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GASP! Yes I know I was playing another game besides MW:O. Sacrilidge, I know. Tonight they had a capture the map game.
Now I know, how does this relate to Mechwarrior: Online? Bear with me, this might be a bit long, but I promise I'll get to my point.
The problems were that as usual, the Goons had their team on there and they were dominating the game. Not only were they using their forces, but they were logging on to other forces teams and then placing blocks in entrance doorways for the launching points to keep other teams stalled so they could get an unfair advantage. But the worst...was that their servers couldn't handle the MASSIVE amount of people on there, causing for incredible lag problems. There were 1 hour wait times to jump from one area to the next. It was brutally bad.
Now, granted, the GOONS were not the problem. The problem...the lack of server space. They had SOOOOOOO many people on there for this event, the servers could not handle the massive amounts of changes from teams, massively LARGE teams moving from one area to the next. It was TERRIBLE. Now...how does that apply to MW:O?
Simple. My fear is that I do not believe that one server will be able to handle one area for Community Warfare. You'd have to have the best and most expensive blade servers out there all interwoven together. AND then, you're going to have to somehow tie those servers into other servers across the globe to handle massive Inner Sphere changes. Oh sure, I know right now you guys are going to be starting small, with only about 100 worlds or so that will be able to change hands. But each world is going to be massive, and each world will have hundreds of forces fighting on one world. Tie it all in that they will be all interwoven, and it's going to be pure CHAOS.
My problem is say you get a force from South Korean players attacking a force in the US or the UK. It's going to be hell trying to get those two forces to fight together and then get the proper results without massive lag interfereance, PLUS be capable of handling a sudden massive rush of other players joining in to create serveral THOUSAND people or more on ONE SERVER world.
The reason why I'm pointing this out is because I work in the Telecom industry and I've also worked in Data Center hubs.
You are absolutely going to need TOP of the line servers to handle this. I'm warning you guys in advance of what to expect because I know. I've got 15+ years of experience to back it up and know what I'm talking about.
Look, I'm not going to ask for specifics of how your system works. That's IGP's department, and I'm leaving that between you and them. What I am saying is whatever deal you have with IGP...if this sucker takes off, like you and I expect it will, and we've done the server stress tests, whatever you might THINK is acceptable, give yourself a buffer zone. If you think you need say, hypothetically 400 servers, add at least 25 percent more for mass overflow for major events. Because when they come into play, ESPECIALLY for Community Warfare hits, you guys are going to NEED the extra servers that can handle the capacity. Or else people are going to do what they did in Planetside 2 did tonight. A TON of people from one side...they just UP and QUIT out of frustration. They left. Like I did.
Anyway, I'm going to be taking this and posting this also on the General Discussion boards, but I wanted to put this out there to FOREWARN you guys that you are going to HAVE to be prepared for the massive crush of people that will be playing when Community Warfare hits the game.
You've been told. It's not a threat. It's a forewarning to keep PGI from making the same mistakes that Sony made tonight. And I'm not trying to post this to be a dbag or try and hurt PGI. That's not my intent. My intent is to get you guys at PGI to listen so you know to watch out for this and try and cut this in the bud AHEAD of time. The old saying stands...
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of CURE.
Thanks.
Edited by Tice Daurus, 25 January 2013 - 08:15 PM.
