January 15, 2006
A mathematical look at Blizzard's MMORPG epic reveals the World is Waiting a little too much
On Tuesday I start another semester of advanced math courses
and once again, a week before the semester start, I had no topic. Then it dawned on me -- to combine my love of
mathematics with my love of mindless queuing, and what better way to mindlessly
queue than to play World of Warcraft.
I wrote a small script to open WOW, log in and take a
screenshot of the queue window. Yes, it's against the terms of service, but if Blizzard cancels my account, they would be doing me a favor. I had this script running once per hour, on the
hour, while I was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
My script did not calculate the actual wait times; it only recorded my
position in the queue when logged on. I
timed three queues to get a solid estimate of the users per minute my server,
Icecrown, processed.
- 8pm on Sunday, Jan. 14, 651 queue, 44 minutes: 14.795 users per minute
- 6pm on Friday, Jan. 12, 214 queue, 16 minutes: 13.375 users per minute
- 7pm on Sunday, Jan. 7, 265 queue, 19 minutes: 13.947 users per minute
To simplify the calculations, I estimated that Icecrown
processed about 14 people per minute in the queue; 14 people every minute
decide they either want to log onto another server, close WOW or actually get
into the server. That's approximately
840 people per hour.
Using the figure of approximately 14 people per minute, I
calculated the average wait time of each hour during the nine day period. Some of this data was extrapolated as
Icecrown crashed twice during this period and I have no data for those
times.
Using this calculation, if my program had waited through the
queue for each 1 hour period after logging in, I would have to wait 858.1 minutes
or a little more than 14 hours in a 216 hour window.
We have to assume at least 840 people per hour are logging
onto Icecrown. Any fewer and we would
have no queue times. We could estimate
the actual users per hour from the queue times with differential equations, but we are just attempting to
grab a baseline estimate.
In the 216 hour window, my program had to a queue 78
times. For this estimate, I assume 840
people have exactly the same wait times I have when they log onto the server
during the same one hour period. If so,
more than 65,520 people waited a combined total of 720,840 minutes during the
nine day window. Of course, not all of
those 65,520 would have to be unique sessions; the same people could have
logged on more than once into a queue over the course of nine days.
720,840 minutes is 500.583 full days, or 1,501.75 work
days.
Out of the 204 realms Blizzard has 65 high population
servers in the U.S.,
Icecrown is listed as just a medium population server. If those 65 servers experience the same
amount of queue times as Icecrown, then a total of 4.25 million users waited a
combined total 89 years over a nine day period.
Once again, the 4.25 million estimate does not consider each user unique.
The
Burning Crusade, Blizzard’s World of Warcraft expansion, goes on sale tomorrow at midnight. What better way to honor one of America’s
greatest heroes than to stand in line several hours in advance for a
game that is essentially one continuous queue.
"Death Is Very Likely The Single Best Invention Of Life" -- Steve Jobs
|
Latest By Kristopher Kubicki
Most Popular ArticlesReport: Apple to Debut iPad 3 During First Week of March
February 10, 2012, 9:36 AM
Nikon Announces 36.3MP D800, D800E D-SLRs
February 7, 2012, 10:11 AM
Quick Note: Acura Unveils Production Version of ILX Hybrid Sedan
February 8, 2012, 9:10 AM
Google's Motorola Mobility Purchase Approval Expected Next Week
February 9, 2012, 3:02 PM
China Prepares to Fine Apple, Possibly Ban iPad for Trademark Abuse
February 7, 2012, 12:09 PM
|
