NA/EU Server Congestion: The Problem & A Solution for Devs (PLEASE READ)

[Eser0x]

The projection of players and the capacity of servers is fine... Due to an error in 1.0 I luckily already made a toon on a JP. That is kind of sad.... But happy times for a few hours.
Would be nice to have a server transfer when it's all fixed and sorted, cause I do notice the lag and the language barrier.

It's the silly blockages and errors that make people re-queue that is congesting a crap load.
The silence of death and technical error # with unknown solutions is also a sad way of doing business.
"Your #fephaf is undergoing a #49958. Should be fixed if you #o3820r or we #392484. Thanks"

Soooo..... Keep the servers where they are and the way they are.
Give us a queue system, fix the errors or just make 1 that makes sense and fix disconnections first.

[Aydem]

and 27th even more people will try to get ingame, oohh joy

[dukedudeston]

I totally agree with OP.
This game will fail again if this problem isn't fixed soon! The saying always is, Bad News always travels faster then good, people always would complain about something rather then say how good it is. The game is fantastic, yeah it could do with a few tweaks here and there I am sure, but these servers could be the death of ARR.

You can say all MMO's have these problems, and "welcome to MMO launch" but remember, Beta Test stages where designed to help sort these problems out, the final beta, was a stress test, where not only were they trying to max out server load, but also give people a taste of the game! They want to fix these issues FAST, they have a NDA in place during the EA, this is why, but the NDA will be void when servers open in just over a day and a half! All the hard work, will be ripped to shreds, within hours!

[Pavetl]

and 27th even more people will try to get ingame, oohh joy

Well, I'm not sure about this...after all this problems many soon to be players will think it twice before waisting their money in something that doesn't work. Many will wait until they see all has been fixed.

[dukedudeston]

Well, I'm not sure about this...after all this problems many soon to be players will think it twice before waisting their money in something that doesn't work. Many will wait until they see all has been fixed.

That's the thing though, if people stop playing the game, or hold off until it is fixed, then eventually the problem will be fixed, because less people will be playing, so it be like "Hey the game works perfectly again".. everyone bombards the servers then say.. "Oh wait, I thought they fixed it!"

[Tornenj]

That's the thing though, if people stop playing the game, or hold off until it is fixed, then eventually the problem will be fixed, because less people will be playing, so it be like "Hey the game works perfectly again".. everyone bombards the servers then say.. "Oh wait, I thought they fixed it!"

That's exactly where my thoughts lay as well. In reality we really cant say much since its still early access... but my early access ends today cause of my work schedule....so ive not really done anything... And I will not pay to play a busted ass game. So far the game has impressed me. But as it stands... Id rather go play some free to play mmo then try to get my moneys worth of a game that I cant even log into a server for. Im giving them 1 month... if theres not an improvement im gone. And I know of at least 10 other people irl that are saying the same thing as me.

[Verrilee]

I started playing on a japanese worlds yesterday and haven't had any problems, but I expect later I will if for no other reason than the time difference. She'll probably become my "I need to escape and go solo for awhile" character because during my prime time the server population is scarce.

The idea of just having all worlds listed so the population can sort itself works for me, except we can't sort ourselves since we can't tell what the load on any of the worlds is. I know companies don't like to list their population numbers these days, but even just a word or graphic designation for population level would help.

[Cobyn]

Login Limitation After Emergency Maintenance (Aug. 25): Follow-up 3
We have confirmed that the issues on the North American/European data center Worlds have resurfaced. Therefore, we have placed a severe login restriction in order to stabilize the servers.

While you may continue to have a difficult time logging into the game, please note that the issue is being addressed, and new updates will follow as additional information becomes available.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this is causing everyone for an extended period, but we would like to ask for your continued cooperation to make this a stable environment.

[MisterPuddin]

My recommendation would be to implement a rationing system:

[I'm not sure if the queue already works this way or not (probably not), but it would ensure that people can at least play for a little bit.]

I think, for the most part, when people log in, they stay logged in for quite some time (I was on for like 8 hours straight the other day). This would be fine if no one was waiting to get in, but when you're flooded with so many users, only a select few can enjoy the game.

If there's a queue in effect, the server should disconnect the users that have been logged in the longest (this would also kick the assholes who sit there afk-ing). Those disconnected users can then simply put themselves onto the end of the queue and wait for an available spot (which shouldn't take too, too long).

This would ensure that EVERYONE can at least play the game at some point. No more of this nonsense login blocking that's taking place.

Of course there are some additional parameters to consider:

- Don't DC people that are in transition
- Don't DC people in an instance
- Give someone at least (say) an hour before they're force-DC-ed by the server
- Wait (say) 5 seconds before the server force-DCs someone
- etc

I think this would be much easier to do than the original proposal, which requires some serious server architecture overhauls (sharing accounts across all data centers, sharding, normalization, etc etc) - although this would certainly relieve some of the congestion problems.

Perhaps SE could consolidate servers into smaller "networks" that could share their data - so if there's 25 data centers, put 5 data centers on a "network = 5 "networks". You connect to a "network" and then select a server. The data center with your data on it transfers that data to the server that you selected. Presto! This is how high volume services handle this problem on the back end (facebook, twitter, etc).

With this much congestion already (and it's only going to get worse after a full release), SE needs to seriously consider these "Big Data" concerns.

I think SE has rolled out a fantastic game, but they've done a shoddy job with communication and server management (at least on the non-JP end)

Sorry for rambling and thanks for reading.

[EmiliM]

My recommendation would be to implement a rationing system:

I'd disagree with you and say this is not an amusement park ride. There is no point in kicking people off so others can play for fairness's sake. You're going to end up with one group of pissed users or another, it's all the same.

The solution I suggested would require some reconfiguration for sure, but it would definitely cost less at least in the short-medium term than adding and operating entirely new servers, and it's far better for the health (not to mention community) of all existing servers in the long run (far less concern about under- or over-utilization of regional servers).

I remember SE having to explain their head off to unhappy users about splitting up the servers during beta 3: very few, if any, people asked for it, and many 1.0 players in both Japan and NA/EU were very unhappy about being torn apart from their friends overseas. SE tried to explain the merits but looking back at it now, I really hope they realize it was all a big mistake.

Anyway, I'd disagree except I just got kicked off 90000 style after being on for a few hours so maybe they are rotating people lol