As the title says, i had a great time playing AO in a empty server (not really completely empty cuz there was another player, but hes a level 45 savant so he doesnt count) didnt have to worry about being jumped by a sweat clan member, could peacefully grind my deckhands and the game really felt less laggy overall where i was getting some stable FPS in alot of areas
gives flashbacks of the time where the max was 5 players.
that was honestly one of my favourite experiences in AO
11 Likes
True, those days were great
If only vetexhad 5 max player servers available as well as 14 player servers
Yeah, I tried to log into it, but the lag was so insane that I couldnât move without it turning into a slideshow. But really during those 5 player max days it was very⌠lonely. I mean imagine playing vanilla wow⌠alone, it doesnât have the right feel to it and feel kind of creepy.
But in all honesty, I feel as if AO needs to go through a performance update in order for those with less powerful devices to play without reducing the graphics to âjust before your eyeballsâ. Especially in a game where visibility is key for sailing and ship combat.
3 Likes
Honestly after alot of experiences with toxic pvp heads in this game, being âlonelyâ sounds great to me
3 Likes
tbh I enjoyed the creepy feeling that the 5 player servers gave. It makes the war seas feel more hostile and harsh, while also making most player to player interactions feel more interesting, since you donât see another player that often unless you specifically ask to meet up somewhere.
It makes the game feel more like what the story is going for. Like youâre the only person that is standing up against the âbadâ guys with your team of relatively good friends.
I feel like low player servers encapsulate the feeling of the game, with regard to the lore and the game description, better than servers with a higher player count.
This is pretty similar to the dark sea, where youâre alone in a hostile environment. You never really know whatâs going to happen, you donât completely know what youâre going to find (If you do, you should probably take a break). Youâre almost completely alone, with literal monsters and ghosts trying to make you leave the place. Sometimes you come across another player, which feels a lot more special because youâre not really used to finding others in the dark sea. This again is similar to how the 5 player servers worked. All of these things give the player an eerie feeling like the world isnât actually made for them and that they are merely a toy for the endless waves of the dark sea.
tl:dr
small servers make players realise the harsh and unforgiving environment where the game takes place, and make player to player interaction more special and interesting.
also yeah, small servers would probably improve performance because the game has to load and unload less player inventories because less players will be joining a specific server.
2 Likes
this is why I wish private servers existed
the cold isolation of you being the âchosen oneâ
grinding in peace
able to use a reasonable graphics quality to actually EXPIERENCE the bronze sea
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If GPO lets you have private servers and also lets you travel thru the different seas, i dont see why AO cant do the same, idc how much it costs id pay it anyway
and now SOT is adding PvE seas
I think itâs just because of the 40 second rule being more respected on low-pop servers.
Vaguely to describe, in open worlds there is a â40â second rule. No player should go 40 seconds without stumbling into something to do. This is a reasearched âsweet spotâ of about how much travel time people are willing to tolerate before they start getting bored. On a server of 14 people, even removed from from those who are hunting one another, the amount of pirate boats, available bounties, etc. is much lower. On these low pop servers, Beaches are generally more plentiful with loot because very few folks have actually wandered there. Chest spots remain unlooted. You donât have to look far to find something to do.
So yeah, I think AO in lower pops is probably the best version of the PVE experience. Probably a bonus for some that the fps is better on low pop servers too.
2 Likes
not having to worried about being jumped aside, the game was MUCH smoother
i could crank the graphic to 10 and still play smoothly
nowadays anything more than 5 is starting to lag
1 Like
iirc Vetex reason for this is so that exploiters/bug abusers are easier to caught or something
I always wondered what the max 5 player count experience was like because on the day that AO came out I went on a trip so I could not play and when I came back the max player count was reverted. Has anyone got any good stories from that time?
Society if Vetex made singleplayer servers/5 player servers again:
society if vetexâs new profiler findings allow him to make enough leeway that the performance impact across 1, 5, and 14 players is insignificant*
Sorry I donât speak italian 
what does that mean
i love how well the game runs in low pop servers but i personally dont enjoy how empty it is. less interaction, less weird bad trade requests, overall the world feels way less alive. still a firm believer that the dark sea needs to be instanced/split in some way
he implemented his own little thing that monitors how the game runs, and he can use this to diagnose the Big Lag
okay
how does this affect anything�
(I really do not know how any of this stuff works but I guess I know what a profiler is)