I have a feeling the stress testing might wait for open beta,

They have already taken everything about the system from DAOC. There is no reason why they would not make it run the same way it did with servers in DAOC, thats what gave it the experience. Campaign = to a server. On those servers Most the population was not in the PVP zone at the same time, they were in their home worlds, but the PVP area was large enough to handle everyone if for some reason the whole population went there. This set up looks the exact same with the size of Cyrodiil.

No maybe it wont work like that..... I dont know but if i had to bet $ i would say it will since they have already done eveyrthing else the same

They said 2000 was their guessing start number but would be asjusted as needed. So 2000 people registered to a campaign. 800 are currently not logged into the game so you are now at 1200. half of those people are in their alliance's home world exploring or doing their story quest. So at this point only 600 people are in Cyrodiil. Now after testing or even after the game is running and they dont like this number they could easily change the campaign population to 3000. now instead of 600 people you would have 900 people in Cyrodiil. they dont like that?? they chance it to 4000 so 1200 are always in Cyrodiil..... to me this system would be alot better because there would also be the need for less campaigns. Also this would easlily allow room for more people to be added as they joined a guild and were brought into this campain at level 10. As well as there always being room to guest in a friends campaign. As well and the most important.. no que to go to YOUR world

You dont need 2000 people in there at once. I look back at DAOC and there were only a few hundred but the keep seiges and defense were still epic.

Assuming that a full half of the server population is doing PVP at any given time is pretty optimistic, I think, though.

Assuming an average player plays for 4 hours during the day - at any given hour, there will only be 55 per side, since all 2000 aren't playing 24/7

That would make sense, assuming they are comfortable with making crucial changes within a shorter period of time if need be.

Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Look at my last post. i think it explains it better and makes the most sense lol

Eh, I read it. I think it could work very well, but as I said, we'll need to wait and see what they end up doing.

I believe either system would work.

Just curious, though. How would they re-assign or open up campaign slots? Assuming they give a player 7 days to play before they're reassigned, it almost negates the whole idea, and puts unneeded pressure on a person to keep playing if they want to maintain the same campaign.

I can see the attraction to playing a campaign that is yours, but I also feel as though due to the mega-server, this will work much differently than in those other games. I haven't played either, so I apologize for my lack of knowledge on their specifics, but I do feel as though the server differences will play quite the big role. In a regular server-type game, you don't need to worry about ever being reassigned, because the server itself is a set server which maintains itself.

Assuming campaigns are seen as individual 'servers', It could possibly make sense, but you're also forgetting that two friends might be in different campaigns. Yes, you can switch campaigns, but who's spot are you taking of the 2000 who are registered to it? Who gets kicked out simply because your friend wants to join you?

I personally love the idea of having a certain intimacy with your own campaign, but I also feel as though It's too rigid for how flexible I'm imagining the mega-server to be.