The login issues and you: Why most posts here are uninformed and pointless

[SuperDevin]

You know why I don't like threads like this which try to stop people from complaining/getting mad about a big problem? Because it encourages the repeat of the same mistakes. Do you know what happens when enough people get pissed off about a mistake? Those responsible for the mistake get punished, and the mistake doesn't usually happen again.

SE has *no excuse* for making such a stupid planning mistake. They had all the data they needed (being their 3rd FF mmo) for server capacity requirements and all the time in the world to test it during development.

Whoever decided to limit the server capacities to this degree has cost SE a lot of money and made the launch of their new MMO a joke. Those responsible for this should be fired without question, because the same thing would be done in any other industry.

So stop telling people to calm down over something they have plenty of right to be pissed over.

If only you were right... but your wrong. First of all SE could not have accurate numbers for this launch. That's near impossible. Here's why.

1. This is a relaunch of a FAILED mmo. Not many people give things second chances. Plus this is already WAY more popular then FFXI or FFXIV 1.0 ever was.

2. Digital sales are in instantaneous. Meaning prior to launch or early access or in early access people could STILL BUY THE GAME. (Many people wait till the last minute, read reviews and see what people say about the beta and then buy)

3. They gave all of their 1.0 users free access to the game without having to sign up for anything or let SE know.

4. Because the beta is free you generally have far more users that will try it out then actually buy it. Look at iOS apps. The free versions are usually more popular because their FREE. That being said free to play MMO's are all the rage right now so most would expect a paid MMO to not fare as well.

5. Servers take time to set up and prepare. If I set my servers up last month for EXPECTED sales then something changes and my sales are higher I can't get the new servers running in 10 minutes. Shit takes time.

6. If I am in charge of server capacity I am not in charge of sales estimates. Two different departments. If I can save the company money and have just enough servers then I will probably get a bonus. Especially on a game with low sale expectations. Being the guy who has the company buy way more machines (which cost millions) then needed is not a good thing and would likely get you fired.

7. Presale numbers are estimates not actual numbers.

8. SE development group for this game in is Japan not the USA. MMO's are not big in Japan at all (Most of the JP servers were fine until US/EU people started playing on them.) And its hard to gauge the hype for a title a world away. Maybe SE USA should have communicated better I'll give you that.

9. SE has been having a hard time with sale lately. Tomb Raider under sold. FFXIII and XIII-2 both under sold. RE6 under sold (Capcom not SE but still a JP IP). See a pattern here?

Lastly this is a good thing. Yeah you can't play whenever you want for the first week, so what? MMO's many last years if not a decade. Ones with a strong player base last longer. The more money SE gets the for this title the better SE will be. 1.0 broke SE, this could fix it. You will be able to play soon. Think of this as a rain delay. ^_^

[Raist]

If only you were right... but your wrong. First of all SE could not have accurate numbers for this launch. That's near impossible. Here's why.

1. This is a relaunch of a FAILED mmo. Not many people give things second chances. Plus this is already WAY more popular then FFXI or FFXIV 1.0 ever was.

2. Digital sales are in instantaneous. Meaning prior to launch or early access or in early access people could STILL BUY THE GAME. (Many people wait till the last minute, read reviews and see what people say about the beta and then buy)

3. They gave all of their 1.0 users free access to the game without having to sign up for anything or let SE know.

4. Because the beta is free you generally have far more users that will try it out then actually buy it. Look at iOS apps. The free versions are usually more popular because their FREE. That being said free to play MMO's are all the rage right now so most would expect a paid MMO to not fare as well.

5. Servers take time to set up and prepare. If I set my servers up last month for EXPECTED sales then something changes and my sales are higher I can't get the new servers running in 10 minutes. Shit takes time.

6. If I am in charge of server capacity I am not in charge of sales estimates. Two different departments. If I can save the company money and have just enough servers then I will probably get a bonus. Especially on a game with low sale expectations. Being the guy who has the company buy way more machines (which cost millions) then needed is not a good thing and would likely get you fired.

7. Presale numbers are estimates not actual numbers.

8. SE development group for this game in is Japan not the USA. MMO's are not big in Japan at all (Most of the JP servers were fine until US/EU people started playing on them.) And its hard to gauge the hype for a title a world away. Maybe SE USA should have communicated better I'll give you that.

9. SE has been having a hard time with sale lately. Tomb Raider under sold. FFXIII and XIII-2 both under sold. RE6 under sold (Capcom not SE but still a JP IP). See a pattern here?

Lastly this is a good thing. Yeah you can't play whenever you want for the first week, so what? MMO's many last years if not a decade. Ones with a strong player base last longer. The more money SE gets the for this title the better SE will be. 1.0 broke SE, this could fix it. You will be able to play soon. Think of this as a rain delay. ^_^

All of the debate over questionable numbers is rendered almost moot when you look at what happened in Beta4, and then later in EA.

They've established their capacity at 5k per world. The number bounced around was 150k people initially in Beta4. At 5k cap per server, that would fill 30 servers, and about half of them were locked out from new character creation... so we were pretty much on the mark there with that number.---and we KILLED the servers by Saturday night. They g ave us a 3 hour extension, when many didn't get access again until the last minute, in the middle of the night for most of the world. It basically rendered Beta4 virtually pointless after Saturday night.

How many servers did they put up and carry into EA? How many servers did we wind up with in the end that were locked from new account creation (ie, hit/exceeded 5k cap)?

Wait for that to sink in folks.......

[SuperDevin]

All of the debate over questionable numbers is rendered almost moot when you look at what happened in Beta4, and then later in EA.

They've established their capacity at 5k per world. The number bounced around was 150k people initially in Beta4. At 5k cap per server, that would fill 30 servers, and about half of them were locked out from new character creation... so we were pretty much on the mark there with that number.---and we KILLED the servers by Saturday night. They g ave us a 3 hour extension, when many didn't get access again until the last minute, in the middle of the night for most of the world. It basically rendered Beta4 virtually pointless after Saturday night.

How many servers did they put up and carry into EA? How many servers did we wind up with in the end that were locked from new account creation (ie, hit/exceeded 5k cap)?

Wait for that to sink in folks.......

Reread #2 and #4. Beta is not paying users. People were still buying DURING EA. Beta 4 which was only 1 week from EA only had duty finder go down. During EA is when they realized there was a problem. Like I said before shit takes time. They needed time to get new servers and prepare them and test them. EA was 3 days from launch. The were dealing with servers around the world. NA is in Canada, JP is in Japan.

[Raist]

Reread #2 and #4. Beta is not paying users. People were still buying DURING EA. Beta 4 which was only 1 week from EA only had duty finder go down. During EA is when they realized there was a problem. Like I said before shit takes time. They needed time to get new servers and prepare them and test them. EA was 3 days from launch. The were dealing with servers around the world. NA is in Canada, JP is in Japan.

Nope... wrong again. They knew it was instanced content (Duty Finder is included there) DURING beta4.

WITH LOWER PLAYER DENSITY IN BETA4.

All they did at beta4 was try to alleviate the aftermath of getting kicked and locked out when the instance tanked.

Then the problem reared it's ugly head even WORSE at EA.

All they did was work on the symptoms, and not the cure.

The problem has been consistently there, and all they've done is dance around it.

[Edit:]
Really... Sales Figure Tracking? Sales figures can be tracked nationally in almost real time these days. Look how fast they get box office figures up. Retailers can poll their data EVERY NIGHT, and generate reports on the spot--all they had to do was contact them about it, if they weren't already getting reports.

Also, trying to remove beta4 from EA doesn't work either. Beta4 rolled into EA, which rolled into Official Launch--all of it was bound to the SE AM accounts. So, those preorder codes were also getting registered to the SE AM accounts that the Beta accounts were bound too.

On my account, I had FFXI, FFXIV 1.0 beta, ARR beta, Pre-order ARR, and eventually Launched ARR. The numbers are all right there in their databases and can be pulled with queries that would take minutes to script. They could have seen that I was a former XI player consistently for about 7 years, was in 1.0 beta (but didn't buy release), applied for XIV Beta4 and registered, and purchased and registered XIV preorder (bought almost a month ahead of time, many bought before me).

So to say they had no way of being able to get any hint of how many Beta's were going to EA or launch does not hold up. Plenty of opportunity existed for them to guage membership in advance.

[BlueStar62]

First of all SE could not have accurate numbers for this launch. That's near impossible. Plus this is already WAY more popular then FFXI or FFXIV 1.0 ever was.

So you are trying to tell me that it's *near impossible* to take server data for what *might* have been a less popular MMO and scale the requirements upward? Even new MMO companies can do this.

Servers take time to set up and prepare. If I set my servers up last month for EXPECTED sales then something changes and my sales are higher I can't get the new servers running in 10 minutes. Shit takes time.

Yea if I was a completely incompetent Sales Manager working for a completely incompetent MMO company, then maybe I would let a month's worth of sales data suddenly land in my face, at which point I would do what SE has done, and say, "maybe we should upgrade our servers now". All stupidity aside, you can see sales data in real time, believe it or not. So there is no reason why they shouldn't have been increasing server capacity every step of the way.

[SuperDevin]

So you are trying to tell me that it's *near impossible* to take server data for what *might* have been a less popular MMO and scale the requirements upward? Even new MMO companies can do this.



Yea if I was a completely incompetent Sales Manager working for a completely incompetent MMO company, then maybe I would let a month's worth of sales data suddenly land in my face, at which point I would do what SE has done, and say, "maybe we should upgrade our servers now". All stupidity aside, you can see sales data in real time, believe it or not. So there is no reason why they shouldn't have been increasing server capacity every step of the way.

LOL you think the data centers are in Yoshi P's house? The NA one is in Canada. I have worked with people in different countries around the globe before and I can tell you the time difference alone is a HUGE problem.

[Raist]

LOL you think the data centers are in Yoshi P's house? The NA one is in Canada. I have worked with people in different countries around the globe before and I can tell you the time difference alone is a HUGE problem.

Ormuco can provide standby hardware just for this sort of thing (that's who manages the NA/EU IP's by the way, strong possibility that's where our servers are too). IBM can overnight hardware by just calling their 800 number, and provide a technician on site in most cases as well. Dell has locals to assign on site and has overnight service. HP too. Hell, the HP Moonshot is designed for you to just gank cartridges out and drop new ones in. Sucks that you can't tweak them like the typical blades, but it really simplifies things to just be able to rip the whole thing off the backplane and drop a new one in.

Just saying... groups that specialize in this kind of thing, are prepared for this eventuality. SE just simply didn't get the ball rolling until it was too late.

[BlueStar62]

LOL you think the data centers are in Yoshi P's house? The NA one is in Canada. I have worked with people in different countries around the globe before and I can tell you the time difference alone is a HUGE problem.

You've worked with people in different countries involving what exactly? Because it clearly isn't servers. You completely missed the concept of gradually increasing server capacity to match your game sales, and I doubt you have ever seen a real server, yet alone set one up. You clearly have no idea how Sales Management and capacity planning works. Maybe SE should hire you, cause I don't think they could do any worse.

This thread claims to shed some light on all the uninformed and pointless posts on this forum, but it would appear this thread is the worst of them all. LOL

[SuperDevin]

You've worked with people in different countries involving what exactly? Because it clearly isn't servers. You completely missed the concept of gradually increasing server capacity to match your game sales, and I doubt you have ever seen a real server, yet alone set one up. You clearly have no idea how Sales Management and capacity planning works. Maybe SE should hire you, cause I don't think they could do any worse.

This thread claims to shed some light on all the uninformed and pointless posts on this forum, but it would appear this thread is the worst of them all. LOL

Sorry to tell you my father works for IBM and works on big systems for some of the worlds largest companies, like Duracell or Unilever (they make everything). I have def seen a server of this magnitude. This is not a little mail server you run off your mac mini.

What don't you get about people buying the game at the last minute? If a shitload of people buy my game right before my the launch or EA for this matter I only know until its too late. Its not like this has been ongoing for a month.

And if you must know I am currently importing a 20ft container from Hong Kong to NYC. I am working with artists in Italy and the Phillipines right now as well. When I had a shipping error at the last minute in HK it was already too late to respond because I was asleep when it happened and it needed to get on the boat. People need sleep. 13 hours difference from Tokyo to the east coast. 10 from the west coast.

[Raist]

Sorry to tell you my father works for IBM and works on big systems for some of the worlds largest companies, like Duracell or Unilever (they make everything). I have def seen a server of this magnitude. This is not a little mail server you run off your mac mini.

What don't you get about people buying the game at the last minute? If a shitload of people buy my game right before my the launch or EA for this matter I only know until its too late. Its not like this has been ongoing for a month.

And if you must know I am currently importing a 20ft container from Hong Kong to NYC. I am working with artists in Italy and the Phillipines right now as well. When I had a shipping error at the last minute in HK it was already too late to respond because I was asleep when it happened and it needed to get on the boat. People need sleep. 13 hours difference from Tokyo to the east coast. 10 from the west coast.

Umm.. you personally managing shipping art from overseas is NOT a team responsible for managing a server farm. To even try to draw parallels is ludicrous at best. You aren't able to work 24/7, while a fully staffed team is, and on a global scale---yes, IBM has people available 24/7. I was on a team that was on call 24/7 for a three county area. Just because your Dad works for IBM, doesn't automatically qualify you to speak of their infrastructure. My father climbed towers for Vision Cable and later Ma Bell for a combined sum of over 30 years--I can't speak as to how his call center functions other than that he worked long-assed hours.

And again, this whole bit about last minute purchases... really? That again? Nevermind the hundreds of thousands of copies that were sold, had preordered codes delivered, clients downloaded (which, by the way... they CAN track how many people connected to the download servers, could even track it regionally if they had a mind to set it up in advance). All of these purchases made in advance could have very easily been tallied, and at EA launch and things started to shoot through the roof---they could have just as easily been making arrangements to get new hardware in place. THey SHOULD have made that decision during Beta4, and it could have been taken care of by EA Launch.

Seriously, look at the recent timeline. Everything could have been put in motion and easily taken care of at least a WEEK AGO, potentially before this weekend. Case in point... look at how long it took them to get to this point once they finally took action. ONE WEEK. They've known the source of their problem for over 2 weeks at worst.