PC EU Hardware Update – August 2022

ZOS_MattFiror

Now that we are well under way on our server hardware upgrade project, it's time for an update. Most of you reading this know that we successfully replaced the PC North American megaserver's hardware back in May, and we have been hard at work planning, ordering, and preparing for the PC European server upgrade.

The last time we gave you an update, I mentioned that timelines to order, prepare, and configure this amount of hardware would take many months, and unfortunately those timelines have only gotten longer. Even though we ordered the hardware for PC EU long ago, we still are waiting for some critical parts, some of which are foundational to the whole service.

To be completely transparent, it will take about ten more weeks before all the pieces are delivered. Then the process of building and testing begins, which takes weeks longer. Based on what we know today, we anticipate everything being updated, tested, and running the live version of the game around March 2023. We expect the hardware upgrade for the console servers to be sometime soon after that.

I know this probably isn't the news you all wanted to hear - we are in the same boat. We all want this process to be faster than it is possible to be. We will continue to do this absolutely as quickly as we can, as soon as we can.

We'll check in towards the end of the year with an update and a firmer date. Until then, thanks for the patience.

Pyvos

What are these critical parts that have a lead time of 2 1/2 months?

thejadefalcon

Can you at least answer why you gave NA the upgrade first, when EU has historically (and continues to have) the most problems and has the higher population (based on previous comments from ZOS)? To stay silent as you done so far just makes this seem incredibly Americentric, which is not exactly a great look.

L_Nici

Really impressive how it takes just 1 bad patch on NA to get them an full upgrade, but EU has to wait 10+ patches and now has to wait another 7 months. Really not sure if you even care about EU anymore.

Katheriah

Yikes

MyNameIsElias

Thank you for keeping us updated!

FluffWit

What's the estimate for PS4 and Xbox?

@ZOS_MattFiror

ginoboehm

With the lack of communication this year, the unwanted updates and changes, the completely unacceptable performance of this game in cyrodil, the lack of features in pvp, the disregard of the endgame community and the years of "it is not the server guys" it feels like they just want to get rid of the mmo crowd and exchange them for new players who play the game mostly for the casual story solo experience

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

We'll see, hm.

ginoboehm

@ZOS_MattFiror can you at least throw us a lifeline? like a possibility to copy chars to na? like you did with the console accounts when the game came out on console?

Jazraena

Thank you for the update. Shame it'll be March still, but communication and an estimate is appreciated.

TaSheen

NA database isn't empty. They copied pc accounts into empty console databases.

Flangdoodle

Pyvos wrote: »

What are these critical parts that have a lead time of 2 1/2 months?

Sprockets for the Hamster wheels.

Iron_Warrior

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

we are in the same boat.

Doubt

Greeed2025

No1 really cares at this moment. You have way to many other problems

Tornaad

Apparently (because of the chip shortage) in some sectors it takes more than a year to get the needed parts
https://www.jabil.com/blog/global-chip-shortages.html

Rhaegar75

thanks for the update even if the estimated date is extremely disappointing.......can you not ask your friends at Microsoft to give you a hand?

Jazraena

Zuboko wrote: »

Apparently (because of the chip shortage) in some sectors it takes more than a year to get the needed parts
https://www.jabil.com/blog/global-chip-shortages.html

This.

Suffice to say it's an issue in sectors far more critical to society than game servers.

philips666_18b16_ESO

Thank you for the update

Tornaad

Jazraena wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

Apparently (because of the chip shortage) in some sectors it takes more than a year to get the needed parts
https://www.jabil.com/blog/global-chip-shortages.html

This.

Suffice to say it's an issue in sectors far more critical to society than game servers.

Which is why I am willing to give Zos a lot of leeway on this. Because in this case, there is no easy answer and really no good answer (at least not that can be resolved in a reasonable timeframe.

FrancisCrawford

Quoted post has been removed.

Wrong. The specific set-up has to be tested, for at least two reasons:

• Problems with the specific pieces of equipment.
• Errors in set-up.

If you want to be suspicious of how long it is taking to get equipment delivered, go for it. Perhaps if they'd been less thrifty or more imaginative, they could have had something at least as good sooner. It's hard for us to really know, so feel free to take a cynical guess.

But a few extra weeks or even months for testing makes total sense. Don't focus criticism there.

MCBIZZLE300

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

Now that we are well under way on our server hardware upgrade project, it's time for an update. Most of you reading this know that we successfully replaced the PC North American megaserver's hardware back in May, and we have been hard at work planning, ordering, and preparing for the PC European server upgrade.

The last time we gave you an update, I mentioned that timelines to order, prepare, and configure this amount of hardware would take many months, and unfortunately those timelines have only gotten longer. Even though we ordered the hardware for PC EU long ago, we still are waiting for some critical parts, some of which are foundational to the whole service.

To be completely transparent, it will take about ten more weeks before all the pieces are delivered. Then the process of building and testing begins, which takes weeks longer. Based on what we know today, we anticipate everything being updated, tested, and running the live version of the game around March 2023. We expect the hardware upgrade for the console servers to be sometime soon after that.

I know this probably isn't the news you all wanted to hear - we are in the same boat. We all want this process to be faster than it is possible to be. We will continue to do this absolutely as quickly as we can, as soon as we can.

We'll check in towards the end of the year with an update and a firmer date. Until then, thanks for the patience.

It's always been this way with positive change and zenimax, they view 3 or 6 months as an acceptable amount of time for their customers to wait in order to make the product they are selling us work, I'm not surprised though.

Tommy_The_Gun

When NA servers were upgraded, as far as I can tell, we were all informed (and it was a huge surprise for everyone) that previous NA servers were from 2012.

So what year are the current EU servers from ?

Katheriah

MCBIZZLE300 wrote: »

It's always been this way with positive change and zenimax, they view 3 or 6 months as an acceptable amount of time for their customers to wait in order to make the product they are selling us work, I'm not surprised though.

Don't forget that PC NA had been upgraded a while ago, and PC EU is as always the one that has to have patience.

My group is logging off at this moment because of performance. Good job guys. If you wait long enough, people will be so done with this that the performance issues solves itself because nobody is playing anymore.

Faulgor

Thanks for the update, Matt.

martinhpb16_ESO

Thanks for the update, big projects often take longer than anticipated esp where sourcing from various sources and world events take a roll. Out of ZOS' control.

However PVP EU will be dead by March 23. Can many of us bother to login in and play with the current 35 debacle combined with lag for another 7 months? Probably not. Yet this is within ZOS' control to head off

Jazraena

Quoted post has been removed.

Given, once again, sectors far more critical than game servers suffer from continued issues in that regard I see no reason to consider this an excuse, and find it more likely you are not looking at the same type and/or scale of components they are.

jaws343

Quoted post has been removed.

This is just false.

As someone who works in a sector impacted by the shortages, we literally have to bake in a 6 month setup wait to onboard clients to ensure that we have time to acquire the appropriate hardware.

Four_Fingers

Fantastic! Will be playing PS6 on new servers.

martinhpb16_ESO

This is a snapshot of ten minutes of responses in my PVP guild Discord. A guild that has stuck by you ZOS - please take note.

What a joke, another 7 months
Absolutely ridiculous
game will be dead by then
this patch was first nail for many ppl, 7 months server rewrite may be final
They’re apparently doing those bg weekends ain’t they, see what that brings I guess
Ok I’m done
It’s an absolute joke
What a hoax , this is beyond scamming the playerbase
Why they gave their Americans upgrade first when EU has not only more problems but also twice the players
It’s beyond repair now
The Eso ship is sinking drastically and ZOS is like that’s fine
anyone played much FF14 mmo?
Yeah is it even worth playing at this point , I mean they had so much time but they are literally postponing
its never good, there is literally always lag and delay and its beyond a joke now, the fact that they expect players to play this xxxx for another 7 months is a xxxxxxx joke
Anywhere else we can play pvp as a team?
I’m playing it on a minimum anyway, no point it’s under popped and the current patch feels stale as hell
.
And so it continues........

The ball is in your court ZOS, damage limitation time.

olsborg

That was about 6 months later then I hoped and expected