Increase population cap on Lordaeron

Thanks to extensive performance work before and after launch we were able to start with a cap of 4.000 and increase it rapidly to where we are now - 7.000. At this point, performance can vary heavily with just 500 players difference. We have optimized our code to a point where it is very hard to make any further improvements without a complete rewrite or an improved version of load balancing. Not only that, it is also a question of design.

In theory a server with 10.000 players online at the same time sounds great, but in practice? Quest and daily hubs would be overfarmed, Dalaran would at some point probably become unplayable, and several other issues would definitely show. Instead, it may be better to open a second realm if we see that enough players would be interested. That means definitely more than 600+ we saw in queue on sunday.

Nonetheless we continue to work on performance for several reasons and will soon be testing another patch on live that has the potential to let us raise the cap once again, possibly up to 8.000.

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Originally Posted by Trayz

Nonetheless we continue to work on performance for several reasons and will soon be testing another patch on live that has the potential to let us raise the cap once again, possibly up to 8.000.

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Are you not worried that we might have to reduce the player cap again once all the content has been unlocked?

Are you considering implement a "save spot" for like 2 minutes for people that disconnect?
So we are white listed from Queue

would be awesome!

Does anyone have an idea of what typical population of a retail server would be? How does that compare to the current size of Lordaeron?

I've tried looking on sites like https://realmpop.com/, but they only seem to list total # of characters (100k+ on both sides), not necessarily the number of active players currently logged in.
Assuming max of 10 characters per account per realm, this leads me to believe ~10k individual players/accounts per faction at the very minimum. But I don't think this means the retail realm gets 20k players logging in each and every day.

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Originally Posted by Aleastraszabcde

Are you not worried that we might have to reduce the player cap again once all the content has been unlocked?

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I am not sure I understand your point. Why would we be worried? If you mean that performance might suffer with more content, then no. I answered that in a previous thread already. The more continents available the better.

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Originally Posted by Aleastraszabcde

Are you not worried that we might have to reduce the player cap again once all the content has been unlocked?

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More content = players much more spread out = much less stress of competing functions being ran at the same instance.

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Originally Posted by Trayz

Instead, it may be better to open a second realm if we see that enough players would be interested. That means definitely more than 600+ we saw in queue on sunday.

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Just keep in mind that when Rag & DW get the upgrade to the lordaeron core, lordaeron will not be the only realm people will play anymore. I think the load of players on lordaeron will be decreased Enormeously at that time. (new players going rag&dw, old players going back to their maxed up characters).
At that time only the players who don't mind no RDF etc. will stay (and those who invested alot of time in lordaeron who think it is a pity to let it go to waste).