

Ask HN: Why do MMORPG launches always go so wrong? - thenomad

It's by now a cliche that on the first day of an MMORPG game launch, the servers will fall over horribly and no-one will be able to play.<p>But why is that? I mean, it's not like TCP/IP or server technology is exactly bleeding-edge stuff, it's not that the companies deploying this stuff are cash-strapped (we're talking about Blizzard Entertainment as an example, for pity's sake), and it's not like they're not aware of the problem (Arena.net, whose game Guild Wars 2 is in login server hell as I write, have done months of stress-testing).<p>So what is it that means triple-A titles with hundreds of millions of dollars riding on them still always go pear-shaped on day 1? Can anyone enlighten me?
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lbcadden3
You can't buy or build enough servers to handle a short term rush. It is not
cost effective. There is much more to it and I don't really feel like writing
an essay, but the above point is probably one of the biggest.

I have been wondering if you could build an mmo where the servers run on
things like aws so you could add and drop servers as needed.

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thenomad
Yeah, I'm surprised that the companies don't use something like a cloud
service to handle the short term rush. It might be expensive to have the
infrastructure in place to handle the rush, but surely protest reviews on
Amazon and Metacritic - which are getting a lot of press for nigh-on killing
some games - are more expensive?

