Can an MMO Be Too Popular?

[Nyghtfall]

I haven't spent any time in WoW for the last two weeks. Last night, I realized it's because I'm tired of being ganked by high-level Horde in low-level contested territory, while trying to complete quests. The server queues only compound the problem.

Last night, Blizzard launched two new servers:

Alexstrasza - PVE
Balnazzar - PVP

My wife and I decided to try the new PVE server. She logged in just minutes after it launched and created 8 characters just so she could reserver her names. I logged in about 15 minutes later, only to be greeted by a message tellling me the server was already full, and that I was 268th in line in the queue with a 5 minute wait to get in. Deciding I had better things to do, I logged out.

I am seriously considering re-activating my CoH account just so I have something to play when I want to kick back and relax. I canceled my account shortly after Cryptic released Issue 6 because my system had taken a serious performance hit. I thought it was simply no longer up to snuff until I started reading about people with high-end systems experiencing performance issues, even with graphics minized and disabled. They've since installed a few patches which they claim have fixed various server and game stability issues, but I've yet to hear from anyone reporting performance improvements.

At this point, I can either stick it out with Blizzard and exercise patience when trying to log in, or I can take a risk with CoH and hope that they've improved the game's stability well enough that I can actually move around without having to wait 10 seconds for my character to respond to command inputs.

In any event, I'm feeling really frustrated right now. Do you think it's possible for an MMO to become too popular?

EDIT: I'm number 360 in the queue to log into Alextrasza right now, with a 42-minute wait.

:mad:

EDIT Part 2: So much for re-activating CoH... got myself into an 8-man team against an AV, in an instanced outdoor map, reduced graphics to minimum, and frame rate dropped to 2 when everyone's fireworks started going off.

This sucks on so many levels... wife is trying Cenarion Circle, so I'm gong to try the waters over there.

[Rafal Dudek]

egh! sry to hear that Nyght. I'm just playing EverQuest 2 for now. Gotta love how much free content they keep packing with Live Updates. We're up to #18 already and #19 is on test server.

I'm waiting to try Dark and Light, Vanguard, and Pirates of the Burning Sea =]

[NotSoFast]

Hmmm...I've been playing WoW since Dec. 2004 and have NEVER had to wait in line to log in. Ever. I play about 6 days a week and at different times of the day, including 5-10 p.m. Central time. I started on Azjol Nerub and got bored with the PvE server. I tried PvP and never looked back. I have Alliance characters on Nathrezim and Horde on Wildhammer servers. Nathrezim is an older server and is still listed as Low population 90% of the time and goes to Medium at peak times. Wildhammer is about 3 months old and is Low population every time that I have noticed.

The next time you create a character, look at it's population rankings at about 11:00 PM Eastern and make your decisions based on that.

I would imagine your queueing problem is probably a result of so many people wanting a new server. The problem is that "everyone" wants to go there all on the first day.

By the way, they opened 4 MORE servers today. Hopefully this will thin out the crowds in the older ones.

Perhaps you could try Nathrezim or Wildhammer. No queue's, I promise. :thumbup: Either way, you can look me up on these and I'll hook you up with some starter gear. Alliance on Nathrezim, Horde on Wildhammer. Send me a PM on here for a list of my character names. :shades:

[Ojnod]

Yea I have never waited in a line either. I have been playing on Bonechewer since launch and rarely have problems there with the exception of these past few weeks (I think christmas hit blizzard pretty hard). BTW, I don't know if you are going to find it any better on Cenarion Circle. I just had a friend migrate from CC to my server because he had to wait in lines in peak times.

Now to answer the title of the thread. I don't think a MMO can be too popular, but it certainly is hard when one grows as fast as WoW does. I am sure blizzard knew their game would be popular, but it went from launch to the most popular MMO in the world in under a year. Even the other incredibly popular MMOs didn't grow that fast. http://www.mmogchart.com/ has some statistics if you are interested. It hasn't been updated in a while, seeing how WoW is listed at 2 million subscribers even though they just hit 5 million.

[Rob]

No, an MMO cannot be too popular, but it can be poorly handled which is how I see the WoW launch. I do not necessarily agree with Donjo though about Blizzard being blindsided by its early popularity. The amount of previews, beta test applications and just plain media hype should have given them a clue. And ultimately they do control how many copies of the game are distributed at a time. Don't give out one million copies of the game if you can only support 500,000. They gambled that that they would not all sell at once. They gambled and lost (or won depending on who you ask). They could also have limited the ability to sign up on each server which would have prevented over crowding. Always leave yourself some room to work with.

Nyght, I personally think you are getting screwed right now. What is worse is that you are paying a monthly fee for this privledge.

He can switch servers, but these games take up so much time to build each character and you make friends on the server you are on. As a paying customer, he should not have to make that choice.

[Circlebreaker]

I'm sure all the other MMO developpers think WoW is too popular. :lol:

No, I agree with Rob. It's not the popularity on itself that's the problem, but the fast growth wich means that the devs can't keep up. You can keep adding servers, but purchasing and installing them and making them ready to play the game takes a lot of time.

[VooDoo Chile]

I have no problems logging but im on the west coast playing on a east coast server and I work swings and graves. Server seems mellow that way, if you dont mind hanging out with Auzies. J/K