During the last 2 weeks, the number of players connected on our server has reached 6.600 players, peaking on sunday. Dealing with this amount of population is something which was never done before, even on Vanilla's retail. Consequently, a lot of software optimization has been done so that the realm can handle a lot of players (more than 10.000 players). However, we are now facing a new problem: Hardware limitation.
Handling this many players makes it increasingly difficult for us to develop on our Dev. realms, since it impacts the live server's performance, creating significant random lag when server reaches more than 5.000 players. We had to shut down three Dev. realms already. Consequently, the Dev Team can't work efficiently anymore.
New hardware is needed to suppress the lag and set a new world record. The cost of this hardware cannot be handled by our team alone, therefore a donation system will be available for a limited time (and limited cost) here. This donation will not be mandatory, nor give any reward: No hall of fame, no items in-game, it will only help us support the upkeep cost. A status of the donation will be available on the website.
The gamers keep coming in from all over the world to play, which makes it very difficult to complete quests and kill creatures. Respawn rates are the ones used on retail: perfect for the 2.500 players allowed back then, but a nightmare when we're more than 5.000 players. The case we face every day. Players have been asking for another realm, but this will imply more Game Masters, more ressources, and the possibility that the new realm will not work as the current one. Even though developping cross-server battlegrounds was one of our dreams, we chose to keep the current one. Consequently, to deal with this issue, a respawns algorithm will be developped soon to have a dynamic respawn rate comparable of the one from retail but dealing with more than 2x/3x population.
NB: A patch will be applied tomorrow morning between 08:00 and 09:00 GMT+1, during the time when the amount of players online is lowest. The realm may be unstable for one hour during this time.
Best regards,
Nostalrius.
Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream of it, you can do it.
