WAR's cross-server scenario queues akin to socialism
by James Egan 
Oct 4th 2008 at 4:00PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Classes, Game mechanics, Guilds, MMO industry, PvP, Warhammer Online, Opinion, Races
Warhammer Online, despite a very smooth launch, has a few nagging problems that have cropped up in its first weeks of life. Chief among its growing pains is the problem of scenario queuing issues, both on barren servers and the ones that are practically choking on players. Snafzg over at The Greenskin asks if creating a better situation for all Warhammer Online players must entail some degree of sacrifice made by all through cross-server scenario queues, likening the solution to socialism. A situation where the 'good servers' sacrifice for the benefit of 'problem servers'. Snafzg writes, "I'm not saying socialism is bad... but I wonder if there are alternative solutions that don't punish (too strong a word?) people on good servers for the benefit of those on bad servers. I don't envy Mythic here... Make one crowd happy only to piss off another?" He also points out that the core issues of server population imbalance impact the game on many levels, and suggests some potential solutions for both overpopulation and underpopulation issues. If you're not happy with the scenario frequency in Warhammer Online, give Snafzg's "Cross-Server Scenario Socialism..." post a read, and let him know if you agree with his views on the issue.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Excelsior said on 4:10PM 10-04-2008
I honestly think that they have implemented way too many servers to start with. They buckled with 90 minute wait times at launch and created even more. I think that if they had offered a switch server at no charge instead of cloning servers, it would have worked out better.
Right now I am playing on a medium level server and scenarios are rare to come up. We would actually enjoy a cross-server scenario scene.
The only negative I could see would be if the two servers would have similar names on them.
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Durinthal said on 4:18PM 10-04-2008
I imagine one of the reasons why they don't do that is technical issues. Your character only exists on one server, and copying it over for the duration of a scenario then copying it back is expensive.
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luchifer said on 4:33PM 10-04-2008
Technically, WoW already did it. My problem with the cross-server would be more Realm vs Realm issues, because you are supposed to know your enemy and hate him, find him in a scenario, then find him when you are assaulting a city. That makes really interesting guild vs guild battles.
Kamokazi said on 11:16AM 10-06-2008
It's not expensive. You're apparently sold on all these paid character transfers. The payment is not for the copying, or even the labor to copy (once the code is set up, it should be trivially easy)...it's for two reasons: 1) Limit the transferring of characters, and 2) Generate extra revenue.
It would take a decent amount of work to rewrite the scenario code to pull from character databases on different servers, and probably some reconfiguring in their datacenter to accomodate those queries across different realms. But it's mostly a matter of being able to point database queries and inserts at the correct database.
So some cost is incurred in development time, but nothing 'extra'. It will just push other projects back.
Mr. Pickles said on 5:16PM 10-04-2008
The reason why this'll never happen is because the Realm vs. Realm is server specific. Scenarios acumulate points for your Realm to capture a zone, just as questing, PQ's, world RvR, and other activities also help with the points.
Now, if some random players from another Realm come into your Realm's scenario and say ...AFK, or are just horrible compared to players on your server and then you lose, they don't lose anything concerning their Realm, yet your Realm does.
Think about it.
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my2cents said on 12:57AM 10-05-2008
Yep. If it weren't for this issue, I'd expect them to implement a "battlegroup" system asap. (This is where several servers are formed into groups of servers that share the same battlegrounds.)
This would obviously be problematic when scenario outcomes affect world RvR. However, I honestly wouldn't mind seeing them change it so that scenarios no longer contribute to world RvR. It's not ideal, but I think the tradeoff is more than worth it. The void could be filled by making actual world RvR combat contribute more points toward victory, further encouraging participation.
By the way, I know this is a bit off-topic, but I'm starting to think that to encourage keep sieges and other world RvR at the lower tiers, high level players should not be "chickened," but instead should get the opposite of the level bolster and be temporarily leveled down to the highest level of that tier. Granted, they'd still have an advantage due to gear and a wider selection of abilities, but I think it would work fine. It's kind of sad to outlevel a tier and know you can't RvR there anymore without rerolling.
Gideon Slack said on 5:54PM 10-04-2008
WAR is already a socialist game. Every one pays the same subscription price, gets the same benefits etc. You could be a CEO, you could be unemployed, everyone's equal.
Free to play gamse with item malls are the only true capitalist, anti-socalist games out there.
Yet, the subscription people scream that item mall games aren't fair. Are they crypto-socialists or just confused?
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mandrill said on 7:00PM 10-04-2008
Hang on a minute, no-one ever said capitalism was fair. Anti-socialist maybe, but fair? No.
Capitalism is based on the greatest good for those who can afford it. Nothing fair about that if you're a man with no arms who can't work to earn wealth to afford those goods.
Socialism is based on mediocre good for everyone, and it even fails at that.
There is no such thing as a perfect system. You can please all of the people none of the time and only a small minority some of the time.
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Marco said on 10:53AM 10-05-2008
The solution is simple, server only queue for 5 minutes ... fill in remaining slot with cross server players who have been in their queues for 5+ minutes.
High pop servers will still only meet people from their server on popular scenarios. Everybody happy? (Never of course, but still you avoid the problem of "punishing" the high population servers.)
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