Wilhelm’s Rules For Choosing a Server January 7, 2008
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in Pirates of the Burning Sea, entertainment.Tags: Server Names
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Over on Potshot we were musing in the comments on which server to choose for the Pirates of the Burning Sea pre-boarding party, and the topic of server choice came up. So I got to trot out my server choice rules.
These are “Day One” rules and assume that no outside factors, such as friends already playing the game, exist. “Go play with your friends” trumps these rules.
But given a blank slate, I always say:
- Never pick this first server on the list
- Never pick the last server on the list
- Always pick the server with the name that is the hardest to pronounce and/or spell
So given the following PotBS server names from which to choose:
- Blackbeard
- Rackham
- Morgan
- Kidd
- Antigua
- Guadeloupe
- Bonny
Guadeloupe seems to be the obvious choice. I rather expect most people will assume it rhymes with cantaloupe.
So see you on Guadeloupe!
Europeans had it easier: Only 4 servers, one English, one German, one French, one Spanish. Just choose a language!
I used to do pretty much like you in selecting a server (worked well in Everquest, where I played on Lanys T’vyl). But that assumes a game with a “normal” level of success, where some servers are likely to be overpopulated and others likely to be underpopulated. Your strategy is optimal if your goal is land on the least populated server, thus avoiding problems with queues, or server crashes and lag caused by too many players.
But what if a game isn’t quite as successful or starts with too many servers? If the average server is underpopulated, targeting the least populated server will end you on one which is nearly empty. And that can be really annoying, causing problems with the economy, with finding a group, or even with finding enemies to PvP against.
True enough, this list can backfire. I almost never seem to be on the same server as anybody else I run into, for example. Low population has not been an issue thus far.
But a game that is suffering from population woes early on is likely having issues that would keep me from wanting to play the game myself. I no longer have the tolerance I had at the launch of EverQuest.
Or maybe I do have that tolerance still, but I have not run across a game that has grabbed me like EQ did in 1999.
If people are leaving, or not showing up, then I am likely to be part of that pack. After all, I can always go play WoW. I know I will have fun there.
[...] so. Of course, I rolled French and went with Wilhelm and Gaff to a server which satisfied Wilhelm’s server selection criteria. Looking at the login screens, I think we made the right [...]
Been there done that. Of course the other issue is – do you want to be on the highest traffic server? That’s not always a bad thing – you don’t want to be playing in a ghost town (usually) but you also you don’t want lag or to have to wait in line to kill stuff or whatever.
Anyways, this game looks interesting. Going to have to look into it more!