At Sandpark ArcheAge, the seventh European server has launched. Why are these decisions so difficult with the new MMO?
For the head start on September 12, four European servers were open. On Monday evening, with Aeira, the fifth server came online, yesterday at release with Melisara the sixth, and during last night with Ochindra, the seventh European server added.
The reason: It simply doesn’t work any other way. The queues are huge. Already at the head start, paying players complained about the waiting times and their missed, but expensive, preferential time. Since last night, countless more players have joined. With a new free-to-play title, many want to check it out.
Meanwhile, it is at least not as annoying to get back onto the server when one gets logged out: A “buffer” was implemented, allowing players to log back in without a queue up to five minutes after being logged out.
But why is Trion Worlds so hesitant to respond to calls for new servers?
The problem: At the launch of a game, many more players are active than after a few weeks when the initial rush is over. In ArcheAge, you can’t just add new servers and later melt away capacities like you could with a mega-server system. The servers in ArcheAge are independent autonomous worlds with closed economic cycles and power dynamics – and with a bit of luck, soon a vibrant server history.
That’s what makes the game appealing. Merging servers later is out of the question.
ArcheAge: Between Scylla and Charybdis
If a world were too empty, it would lose immense attractiveness, and the remaining players would also leave out of boredom later on. While theme park games still provide challenges with the MMO itself through raids and instantiated miniature dungeons, that is hardly the case in an open-world sandbox game.
For free-to-play players, new servers would only create space if it was known that they would stay long-term. However, experience teaches us: They do not. But on the other hand: Obviously, players who get stuck in 3000-player queues at launch do not get a good impression of the game, and thus, ArcheAge might now alienate important customers.
A difficult problem that Trion Worlds faces here. How does one weigh the short-term suffering of fans sitting in the queue and cursing the game against the long-term risk of ghost servers?
Other sandbox games like EVE Online solve the problem with a single massive world where all players play together.
