Multiple Servers?

[benjaminj88]

Alright so just a quick question, I was looking through some of the links of a MMO RPG I play, and along the way I found a new one. Now when signing up I had to select a server. Now here's the question or questions.

Why or when should a person use multiple servers? I have been thinking about making a browser based rpg and can't really find anything relavent to the situation. So was just curious to see what I should plan around with this. Thanks

[burn1337]

Well when it comes to browser based, it is a much different story. But just the same it all depends on the typical foundations of most things; supply vs. demand.

If your running a browser based rpg that is say roll turned based; and you don't have a consistent multiple users. Yea you don't have any need for multiple servers. Now if you did have a consistency of a fairly good amount of users; having multiple servers could help on overall speed. But just the same roll turned based games don't use up a lot of resources; so the most you may want or need could be a second server to hold only the database just to cut down on bottle necking, or reduce the stress put on each server.

In the aspect of an MMO RPG that is client based; the only time you can run that on a single server is if you don't have many players, and you have a very strong server or a low resource game. A heavy amount of databases would be needed, you have to interact with the other players online, so a mapping system needs to be done which depending on the graphics used, the mathematics/physics, and tracking can take up a lot of resources. Non-stop interactions occur to a lot of mechanisms per player. So of course this can easily wear down a server, flood the ram and even the swap, and bottle neck even quad cores sometimes even a dual quad core.

But to be honest; it all also depends on the efficiency of the programing. Efficient code will not be as resource heavy. In turn allowing you to accomplish more with less power. Efficient coding also reduces a lot of typical security flaws, which in turn keeps the game more secure.

As for planning around... I would first start with your code; every byte saved is a byte more useful; proper coding structures cut down on bottle necking, security holes, memory leaks or overflows, and so forth. I would take into consideration how many players you expect to gain each month in the beginning, how much resources your game is going to take, how the server is setup (caching can make a big difference), know your servers capabilities, compare them often. Keep tabs on any way you can save a few bytes here or there, use snippets wisely, some snippets can be more hassle, most snippets can save a kb or even a mb.