My beloved TOPS, a question to the community

[Brian Lemans]

First off, I enjoy this game, respect the developers, and have played 100s of hours, and am writing this in the hopes of a healthy discussion.  I am concerned the TOPS server is a bad idea, and I simply want to see what others think.

By offering a highly sought after, but limited experience, players are sharing their frustration (see Discord).

I’m simply asking a sincere question, is it better to have played, than to have never played at all?  Should there be an official server?

Thank you in advance for being respectful, and thoughtful in your replies, so that we are able to have this discussion.

[LadyWYT]

15 minutes ago, Brian Lemans said:

I am concerned the TOPS server is a bad idea, and I simply want to see what others think.

I don't play on TOPS, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to have an official public server, and if there wasn't one, I'm sure at least some players would probably ask for one. That being said...official public servers are typically going to be popular experiences that more players want to play on than maybe there is room on the server. It's not really any different than a concert for a popular band or a popular restaurant at mealtime, or even a popular attraction at an amusement park. There's a limit to how many people can enjoy it at once and somebody's going to end up having to wait their turn if they're intent on playing.

Opening up a server for each different region can help alleviate some of the problems, since then players can play on the server appropriate for their region and thus have a smoother experience. However, if players are flocking to TOPS because the devs play on that server specifically...there's probably not much that can be done to lighten the player load.

A couple of alternatives that should be considered, I think, are finding a different server to play on than TOPS, or otherwise hosting one's own server. In that case, the player won't have to deal with the wait times, and in the case of purchasing their own server, will have a lot more control over what happens to their world and when. 

26 minutes ago, Brian Lemans said:

By offering a highly sought after, but limited experience, players are sharing their frustration (see Discord).

I also want to note that a lot of the issues I've seen aren't specific to TOPS, as much as they are just issues with large multiplayer servers in general. It's been a while since my WoW days, but there were similar issues there as well, despite Activision/Blizzard being a much larger company with many more resources to work with. On expansion launches it wasn't unusual to need to wait a few minutes/several minutes to log in to the larger servers, and even after launch there could still sometimes be player queues at peak times(or during DDoS attacks, which did sometimes happen). Whenever that happened, the solution was to either wait patiently to log in, or go find something else to do for a while and try again later.

Does it suck when it happens? Yes, but that's just one of the primary drawbacks of opting for the most popular options.

[Broccoli Clock]

From experience, I'd say most people should expect an "official server" to be locked down and to have quite proactive admins.  After all, if it's not moderated and a bunch of trolls came in wrecking the place and throwing around slurs then it's just a bad look for VS. The ability to run your own server, either locally or hosted, allows people to get past those "official restrictions".

I don't play online though, just the 'difficulty' I have virtually interacting with people (I'm sure you are all lovely, but I'm a bit odd like that, and it's crazy thing to say when I'm happy to bump my gums on the forum). So my opinion is not based on TOPS or any underlying drama, more the experience over the decades of watching games split between private and official hosting. 

Edited 18 hours ago by Broccoli Clock

[Teh Pizza Lady]

36 minutes ago, Brian Lemans said:

I am concerned the TOPS server is a bad idea, and I simply want to see what others think.

By offering a highly sought after, but limited experience, players are sharing their frustration (see Discord).

I’m simply asking a sincere question, is it better to have played, than to have never played at all?  Should there be an official server?

Thank you in advance for being respectful, and thoughtful in your replies, so that we are able to have this discussion.

I think your concerns are valid, especially when access is limited and people are clearly eager to be a part of it. That kind of setup will inevitably lead to frustration even when it's not the intention.

That said TOPS is not inherently a bad idea. There is only so much testing the dev team can do, only so much feedback they can get without opening up the game for a large number of players to test in a multiplayer scenario. That is why TOPS is not an acronym, but actually a "pseudo acronym" because TOPS actually the Official Public Test Server. The whole point of the server is for testing the latest releases of the game with real players interacting in real conditions to test things like game balance, system stability, and to see if any unexpected behaviors will pop up during gameplay. That kind of data is then used to further tune the game.

So you ask the question whether it is better to have played than to have never played at all. That is a question that only you can answer, but I believe that if you are seeking a multiplayer experience, then you could find it elsewhere with friends or by starting your own server and advertising it in the multiplayer section of the game. Just be aware of the challenges that come with such things. Should there be an official server? For reasons outline above, yes.

Hope this answers your questions.

[Vexxvididu]

53 minutes ago, Brian Lemans said:

First off, I enjoy this game, respect the developers, and have played 100s of hours, and am writing this in the hopes of a healthy discussion.  I am concerned the TOPS server is a bad idea, and I simply want to see what others think.

By offering a highly sought after, but limited experience, players are sharing their frustration (see Discord).

I’m simply asking a sincere question, is it better to have played, than to have never played at all?  Should there be an official server?

Thank you in advance for being respectful, and thoughtful in your replies, so that we are able to have this discussion.

It would be a bit helpful if you expanded upon what your exact concerns are with the official public server.  Just reading other chats don't tell us much about what your own thoughts are.

Now... I'm a solo player, so I'm bias against TOPS, but I do see a lot of value in having a test server with more than just the devs as @LadyWYT pointed out. I couldn't imagine wanting to make a "forever home" on a big public server though. I think it's unrealistic to try a complex build on a big public server without any expectation of being trolled at some point. If you want to control what's gong on with minimal lag, it's obviously better to play solo or just with your own friends.

[Brian Lemans]

1 hour ago, Vexxvididu said:

"It would be a bit helpful if you expanded upon what your exact concerns are with the official public server..."
 

 

Actually, I didn't want to share my opinion as it's just that, and I didn't want it influencing the discussion, or people focusing solely on my opinion.

I realize that doesn't answer your question, but thanks for understanding.

Edited 17 hours ago by Brian Lemans

[Brian Lemans]

2 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

There is only so much testing the dev team can do, only so much feedback they can get without opening up the game for a large number of players to test in a multiplayer scenario.

This line alone really helped put it into perspective. I need to stop looking at TOPS as my 'forever world' and come back down to my senses.

Thank you.

[Brian Lemans]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

…Opening up a server for each different region can help alleviate some of the problems…

… it wasn't unusual to need to wait a few minutes/several minutes to log in to the larger servers, and even after launch there could still sometimes be player queues at peak times

I like the idea of regional servers, that would help with performance as well.

…our queue times are 3-6 hours.

[ifoz]

I think a decent way to alleviate some queue frustration would also be introducing a feature where for about a minute after a player disconnects, they could rejoin and they would regain their position in the server or in queue. TOPS (and just internet connections in general) isn't/aren't the most stable, and it is a frequent occurrence to wait in queue for hours only to get disconnected in the single digits, or to finally get in, play for five minutes, and then get disconnected and sent straight back to 130 in the queue.

Edited 10 hours ago by ifoz

[Brian Lemans]

That seems like a legit feature, given our queue times.

[KahvozeinsFang]

12 hours ago, Brian Lemans said:

By offering a highly sought after, but limited experience, players are sharing their frustration (see Discord).

I've said plenty of times there should be more than just a single official server. There should be at least one high capacity servers for every region the game is sold in, ideally two or more.

 

But really I can't be particularly bothered by not being able to play on it. You have to travel extremely far to find anything useful, as every other player that joined the world has stripped the land clean things like copper, reeds, clay and flint for ten thousand blocks.