What is the general consensus on server emptyness?
By
3dent,
Posted on: 2010-07-09 07:05 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Like many others, I'm not on Freedom or Virtue because I don't want to be. I like my home server, Pinnacle, and have no desire to move.
But I like to occasionally ponder the imponderable. Server merges would be an absolute disaster, for all the earlier stated reasons. But just to be hypothetical, and ignoring the nail-in-the-coffin attitude the MMO industry would have, it could be possible to reduce the number of servers.
Let's imagine that the devs decided to eliminate a server. Rather than do a merge, they could do something like this.
1-Close the server to new alts.
2-Announce that the server would be closing as of X date.
3-Give all characters on that server free transfers to the server of their choice, except for Freedom and Virtue. They could still transfer to those servers, but they would have to pay the normal fee.
4-Offer to move SGs whole to the server of their choice, base and prestige and all. Make sure the members have plenty of time to decide on a new home, and for members who don't agree with the choice to drop out.
5-After the 'lights out' date, put the remaining characters held by inactive players in a sort of holding pen, so that if the player reactivates their account, the first thing they have to do is choose a new home for those alts.
Like I said, it would still be held in a very dim light by the industry, and would greatly hurt our chances of attracting new players. But something like this would be the only way to reduce the number of servers without setting off waves of account cancellations.
"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."
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Sorry I missed this reply earlier.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Could you provide a link? I haven't seen that post and would appreciate the chance to read it.
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My search-fu is weak, but I do recall this being mentioned. It was either in an interview or posted on the boards.
People were asking about zone revamps and the response was about the huge resources it takes to do a revamp. So the idea is that if they were to redo the starting zones, they would have to do something along the order of Faultline...which is essentially to create a new zone.
I seem to remember it being mentioned again somewhere as well.
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What YOU consider holy means exactly nothing to anyone else. My main's name, for instance, has far more holiness and sacred standing to me than Mohammad, Jesus, Buddha and all the other various gods people worship combined.|
Originally Posted by Lucky666
lol sacred? do you even know the meaning of that word? cause I don't think you do.
Sacred: Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity. : Made or declared holy : Of or relating to religious objects, rites, or practices. so ya names in video games aren't sacred even if you decide to make the Pope himself. So like the pvp crowd and peeps on the forums the people that quit the game over a name are most likely a very vocal minority. |
Holy and sacred are labels people put on things that they hold dear. It is a subjective matter.
Be well, people of CoH.
When WW talked about the design philosophy of new vs old it boiled down to:
"We must go forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom."
Regarding Posi's blog, I think he has a fairly logical view on things, but I think he is stuck in what was and not what could be. I also don't really place a huge amount of authority in his words because I personally don't think he did much, or much good anyway, while at the helm. He did fine, C+ or B-, which for me doesn't translate to someone I look to for revolutionary insight about MMO's in general, or the future of them.
... and of course those were not my words, but a direct quote from the person who writes the MMO designer blog.
That being our very own Positron.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
What is the general consensus on server emptiness?
There is no consensus.
On anything.
Ever.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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That was awesome.
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Originally Posted by Decorum
I think we can all agree on that.
 **runs** |
Be well, people of CoH.
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I disagree!|
Originally Posted by Decorum
I think we can all agree on that.
**runs** |
/piethrow
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The general consensus on everything seems to be "No, *you're* stupid".
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Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
What is the general consensus on server emptiness?
There is no consensus. On anything. Ever. |
Character index
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Originally Posted by Lucky666
lol sacred? do you even know the meaning of that word? cause I don't think you do.
Sacred: Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity. : Made or declared holy : Of or relating to religious objects, rites, or practices. so ya names in video games aren't sacred even if you decide to make the Pope himself. So like the pvp crowd and peeps on the forums the people that quit the game over a name are most likely a very vocal minority. |
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
You apparantly don't because I notice that you deleted several definitions that the dictionary lists. Or did you do that because it blows your pathetic attempt to troll Catwhoorg out of the water?
sa·cred [sey-krid] –adjective 1. devoted or dedicated to a deity or to some religious purpose; consecrated. 2. entitled to veneration or religious respect by association with divinity or divine things; holy. 3. pertaining to or connected with religion ( opposed to secular or profane): sacred music; sacred books. 4. reverently dedicated to some person, purpose, or object: a morning hour sacred to study. 5. regarded with reverence: the sacred memory of a dead hero. 6. secured against violation, infringement, etc., as by reverence or sense of right: sacred oaths; sacred rights. 7. properly immune from violence, interference, etc., as a person or office. Dictionary.com So yes by the complete definition of the word they can in fact be held sacred. |
well done forbin
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Originally Posted by Slashman
Sorry I missed this reply earlier.
My search-fu is weak, but I do recall this being mentioned. It was either in an interview or posted on the boards. People were asking about zone revamps and the response was about the huge resources it takes to do a revamp. So the idea is that if they were to redo the starting zones, they would have to do something along the order of Faultline...which is essentially to create a new zone. I seem to remember it being mentioned again somewhere as well. |
Ah I see what you're talking about. Posi said something similar during an in game question and answer during the 5 year anniversary.
To be honest I wasn't thinking of anything on that grand a scale, more along the lines of will there be new things added or changed to go along with the new morality feature and things like that. Little changes instead of an entire zone revamp.
Sorry for the confusion.
On this topic, David/Noble Savage said that they were working on "cleaning up" some art assets in older zones to show off Ultra mode better.
And despite their protestations to the contrary, our devs have also done some of their best work on zone revamps. RWZ, Faultline, and the new Positron Task Force is some of my favorite content in the game.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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That is good to hear. I've been using parts of UM on my somewhat aged computer and the game looks fantastic, with these changes so far.
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Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
On this topic, David/Noble Savage said that they were working on "cleaning up" some art assets in older zones to show off Ultra mode better.
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The first character I ever created was an nrg/fire blaster (terrible combination) on Liberty. I picked up the game many years ago after seeing some advertisement or review (can't remember which now). Being a newb, I selected Liberty not because of any informed decision but because I liked the name. I only got the blaster to level 17 before I quit.
You see, I had some limited experience in MMOs before CoH and I had some expectations about what massively multiplayer meant. And although I have better knowledge now about how to find teams and other players, at the time my expertise was limited to broadcasting messages attempting to get invites. It didn't take long for me to become frustrated. However, before quitting the game entirely I noticed that when logging in, Freedom had the magical yellow bubble next to its name. That one little detail saved my sub and has kept me around over the years. I appreciate the large number of people online, even the occasionally annoying spammer. It adds color and entertainment to the atmosphere. In my opinion, that's what massively multiplayer means.
I also understand that this isn't what everyone is looking for in CoH. There are people out there that like their low population servers because they've made a home and community there. It's just not very friendly for people who, just like when I started, don't know how to become a part of the community and enjoy playing this game in the presence of others. There's a reason that many people are curious as to the number of people playing this game and how active the servers are. We do the whole community a disservice when these people become frustrated and leave. I would therefore make two recommendations:
1) Some notification on the sign in screen regarding server population. Honestly, I wasn't even aware until this thread that the servers are listed according to population. There is basically no guidance for a beginner as to which server has a large population.
2) An auto-teaming system to make it easier to get on a team even if you aren't aware of global channels or your server's super groups.
Looking at Bill Z's numbers is kind of disheartening. Depending on the time of day, I have trouble getting large teams on red side on Freedom. I can't imagine trying to do this when, at its peak, the server only has ~70 people on red side. If we ignore the people who are hiding (as they are probably not going to be actively teaming) and we assume that a good chunk of that 70 are 50s who are farming, socializing, playing the market, etc (maybe 30%, unless someone here has some concrete data), that leaves 49 people stretching from level 1-49. I could see how someone just starting at level 1 with no friends and no group would definitely feel like the place was barren, especially if they logged in during non-peak hours. Now, I'm not trying to be unfair to people who are hiding or who want to solo, but I have to imagine that most people who purchase this game do so to play with other superheroes. I can't see how having so few teaming opportunities for new players on some servers is sustainable or desirable. Maybe more needs to be done to funnel a player's first character to a high population server so they can get a bigger bite of the MMO experience before they go to a smaller server with a tighter community.
I would probably pursue every possible option before merging servers, but I don't think consolidation is something that can be entirely ruled out as the game ages and populations shrink.
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And with this you just answered why red side has has a significantly lower population. Most people buy City of Heroes to create and play with Heroes.|
Originally Posted by Oblivion21
I have to imagine that most people who purchase this game do so to play with other superheroes.
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| Maybe more needs to be done to funnel a player's first character to a high population server |
Reversing the list funneled new players towards the less populated servers where they didn't have stability issues and the new players encountered fewer jerks which seem to gravitate to a certain server that shall remain nameless.
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No problem. And ironically, what you said are my thoughts on zone revamps. I don't know why the devs think that they need to recreate Faultline every time they pay attention to a zone, but I think its a bad precedent to have.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Ah I see what you're talking about. Posi said something similar during an in game question and answer during the 5 year anniversary.
To be honest I wasn't thinking of anything on that grand a scale, more along the lines of will there be new things added or changed to go along with the new morality feature and things like that. Little changes instead of an entire zone revamp. Sorry for the confusion. |
Mercy doesn't need a graphical revamp as much as it needs more alternate starting contacts and a wider variety of enemies in starting missions.
I'll admit that Atlas and Galaxy are showing their age, but more than graphics, they need a cleanup of the starting contacts and missions given from them.
IMO, Freedom probably has the highest villain population, as I think Virtue being the informal RP server, probably has the highest hero population, followed by Freedom. I did a ton of polling awhile back and the numbers in the searches tended to reflect the reality of population order, as well as overall online population, and I suspect that hasn't changed much in the last couple years, except that there are probably less players overall.
I've always been a fan of server consolidation, but even I could never say when that would need to happen, as the one real downside is the naming issue. There are other cons, and lots of pros, however.
I'm not even saying we have to drop down to one server, really, just maybe halve the number of servers.
Regarding zone revamping - I prefer that to increasing the number of zones. Having played EQ for some time, I saw how the game deteriorated as the population got split between all the zones, and at one point there were nearly 500 zones, and the vast majority were abandoned, or used simply to cross to other zones. There were other factors at work, but I think they could have spent more time improving the game than constantly creating new zones.
I would also personally recommend making Atlas Park the only starter zone for CoH, and revamping GC for another higher level zone. Level 20 or higher, given what is coming in the new expansion.
Just some early morning ramblings. What do you think?
id like to see a server merge...oh the fun threads that would happen would be out of this world!!
plus ya know..being the only one in p.i. on guardian at "supposed peak times"really isnt all that fun..im just saying.
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And those that wanted to be villains will be just out of luck if they want to experience MMO.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
And with this you just answered why red side has has a significantly lower population. Most people buy City of Heroes to create and play with Heroes.
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| In the beginning the servers were listed by population and they were forced to change it because people being lazy always selected the first server on the list and. This led to certain servers getting overpopulated and having stability issues. |
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| Reversing the list funneled new players towards the less populated servers where they didn't have stability issues and the new players encountered fewer jerks which seem to gravitate to a certain server that shall remain nameless. |
Server Emptiness?
You're imagining it...
Imagine people, not the lack of.
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The devs can't force people to play a faction that they don't want to. They tried to entice PvE players into PvP zones by placing badges, missions, and valuable rewards in those zones and it failed miserably. Most players refuse to set foot in those zones. |
Originally Posted by Oblivion21
And those that wanted to be villains will be just out of luck if they want to experience MMO.
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The only thing that drew a lot of players redside were the AT's and with Going Rogue you will see a temporary increase in population redside as players redeem their characters to become heroes.
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| After recent hardware upgrades and a general decline in population, I can't see this as being much of a problem now. |
Upgrading the servers does not stop people from being lazy and only clicking on the top server.
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| And now, instead of encountering jerks, they just encounter almost no one at all. |
And yet each time someone makes a claim like that, players come out of the woodwork from the server being slandered and refute the claim that no one is on those servers.
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| I didn't experience any rude behavior when I first joined Freedom, if that's the server to which you are referring. |
You can claim that you haven't experienced any rude behavior. It may be true but it's more likely that you are just saying that because you think it will help your side of the discussion. The sheer number of posts to the contrary over the years have shown that that server has earned it's notorious reputation.
Now in that server's defense they do have a large number of decent players but people tend to remember and complain about the bad experiences. That's human nature.
Also the jerks tend to gravitate to the heavily populated servers just because they can blend in with the crowds easier. When they are on the low pop servers they tend to stand out and get /ignored and shunned by the smaller tight knit communities. The notes feature is a great tool in blacklisting the obnoxious players.
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No, but they can let players know which and encourage them to go to servers that have large populations where they will be more likely to find teams and find people who are willing to show them the ropes. It's not about forcing players to play red side, it's about at least notifying new players which server has a red side that will actually be massively multiplayer.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
The devs can't force people to play a faction that they don't want to. They tried to entice PvE players into PvP zones by placing badges, missions, and valuable rewards in those zones and it failed miserably. Most players refuse to set foot in those zones.
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| Upgrading the servers does not stop people from being lazy and only clicking on the top server. |
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| And yet each time someone makes a claim like that, players come out of the woodwork from the server being slandered and refute the claim that no one is on those servers. |
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
You can claim that you haven't experienced any rude behavior. It may be true but it's more likely that you are just saying that because you think it will help your side of the discussion. The sheer number of posts to the contrary over the years have shown that that server has earned it's notorious reputation.
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| You can claim that you haven't experienced any rude behavior. It may be true but it's more likely that you are just saying that because you think it will help your side of the discussion. The sheer number of posts to the contrary over the years have shown that that server has earned it's notorious reputation. |
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| Also the jerks tend to gravitate to the heavily populated servers just because they can blend in with the crowds easier. When they are on the low pop servers they tend to stand out and get /ignored and shunned by the smaller tight knit communities. The notes feature is a great tool in blacklisting the obnoxious players. |
Its clear from reading all of this that what really needs to be done to solve the problem of emptiness is...
MERGE THE ZONES
Not the servers... the zones on them. Bring the War-Walls down so that the whole heart of the city (Atlas, Galaxy, Perez, Kings, Skyway, and Steel) becomes one huge 1-20 zone. Thus... all of the population spread across a half-dozen zones will be in one zone which would increase the perception that there are many players around.
Too many people in this mega-zone would obviously create instances... but being shoved into Downtown Paragon 2 tells the new player that there's enough people playing to require multiple instances of city zones; there's a huge population here.
Since this would be a massive undertaking I'd expect it to be another paid expansion which would likely redo all the old 1-20 content for the game to take advantage of the new art and tech available.
They could also encourage street sweeping (thereby showing up on searches) by eliminating the difference in debt between instanced missions and being defeated on the streets. Adding more unique zone events (smaller fires that need to be put out... knocking cats out of trees (punch the tree to "defeat" it and drop the cat down to the old lady waiting on the street)... that sort of thing) would help too.
colloquialism
— n
1. a word or phrase appropriate to conversation and other informal situations
2. the use of colloquial words and phrases
col·lo·qui·al
–adjective
1. characteristic of or appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing; informal.
2. involving or using conversation.
EDIT: Aw, poo. Forbin's was better.
Dec out.
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