Hello Whyville,
I have been wondering about this for a while, so I would really appreciate an answer from
City Hall when I'm done. Ok, a lot of people are now buying Why-Passes, I
suppose. Well, what will happen if too many people buy Passes and the servers
still overload because of how many people are on? What will happen if
the majority of Whyville actually have a Why-pass? Won't the servers
still overload at the "peak" of the day? Because I've been watching how many
people are on Whyville at certain times of the day by looking at the map. It's
been getting over 200 regularly. It almost never got that high before. I
was just wondering what might happen and if the Why-pass idea is fool-proof.
Thanx,
Byes,
Zoey100
Note from City Management: Hi Zoey100,
Great question! What is going to happen is that if enough people buy
Why-Passes, we can then afford to put another server on-line (we've got 2
right now). With another server (total 3), we'd be able to let more people
on Whyville. Then, as even more people buy passes (but before they totally max out our 3 servers), the extra money will allow us to put the 4th server on-line, and
so forth and so on.
Each server costs about \$800 per month to maintain on line. So every time
we add another (\$800/\$4.95 = 161.61) 160 to 170 Why-Pass holders to our
site, we can afford to get another server.
Mind you now, this needs to be 160 MORE current pass holders. If someone
bought a pass last month, that money went to pay for an existing server for
last month. Even if he/she buys again this month, it won't go toward a new
server. It'll have to go toward paying for that existing server this
month. In order to get new servers, we need more people to become regular
subscribers.
These numbers are subject to change, too. The people who provide our servers may raise their prices, or we might find it's harder to program more servers, or any of a million other possibilities. This is just the stats we have right now.
Hope this makes sense!
Thanks for caring about how our town works!
