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Author Topic: Warhammer Online Server Dead Pool  (Read 299926 times)
Arthur_Parker
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on: February 19, 2009, 02:49:26 AM

Decided to put this in a post to track what's happening with the server merges "free character transfers".

US Servers - Alive
Badlands, Dark Crag, Darklands, Gorfang, Iron Rock, Ironclaw, Ironfist, Magnus, Monolith, Ostermark, Phoenix Throne, Praag, Skull Throne, Volkmar, Vortex

US Servers - Dead or Dying (date transfers off announced, included)
Anlec - 11/25/2008
Avelorn - 11/25/2008
Averheim - 11/25/2008
Azazel - 02/19/2009
Bechafen - 11/25/2008
Be'lakor - 10/31/2008
Bretonnia - 11/25/2008
Chaos Wastes - 11/25/2008
Drakwald - 11/05/2008
Drifting Castle - 11/05/2008
Eerie Downs - 11/03/2008
Grimnir - 10/31/2008
Heldenhammer - 10/31/2008
Hochland - 01/05/2009
Kislev - 10/31/2008
Kragg - 10/31/2008
Lucan - 11/01/2008
Lustria - 11/01/2008
Marienburg - 10/31/2008
Marius - 11/01/2008
Middenheim - 10/31/2008
Mordheim - 10/31/2008
Rakarth - 10/31/2008
Red Eye Mountain - 02/19/2009
Reikland - 10/31/2008
Saphery - 10/31/2008
Sea of Claws - 10/31/2008
Sea of Malice - 10/31/2008
Skavenblight - 10/31/2008
Sylvania - 02/19/2009
Thorgrim - 10/31/2008
Tor Achere - 10/31/2008
Tor Elyr - 10/31/2008
Tower of Doom - 10/31/2008
Ulthuan - 11/05/2008
Ungrim - 02/19/2009
Wasteland - 11/05/2008
White Tower - 10/31/2008
Wolfenburg - 11/25/2008
Wurtbad - 11/03/2008


EU Servers English Language - Alive
Burlok, Dragonback Mountains, Eltharion, Karak Eight Peaks, Karak-Azgal, Karak-Hirn, Karak-Izor, Karak-Norn

EU English Language Servers - Dead or Dying (date transfers off announced, included)
Alarielle - 22/12/2008
Axe Bite Pass - 12/16/2008
Clar Karond - 11/24/2008
Ellyrion - 11/24/2008
Finuval Plain - 11/24/2008
Karag Dron - 12/16/2008
Karag Orrud - 12/16/2008
Karak Ungor - 11/24/2008
Karak-Vlag - 11/24/2008
Karaz-a-Karak - 11/24/2008
Makaisson - 11/24/2008
Mount Silverspear - 11/24/2008
Sea of Dreams - 11/24/2008
Tiranoc - 11/24/2008
Tor Anroc - 11/24/2008
Worlds Edge Mountains - 11/24/2008
Yvresse - 11/24/2008
Zhufbar - 11/24/2008

Total servers alive 15 US + 8 EU English Language = 23 alive

Total servers dead or dying 40 US + 18 EU English Language = 58 dead/dying


Note, counting Oceanic servers as part of the US for ease of tracking, not including Russia or non English language EU servers as :effort:   If anyone spots a mistake, please let me know.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2009, 03:08:17 AM by Arthur_Parker »
IainC
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Reply #1 on: February 19, 2009, 03:03:26 AM

For the EU, you've only included the English servers. News of transfers is only reported in the news for the relevant language so you'd need to trawl the German and French archives for info on their transfers. AFAIK there have been no Spanish or Italian merges.

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Arthur_Parker
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Reply #2 on: February 19, 2009, 03:08:36 AM

Doh, thanks, modified now.
Bismallah
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Reply #3 on: February 19, 2009, 05:15:15 AM

Whew. Thanks for making a consolidated list.
waffel
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Reply #4 on: February 19, 2009, 12:56:50 PM

So much for the population numbers evening out and/or starting to grow.
Tmon
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Reply #5 on: February 19, 2009, 01:12:02 PM

I see Red Eye Mountain's on the list, if Bat Country was still alive they'd be making their 2nd move in three months.  Soon there will be a video on youtube explaining why having fewer servers than they launched with is a. a good thing and b. totally the fault of the dev responsible for server coding.
Lantyssa
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Reply #6 on: February 19, 2009, 02:38:11 PM

If they consolidate a few more servers they can then open one and then Jacob's comment about how if they're not opening new servers in six months will show they're in great shape!

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
Bismallah
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Reply #7 on: February 19, 2009, 02:41:52 PM

If they consolidate a few more servers they can then open one and then Jacob's comment about how if they're not opening new servers in six months will show they're in great shape!

Sad, yet so true.
Arthur_Parker
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Reply #8 on: February 19, 2009, 02:56:23 PM

55 US open for character creation at peak, closing one, kills less than 2% of their maximum capacity.  15 US currently open for character creation, each one they close now, kills over 6% of their maximum capacity.
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Reply #9 on: February 19, 2009, 04:27:11 PM

One factor at play here was the rapid expansion of new servers to accommodate launch, followed by an update their server technology that apparently allowed more players per server. If they hadn't rushed to get more servers out the door, things wouldn't look this bad.

But yeah, woulda, shoulda, coulda.

Triforcer
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Reply #10 on: February 19, 2009, 06:04:01 PM

One factor at play here was the rapid expansion of new servers to accommodate launch, followed by an update their server technology that apparently allowed more players per server. If they hadn't rushed to get more servers out the door, things wouldn't look this bad.

But yeah, woulda, shoulda, coulda.

So it WAS the fault of the server coders!!  I await Paul Barnett's harsh, yet totally needed brand of You-tube discipline to the party involved. 

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Reply #11 on: February 19, 2009, 11:06:12 PM

FuckedCompanyServers.com

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Geki
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Reply #12 on: February 20, 2009, 10:38:30 AM

So it WAS the fault of the server coders!!  I await Paul Barnett's harsh, yet totally needed brand of You-tube discipline to the party involved. 

Actually, it's probably more the fault of the people who threw absolute shit-fits when they announced the list of, what was it 10 or so servers for launch right before the CE prelaunch.  As much as we'd like to blame mythic for that... they pretty much said "we have enough servers for launch with these 10".  Then the vntards threw tantrums claiming that mythic would need 10X the amount of servers to accommodate the vast amount of demand for the game at 'real' launch.  So mythic caved and added a bunch of servers that are now dead or on the way out.



rk47
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Reply #13 on: February 20, 2009, 10:48:25 AM

That's probably the most acceptable explanation I've read. I mean the current state of the game definitely is good enough to be holding all the population within 23 servers. Once the expansion pack is released, I'm sure Mythic can plan on the new server additions to cater to newcomers so the playing field can still be even. I am sure that many people who are on the fence are eagerly waiting for that to happen before they resub or buy the game.

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Reply #14 on: February 20, 2009, 10:54:12 AM

Actually, it's probably more the fault of the people who threw absolute shit-fits when they announced the list of, what was it 10 or so servers for launch right before the CE prelaunch.  As much as we'd like to blame mythic for that... they pretty much said "we have enough servers for launch with these 10".  Then the vntards threw tantrums claiming that mythic would need 10X the amount of servers to accommodate the vast amount of demand for the game at 'real' launch.  So mythic caved and added a bunch of servers that are now dead or on the way out.
EA did sell a lot of boxes. You need servers to accomodate all those people. Using rough round numbers let's say 20K people per server with 1.5 million boxes shipped to retailers = 75 servers needed which is basically what they launched with.

Unforunately for them most people didn't stick around. When your player base falls to, say, 300K players, you only need 15 servers which they are working their way down to awesome, for real
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Reply #15 on: February 20, 2009, 10:58:36 AM

Capacity wasn't the only reason people were bitching about the servers available at release.  The other problem was Mythic initially released a list of 20? servers.  We had that list for a week or two and many guilds picked their starting server based on that list.  I had to coordinate with four completely different groups of people to make sure everyone picked the same server.  It was already a fucking nightmare to get those four groups of people to agree on a server.  Then a few days before the launch Mythic releases a list with 10? servers on it for the CE headstart.  Guess what?  The god damn fucking server that I got all these people to agree to start on wasn't on the list.  I had to scramble to get those four groups to pick a new server within a day.  I ultimately failed and lost a large group of people to a different server.  My community was fractured before the game even released.  The clown shoes began before the game even launched.  Yeah, still bitter about that.

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Reply #16 on: February 20, 2009, 11:28:48 AM

Capacity wasn't the only reason people were bitching about the servers available at release.  The other problem was Mythic initially released a list of 20? servers.  We had that list for a week or two and many guilds picked their starting server based on that list.  I had to coordinate with four completely different groups of people to make sure everyone picked the same server.  It was already a fucking nightmare to get those four groups of people to agree on a server.  Then a few days before the launch Mythic releases a list with 10? servers on it for the CE headstart.  Guess what?  The god damn fucking server that I got all these people to agree to start on wasn't on the list.  I had to scramble to get those four groups to pick a new server within a day.  I ultimately failed and lost a large group of people to a different server.  My community was fractured before the game even released.  The clown shoes began before the game even launched.  Yeah, still bitter about that.

Interestingly enough, those 2 servers were Phoenix Throne and Red Eye Mountain, of which the former is one of the few servers where Order outnumbers Destruction, and the other was Red Eye Mountain, which is on life support.

Bismallah
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Reply #17 on: February 20, 2009, 12:11:56 PM

So it WAS the fault of the server coders!!  I await Paul Barnett's harsh, yet totally needed brand of You-tube discipline to the party involved. 

Actually, it's probably more the fault of the people who threw absolute shit-fits when they announced the list of, what was it 10 or so servers for launch right before the CE prelaunch.  As much as we'd like to blame mythic for that... they pretty much said "we have enough servers for launch with these 10".  Then the vntards threw tantrums claiming that mythic would need 10X the amount of servers to accommodate the vast amount of demand for the game at 'real' launch.  So mythic caved and added a bunch of servers that are now dead or on the way out.


Haha, wait, what? You are going to say with a straight face that Mythic listened to some whiners on the VN boards and "caved in" and created more servers just, you know, on a whim. Um no.

They said they were releasing about 16 (could have been more I didnt buy CE went with regular release), they had the list, then they cut it back and had 10. That was the shit fit. As explained there were many groups of folks that had already organized to go live on certain servers, those servers didn't make the launch list for some unknown reasons, and people complained. They flexed out to so many servers after CE because of projections of initial box sales based off beta invites and beta account requests. Blame the VN posters all you like but a gaming company like Mythic doesnt just listen to one forum's worth of folks to make big money decisions. I am sure there were some head shed meetings with bean counters to decide server counts on release, not some VN posts printed out to take to the meetings to explain why they need more servers.
Geki
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Reply #18 on: February 20, 2009, 01:33:56 PM


Haha, wait, what? You are going to say with a straight face that Mythic listened to some whiners on the VN boards and "caved in" and created more servers just, you know, on a whim. Um no.

They said they were releasing about 16 (could have been more I didnt buy CE went with regular release), they had the list, then they cut it back and had 10. That was the shit fit. As explained there were many groups of folks that had already organized to go live on certain servers, those servers didn't make the launch list for some unknown reasons, and people complained. They flexed out to so many servers after CE because of projections of initial box sales based off beta invites and beta account requests. Blame the VN posters all you like but a gaming company like Mythic doesnt just listen to one forum's worth of folks to make big money decisions. I am sure there were some head shed meetings with bean counters to decide server counts on release, not some VN posts printed out to take to the meetings to explain why they need more servers.

I used the term "vntards" as a generalization for all of the war fansite masses that cried about having to wait for the "regular" release when the CE servers were filling up while they couldn't play.  That was the shit fit.  The list you are talking about was the one they put up that had all of the servers and didn't mention which ones were CE and which ones weren't.

What happened was people got on the CE prerelease servers and they started filling up and people on all of the message boards started crying because they had to wait for login and the whole "what would happen when the rest of my unfortunate guild members without a CE try to get on?!" started.  When people started crying Mythic actually said 'we have servers in reserve if it's really going to be a big deal, right now we don't think it will'.  To which the people screamed mythic was crazy and posting shots of full servers, etc. and then what do you know, all of a sudden after the regular retail release hit there were servers added a few hours after the release started.

Shortly after those servers were released they added a patch that allowed the queues to be higher and it looked like half of those new servers the people begged for were ghost towns.

So yeah, I'm saying that in this case they actually caved to a bunch of whiners.  It was release, they were willing to suck a pretty big dick to get some numbers and they thought it would make people happy.  I think the tons of people threatening cancellations when their guilds couldn't get on the same server initially scared them.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on that one, because I don't think mythic wanted to release those servers at all.

Ironically 2 weeks later the same idiots bitched about how empty their server was.  Of course that might be due to everyone bailing when we got to T3 and said "eff this" but... still.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2009, 01:35:58 PM by Geki »
Arthur_Parker
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Reply #19 on: February 20, 2009, 01:42:45 PM

Not that I agree with much of that, but even if it was true, the first round of server closures should have fixed all those issues.  They are still closing servers months later, so...

edit, upon reflection, no, in fact all of that is fairly stupid, I don't think even Mythic would plan on buying hardware based on what is said on vn boards.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2009, 01:47:22 PM by Arthur_Parker »
March
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Reply #20 on: February 20, 2009, 04:44:47 PM

Still no... the botched CE release was still botched even by botching the adding of more botched CE servers.

The issue with CE was thinking that CE was a complete "set" of players that should fill-up a server and then they would add more servers for the next set.

Rather, CE was a subset of several sets of players that would (and in fact DID) completely overwhelm the original servers when the full sets joined the subsets... hence the clever cloning escapade.

I have no algorithms for estimating server hardware based on shipping stats, and I'm willing to acknowledge that this must be a nerve-wracking business decision... but Mythic *did* make an odd calculation that the CE folks would only want to play with other CE folks... and not the rest of the general population that was going to follow them to specific servers.

In their defense, they were correct that WaR plays better on full servers (as is become painfully obvious)... but they were wrong that CE folks were not primarily interested in the 5-day head-start to reserve names, guilds, and explore the general mechanics.  In this case, the 5 days headstart was far more important than full T3 queues.

They hinted that they had a plan (tm), but in typical Mythic fashion, they were too clever by not communicating the plan.  If they had told everyone not to worry about servers and that they would fix over-population with either a) free transfers or b) server clones or c) any other idea in the universe... then I suspect folks would not have worried about the flawed approach they were taking.

The fact that servers are dead now, has nothing to do with the miscalculated CE approach.  My level 5 SwordMaster on [cloned] White Tower is, for me, pure bonus.

edit: word order is important
« Last Edit: February 20, 2009, 04:48:51 PM by March »
waffel
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Reply #21 on: February 20, 2009, 04:48:58 PM

I don't see the big deal.

Either you don't have 'enough' servers at launch and people are all queued up trying to play, bitching.
Or you have too many servers, some are ghost towns, and you have to close them down which makes people bitch.

To hit the magic number of enough servers for everyone to play, no ghosttown servers, but no queues is near impossible.

What Mythic did makes perfect sense. Hype the game up, get everyone pumped, have CE play a week earlier (one of the only stupid things they did in terms of release) and have a bunch of servers for 'future growth'

The problem is they never grew, only shrank. Servers are closed. Big deal.

I don't really blame Mythic for aiming high and expecting to have grow steadily after the holidays and having enough servers active to account for that.

What I do blame Mythic for is for being so fucking blind/nearsighted that they couldn't see just how dogshitterrible their game was. Or that they expected the general MMO public to accept it.

The closed servers are just another indication of Mythic planning for one direction, but going another.
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Reply #22 on: February 20, 2009, 08:49:03 PM

It speaks volumes that another original server is going.

It's one thing to shut down the "extras" and such, but you'd think an original server would still be as healthy as any other - except when you have high turn-over, in which case being an original  server is more of a liability.

That tells me that the most passionate, optimistic players and guilds (who would of course be on those first servers) have already decided to leave. Which fits with the whole "3-months then out" that I and pretty much everyone else I know who played at one point has done.

You just know that they know, and have to kite their population checks by opening up new markets before the next quarterly report. When is Russia going live again?

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Redgiant
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Reply #23 on: February 20, 2009, 08:59:20 PM

Fanboi self-hypnosis convincing themselves that WAR is having a pop increase since Volkmar is full/full.

Nevermind that a lot of what was Sylvania and Azazel just transfered. I'm sure THAT has nothing to do with it.

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3568716#post3568716

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IainC
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Reply #24 on: February 21, 2009, 02:59:17 AM

So it WAS the fault of the server coders!!  I await Paul Barnett's harsh, yet totally needed brand of You-tube discipline to the party involved. 

Actually, it's probably more the fault of the people who threw absolute shit-fits when they announced the list of, what was it 10 or so servers for launch right before the CE prelaunch.  As much as we'd like to blame mythic for that... they pretty much said "we have enough servers for launch with these 10".  Then the vntards threw tantrums claiming that mythic would need 10X the amount of servers to accommodate the vast amount of demand for the game at 'real' launch.  So mythic caved and added a bunch of servers that are now dead or on the way out.

No. Decisions were taken way before any lists were made public, you can't roll out hardware like MMO servers at that kind of notice.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2009, 03:00:48 AM by IainC »

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eldaec
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Reply #25 on: February 21, 2009, 03:18:26 AM

I didn't realise that European numbers were so poor.

Given the IP is so strong across Europe, and given the European market generally favours pvp games, this game really ought to be selling better across Europe than in the US. I guess there must be some specific weak link in the European marketing and service delivery chain that is dragging down numbers. Hmmm.  Ohhhhh, I see.

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Mavor
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Reply #26 on: February 21, 2009, 03:34:33 AM

 It's not their marketing department, it is the game itself. Crap is still crap, no matter what marketing says.
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Reply #27 on: February 21, 2009, 03:51:21 AM

I didn't realise that European numbers were so poor.

Given the IP is so strong across Europe, and given the European market generally favours pvp games, this game really ought to be selling better across Europe than in the US. I guess there must be some specific weak link in the European marketing and service delivery chain that is dragging down numbers. Hmmm.  Ohhhhh, I see.

Remember also that Arthur is only counting EU English servers, there are about 3x as many servers for the other 4 languages that aren't part of his numbers.

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Arthur_Parker
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Reply #28 on: February 21, 2009, 05:59:45 AM

Yeah what IainC said, I'm interested enough to track the easy stuff but not interested enough to put a lot of effort into this.
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Reply #29 on: February 21, 2009, 01:47:41 PM

I expect the warhammer fanboys population to take a hit. Warhammer 40k dawn of war 2 was just released and it's a pretty amazing game.
Bismallah
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Reply #30 on: February 22, 2009, 04:09:13 AM

Ah shit, I forgot about Dawn of War 2... I need to go pick that up.
Geki
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Reply #31 on: February 23, 2009, 07:21:13 AM

Not that I agree with much of that, but even if it was true, the first round of server closures should have fixed all those issues.  They are still closing servers months later, so...

edit, upon reflection, no, in fact all of that is fairly stupid, I don't think even Mythic would plan on buying hardware based on what is said on vn boards.

Not that any of this really matters, and I totally agree with March, but if you read what I stated mythic said from before launch they had several servers in waiting in case demand got better.  It wasn't a matter of "buying hardware based on waht is said on vn boards".  It was a matter of turning on the hardware they had laying in wait because people panicked.  Now, why in the world they couldn't match up boxes shipped with the amount of hardware and just tell people to suck it up if they really didn't need to use those servers, I couldn't say.   

And you're right, the first round of server closures should have fixed it.  But by the time they did that, everyone had bailed.  Talk about a lose/lose situation. 

But it is what it is I guess...


anyway back to DOWII

Geki
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Reply #32 on: February 23, 2009, 07:28:10 AM

oh I effing give up, it's definitely Monday.  Sheesus.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2009, 07:37:58 AM by Geki »
Arthur_Parker
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Reply #33 on: February 23, 2009, 07:57:24 AM

It was a matter of turning on the hardware they had laying in wait because people panicked.

There's zero evidence that they were in any way influenced by random internet posters on when they opened servers.  It's a classic fanboi excuse for a development company, blame the players, and ignores the fact that Mythic paying attention to what the player base said during the first few days of release would make them more clueless, not less.

It's retarded to try and shift some of the blame onto the players, the players are never at fault.  There's an unlimited depth of stupidity present in players, but they are always perfectly predictable.
Geki
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Reply #34 on: February 23, 2009, 08:09:52 AM

It was a matter of turning on the hardware they had laying in wait because people panicked.

There's zero evidence that they were in any way influenced by random internet posters on when they opened servers.  It's a classic fanboi excuse for a development company, blame the players, and ignores the fact that Mythic paying attention to what the player base said during the first few days of release would make them more clueless, not less.

It's retarded to try and shift some of the blame onto the players, the players are never at fault.  There's an unlimited depth of stupidity present in players, but they are always perfectly predictable.


Ah, I see what you're saying.  It's been a long monday morning already lol.  You're correct, there isn't any real evidence about them opening those new servers due to people whining.  It's just my presumption from the posts Mark made on the VN boards at the time basically saying they were adding servers to copy chars to since people complained about queues, etc.  While the players are retarded and always predictable, in this case I think mythic failed to predict how retardedly fast folks bailed from the game after they went through the trouble of adding servers.. d'oh!  I think we can all agree it's fail all around.

But yeah, I hear ya.  Sorry about that.
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