April 2019 Matt Firor promised server hardware upgrades, did they happen?

TineaCruris

A post Matt Firor made back in April of 2019 clearly stated that the megaservers were in desperate need of an upgrade and expansion.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_MattFiror

This discussion was in regards to the much needed hardware server upgrades needed in April 2019; well before COVID-19.

Here is the original thread.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/467936/pc-eu-server-update-april-11/p1

So, as the title asks, did the much needed hardware upgrades to the servers ever take place last year or not? (Matt Firor clearly stated this was the upgrade that was needed to address lag and other performance issues)

When are the next physical hardware upgrades to the servers scheduled?

Berek_Bloodfang

Great question!

ixie

I think there have been at least 2 PC EU server upgrades since then

shaielzafine

My game has consistently been crashing constantly, having worse input lag in Cyrodiil, frame slideshow in trials, just you know, the usual bugs. During launch I couldn't log in, it was the next day (earlier this morning) when it finally worked. At this point I support ESO+ megaservers or introduce a new tier of subscription so we aren't plagued by these problems. And I also suggest their devs stop banning people & deleting comments on Twitch livestreams when they ask about performance problems or server issues. People are complaining more on multiple platforms about the same things. It's kinda funny now, the playerbase just fighting each other on the internet over supporting zos vs those insisting they aren't getting what they're paying for. The devs could just roll out the fixes stated in their little roadmap / infographic and at least less people would be complaining about the game they paid for & the service they are subbed to. I remember last year before I took a break people kept saying "oh just wait til 2020", so here we are, what is next?

TineaCruris

FYI: The inspiration for this question was the addition of the game que yesterday that made it so obvious that there is such an extreme over saturation of the ESO servers that they had to put us in a line and literally limit how many people could be logged on at any given time.

TineaCruris

ixie wrote: »

I think there have been at least 2 PC EU server upgrades since then

I'm trying to get an answer from the people who actually work on this stuff directly. I don't know if linking names like I did actually works or not, but people who've used this forum a lot more than me tag their names like this when seeking an answer it seems. If they'd come on and tell us we got the server upgrades, but it still wasn't enough and they are doing their best, that would help a lot. The total stonewalling on communication about this leads humans to assume the worst. (if they never come on and confirm the hardware upgrades took place, people will assume they did not....and performance is "evidence" they did not)

JD2013

They definitely happened, but I think it was mainly to increase server capacity as EU is the highest populated.

EvilAutoTech

They replaced the hamsters with guinea pigs but they don't feed them enough and they are apparently on strike, at least in the EU data center.

actosh

We had 2 trial runs yesterday and it was okay, not great.

Still wait 4 weeks to see how many *** instances we get.

zvavi

Guys. Please no false information spreading. Last year when they promised hardware upgrade, it was when the servers went Uber bananas. Like Uber. They had to turn in queue, and at the time, the queue system actually worked (unlike the fake queue they put after greymoor). During the time before they put out queue everyone in PC EU experienced really bad performance. Like really bad. Server was not processing almost anything sent to him, and doing writs on 1 character with the help of lazy writ crafter was taking 10 minutes instead of the usual 1 (no kidding). At the time, they upgraded the server capacity, bringing the performance back to where it was a month earlier, before they had too many players, and instead of literally unplayable game (lol) we came back to the bugs that hurt people only in prime time, making it impossible to enjoy the more engaging content during primetime. And well, EU PC PvP that was always broken. Since then, the part that was not fixed, became worse.
I know it is hard to believe, but PC EU is not where it was before the upgrade.

Drauz

They should reroll to before the first performance upgrades.
The game worked much better back then, especially in cyrodill.
Such a shame that they went this route,

EmEm_Oh

shaielzafine wrote: »

My game has consistently been crashing constantly, having worse input lag in Cyrodiil, frame slideshow in trials, just you know, the usual bugs. During launch I couldn't log in, it was the next day (earlier this morning) when it finally worked. At this point I support ESO+ megaservers or introduce a new tier of subscription so we aren't plagued by these problems. And I also suggest their devs stop banning people & deleting comments on Twitch livestreams when they ask about performance problems or server issues. People are complaining more on multiple platforms about the same things. It's kinda funny now, the playerbase just fighting each other on the internet over supporting zos vs those insisting they aren't getting what they're paying for. The devs could just roll out the fixes stated in their little roadmap / infographic and at least less people would be complaining about the game they paid for & the service they are subbed to. I remember last year before I took a break people kept saying "oh just wait til 2020", so here we are, what is next?

2021.

VaranisArano

Yes, the 2019 upgrades happened.
No offense, but you should know this. Before the server upgrades, PC/EU needed login queues so players could play at all. They don't have login queues now except for obvious temporary fixes. So, yes, the upgrades happened.

Its even mentioned on the very thread you linked. Imagine that!
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531
And you can read comments by players about the upgrades after that.

Additionally, the recent upgrades to capacity already happened: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58045

"So far our servers have been holding up under the strain of so much activity, but as the massive number of you playing does not seem to be subsiding, we have recently added more server capacity to PC EU to ensure that it stays that way."


I don't like to white knight, but seriously, it bugs me when people look at old posts and then don't bother to do their homework about what the Devs have actually done. All you had to do was read the thread you linked.
(None of the above is to say that the server capacity/upgrades is sufficient to help current/past problems, merely that the OP failed to do their homework regarding the 2019 upgrades.)

TineaCruris

VaranisArano wrote: »

Yes, the 2019 upgrades happened.
No offense, but you should know this. Before the server upgrades, PC/EU needed login queues so players could play at all. They don't have login queues now except for obvious temporary fixes. So, yes, the upgrades happened.

Its even mentioned on the very thread you linked. Imagine that!
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531
And you can read comments by players about the upgrades after that.

Additionally, the recent upgrades to capacity already happened: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58045

"So far our servers have been holding up under the strain of so much activity, but as the massive number of you playing does not seem to be subsiding, we have recently added more server capacity to PC EU to ensure that it stays that way."


I don't like to white knight, but seriously, it bugs me when people look at old posts and then don't bother to do their homework about what the Devs have actually done. All you had to do was read the thread you linked.
(None of the above is to say that the server capacity/upgrades is sufficient to help current/past problems, merely that the OP failed to do their homework regarding the 2019 upgrades.)

I'm sorry, but I read through the entire thread that was linked to in the OP. Nowhere in that thread does it say the servers in NA were upgraded. As of yet, we have not heard from anyone with actual firsthand knowledge if the physical upgrades happened or not.....unless a dev is posting under a pseudonym. There has been no official announcement. Only the statement that "everything is holding up fine", when it so clearly is not.

And the second question remains totally unaddressed. When are the next physical hardware upgrades? ...as they are clearly needed at this time.

deleted221106-002999

I believe the game servers now use an AIM65.

VaranisArano

TineaCruris wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Yes, the 2019 upgrades happened.
No offense, but you should know this. Before the server upgrades, PC/EU needed login queues so players could play at all. They don't have login queues now except for obvious temporary fixes. So, yes, the upgrades happened.

Its even mentioned on the very thread you linked. Imagine that!
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531
And you can read comments by players about the upgrades after that.

Additionally, the recent upgrades to capacity already happened: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58045

"So far our servers have been holding up under the strain of so much activity, but as the massive number of you playing does not seem to be subsiding, we have recently added more server capacity to PC EU to ensure that it stays that way."


I don't like to white knight, but seriously, it bugs me when people look at old posts and then don't bother to do their homework about what the Devs have actually done. All you had to do was read the thread you linked.
(None of the above is to say that the server capacity/upgrades is sufficient to help current/past problems, merely that the OP failed to do their homework regarding the 2019 upgrades.)

I'm sorry, but I read through the entire thread that was linked to in the OP. Nowhere in that thread does it say the servers in NA were upgraded. As of yet, we have not heard from anyone with actual firsthand knowledge if the physical upgrades happened or not.....unless a dev is posting under a pseudonym. There has been no official announcement. Only the statement that "everything is holding up fine", when it so clearly is not.

I'm not sure you read the sources I linked.

The NA upgrades happened in 2019, unless you think that ZOS_MattFiror is lying on page 12 of that thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531

And again, unless you think Matt Firor is lying about the recent upgrades to PC/EU, I'd say the Greymoor launch date article is pretty darned official for an announcement.

So let's be crystal clear here.
You've got two official comments by Matt Firor explaining what's been done about the server capacity upgrades in the past. No pseudonyms - just Matt Firor making a dev post and an official announcement.

For yet another post bringing up the 2019 upgrades, you'll have to read a little ways into this AMA to find Matt Firor's comment on performance: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/477831/elsweyr-update-22-aua-on-eso-subreddit-today-from-1-30-3-00pm-edt#latest
The relevant portion: "First, server capacity. As we all know, we had server capacity issues a few months back, especially on the PC EU servers. We were forced to temporarily cap the number of concurrent users on PC EU and put up a queuing system to enforce it. We got the new capacity online for PC EU in a week, and added that same capacity for PC NA (which was very close to experiencing the same problems). We took the queuing system down, and we can now support the concurrency demand we are seeing."

Here's a post from Gina Bruno mentioning those 2019 EU upgrades and the impact they expected them to have (and not have): https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6108839#Comment_6108839


"But I want personal assurances from someone that has firsthand knowledge that the physical upgrades happened!"

Er, we're at the point where you are saying the Game Director of ESO is either mistaken or a liar about whether or not his game's server capacity upgrades actually took place.
I'm not sure what evidence would satisfy you, nor why ZOS should bother.

Mettaricana

This is the real question! or did that kinda get forum post yeeted and deleted every time someone asked about it?

Hexi

What they don't mention is that their "upgrades" are Chinese knock-offs, and actually made everything worse.

Moloch1514

VaranisArano wrote: »

TineaCruris wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Yes, the 2019 upgrades happened.
No offense, but you should know this. Before the server upgrades, PC/EU needed login queues so players could play at all. They don't have login queues now except for obvious temporary fixes. So, yes, the upgrades happened.

Its even mentioned on the very thread you linked. Imagine that!
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531
And you can read comments by players about the upgrades after that.

Additionally, the recent upgrades to capacity already happened: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58045

"So far our servers have been holding up under the strain of so much activity, but as the massive number of you playing does not seem to be subsiding, we have recently added more server capacity to PC EU to ensure that it stays that way."


I don't like to white knight, but seriously, it bugs me when people look at old posts and then don't bother to do their homework about what the Devs have actually done. All you had to do was read the thread you linked.
(None of the above is to say that the server capacity/upgrades is sufficient to help current/past problems, merely that the OP failed to do their homework regarding the 2019 upgrades.)

I'm sorry, but I read through the entire thread that was linked to in the OP. Nowhere in that thread does it say the servers in NA were upgraded. As of yet, we have not heard from anyone with actual firsthand knowledge if the physical upgrades happened or not.....unless a dev is posting under a pseudonym. There has been no official announcement. Only the statement that "everything is holding up fine", when it so clearly is not.

I'm not sure you read the sources I linked.

The NA upgrades happened in 2019, unless you think that ZOS_MattFiror is lying on page 12 of that thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531

And again, unless you think Matt Firor is lying about the recent upgrades to PC/EU, I'd say the Greymoor launch date article is pretty darned official for an announcement.

So let's be crystal clear here.
You've got two official comments by Matt Firor explaining what's been done about the server capacity upgrades in the past. No pseudonyms - just Matt Firor making a dev post and an official announcement.

For yet another post bringing up the 2019 upgrades, you'll have to read a little ways into this AMA to find Matt Firor's comment on performance: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/477831/elsweyr-update-22-aua-on-eso-subreddit-today-from-1-30-3-00pm-edt#latest
The relevant portion: "First, server capacity. As we all know, we had server capacity issues a few months back, especially on the PC EU servers. We were forced to temporarily cap the number of concurrent users on PC EU and put up a queuing system to enforce it. We got the new capacity online for PC EU in a week, and added that same capacity for PC NA (which was very close to experiencing the same problems). We took the queuing system down, and we can now support the concurrency demand we are seeing."

Here's a post from Gina Bruno mentioning those 2019 EU upgrades and the impact they expected them to have (and not have): https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6108839#Comment_6108839


"But I want personal assurances from someone that has firsthand knowledge that the physical upgrades happened!"

Er, we're at the point where you are saying the Game Director of ESO is either mistaken or a liar about whether or not his game's server capacity upgrades actually took place.
I'm not sure what evidence would satisfy you, nor why ZOS should bother.

Well Matt did say the team was killing it, though I guess he wasn't lying. We just didn't realize he meant it literally

redgreensunset

My guess is that while they may have done the bare minimum of upgrades necessary in 2019 they've done nothing since. Or if they did they severely underestimated what was going to be needed.
And we get to deal with an influx of Stadia players in a couple of weeks too, which will put even greater stress on servers that can't handle the load. I doubt they'll be upgrading this side of summer if at all and just pray the player population drops low enough that the current issues goes away.

Mettaricana

So far they killed the servers, the chapter launch, the playerbase, every forum post that calls them out the stuff they killed, only thing they havent killed yet is the crown store....

Firstmep

Honestly they likely invested into cheaper servers if anything, I'm sure they expected some of the client side changes to reduce server load and thought they could get away with it.

VaranisArano

redgreensunset wrote: »

My guess is that while they may have done the bare minimum of upgrades necessary in 2019, they've done nothing since. Or if they did they severely underestimated what was going to be needed.

More likely the latter, as they literally just upgraded PC/EU again.
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58045

So I suspect either the upgrades were insufficient or the problems aren't solely caused by, and thus can't be solely fixed by, adjusting server capacity.

TineaCruris

VaranisArano wrote: »

TineaCruris wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Yes, the 2019 upgrades happened.
No offense, but you should know this. Before the server upgrades, PC/EU needed login queues so players could play at all. They don't have login queues now except for obvious temporary fixes. So, yes, the upgrades happened.

Its even mentioned on the very thread you linked. Imagine that!
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531
And you can read comments by players about the upgrades after that.

Additionally, the recent upgrades to capacity already happened: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58045

"So far our servers have been holding up under the strain of so much activity, but as the massive number of you playing does not seem to be subsiding, we have recently added more server capacity to PC EU to ensure that it stays that way."


I don't like to white knight, but seriously, it bugs me when people look at old posts and then don't bother to do their homework about what the Devs have actually done. All you had to do was read the thread you linked.
(None of the above is to say that the server capacity/upgrades is sufficient to help current/past problems, merely that the OP failed to do their homework regarding the 2019 upgrades.)

I'm sorry, but I read through the entire thread that was linked to in the OP. Nowhere in that thread does it say the servers in NA were upgraded. As of yet, we have not heard from anyone with actual firsthand knowledge if the physical upgrades happened or not.....unless a dev is posting under a pseudonym. There has been no official announcement. Only the statement that "everything is holding up fine", when it so clearly is not.

I'm not sure you read the sources I linked.

The NA upgrades happened in 2019, unless you think that ZOS_MattFiror is lying on page 12 of that thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531

And again, unless you think Matt Firor is lying about the recent upgrades to PC/EU, I'd say the Greymoor launch date article is pretty darned official for an announcement.

So let's be crystal clear here.
You've got two official comments by Matt Firor explaining what's been done about the server capacity upgrades in the past. No pseudonyms - just Matt Firor making a dev post and an official announcement.

For yet another post bringing up the 2019 upgrades, you'll have to read a little ways into this AMA to find Matt Firor's comment on performance: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/477831/elsweyr-update-22-aua-on-eso-subreddit-today-from-1-30-3-00pm-edt#latest
The relevant portion: "First, server capacity. As we all know, we had server capacity issues a few months back, especially on the PC EU servers. We were forced to temporarily cap the number of concurrent users on PC EU and put up a queuing system to enforce it. We got the new capacity online for PC EU in a week, and added that same capacity for PC NA (which was very close to experiencing the same problems). We took the queuing system down, and we can now support the concurrency demand we are seeing."

Here's a post from Gina Bruno mentioning those 2019 EU upgrades and the impact they expected them to have (and not have): https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6108839#Comment_6108839


"But I want personal assurances from someone that has firsthand knowledge that the physical upgrades happened!"

Er, we're at the point where you are saying the Game Director of ESO is either mistaken or a liar about whether or not his game's server capacity upgrades actually took place.
I'm not sure what evidence would satisfy you, nor why ZOS should bother.

"But I want personal assurances from someone that has firsthand knowledge that the physical upgrades happened!"

_you said this, not me. And I'm not asking just for me. Every PvP player wants to know.

I'm sorry me asking for and expecting accountability is annoying you. However, if we go back and read the links you provided, we see that on two occasions the upgrades were promised. At no point did anyone say the upgrades took place. And again, we are talking about the NA server in this discussion, not the EU server. (the links you provide clearly state the EU upgrades happened)

TelvanniWizard

No surprise nobody from dev team ever answered this. Zo$ never gives any info. We still know nothing has changed, anyway.

Aloha

The real question is : is it worth it to play ESO ?

zergbase_ESO

They need to kill the mega-server and break them into their own servers with layering like WoW. It would maybe fix these issues and maybe they need ask other MMO's how they manage such. Thus far little to no improvements have been felt by the player base. As you can see with daily threads of performance issues.

Taleof2Cities

TineaCruris wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

TineaCruris wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Yes, the 2019 upgrades happened.
No offense, but you should know this. Before the server upgrades, PC/EU needed login queues so players could play at all. They don't have login queues now except for obvious temporary fixes. So, yes, the upgrades happened.

Its even mentioned on the very thread you linked. Imagine that!
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531
And you can read comments by players about the upgrades after that.

Additionally, the recent upgrades to capacity already happened: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58045

"So far our servers have been holding up under the strain of so much activity, but as the massive number of you playing does not seem to be subsiding, we have recently added more server capacity to PC EU to ensure that it stays that way."


I don't like to white knight, but seriously, it bugs me when people look at old posts and then don't bother to do their homework about what the Devs have actually done. All you had to do was read the thread you linked.
(None of the above is to say that the server capacity/upgrades is sufficient to help current/past problems, merely that the OP failed to do their homework regarding the 2019 upgrades.)

I'm sorry, but I read through the entire thread that was linked to in the OP. Nowhere in that thread does it say the servers in NA were upgraded. As of yet, we have not heard from anyone with actual firsthand knowledge if the physical upgrades happened or not.....unless a dev is posting under a pseudonym. There has been no official announcement. Only the statement that "everything is holding up fine", when it so clearly is not.

I'm not sure you read the sources I linked.

The NA upgrades happened in 2019, unless you think that ZOS_MattFiror is lying on page 12 of that thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531

And again, unless you think Matt Firor is lying about the recent upgrades to PC/EU, I'd say the Greymoor launch date article is pretty darned official for an announcement.

So let's be crystal clear here.
You've got two official comments by Matt Firor explaining what's been done about the server capacity upgrades in the past. No pseudonyms - just Matt Firor making a dev post and an official announcement.

For yet another post bringing up the 2019 upgrades, you'll have to read a little ways into this AMA to find Matt Firor's comment on performance: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/477831/elsweyr-update-22-aua-on-eso-subreddit-today-from-1-30-3-00pm-edt#latest
The relevant portion: "First, server capacity. As we all know, we had server capacity issues a few months back, especially on the PC EU servers. We were forced to temporarily cap the number of concurrent users on PC EU and put up a queuing system to enforce it. We got the new capacity online for PC EU in a week, and added that same capacity for PC NA (which was very close to experiencing the same problems). We took the queuing system down, and we can now support the concurrency demand we are seeing."

Here's a post from Gina Bruno mentioning those 2019 EU upgrades and the impact they expected them to have (and not have): https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6108839#Comment_6108839


"But I want personal assurances from someone that has firsthand knowledge that the physical upgrades happened!"

Er, we're at the point where you are saying the Game Director of ESO is either mistaken or a liar about whether or not his game's server capacity upgrades actually took place.
I'm not sure what evidence would satisfy you, nor why ZOS should bother.

"But I want personal assurances from someone that has firsthand knowledge that the physical upgrades happened!"

_you said this, not me. And I'm not asking just for me. Every PvP player wants to know.

I'm sorry me asking for and expecting accountability is annoying you. However, if we go back and read the links you provided, we see that on two occasions the upgrades were promised. At no point did anyone say the upgrades took place. And again, we are talking about the NA server in this discussion, not the EU server. (the links you provide clearly state the EU upgrades happened)

Really?

That's your defense after not reading the link??

Donny_Vito

What's that expression...

You can only lead a horse to water.

TineaCruris

Pardon? I'm not on the defense.

I, and many others, are still wanting to know if the hardware upgrades promised in 2019 for the NA server ever happened. A dev clearly stated the physical upgrades were needed to the server to fix lag and other issues, but then the signal went dead and we haven't heard anything about it since.

I'm wondering why merely bringing this issue up is a problem for some.

VaranisArano

TineaCruris wrote: »

Pardon? I'm not on the defense.

I, and many others, are still wanting to know if the hardware upgrades promised in 2019 for the NA server ever happened. A dev clearly stated the physical upgrades were needed to the server to fix lag and other issues, but then the signal went dead and we haven't heard anything about it since.

I'm wondering why merely bringing this issue up is a problem for some.

Look, if you think Matt Firor was lying or mistaken in 2019 when he clearly said they were upgrading the PC/NA servers a week after the PC/EU ones, I dunno what to tell you.

Why do you think the Game Director is lying or mistaken about 2019 PC/NA upgrades?


Source:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5982531#Comment_5982531
"Here's how it will work:
We will take PC EU offline tomorrow (Thursday, April 18) morning at 12pm CEST/6am EST for maintenance to configure the megaserver to recognize the additional hardware. Stay tuned for messaging from our Social and Community teams on how long the outage will be.
At some point next week we will do the same for PC NA - even though we haven't had to turn on queuing for PC NA, we want to make sure additional capacity is added there as well to keep up with the growing population on that megaserver."