Servers by player region and number of players
Pax Dei is operated on several servers worldwide. These servers are called "Worlds" or "Shards" and are completely separate instances of the game. This means that what happens on one shard has no influence on other shards. It can also happen that if there are many players within a player region (e.g. USA), there are several shards within the same player region. Currently, there are approximately 7,000 players per shard. However, this number will be increased accordingly as the game world grows.
You have to choose the shard before creating a character. But how do you make the choice?
- If you want to play together with friends, the characters must be on the same shard.
- The closer the physical servers on which the shard is running, the lower the latency and the better the gaming experience.
- Shards can also be "full", in which case no other player/character can join that shard.
Once the shards for Pax Dei are announced, we will try as a roleplaying community to choose the shard(s) where roleplayers will meet so that it is known where roleplayers will be before characters are created. Although not planned as of yet, it would be beneficial if Mainframe designate at least one shard per region as an RP shard.
Server transfer
Character transfer between shards will be possible, but possibly as a service to be paid for, or for free if shards are to be disbanded/merged. While it is easy to transfer characters, transferring plots/buildings is much more complex as the chosen plot on the destination shard may already be occupied. From the Tech FAQ:
How will you manage the population of the worlds? Do you plan to allow character transfers?
Yes, definitely. It is necessary for players' quality of life and population management.
But, let’s split this question into different cases: moving a character from one World to another is pretty trivial, so that is something we will undoubtedly allow (as an extra service or for free if the goal is to desaturate the population of a given world).
Moving a plot and the building(s) on it is a far more complex beast. We can’t simply transfer the buildings as the space could not be available in the new World, and we can’t easily move the buildings to a ‘similar space’ because the buildings' structure depends on the terrain they’re on. Ideally, we will have a system that lets you save your building structure as a blueprint or at least put all their components in a magical bag (don’t ask about the lore behind this, please).
Finally, when it comes to Clan transfer, we are currently considering it, but because of multiple reasons (priorities, workforce, unfinished features…), we can’t say it will happen before too long. We will provide more details on transfers and their availability later.
Subdivision within a shard
Since the computing load would be too high for a single server per shard, a shard is divided into zones. The world is divided as follows:
- World/Shard
- Regions (Gallia, Gothia, Iberia and Anatolia)
- Provinces (e.g. in Gallia: Kerys, Innis Gallia, Ancien, Merrie)
- Home Valleys (e.g. in Kerys: Bronyr, Dolavon, Llydaw, Tremen, Pfadenn, Ewyas)
- Zones
Each zone is operated by an Unreal server and can (currently) contain up to 150 players. The transition from one zone to the next will be transparent and without loading time for the player. However, if the province or a dungeon is changed, loading times may occur because the game client has to load new data. Buildings and structures are visible beyond the zone border, but other players are not. This means that you only see the players who are in the same zone.
If a zone reaches the limit of players, a new instance of the zone is opened so that you can still enter the area of the game world. But again, you only see players who are in the same zone, or in this case, the same instance of a zone. If the population within a zone decreases, the zone instances are also merged again.
Summary
In short, the choice of the shard on which you play is important and decisive for who you can play with. Everything else is taken care of by the game or the server architecture. If you want to meet another player within the same shard, both players must be in the same zone or zone instance. As far as possible, characters in a group or clan within a zone will probably also be placed in the same zone instance.