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EliBallard · **05-21-2017, 11:28 PM**

(05-21-2017, 11:26 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:09 PM)Val Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:40 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:39 PM)Kage Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:35 PM)Sig Wrote: The 25 thumbs up have to count for something?Â And yes, a fine petition, I daresay.Â I'm surprised the PVEers didn't burn me alive.

I've had better with less page count.

Correct ideas are not always popular.

oh my god could you not

You're not Martin Luther King. You're some guy that's trying to talk about things he obviously has no idea on how they work, both from a common sense point of view and an infrastructure one.

"Hey this restriction you have sucks. I need you to lift it.'
"But if we do it'll keep breaking things and the economy will continue to be awful."
"Yeah well I need you to lift it."
"But th---"
"IÂ need you to lift it. IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF (ME) THE PEOPLE"

Dissenting (and entirely valid) opinions over the internet sometimes attract vitriol.Â See post above.Â The points raised in the OP are both coherent, achievable, and would benefit RPers the most.Â It's not the easy option, but it is correct the one that will benefit the overwhelming majority of RPers.

You don't just get to decide your idea is "the best" when you're literally being shouted down by everyone you tell it to. That's called being a crazy person.

Mercer · **05-21-2017, 11:28 PM**

(05-21-2017, 11:07 PM)Leggerless Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:04 PM)Oswin Wrote: So, thank you Kage for linking the official forum posts. It allowed me to go a bit deeper on the current problems facing Balmung on a hardware level.

I refer to this post from 2013:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/...ba2fe51b35

This post details what we currently know of the queue system and login information. 7,500-7,800 simultaneous logins. To put that into perspective...

That means that right now Balmung has over 7,500 people logged in at all times. There is always a queue, no matter how minor. We know the current active population to be around 22,000 players thanks to previous processing of characters on the lodestone cross referenced with achievements and changes between patches. Â There are flaws in such an estimate, but they are usually seen as being on the low end of estimation. It is also inline with the login limits compared to where the other locked servers are sitting at.Â

If we take the hopeful approach that SE doubled their server ability to 15,000 in the span of three years, we are still looking at a huge number of people trying to log in. And considering the 7,500 limit is close to what the smallest locked server is, I can't see that even being possible.

So we're looking at during the biggest down time in the expansion 22,000 active players or more. That is going to increase with Stormblood and more people will be on for longer.

I want to hammer that point down. 22,000+ trying to log on to Balmung at the same time. The queue times alone would be staggering. The stability of the realm and data center is going to be flaky. We have seen this happen with Heavensward. The population has grown by over 6,000 since 3.0.

To be perfectly frank, I think shit is more real than we've given credit for.

Welp.

Shit.

That's basically what this means to me the more I read it again and again.

Also OP, hope you didn't skim over those poll results

EDIT: Don't forget about Gilgamesh's population *and* the other servers all on the same datacenter. Not just Balmung players connecting in either.

This is a very good point as well but I would like to clarify that it's on a different server level. Correct me if I'm wrong, Merc, but from my understanding the instance servers are more like a server farm that is connected to all the other Aether servers. Realistically, there should be enough servers to handle the load. If we go by the server limit it should be able to handle 7,500 players per server. Divided up Aether should be able to handle that load.

Jana · **05-21-2017, 11:29 PM**

No single RPer, LS, or FC is obligated to stay on Balmung or move somewhere else for any reason at all. While it would be nice to have every single RPer on Balmung, we already know that the numbers just won't work with the server hardware limitations.

Tyndles · **05-21-2017, 11:37 PM**

You cannot designate a hub if it does not welcome EVERYONE.

Balmung does not welcome new players at the moment.

I personally think there won't be enough people to leave Balmung for Mateaus for it to open within the next 6 months, and even if it does, those will only be to paid transfers. (because dollars)

Do I know this for sure? No. But I know what is happening right now, and because of what is happening NOW, we cannot demand Balmung to be a place for RP to be consolidated NOW.

To want otherwise is selfish and rude.

Val · **05-21-2017, 11:38 PM**

(05-21-2017, 11:26 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:09 PM)Val Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:40 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:39 PM)Kage Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:35 PM)Sig Wrote: The 25 thumbs up have to count for something?Â And yes, a fine petition, I daresay.Â I'm surprised the PVEers didn't burn me alive.

I've had better with less page count.

Correct ideas are not always popular.

oh my god could you not

You're not Martin Luther King. You're some guy that's trying to talk about things he obviously has no idea on how they work, both from a common sense point of view and an infrastructure one.

"Hey this restriction you have sucks. I need you to lift it.'
"But if we do it'll keep breaking things and the economy will continue to be awful."
"Yeah well I need you to lift it."
"But th---"
"IÂ need you to lift it. IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF (ME) THE PEOPLE"

Dissenting (and entirely valid) opinions over the internet sometimes attract vitriol.Â See post above.Â Honestly, Val -- you're a good roleplayer. Â I expected more than petty personal attacks. Â The points raised in the OP are both coherent, achievable, and would benefit RPers the most.Â It's not the easy option, but it is correct the one that will benefit the overwhelming majority of RPers.

The problem with your argument is that you're not listening to anyone's opinion. You're taking what you say as fact and not remotely considering the truths of what anyone else is saying to you.Â

I--and pretty much literally everyone else here--have told you time and time again that while your ideas are great, they cannot be achieved for multipleÂ reasons. And yet, you choose to ignore it with simple responses that more or less boil down to "because i want it to happen".Â It's not realistic. Expecting them to shit out a new RP server isn't realistic. Thinking that it costs nothing isn't realistic.

Personal attacks? No. I have not attacked you personally. I refuse to do so. I will, however, point out how incredibly unrealistic/ridiculous your arguments and responses have become. This isn't some sort of heroic "let's band together friends!!!!" moment. This is real. You have a handful of options. Nothing is going to change. You can tryÂ to change it, but expecting it is a fool's errand. People have tried telling you this over and over and over, and yet you bullheadedly rush through and dismiss literally any valid option they're offering, sometimes even going so far as just ignoring it outright. You take whatever common sense they give you, consider it a personal attack (like I assume you're going to do with this), and push past it. And yet, even if we try to tell you "Hey that's not what we mean" it doesn't matter.

It's not even an issue with "well this community will break apart." The servers literally can not handle the stress.Â It's just how it is. That's not even touching on the subject of social and economic issues that Balmung is facing because of the overpopulation, both in RP and PvE. To assume that none of them exist is another issue altogether.

Nodem · **05-21-2017, 11:38 PM**

(05-21-2017, 11:26 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:09 PM)Val Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:40 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:39 PM)Kage Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:35 PM)Sig Wrote: The 25 thumbs up have to count for something?Â And yes, a fine petition, I daresay.Â I'm surprised the PVEers didn't burn me alive.

I've had better with less page count.

Correct ideas are not always popular.

oh my god could you not

You're not Martin Luther King. You're some guy that's trying to talk about things he obviously has no idea on how they work, both from a common sense point of view and an infrastructure one.

"Hey this restriction you have sucks. I need you to lift it.'
"But if we do it'll keep breaking things and the economy will continue to be awful."
"Yeah well I need you to lift it."
"But th---"
"IÂ need you to lift it. IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF (ME) THE PEOPLE"

Dissenting (and entirely valid) opinions over the internet sometimes attract vitriol.Â See post above.Â Honestly, Val -- you're a good roleplayer. I expected more than petty personal attacks. The points raised in the OP are both coherent, achievable, and would benefit RPers the most.Â It's not the easy option, but it is correct the one that will benefit the overwhelming majority of RPers.

The points in the OP, about having one single RP server, are not achievable, and would hurt RP'ers as a whole. As has been stated several times in this thread alone, this is ALL ABOUT the servers themselves, and not viable to hold the RP community as one server. (See: Balmung is locked, Gilgamesh is locked)

It hurts RP'ers when the servers aren't stable, just as much as it hurts PVE people. If the servers constantly crash, then you aren't able to RP, plain and simple. If the servers are down all the time because the server strain is too great, guess what? You don't get to RP on the game.

Having all RP'ers on a server, along with their PVE counterparts, who just are as likely to not move, etc, will cause disaster for the WHOLE and the MAJORITY OF RP'ERS.

Fox · **05-21-2017, 11:49 PM**

Also going to point out the fact to the OP that there's like 5 other PVE servers besides Gilgamesh are shut down as well. SE isn't attacking RPers. They're trying to keep their servers stable. Which they cannot do with 20k+ players RPers or non.

Sig · **05-22-2017, 12:04 AM**

(05-21-2017, 11:38 PM)Val Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:26 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:09 PM)Val Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:40 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:39 PM)Kage Wrote: I've had better with less page count.

Correct ideas are not always popular.

oh my god could you not

You're not Martin Luther King. You're some guy that's trying to talk about things he obviously has no idea on how they work, both from a common sense point of view and an infrastructure one.

"Hey this restriction you have sucks. I need you to lift it.'
"But if we do it'll keep breaking things and the economy will continue to be awful."
"Yeah well I need you to lift it."
"But th---"
"IÂ need you to lift it. IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF (ME) THE PEOPLE"

Dissenting (and entirely valid) opinions over the internet sometimes attract vitriol.Â See post above.Â Honestly, Val -- you're a good roleplayer. Â I expected more than petty personal attacks. Â The points raised in the OP are both coherent, achievable, and would benefit RPers the most.Â It's not the easy option, but it is correct the one that will benefit the overwhelming majority of RPers.

The problem with your argument is that you're not listening to anyone's opinion. You're taking what you say as fact and not remotely considering the truths of what anyone else is saying to you.Â

I--and pretty much literally everyone else here--have told you time and time again that while your ideas are great, they cannot be achieved for multipleÂ reasons. And yet, you choose to ignore it with simple responses that more or less boil down to "because i want it to happen".Â It's not realistic. Expecting them to shit out a new RP server isn't realistic. Thinking that it costs nothing isn't realistic.

Personal attacks? No. I have not attacked you personally. I refuse to do so. I will, however, point out how incredibly unrealistic/ridiculous your arguments and responses have become. This isn't some sort of heroic "let's band together friends!!!!" moment. This is real. You have a handful of options. Nothing is going to change. You can tryÂ to change it, but expecting it is a fool's errand. People have tried telling you this over and over and over, and yet you bullheadedly rush through and dismiss literally any valid option they're offering, sometimes even going so far as just ignoring it outright. You take whatever common sense they give you, consider it a personal attack (like I assume you're going to do with this), and push past it. And yet, even if we try to tell you "Hey that's not what we mean" it doesn't matter.

It's not even an issue with "well this community will break apart." The servers literally can not handle the stress.Â It's just how it is. That's not even touching on the subject of social and economic issues that Balmung is facing because of the overpopulation, both in RP and PvE. To assume that none of them exist is another issue altogether.

You seem to appear to confuse disagreement with the ability to understand and process arguments.Â I've considered each and every counter argument and disagree. I don't exactly take posts offered by at most 15 people to refute basic, intuitive arguments we all take for granted.

Think about this: would we have anywhere near as vibrant, healthy, sustainable, and diverse an RP community if Balmung was not a centralized RP hub?Â The answer is no.Â We have enjoyed the benefits of a centralized RP hub for years.Â Reversing this and fragmenting the community could harm RP for all roleplayers for the reasons stated in the OP.Â No one is standing in line to transfer from Balmung right now for this very reason; at most people are rolling alts to show support.Â The vast majority of the FFXIV RP community depends on a centralized RP hub.Â They may not advocate for this expressly, but it's something most value.

I've already pointed out a dozen times how SE could alleviate this problem in a way that would not harm the RP community: reverse the transfer restriction (and implement alternative population control measures) or simply designate an official RP server.Â Nothing else will work.

EliBallard · **05-22-2017, 12:09 AM**

(05-22-2017, 12:04 AM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:38 PM)Val Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:26 PM)Sig Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 11:09 PM)Val Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 10:40 PM)Sig Wrote: Correct ideas are not always popular.

oh my god could you not

You're not Martin Luther King. You're some guy that's trying to talk about things he obviously has no idea on how they work, both from a common sense point of view and an infrastructure one.

"Hey this restriction you have sucks. I need you to lift it.'
"But if we do it'll keep breaking things and the economy will continue to be awful."
"Yeah well I need you to lift it."
"But th---"
"IÂ need you to lift it. IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF (ME) THE PEOPLE"

Dissenting (and entirely valid) opinions over the internet sometimes attract vitriol.Â See post above.Â Honestly, Val -- you're a good roleplayer. Â I expected more than petty personal attacks. Â The points raised in the OP are both coherent, achievable, and would benefit RPers the most.Â It's not the easy option, but it is correct the one that will benefit the overwhelming majority of RPers.

The problem with your argument is that you're not listening to anyone's opinion. You're taking what you say as fact and not remotely considering the truths of what anyone else is saying to you.Â

I--and pretty much literally everyone else here--have told you time and time again that while your ideas are great, they cannot be achieved for multipleÂ reasons. And yet, you choose to ignore it with simple responses that more or less boil down to "because i want it to happen".Â It's not realistic. Expecting them to shit out a new RP server isn't realistic. Thinking that it costs nothing isn't realistic.

Personal attacks? No. I have not attacked you personally. I refuse to do so. I will, however, point out how incredibly unrealistic/ridiculous your arguments and responses have become. This isn't some sort of heroic "let's band together friends!!!!" moment. This is real. You have a handful of options. Nothing is going to change. You can tryÂ to change it, but expecting it is a fool's errand. People have tried telling you this over and over and over, and yet you bullheadedly rush through and dismiss literally any valid option they're offering, sometimes even going so far as just ignoring it outright. You take whatever common sense they give you, consider it a personal attack (like I assume you're going to do with this), and push past it. And yet, even if we try to tell you "Hey that's not what we mean" it doesn't matter.

It's not even an issue with "well this community will break apart." The servers literally can not handle the stress.Â It's just how it is. That's not even touching on the subject of social and economic issues that Balmung is facing because of the overpopulation, both in RP and PvE. To assume that none of them exist is another issue altogether.

You seem to appear to confuse disagreement with the ability to understand and process arguments.Â I've considered each and every counter argument and disagree. I don't exactly take posts offered by at most 15 people to refute basic, intuitive arguments we all take for granted.

Think about this: would we have anywhere near as vibrant, healthy, sustainable, and diverse an RP community if Balmung was not a centralized RP hub?Â The answer is no.Â We have enjoyed the benefits of a centralized RP hub for years.Â Reversing this and fragmenting the community could harm RP for all roleplayers for the reasons stated in the OP.Â No one is standing in line to transfer from Balmung right now for this very reason; at most people are rolling alts to show support.Â The vast majority of the FFXIV RP community depends on a centralized RP hub.Â They may not advocate for this expressly, but it's something most value.

I've already pointed out a dozen times how SE could alleviate this problem in a way that would not harm the RP community: reverse the transfer restriction (and implement alternative population control measures) or simply designate an official RP server.Â Nothing else will work.

Uhh, Balmung is vibrant, healthy, sustainable and diverse right now. Which means it doesn't need all the rest of the RPers.

Kage · **05-22-2017, 12:10 AM**

(05-22-2017, 12:04 AM)Sig Wrote: Nothing else will work.

This is everything that is wrong.

Val · **05-22-2017, 12:10 AM**

(05-22-2017, 12:04 AM)Sig Wrote: You seem to appear to confuse disagreement with the ability to understand and process arguments.Â I've considered each and every counter argument and disagree. I don't exactly take posts offered by at most 15 people to refute basic, intuitive arguments we all take for granted.

Think about this: would we have anywhere near as vibrant, healthy, sustainable, and diverse an RP community if Balmung was not a centralized RP hub?Â The answer is no.Â We have enjoyed the benefits of a centralized RP hub for years.Â Reversing this and fragmenting the community could harm RP for all roleplayers for the reasons stated in the OP.Â No one is standing in line to transfer from Balmung right now for this very reason; at most people are rolling alts to show support.Â The vast majority of the FFXIV RP community depends on a centralized RP hub.Â They may not advocate for this expressly, but it's something most value.

I've already pointed out a dozen times how SE could alleviate this problem in a way that would not harm the RP community: reverse the transfer restriction (and implement alternative population control measures) or simply designate an official RP server.Â Nothing else will work.

1.) Literally no MMO has ever had a centralized server for RP and it's worked just fine. Yes, eventually they died. And guess what? Eventually this RP community will to. That's what happens.

2.) Change isn't bad. If you're afraid of it, that's on you. But it needs to happen for multiple beneficial reasons.

3.) And we've pointed out a million times that reversing the transfer restriction will destroy the servers and cause more issues. You, on the other hand, apparently don't know how infrastructure and servers work. They don't have infinite space. Balmung alone has caused the entire branch to crash. Designating an official RP server may be on their list but it's not the most important thing they can do. I'd rather they make sure the launch for Stormblood isn't complete ass before investing the time, money, and resources in either making a new server or putting <RP> on the end of a server's name just to appease people that don't have the capability of making decisions on their own.

Nodem · **05-22-2017, 12:11 AM**

(05-22-2017, 12:04 AM)Sig Wrote: I've already pointed out a dozen times how SE could alleviate this problem in a way that would not harm the RP community: reverse the transfer restriction (and implement alternative population control measures) or simply designate an official RP server.Â Nothing else will work.

As was pointed out:

(05-21-2017, 09:43 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote:
(05-21-2017, 08:39 PM)Sig Wrote: (2) We should not presume that SE is utterly incapable of handling the population size on Balmung. Resources could likely be allocated to handle the increased load, and there are a variety of less intrusive remedies that could have mitigated any over population problem. SE for example could: (1) assess a higher server transfer fee for high-population servers; (2) provide additional in-game incentives to encourage players to transfer from high-population servers; (3) devote additional resources to banning bots and RMT schemes; (4) raise monthly subscription rates to compensate for the cost of maintaining high population servers; (5) designate official roleplay, hardcore raiding, and special interest servers to encourage certain player groups to transfer from over-populated worlds; (6) implement anti-idling features that disconnect players who idle for extended amounts of time.

Gonna try to answer some of these points as someone who works in the "manages servers" industry. Yes. That's my job. I babysit servers. And their connections. And their CPU usage. And network availability. And network usage. My department gets to make lovely trips to our datacenter to even swap out tape backups (because yes, that's still a thing).

Things before numbers:
It's not a matter of getting "better/newer" servers. Or a different datacenter. Or even faster internet. (Aside from the fact that you won't find faster internet than the connections inside a datacenter anyways).

Quote:Resources could likely be allocated to handle the increased load, and there are a variety of less intrusive remedies that could have mitigated any over population problem.

Servers don't work that way. SE could increase the CPU/RAM/data storage all they want and it wouldn't help the issue one bit. Those are allocatable resources. You can't reallocate network connections from an empty server to a busy server. They just don't work that way.

1) This could help convince some people to not transfer to Balmung. It'd probably do wonders for that. Especially if we took your words from earlier and tried to convince everyone on other servers to somehow transfer into Balmung if it opens.

2) SE appears to already be doing this. They've never offered incentives in FFXIV before. If it's a big enough issue, they'll probably get more extreme, like removing gil limits altogether. (Which will wreck economies if some ass goes and buys gil from a cheap server and then transgers.)

3) SE is already doing this. If anything, closing Balmung means the time is NOW to report as many bots as possible. I was telling this to people in another thread elsewhere.

4) This doesn't work. The cost of running a "full" server is identical to running a server with nobody playing on it. See answer for 1).

5) This could work, but it's unlikely. SE has made it a point to not designate servers officially. Aside from there being no real way to "require" the designated server actually be used for the designation, this really is honestly something best left to players.

6) This comes and goes every patch. It's easily exploited, as people did before. It might help clear up a few connections, but it won't help during primetime hours, which is where the issue's coming from. For everything else, there's "talk to NPC/retainer/market board/aetheryte" or "start a craft and purposely not finish." You'll never be marked as idle in the game. I'm certain I'm not the only person who tested this personally.

Servers don't work that way.
Balmung's a bar that has surpassed the Occupancy limit and the fire marshal has been called in.

ArmachiA · **05-22-2017, 12:14 AM**

The answer is yes because games with less subscribers do it all the time.

WoW has also never had a problem with it, even with it's major dip in subs.

The answer is yes because we can see evidence of it being fine in other mmos

Mercer · **05-22-2017, 12:14 AM**

[Image: images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTHhDsl9OvcTB00ycO2yE5...Vuuz-1xG6g]

That is your opinion on things, not facts. Others have put down evidence on why those solutions are unlikely to work. I've put down my own reasons why Balmung won't reopen anytime soon.

Your argument boils down to not believing that smaller RP communities can offer the same experience as Balmung. Do we want to RP? Yes. Is there RP to be found elsewhere? Yes. Is this the perfect opportunity to create a second healthy community? Very yes.Â

But we don't have to be the same as Balmung's community. We don't have to be as big. And if Balmung lost half of it's RPers it would still be flourishing.

The RPC alone has over 10,000 accounts. If even a tenth of them were connected to another server it would be more than successful it would be flourishing. That doesn't include the other players that don't touch the forum.

And having a second server that isn't connected to whatever SE designates as official is good as well, because of everyone moved to the new server it would already be locked as well if RPC account numbers are even half accurate.

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **05-22-2017, 12:16 AM**

(05-21-2017, 11:28 PM)Oswin Wrote: This is a very good point as well but I would like to clarify that it's on a different server level. Correct me if I'm wrong, Merc, but from my understanding as a Sys Admin the instance servers are more like a server farm that is connected to all the other Aether servers. Realistically, there should be enough servers to handle the load. If we go by the server limit it should be able to handle 7,500 players per server. Divided up Aether should be able to handle that load.

If I had to guess (well, an educated guess based on people's work doing packet analysis and reverse engineering on both 1.0 and 2.0 server architecture), our instance servers are nearly identical to our normal zone servers. They likely just have a different set of scripts on them and the client handles the rest of the connections.

FFXIV utilizes a number of different servers at different stages of gameplay. I'll go over a few in text and then I'll link in a handy picture (and edit the post) for a basic explanation of the server setup that's likely in place.

FFXIV uses the following (and likely more than one)

Authorization Server - your login credentials
Patch Server - self explanatory

Once you've logged in on the launcher, it creates your basic session credentials, which are passed to the FFXIV game client. (Which is why you can't just run ffxiv.exe directly). For security's sake, I'll omit what that looks like. 3rd party launcher do exist (not including bots). They're insecure and not really useful if the real launcher is working.

Once the game is running, you'll notice that it had initially asked you which datacenter you wanted to play on. This is important! It it was brings you to the next step of gameplay.

Lobby Server - This is what loads your account information based off the session created from the Auth server and and game client. Traffic is encrypted now! (Good job SE. Don't turn that off again.)

The Lobby Server handles everything until you actually get in game. It handles selecting other data centers (new lobby server), making/deleting/editing characters, and eventually passing off your session over to the next server in charge of things.

World Server - These are the named worlds. Balmung, Gilgamesh, Mateus, whatever. This server handles global functions in the game for all players connected to it. Things like your linkshells, party, free company, market boards, retainers, and more! You are ALWAYS connected to this server. At the same time, it's rapidly passing data to a series of additional servers you might also be connected to. We're not sure, but status effects are probably stored in this server's working memory, even if they get handled below.

Zone Server - Also known as Map servers, Instance servers, and probably a few more things. This server is where the magic really happens. It's what sends the game client constant updates on what you see and can interact with. All of the game's actors (players, mobs, npcs, interactable objects) exist in this level. It has a TON of things to do and also has to make sure it broadcasts that to every player connected. It's also needs to check in with the World Server to make sure that your chats and party information are synced. And that's on top of running all the events, scripts, monster AI, FATEs, hunts, and other cool things that make the game work.

Now, there are multiple zone servers. There has to be or the game would only be able to support a very meager amount of connections. (Think like less than 1000). If you ever got that error message saying "cannot enter zone" it's because this server's overworked for that area. Most likely, we've got at least one of these for every map in the game and possibly per housing ward, although it's entirely possibly all wards are compressed together and that particular zone server just knows how to keep them separated from each other. (FFXIV supported creating private instance areas layered on top of normal maps. This is how levequests, instance battles, and inn rooms are handled, for example!)

--

Now, what happens when a server's full? There are multiple places this can happen!

The world is full. The world server's unable to handle more connections in a safe manner. This could mean the maximum amount of concurrent connections are all being used, it could mean that it's not able to broadcast packets to all players, and it can also mean that it's getting stressed from too much context switching if it's connecting/disconnections thousands of players at a time to try to keep up with all its global functions.

The zone is full. Mostly explain above already, that particular zone instance is maxed out. It can't reliably broadcast packets for everything it needs to do in a timely manner because of CPU/network constraints.

--

So why can't SE just give a world server or a particular zone server more resources? It doesn't work that way. When the lock these servers down, it's largely due to network contraints. I've explained this in earlier posts already, but there's no way to allocate more or "better" network connections to a server. When a server gets stressed in these situations, that typically means it's time to go into load balancing or to restrict how many connections are allowed. (FFXIV has done both!)

Who remembers the split zones when 3.0 launched? I do! It was a MESS. This was an early attempt from SE to get multiple zone servers handling the same area. (Good on them. Their architecture allowed them to do this!) If any of you remember, it'd arbritrarily select a zone for you. Didn't get grouped with your party? Too bad so sad. The zone servers were split to make sure they could keep running. Not for your party and/or group! In some games, players re given the option to switch between these instances. (Sometimes referred to as a shard or channel). But this only works if the zone server can accept more connections to start.

OK. Picture time. It uses some different names, but I believe you all. Please.

[Image: CFokkW5.png]

(credit to the FFXIV private server projects. This one came from FFXIV Classic).

This is a basic illustration of only a single World/Zone server cluster. Since at this point in the game, there's no reason to be connecting to the authorization server or lobby server. (But who knows. FFXIV might keep the lobby server too since it likes to kick us back often. ...or the session lasts a REALLY long time and that's how the Chinese bots hacked the game once.)

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The Importance of Consolidating RP on Balmung and Having One RP Hub

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes