Server Login Queue Turned on for PC-EU - April 10

commodore64

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Recently, we’ve seen a massive influx of players to ESO especially on the PC-EU server. This influx of players has resulted in some server performance issues for our players on the PC-EU megaserver, especially during prime-time hours. As a short-term solution to address these issues, we are turning on a login queueing system for that server.

Set in place to create an optimal player experience for our ESO fans playing on the PC-EU server, this queueing system allows for a set number of players to be in the game at a time. Players waiting in the queueing system will be able to enter the game as soon as a spot opens up. (Please note that your estimated on-screen wait time may not reflect your actual wait time.)

We’re currently working on plans that will add more capacity for our growing PC-EU community, making it possible for many more heroes to jump in and play simultaneously without hindrance to the overall PC-EU server performance. We’ll keep everyone updated. Welcome to all our new and returning players, and thank you all for your patience.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
Are paying ESO+ members prioritsed over non-paying players? I ask as surely they're the ones paying for your server capacity upgrade.

SaintSubwayy

Aerithone wrote: »

Just fire those German guys responsible for EU server and get better data center to maintain the servers.
Its easy.

some stoned af dutch server personell would atleast fit in with the sackling communication ZOS has most of the times

Zurigorria

Great move!! There goes my ESO PLUS, after four years of paying. Say bye bye to my money.

vesselwiththepestle

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi all, we've removed the erroneous mention of a queue position in the original message - thanks for pointing that out. We know you have questions, and we will have a more detailed (and technical) explanation for you tomorrow. As mentioned in the original message, the queue is a temporary solution that we've turned on (we've had the queueing system tech for years) while we prepare the more permanent long-term solution.

The problem with the queue system is, that players are getting errors while being in the queue. I've found that I wouldn't stay longer than approximately 20-30 seconds in the queue before the game got me an error message. Sometimes I just got the blank loading screens - no menu, nothing, I had to Alt-F4.

The queue wouldn't be as bad if it would be working.

Regarding player experience, when the game crashed while my existing group ported manually into a group dungeon (because the group finder didn't work) and they had to wait for me for more than 10 minutes (although the timer said 5 minutes at the beginning), not because the timer was wrong, but because of additionally all those crashes constantly happening, I am sure this wasn't a better experience for any of us.

Several members of my guilds have reported similar problems - crashing in queue, Error 108, the need to Alt-F4. You should check into that and fix the queue system.

Huyen

Neelanna48 wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Recently, we’ve seen a massive influx of players to ESO especially on the PC-EU server. This influx of players has resulted in some server performance issues for our players on the PC-EU megaserver, especially during prime-time hours. As a short-term solution to address these issues, we are turning on a login queueing system for that server.

Set in place to create an optimal player experience for our ESO fans playing on the PC-EU server, this queueing system allows for a set number of players to be in the game at a time. Players waiting in the queueing system will be able to enter the game as soon as a spot opens up. (Please note that while your queue position is accurate, your estimated on-screen wait time may not reflect your actual wait time.)

We’re currently working on plans that will add more capacity for our growing PC-EU community, making it possible for many more heroes to jump in and play simultaneously without hindrance to the overall PC-EU server performance. We’ll keep everyone updated. Welcome to all our new and returning players, and thank you all for your patience.

So now I have to wait for however long it takes to get into a game I pay for? It certainly isnt the 30 seconds its says on my screen as I have been waiting almost ten minutes now. Seriously if this company expects to keep people paying for this game it needs to upgrade it servers urgently.

Happend too with WoW. Be glad they do it this way, instead of letting the server crash every 2 minutes. Pc masterrace eh?

perolord

Wooooot that is awsome news . Game is growing like its new lol...

Great, with new chapter also some old players will come back.. so ZOS you need to prepare for that also.

Well that is awsome news really, and i hope ZOS will react really urgent as they said.

For those, spammers, trolls,.... we love you on the forums, what will we do without you

***BTW if any1 is quiting because of this, can i have your stuff? ))

FierceSam

Not even the crappest clubs in London operate a One Out One In policy any more.

How can you NOT build in seamless scalability into a computer system?

You’re making your game genuinely unplayable

FierceSam

Oh and by the way, THAT’S what the 10 hour maintenance was for

code65536

DarcyMardin wrote: »

This seems odd to me. I play on both NA and EU, and the EU server always seems much emptier to me than the NA server does. I see far fewer people in Vivec City crafting area, in Mournhold, in Alinor, in Daggerfal, in Rawl’kha, at dolmens in the Alik’ir desert, etc. etc.

When are you on EU, though? The problem with EU is that the population is a lot more homogenized time-wise. (Due to the nature of the global Internet topology, traffic from Asia and Oceania typically reach Europe by way of North America, so NA is the server of choice for those regions.)

Based on my own observations playing on both, during the off-hours, EU is actually quieter than NA. But during primetime, EU is much busier than NA. This means that EU has a higher peak load than NA because the players are more concentrated time-wise.

DarcyMardin wrote: »

Prices are higher in the EU guild stores, too, suggesting lower supply of sellable items, presumably due to lower population. Is the EU server built to handle only smaller loads?

No, this is indicative of higher demand on EU. If you look at things like PvE leaderboards, EU is much more lively than NA.

f047ys3v3n

electromagnets wrote: »

This is absurd. Massive influx my ass. I have never encountered this in my 5 years of playing this game, and the population now is certainly not the highest it's ever been. Please stop feeding us ***.

By the way, great way to celebrate your 5 year anniversary. Cheers.

Though there is really no way to tell with the flexible instance mega server system they have, it does seem unlikely to me that this is the highest population. The game certainly felt more populated at a few other times in it's past. Launch, Launch of console / 1.6, Summerset launch, and all the folks that came back for Wrothgar all spring to mind as times that were seemed more populated than this. For what it is worth, I'm sure Jessica is telling us what they have told her. Gina and Jessica do a great job, I just often think they get fed less than accurate information to pass along.

Perhaps, there are more folks coming in now than the last few months and they had massively scaled back the servers. Certainly, the ever increasing load times of the game might suggest that. The computer I have now is many times as fast as the one I had at launch but I have timed the load times and they are much longer.

It also seems likely to me that this is just all the spaghetti code catching up with them. I don't even think ZOS keeps an accurate master list of variables for the game as they keep accidentally reusing them and things like headless bodies running around in vMoL instead of orbs happen at exactly the time the hollowjack stuff comes out.

Maybe ZOS should just handle this problem like the cheating problem and delete the threads that reference it with actual screenshots or videos as quick as they can, pretend those that mention it are having isolated issues with their own rigs or internet connections, and that this is all unrelated to ZOS's servers or code.

coplannb16_ESO

subscribers should not be put into a queue ever... by the way, this is 2019. why have/manage/rent your own hardware? get yourself on AWS or Azure and have them scale your stuff up whenever needed. maybe ask netflix how to do it?

Diundriel

subscribers shouldnt be put in queue

Gnozo

Wow, normally i am not someone who comes up with crazy theories but i doubt that we got more players in EU.

Its more likely they keep reducing server capativities and come up with this lazy excuse...

perolord

Gnozo wrote: »

Wow, normally i am not someone who comes up with crazy theories but i doubt that we got more players in EU.

Its more likely they keep reducing server capativities and come up with this lazy excuse...

I do not agree on this... yesterday when i logged in... i said to myself... wow, that is a lot of people online... and also, recently you can see players everywhere...

So there must be some more players in game..

Brrrofski

Haha, is that for real?

What a terrible system.

OwnerOfSuccuby

Diundriel wrote: »

subscribers shouldnt be put in queue

No one should - we already pay for the game, for dlc in it. And for many other sruff in it. It is more better not to say who should and who should not - but problem must be removed. By the way i am eso + and want compensation too. I buy for time, to get better play and could not play. The same fir all players. We already buy the gameand could not play it. It is not working like it have too. It must be fixed !!!

Elsonso

commodore64 wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
Are paying ESO+ members prioritsed over non-paying players? I ask as surely they're the ones paying for your server capacity upgrade.

If I have to guess at the answer, I would say "No". Seems to me that they said, at one point, that ESO Plus was not going to be a privileged thing.

Granted, now they have exclusive and discounted Crown Store items, which would seem to challenge that statement.

Anyway, my reason for thinking "No" to this is that this queue feature has been in the game for a long time now. I suspect that it was implemented at a time when ESO Plus would not have been a queue jumping criteria.

Hotdog_23

Wow sorry EU player's. I know this just sucks and is really unacceptable by ZOS. I find hard to believe a sudden new number of players just appeared. Maybe over a month or so at best. Poor planning. A pattern has formed to where we do events and the servers are always not keeping up with demand.

Good to see the game growing. Again just wow that that ZOS has allowed this to happen. I know after a few minutes of waiting I would just quit for and awhile and try later. If this become a pattern then I would stop playing for awhile. To the tune of months and cancel my sub in the mean time and maybe try again later if the urge kicked in to play again.

It does not affect me on NA side but I find this truly acceptable.

agegarton

You’ve had server issues in EU for years so let’s not pretend this is some sudden, unforeseen problem. Your company philosophy on handling growth and dealing with your customers is what’s broken here.

When are you likely to fix that?

daemonios

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

Wow sorry EU player's. I know this just sucks and is really unacceptable by ZOS. I find hard to believe a sudden new number of players just appeared. Maybe over a month or so at best. Poor planning. A pattern has formed to where we do events and the servers are always not keeping up with demand.

Good to see the game growing. Again just wow that that ZOS has allowed this to happen. I know after a few minutes of waiting I would just quit for and awhile and try later. If this become a pattern then I would stop playing for awhile. To the tune of months and cancel my sub in the mean time and maybe try again later if the urge kicked in to play again.

It does not affect me on NA side but I find this truly acceptable.

Yeah, I also find this hard to believe, especially when we've been reporting these issues since JANUARY and received no acknowledgement until this half-arsed panicked "fix". It's sad to think about it, but the plain honest truth is that I'm now convinced ZOS are lying or grossly misrepresenting the facts, e.g. the influx of new players has been going on for much longer and they've done nothing to address it until now.

LoreToo

Great! I hope you will solve the problem with "4-5 hours afk players, who avoid dc by using emotes" too

Lumenn

Being Xbox na I can't help but wonder how much of your population are bots(we're infested with them it seems but I don't know how bad it is on eu servers) We also had several issues with logging in, getting kicked etc before the crown store release that were put on a backburner for said New feature, so hopefully you'll get a fix before elsewhere. Be a shame though if bots are logged in while players can't.

Elsonso

Lumenn wrote: »

Being Xbox na I can't help but wonder how much of your population are bots(we're infested with them it seems but I don't know how bad it is on eu servers) ... Be a shame though if bots are logged in while players can't.

If there was ever a time to clean house, so to speak, this would be it.

John_Falstaff

Well... I mean, during last Undaunted celebration, they did promise that they'll resolve the issue by the time they'll make another group finder related event. In your face, player base! ^^ Didn't expect such a clever way to resolve it, now didn't you? ^^

Closer to the point, I hope they will prioritize people who were recently logged in - say, five or ten minutes prior to queueing. The game kicks people to login screen way too often, and heaven forbid you'll be kicked in the middle of a trial run. Now if someone gets disconnected, your lead can safely assume you're not getting back any time soon and can start looking for replacement.

Gythral

Well the queue limiting number of players did nothing for the guild bank and guild store issues, so clearly the issue with them is not just the amount of use!

jbjondeaueb17_ESO

I suggest all EU players create characters on NA and see how the server handle it by creating a big prime time on NA, we would at least have a good idea of where the issue is.

Skafloc

Sad indeed my time is precious and I don't want to waste it queuing for a game I have paid for and supported these past 5 years. Guess all I can do in protest is cancel my eso+ until this issue is resolved.

Tyrion87

WOOOW, so people are actually so naive and gullible that fell for this poor excuse of more players logging into the PC/EU server?

This game is 5 years old and its peak population was at launch. I would believe in a sudden influx of active players if it happened around a DLC or a Chapter release. But now? What, out of a sudden, happened recently that would drag more players specifically to the PC/EU server?

It's obvious that this situation is caused by a very poor quality of PC/EU server and its problems have intensified with each recent patch. With every incremental you did lately the performance and overall quality of gameplay have worsened by a mile. So don't fool people with a cheap excuse of a magic.... I mean 'massive' influx of players, just because you have no idea how to fix the problems you are responsible of and caused in the first place.

Maybe now you will see a massive 'exodus' of players and problems will fix themselves...

sudaki_eso

This is a joke, there shouldnt be any queue. if you introduce one on the ps4 you will loose at least one loyal customer. I hope eso+ members will at least get a priority queue. Seriously, this is an all time low for the game, cant believe it.

Aznarb

So, two thing :

1 - It's a pretty good news for ESO to have a new flux of fresh player, most of MMORPG just don't have that anymore.
2 - Server in EU are a problem since a long time and it should have been fixed since awhile !
Now, you can just blame yourself if player, no, CUSTOMER, are pissed off to pay for a very bad service during many month.