PC EU Hardware Update – August 2022

Jazraena

Luede wrote: »

logan_ESO wrote: »

I work for a big microelectronic supplier, in Manufacturing Execution System.

Many factors contribute to the lack of electronics parts. Chip shortage it's real, and lot of factors are in play. No foundry is capable atm to fulfill requests. No supplier is able to satisfy the requests.

We have just completed the construction of a new fab for 300mm wafers.
TSMC is building new fabs. Intel is building new fabs and asking other suppliers for support.

Six, eight months, one year waiting list is normal.

this info would only be interesting if the game wasn't already unplayable for years (pvp) and also since years infos are given by ZOS, which point to the great improvements in longer periods. when the time has come without change, there is a new post with the next long term plan

So what do you propose? Magicking hardware into existance?

PrimusTiberius

I get it about the delivery timing and material. Its a problem across all industries, I've been waiting for 3 months for a cooling tower water separator, was originally supposed to be delivered 2 months ago, waited 5 months for a 30HP motor for a HVAC system, its upside down crazy

Jazraena

Quoted post has been removed.

Apologies, are you prescient then? Have you foreseen the various supply issues or the events causing them, and come up with a plan of action?

ZOS does enough wrong lately that we can blame them for. This isn't one of those cases.

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

Apologies, are you prescient then? Have you foreseen the various supply issues or the events causing them, and come up with a plan of action?

ZOS does enough wrong lately that we can blame them for. This isn't one of those cases.

A new online game is coming in November, it seems thay have better suppliers or maybe they just had better timing:
"Physical game servers with modular redundancy and cloud servers will be used in conjunction to support one another through spikes of high activity to limit wait times. There will be <snip> dedicated server sites in North and South America, Europe, Asia, South Africa, and Oceania."

JoHegl

Hey Matt, thank you for communicating with us and giving us an update!

jaws343

MrLasagna wrote: »

Apologies, are you prescient then? Have you foreseen the various supply issues or the events causing them, and come up with a plan of action?

ZOS does enough wrong lately that we can blame them for. This isn't one of those cases.

A new online game is coming in November, it seems thay have better suppliers or maybe they just had better timing:
"Physical game servers with modular redundancy and cloud servers will be used in conjunction to support one another through spikes of high activity to limit wait times. There will be <snip> dedicated server sites in North and South America, Europe, Asia, South Africa, and Oceania."

That game has been delayed for like 4 years now. It is very likely they already lined up all of their hardware well ahead of time by now.

Squeaky_Clean

Not coming back until new PC EU server hardware is installed. Said it before, say it now.

And by the way, it really feels like European customers are 2nd class customers.

Battle_Hymn

Another nail in the coffin of a once great game. Microsoft really needs to take a long hard look into how Zos is being run.

KMarble

logan_ESO wrote: »

Six, eight months, one year waiting list is normal.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but are waiting lists not honored in that industry? Or are industries buying hardware having to wait more time on top of what they've already waited?

I'm not going to argue the supply and demand chain, as it isn't my area of expertise, but we were informed about the servers update more than two years ago (April 2019 according to the search I just did).

I would think ZOS was already on a waiting list before announcing it to the players.

jaws343

KMarble wrote: »

logan_ESO wrote: »

Six, eight months, one year waiting list is normal.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but are waiting lists not honored in that industry? Or are industries buying hardware having to wait more time on top of what they've already waited?

I'm not going to argue the supply and demand chain, as it isn't my area of expertise, but we were informed about the servers update more than two years ago (April 2019 according to the search I just did).

I would think ZOS was already on a waiting list before announcing it to the players.

When shortages happen, waiting lists are absolutely re-shuffled to account for vital services. This game, definitely not a vital service.

Overamera

Tell them to hurry up the delivery

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

We have recently removed some unnecessary back and forth from this thread. This is a reminder to keep the discussion civil and constructive. Please keep our Community Rules in mind moving forward.

Thank you for your understanding.

Varana

Tra_Lalan wrote: »

Hello Matt, thank you for the information.
I'm sure it took some guts to step down here on forums and (in some way) confront players.

I mean, he doesn't really "confront players". He dropped a post and will never look at this thread again.

---

Jazraena wrote: »

Apologies, are you prescient then? Have you foreseen the various supply issues or the events causing them, and come up with a plan of action?

ZOS does enough wrong lately that we can blame them for. This isn't one of those cases.

One thing they maybe could have done, is ordering the EU replacements earlier... like, together with the NA ones. And not afterwards.

But yeah, if they started this only after the NA update, there's nothing they can do now.

Jazraena

Varana wrote: »

Tra_Lalan wrote: »

Hello Matt, thank you for the information.
I'm sure it took some guts to step down here on forums and (in some way) confront players.

I mean, he doesn't really "confront players". He dropped a post and will never look at this thread again.

---

Jazraena wrote: »

Apologies, are you prescient then? Have you foreseen the various supply issues or the events causing them, and come up with a plan of action?

ZOS does enough wrong lately that we can blame them for. This isn't one of those cases.

One thing they maybe could have done, is ordering the EU replacements earlier... like, together with the NA ones. And not afterwards.

But yeah, if they started this only after the NA update, there's nothing they can do now.

We've been over it, but ZOS saw fit to moderate.

Not to repeat too much, but these are end of life replacements, not action taken in response to problems, so you do them when you need to, not randomly a year earlier.

Northwold

Sorry but if *the production of cars* is being delayed by chip shortages to the point that production lines are having to be shut down / moved to having several days off per week, I'm struggling to see how people can't grasp that computer equipment might be, too.

TaSheen

Northwold wrote: »

Sorry but if *the production of cars* is being delayed by chip shortages to the point that production lines are having to be shut down / moved to having several days off per week, I'm struggling to see how people can't grasp that computer equipment might be, too.

True. We're trying to lease a Subaru Forester. There aren't any. Our only "quasi reliable vehicle" isn't . Reliable I mean. Yes it works fine in the winter - but summer.... nope. Too long a situation to go into, but where we live, "reliable" is more than important, it's critical (especially with husband and his health issues).

Not a good situation. I just hope my almost decade old machine doesn't die any time soon.

joerginger

This is far beyong ridiculous.

Zypheran

Reading through the comments, it's evident that many people here have no experience with the current global supply chain issues for electronic components. 1 year+ delays are completely normal right now. It sucks but it is totally outside of ZOS's control. For anyone that thinks you can suggest a solution, you can't, forget it. Some of the top tech manufacturing companies in the world have teams of senior supply chain people working on trying to come with solutions to expedite lead times at the moment, and guess what... they can't. I highly recommend anyone to just do a quick internet search on 'chip shortages', 'global supply chain impacts' or 'semi-conductor delays' and I think it will be quickly apparant that the traditional norms for buying and acquiring electronic components are gone out the window and won't be resolved for probably more than another year.
I see many people ask why they didn't order equipment for the EU project sooner. I'm sorry but that's just bad project management. You never buy this kind of equipment that far ahead for several reasons but the main three are 1) you want to be sure that the first project goes off well with the equipment you've procured and you don't need to change the spec on anything. 2) logistics - buying millions of bucks worth of equipment that is not needed straight away, brings the requirement of how to store it. Just some of the complexities on storing this kind of equipment are warranty, insurance, security and damage. 3) but the main one is just straight up money! ZOS probably paid 50-100% over budget acquiring the first lot of equipment. You have no idea how expensive electronic components and IT labor have become in the last two years. Every expert was saying this would be temporary and things would go back to normal in a few months. No project manager worth their salt over the last 2 years was recommending anything to their clients other than to hold off procuring large electronic budget items for a few months until things go back to normal in terms of costs. Nobody predicted that things would actually get worse.
The tldr summary here is simple. ZOS has to wait in line for electronic components like every other company in the world. This is outside of their control. If you think you have a simple solution to post here about getting around the global supply chain meltdown, unless you happen to have a business card with a title like Global VP in a company like Intel, chances are you're "solution" is not viable. Not saying that to be mean, it's just that some of the most experienced people in the world are trying get around these issues and expedite deliveries and they just can't.

Smaxx

Zypheran wrote: »

3) but the main one is just straight up money! ZOS probably paid 50-100% over budget acquiring the first lot of equipment. You have no idea how expensive electronic components and IT labor have become in the last two years.

Just to add a semi-consumer level example to this:

Just recently I wanted to get a new printer for my home office. How expensive could it get? You look up recommended retail prices, find a model that fits your specs and… it's supposed to cost 500 €. That's fine. However, due to shortages that very same model currently sells in limited stock and only at 1.500 € by two or three vendors. I would have the budget to purchase one, but this is just pure insane and nothing to justify from an economical standpoint, especially if the current printer isn't working perfectly, but still working.

And this would also only work due to me only needing one. What if there are 5 overpriced printers available, but I'd need 10? I bet they hit similar issues with server hardware. And keep in mind we're not talking about one server box or even one server rack, this is most likely multiple rooms of equipment we're talking about here.

EF321

Well, that is better than not knowing

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

[quote="Jazraena;c-7701625"
Not to repeat too much, but these are end of life replacements, not action taken in response to problems, so you do them when you need to, not randomly a year earlier.[/quote]

So you are saying that they are repleancing HW only because they can't fine spare parts anymore for it?
The fact that this old 2012 server has abysmal performance is not the deciding factor?
The fact they knew for years that the game lags because that old piece of equipment is not more capable of handling the game ?
So they waited and waited til the last piece of spare parts was available?

I don't agree with you, such a move would have been the move of very bad management.

Jazraena

MrLasagna wrote: »

Jazraena wrote: »

Not to repeat too much, but these are end of life replacements, not action taken in response to problems, so you do them when you need to, not randomly a year earlier.

So you are saying that they are repleancing HW only because they can't fine spare parts anymore for it?
The fact that this old 2012 server has abysmal performance is not the deciding factor?
The fact they knew for years that the game lags because that old piece of equipment is not more capable of handling the game ?
So they waited and waited til the last piece of spare parts was available?

I don't agree with you, such a move would have been the move of very bad management.

No, Zenimax has stated issues were not directly related to hardware. More than once. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

Jazraena wrote: »

No, Zenimax has stated issues were not directly related to hardware. More than once. [snip]

Cyrodiil the days before NA hardware replecemt = totally unplayable
Cyrodiil the days after NA hardware replecemt = a million time better

This is a proven fact.
i base my judgements on facts alone, not on what people says.

[edited to remove quote]

Jazraena

Is it better, or is it good? Is it steady, or does it buckle?Why precisely have things improved? And no, 'New Hardware' is not specific enough.

Don't bother, by the way. There's enough performance complaints still. At best it has been a partial, potentially temporary reprieve for NA.

KMarble

jaws343 wrote: »

KMarble wrote: »

logan_ESO wrote: »

Six, eight months, one year waiting list is normal.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but are waiting lists not honored in that industry? Or are industries buying hardware having to wait more time on top of what they've already waited?

I'm not going to argue the supply and demand chain, as it isn't my area of expertise, but we were informed about the servers update more than two years ago (April 2019 according to the search I just did).

I would think ZOS was already on a waiting list before announcing it to the players.

When shortages happen, waiting lists are absolutely re-shuffled to account for vital services. This game, definitely not a vital service.

Thank you.

blktauna

MrLasagna wrote: »

Jazraena wrote: »

Not to repeat too much, but these are end of life replacements, not action taken in response to problems, so you do them when you need to, not randomly a year earlier.

So you are saying that they are repleancing HW only because they can't fine spare parts anymore for it?
The fact that this old 2012 server has abysmal performance is not the deciding factor?
The fact they knew for years that the game lags because that old piece of equipment is not more capable of handling the game ?
So they waited and waited til the last piece of spare parts was available?

I don't agree with you, such a move would have been the move of very bad management.

Thank you exactly this.

Lady_Galadhiel

I feel so sorry for the PvP people.

rexagamemnon

So consoles wont be updated till 2024 probably

Rowjoh

This is a huge kick in the teeth for PC EU PvP, but thank you for updating us at least - much appreciated.

Your player base need a helluva lot more communication like this on a much more consistent basis, something that has been requested by your customers and promised by yourselves many times over the years, yet still doesn't happen nearly as often as it should.

Jazraena

Rowjoh wrote: »

This is a huge kick in the teeth for PC EU PvP, but thank you for updating us at least - much appreciated.

Your player base need a helluva lot more communication like this on a much more consistent basis, something that has been requested by your customers and promised by yourselves many times over the years, yet still doesn't happen nearly as often as it should.

Tragically, I have a modicum of understanding why they wouldn't want to, given the reactions in here. Still, you're right - they should.