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Mythic Shutting Down 63 Warhammer Servers
Gamasutra reports that Mythic Entertainment is consolidating a number of their Warhammer Online servers to keep population levels within an acceptable range. 43 servers are set to close in North America and Oceania, and 20 more in Europe. Mythic posted details of the character transfers at the game's website. CEO Mark Jacobs also made a "State of the Game" post, highlighting the live expansion that's currently underway, as well as the changes and updates they have planned for the near future.
Way to many. That was their mistake.
Their goal was the smoothest launch ever, in which they actually succeeded.
To accomplish this they opened up loads and loads of servers to ensure players wouldn't end up in queue's when logging on to the game.
The problems started when after a few weeks the biggest hype was over and players started looking at their real lives again. After that the active server population declined rapidly.
I think this move to close servers was unavoidable, it's nearly impossible to keep as many active players as right after the launch period.
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
This problem also plagued the EU version launch: there were too many servers and the population was spreaded too thin, meaning that you would log in and find no one else but you on a certain zone.
With the new patch and the server transfers everything is much fine now: cities are quite populated and there is massive outdoors PvP going on every night :)
Fixed it for ya. This is what I had seen in our guild.
I think they did the right thing, they started with a lot of surplus capacity and now are scaling back to what they are actually using. Unless (by some miracle) they could guess exactly what capacity would be needed then they have two options, provide too much or provide too little. From a customer service standpoint it is certainly much better to err on the side of providing too much.
I feel a bit bad for Mythic in that this will probably be spun as some sort of death knell for the game when in fact it is simply the logical outcome of the company doing the right thing at launch.
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Except that people hate server merges. Especially if a server needs to be split and partially merged with multiple servers. They would have been better off renting capacity but keeping it dark, and lighting it up as needed instead.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Personally, I had more fun in War PvP than any other MMO, because of the very same reasons you hate it. Death *shouldn't* have consequences. A game is about having fun. The point of a PvP game is to kill, you shouldn't be afraid to die because it will cost you hours of time.
As for reason to help- two major reasons. One its fun. If you don't enjoy PvP, why did you buy a PvP game? Two- pride. I play to win, always. So I always try my best to further the objectives of the game, in this case its trying to move the battle forward to eventually siege the enemies city. If we do that, I win. That in and of itself is fun, there is no other reason needed.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
About 6 months ago, during this interview, Mythic VP and lead Warhammer Online designer Mark Jacobs said some interesting things regarding MMO development, including their own game. In particular:
According to Jacobs, another way to measure success is to look at the number of servers a game has added in a six-month period. "The corollary to that is if you've seen a game consolidate servers, you know it's in deep, deep trouble -- that's not a healthy sign for an MMO," he said, citing Sony's January-released "Pirates of the Burning Sea" as a recent example. "It will be the same for 'Warhammer.' Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we're not adding servers, we're not doing well."
Looks like they're not doing that well - according to their own standards.