After a weekend of server issues, Once Human developer Starry Studio has revealed the way it struggled to deal with the surprising variety of gamers who’ve descended upon the sport.
Once Human is a free-to-play multiplayer open world survival recreation from Starry Studio, a developer owned by Chinese video games firm NetEase. It launched on PC on July 9 and rapidly discovered an viewers, with an enormous peak concurrent participant rely of 231,668 on Steam.
It’s a giant success for NetEase, however some gamers have confronted frustration merely enjoying the sport. Specifically, gamers discovered they have been unable to play with mates as a result of they have been already enjoying on a server that was full resulting from newly imposed participant limits, or had prolonged queue instances.
Now, in a post on Steam, Starry Studio mentioned the rise within the variety of gamers over the weekend “exceeded our earlier expectations” and in flip brought on huge server queues. Because of this, Starry Studio mentioned it had “no different selection” however to restrict the variety of gamers on every server.
“But we’ll admit that this has certainly brought on inconvenience for some gamers, so we’re engaged on bettering that,” the developer added. “We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Starry Studio went on to clarify precisely why too many gamers on a single server causes issues for Once Human. It’s a useful perception into the best way the sport works and the challenges builders face in the case of MMO-style video games equivalent to these.
“Once Human is an open-world survival constructing recreation the place sources on the map are restricted in numbers,” Starry Studio mentioned. “If too many gamers get on the identical server, they may have a tough time discovering an appropriate spot to create their territory. Additionally, some late-game content material such because the Stronghold Conquest for PvP servers can be affected. According to our earlier check knowledge, we found that the present situations may provide a greater gaming expertise if the variety of gamers on every server was restricted between 6,000 and eight,000. That’s why we have set a restrict. Once that restrict is exceeded, gamers should wait in queue. This is all for the net gamers to take pleasure in a greater gaming expertise.”
At the time of this text’s publication, 9 of Once Human’s servers are utterly full. Starry Studio recommended gamers play on different servers as a substitute with a view to get within the recreation. In the meantime, Starry Studio mentioned it’s going to quickly increase the restrict for every server, which ought to imply gamers can play on the server of their selection, “however this measure will not be a long-term resolution, so you must nonetheless attempt to keep away from servers that appear too crowded.” An August replace will add an invite code characteristic so you possibly can invite gamers to affix your server even when the server is already full.
In the shorter time period, a patch scheduled for July 18 will make some preliminary enhancements, with plans to supply compensation “for individuals who spend too lengthy ready in a queue.”
“We perceive that you simply eagerly need to have enjoyable with your pals. We guarantee you that our workforce is tough at work resolving points associated to server masses, and we’re doing all that we are able to to enhance the queuing concern,” Starry Studio mentioned.
Last week, Starry Studio responded to a backlash about how cosmetics work in Once Human, and promised modifications. Once Human has a ‘blended’ consumer evaluation score on Steam, with some gamers expressing concern about every part from the sport’s privateness coverage to using the NetEase Launcher. In gameplay phrases, gamers have hit out at obligatory seasonal resets and the way they’ll have an effect on your sense of development and attachment to your character, in addition to cosmetics being tied to particular person characters.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
