Aether Data Center Down

[SummonerSenah]

Ok but people who love the game enough to pre-order and get early access are frustrated and pissed off that they can't play. How much of a turn off will this be to new players? " I paid $_ for and it has a subscription fee and I can't play it." That's going to go over really well.

[KailasHawke]

I am getting extremely sick of joining the queue, sitting in it for 20minutes, and then it just 2002s and closes the client.

Especially whenever I actually make it in, go to fallgourd float, and surprise surprise...........the pack of rmt bots sitting there at their normal spot.

[Zelas]

Whine all you want, they can't "fix" the servers getting hammered by login attempts. You just have to keep trying and be patient.

[Bayohne]

Greetings,

I'd like to a moment to clarify the errors you're seeing when attempting to log into the Aether data center. These errors are not something to do with a bug, or unexpected problem, on the part of the lobby server or World servers. What you're seeing with these errors is a result of the massive congestion surround Balmung and Gilgamesh (two of the largest NA Worlds), which happen to be on Aether. These two Worlds maintain an almost maximum number of concurrent users because of how large the population is on both of them. The errors you're experiencing are due to the large amount of congestion.

While the Development and Operations teams are working to ensure that the servers are stable and doing everything they can to avoid downtime, unfortunately, this issue a result of the large populations being housed on the Aether data center.

We truly apologize for the frustration experienced and ask for your patience and understanding.

[Gyson]

These errors are not something to do with a bug, or unexpected problem, on the part of the lobby server or World servers.

They are, in part, an issue at this point because of a frustrating design.

If we were logging in and placed in a reliable queue that would eventually put us into the game, that would at least be something. But instead we are receiving error messages when attempting to connect to the data center after logging in, and being dumped back to desktop. That requires to load the launcher all over again and re-enter our login credentials, including any one-time security code (which is slowly draining the non-replaceable battery on my $10 security token, by the way).

We have to do this over and over and over again, until we eventually luck out and successfully advance to the character selection screen. At this point we're in a queue that may or may not actually count down (the latter sure seems to be a bug). And after spending a hefty amount of time in this queue we often end up getting a lobby server error, and then dumped back to the desktop.

Waiting in a queue can be frustrating enough. Having to deal with that other nonsense (whether bugged or a poorly thought out implementation) on top of that, however.. I think the frustration people are feeling over it is justifiable. Nobody expects the congestion to magically go away, but expecting a login process that handles congestion better isn't an unreasonable request.

[WHS]

@Gyson, what he and many others are asking for is very reasonable. i am not on their DC but I am on a close 2nd Primal. We too have had some of this to deal with. Before claiming it is just overload and not a bug , plz see about getting the queue situation fixed at least so it counts down correctly and more importantly does not kick us to the desktop. That much at least. Gyson speaks the truth on how I feel.

[Mihana]

There's two options I see to this:

1.) Split Aether into two smaller data centers. Put Balmung and Gilgamesh on separate data centers to relieve the congestion.
2.) Move either Gilgamesh or Balmung to the the other existing NA data center.

What it comes down to is you have the largest worlds situated on the same data server. Here's what I want to know, what is the company going to do about this? Official release of Heavensward comes in less than 3 days from now, not only will this bring players who could not afford to get the expansion early but also those who may be new to the game. This new influx of players will surely come to a different world, but on the same data center. Combined with the existing players on the closed worlds on that same data server trying to log in will cause even more problems. I'm sorry but again you underestimated the player base and numbers. Some planning was shown (Like splitting zones into new instances.) but it was vastly underestimated.

So at this point what I want to know is are you going to deal with it, and how?

EDIT: And for gods sake, remove this damned cap on the forum posts please! Having to cut a post in half to bypass the 1,000 character limit is absurd.

[Grimmel]

What you're seeing with these errors is a result of the massive congestion surround Balmung and Gilgamesh (two of the largest NA Worlds),

While the Development and Operations teams are working to ensure that the servers are stable and doing everything they can to avoid downtime, unfortunately, this issue a result of the large populations being housed on the Aether data center.

My question is why did you put both Balmung and Gilgamesh on the same data center?

[WordsAreEnough]

*snip*

We truly apologize for the frustration experienced and ask for your patience and understanding.

Another option for addressing this issue that wouldn't require any restructuring of the network would be to allow people free transfers off of those worlds, prevent transfers to them, and possibly even a long-term lockdown of character creation on them. I know all of my friends would have no problem free transferring off Gilgamesh onto one of the smaller worlds.

[Hardware_Hank]

I am understanding of the server congestion and its not an easy solution as I've worked in as a NOC however the design flaws with how it handles the time outs is rather frustrating as I have to keep logging back in and putting in my security token. As Gyson said its a poor design choice and a consideration should be made to atleast keep you in the game or put you in a separate queue.