However, at DDXP there was a computer where attendees could register for a slot in the Beta.
There's been no "public" sign-up to date that I know of.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080304a
Scroll down to D&DI section, it's in one of those videos (pretty sure it's in one of the first two), it said there would be signups for a public beta sometime after the launch of the core books.
Here's the specific video - the information is at the very end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4OFQt3aQTo
They had better give away more than a ten day trial if they expect to hook people.
I am still wondering if servers can handle the 10 days as all waiting would indeed try to use as soon as possible . Much like those watching to see WotC site meltdown with the GenCon announcement. If pastrecent history is any indication, half of the 10 days will include WotC IT trying to get servers to handle the load requests.
I am still wondering if servers can handle the 10 days as all waiting would indeed try to use as soon as possible . Much like those watching to see WotC site meltdown with the GenCon announcement. If pastrecent history is any indication, half of the 10 days will include WotC IT trying to get servers to handle the load requests.
That's a problem that plauges pretty much any company that launches a major anticipated online service or game.
Has there been a major MMO launch that didn't have lag and login server issues in the first few weeks?
Short of renting a few extra servers and a bigger Internet pipe for the first few weeks, I dunno how they will be able to avoid the rush of interested people who will (accidently) create a DoS on the servers.
The bigger question is - will the new service be on its own server cluster, or will we see poor performance here in the forums, so that the people who can't get in don't have anywhere to come complain? ;)
That's a problem that plauges pretty much any company that launches a major anticipated online service or game.
Has there been a major MMO launch that didn't have lag and login server issues in the first few weeks?
Short of renting a few extra servers and a bigger Internet pipe for the first few weeks, I dunno how they will be able to avoid the rush of interested people who will (accidently) create a DoS on the servers.
The bigger question is - will the new service be on its own server cluster, or will we see poor performance here in the forums, so that the people who can't get in don't have anywhere to come complain? ;)
Oh God, I hope it has it's own cluster.
If these servers go down and have bad connections, ect the first few weeks of launch, I won't accept "we did not think the demand would be so high" as an excuse from WOTC. One thing i've noticed is game companies use that excuse whenever a new online game comes out. After they hype it up for a year, they did not think the demand would be so high? Give me a break.
With the recent example (OK in Net if less then a week ago, might not be recent) of the 4th Edition announcement, where their own program crashed the servers, it indeed would be hard to accept a claim load was not expected. The recent AP article indicates 6 million players, not sure how many though are connected. I the servers can not handle 10 percent of that number trying Game Table IMO IT will have failed their task. Yes I know it is much more then those registered to these forums (last I checked) however those that sign up only have to do so to add a comment. There can be many (sometimes 10 to 100) users that read but never join for every user that joins..
If these servers go down and have bad connections, ect the first few weeks of launch, I won't accept "we did not think the demand would be so high" as an excuse from WOTC. One thing i've noticed is game companies use that excuse whenever a new online game comes out. After they hype it up for a year, they did not think the demand would be so high? Give me a break.
It isn't a matter of not knowing that demand will be high, it's a simple matter of no matter how "beefy" your servers and Internet pipe, there's still a limit to how much pounding a server (or cluster of servers) can take before response time becomes null.
Again, I'll cite any major MMO launch (including World of Warcraft) as an example. Those companies anticipate high demand, get traffic samples from beta testing, AND have pre-sales figures to estimate what kind of traffic they'll have when they open.
However, those games still have a tendency to suffer shutdowns, lack of traffic throughput, and poor server response in their first week(s).
Has there been a major MMO launch that didn't have lag and login server issues in the first few weeks?
Hmm... City of Heroes?
THas there been a major MMO launch that didn't have lag and login server issues in the first few weeks?
Dark Age of Camelot had a pretty clean launch.
it was a sleeper, by the time it caught on that the game didn't suck, they had figure out the problems, i don't see the same happening for this.
DAoC actually had a crappy release... that is not that many people played the game for abotu a month or so, i remember the fear on the forums and in gmae that the game would die..
it was a sleeper, by the time it caught on that the game didn't suck, they had figure out the problems, i don't see the same happening for this.
I don't know about you, but I played the game from the first day of launch.
It went pretty smooth.
The problems it had were more a problem of class balance and high level content, but none of that impacts performance/crash issues.
Considering the lack of calculations and its turn-based nature, I would think that a server running Game Table wouldn't be under nearly as much strain as a server hosting an equal number of WoW players. Then again, it looks like a lot of information will be stored server-side.... OK. I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm not a tech guy. Whatever. We'll find out when it happens.
A couple of points from a tech standpoint...
You are correct in saying a DDI VGT server will be taking a lighter load than a WoW server - though there are a couple of exceptions. 1) If the DDI VGT servers host more players/DMs than the WoW servers host players. 2) The VoIP capabilities. VoIP can actually be big a resource hog for a server. So if there's a large number of players on the same server with several games going on, they're all talking a lot (what D&D group doesn't?) and a fair number of those games have those optional 3D tiles and/or 3D vmini's, that's a lot of rendering, communicating, and hosting that the servers have to handle. It's not an impossible task to fix. And in the recent G4TV interview (here) Chris Youngs said that there will be "client-side applications" as well as "some web utilities". Client-side apps could take care of any of the rendering issues with the tiles/vminis, and thus remove it from the server load - provided the VGT is a client-side app that is...