Discussion: Withstand the Praetorian Surge!

Further confirmation of an imminent Praetorian invasion has been secured from our team of scientists and mages lead by Dr. Keyes.

Heroes of Paragon City, Villains of the Rogue Isles, it is time to set aside your differences and unite against a perilous threat for the common good of humanity. We can't stress enough that, should Emperor Cole and his troops succeed in subjugating our planet and its inhabitants, the foundations of our society and liberty will not only be at stake, they are likely to collapse and plunge us into an era of darkness and fear.

The times when the dimensional barriers are at their most vulnerable have now been identified. Those times are when intrusions into our dimension are most likely to happen. Be watching for announcements in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles at the following dates and times!

Please note that as a gesture of appreciation and recognition, a special account wide badge will be given out to everybody taking part in the Freedom Protection effort on Friday, May 27th!

And if we manage to get more than 2500 heroes and villains to join in our effort that day, this badge of valour will be extended to citizens of all other European and North American servers who will log in to their home server between May 28th through May 30th! For more information on this, please read Second Measure's post below!



Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

Time: 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. British Time
Server: Union

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Virtue

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Time: 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. British Time
Server: Defiant

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Justice

Friday, May 13th, 2011

Time: 19:00 - 22:00 Central European Time
Server: Vigilance

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Liberty

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Time: 19:00 - 22:00 Central European Time
Server: Zukunft

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Champion

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Triumph

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Guardian

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Infinity

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Protector

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Victory

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Pinnacle

Friday, May 27th, 2011

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Central Time)
Server: Freedom



For the future of Primal Earth!

Hi everyone.

We announced that on May 27th, 2011, for a few hours (4-7 PM Pacific), you can log in to the Freedom server and get a badge that will apply to every character on your entire account.

We understand that not everyone can be there that night, but we have a very serious goal to test some server improvements; so here's what we are doing:

We have a goal of exceeding our highest ever peak concurrent users on a single server, which is 3500 players. But we might not be able to make that, so we will at least settle for 2500. If we get 2500 concurrent players on the Freedom server on May 27th between the hours of 4PM and 7PM Pacific, we will leave the badge on for the rest of the holiday weekend (May 27th through May 30th) on *ALL* European and North American servers.

We timed this event to coincide with the greatest typical number of concurrent players worldwide to give the most people possible the chance to get the badge. If you don't have a character on Freedom, you can simply create one and log in to get the badge.

If you can't make it on the 27th or over the Memorial weekend, we will absolutely give you another opportunity to get the badge in a few months. If you DO get the badge this weekend, you’ll have some measure of exclusivity for a few months, maybe enough exclusivity to get you to log in real quick before you hit the hay or hit the clubs. And we want to ensure that this badge is prestigious, so the next opportunity will be a limited-time window as well, though longer than three hours to be sure.

When we run this event, we will be able to open the server queue wider than we have ever been able in the past (maybe even turn it off) and we think we can get a ridiculous number of you on Freedom all at the same time, more than we have ever been able to support. We've made some server optimizations that will make it possible to run our servers more efficiently for the future and hold *way* more players on any piece of hardware; this improvement will help us continue to support City of Heroes efficiently for the future. One of the smartest guys I've ever had the pleasure to know has been working insanely hard on this for months, and we want to ensure that he can go back to actually getting sleep at night, comfortable that his hard work has paid off.

You don't even have to stick around and fight off the Praetorian invasion: logging in during the window will grant the badge, and you can log out and go back to your home server. But maybe if you stick around and get into a group, you'll help reach the goal and have some fun at the same time. Imagine seeing more versions of Atlas Park than you have ever been seen before!

If you really want to knuckle down and kick some Praetorian butt, we are running events on all of the servers over the next few weeks to let you get your favorite characters in on the action, but the finale will be on Freedom to help us get this tested, as well as give a nice apocalyptic feel to the event. We can run all the simulations we want, but nothing will really help like real concurrency.

A few key points of info:

First, we have been running this version of the server software since Issue 20 went live, so it's not like this is a fresh build that hasn't been tested. We’ve had some other bugs since I20 went live, but these changes haven’t been at the heart of those bugs, which is why we feel comfortable running this event.

Second, before the rumor mill starts churning, this isn't about a server merge or going “server-less”, either -- the server communities are genuinely important to you and to us. We have good, old-fashioned business reasons to be more efficient with the servers. If you could make your car get a couple miles more to the gallon every day, you'd probably do it, too. Now imagine you can make your car *twice* as efficient. This is kinda like that.

Third, if this somehow goes unexpectedly awry and no one can get onto the server, we won't leave it so only a few hundred lucky people got the badge before something went boom; we will reward you for at least trying, so we'll figure something else out to award the badge if it doesn't work out, and we will be proactive about the communication.

Fourth, the Praetorian enemies used in the Surge are event critters, as well, so they scale to your level like all our other event critters. There are plenty of 50s on Freedom: you should be able to get a group, and I'm guessing leagues will form as well, but a dozen level 1s can still take out an event critter, easy. If you do stick around, you should have a good opportunity to lend a hand.

This badge is special to us, it represents a big technical milestone for City of Heroes. And now it is special to everyone, as well, because it will be a symbol of the community working together for a common goal.

Well, this is a better implementation.

Interesting. . . Sounds like they are actually challenging us to make the server go boom.

All i know is if the lag is anything like the BAF there will be ABSOLUTELY NO POINT in dealing with the event. Freedom is my home server but if the lag is anywhere near what I have been experiencing in the BAF's guess I will go back to my original home that night and play on Justice.

Will the raised sever cap also affect the individual zone caps? Like will it now take more players to spawn a new instance of a zone?

this solution is very acceptable, much better than before

yay for devs that listen!

I want to make Freedom go BOOM! I wonder how many instances of CoH my machine can handle and how many trial accounts I can make. . .

This is a perfectly acceptable solution to me.

Now... we just need to destroy Freedom.

Thanks for update on Union and Defiant time

Okay, this is... 9am to 12pm on a workday for my main server... Will these event critters only be showing up at these times, or will they appear later? I'm just curious as to if I should risk taking a sick day at what is going to be a rather inconvenient time for work.

Too bad the invasion is only limited hours. All day would have been nice. Now it's just another event I'll be missing out on.

Glad to see the changes. This should work out much better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crowther Too bad the invasion is only limited hours. All day would have been nice. Now it's just another event I'll be missing out on.

All day, every weekday, for almost three weeks? That's a bit unreasonable to expect, I think.

Oh... I still hate it.

But at least they've attempted to address the concerns, and for those insane badger types (of which I might be one), you aren't shut out of an exclusive badge.

Read my stories!

No thanks - I have no interest in creating a new character to get a badge a few months early. For what it is worth, please do not tie badges to servers ever again. Find a better carrot....

Heres something to think about. The badge text is written in a similar style as the Pratorean Resistance. Just add it in a glowie that looks like a Pratorean Resitance grafiti board.

Make it avalable as an Oroborus misson and make the intro contatct say something like that in alternative time line the Prateoian Resistance was known as the Pratorian Freedom Fighters.

Make the map an outdoor map big enough to spawn Boss,Eliteboss and Archvillain versions of the giant robots, and what other critters were part of the invasion. So everyone can have a taste of the event. Hey we have access to time travel and creating a new Oroborus mission is a great way to reward the badge and remember an event.

Since its an account badge make it an account wide accolade that awards 2 merits, so that the hero or villian getting the badge has touched the life of heroes and villians of the present and those yet to come.

Break the server? Sounds fun. I'll see what I can do. It's gonna be a lowbie though. Just the same, I'll come with wings, auras, capes... maybe as an MM just to see what I can do.

And it is freedom. I hear they give out PL's like Pinnacle gives out shots!

Edit:

Wow. I should actually be able to make it to that!

*Walks off mumbling how odd that is...*

My objections are mostly satisfied, give badge now to encourage participation in the stress test but available to everyone later.