Aether Data Center Down

[Setsuya]

So no fix, no upgrade to your servers is what it boils down too. Its your fault for not being prepared....ONCE AGAIN

It's not Bayo's fault specifically and I think he's getting a lot of heat over something he really can't control. He can only pass our thoughts and feelings on and hope that something more can be done about it. At least he came out to face the sharks because lets face it guys, this stuff has us acting like a mob. I wouldn't want to be on the other end of it.

Having said that, please DO pass on these messages Bayohne. I understand that congestion is a real issue right now, but something more COULD be done about it. Thats all we are asking.

[Ozz]

Greetings,
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.

What is more frustrating is that you are going to do a free login "welcome home campaign" which is going to put even more strain on the login servers for paying customers who are having to spend way more time that is need already to login. Its only going to get a hell of a lot worse on 23/06

[Adire]

What is more frustrating is that you are going to do a free login "welcome home campaign" which is going to put even more strain on the login servers for paying customers who are having to spend way more time that is need already to login. Its only going to get a hell of a lot worse on 23/06

This.

Fair way to do it is to stop time from ticking away for players who have sub time on their accounts.

The free incentive is great when it doesn't screw over paying players, but I really see this being a massive problem if things don't change considerably from now til then.

[myahele]

What is more frustrating is that you are going to do a free login "welcome home campaign" which is going to put even more strain on the login servers for paying customers who are having to spend way more time that is need already to login. Its only going to get a hell of a lot worse on 23/06

I'm all for this campaign, but was it needed when an expansion just hit? Could they not have waited at least a month for this campaign? There's already an influx of PAYING new/returning players in the past few weeks getting ready for expansion.

[BroodingFicus]

What is more frustrating is that you are going to do a free login "welcome home campaign" which is going to put even more strain on the login servers for paying customers who are having to spend way more time that is need already to login. Its only going to get a hell of a lot worse on 23/06

Are they really? Oh great. And agreed. A. The larger servers are already screwed right now and likely will be for weeks. That is not going to help and frankly if it keeps up I'm not really sure why I should be paying full subs for a game I can only half access and which they are letting others play for free. B. Why now? As has been said, at least wait until the hype dies down if you don't intend to make any effort to fix the existing problems.

[Kerwin]

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.

R.I.P. Now I know I'll never get to log in this weekend. Especially during prime time. GG. ;_;

it's not their fault their old server got invaded by RPers.

That's some pretty hostile words.

[DarkLiriel]

Okay I understand the issue with errors when trying to connect to the data center.. but what about those of us already connected, only to get 2002'ed or 5006'ed out of the character login queue? I can deal with the first one, but getting kicked AFTER being connected is getting to be highly frustrating. It's like someone's dumping a huge chunk of players out of the queue at the same time.

does the queue have a timer where after waiting so long it just gives up and dumps you or something?

[Ablongman]

I'm sorry, Matt, but going to have to call you out on this one.

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.

...which is something SE could have predicted as early as 2.0 Open Beta, because several online communities (a couple that I know you're at least aware of, if not a part of) had settled on these two servers as their homes by then. Why were these two servers placed on the same datacenter? And what measures has SE taken since that initial blunder to mitigate this congestion, even? Restricting character creation indiscriminately, which negatively affects people who already reside on the server (because sure, preventing me from rolling alts on my home server is -totally- going to affect number of concurrent users, when I can only be online on one character at a time).

I understand and have been patient, Matt, but there's nothing happenstance about what's happening here. I am certain SE saw this coming. The least you folks could have done was make 2002 and 5006 kick us to the post-login launcher rather than aborting the process entirely. Most other games do it this way.

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.

Clearly they're working, because they're sure as hell not posting here. It took you 3 days to acknowledge this at all, which is a recurring issue with this development team. I understand if you'd rather not communicate like, say, Blizzard. But would it have killed you to drop a note just like this on the 19th? I get that communicating doesn't solve the problem, but it at least garners some good faith from people and shows you care. At this point it comes off more as crowd control than anything else.

And before some white knight accuses me of heresy, I love this game. I've continued to support it since 1.0. It's possible (and I'd say preferable) to love something and still be cognizant of its flaws. But as this game grows in popularity, I worry that it'll attract an audience that won't stand for this stuff as many of us have. They won't come here to whine either. They'll just unsub and leave quietly and go play the next big thing. I'd rather see SE rise up to the occasion and succeed, personally.

[Mitsuyo]

I wish it would quit shutting my launcher down every time i get a damn lobby connection error.

[Copshusband]

so why not MOVE one of them to a different data center? Why keep letting your paying customers deal with this issue and simply ignoring it on your companies behalf? It is reprehensible to allow a situation like this to continue without coming up with a fix regardless of it being a population problem.