I was hoping to read/see initial impressions of ArcheAge Unchained from players who have first week access to the PTS. Unfortunately, it seems like many were fighting the initial login queue (population is being controlled as part of their load testing) and subsequent instabilities with maintaining a reliable connection to the PTS game server.
What I do know from ArcheAge in general is that it is not very tolerant to network latency (whether it be jitter in between server and client or load on the data centers router ingress. Launches can replicate DDoS type conditions as players constantly retry connecting; in ArcheAge’s case, instability of this sort in between the game server and game client, can easily cause a disconnect (resulting in “the gods have disconnected you!” message).
Actual login related problems (like not authenticating properly) are due to architectural limitations of their Glyph platform. What I last remember from the Trion days is that they had their login server in the US (that included EU logins). The latter was extremely problematic for EU players whenever there were network issues between Europe and the US since their Glyph games all require a security check when cash shop transactions take place. I’m also certain their login server was “singular” in the sense that they didn’t have them load balanced across multiple authentication servers (leading to the obvious escalating issues preventing players from logging in).
This part may end up being the main point of failure during the actual launch compared to the actual game servers being able to handle the player load unless Trion made architectural changes in the last 1.5 years before their insolvency (or likewise, if this was beefed up by Gamigo). I guess there will be more specific information provided during Friday’s (October 4) live stream since public access to the PTS is going to really replicate a launch (population caps are going to be lifted to simulate the production capacity for a server) and tax their infrastructure.
