Spike Hike Addresses Concerns of CPNext and Clarifies How You’ll Meet Up With Friends and Mascots Without Servers (Updated With More Info)

For those of you who read my interview with Spike Hike from last week you’ll remember him revealing Club Penguin will be removing servers in lieu of their new internal technology called CPNext. While many are excited for this to hit Club Penguin, many were worried about how they would meet up with friends if there’s no specific server you can log on to. I asked Spike Hike to clarify this and he cleared everything up! When CPNext is released you will no longer be able to log on to a specific server such as Sleet or Fog. You log on to the game and you connect to an imaginary server where other random penguins are also logged on with you. So how do you meet up with a friend? You can’t say “let’s log on to Sleet to look for fake betas” anymore. Instead something similar to server jumping will be released along with CPNext. It’s called Friend Jumping and it sounds exactly like it does. Instead of jumping to another server like server jumping would have enabled you to do, you just teleport to your friend, wherever they are. If you’re on imaginary server 1 and your friend Bob23 is on imaginary server 5, you’d probably do something such as open your buddy list, click on Bob23, then click the jump button. It will then take you to imaginary server 5. Remember, I say imaginary because technically servers won’t exist anymore. I am not too sure how well this will work for meetups such as Spike Saturday or if I have a meetup since many penguins are not Spike Hike’s friend or my friend due to full lists, however that doesn’t necessarily mean you will be unable to meet up.

Let me make an example. Let’s say Spike Hike is holding Spike Saturday on Club Penguin. Since there’s no servers you can’t meet up on Fog, so what do you do? You need to either be his friend or friends with someone who is. I’ll write it out with imaginary servers in my example again. Hopefully it makes sense!

  1. Spike Hike is on imaginary server 7. Anyone who is his buddy can jump to him for Spike Saturday.
  2. Bob23 is friends with Spike Hike. He jumps to him. If you’re friends with Bob23 you can jump to where Bob23 is and as a result you will be able to hang out with Spike Hike too, because that’s where Bob23.
  3. Bob26 is friends with Bob25 who is friends with Bob24 who is friends with Bob23. If Bob23 is at Spike Saturday, Bob24 can jump to Bob23. If Bob24 jumped to Bob23 to be with Spike Hike, then Bob25 can jump to Bob24 to be with Spike Hike. The same goes with Bob26. If Bob25 jumped to Bob24 because Bob24 had jumped to be with Bob23 to be with Spike Hike, then Bob26 will be able to go too. It’s slightly confusing but as long as you’re friends with Spike Hike yourself or have a friend of a friend (or a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend and so on) you can jump to them to be with Spike Hike as long as they’re all online with Spike. It’s a chain reaction.

Also, if you jump to Jamie54 who is on imaginary server 7 and you’re in the Town but decide to move to the Snow Forts, you will still be grouped together when switching rooms. Just because the server is imaginary and nonexistent does not mean you’ll be split up. CPNext is coded so you stay with your friends. Either way, if you get separated you can still jump to your friend!

Rooms can still get full. If the room is full the CPNext technology will just put you in another version of the room with other penguins. The other version of the room will look the same, it’s just on another one of those imaginary servers and of course won’t be full.

Spike Hike did also mention the team has a backup plan in case this does not work well. I do not know what it is, nor do I know when CPNext will be rolled out. I also inquired about mascots, since without servers the team can’t say on the blog “Log on to the server Abominable to meet Rookie” because the server Abominable won’t exist anymore. Instead mascots will be made public so most likely anyone can jump to them.

A huge thank you to Spike Hike for clearing this up! Hopefully it makes sense. If you have any other questions or concerns let me know and I’ll see what I can find out!

UPDATE: Here is more information from Spike Hike. He said the following in the comments below explaining why CPNext is a good and important change. It sounds awesome. Here’s what he said:

There are a lot of benefits –

1) We can better cluster the community together so the CP world doesn’t feel so empty. There may be places where the audience wants it to feel more empty and we can adjust that, but in general, the CP world will feel more alive more of the time.

2) Its way more efficient on the server side. Not necessarily a benefit you will see but way easier to manage for us which means we can spend more time on content instead of server maintenance.

3) We will be able to group people over time based on things we know about them. We would like to find ways, for example, to group you with your friends automatically without even having to teleport but we could group based on other things too.

4) We can serve you different versions of CP rooms based on the “mode” you are in. Imagine Operation Hot Sauce style missions that happen in the CP world. We can make those permanently available down the road. But the trick to those missions is that they are social. You want to be in the room with other agents. But people who are not in mission mode want to be in the regular version of the room. No problem. We can group you with other agents and give everyone else the regular room. That’s just one example but there is a lot we can do here.

5) We could – theoretically so I am NOT announcing this here, its just an example – let you take over your own version of any room in CP and throw a party in it. You might also be able to decorate that room with your iggy items. Your friends could access that special party version of the room while everyone else gets the normal one.

6) We can make the CP world infinitely large. Imagine that as you play CP, you discover more rooms that you can go to and they unlock on the map. So for noobs the experience is really simple, but for rares the world is really big so you never get bored and there’s always something new to explore. The problem with this in “Classic CP” is that we can’t add more rooms anymore because they are always empty. Spreading out the audience more across empty rooms doesn’t help the community, it hurts it. Now we can have more rooms and more to do but group people in ways that keeps the community together – across space and time in the game.

7) We won’t have to take the world down to launch parties and A LOT fewer overall bugs.

8) In the future we will be able to distribute these server rooms around the world so we can put the servers close to our users in each country and make the overall performance a lot faster. Today everyone is playing out of Las Vegas, so people in the US get a fast connection while kids in other countries get a slower one. We want the whole world to be really fast!

Excited now?

Don’t worry, we will be listening, tweaking, and solving all these concerns. Trust me, this is a far, far better technology to take CP into the future.

Also servers on web will be around for a while – at least a year. So we have a lot of time to get this right and IF we need to we can do something like today’s servers using the CPNext technology for players who want that. So you can keep playing the way you want to on the web and we will evolve. Trust us, we know we need to get this right.



172 thoughts on “Spike Hike Addresses Concerns of CPNext and Clarifies How You’ll Meet Up With Friends and Mascots Without Servers (Updated With More Info)

      • There are a lot of benefits – 1) We can better cluster the community together so the CP world doesn’t feel so empty. There may be places where the audience wants it to feel more empty and we can adjust that, but in general, the CP world will feel more alive more of the time. 2) Its way more efficient on the server side. Not necessarily a benefit you will see but way easier to manage for us which means we can spend more time on content instead of server maintenance. 3) We will be able to group people over time based on things we know about them. We would like to find ways, for example, to group you with your friends automatically without even having to teleport but we could group based on other things too, 4) We can serve you different versions of CP rooms based on the “mode” you are in. Imagine Operation Hot Sauce style missions that happen in the CP world. We can make those permanently available down the road. But the trick to those missions is that they are social. You want to be in the room with other agents. But people who are not in mission mode want to be in the regular version of the room. No problem. We can group you with other agents and give everyone else the regular room. That’s just one example but there is a lot we can do here. 5) We could – theoretically so I am NOT announcing this here, its just an example – let you take over your own version of any room in CP and throw a party in it. You might also be able to decorate that room with your iggy items. Your friends could access that special party version of the room while everyone else gets the normal one. 6) We can make the CP world infinitely large. Imagine that as you play CP, you discover more rooms that you can go to and they unlock on the map. So for noobs the experience is really simple, but for rares the world is really big so you never get bored and there’s always something new to explore. The problem with this in “Classic CP” is that we can’t add more rooms anymore because they are always empty. Spreading out the audience more across empty rooms doesn’t help the community, it hurts it. Now we can have more rooms and more to do but group people in ways that keeps the community together – across space and time in the game. 7) We won’t have to take the world down to launch parties and A LOT fewer overall bugs. 8) In the future we will be able to distribute these server rooms around the world so we can put the servers close to our users in each country and make the overall performance a lot faster. Today everyone is playing out of Las Vegas, so people in the US get a fast connection while kids in other countries get a slower one. We want the whole world to be really fast!

        Excited now?

        Don’t worry, we will be listening, tweaking, and solving all these concerns. Trust me, this is a far, far better technology to take CP into the future.

        • Awesome! I completely support this idea. I have since the beginning. CP is wonderful at the minute and I think the only bad thing this year was the Star Wars takeover, I hope it doesn’t return. I don’t really understand number 8 but Please make number 5 happen! I. Begging you!!!

          • I believe he means that the servers you connect to are located in Las Vegas. With servers, the closer you are to it the faster of a connection you have. So if a server is located in Spain, those living in Spain will have a faster connection to it since they are closest to it. Those in countries around Spain will have a relatively fast connection too, but not as fast as those in Spain. Then, if you’re in a country far away like Canada, Australia, or the United States, it will take longer for your computer to connect to that server because it’s so far away. With CPNext they would be able to place servers around the world to speed things up for players in other countries.

            It’s sort of like a wifi connection: the closer you are to the router the stronger and faster your connection to the internet will be, but the farther you walk away from the router the slower the internet connection will become.

            Does this make sense?

        • I’d rather have servers, this seems too complicated. Plus what if people want quiet servers to record CP videos and stuff?

        • I understand your point and I’m starting to agree with you, but there’s something bothering me…

          I make CP videos and so do my friends, but for videos we want the room empty so we go to empty servers to record alone without people around us. If you could create a mode for: you be on your own imaginary server with no one else and invite only who you want to be in that server too, it will help me and my friends a lot!

          Grande Yoda

        • Brain Explosion!
          Club Penguin will be AMAZING that way, much better than CP we see today. Decorating rooms would be GREAT but it may be complicated to get friends only to see the decorated room.

          When CPNext is released, why not bring the Future Dome!

          • Noob is just slang for newbie which means “an inexperienced newcomer to a particular activity” so yes, new users are that.

        • The regular CP server system has been mellifluous since the dawn of Club Penguin, this change would not be among mutual agreement all around Club Penguin. This update will do nothing but engender further volatile complaints from the players as well as demands to restore back the original server system. If you ask me, reconsider this idea.

      • CP stoping looking like a ghost town at some servers, AND… more friends to partay! i needed this since in some parties there were not much penguin in a party room so it was boring :( but now, my problems are over!

      • Lets say you want to play CJ on a server but theres not enough players on any servers

        CPNext will have unlimited versions of a room lets say the Dojo

        CPNext will automatically pick the room with the best Criteria for you.

        So with CPNext when you walk into the Dojo you will be put in the version of the Dojo with the best amount of players for you!

        Also less empty rooms S:

    • Servers are too complicated and take up lots of room. Also, it means rooms will never be empty. Even on busy servers, rooms like the underwater room are empty. With this, all servers combined at least have some people in those rooms meaning it will never be empty.

  1. hahaha I got lost back at all the Bobs! but thanks for making this post Train! I was worried about servers going away at first :)

  2. I don’t really like the idea of CPnext. It seems a lot more complicated than the easy servers that you just press where you want to go to.

  3. I partially like this idea. I think there should be one global server that should be made that is continually busy that spins up another version of a room that is full.

    But the rest of the servers should be as normal.

    ~Perapin (:

  4. I don’t like it at all!!!! I love the way it is noe. The only good thing about is i can say “my penguins has been around even when there were ‘servers'” and penguins will be like Wow really. Anyway I don’t like it at all.

  5. Quoted from the post:

    ‘Rooms can still get full. If the room is full the CPNext technology will just put you in another version of the room with other penguins. The other version of the room will look the same, it’s just on another one of those imaginary servers and of course won’t be full.’

    Lets think about this. Currently if there is a mascot in a room that is full, people will try to get into that room by walking back and forth at it until they get in (or using their map). If CPNext just puts you into another identical room you’d have to get yourself back to the imaginary server the mascot is on and try and get in again. Who knows how long it would take for someone to get into the room.

    CPNext seems to be only beneficial if a party or a catalog has been released, and everybody is trying to get into the room to get the latest items. There should be an option to switch to an imaginairy server for this, not something that is forced upon your penguin.

    Considering what Train has said in the entire post, I think that the idea of CPNext should be scrapped. It’s a pointless and unnecessary update on the game, which they’ve tried to incorporate server jumping into. Either Club Penguin has no idea how to put server jumping in the current system or they have to rewrite the entire coding to do it.

    Think about what I’ve just said, and then reply your opinion: Do you prefer Club Penguin now or would you prefer this new system over it?

    • Well it’s not coming for ages and spike hike said that changes will be made + in the post it said there will be public mascots, so anyone can jump to them.

    • I think its fine right now. This seems too complicated. The only good part is Friend Jumping. There should be server jumping too.

  6. A message to Spike Hike. English please? :P. Sounds like a good idea anyway. Not so sure about the mod-meetups anymore though. :|

  7. I’ve just realized that this is basically the same system that another online game uses. I HATE IT. It doesn’t work out very well at all.. I like that CP has a list of specific servers that you can choose from. I like that you can choose whether you want to be on a crowded server or an empty server. I think it’s useful that you can set up meetings/parties/events/etc.. so easily. If CP just wants to cut down on too many unnecessary servers, they should just delete some of the ones that no one ever uses. Unless this CPNext allows for many good new features for CP, other than just the new system, I think the update will be terrible.

  8. I like this idea, actually. The only thing I don’t like is now I can’t hide from my friends, change servers, and have them confused when they try to find me…

  9. this is awesome!!! but what happens if im Bob38 and i have no friends in spike saturday or want to meet a mascot but im in another version of the room?: BRAIN EXPLODE

  10. But what if none of your friends are friends with the penguin you are trying to meet? And then the rooms will STILL get full because they’re so popular, so you have a less likely chance of meeting someone! Personally, I would think that when a mascot logs on, he is shown in ALL the servers at one time. Not really THERE, but just shown there so you can at least get his background!

  11. I think this is great, but is this also coming with global servers? I heard quite a while back about everyone on the same server and no matter where you’re from everyone talks your language, like if your English and you’re talking to someone who is French, then they would type French but it would be translated to English?

  12. I always like to go to empty servers because I love to explore the island on my own (or with one friend).
    CPnext shall ruin the experience. : (

  13. I don’t like, altough now I understand it, I don’t like, it’s easier to log in, select a server, and go to the same room as your friend than log in, search a friend, and “friend jump”, maybe your friend “friend jump” to you, and you “friend jump” to him, and you don’t find each other.

  14. TYPO/GRAMMAR ALERT!!!

    “I asked Spike Hike to clarify this and he cleared thing up!When CPNext is released…”
    “I asked Spike Hike to clarify this and he cleared everything up! When CPNext is released…”

  15. Also servers on web will be around for a while – at least a year. So we have a lot of time to get this right and IF we need to we can do something like today’s servers using the CPNext technology for players who want that. So you can keep playing the way you want to on the web and we will evolve. Trust us, we know we need to get this right.

  16. Oh-my-god! We will be able to decorate rooms with our igloos objects! Choose whether you want to or not attend a party (room decorated) and PLAINS OF TIPS Cools! Hooray for CPNext ^^ Hooray for Club Penguin :)

  17. I still dont know whether to be Happy or Afraid

    Pro’s:Easier to find players to play CJ With!, Less apocalyptic rooms :D

    Con’s:No more server meetups Like Field Friday, Rooms will become over crowded

    If I could make one Change to CpNext An option to go into less crowded versions of rooms!

  18. I like the idea of decorate any room with your own igloo items. I just hope the amount isn’t limited or the type of items you would need to decorate for. Also, this seems kinda confusing for me. I might get used of it in the future but for now, I am very confused how this might work. I kinda understand the concept about it but what about a new player? Will it be logged into an imaginary server to make friends? What if I want to be alone with my friends with nobody messing things up? What if for example, Aunt Arctic is at the Snow Forts and I want to go on the same imaginary server Aunt Arctic is at but wait for her at the Town or Plaza? How would I do that?

    • Sure, I might go to a friend who is over there, but what if nobody is online or if the player isn’t on that room? Also, how will we be able to meet the mascots and be prepared before they come if we don’t know which imaginary server they might come? This could make mascot finding more difficult.

      My idea would be to leave the normal servers alone, have an option on the last button of the toolbar that says “Empty all players from the room” and “Empty all players from the server”. It would be similar to the Ignore List but instead of ignoring them, you won’t see any players who is on the room/server. Then you could deactivate the option if you want to see all the penguins on that room/server again. Now there could also be an option that might say “Empty all players from the room (Except friends)”, “Empty all players from the room (including friends)”, “Empty all players from the server (Except friends)”, “Empty all players from the server (including friends).”

      That might get things more clear, maybe a better online Hide and Seek experience, maybe a better recording experience instead of making everything difficult. Now to decorate the rooms that is actually a good idea.

    • We could make the mods “meta-penguins”, which means everybody would be friends with them. You could not de-friend them. That way, when they are online, we could meet them right away! Also, this could give everybody a chance to meet a mod. When THAT imaginary server is full, just be patient, then BAM! You are there.

  19. Not excited.
    Worried.

    1. The easiest way to avoid someone bothering us, is to change servers.
    No servers – how do we get away from them?
    Just ignoring them doesn’t work because you know they are still there throwing snowballs at you or making disgusting comments.
    Last time it was two guys talking about my innocent 6 year old cousin dancing for them like she was a stripper or something.
    2. We are not rich, we have old slow computers.
    If there are too many people, our computers lag and freeze so we change to a slower server.
    No servers – now what do we do?
    3. Sometimes I DON’T want to visit with anybody, even my friends. Maybe I am sad and just want to watch the water.
    Can we temporarily block access, like locking the door? Or will I just have to close out my friend list altogether?

  20. How cool would it be if we could teleport to any penguin? Penguins could go into the settings and allow penguins to teleport to them if they wish, and as soon as they don’t want it, they could just turn it off into the settings.

    • Yes I was thinking something like that, kind of like members and being able to open and close their igloo. But aside from a few of us with blogs/Twitter, most penguins don’t have a full buddy list and no penguin that isn’t their friend would want to jump to them since they can just be added to their buddy list. If that makes sense.

  21. 1.I understand, that having loads of one room,say, the underground pool, that not many penguins use, is a waste.

    2.I shall miss the excitement of meeting mascots. I know they’ll still be there, but, somehow I love, even.
    Oh I can’t explain it!

    3.As I said (and Turk Ois did too), I love being alone, watching the water.

    4.I would love to know how igloos will be handled on CPnext (if you’ve found a way).

    5.Maybe you could somehow cut down on servers(as a start : \)?

  22. noooooo!!! i have a friend in real life but they cant add me due to a stupid bug!!!I will hardly ever see him again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  23. I have a question, how all these new features are implemented in the game, and even the penguins in 3D. What will be the players who have a slow computer? What do you think of a standalone to open Club Penguin? As a trainer? Only without hackers? I hope your answer, Trainman or Spike Hike.

  24. Sky teh cloud person ( I love turtles,orange juice.pianos,music,drawing,and we'll never be royals, and idk what else (*.*) ^_^ says:

    I.Dont.Like.This

  25. Sky teh cloud person ( I love turtles,orange juice.pianos,music,drawing,can you chase away the darkness?, and idk what else (*.*) ^_^ says:

    I just wanna stay with regular servers this is making me confused and it seems boring and stupid to me soo XD yeaaahhh but thats my opinion so…

  26. I have a group of friends and I wanna stay with them on one single server not be with a whole bunch of random ppl idk cuz then I would just get rlly mad and most likely quit or throw my laptop at my bedroom door..

  27. People need to stop judging CPNext because they haven’t even experienced it… in my opinion, it sounds like a pretty good idea. ._.

  28. Hi Trainman1405!
    I dont understand how we will be meeting the mascots..
    Because for example PH is in the town and im in dance club,if I try to come out of dance club and into the town to meet PH,but when I get to the town she wont be there because it automatically took me to another server and I will lose my chance of meeting her and the mascot player cards dont say online or anything because there different and also if we try to transport to them and it says the room there in is full it’ll take us again to another server then what?

  29. Can you please bring back the earth day party where we can earn the tree mob stamp because like a month ago my friends and I were desperate to earn that stamp so we gathered 10 people wearing trees and we didnt get it :(

  30. Operation Puffle reminds me of the SpongeBob movie, which I ironically watched today :P My community was hit with a tornado outbreak and now I don’t have power until probably next week… I will likely miss a good portion of the party unfortunately, but no school :)

  31. I dont like this. Im in the acp and it will be impossible for us to do battles, rooms will always be filled with non army ppl and its gonna be soooooo difficult. Cp armies are going to die. :(

  32. No. Terrible idea. Now CP youtubers can’t record as they would be on a full, crowded server. Everyone will stalk them. More lag will happen too. No.

  33. Ok. So if this happens, I won’t be able to see my best friend, King Kong453. But the jump button will make it easier. But there won’t be any servers which means Thinknoodles will no longer do Think Thursday in his favorite server, Icicle and I won’t got to my favorite server, Big Surf, and penguins will be really mad like Saraapril who thinks Takeovers are destroying CP and the later she will really hate and be furious about this and CP will change forever and and blah bla-blah blah blah bla-blah…GAAAH!!!! BRAIN CRAMP!!!!!!!!
    -Oswald75

  34. For people complaining about the lag stuff, Spike Hike SAID it would select the BEST version. So you may lead to an emptier version of that room.

  35. Train, can you ask this to Spike Hike if he doesn’t see this? : For more advanced penguins, will we be able to upload swfs from our computer and transform it into a room? I got prepared a cool puffle plaza ready! CPNext is totally something we really needed. However, where will the ‘Unlock items online’ button will be? Will you place it back on the login sceen?

  36. Bob1 goes to Bob2 and he goes to Bob3 and he goes to Bob5 then teleports to Bob 6 … and he goes to Bob999999999 (yes, there are 12 characters in this name) and he goes to Aunt Arctic that leaves right when they ended. They should leave 1 server called ‘Meetups’ where there will be all these meetups. Shouldn’t it?

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