Why Are there Ships?

[PE4CE14]

Why cant there just be universes like in PSU? There were different universes, but everybody was connected. Why is there 10 Different Ships/Servers? Will it be like that on US servers?

[Keyblade59]

Because that is stupid and PSO2 isn't about stupid.

Or were back in square 1 in PSO2 like in PSO where we have to find a suitable planet, and by doing so we must kick the crap out of every living animal on the planet to make sure it's suitable. Therefore we have no home so we must go on the search for one. As for the different ships, There obviously isn't enough space to compensation everyone in one ship, so it was separated when we went to find suitable planets.

[blace]

Think of it this way, it would be terribly difficult to move you across universes if you wanted to transfer and what the previous post has said.

Unlike PSU where they populated three planets, these are along the lines of Pioneer ships from PSO, instead of a couple of ships to colonize one planet, you're preparing to colonize multiple worlds and establish contact with the local life.

[terrell707]

JP PSU had a big enough user base that they had to do something similar in which they had 2 Entrances which are identical to the Ships we have now. No trading between the two or anything until later in its life cycle. America PSU never had a big enough user base to split it into more than one server. PSO2 is free to play which is probably why they have 10 different servers for the Japanese. For American PSO2, I'm not sure if they'll have as many.

[jooozek]

Because SEGA can't into cloud computing. They should learn from Three Rings whom they acquired (Spiral Knights is running on Amazon EC2, there are servers in EU and NA, you can pick between them dynamically; oh, and FYI there are Amazon EC2 datacenters in Japan).

[Shear]

... err this has nothing to do with Cloud computing <.< I'm pretty sure you searching for a different word.
Cloud computing means to put past of the IT Infrastructure online (in the cloud) to access is from everywhere, companies use it for example Databases or Browser based Software for example. (Dropbox is a another good example)
Non Browser based MMO's store their Data online but most of the Game Data is installed on the PC itself so they don't qualify.

terrell707 pretty much already answered this, the Ships are basically Servers.
As for the why, Data needs to be stored on a Server and to move from one Server to the other the Data needs also to be moved which in case of MMO's is a little more complicated than copy/paste :p
As for why so many Servers are needed, Server Hardware is like all Hardware limited in how many instructions it can do at once, many MMO's start with far more Server than they need in the beginning to avoid surprises (if you ever played WoW at launch you know what I mean <.<)
It seems they already did use a cluster (The Rooms) to ease the load by the way, at least it looks like each of those has it's own limit.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

As for why so many Servers are needed, Server Hardware is like all Hardware limited in how many instructions it can do at once

The application of a cloud in this context, is to expand these limits. A cloud is a large number of servers acting as one. Instead of having one machine with twelve multi-core processors and 96GB of RAM, you have a hundred or more machines with this configuration, and each machine exchanges tasks with its neighbor as though it's neighbors' cores were its own.

That people use clouds for storage or (relatively) simple database applications astounds me.

[Shear]

Uhm I think a explanation is in order, Cloud Computing is simply a name of a Method, I could take my NAS, use Software to make it available online and I would have a Cloud NAS (the Method is even called "putting your NAS in the Cloud":p)
While often a Cloud is a High performance Serversystem you don't need to have one to have a Cloud, having a Cloud means to put it simply to put something purely online (online Storage, purely Browser based Software you can use over the Internet are all examples)
My point was that a Client based MMO is not a or in a Cloud, but I was simply arguing semantics (IT wageslave privilege :p )
What you mean is using the know how and performance of the big Cloud Serverclusters and applying it to a different kind of Server, which isn't a bad idea performance wise but to put it mildly costly.

As for why they went with Multiple Server instances I say it's a cost/usage calculation.
While what you wrote is very possible it is also incredible expensive since Larger Clusters also need more maintenance (not speaking of actually setting the monster up)
Also making a Cluster smaller again is difficult since the Data is spread out over many Serverunits so if the userbase was smaller than expected they would have difficulty reducing the Number of Serverunits (since every running unit costs Money)
As I wrote they seem to already use a system of connected Servers, the Room System is a pretty obvious sign that they do.

On a side note some Games do that, Guild Wars 2 has it's realm VS realm thing which means the Servers are connected to each other and WoW also slowly goes there but it still isn't the norm.

:EDIT: Oh for ... why do all of my posts end as Wall's of text <.<

[Laxedrane]

Pretty much what the others said but just to add to the discussion. PSO1 was separated into ships as well it's just the same a ship=Universe from psu. Why they decided to keep the ships separated in this rendition of the game is up for speculation. But to keep a long story short. No it won't change.

[eharima]

so you can limit server loads by number of 'characters' per ship, also turn it into a handy feature where you can charge people real moniez to transfer said character.

it will be interesting to see economy prices if they ever merge servers. huehu!

[jooozek]

(...)

You missed the point - clouds are elastic.

[Syklo]

You missed the point - clouds are elastic.
and bouncy

-ontopic-
not a PS veteran, but you would've seen the oracle by now yeah? (The fleet of ships that you see in the intro video)
If we were using universes instead of ships.......well, we won't be playing on a fleet of ships, but more like 2, one being the lobby area and the other that's always infested with darkers. Who knows, there might be some kind of cross-ship bridging interaction in the future (Dragon Nest did a similar thing - It had 4 seperate servers meaning you can make 4 times the amount of characters but ALL the characters could interact with each other; a server merge)

Unless the oracle fleet is really 1 mother ship and a shipload of campships, in which case my argument is invalid.

But seriously, it just makes more sense to use ships instead of universes...we're gonna get parallel areas anyway

[Link1275]

The application of a cloud in this context, is to expand these limits. A cloud is a large number of servers acting as one. Instead of having one machine with twelve multi-core processors and 96GB of RAM, you have a hundred or more machines with this configuration, and each machine exchanges tasks with its neighbor as though it's neighbors' cores were its own.

That people use clouds for storage or (relatively) simple database applications astounds me.

That's just a home made Super Computer...

[Enforcer MKV]

*ahem* Continuity arguments aside.

It's about server capacity. Instead of paying for one huge server for everyone to mingle in, they divide it up into several smaller, more cost effective servers. plus, if one go has issues, then you're entire playerbase isn't locked from the game.

That being said, i still liked moving between ships like in PSU. It was just better, from my point of view.

And for all those using story elements to argue this...er....no, sorry, the Oracle Fleet is composed of a large multitude of the ships that we inhabit, with the group moving as just that, a group. Furthermore, it's clearly been shown that the campships actually warp to one of the three planets that we're talking about, there's simply no need for the larger ships to disperse in such a way. Heck, if you just go to your teamroom (assuming you have a teamroom) and look out the large window in the back, you'll see that there are ships around.

This is a separate point, but can't sega at least make it that we can search all ships for Items? I think that'd help the game economy a little...not to mention ships with lower populations.

[Shear]

You missed the point - clouds are elastic.
Uh that exactly was my point, Clouds are flexible and not defined by the Hardware.

and bouncy
... screw this let's go with this and call it a day :p

I'm expecting some kind of Server(ship?) change Ticket in the Future though.

[blace]

I'm expecting some kind of Server(ship?) change Ticket in the Future though.
There already is, it costs 700AC to transfer with a 5 day waiting period after.

[Shear]

Ohhhh ...
Didn't know that.

[ZIE creations]

...

This is a separate point, but can't sega at least make it that we can search all ships for Items? I think that'd help the game economy a little...not to mention ships with lower populations.

THIS, DO IT SEGA!!! Q.Q

Anyways, servers are separate because of how much stress PSO2 has on the servers. Unlike PSU, which relied 90% of the data processing on the client side, PSO2 only has defined player input and menu navigation on the client side (like all MMOs) and requires a lot more memory and speed then PSU. SEGA has already mentioned they can't increase search results on the shop even, just because it would add too much stress. As for data going in-between the servers, this is possible and will more then likely happen down the road (maybe this is why the US/EU version is taking so long?) but will require extra servers to migrate temporary information, only adding stress to the original server.