EU Test server

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...21#post2938621

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Okay. There's an assumption being made here on the part of the player base, and I've been guilty of making it as well. It's the presumption that the server setup allows the developers to maintain two different servers and two different patch-sets with one updater command and one login.

As far as we "know" access to test is simply flagged by adding the -test command to the end of the shortcut used to launch the game. This -test flag tells the loader to get all of the files for the test version of the game. We've assumed in the past that because various shards listed on the test server were turned off, or had disabled access, that other content was on that alternative shard.

Given what we know of how the game works, it's actually likely that the only content difference is going to be the player database, and that the other shards don't actually have any in-game engine / exposed content differences. Why would this be so? Well, if the only difference between the -test server and the -live server is the tag used on the starting shortcut, how would the other shards know to access un-downloaded content? Thing is, we "know" that each patch update to the game only contains a small amount of data, and each patch is intentionally kept small so that bugs or other issues can be easily tracked.

It would make no sense to have players downloading huge swaths of code that were changing, or going to be changing, that could cause errors. Imagine for a second downloading a version of the patch that enables the Mutant Pack, but also puts a Portal Corp building in the warehouse district of Atlas Park which links to Praetoria. Even if your account was still locked out of Praetoria, you'd see this Portal Corp buidling, wonder what's up with it... and then a few days later the devs might say... No, we're going to put it under City Hall and have it accessed through a door there. Now there's a new patch, with new code, with changes the player-base can't see... and now you have players wondering why they just downloaded a patch that did nothing.

Now do this for every possible change that Praetoria access could bring to the existing game, and you've got a patch / repatch schedule that would be adding / removing code on a near constant basis.

Given the method by which code is flagged for download by the launcher, and given the way the code is injected into the existing game, we can be fairly certain that other shards don't contain other server builds, and that enabling another shard isn't actually possible.


Which brings me to my other point. I really think the unhappy non-US players are barking at the wrong site on how non-US players are being handled with the game. I know the last time I brought this up the non-US players snerked... but really the non-US marketing should be handled by NCSoft's international branches.

Here's the thing as I understand it: Paragon Studios just makes the game. NCSoft is the one that actually provides the hosting servers and account log-ins.

Something that I don't see anybody else asking is where exactly does Paragon Studios get their hosting hardware from? Does NCSoft have a cap on how much server hardware they can use? Is there a cap on purchasing costs of server hardware? Is there a cap on what Operating System's they can use on each server? We know from past developer statements that the testing hardware allocation is far sight off of the allocation from a live server.

It might be that NCSoft simply won't allocate any additional hardware for the non-US markets. It might be that hardware NCSoft has allocated for testing Going Rogue isn't substantial enough to handle everybody who could be in the beta. Thinking back to the I17 Open Beta, on some nights the system lag was way worse than Talos Island on Virtue at Lagworths and the Train station, and the test server couldn't have been pushing the same population load as virtue (if the /search system was accurate). It might be then that for the non-us markets, Paragon Studios only has access to one hardware setup that's substantial enough to handle the beta test, and that hardware setup is the existing Test Server. It might just be that if Paragon Studios partitioned the hardware and ran two instances of the server client, the test instance and the beta instance, the system performance would be horrible for both instances.

Again, this comes back to: This is NCSoft's Problem, not Paragon Studios

Now, I'm not going to say that Non-US players don't have a reason or a right to be angry. Once you toss a Windows Server Operating System license aside, servers tend to be really cheap. I mean, take a look at what $5000 could get you from HP. 2 Opterion 6172's, 16gigs ram, 4 gigabit network ports, a hard-drive controller that I presume is really fast, and a 750 watt power supply. Fine, that doesn't include the actual hard-drives, or the other list of options HP would gladly tack on... but still...

I mean, we know that NCSoft loves to brag about how profitable CoH has been for them, why not turn some of that profit into an overkill server solution?


anyways, if you are genuinly in busting NCSoft for this, drop by their global contact page: http://www.ncsoft.net/global/support/contact.aspx

Couple of tidbits here. While there is an office for Media Center in Europe, there's no European marketing / publishing listed. Might be why Going Rogue is online only in Europe.

Fifth Floor, Mocatta House, Trafalgar Place, Brighton BN1 4DU,
United Kingdom
+44-0-1273-872000


Oh, and a final note, why complaining here on these forums might not get anything accomplished. I mentioned in this thread that companies such as AMD suggested that gamers contact the actual board vendor requesting driver features or updates for graphics drivers. After expressing confusion over why in the world the company behind a product was writing the driver to begin with wanted us to go talk to somebody else, it was put like this: AMD doesn't sell graphics cards directly. They sell graphics chips to OEM's and ODM's who then in turn sell those chips to consumers. Telling the likes of Sapphire, Tul, Dell, or Asus that their products would not be purchased or returned if they didn't meet an expected level of support would have the "real customers" of AMD panicking.

Well, it worked. Back when ATi launched the RadeonHD 4870, most of their board partners started putting Penguins on their boxes and including Linux drivers off the disc.

In the same way... NCSoft is a alternate-party to the City of Heroes game. If NCSoft gets leaned on and told that if they don't get a market into shape they'll lose that market, they'll scramble to get the market into shape.

It's quite possible, and it's something I don't think the non-US players want to consider, that NCSoft has decided that the non-US / non-Asian markets are not profitable enough to pursue, and intentionally are not making any efforts to reach those markets. Unless the people in those markets start fussing to the right people at NCSoft, I don't see anything changing.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I'd say they're used for testing anything cross-server, like the MA or the black markets. As je saist proved, all servers must run identical content, so that's out.

Thoe are shades of gray, to get you in the mood for GR.

Basically, just because you see three entries in server selection doesn't mean there are three machines running three different codebases. From how I understand it, Test servers all use the same machine and use only logical separation to divide themselves between the different shards.

And even if we assume that they are all different machines capable of being configured differently, no precedent exists to suggests that the game's framework is even capable of handling different code bases with the same client. After all, the login server will bounce you if your client version is wrong, and one would assume that different test servers would be running different versions.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

So, this means that if the US is testing the Mutant Pack, they aren't having GR Closed Beta?

The GR closed beta is on a separate server, as confirmed at Hero Con.

So...this is just really damn confusing.
Does that mean that the NA Test and NA GR Test are two different servers on the same list that has one hidden if you dont have access? Or does GR get its whole own Test server log-in client and stuff?

If the former, then I can see no reason why the two 'not in use' servers on the EY test list cant be used. People keep avoiding that point.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

No. If CoV Beta was any indication, the GR Test server has its own separate client, completely unique from the Test server. The inactive shard on the US Test Server is not a separate server, it's a separate logical partition to the one US Test server.

Think of it as a hard drive. You have one drive, but you can have any number of partitions on it. The more partitions you have, the less space you have to work with in each partition. That's how the Test servers are arranged. The reason you see only one shard active most of the time is because having more shards active just splits the server's processing power, it does not add more resources.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yeah, no Test server, no way to check out the new costume pieces. The best you can do is check out other people's screenshots, especially bAss' and hope to judge from there.

I kind of have my suspicions as to what you were looking for, and I think you can join me in disappointment

Still want to buy the pack, though. You can never have too many costume pieces.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction,can you tell me were my invite got sent as I havn,t got it lol

It's possible you got an email informing you about a new patch for Aion and a French Aion player got your invite instead.



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