My idea for making a more stable game environment: Server splitting.

[Gump]

I've ran multiple game servers (none of which were wow) over the years and gaming communities of a wide variety. I have experience working in C# among other things. Seeing the large amount of traffic and ping at peak times here on Kronos 2 got me thinking, would splitting server traffic up into multiple servers help to mitigate the server load, resulting in a more stable experience?

I've heard of load splitting before. It's not easy to achieve and the few servers that have done it in the past (far as I can tell) have never publicly released their source code. Kronos 2 appears to be running off a single box. I can assert this because when something crashes, it all goes down. I've seen this many times over as a mod in the Kronos discord chat.

I understand fully with my experience in programming that this would be no easy task. I do feel however that it may be the best solution to better handle the thousands of players. This could be an oppurtunity to come up with a new method of load splitting. I propose the following:

• 1 Server for Kalimdor
• 1 Server for Azeroth
• 1 Server for handling all instances
• 1 server for handling all BGs

It may seem like overkill to some but others may have ideas on how they could further split the server load. I think doing something like this in the long run would lead to a much more stable environment overall and a higher population base that decides to stick around for the long haul.

In this sort of setup, if one server crashes the rest remain online. Kalimdor could go down for example, but all the instances, BGs and Azeroth would still be up and running. There are downsides to this setup as well, there are problems you need to solve to make it work. All the servers need to be in the same physical location for ping times to remain relatively similar.

I am prepared to offer my services free of charge as a programmer, should they be relevant to the development environment here to help make this happen should the developers be interested in this idea. I encourage other members of the community with relevant experience to do the same thing.

 

[perpxgodx]

if kalimdors down and im on the boat to ratchet from stv, do i end up in the maelstrom or

 

[Gump]

if kalimdors down and im on the boat to ratchet from stv, do i end up in the maelstrom or

This depends on how the traffic is transferred between the two servers, on where you are when it goes down. They would have to code with these exceptions in mind, as I said in my first post there are problems they would have to solve. The easiest thing I can think of is if Kalimdor is down, when the boat tries to load in it simply takes you back to STV instead.

 

[Cpstabber]

This clustering was being worked on with the Nost server. It was something that was used on retail servers.

"

• 1 Server for Kalimdor
• 1 Server for Azeroth
• 1 Server for handling all instances
• 1 server for handling all BGs"

This is exactly how it was split. I remember when AQ Gate opening was going on. The West went down for over 4 hours. East was fine. I ran a few scholos on my main and did a BRD run. My alt was in Gadget and wouldn't login.

 

[Hvownij]

Why isnt this what they are doing currently? Obviously one server cant handle even 2000 as it is now.

 

[Gump]

To add to this, the character database would also need to be on a separate server but I figured that was just assumed with this sort of setup.

 

[Riki]

• 1 Server for Kalimdor
• 1 Server for Azeroth
• 1 Server for handling all instances
• 1 server for handling all BGs

I agree, this is exactly as what we had in old retail Vanilla 10 years ago as someone here already wrote.
So many times one "kontinent" went down and our friends/guildies stayed online on another without problems.

I remember AQ opening event too, because of big influx of ppl Kalimdor went down many times while ppl in IF / SW, Undercity were online.

Later in TBC: Outland, Draenei's isles, Ghostland and Silvermoon were all on new additional server, instances on another too...

So technically seems very possible.

 

[Aieris]

Years ago, Twinstar tryed to develop this for their WotLK servers. To allow cross-realm BGs, but they left that idea because of its complexity and system how mangos handles players ingame. Making this means basicaly rewrite 80% of the core.

 

[Gump]

This idea is feasible especially if multiple people such as myself are willing to volunteer their free time to help make it happen.

 

[escantrox]

This was implemented in vanilla wow and it helps decreasing the lag problems. Do it, JUST DO IT.

 

[Gump]

It is no small task but it is also within the realm of possibility. Given the popularity of this server now I think it should be more seriously considered.