ArcheAge had a rocky start. In an interview, Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman discusses the background.
In a conversation with the US MMO site massively, Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman talks about the reasons for the rocky start: They were simply overwhelmed by the players.
“We will have the second million players much earlier than we thought”
Based on their own games, participation, and interest, they had predicted how many servers they would need. They had absolute access to this data. And until the head start, the forecasts had always proven correct.
In addition to these internal data, external factors might also play a role, such as the overall situation in the MMO market.
During the Open Beta, there were no queues. And they had “overflow servers” ready and brought them online immediately when it became clear that they would be needed.
When asked if he could provide exact numbers on how many players ArcheAge had, Hartsman said: “Of course, we will be able to announce the second million significantly earlier than we expected.”
ArcheAge Queues: It is unrealistic to secure against such a case
It was not the existence of a buffer, but its size that was the problem. In the lead-up to the launch, they had spent millions of dollars preparing for the start. It is not realistic to turn that into ten million dollars just to secure against a highly unlikely event. If the technology in cloud computing develops further and can provide a viable alternative for MMOs like ArcheAge, he looks forward to it. They had considered the technology, but it was not a viable alternative.
In other games that had a higher influx than anyone expected, it took weeks and months for new servers to go online. At Trion Worlds, they reacted quickly and immediately contacted vendors to order more hardware. The servers were on the way, and ArcheAge remained playable despite the problems.
They were also still cautious about opening too many servers so that they wouldn’t later face the problem of ghost servers. Here, it is important to find a balance between long-term healthy servers and short-term wait times.
