Update on PC NA & EU Issues [Updated 10/27 @ 8:40pm]

KyraCROgnon

I'm feeling sorry for Gina, she's the one taking the direct heat while she can't do a thing about the problems. Like the receptionist at a plumbing company getting the angry call from people angry because of the plumber butchered the job or didn't show up , she not responsible for them not having hot water or a working toilet, but she still gets all the yelling..

I'm having a lot less sympathy for Zenisoft management team who didn't make the necessary investment to insure more server stability...

Rowjoh

Thank you. At last, proper communication and info. Really should have been a lot earlier, but better late than never

This is the worst service failure since launch and merely extending the Witches Festival event by a 'couple of days' is nowhere near decent compensation.

Schattenfluegel

FierceSam wrote: »

Schattenfluegel wrote: »

FierceSam wrote: »

DrOuttaSight wrote: »

Does this mean that ESO is a more popular game in the EU, than the US of A?

Short answer - yes

We have a bigger population, a larger landmass and more ESO players

If PC EU falls.. we’re coming to PC NA

And we are legion

Its not only EU, Russians, China, Japan and some other Non-EU Countrys are on our server, too..

Dude ... have some geography

Russia is a part of the European landmass (although because it’s really rather large, parts of Russia are in Asia)

We welcome players from all over the world, cos that’s how we roll.

Yeah but they are not a part from the European Union...EU means normally the Union not the Landmass. In the last case your going to say Europa.

SantieClaws

Just the thoughts of this one.

This has largely been a lost weekend in terms of the plundering of skulls, gathering of event tickets and levelling of kittens.

Many of us only have a decent amount of time in Tamriel at a weekend.

If an event extension is considered please allow it to cover a weekend in order to be equivilent to the time that has been lost.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

horizonxael

dovreste controllare i centinaia di bots che spopolano il sever e a questo punto mi sto stufando di questo gioco e sono un pagante forse dovrei fare una denuncia.

mattaeus01b16_ESO

Thanks @ZOS_GinaBruno

jircris11

Zoltan47 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Update: To ensure that the game can run as smoothly as possible, we are going to disable the Activity Finder until we determine the root cause of the issues that are impacting game performance. As stated before, we’ll look into extending the Witches Festival, but first we need to identify and fix the problems that are impacting player experience.

For this change to take place, we'll need to reboot both PC NA and EU to stabilize everything, then turn off the Activity Finder; maintenance for this will begin around 3:30am EDT and should take an hour or two. Note that you'll still be able to form a group manually, but you will not be able to queue for Battlegrounds while the system is disabled.

We'll have another update for everyone on the situation later today (Sunday). Thanks again for your patience as we get to the bottom of this.

Oh yes very cool, we just werent able to play half saturday, can you explain me again why im paying for eso when its not working correctly?

And everytime there is an isse you keep telling us" we are working on it, please be patient". this is outrageous.

sadly the curse of an online game means they will have days like this. for the most part eso runs smoothly for me and my guild members (NA server) and they are working on fixing it instead of ignoring it so there is that. all we can do is deal with it. and yes i am an ESO+ member and have been since launch.

Bleuren

Yuffie91 wrote: »

Bleuren wrote: »

Well, the Activity Finder is working right now.

How are you even able to log in?

It just now kicked me out, but, good news is Activity Finder worked relatively fast, got half way through a Dungeon.

biminirwb17_ESO

Me want skulls.

johnjetau

SantieClaws wrote: »

Just the thoughts of this one.

This has largely been a lost weekend in terms of the plundering of skulls, gathering of event tickets and levelling of kittens.

Many of us only have a decent amount of time in Tamriel at a weekend.

If an event extension is considered please allow it to cover a weekend in order to be equivilent to the time that has been lost.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

You need to work your staff harder Santie Claws.

jao0199

DakhathKilrathi wrote: »

Watchdog wrote: »

I cancelled my ESO+ subscription. Playing without it would be so unpleasant, I don't think I can play anymore when it runs out.

This is a message saying I am fed up, despite the professional performance of @ZOS_GinaBruno, who is doing her job as best as she can. Words are not enough here, though. ZOS has nothing to back Gina's words or promises of things getting better.

Not being able to play at all is frustrating, especially for a subscriber, and nothing has been solved. Imagine a railroad company saying their trains are too overcrowded, especially at peak times, while the solution suggested would be to still sell the same amount of tickets, but to not allow people to board the trains. Would that pass in real world? Why should it on the Internet? It is still a paid service.

Okay, you do understand that they can't test something like activity finder until it's live, right? Sure, they can test if it works and they can even test a moderate load, but it's difficult to accurately replicate real world conditions.

This is part of software development. It happens. This is the first heavy activity weekend since this launched. They are at leas trying to make it better. I'm willing to give them the time to do that. Six days after launch isn't enough time.

The problem is that they wait until the bomb to explodes to start fixing thigs. Years and years happened with people complaining about loading screens, huge latency, etc.
They just ignored and launched crown store itens and new dlc’s without fixing this. Thats what happen when the snowball gets too big

Jem_Kindheart

Honest question here, can't they just buy more racks of servers? Not to be overly simplistic, but I was under the knowledge that server systems were scalable by nature. Certainly they are receiving enough funding from us to do so... I mean.. Realistically from a business viewpoint. I'm just one player and they've gotten at least a grand and a half from just me. For one game.

[ Some context, my father worked for Sun Microsystems, who wrote Java and large parts of the birth and expansion of the Internet. He was a project manager on the Java team. One day it was take your kid to work day or whatever, and I got to see the Southeastern server room. Holy smokes. This thing was a laboratory of grandeur and an epic piece of engineering. It was many floors down into the earth, freeeeezing cold, spotless, and rows and rows purring black servers amidst an extremely bright and white giant room. It's something you could never forget.

From then on I was always kinda amazed at the power and scalability of data transfer. When ZoS has these issues, I think back to that day a lot and just wonder... Why not just add another row of servers. I'm aware it's not as simple as: wheel in some new hardware and plug it in, but fundamentally, one wonders.]

Bartdude

Only came back to play this game after being away from it for several months because I saw the new chapter. I don't get a great deal of time to play so imagine my frustration coming online on Monday only to find the server down, then I come online a few days l8r and it's offline again! Now I get a chance to play again and well bugger me, its down again! Not a good advertisement.

CelticStones

Disappointing again ZOS. Please please please, no more broken DLCs making things worse, no more blanket nerfs to address server performance and no more events wreaking havoc. Just put out a statement informing us that you will fix the server completely and will pause our ESO+ billing till the game is at least playable.

Katheriah

KyraCROgnon wrote: »

I'm feeling sorry for Gina, she's the one taking the direct heat while she can't do a thing about the problems. Like the receptionist at a plumbing company getting the angry call from people angry because of the plumber butchered the job or didn't show up , she not responsible for them not having hot water or a working toilet, but she still gets all the yelling..

Isn't that like... her job?

Ofc they're putting a nice person up front. For us she's still *the face of ZoS*.

What else are we going to do? Shout at some infra engineer who's name we don't know? His boss, who's name we don't know? His boss's boss?

Azrhyel

You know these movies that are so bad they are good again?

This mess of a mismanaged troubleshooting is so bad it feels like comedy by now. I must add that i am deep within my first run of vMaelstrom since yesterday - as a tank - so the frustration from that darksouls-hard arena plus the frustration from surprise maintenances mixes to a cocktail that will be remembered.

I was round 4 of the last arena before the server just went down... just dont reset it completely ZOS. Just don't. Please: "Challenge accepted" has its limits...

Shadowshire

@Marto

Except that's not how servers work.
Modern servers are designed to adapt, shrink, expand, and change their behavior and properties, depending the load, timeframes, etc.

Every system has its limits. Each server can only "expand" to its maximum operating capacity, after which adding more input to process will degrade performance to the point that using it becomes infeasible, at the risk of outright collapse.

Increasing the number of servers depends, of course, (1) upon whether others are available, and (2) how readily they can be prepared and introduced into the existing mega-server system per se.

Regardless, the one thing that no one can ignore is whether the cost of expanding the mega-server system is affordable and whether it is likely to be recovered by increased revenue, if not also increased profit. It seems to me that ZOS is still focused upon maximizing the utility of the existing mega-server system, i.e., seeking ways and means to increase their capacity qua performance.

Offering a MMORPG is a risky undertaking, to say the least. Most players will tolerate some inconvenience and tolerate the flaws and bugs in a game which is, on the whole, fun to play. When it becomes no longer fun to play, players begin to look for alternatives. Some players will stay around regardless, but most will leave to play a different MMORPG, especially when and if it becomes "the game to play".

BringerOfOmens

Watchdog wrote: »

I cancelled my ESO+ subscription. Playing without it would be so unpleasant, I don't think I can play anymore when it runs out.

This is a message saying I am fed up...

^^^My thoughts and actions mirror this. The reasons I cancelled in a nut shell...Update 23, Update 24, ongoing and uncorrected performance issues which are worsening with every "improvement and update.

I have about 80% fewer people online at any given time in the 5 guilds I am in since the release of Update 23 so I cant be the only one playing significantly less after these updates. I logged in earlier during prime time Saturday night and spent over a hour in the queue for a random normal dungeon.

When you fix the game and get your character balancing act done to fit your vision next year maybe it will be time to reconsider but for now - this is not a product worth paying for.

Zer0oo

I am a little confused! Did they not upgrade the server before the new chapter to deal with higher population especial on EU ? I am pretty sure that the population is now lower than during the hype about the chapter. Was there a downgrade or do I miss something?

daemonios

FierceSam wrote: »

DrOuttaSight wrote: »

Does this mean that ESO is a more popular game in the EU, than the US of A?

Short answer - yes

We have a bigger population, a larger landmass and more ESO players

If PC EU falls.. we’re coming to PC NA

And we are legion

I don't know that that's true. ZOS hasn't released any player numbers. For all I know, they simply run lower capacity servers in EU, so that they buckle under pressure faster than the NA servers.

tonne.backlinderb16_ESO

How many years are we supposed to have it like this?

Vhozek

Isn't there a regular forum poster that claims he works on much more complicated servers than this?
Could this person show up and make any guesses as to what's actually happening and how it should be fixed?

Huyen

Funny how 3 hours of downtime once again slowly rose to nearly 6 hours and counting. So much for playing this morning / afternoon...

goldenarcher1

What if the activity finder doesn't want to be turned off....

https://youtu.be/ARJ8cAGm6JE

Schattenfluegel

daemonios wrote: »

FierceSam wrote: »

DrOuttaSight wrote: »

Does this mean that ESO is a more popular game in the EU, than the US of A?

Short answer - yes

We have a bigger population, a larger landmass and more ESO players

If PC EU falls.. we’re coming to PC NA

And we are legion

I don't know that that's true. ZOS hasn't released any player numbers. For all I know, they simply run lower capacity servers in EU, so that they buckle under pressure faster than the NA servers.

https://www.wowrealmpopulation.com/

These are the playernumbers from two recommend WoW-Servers (New Classic WoW). US has less than an half active players then EU. Yeah its not ZOS i know, but i think its similar to it. The most EU Players are on PC, not on consoles, like in US.

DakhathKilrathi

jao0199 wrote: »

DakhathKilrathi wrote: »

Watchdog wrote: »

I cancelled my ESO+ subscription. Playing without it would be so unpleasant, I don't think I can play anymore when it runs out.

This is a message saying I am fed up, despite the professional performance of @ZOS_GinaBruno, who is doing her job as best as she can. Words are not enough here, though. ZOS has nothing to back Gina's words or promises of things getting better.

Not being able to play at all is frustrating, especially for a subscriber, and nothing has been solved. Imagine a railroad company saying their trains are too overcrowded, especially at peak times, while the solution suggested would be to still sell the same amount of tickets, but to not allow people to board the trains. Would that pass in real world? Why should it on the Internet? It is still a paid service.

Okay, you do understand that they can't test something like activity finder until it's live, right? Sure, they can test if it works and they can even test a moderate load, but it's difficult to accurately replicate real world conditions.

This is part of software development. It happens. This is the first heavy activity weekend since this launched. They are at leas trying to make it better. I'm willing to give them the time to do that. Six days after launch isn't enough time.

The problem is that they wait until the bomb to explodes to start fixing thigs. Years and years happened with people complaining about loading screens, huge latency, etc.
They just ignored and launched crown store itens and new dlc’s without fixing this. Thats what happen when the snowball gets too big

Activity finder is new this week. Check the patch notes.

Night_Watch

daemonios wrote: »

FierceSam wrote: »

DrOuttaSight wrote: »

Does this mean that ESO is a more popular game in the EU, than the US of A?

Short answer - yes

We have a bigger population, a larger landmass and more ESO players

If PC EU falls.. we’re coming to PC NA

And we are legion

I don't know that that's true. ZOS hasn't released any player numbers. For all I know, they simply run lower capacity servers in EU, so that they buckle under pressure faster than the NA servers.

Well ... whatever the reality, ZOS have confirmed* that their EU server cannot handle the amount of concurrent players.

So what is to be done? Boost server farm size somehow? Add better management such as rationing amount of players that can log in - upsetting those that cannot? Do something to counter the known and expected issues when patches or events take place? Do nothing except fight fires when these issues happen? Deliberately try to put paying customers off the game so fewer log in? What?

This is not an attack on anyone posting here. I'm just pointing out that ZOS know about the issues and from a players point of view have done little or nothing to actually fix them. I ask the questions about what is to be done honestly. I do not have the answers but surely someone, some professional, paid employee at ZOS does. Or maybe they do know but really do not care - as much as that would seem to counter good business practice.






*The problem you all have been experiencing only shows up at levels of concurrency seen on PC EU. (In this very thread).

Huyen

Night_Watch wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

FierceSam wrote: »

DrOuttaSight wrote: »

Does this mean that ESO is a more popular game in the EU, than the US of A?

Short answer - yes

We have a bigger population, a larger landmass and more ESO players

If PC EU falls.. we’re coming to PC NA

And we are legion

I don't know that that's true. ZOS hasn't released any player numbers. For all I know, they simply run lower capacity servers in EU, so that they buckle under pressure faster than the NA servers.

Well ... whatever the reality, ZOS have confirmed* that their EU server cannot handle the amount of concurrent players.

So what is to be done? Boost server farm size somehow? Add better management such as rationing amount of players that can log in - upsetting those that cannot? Do something to counter the known and expected issues when patches or events take place? Do nothing except fight fires when these issues happen? Deliberately try to put paying customers off the game so fewer log in? What?

This is not an attack on anyone posting here. I'm just pointing out that ZOS know about the issues and from a players point of view have done little or nothing to actually fix them. I ask the questions about what is to be done honestly. I do not have the answers but surely someone, some professional, paid employee at ZOS does. Or maybe they do know but really do not care - as much as that would seem to counter good business practice.

*The problem you all have been experiencing only shows up at levels of concurrency seen on PC EU. (In this very thread).

All we see lately is just a whole lot of lies from ZoS. Investing in new infrastructure costs money. I for one suspect they run at the bare minimum right now, just to get enough funds out for the investors, so they dont complain, and pull the plug.

The current issues are constantly comming back to bite ZoS in the ***. Every damn year we see the same thing happening, more often then not with every patch they release.

Adding more content is nice and all, but if the capacity isnt enough, then it will break down. You need to keep up.
(And on that note, all those intro-quests for the dlc's are really clogging up my questlog when I make an alt. Imagine the diestress a new player encounters that way...)

Mancombe_Nosehair

After the Easter Debacle comes the Halloween Horror...

Maggi12

Group finder is a delegative tool, it's job is to form group from the pool of players... thats all...
If i were zos programmer, i would stress test newly created group finder tool to find narrow zones of code and try to optimize it.

You can hire me btw xD