Is classic getting dedicated physical servers?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
41

Why do I need to provide citations when you keep providing ones that Prove my what I am saying is correct…

just cause you can’t read properly does not mean others can’t.

42

U wot m8…

43

Tickrate isn’t batching.

No.

Not ever. Never ever.

Tickrate refers to the rate at which data is sent and received from the server.

Batching refers to which “slot” a particular point of data is executed in.

Say the polling rate for data is 1/30 and the batch rate is 1/10. If you and another character send data to the server and it is received at poll point 0, 1 or 2 - you will be in batch slot 1. If the data is received in poll point 7, 8 or 9 - you will both be in batch slot 3.

The rate at which a server executes commands DOES NOT have to be directly tied to the server’s polling rate.

Source: (Non-Blizz) programmer here. This is literally netcode 101.

You can send and receive data as fast as any connection and hardware allow and limit the rate at which commands sent to the server are executed from “as fast as we get them” to “as slow as we want”.

All of this in mind we now take into consideration what points of data are processed on what side of the internet connection. Is the damage of an attack after any character modifiers calculated by the client or the server? Is that damage passed to a check on the client side of the player or server? Etc etc

If all calculations are performed server-side, this is where loads come into play and lower batch rate can reduce performance since you can potentially spike lots of calculations every X batch rate.

It’s like opening multiple programs in a single click on your PC vs opening one every 5 seconds. Opening all at once will yield a greater load on the CPU where allowing one to load or load partially before the next reduces load spikes.

And on and on we go down this rabbit hole

Knowing all of this - draw your own conclusions on performance vs potential player saturation in a single area at once.

1 Like
44

I remember back in Vanilla waiting in Ironforge for an impending horde attack. Two raid groups is all it took to take down the server. The servers these days can easily handle that.

45

There are no large companies running (what you call) “physical” servers any longer. They are more commonly referred to as “bare-metal” or “single-box” by those who have to deal with them.

Single-box servers are single-point failure sources. Meaning if something goes wrong, the service is interrupted. Which is unacceptable for 5 9s uptime services (WoW is not a 5 9s service, more like a 2 9s due to weekly server maintenance, but the goal is the same: uninterrupted service).

What service-oriented companies employ now are cloud services, either their own, or leveraged from google/apple/amazon/etc. The difference between a cloud and a single-box/bare-metal server is that they can never expand beyond the processing power available to it by the hardware in its own box. Whereas a cloud-based system may bring additional servers into the processing loop to handle increased loads from unexpected traffic (such as a big raid descending on Stormwind).

5 9s uptime description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability
Cloud Computing description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
Single-box/Bare-metal description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare-metal_server

As for the processing loop argument, there have been a few eloquent descriptions (particularly from Apocryphal above) that does a good job describing the difference in load when batching as opposed to real time (or near real time) message handling.

I’ve noticed much trolling and blind-eyeing in this thread. I’m not sure why I’m feeding it more, but I felt the need to weigh in, given I’m software developer and have knowledge of the field (to some extent).

3 Likes
46

There is no need for dedicated servers. Blizz has been using virtual servers from some time, and with how poorly BfA is performing, there is plenty of bandwidth available on existing physical servers.

I mean, WoW once managed 12 million+ players… it’s likely well below 3 million… even if were say 6 million… that’s a LOT of bandwidth free for Classic.

Now if my prediction is correct and Classic overperfoms… :slight_smile:

47

I have a question regarding this. I will admit that I know next to nothing about server tech or the cloud. My concern is that this new server tech requires sharding to keep it running smoothly. I’m not trying to turn this into a sharding discussion or debate, it’s just something I have been curious about for some time.

We do know, as the OP said, that the new tech can’t seem to handle the load as they did in Vanilla, and that too many people will cause crashes or too many people will cause the area to break into shards to keep it stable.

My concern about this comes down to two main things that would ruin Classic for me personally. The fear that this new tech depends on sharding to keep the servers stable to avoid too many people in a given area. If that’s the case, then sharding wouldn’t be restricted to the beginning and starter zones, but would instead turn on automatically when too many people are in an area. Like world PvP, the opening of the Gates of AQ, etc.

That brings me to my other concern. What happens to large, open world PvP in Classic that took place in Vanilla? I remember being in massive raids on Orgrimmar, the UC, Tarren Mill, etc. Will the servers crash or be sharded? Either scenario ruins Classic to a big extent in my opinion if those raids I once loved can no longer happen.

Am I correct in how this new tech works? It’s highly possible I am wrong, which is why I’m asking the question to understand this properly.

48

Well all I can say is based on the many many threads on sharding, Blizzard has to be very well aware of this concern by the community. They’ve implied very limited use of sharding so hopefully the impact of sharding doesn’t extend past the first few weeks of launch and afterwards they remove it from the game entirely.

I can’t really tell you exaxtly how Blizzard’s cloud computing services work and why exactly there may be some issues with small densely populated areas because it’s Blizzard’s internal system. My guess is that for whatever reason they limit the resources that can be allocated to a given zone. Theoretically they should just be able to increase that limit, but I can’t really say for sure.

Cloud computing basically means you have many servers working together to distribute tasks evenly. So instead of having one dedicated server for every realm you can actually have less servers overall because you don’t need the full capacity of a server for each realm 24/7. This saves Blizzard a ton of money but would also reduce the maximum potential output of all servers running at full capacity.

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49

Thanks for the reply Dealloc.

I hope you are right in how you think Blizzard can, and hopefully will, go about things and how the new server tech works. I know you don’t know these things for sure, but do appreciate the response. I was reading your posts and it seemed you had some knowledge of the cloud server tech, something I know zero about pretty much lol.

But my concern is this new tech will make sharding a necessity in certain scenarios and will hinder large, open world PvP that I loved doing so much way back when. This is why I am extremely hesitant when they say it will only be temporary. With that said, I hope you are correct in all you said :slightly_smiling_face:

50

Oh I totally agree that would be awful. There’s nothing worse in retail than when you’re about to kill a member of the opposite faction and they phase/shard out or pop into a dungeon with dungeon finder.

If we have anything of the sort in Classic I’m sure there will be quite the outrage. The community has made this well known so we’ve done our part. Blizzard just has to do theirs.

2 Likes
51

why are you worried the existing server strucker is literally the most stable they’ve ever had. saying you are worried is just baffling.

52

Another non-Blizz developer here. This is correct. I would also add that moving spells to a lower priority batch would not affect what batch OTHER calls are made (i.e. Emitters for character position/direction).

Moving spells to a lower batch does not affect how much data is being processed, only when that data is processed. To your “opening multiple programs” - this is also correct (great example btw) and accurately demonstrates why low-priority spells are more load intensive than high-priority.

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53

I think you’re missing what they said. They have “tens of thousands of blades around the world". Each Realm is distributed across a number of physical servers. They no longer run one server per Realm.

“Cloud Tech” is transferring computing packets across multiple computational platforms. There are so many different forms of implementation that anything beyond a single server is “cloud tech”.

55

I didn’t miss what he said. I misunderstood what you and specifically Dealloc were saying. And I wasn’t arguing about the existence of cloud architecture. I just wanted some official postings of evidence…which we got. I’m glad if I played a role in a more informative discussion that goes mostly over my head. :wink:

56

Seriously?

The game lags so much more than it ever did when you pit raid versus raid.

If Classic performance runs like BfA, we’re in trouble.

Reading the thread, some suggest it will play better than BfA… I hope they are right.

57

If you lag thats on you. My game runs perfectly smooth.

I am in no way suggesting that you are not experiencing lag. All im saying is i haven’t experienced it.

59

Well… Blizzard has so many servers they have a Private Cloud that actually does what its meant to.

I don’t know if they split by zone, or zone/shard, but they definitely distribute areas far more than they ever did with ‘tens of thousands of servers’ instead of 4 per realm.

60

Well we’re good to go and we’ll get fantastic service.

61

It doesn’t look like you’re a War Mode/WPvP player. Of course this doesn’t impact you.

This is more of a concern for PvP servers and expected WPvP battles where BfA performance is atrocious. It even lags out during IoC or SS/TM BG’s.

So no, this brutal server performance isn’t “on me”. I certainly hope Blizzard is not just concerned about the care bear players.

62

Eh. Only reason i dont have warmode on is because its boring. And even when i did use warmode (for the first few months of bfa) i never experienced lag.

Again i am not discrediting your own experiences.