Of late, I have begun really wondering what type of server model will be chosen with FOOL. However unless we hear otherwise at some point in the future, it may be wise to expect a standard sharding approach.

However with grid-computing services becoming more widespread with each year, it is not impossible to imagine FOOL being developed as a single massive persistent world. With such an approach, resources become available on demand (processing power, bandwidth, etc.) to scale with the demands of the project. The downside of such an approach though, is that you loose direct control over the server hardware and architecture. Tough decision, neh?

Player-side the biggest problem that can come from a single-server setup is that of the character's namespace. If everyone is on the same exact server, making unique names can become more difficult over time. Some MMOs have done something similar to this (Champions Online) where names are not-unique across the game, but that can cause some social issues as well.

One huge world has to have one huge amount of area set up... lots of different starting points, more than just the normal 2-5... thousands upon thousands of quests. That would take far too long to develop I would think. It's more likely we'll see a somewhat smallish starting environment that would expand later as additional content is released. The timeframe that the devs have to complete their content is pretty limited so I wouldn't think we'd be seeing a crazy huge area to start.

I do not believe one big server would be possible, mainly due to that you would have to limit population at some areas so the servers wont crash or anything and I don't know how they would handle that good.

Secondly (as the one above said) you would have to have one huge world, so people dont get crowded, then there wouldn't be a wasteland would it :/ And even if you make a huge world it would probably just mean that 70% of that world will be untouched and the 30% left is where all the important things are.

It would be fun to have one huge server (like eve) but I just don't think it would work. So I'm voting for sharding. But the worlds can still be big I don't think that we will be socially prohibited or anything by having several servers. And in the start there will probably not be so many servers to choose from anyway if the game grow very popular, then sure more would arise to accommodate the population.

But for a normal mmo like this, sharding is the way, atleast thats what i think.

Votes for one world.

Keeping my point of view: one, single, big server (cluster of sewrvers for different parts of the map).
Regarding the names, it won't be a problem if players will have to pick first, last names and/or even a nickname.
Now, EVE it's not the only one, there another game that has loads and loads of players (new ones, vets, quiting ones and so on)!
It is a wasteland! But you'll need 50k+ players so it won't be a wasteland. Plus, there are different timezones on the globe so don't think this will be a problem.

Last thing, I know that one big server will, most certain, mean a monthly fee and I agree with this instead of micros.

Regards!

I'm hoping for separate servers. It's neat to see all of the little server communities and regulars spring up individually and in their own unique ways, A single server approach stifles appearance of diversity you'd otherwise get, and is also harder, though not impossible of course, to manage a large playerbase on.

Separate servers smacks of alternate realities and would pretty much ruin any potential for player's actions having any actual effect on the world, landscape, storyline. etc... Would be a great disappointment. I would still play though!

Everything depends of the expected online amount, server hardware resources and game world size.
If gamesas are expecting about 50-100k online players (that is approximately a 1/10 of total subscriptions) and the world is large enough - so single global server is the best choice.
If the game world is tight and can't accommodate more than 10-20k of players, so sharding is the only way. Excuse my bad English... I am a Russian bear, it's hard to type with claws.

What I'm afraid of when having a megahuge world is that people will just stick to the most popular places, leaving like 70% of the wasteland totally empty and the rest of the wasteland is just smacked up with people :/

//unless they somehow make that 70% of the wasteland extremely profitable and interesting

If one doesn't like the crowded population areas (which is realistic that people would congregate in such places) Then head out into the empty Wasteland and please yourself. Sounds good to me.

Yeah, the problem with a single massive server is one of population density. You don't want the players to be so spread out they can't play alongside (or against) one another... or so packed in that everyone's client chokes. I still have 'fond' memories of the server sieges in WAR... and the very early days of WoW when Ironforge would grind to a halt for many people due to the flood of players.

There is a certain trick to designing players for people to congregate, in IRL and in MMOs of course. You want to give folk places to meet up, yet also allow plenty of space for traffic to move past and such that no one spot becomes cluttered. A single auction house, mailbox or merchant point? Expect crowds.

One big server would not be possible if they are planning for huge numbers. They should consider sever huge serves though. I don't think they should stick to the standard of 3-5k people per server they should shoot for the 10-20k ( or what they can run and run smooth).

I imagine it's going to be like most games and have certain areas you really wont revisit as you get higher in skills/levels. It's all on what you want to see end game and how it's populated/created.

What I don't want to see is private instances of any kind.

Fallen Earth did the one server thing and it worked great, it promoted many things like everyone that played the game could cooperate with each other no matter what, no server changes and such.... it does make for some problems but there are many benefits also. Like if someone is a douche, everyone knows it.... stuff like that.... yes certain population areas can get a little hairy at times; but it goes with the territory...

just gonna chime in here. eve online is one massive world,
a few things to consider:
one massive world doesn't mean one super amazing server, it means the same clustering as would be done by the way 'shards' (god i hate UO) was done. so you'd need lots of server clusters, as well as a really powerful mainframe. this stuff doesn't grow on trees; it requires a massive investment, and massive dedication to time, patience, and coding. honestly One big Server would be the way i would do it, however, you'll have to deal with many, many different isp's if you do this that way, unless you plan on only an american only release, the other way would be one big server for us, one for the UK, then another for the asias.


just my two cents.
if it matters, i built servers, pc's, etc... so i do know what i'm talking about.
not impossible, but one big server would take more money, and time investment than a server cluster setup spread out over the states.

Not necessarily. The FF MMOs have always been worldwide servers (FFXI and FFXIV) and Champions Online/Star Trek Online from Cryptic are single worldwide servers. CO/STO gets around the problem of 'one big server' however by just generating instances of each discrete region; same solution was used in CoH/V as well even though that game had discrete servers.

Not necessarily. The FF MMOs have always been worldwide servers (FFXI and FFXIV) and Champions Online/Star Trek Online from Cryptic are single worldwide servers. CO/STO gets around the problem of 'one big server' however by just generating instances of each discrete region; same solution was used in CoH/V as well even though that game had discrete servers.

out of the ones you named, only one of those actually has a setup similar. and final fantasy's original setup had everyone confused.. so i have no idea what you are talking about..
and to name STO means you are obviously a troll. that game had the worst launch of an MMO ever. two days into that mmo and over 50% were already thru much of the content.. and champions online, everyone KNOWS already how much of a FAIL their launch was. they couldn't keep their login server online long enough for anyone to figure out what was wrong... why did you name such crappy mmo's? sure, the final fantasy mmo's are popular. IN JAPAN. none of the titles you named are anything i'd EVER play in an mmo. E V E R.

i'm sorry, but i'd hope that V13 aspires to be like NONE of these mmo's... 0.
i couldn't even imagine a worse fate for this mmo if it came out like any of those mmorpgs. sorry.

Wait: FFIV is not that popular, in my eyes it failed miserably as well. Mainly due to poor ingame content (quests etc) that forced you to grinding constantly and the game had very poor GUI, no shortkeys to go to the menu, no shortkeys... anywhere -.-' BUT they had a macro system... where you had the chance to do hotkeys -.-' "hyay" and the map controlling system was bad and the town maps where very confusing, you had to memorize on witch level stores/people lay to get to them, map hardly helped at all. But that game gives other mmo's a chance to see NOT how to design a game.

I don't like to speak bad about mmo's but those where things that almost every game-review site have complained about.

Wait: FFIV is not that popular, in my eyes it failed miserably as well. Mainly due to poor ingame content (quests etc) that forced you to grinding constantly and the game had very poor GUI, no shortkeys to go to the menu, no shortkeys... anywhere -.-' BUT they had a macro system... where you had the chance to do hotkeys -.-' "hyay" and the map controlling system was bad and the town maps where very confusing, you had to memorize on witch level stores/people lay to get to them, map hardly helped at all. But that game gives other mmo's a chance to see NOT how to design a game.

I don't like to speak bad about mmo's but those where things that almost every game-review site have complained about.

i think you mean final fantasy 11? and yeah i played that once.. and i ended up staying around for tetra master only, lol. too much Japanese text. and their idea of guilds.. was... perfectly stupid, in my silly opinion.

i hope that v13 finds its 'place' in mmo's, and doesn't attempt to be a clone or derivative of other mmos.
i will support this mmo.

see, i was at the launch of both Champions online, and Star Trek online.... and those games svcked. horrrrrribly badly. the ones who play now bought lifttime subscriptions and are still acting butthurt about it. i would NEVER have done such a thing myself, knowing that the launch would show us all how prepared they were to give either game their full attention. its like a shotgun effect. they just shower us with mmo's in the h opes one of them made the 'cut'. all the same engine, and it never worked properly. i was gone from CO in one month flat, and from STO within two WEEKS after launch, i had already canceled my subscription. there were many mad people. cryptic forums were basically lined with what they had labeled 'trolls'... TROLLS.. how do TROLLS buy a game, then hate on it? it was utter lunacy at best, and at worst, it was censorship at its finest. they simply deleted all the folks who were dissatisfied with the game, having been promised something that they couldn't give

and sto's idea of one big server was a instanced NIGHTMARE, either you got in a instance with idiots, or folks much higher than your level, just mindlessly grinding quests for the rewards, because at first for awhile, ST:O allowed you to repeat quests over and over and over. so the guys who had been at the 'prelaunch' were everwhere, with their captain status ships, in areas for much lower characters. it didn't work, it was a total disaster, and many, many early players were gone within that first month. i can only hope there isn't as much instancing here.. but i'm straying far, far off topic.

i've been at every major launch since EverQuest 1, and its like either you win in the first three days, or your mmo fails, and dies a slow, horribly painful death.
the launch is key. very, very key. lineage and WoW's first days went smoothly, albiet with a bit of patching confusion that when compared to newer mmo's launches such as STO or CO, would be like a bit of sunlight vs being next to the sun. no comparison at all... co was basically down for days, and STO, was up but extremely, EXTREMELY laggy, or you got a perfect experience, it was kidna wierd.

my fave mmo after all these years is still Star Wars Galaxies, Pre CU. next would be Everquest 1. then maybe Earth And Beyond, that one because of the social interaction built by the way the game was designed.

out of all these mmos, even the ones i liked, i hope and pray that V13 is nothing like any of them..
i apologize for my lengthy rant

I would prefer to play on one large server. However you need to design the game after that. With that I mean you need to have a huge world and you need to motivate players to spread out over it. Like how Eve Online have done it.

But I would not cry my eyes out if its shard servers. Even though as a European player I start to get bored with being forced to play on the European servers where all stick to there native language. So if there will be sharded servers I would prefer we Europeans can get an option to play on the east cost servers as the ping is not that bad over there, just 100-150 ms more then one that is in western Europe. Just so we can play on a server where every one use English.

It's far easier to build a system that uses multiple servers. Especially when you consider international players. Load balancing is far easier too.