Are Servers Outdated?

[ek0zu]

Hello,

I would like you to stomp me on what bullshit i am writing here because i want to post the same article-thread on the official forums.

I believe that the separation of the players via Servers is a very outdated and dull mechanic that has no purpose at all nowadays. On some other thread i saw something that even if i don't understand the technology behind i somewhat agree. The guy-girl was saying that what's the point in paying monthly since there are no physical servers anymore and their maintenance is not as difficult as it used to be. I personally don't mind in paying the monthly price, but i find it outrageous to have my characters locked in some artificial walls where i need to pay lots of money to extract them from that dead server for somewhere else.

25€ for a single character transfer is massive imo and considering that i have already done it twice for two of my toons i cba to do it again. Can i afford it? Yes i can but i think it should not be the case.

I think that our characters sheet should come first and then we pick a server. My guild and friends are on server X? Alright that's fine i log in on that server and have fun with them.

But in my case i have my all time favorite character, my Human Priest on a completely dead from the alliance side Horde dominated Stormscale, since Wotlk. At some point before sharding or pvp mode were introduced, i could not even level without getting stomped literally every minute. Making long story short, i have joined Horde, as pretty much everyone, on a medium populated server. For some time it was good because we had each other but my friends quitted and the server is pretty dead to facilitate playing on the level that i want.

Yeah, i got pretty lucky i guess. But I am sure that i am not the only person that is basically trapped on a dead server (twice) and i don;t believe that with today's technology it is too much to ask of something like that. Logistically i am sure it is going to be a nightmare, but i do believe (obviously, without some data or Research to back it up) that in the long term it is going to be fascinating for the players to have some kind of a feature that will render their playing field barrier free.

Please don't neglect while you stomp me to state how stupid i am! /cheers!

[Lochton]

I do not know the full topic but I do know that there are physical servers still in play, as we have seen server blades auctioned off before in the name of charity as they get upgraded.

Though. The service fees are well, just that. It may seem like nothing and digital transfers, they are still a service, and companies charge for such.

[TheLucky1]

We don't know for sure why there's no mega server or at least a mega "normal" and a mega rp server but i guess it could be what little server identity there is left (mythic raiding) and problems with guild/character names when you merge servers.

Other than that i can't really think about a reason why things aren't merged other than give me your transfer money.

[Caerrona]

Servers are basically gone, realms are crossed with battlegroups, everything is cross realm.

Sometimes due to layering i log into oribos (put into a layer) and game seems dead... like 3 people. Go to my covenant hall to do missions or some shit and tp back 5 mins later to what seems like 1000 people running around (another layer).

They did a poor job of merging battlegroups together though. They merged like 3 dead servers together instead of attaching those to med/high pop ones. Issue would be fixed with realigning realms into better battlegroups.

[LaserChild9]

Servers have to be separate because you could not fit all of the population in a region on a single server. If you could pick your server each time you log in with a character it would ruin the economies. For example, you see an item on 1 server for 10k gold, buy it, hop on to another server where it is listed for 100k and sell it for profit, eventually, it would be a nightmare trying to sell anything because you would not only be competing against your own server but every other server too.

Though I do agree that there are too many servers, but it is not a problem I have any idea how to solve.

[Lochton]

We don't know for sure why there's no mega server or at least a mega "normal" and a mega rp server but i guess it could be what little server identity there is left (mythic raiding) and problems with guild/character names when you merge servers.

Other than that i can't really think about a reason why things aren't merged other than give me your transfer money.

Guild/Character names are one of the big factors to server merges.

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Servers have to be separate because you could not fit all of the population in a region on a single server. If you could pick your server each time you log in with a character it would ruin the economies. For example, you see an item on 1 server for 10k gold, buy it, hop on to another server where it is listed for 100k and sell it for profit, eventually, it would be a nightmare trying to sell anything because you would not only be competing against your own server but every other server too.

Though I do agree that there are too many servers, but it is not a problem I have any idea how to solve.

Well. One of the problems with too many servers is because that they keep the names on the list of the merged servers too. The merged clusters should be consolidated on the list and renamed.

[Orby]

well the game is nearly 20 years old... I would guess the servers are pretty dated yes. I am not sure there has been some huge transfer over that time, even for its time I think the servers WoW was running on wasnt up to scratch, it may be way older than that.

I am not even sure you can transfer everything on to a new server, all the assets and code, it would probably break the game, it would be like trying to rise the Titanic, it'll just fall apart during the process lol. But I also have no idea about coding or server management so I cannot say, maybe its easy maybe its not. :P

The fact that the game is lagging in the outside world when more than 15 people are present means it has problems :P

[jazen]

If blizz could make money on it, they'd probably do it.

[Lochton]

well the game is nearly 20 years old... I would guess the servers are pretty dated yes. I am not sure there has been some huge transfer over that time, even for its time I think the servers WoW was running on wasnt up to scratch, it may be way older than that.

I am not even sure you can transfer everything on to a new server, all the assets and code, it would probably break the game, it would be like trying to rise the Titanic, it'll just fall apart during the process lol. But I also have no idea about coding or server management so I cannot say, maybe its easy maybe its not. :P

The fact that the game is lagging in the outside world when more than 15 people are present means it has problems :P

It has been told that they can upgrade the server blades (a server selection) individually, and apply the content of the old to a new.

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If blizz could make money on it, they'd probably do it.

Like any other major company.

[ek0zu]

I mean since layering exists, it is obvious that the technology is there to pretty much lift this barrier.


Guild names and character names is not issue if you just give a Surname option where you have something like Method Sco or Sco Brew or Sco Voidlord and for guilds something like Method Europe, easy fix.

As it regards the AH, which is a valid point a bigger AH will emerge that will most likely normalize the prices and have better overall items in there by filling any gaps of the spectrum, for example in my server i can't find any gems to buy....lol.

Edit: Yeah, i know they monetize everything and they monetize this as well but i strongly believe that it something that the gamers deserve to have for free!

[javierdsv]

It's not about the in-game consequences... it's physically not possible. There's even sharding within the same servers because the game (and your computer) can only handle so many things in the same place at certain given times. Sure, the "amount of things" have increased with better technology but there's still technical limitations to it.

If there was to be a mega server, it would still be split into many different layers. And then after that, yes... all the in-game consequences like the classic general chat "Can I get an Invite to change layers?".

[kranur]

Having a central AH for an entire region will probably also drive you insane ... maybe less with the modern AH but imagine being undercut by 20x more players or having that number try to purchase the same item.

[Garymorilix]

Imagine thinking that things just "exist" in thin air and there are no physical hardware keeping everything running.

[Ivarr]

The point is that realms no longer need their own serverblade and therefore their format is arbitrary. Blizzard can over it any any shape or form.

[ek0zu]

Imagine thinking that things just "exist" in thin air and there are no physical hardware keeping everything running.

I am not implying that there is "no physical technology behind it" if you are referring to that. I am referring to the fact that those barriers are a lot lower nowadays compared to a few years back and the cost that is asked for a simple transfer is unjustifiable.

[loras]

Servers have to be separate because you could not fit all of the population in a region on a single server. If you could pick your server each time you log in with a character it would ruin the economies. For example, you see an item on 1 server for 10k gold, buy it, hop on to another server where it is listed for 100k and sell it for profit, eventually, it would be a nightmare trying to sell anything because you would not only be competing against your own server but every other server too.

Though I do agree that there are too many servers, but it is not a problem I have any idea how to solve.

That sounds like a healthy economy honestly.

[Gaidax]

I am sure if they could do it, they would do it. Them not doing means there are some very good reasons as to why they are not doing it. The game is giga complex and the shit we do ingame requires top notch backup infrastructure and management.

I bet they are working on that, but not quite there yet. It is also possible there are some very real social concerns, some of which were mentioned above.

[Azerate]

The best debunk to your thread is the fact that the biggest servers in every region (for example Draenor EU or Silvermoon EU) are pretty much unplayable during every launch event due to how populated they are. Hardware and server space is very much still a problem, clearly.

[ek0zu]

I am sure if they could do it, they would do it. Them not doing means there are some very good reasons as to why they are not doing it. The game is giga complex and the shit we do ingame requires top notch backup infrastructure and management.

I bet they are working on that, but not quite there yet. It is also possible there are some very real social concerns, some of which were mentioned above.

Yeah i agree with you and having played many other MMOs i can honestly and without any irony at all say, that the technology that backs up WoW is a work of art imo.

Lets hope for the best as you say!

[Garymorilix]

I am not implying that there is "no physical technology behind it" if you are referring to that. I am referring to the fact that those barriers are a lot lower nowadays compared to a few years back and the cost that is asked for a simple transfer is unjustifiable.

Barriers are lower, yes.

How much fps do you have doing a world boss in a 40 man raid?
Have you ever seen massive pvp raid groups duking it out in warmode?
Have you ever seen massive lag in certain zones?

Yes, no, a unified server is not possible.

Is the price justified?
Entirely different discussion.
Blizzard can charge you for anything for the amount they want.
I highly doubt that realm transfers are that common, especially since for the vast majority of content it doesn't matter what realm you are on.

So you can easily just do a one-time transfer and then live the rest of your life on the realm of your choosing.
What's stopping you? 25 euros?
So the argument is basically that you are too cheap to cough up 25 euros? Will posting here solve anything?