The server is full, try again later (1017)

[Raist]

You do realize that if they didn't put that restriction there would be 0 server stability... meaning the server would crash... meaning you wouldn't get to play REGARDLESS of what you paid for...

I'm not saying I agree with what they're doing but they are trying to load balance the servers. IMO they need to get MORE servers.

Actually, the normal gameplay servers were fine. It's the instanced/duty finder portions that are the problem. People were getting stalled/bounced when trying to access specific pieces of content.

Instead of trying to find an alternative way of handling these things, which would take a lot of redevelopment time (ala FFXI methods), they are trying to fix the stability issues with just those particular servers.

What they COULD do is just stop those missions from progressing while they work on the problem. Sure, it would suck to have everybody locked down at the level 15-ish story mission until it's resolved--but they could change classes and work on other crap in the mean time. The entire game doesn't need to be taken away from 80% of the playerbase over this crap.

[Syrehn]

Actually, the normal gameplay servers were fine. It's the instanced/duty finder portions that are the problem. People were getting stalled/bounced when trying to access specific pieces of content.

Instead of trying to find an alternative way of handling these things, which would take a lot of redevelopment time (ala FFXI methods), they are trying to fix the stability issues with just those particular servers.

What they COULD do is just stop those missions from progressing while they work on the problem. Sure, it would suck to have everybody locked down at the level 15-ish story mission until it's resolved--but they could change classes and work on other crap in the mean time. The entire game doesn't need to be taken away from 80% of the playerbase over this crap.

I had issues with the DF/instanced portions prior to a few of the maintenances. Those seem to be resolved (for the most part). However the amount of people connecting or trying to connect to a single server has not. It's increasing. So at this point I can honestly say that I don't believe that the Duty Finder is the issue. Their servers just can't currently handle the amount of load that the many NA/EU users ALL logging in would place on them.

This could have been worked on during Beta P4 if SE had extended NA/EU's P4 stress testing after clearing the original 3102.

[Raist]

I had issues with the DF/instanced portions prior to a few of the maintenances. Those seem to be resolved (for the most part). However the amount of people connecting or trying to connect to a single server has not. It's increasing. So at this point I can honestly say that I don't believe that the Duty Finder is the issue. Their servers just can't currently handle the amount of load that the many NA/EU users ALL logging in would place on them.

This could have been worked on during Beta P4 if SE had extended NA/EU's P4 stress testing after clearing the original 3102.

That's just it though... there doesnt' appear to be an issue with server load balancing in the normal portions of the game. I managed to get on briefly just before maintenance last night--in the middle of them increasing the login limit while everyone was still stewing over 1017 during primetime.

Server was FULL of people. And not just AFK'ers. There were HORDES of people around some of the NPC's in Gridania, running quests, killing level 1-8 mobs for items/hunts--so much that we had to wait on repops and would unofficially team up to kill them faster so people could progress.

There were NO zoning issues. 0... zip... nada. Zone loads and NPC cut scenes loaded without a hitch... smooth as it ever was last weekend. Was far better than XI EVER was in the 7 years of playing that game before I quit. And this is on a laptop, not my PC with the high speed drives and everything overclocked to just under their breaking point.

I also never had any issues with the game prior to them taking everything down (it was the same for beta and ths time around). The only reason I got kicked Saturday was because of the emergency maintenance. Since then, I was unable to get on---when SE started locking everyone out arbitrarily. The same thing happened with Beta. Once I was able to get on, I played for a whole day until SE intervened and bounced me from the server for maintenance--then I got locked out again because of their snafus trying to fix things. Both then and now, I had NO issues with stability until they kicked me out of the game and/or locked down access.

They are just being overly cautious at this point.

[Syrehn]

That's just it though... there doesnt' appear to be an issue with server load balancing in the normal portions of the game. I managed to get on briefly just before maintenance last night--in the middle of them increasing the login limit while everyone was still stewing over 1017 during primetime.

Server was FULL of people. And not just AFK'ers. There were HORDES of people around some of the NPC's in Gridania, running quests, killing level 1-8 mobs for items/hunts--so much that we had to wait on repops and would unofficially team up to kill them faster so people could progress.

There were NO zoning issues. 0... zip... nada. Zone loads and NPC cut scenes loaded without a hitch... smooth as it ever was last weekend. Was far better than XI EVER was in the 7 years of playing that game before I quit. And this is on a laptop, not my PC with the high speed drives and everything overclocked to just under their breaking point.

They are just being overly cautious at this point.

I don't agree with you about it not being the amount of players. If the server can only handle 2000 players (random number), then it would be logical that they let in say 1000 -1500 on at at given time (this might be lower given the severe restrictions they placed). This allows for overhead so that the players in the game already don't have a poor quality experience (i.e. lag, zoning issues, etc.).

The fact that they are preventing so many individuals from getting into servers (1017) keeps the environment steady for those already in. If they open the floodgates at this point, especially with launch right around the corner (2 am?), without having additionally configured servers the servers that are running right now will crash.

[Sadebreth]

I don't agree with you about it not being the amount of players. If the server can only handle 2000 players (random number), then it would be logical that they let in say 1000 -1500 on at at given time (this might be lower given the severe restrictions they placed). This allows for overhead so that the players in the game already don't have a poor quality experience (i.e. lag, zoning issues, etc.).

The fact that they are preventing so many individuals from getting into servers (1017) keeps the environment steady for those already in. If they open the floodgates at this point, especially with launch right around the corner (2 am? ) without having additionally configured servers the ones that are running right now will crash.

This is what ques are for. Someone logs off and another person logs in. Right now you can't even get into a que unless you just get lucky and even then you still have a chance of being booted from it. I don't think even they know what is wrong at this point. Even being able to get into a que would alleviate a lot of the frustration. At least then people would know they have a chance to play. I have never seen a company completely lock out over half their player base from even playing the game.

[Syrehn]

This is what ques are for. Someone logs off and another person logs in. Right now you can't even get into a que unless you just get lucky and even then you still have a chance of being booted from it. I don't think even they know what is wrong at this point. Even being able to get into a que would alleviate a lot of the frustration. At least then people would know they have a chance to play. I have never seen a company completely lock out over half their player base from even playing the game.

How the queue and how it's working was already explained. Several times. There is in fact a queue. SE has stated they have severe restrictions in place. This means that if they restricted the server to 1000 players (random number), and if there are already 995 players online, and you are 25th in queue, the first 5 players will get in and the manual limitations will kick all the rest from the queue. When the server opens up slots individuals will be able to see the queue system again as the process repeats until SE decides to stop throttling.

They are throttling to test server capacity and load; which imo should have been done in Beta P4.

[Sadebreth]

How the queue and how it's working was already explained. Several times. There is in fact a queue. SE has stated they have severe restrictions in place. This means that if they restricted the server to 1000 players (random number), and if there are already 995 players online, and you are 25th in queue, the first 5 players will get in and the manual limitations will kick all the rest from the queue. When the server opens up slots individuals will be able to see the queue system again as the process repeats.

How does this explain people that get into the que and then get booted from it. If you are able to get into the que then you should no longer be part of the restriction. If that is the case then they did some piss poor math on how many people they are allowing in the que to begin with.

[Raist]

How the queue and how it's working was already explained. Several times. There is in fact a queue. SE has stated they have severe restrictions in place. This means that if they restricted the server to 1000 players (random number), and if there are already 995 players online, and you are 25th in queue, the first 5 players will get in and the manual limitations will kick all the rest from the queue. When the server opens up slots individuals will be able to see the queue system again as the process repeats until SE decides to stop throttling.

They are throttling to test server capacity and load; which imo should have been done in Beta P4.

But that's not right either. Once you are in the Queue... you should stay in that queue until you back out of it. What appears to be happening now is people are just getting bounced from queue just before logging in, or they are geting flat out rejected all together.

Ideally when using a login queue, there should not be a Full Server rejection message unless you are trying to create a new character on that server---not when trying to log in with an established character.

[Raist]

I don't agree with you about it not being the amount of players. If the server can only handle 2000 players (random number), then it would be logical that they let in say 1000 -1500 on at at given time (this might be lower given the severe restrictions they placed). This allows for overhead so that the players in the game already don't have a poor quality experience (i.e. lag, zoning issues, etc.).

The fact that they are preventing so many individuals from getting into servers (1017) keeps the environment steady for those already in. If they open the floodgates at this point, especially with launch right around the corner (2 am?), without having additionally configured servers the servers that are running right now will crash.

bah.. forum congestion... missed an edit I made. Took a while for it to show up:

I also never had any issues with the game prior to them taking everything down (it was the same for beta and ths time around). The only reason I got kicked Saturday was because of the emergency maintenance. Since then, I was unable to get on---when SE started locking everyone out arbitrarily. The same thing happened with Beta. Once I was able to get on, I played for a whole day until SE intervened and bounced me from the server for maintenance--then I got locked out again because of their snafus trying to fix things. Both then and now, I had NO issues with stability until they kicked me out of the game and/or locked down access.

The point is there didn't seem to be any issues once in the game, save for some specific sections of content. And that was before all the lock-downs to logins.

Actual normal gameplay appeared to be being managed well. Now, if it's an issue with the logins, they could make a larger queue or something. If it's still an issue with the instance servers, they know ways to work around it (granted, it may take time to implement---but they could deny just that content in the short term).

The point is, there is a much larger portion of the game that works fine.... they are locking everyone out because of problems with a small portion of it. As long as they are trimming how many players can access it, they will never know if they've fixed it. All they are learning is, it's fine with say, 1500 players online. Nevermind that there may be 3000 registered to that server.

At this point, they need to be focusing on what they are going to do for those 1500 that are being flat out denied access all together.