Don't Fall For It

I find blaming the launch issues on semiconductor shortage and COVID insulting at best.

This exp has been planned since well before the world fell apart. Once hardware started becoming a problem SE had more than enough time to acquire it and get it up and running before this launch.

They are using it as an excuse and nothing more. My guess is that there was a financial decision made not to add servers dues to cost. *which, yes, may be due to current world issues* And this is fine. I accept the reality of that business decision... What I struggle to accept is twisting it into this "oh poor us, we can't find hardware"

The auto industry is suffering because of the sheer volume of chips they need. SE only required a fraction of that to add servers.

There's nothing that can be done about it. It is what it is and I accept that. It just really upsets me that we are being fed, what I believe, to be a false narrative as an explanation.

Thank you for listening to my rambling TED Talk as I wait in queue.

are you one of those types that also believes the earth is flat?

Does 'it' upset you, or do you simply choose to be upset? You could choose not to be upset. Think about it.

Thank you for attending my therapy session.

Donʻt fall for logging out.

Just park AFK for hours on end so you donʻt lose you place in the world.

:p

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Originally Posted by ryouma17

are you one of those types that also believes the earth is flat?

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Are you sure you are applying rhetoric the correct way? Because to me it looks the other way, what with evidence of multiple other gaming companies being able to meet their deadlines in a timely and neat manner, and gullible people falling for the HURR COVID SEMICONDUURTOR SHORTAGE excuse.

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

This exp has been planned since well before the world fell apart. Once hardware started becoming a problem SE had more than enough time to acquire it and get it up and running before this launch.

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...Are you suggesting that they only began considering adding the OCE data center after the pandemic hit?

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

I find blaming the launch issues on semiconductor shortage and COVID insulting at best.

They are using it as an excuse and nothing more. My guess is that there was a financial decision made not to add servers dues to cost. *which, yes, may be due to current world issues* And this is fine. I accept the reality of that business decision... What I struggle to accept is twisting it into this "oh poor us, we can't find hardware"

The auto industry is suffering because of the sheer volume of chips they need. SE only required a fraction of that to add servers.

There's nothing that can be done about it. It is what it is and I accept that. It just really upsets me that we are being fed, what I believe, to be a false narrative as an explanation.

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So you acknowledge the Chip Shortage, but still say SE is delivering a False Narrative...even after you just addressed the Chip Shortage.
Im sorry, but this TED talk is Garbage.

Giving the Auto-Industry a pass because they need a large volume, while Saying BOO to SE because they dont need as many, is a Bad Argument to claim its all just an Excuse.
If everyone is having issues and competing for a resource, it doesnt matter how much one company needs...if Demand can't be met, all sides lose.

We were warned ahead of time there would be issues, and Every Launch of a New Expansion has a Couple of Hiccups.
It clears up and everything Balances out in about a Month

Yeah an unexpected and unanticipated massive influx of people 3 months ago had entirely nothing to do with it at all. Nope.

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Originally Posted by Iaito

Yeah an unexpected and unanticipated massive influx of people 3 months ago had entirely nothing to do with it at all. Nope.

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If it was 3 months ago it's not unexpected. This is not the Spanish Inquisition.

LOL because a massive infrastructure of server additions in multiple datacenters can be done overnight when servers aren't even available. LMAO! K!

Think the real problem is there's only so many ppl the servers can hold and some ppl not wanting to wait 2 hours on queue would rather use auto clickers to stop being afk kicked xD.

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Originally Posted by Iaito

LOL because a massive infrastructure of server additions in multiple datacenters can be done overnight when servers aren't even available. LMAO! K!

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They shouldn't have been caught THIS off guard though. Yeah there was a large influx of players a few months ago but it's not like their game was super unpopular before. There should have been plans to increase capacity well in advance if needed.

Gullible isn't just a new breed of cow.

Why people go out of their way to defend a company that, when it comes down to it, just wants your money is beyond me. This blind faith that whatever SE does is full of glorious purpose is absurd. If this were EA or Activision there would be a formal inquest.

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Originally Posted by Iaito

LOL because a massive infrastructure of server additions in multiple datacenters can be done overnight when servers aren't even available. LMAO! K!

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I have a firm belief that these people think that Square Enix are Wizards and can manifest Servers on a whim, Global Pandemic or not.

But these Wizards are cruel, and choose not to out of spite for their loyal customers.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...qk9nrz0y71.png

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

I find blaming the launch issues on semiconductor shortage and COVID insulting at best.

This exp has been planned since well before the world fell apart. Once hardware started becoming a problem SE had more than enough time to acquire it and get it up and running before this launch.

They are using it as an excuse and nothing more. My guess is that there was a financial decision made not to add servers dues to cost. *which, yes, may be due to current world issues* And this is fine. I accept the reality of that business decision... What I struggle to accept is twisting it into this "oh poor us, we can't find hardware"

The auto industry is suffering because of the sheer volume of chips they need. SE only required a fraction of that to add servers.

There's nothing that can be done about it. It is what it is and I accept that. It just really upsets me that we are being fed, what I believe, to be a false narrative as an explanation.

Thank you for listening to my rambling TED Talk as I wait in queue.

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Alright bro, if they only need a few, why don't you tell them where they acquire them quickly?

Given....SE HQ is right near Hitatchi and a server farm needs THOUSANDS of semiconductor chips not a handful.

Look, I'm not happy either about the queue issue, but this is not my first rodeo with launch/expac launch issues, it won't be my last.

If you don't want to deal with the stress of it, don't. Take time away until things have smoothed over and come back later, nobody is forcing you to sprint through the content.

There is a ZERO percent chance that any hardware needed for new servers was not available.

This was a financial decision based on what those parts may have cost due to shortages. Which is, again, fine. I'm just asking them to be honest about it.

SE knew when SHB came out they didn't have good enough login servers If you remember the Q's and shutting off other world visiting.

Great community by the way.

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

There is a ZERO percent chance that any hardware needed for new servers was not available.

This was a financial decision based on what those parts may have cost due to shortages. Which is, again, fine. I'm just asking them to be honest about it.

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You do know how large a server farm is right? It's not your local bitcoin miners few janky taped together machines.

It's the size of an actual distribution warehouse filled to the brim with server racks. If you've never seen inside a warehouse, they're pretty big.

A server farm doesn't cost a few grand either, price tag starts at around $20 million dollars and that's just for a basic unix farm. I imagine they need something a little bigger than that.

I work in IT. It's not a lie. High end data center servers currently have a wait list of six months to a year.

You sound like those Q conspiracy theorist, TC.

You cannot accept truth so you make stuff up until it fits the false narrative you want to be true.

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Originally Posted by lezard21

If it was 3 months ago it's not unexpected. This is not the Spanish Inquisition.

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3 months is a very short time even in normal times. Buying servers is not like going to the store and buying a computer.

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Originally Posted by JackoShadows

They shouldn't have been caught THIS off guard though. Yeah there was a large influx of players a few months ago but it's not like their game was super unpopular before. There should have been plans to increase capacity well in advance if needed.

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There were, and those plans were likely affected by the shortage. I think a lot of people (like yourself) think that "get new servers" is about as easy as ordering shoes on Amazon. This isn't put an order in and then wait for your stuff to show up on your doorstep.

SE has a process that involves a personal inspection of the site or equipment (they mentioned this specifically in one of their live letters) and getting their certified inspection team to the site is difficult even if the hardware was available. They likely have very specific tolerances and specifications that have to be met to handle metrics they've dealt with before (note that the new amount of player influx is unprecedented for them) so it's not like they can just grab any available equipment that's lying around or "just use cloud servers".

A doubling of a player base in a year during a supply shortage and time of travel restriction due to an unprecedented pandemic is not something you can plan for. That's what everyone is trying to get across but it seems people can't imagine anything being harder than a hardware run to Frys (RIP).

SE HAS had plans to expand and those plans got whacked by the past 2 years of crazyness. So now on top of their old plans being delayed as hell they have a NEW problem on top of it that isn't solveable by throwing money at it.



Lets try to simplify this down to say.. a cookie stand on the corner. You make 20 cookies a day and manage to sell 16-18 of them. You don't want to buy too many eggs cause they spoil and that would be wasted cost (think server rent and maintenance, you pay for it regardless of use). As your stand gets more popular you notice you're now able to sell all 20 cookies pretty well so you start buying enough ingredients for 30 cookies. Now you sell 25-28 cookies a day. Again the business grows and you notice a trend of being able to sell more cookies at a regular growth rate. You buy ingredients at a certain rate of increase to keep up with this and plan for maybe next year , ramping up at a rate to keep up with demand so that there are always enough cookies for the newer customers coming in but not so many ingredients that you waste money on things you never use also noting that ingredient orders have to be put in for several months at a time.

NOW.. if you've made it through all that, what is happening here is suddenly your cookie stand went viral because the other cookie people in the town .. I dunno.. were found out to be baking rats into their cookies to save cost. So now everyone in the market wants cookies from you. You bought ingredients to make cookies for 200 people but there are 600 people who want cookies. All your suppliers CANNOT provide you more ingredients because of avian flu and wheat fires and chocolate worker strikes which have been happening for a while but you still could get your planned growth accounted for. These conditions were OK last month because your growth was still within the supply means.

Now apparently you are about to be lynched by the cookie wanting mob because you should have seen this coming and made sure you grew your cookie business to 600 cookies a day regardless of how many you were selling and how much it would have cost you.


... aside from me now wanting a cookie really badly, do you understand now why "they should have prepared for this" is not an educated response?

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Originally Posted by lisaa

3 months is a very short time even in normal times. Buying servers is not like going to the store and buying a computer.

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Heck my new build PC took 4 months and it was coming direct from Hitachi, 3 months late and that was because of waiting for the GFX card to be delivered, which was of course, waiting for semi conductors to arrive at AMD

And that was for a single unit, not a server farm.

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Originally Posted by Iaito

LOL because a massive infrastructure of server additions in multiple datacenters can be done overnight when servers aren't even available. LMAO! K!

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If servers aren’t available, how are other games launching, and how has Square just released The First Soldier?

Here is the thing: Japan and European servers have little queue times and can log in quick. Not all theirs are in use. What's to say they can't take a couple and borrow them until things die down a bit?

Plus: Shadowbringers on a pretty shitty computer was nowhere near this bad.

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Originally Posted by Shug

If servers aren’t available, how are other games launching, and how has Square just released The First Soldier?

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I didnt know those servers were the same ones running FFXIV, the 2nd Largest (I think) MMO on the Market having to deal with a Huge Influx of players playing on a 3day Early Access Release Weekend for a Highly Anticipated Expansion thats ending a Saga that was told over10 Years

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Originally Posted by Shug

If servers aren’t available, how are other games launching, and how has Square just released The First Soldier?

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Different games require different specifications and capacity and must be compatible with the existing hardware. Just because you can run one games servers on something doesn't mean you can use the same hardware for another. Also games launches are planned years in advance, the problem here.. as per my cookie stand example.. is that the problem showed up a few months before an already planned launch. Projected growth was far outstripped by demand.

I'm not being magnanomus. SQ-E does this every time there is a new launch. I pay to play this game and expect to be able to play. If I can't play , especially due to negligence on the part of SQ-E (They've known for years the need for greater server capacity during launch) I deserve a refund of my subscription until I can play. FFxiv is a great game but I believe in service being the most important thing to a costumer. FFxiv is not the only MMO in townand unless SQ-E starts to respect it's Paying costumers I will spend my money elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

There were, and those plans were likely affected by the shortage. I think a lot of people (like yourself) think that "get new servers" is about as easy as ordering shoes on Amazon. This isn't put an order in and then wait for your stuff to show up on your doorstep.

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What funny is that I saw some of these people posted "What's so hard about getting the server? You just order it, BAM, there's your new server". It wasn't even a sarcasm either. They really believed that.

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

Don't Fall For It

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Makes a post about real world issues affecting everyone, says they are not reasons for being affect by said issues.

It's not a lie or an excuse. The refugee crisis from the Actiblizzard implosion occurred well after the chip shortage began and there's just not enough chips to go around even for an emergency order. It's a storm of multiple layers all added together to make a miserable mess, and it's not even remotely Square-Enix's fault. I've been 2002'd all day today but all that can be done is to persevere and try to match your own schedule to the times that congestion is reduced.

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Originally Posted by YunBranwen

Here is the thing: Japan and European servers have little queue times and can log in quick. Not all theirs are in use. What's to say they can't take a couple and borrow them until things die down a bit?

Plus: Shadowbringers on a pretty shitty computer was nowhere near this bad.

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Part of this is wrong I have a friend that is playing on NA now cause peek times Zodark has a 9k Q

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Originally Posted by Iaito

Yeah an unexpected and unanticipated massive influx of people 3 months ago had entirely nothing to do with it at all. Nope.

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3 months ago?? where you not here for SHB when the q's were here and bad and they had to shut down server travel due to the congestion??? Thye knew long ago there servers were crap even if u dont count the wow flood the servers would be bad just from normal amounts of new players//They just never worked on them

"WE FALL

WE FALL"

Pointing out the Automotive Chip 'crisis' is flawed. Reason for that is that the automotive industry has to lie down in the bed they made themselves when, early 2020, they pulled the rug out under the semiconductor companies, cancelling their orders (which were always only in a 'just in time' with on site buffers just for a few days at best, no actual storage). When the demand for their cars suddenly spiked earlier than anticipated, they had no real stockpiles of chips, and instead of 'Oh, we are on again, pls send 15 containers of chips a week!' like the automotive companies expected, the semiconductor companies had moved on, and the automotives have to wait in line now.

On top of that, it isn't just the modern high integrated stuff in tiny structures, like the 22nm and lower, for cpus and the likes, but we also have a bottleneck in 'dumb' components, like resistors, voltage regulators, capacitors......and a very in demand component is, worldwide, mostly made by Texas Instruments, in the US - plain old 'analog' components.

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Originally Posted by lezard21

Are you sure you are applying rhetoric the correct way? Because to me it looks the other way, what with evidence of multiple other gaming companies being able to meet their deadlines in a timely and neat manner, and gullible people falling for the HURR COVID SEMICONDUURTOR SHORTAGE excuse.

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Actually, multiple other companies have fallen flat on their faces as well. Not neatly, not timely. And also as a person who works in the networking industry and knows the logistics firsthand, those gullible people are absolutely right. Huuuuuur.

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Originally Posted by Lesan

Pointing out the Automotive Chip 'crisis' is flawed. Reason for that is that the automotive industry has to lie down in the bed they made themselves when, early 2020, they pulled the rug out under the semiconductor companies, cancelling their orders (which were always only in a 'just in time' with on site buffers just for a few days at best, no actual storage). When the demand for their cars suddenly spiked earlier than anticipated, they had no real stockpiles of chips, and instead of 'Oh, we are on again, pls send 15 containers of chips a week!' like the automotive companies expected, the semiconductor companies had moved on, and the automotives have to wait in line now.

On top of that, it isn't just the modern high integrated stuff in tiny structures, like the 22nm and lower, for cpus and the likes, but we also have a bottleneck in 'dumb' components, like resistors, voltage regulators, capacitors......and a very in demand component is, worldwide, mostly made by Texas Instruments, in the US - plain old 'analog' components.

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You Do know they have known since SHb they need to fix there login servers.. I*mean if you have to shut down your new server travel due to congestion and have massive Q's way back then..That should of been priotry 1 way before corna chip shortage or wow refuges

it's not just the parts that covid has affected. it's the lockdowns. as yoshi said...they can't get their server engineers out to the datacenters to set up new servers. I imagine same reason they don't use third party hosting like amazon or google servers. they like to be self sufficient and probably want to protect whatever trade secrets they have.
also it allows them to conduct their maintenance on their own schedule. other games that rely on third parties or whatever have to do regional launches of patches and staggered downtime based on the region's clock

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

I find blaming the launch issues on semiconductor shortage and COVID insulting at best.

This exp has been planned since well before the world fell apart. Once hardware started becoming a problem SE had more than enough time to acquire it and get it up and running before this launch.

They are using it as an excuse and nothing more. My guess is that there was a financial decision made not to add servers dues to cost. *which, yes, may be due to current world issues* And this is fine. I accept the reality of that business decision... What I struggle to accept is twisting it into this "oh poor us, we can't find hardware"

The auto industry is suffering because of the sheer volume of chips they need. SE only required a fraction of that to add servers.

There's nothing that can be done about it. It is what it is and I accept that. It just really upsets me that we are being fed, what I believe, to be a false narrative as an explanation.

Thank you for listening to my rambling TED Talk as I wait in queue.

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They are already prepared for over capacity as it is. Why should they add more server clusters for something that won't even last a whole month? This issue will level itself out within the first 2 weeks. If it doesn't they will add more server clusters but that takes time.