A FEW FACTS FOR EVERYONE.

[Hoveurt]

I posted indisputable facts; you posted 2 at the most.

No you didn't. Those are all disputable facts seeing how you don't have a source.

[Bibimbap]

No you didn't. Those are all disputable facts seeing how you don't have a source.

Then please dispute them.

[SuperDevin]

Ok, this seems very simple to me. If we have X number of servers and Y number of players, and each server can only hold Y number of people, then we should have X number of servers. I don't see what is so difficult about this. Just add more servers, and release the ridiculous restriction on legacy players so we can transfer freely and play with our friends.

The game has way more players than they expected. If you think your game will have 400k subs at launch but then you have 1 million there is not to much you can do for a few days. Even with new servers being overnighted set up takes a while.

[Toxictaru]

I'm in the same place as many.

I have to assume that a lot of people here haven't actually experienced SE in all of their glory. I'm a legacy account holder here, and I've been playing FFXI for many years prior. I have, personally, experienced how poor the customer service aspect at Square Enix is. Especially when it comes to people who aren't Japanese.

It is significantly more rare for a Japanese player to experience what we do.

It has been stated already, truthfully, that there are more NA/EU players than JP players. Yet the Japanese population has nearly double the amount of servers, and are localized in their own country. The rest of the world is operating out of an untested datacenter which has clearly proven to be totally inadequate. Oh, and with less servers. If the company wasn't as xenophobic as it is, maybe we'd have an equal shot at it all, but alas, we don't. Despite the fact that a) MMOs were pioneered by non-Japanese developers and b) have been perfected (subjectively) by an American company (Blizzard), we're still being told that their way is better. If SE had actually done a little research, they'd find how horribly the prepared for this launch. A simple example of this is looking at how the beta progressed and the actual time IN beta. The functional amount of time provided as a beta test for the entire game was less than a single patch cycle for World of Warcraft. This is horribly and totally inadequate. A test of loads on the server? Someone decided it would be a great idea to do this over the course of 2-3 days instead of an extended period of time, and we now see the end result of this. 2 days prior to retail launch, this game is currently inaccessible, and even if you CAN access it, its unplayable.

Someone mentioned the fact that community reps from SE are probably here reading this. I agree, they probably are. The problem is, they're nothing more than PR who have no real method of getting our very real complaints to the people who actually matter. Sorry Matt, you're useless to us in solving this problem.

What bothers me is the same as what bothers everyone else: we're getting no information about what is happening. We all know very well that the servers aren't working properly, but we keep getting the same recycled drivel saying we're sorry for the inconvenience, but we still have absolutely no idea what is going on. Prior to the first maintenance, I was able to play the game, both being able to move around the world, complete quests, complete instanced quests, and even use the Duty Finder to complete dungeons and guildhests. After the maintenance, I was unable to do anything aside from kill a few monsters and maybe get a FATE or two complete. Since the second maintenance, I've been unable to log in at all. This seems, to me anyway, to be completely backwards progress.

The dangerous line SE is walking right now is readily apparent. They've invested at least 6 years in this game, and have managed to survive a full restart of the game, a full ground-up rebuild. 1.0 failed miserably, both from a playability standpoint and a financial one. We were lucky enough that someone was willing to fight for it and salvage it. What we were presented with is what we see now, a game, that under minimal load functions quite well, but under stress can't handle it. We're officially 2 days from retail launch. Major gaming news sites are going to start reviewing this game as early as tomorrow. Already on shaky ground from 1.0, this current situation could shatter the work done to build ARR back up and be a legitimate contender in the MMO genre. The amount of money invested in this already could do serious harm to the company if it doesn't succeed. Two days from launch, the game isn't even playable, and a large stake in the company's future is currently dead before even given a chance. The lack of communication is compounding this. I think a lot of people would be disappointed by not being able to play, but willing to accept it if they knew that real progress was being made. Currently, we are getting the aforementioned recycled messages, and have only experienced the game getting worse instead of better. At some point in time, the player base will lose faith (and it is happening at an alarming rate, as many of the people who were trying to remain optimistic, although cautiously, are today becoming angry), and once the player base checks out, the game is finished.

SE is simply stuck in the past, an archaic method of running a company. Notoriously reclusive in an age when people need and demand instant and constant updates. Many companies have embraced this (see Blizzard, again), and it pays off in loyalty. In this day and age, if people feel like they're being left in the dark, they'll question whether or not they're important enough to stick around. Guess what, we're left in the dark, and people are starting to question if its worth it.

Someone said that the staff at Square Enix don't live and breath the games they release. That is crap. Pure and simple. They aren't hourly employees who can come and go as they please. The people who work on these types of games are dedicated and if not, are required to be. They signed up for long hours and stressful work, its the nature of the beast. Ask ANYONE who has been involved in game development what kind of toll it takes on their personal lives, and how many hours they work in a typical week. 9-5s aren't even an afterthought, they just plain don't exist. So while I certainly believe that there were devs in over the weekend trying to solve this, I don't feel like (and I'm definitely not alone in this) they were all there. I'm hoping that now that it is Monday in Japan, things will change. Anyone who thinks that "well they need the weekend off" has absolutely no idea what this whole situation is about, especially when its a freaking launch weekend (despite the fact that the game "launches" on Tuesday, it was officially launched by way of early access yesterday morning).

What I can't stand right now is the amount of people throwing their opinions out there who have no idea what is going on. You'll recognize them as the people who are outright defending SE right now. The way I see it, from my own education and experience, is there are 3 main issues.

1) The infrastructure in place is horribly inadequate. SE severely underestimated the loads the servers were going to face. This is either an issue of not enough hardware or not enough bandwidth, but likely both.
2) Networking code is poor, and load balancing is very poor. I really hope the code isn't the issue, because if it is, we're talking about a much longer timeline to fix it (or really hope they can optimize the code quickly, but very unlikely). If it is a question of load balancing, it can be resolved quickly by adding more hardware (something which a company as large as SE should be able to handle with minimal effort).
3) There was not nearly enough testing. I touched on this earlier, but I feel the need to reiterate it. You can't stress test servers over a period of 2 days. It simply isn't long enough. I understand wanting to limit the amount of people who are in the beta, but open beta tests, especially on MMOs, allow for you to see what is going to happen once a game goes live. People are willing to accept the issues we're experiencing now during a beta, because a beta is supposed to have problems. Alas, the closed beta didn't have enough online to blow the servers up, and the open beta was marred by the same issues and only lasted 2 days at best. Had they altered their test schedule, it may have been less of an issue, but the time between P3 end and P4 start was almost a month, time which could have been used to solve these problems. Keeping the servers live during a beta test while the coders work on their private server doesn't negatively impact the nature of testing, nor does it impact the people developing the game. As such, the beta test, especially the last half of P3 and the joke that was P4 was completely wasted time. As far as I can tell, it was just a preview, a teaser, of what the game could be.

Alas, I, like many others, will be disinclined to let this stop them from playing. I suffered through FFXI, and still play it now. I like ARR, and I want to play it. I'm just sad that the company charged with maintaining it doesn't appear capable of handling the responsibility of actually maintaining it. I guess this shouldn't be unexpected, however. I don't know how many of you guys remember trying to enter your registration codes for WotG when it launched, but it was absolutely horrible. Again, a lack of infrastructure caused the problem.

Ultimately, I think SE needs to realize that being cheap on servers, especially for a game that could make or break your company, and will serve as a constant source of revenue for the next few years (subscriber fees), is not going to get you anywhere. Operating at the bare minimum is sad.

Anyway, carry on.

[Hoveurt]

Then please dispute them.

I think others have covered the relevant arguments, as have I covered my argument. "The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be proven to correspond to experience." Wikipedia.

[Maddonious]

The game has way more players than they expected. If you think your game will have 400k subs at launch but then you have 1 million there is not to much you can do for a few days. Even with new servers being overnighted set up takes a while.

Pre-order numbers a week ago would tell them differently. That excuse is invalid.

[Bibimbap]

I think others have covered the relevant arguments, as have I covered my argument. "The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be proven to correspond to experience." Wikipedia.

So you're saying SE never sleeps? You're saying something can be fixed instantaneously? You're disputing the terms of service that we all digitally agreed to? Are you saying it's all untrue because I can't personally prove it to you right now? Please clarify.

[Toxictaru]

Pre-order numbers a week ago would tell them differently. That excuse is invalid.

Further to that, you'd have to assume that a company as large as SE would have a pretty sweet contract. I'd guess that they'd be able to procure servers in a matter of hours, not overnight. Especially if its for the NA/EU datacenter which is undoubtedly HQed in California somewhere. It isn't in the middle of nowhere where there wouldn't be a large cache of hardware already. My guess: they haven't ordered new hardware yet.

That said, I totally agree that based on pre-order numbers, they should have known damn well how many people would be trying to play during early access, and would have had more than an adequate amount of time to put new hardware in place.

[ReplicaX]

7. Unless you are there or have recently been there, you have no idea what is going on at SE.

Same can be applied to you. You have no clue what is going on as well as I.

Applying your common sense tactic as truth and belittling other posters replying with a different opinion. I'd say you qualify for my signature.

/walks away from useless thread.

[Bibimbap]

...

I don't really have anything to say to it, but I just want to say that I read your post.