Is adding more worlds going to actually fix this problem?

[Sove92]

Isn't the new hardware also increasing server capacity? So they are not only adding worlds but upgrading the current ones.

[baddagger]

Isn't the new hardware also increasing server capacity? So they are not only adding worlds but upgrading the current ones.

yes they are doing both

[Malzian]

The problem with this is that you're only adding capacity onto a funnel that doesn't have a hole at the bottom. It'll only help for so long before things start to overflow again.

[Farore]

It's funny, coming from WoW which is what, nine years old - this is all a little depressing. Blizzard (now Activision in all but name) is one of the biggest money-grubbing companies there is, and yet they still have the technology to support many tens of thousands of people on one realm, while FFXIV - a brand new game, really - can only support 5k, and lacks many features that are standard in any online game these days.

What's the issue?

Square had all the figures from pre-orders, they had all the figures from digital sales, they had all the figures from how many boxes shipped - yet they didn't expect this many people? How can you expect us to believe that? Something very wrong went on in Square's corporate side, and it doesn't bode well.

[Zun]

It's funny, coming from WoW which is what, nine years old - this is all a little depressing. Blizzard (now Activision in all but name) is one of the biggest money-grubbing companies there is, and yet they still have the technology to support many tens of thousands of people on one realm, while FFXIV - a brand new game, really - can only support 5k, and lacks many features that are standard in any online game these days.

What's the issue?

Square had all the figures from pre-orders, they had all the figures from digital sales, they had all the figures from how many boxes shipped - yet they didn't expect this many people? How can you expect us to believe that? Something very wrong went on in Square's corporate side, and it doesn't bode well.

WoW is an incredibly old game that has far less bandwidth requirements per character, and has had those 9 years to fine-tune their hardware. This is to be expected.

FFXIV, on the other hand...they grossly underestimated how many people would actually be interested after how poorly-recieved 1.0 was. Once they've had a couple hundred scheduled server maintenances like WoW has, I'm sure things'll run a lot more smoothly.

[Farore]

... and has had those 9 years to fine-tune their hardware. This is to be expected.

I'll tell you what. If I hired some guys to build servers to accommodate all the people I need, and I hand them the figures that say we need oh, say 500k slots available, and they give me some cheap, poorly-done servers that house 125k, I'd fire them! There's no excuse to cheap out when you have so many people ready and eager to play, and pay! You do your job, and you do it right, or I won't put up with you. This isn't a Welfare job, you earn your right to stay (at least in my mind it's not).

My point is, WoW is running on nine year old code, nine year old hardware (probably not, but anyway), and they do just fine. At their launch, they had space for everyone, because they built their servers accordingly. They didn't work right, sure, but they were still big enough for everyone who wanted to play. Now, this game is running off of brand new hardware, was totally rebuilt from the ground up code-wise, and you're telling me they can't do something as simple as increase server capacity? That tells me that they're trying to go through this while spending as little money as possible - and losing customers in the process.

I just don't see much of a justified reason as to why Square did what they did, and why they take a three day weekend off, rather than pay the IT crew overtime to get the job done when it needs to be done. It just doesn't make me feel comfortable about the future business decisions regarding this game. I've loved Final Fantasy since the first one, I just hope it doesn't end here.

[Zun]

I'll tell you what. If I hired some guys to build servers to accommodate all the people I need, and I hand them the figures that say we need oh, say 500k slots available, and they give me some cheap, poorly-done servers that house 125k, I'd fire them! There's no excuse to cheap out when you have so many people ready and eager to play, and pay! You do your job, and you do it right, or I won't put up with you. This isn't a Welfare job, you earn your right to stay (at least in my mind it's not).

My point is, WoW is running on nine year old code, nine year old hardware (probably not, but anyway), and they do just fine. At their launch, they had space for everyone, because they built their servers accordingly. They didn't work right, sure, but they were still big enough for everyone who wanted to play.

I just don't see much of a justified reason as to why Square did what they did, and why they take a three day weekend off, rather than pay the IT crew overtime to get the job done when it needs to be done. It just doesn't make me feel comfortable about the future business decisions regarding this game. I've loved Final Fantasy since the first one, I just hope it doesn't end here.

Well, for starters, only the NA support desk is taking Labor Day off. That doesn't include the server technicians.

Secondly, they thought they were building enough servers to accommodate the people they needed. They were mistaken. It doesn't mean their hardware is cheap. They had no way of knowing exactly how many people would buy their game. They, like any company, can only come up with an estimate based on trends, pre-order sales, etc. The disappointment of 1.0 caused them to grossly underestimate those numbers. This was, perhaps, their biggest mistake with this launch. I don't defend them for it, but I can understand how it came about. Since they have acknowledged, and are working to fix this mistake (albeit not as quickly as I would have liked), I don't hold a grudge against them, because many companies out there would never even admit they screwed up to begin with.

As for WoW, as you mentioned, nine-year-old code. The more advanced technology becomes, the less stable, typically. As I mentioned, WoW likely uses far less bandwidth per character, and for the world in general. That means its easier and cheaper to host more characters, and on older hardware, than it is for a more resource-intensive game like FFXIV. Blizzard has also had almost a decade to analyze and optimize their software to make it more efficient. FFXIV:ARR has had a couple of months (including beta).

[Strigori]

They had no way of knowing exactly how many people would buy their game. They, like any company, can only come up with an estimate based on trends, pre-order sales, etc.

You clearly have never had anything to do with retail. They had a pretty good idea, if they were paying attention. SE has had other games released, use the presale to launch week numbers to come up with baseline. Use that baseline ratio and multiply it against the AAR presales, and add in some cushion. With access to the numbers, anyone should beable to come up with a better idea than SE did. With 25 NA/EU servers they were only set up to accommodate 125k peak players.

[soulcat]

It's funny, coming from WoW which is what, nine years old - this is all a little depressing. Blizzard (now Activision in all but name) is one of the biggest money-grubbing companies there is, and yet they still have the technology to support many tens of thousands of people on one realm, while FFXIV - a brand new game, really - can only support 5k, and lacks many features that are standard in any online game these days.

What's the issue?

Square had all the figures from pre-orders, they had all the figures from digital sales, they had all the figures from how many boxes shipped - yet they didn't expect this many people? How can you expect us to believe that? Something very wrong went on in Square's corporate side, and it doesn't bode well.

I am a little surprised, where do you get you numbers? Very few companies, Blizzard included publicly release those numbers. Most estimates from people who run the numbers put the blizzard server pops far lower, possibly between 2500 - 5000

[Farore]

... where do you get you numbers? ... Most estimates from people who run the numbers put the blizzard server pops far lower, possibly between 2500 - 5000

Well, I've been playing WoW since it was released. With a good 3-400 in Stormwind and Orgrimmar both, a good thousand in the new Pandaren main cities, and countless other thousands in the rest of the world... I think it's a little bigger than 2500-5000. And on top of that, when there are more players than can fit on the realm, they add temporary slots with that fancy queue system that Square thinks they don't need, so you can always get on, though it's never needed, because the game will log people off if they're not playing, so there is always space available. The most populated realms in WoW house over 20,000 registered accounts, and I'm sure that more than 20% of them can play at a time. The problem now is that we have countless people who bought the game, and a very small set of space. It just doesn't make sense to me.