server load, and general interviewage

[Jesterthegreat]

How does one need many servers approx. für like many players?

Maximally a cluster described above by me can administer 2000 players at the same time. Around however the Qualität of the Gameplays to erhöhen and the number from möglichen errors to to minimize we lowered the limit somewhat. We will in such a way further pursue this line also in the future and with far rising player numbers rather into new hardware will invest to raise as the Beschränkung and potentially the play experience of the particular to beeinträchtigen.

all hail babelfish and its awful translation...

guess servers only hold 2000 people anyway... even if int release rocked we could only have 2000 people per server.

interview found here (http://www.testticker.de/it/strategie/article20050616017.aspx)


:edit: i especially liked this bit


The beta test plays für us an important role taken, since real feedback from zukünftigen customers was to be gotten in this way to. Due to the bekanntermaßen high Kreativität of the players toward unorthodox actions takes such a beta test with a MMORPG also an important place in quality the Assurance process.

know what the creative community thinks? get rid of fucking para.


:edit2: ok... don't even read the content part. it will make you wonder what game they are talking about...


We try to hold a balance between contents für advanced and for contents für new players. heh... new content for high players... well... more xp grinding and a couple of reused models... oh and an xbow pistol, which was wiped, then put in but not usable. think it works now though :D


we integrate new clubs, Dungeon, Appartments or different natürlich again and again in firm Abständen für the players interesting places. heh... well some of the noobie mission maps were nicely done... and this patch had the posibility of more maps to come... we shall see. but "again and again"? heh.


Their integration in the play then normally happens in connection with the story LINE, which drives the happening in front in Neocron. story line? thats where random mutants are spawned in the city right? or where we have a month long "kill a GM that changes his skin" event?

[Nidhogg]

Can you more clearly state the purpose of the thread? The first post doesn't invite discussion since it's just a bunch of comments and situates it somewhere between trolling and spamming.

N

[CMaster]

I think he is discussiing an interview with KK members, and well, picking apart their replies.

[Mighty Max]

I think he is discussiing an interview with KK members, and well, picking apart their replies.

You mean, he is missing the relation between Holger and the supposed reader ?

The quoted interview was given to a german information & telecomunication -economy-magazine.

Its like the difference between talking to your gf, your father or your mates ... if you mix up the style of talking, you might get in some troubles ... *g*

[Jesterthegreat]

I think he is discussiing an interview with KK members, and well, picking apart their replies.


ding ding.

i should have put the word "discuss" at the bottom like the cool kids :wtf:

though maybe this is one for off topic... its kk and nc related... but not ingame related.

:edit: and @ above if you wanna give us a better translation than the (quite frankly crap) babelfish one... please do.

:edit2: to make it completely clear... this thread is here to discuss the interview (if anyone can find a translator that is readable)

:edit3: without disagreeing with your judgement in the slightest nid... did i actually say anything that you would consider untrue? if so feel free to discuss. if you disagree with my points, use this thread to share your opinion on the topic (which is the interview)

[Mighty Max]

It's 3 Pages, i dont think i gonna translate that, esp. cuz its not addressed on us. Maybe the big section you quoted:

>>Maximal kann ein von mir oben beschriebenes Cluster 2000 Spieler gleichzeitig verwalten. Um aber die Qualität des Gameplays zu erhöhen und die Zahl von möglichen Fehlern zu minimieren haben wir das Limit etwas herabgesetzt. Wir werden diese Linie auch in Zukunft so weiterverfolgen und bei weiter steigenden Spielerzahlen eher in neue Hardware investieren, als die Beschränkung heraufzusetzen und potentiell das Spielerlebnis des Einzelnen zu beeinträchtigen.

==
At maximum the described cluster [my note to that: he defined a specific setup before, but said it was adjustable] can administarte up to 2000 players simultaneous. To enhance the quality of the gameplay and reduce the number of possible failures we set that limit a bit down. We will continue this line in the future as we do it now, and will with raising playercount more likely invest in new hardware then to simply raise set the limit higher and maybe influence the individual gameexpierience.


(its not word to word translation tho)

[Brammers]

Well first big question thats been asked so many times is, where is the storyline?

The lack of storyline is IMHO killing off the RP'ers. And I wont mention that old Pluto RP players was forced onto Terra...

[Nidhogg]

I'm not disputing the translation, it's just that the post is really general - it might have been better to split it over a number of threads because otherwise this could get really confusing. My comment was made purely from a forum mod point of view, not from a community liaison standpoint. ;)

N

[Clobber]

Damn those really general threads that might be situated between spamming and trolling :lol: What we need are some more real life pic threads or how we got into nc threads.


heh... new content for high players... well... more xp grinding and a couple of reused models... oh and an xbow pistol, which was wiped, then put in but not usable. think it works now though

Yeah it works but is still a complete joke and is rather embarrassing to be seen using one.


The lack of storyline is IMHO killing off the RP'ers. And I wont mention that old Pluto RP players was forced onto Terra...

Storyline :lol:

[UnderLoK]

I read this article a few days ago (note, use google to translate it does a much better job) and he says that the cluster is built to handle 2000 but it can't due to some limitations that google screwed up :lol: I think it was something about the fact that a cluster is 9 servers, but they ended up having to use 2 of them for login and the user db. I would assume that means the absolute max is like 1550.

He also talks about how they are continuing to expand upon the world and they expect to continue development for the foreseeable future.

The only thing I pulled out of the article that surprised me was that KK has 19 employees.

@Cmaster: It's the CEO

[Jesterthegreat]

The only thing I pulled out of the article that surprised me was that KK has 19 employees.

snowcrash
odin
danae
dafire
holger
nidhogg
lupus
thanatos
arbiter
codi
carbonite
callash
lupus
Daishi

possibly MJS (was under the impression he was still kk as development director or COO or something)


thats 14 or 15 and i cant think of anyone else

[Dr Strange]

:lol: 19 employees

whatever happened to that one new coder they hired back in like febuary or whatever?

what i don't get is KK has to be making profit off this at some point, bandwidth and server costs shouldn't come close to what they pull in montly (especially with currency exchange rates) so like, why not hire more people?

[Mighty Max]

especially with currency exchange rates

Uhm, that does not influence the income. They have a price set in Euro, the yare settled in euro-environment and have to pay in euros therefor.

There is no exchange on KK side, so how would they profit on that ?

[Dr Strange]

Uhm, that does not influence the income. They have a price set in Euro, the yare settled in euro-environment and have to pay in euros therefor.

There is no exchange on KK side, so how would they profit on that ?

Well, I just looked at it from a common point. If my $10 is worth $15 of Euro money (just for example sake, I dont know the specifics offhand), then they are making more money off me personally than say, someone paying in Euros. It's the same end price, agreed. But when you figure in the extra money from American dollars and Canadian dollars, it appears at least on the surface they are making more money.

Even so, there's bound to be extra profit for them in that, somewhere along the line. You figure Pay By Cash charges more fee's but "less" monthly payments, whereas Click 2 Pay, a large shareholder of KK/10tacle, has to be chucking some of their process fee/exchange rate/etc towards KK since their partners and all..

Point being is their making enough money to easily keep a grand total of 4 servers up and running 24/7 and still make profit. While I agree the creators and such should get their just dues, I also think to help the franchise and current game thereof, more money needs to be put into the product.

It takes money, to make money.

[Tratos]

snowcrash
odin
danae
dafire
holger
nidhogg
lupus
thanatos
arbiter
codi
carbonite
callash
lupus
Daishi
Seminus
Chenoa
DarkFall (New Guy)
Plasmastorm
John Doe
Ratboy

Then theres another 2 art guys with Seminus and a few more i think, ah yes the Technical Director ;) Ulrich Haar.... cant think of any others at the moment.

[Nidhogg]

How can we be making money off the exchange rate? It's not that USD10 is worth EUR15, it's the other way around, your USD15 is worth EUR12; the same as everyone in Europe is paying. Also, the rate we impose isn't fixed so the amount you pay always translates back to what people in Europe are paying. In fact, you pay slightly less that Europeans because you don't pay VAT.

Oh, we don't have 4 servers, we have 4 worlds - there's a big difference.

N

[Mighty Max]

Well, I just looked at it from a common point. If my $10 is worth $15 of Euro money (just for example sake, I dont know the specifics offhand), then they are making more money off me personally than say, someone paying in Euros. It's the same end price, agreed. But when you figure in the extra money from American dollars and Canadian dollars, it appears at least on the surface they are making more money.


Well, no.

Its only common, because its a common error. Its like buying a stick of 2' or buying a stick of 0.6m ... its the same stick. Now imagine the size of one ' or one meter is constantly floating. The stick logically will be allways the same sice, yet it might be 2'1" at one time and 2' the other again. But as this stick _seems_ to change sizes all others do the same, so that 4' stick your neighbour bought is 4'2" when yours 2'1" ...

But as you noticed noone is stealing (as making profit of it) parts of your 2'1" or glueing parts on it again.

[fschepper]

Well, I just looked at it from a common point. If my $10 is worth $15 of Euro money (just for example sake, I dont know the specifics offhand), then they are making more money off me personally than say, someone paying in Euros. It's the same end price, agreed. But when you figure in the extra money from American dollars and Canadian dollars, it appears at least on the surface they are making more money.
(..) 1 EUR = 1,1947 USD = 1,484 CAD (1st July)

So it's vice versa..

[CMaster]

You are paying KK in Euros... The fact that your bank account is only in US $ means that it gets exchanged by the banks at some point - but regardless, KK recieves EXACTLY the same amount of money (in €) from everybody.

[Dr Strange]

Oh, we don't have 4 servers, we have 4 worlds - there's a big difference.

N

Chicken and the egg really

Each world has at least one server dedicated to it at some point, yes?

Or do all the worlds intersect a variation of servers for certain zone loads?

Which is puzzling considering a zone crashes/isn't stable with more than 80 people in it. If multiple servers function to provide the backbone of a world, then you'd think you'd have a netcode/protocol that can handle an easy 80 people when other MMO's have literally hundreds if not thousands in a single zone, in probably a similar server architecture.

And that's just the technical aspect. In a literary aspect, it is 4 servers. You can't login to the Mars world and play with people from the Terra world, they are seperate. The login screen even shows this, I mean Mars and Mercury have two different sets of character slots, if they were on some variation of servers that might denote or at the very least let people assume co-oped play between worlds, you'd think thered be a more universal character system instead of one world allowing say 2 character slots and another allowing 4.

And a few fun-fact quotes


If you have a login permasync, an incomplete login (e.g. with default stats, no inventory etc.), zone permasync, crash, inventory glitch, slowdown caused by excessive memory use or some other issue, please send an email to bugreport@neocron.com with the subject "Crash Details" and with the following information:

1) Character name & server



As the itemtracking system passed all quality controls and tests on the internal test server, it was activated on the retail servers yesterday.


PVP SERVER

Due to popular request, we have decided to change the rule set on the server “Mercury“ to be more fitting for a player versus player environment. This means that in the near future, the focus of the game on this realm will be PvP. The following rules are therefore to be changed:

* International server (the support language will be English)

Now, granted some examples may be very generic and can lend themselves to simply being rewording of the term "worlds", but when there are specific references to a very specific thing such as, bug reporting for what server you play on, it seems a tad strange to say they are "worlds", when it's plain as day tech support is asking for bug tracking information in regards to which server you play on, not which world.

Course I'm not saying overhaul everything and reword it, just pointing out KK and yourself use the term server to denote where a player chooses to play, world has so far meant the simple name scheme since KK uses a planet name system. And when you think about it, it would be better suited to be labeled (not the servers but the term) "dimensions" cause other than language for support, all the worlds are the same (minus a few tweaks in the French server). If they are identical they aren't really worlds, per say more like parallel dimensions. (trust me, im a sci fi geek, i know my shit ;) )

[imper1um]

Yeah it works but is still a complete joke and is rather embarrassing to be seen using one.
I saw the xBow being used yesterday. It's still the same kick ass stats, but more frequency. :)

[Nidhogg]

You're right, server and world is used interchangeably which is somewhat confusing - it all relies on context. There are many physical computer servers in one Neocron world/server. The term we use to refer to a physical server that hosts one or more game zones is "world server", which can be even more confusing. ;)

In reference to your later point, you as a user are completely unaware of which world server is hosting your zone (and in fact the zone might be load balanced off onto another world server so the relationship between zone and world server is a dynamic one) so there's no way you can report which world server you're running on. In that case the word server is unambiguous and obviously refers to Mercury, Terra &c.

I don't believe that parallel dimensions are a good fit for Neocron since there are generally an infinite number of parallel universes with new ones being created every instant (i.e. whenever an event with more than one outcome occurs in one of the dimensions a new set of dimensions is created where each outcome actually did occur) and that obviously doesn't fit. Of course if you look in sci-fi you could probably find something similar but in general it's not appropriate.

The world naming scheme is just a convenient device to tell them apart and other than that has no significance - we could have used numbers, invented names, colours, animals, greek letters, elementary particles, anything.

N