on Ridill
Player 1: Can you transfer?
Player 2: Most of my friends are on Ridill...
Player 1: Eh, most of mine are on Gungnir...
Player 2: oh, well... maybe in the next game then.

It's obsolete, unnecessary, has absolutely no positive side (besides a paltry income from transfers), it's absolutely inconvenient, and terribad for community building.

But anyway, bad to dedicated servers, they simply will not happen. Ever. The more you split the ruleset, the more you raise development costs and times. Every patch would need to be adapted and playtested to every ruleset, which is simply not feasible. Thus, this discussion is pretty moot, as the request is unrealistic.

[Dannythm]

...

Well you are entitled with your own opinion, I don't like where computing today is going and thus hate the globalization, so I'd very much prefer compact, small but strong communities (like the good old FFXI servers), rather than stuff like WoW or hell, even outside games, Facebook (oh god I'd burn and destroy Facebook and twitter to the ground so hard...) where individuality is completely lost in a huge community.

So what if I want to play on a different server than my friends? I'll make new friends then, and build a strong community. And contrary on what you think, it's most likely to help build communities having a few people tightly tied, than large amounts of people where you never cross paths with anyone twice in the whole game. So your idea for community building is worse than this "terribad" (aren't you supposed to be a reporter? why don't you write in English?) idea.

And about the development costs and times and patch testing, well, I happen to know a little about software development and balancing systems, and I will tell you that if you are not able to test thousands of different configurations for your system in short times, you are doing something terribly wrong. And I'm pretty sure Yoshida and Square Enix have a long experience balancing games, so no, if the core of the game is well defined and the different rule sets only affect the context, they probably wouldn't even have to balance anything new for every new patch.

Also if you think this topic is moot and has no value, why even waste effort in arguing about it?

Also on a side note, I liked your posts at first Abriel, but lately you started being more and more arrogant and aggressive and, well, plain rude in the forums. I think you should get down your high horse and live with the mortals again, you don't know the answer to everything and probably most of what you think is wrong, just like what everyone thinks is probably wrong (including myself). Starlord's signature reflects this too so, man, chill a little and come back to the nice conversations and posts you provided some weeks ago.

[Abriael]

Setting the personal jabs aside, since they're amusing but tend to become tiresome in the end...

I don't like big communities!

Then don't play a MASSIVELY Multiplayer Online RPG.

Mind you, you're perfectly able to create your little tightly knit community regardless of the number of people on the server or with access to the server. That's what linkshells and free companies are for.

So your idea for community building is worse than this "terribad" (aren't you supposed to be a reporter? why don't you write in English?) idea.

Because at the moment I'm not working (and English is not my first language anyway, mind you, not that it matters)?

And about the development costs and times and patch testing, well, I happen to know a little about software development and balancing systems, and I will tell you that if you are not able to test thousands of different configurations for your system in short times, you are doing something terribly wrong. And I'm pretty sure Yoshida and Square Enix have a long experience balancing games, so no, if the core of the game is well defined and the different rule sets only affect the context, they probably wouldn't even have to balance anything new for every new patch.

You know a little about software development of MMORPGs? I'm afraid it's not the same thing. MMORPGs are extremely complex animals, with thousands of elements interacting with each other.

If you aren't able to "test thousands of different configurations for your system in short times" you're simply developing something more complex than a database.

There's a reason why MMORPGs are released with a massive amount of glitches and problems compared to other games. And that reason resides in their complexity, that impacts balancing, testing and every other area of development in a rather large way.

But again. This thread is definitely moot. I know it won't happen. You know it won't happen. The OP knows it won't happen. And it's ultimately a very good thing that it won't happen.

[moriandrio]

Even if alot ppl would play ARR, there would be still not enough ppl for silly Servers like low exp or high droprates. And those ppl would have to reroll if they would like to play with all the others cause they can't be allowed to transfer.

And its just wront to think if you make servers with death penalty and slow exp all FFXI vets would come, they want FFXI 2.0 and nothing else. And alot of FFXI players are happy about death penalty not coming back and possiblity to exp better then it was pre ToAU.

[Alhanelem]

I don't understand how hard is to grasp the concept, because all I've read is people complaining at the examples given, well, as just that, an example.

Then he needs to come up with better examples. Because they are already considering RP servers (which is a good idea and is wanted by the community).

Only if the game really takes off and the playerbase grows, then I can see adding new servers with special rules and stuff. otherwise, either there won't be enough people interested in them or it will divide the community.

[Momita]

If a lot of people want low exp maybe (cuz never happens XD) SE will reduce exp for all.. not just for 1 server >.< (it's an extremization).. an MMORPG isn't a FPS.. can't have the same server cuz is a waste and a nosense..

High/Low Drop% ... can't be applied
High/Low Exp% ... can't be applied
High/Low Monster ... Why if EXP don't change? XD
PVP oriented ... FFXIV is PVE oriented, PVP is just an hobby.. never change.

Others type of servers?

[Alhanelem]

PVP oriented ... FFXIV is PVE oriented, PVP is just an hobby.. never change.

This is actually false. Though it's not going to be open world PvP, PvP is going to be much bigger in this game than it was in FFXI. Due to the design of the lore and story though, an open PvP server doesn't make any sense.

[Dannythm]

This is actually false. Though it's not going to be open world PvP, PvP is going to be much bigger in this game than it was in FFXI. Due to the design of the lore and story though, an open PvP server doesn't make any sense.

I'm going off topic with this comment but... i'd flee to the Garlean empire if given the chance =P