Recent Queue Times & Login Issues

ZOS_GinaBruno

JoeCapricorn wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We recognize that we totally dropped the ball on communicating any of this to you all, and for this, we apologize. We are already discussing ways to improve internal communications in the future to help mitigate this from recurring.

I think the main issue with this incident is that in the past when something of such magnitude was occurring, there would be a red-banded banner saying that you were aware of it - potentially with a thread containing further updates or information.

You're right - we do normally post a forum banner and a tweet from the Bethesda Support Twitter (X?) account so everyone is at least aware that we're looking into things, and this didn't occur this time. This is part of what we have been discussing internally to understand what happened and how it can be prevented again in the future.

shalalaA7X

@ZOS_GinaBruno you mentioned both pc servers but was this the cause to console que issues too?

Lumenn

shalalaA7X wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno you mentioned both pc servers but was this the cause to console que issues too?

@ZOS_GinaBruno that's something a lot of us would like to know, as consoles were affected too. Is there one central hub for log ins?

Darethran

The community management are always on a short leash with corporations, so they probably can't talk about the actual infrastructure stuff. What I'd like to know is why the queue server hadn't been restarted. Software fail? IT person got fired? Overbearing management causing apathy in the employees?

Carcamongus

There was a red banner up on friday, first stating the devs knew about the problem and were looking into it and then informing us the issue had been resolved. The problem is that, after a while, the banner was removed and people still had trouble logging. That means there indeed was some communication, but it provided scant relief, as it was followed by silence throughout the weekend as players had to toil trying to get into the game (they should get Zenithar boxes for this, he's the god of toils, right?).

I understand it's intimidating to communicate with countless furious players/customers, but they would've been far less furious had their troubles been more thoroughly acknowledged. Communication isn't the only thing in need of improvement, though. Would the absurd queues have happened if the weekend hadn't accumulated an in-game event with free ESO+ and that Epic giveaway? Just think that many new players' first experience in this game was being unable to play it.

blktauna

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

You're right - we do normally post a forum banner and a tweet from the Bethesda Support Twitter (X?) account so everyone is at least aware that we're looking into things, and this didn't occur this time. This is part of what we have been discussing internally to understand what happened and how it can be prevented again in the future.

Elon's folly is no longer being used by a large number of people so it's becoming less effective as a means of communicating anything. If things go south and someone new or non forum person would be googling where to find out info. You'd be better served by reddit and by actually posting here.

Despite that I'd like to thank the folks who manages the rightful outrage here as best they could during the mess and did it without overreacting.

Scaletho

Wow... finally some apologies.

Destai

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We’d like to discuss the issues many of you experienced on the PC NA and EU megaservers over the weekend, including the exceptionally long queue times and Error 103 messages.

While many were in the game and playing, a significant number were essentially "stuck" in queue with far higher queue times than expected. After a few hours of investigation, we identified the problem which boiled down to a backend system being in a bad state and needed to be restarted. However, due to there being so many players in queue when it was restarted, it took a long time to get everyone through the queue and into the game.

We recognize that we totally dropped the ball on communicating any of this to you all, and for this, we apologize. We are already discussing ways to improve internal communications in the future to help mitigate this from recurring.

That being said, with so many new players in the game right now, some brief queue times may be expected. However, if you are continuing to run into any errors since Sunday when trying to log into the game (such as Error 103), please submit a Support ticket so we can help you troubleshoot. In your ticket, be sure to include the following information:

• Which server you are trying to log into
• What region (country) you are logging in from
• Your internet service provider
• Which error message you are getting, if any
• The date and time you began experiencing the issue or error

Again, apologies for not keeping everyone updated and thanks as always for your continued support and understanding.

@ZOS_GinaBruno I appreciate that you apologized, but there's a larger problem with how the community's managed. It feels like the strategy is "we'll just apologize" and move on. There's a pretty long track record of "we'll do better" and I'm not sure I see that progress consistently demonstrated. I get that there's some internal discussions resulting from this event, but the whole problem is that there's no circling back on where those discussions land. It just perpetuates the already dimmed view many have of the community management.

I remember the whole "what's communication" tweet from a while back and it just seems like that question's still being pondered. There was a major event coupled with massive free trials. This was a lot of people's first experience with the game this weekend. It's baffling no one was on-call to handle the uptick in posts/issues here. Really, at the end of the day, if you know there's a crisis like log in queues, IMO your first action should be coming to the forums and quelling the flames. Instead we got moderation and apologies, not really sure how either helps.

wilykcat

Take all things in moderation; especially when posting stuff on the forums, or there will be penalties if rules end up getting broken.

RaddlemanNumber7

Lets see if next weekend goes any better.

In regards to the app formerly known as Twitter, I never joined. I used to be able to see ESO's posts though. Now I cannot see anything, except a demand that I join X.

rpa

I don't have Twitter / Xitter (or facebook or whatever) account and never will. I have occasionally googled for "eso twitter" in past when game has been in fire and even now found last tweets among useless. However it's likely because I happen to use Waterfox (with ublock origin and noscript etc.) with Google US as search engine.
Just tried it with MS Edge - which I only ever use to access *** sites intentionally incompatible with safe browsers - and found no useful results.

Jammy420

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We’d like to discuss the issues many of you experienced on the PC NA and EU megaservers over the weekend, including the exceptionally long queue times and Error 103 messages.

While many were in the game and playing, a significant number were essentially "stuck" in queue with far higher queue times than expected. After a few hours of investigation, we identified the problem which boiled down to a backend system being in a bad state and needed to be restarted. However, due to there being so many players in queue when it was restarted, it took a long time to get everyone through the queue and into the game.

We recognize that we totally dropped the ball on communicating any of this to you all, and for this, we apologize. We are already discussing ways to improve internal communications in the future to help mitigate this from recurring.

That being said, with so many new players in the game right now, some brief queue times may be expected. However, if you are continuing to run into any errors since Sunday when trying to log into the game (such as Error 103), please submit a Support ticket so we can help you troubleshoot. In your ticket, be sure to include the following information:

• Which server you are trying to log into
• What region (country) you are logging in from
• Your internet service provider
• Which error message you are getting, if any
• The date and time you began experiencing the issue or error

Again, apologies for not keeping everyone updated and thanks as always for your continued support and understanding.

There should have been extra server resources opened up for something like this weekend. You cannot reasonably expect the current server strength to suffice when a completely new platform was opened up, and the game was free.

These types of blunders should never happen.

Queue times for a game where you pay to play, is unacceptable across the board, nad the fact that there is no compensation is pretty messed up and disrespectful to say the last.

TaSheen

I just do not do social media, never have, never going to. It's all a dumpster fire of magnitudes beyond belief.

Jammy420

Erissime wrote: »

KappaKid83 wrote: »

There is not a single person who has played this game for any period of time that expects anything other than zero communication from the Dev team and community managers. Then you get a long post about how they need to be better and inevitably nothing ever changes but forum apologists say "OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU'RE THE BEST GINA!"

Here is a better idea for all of you. Report the company to the BBB, get refunds for product that you have bought but haven't even come close to being delivered on to it's potential, uninstall and then play a different game.

The point is not about what has been, but about what is to come. The mere fact that opening is being attempted, even on small matters such as this ( which granted could have gone ignored - after all, we got good login times since yesterday, who cares yes?). Facing positive facts with negativity will never bring anything good. Better aknowledge the good to get more of it rather than underlying the bad - which invariably will lead to more of that. Set yourself in their shoes for a bit - you have a history of bad communication, you decide to work on that, and suddenly open up to your friends about some small matter - only to be met with rants and negativity. Will you go on?[snip] Really give these people some credit! They are really trying! [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Ive been around for ten years, no amount of empty promises will make me blind to their inability to communicate and process criticism.

The PTS, and these types of situations have been going on for years now. I have 0 faith they will get it together. My excitement for leveling my arcanist, and getting her into cyro has been completely crushed by the missteps they have done since Necrom release, and shortly before.

Ingenon

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

In regards to the app formerly known as Twitter, I never joined. I used to be able to see ESO's posts though. Now I cannot see anything, except a demand that I join X.

rpa wrote: »

I don't have Twitter / Xitter (or facebook or whatever) account and never will. I have occasionally googled for "eso twitter" in past when game has been in fire and even now found last tweets among useless. However it's likely because I happen to use Waterfox (with ublock origin and noscript etc.) with Google US as search engine.
Just tried it with MS Edge - which I only ever use to access *** sites intentionally incompatible with safe browsers - and found no useful results.

Often ZOS will post on their Discord channel named Elder Scrolls Online, the server-status and bethesdasupport-twitter-posts show when the servers are down or acting up. However, last weekend these communication channels were silent.

I have found Discord useful because on PS/NA guilds tend to use it for trial groups signup, etc. Discord is free to join, you can use either from the app or from a browser. YMMV.

wilykcat

Discord I find is a very annoying mass group texting software that has no structure, toxic, and is very disorganized. I don't do social media for any reason.

I rather see the forums be used more for communication between Zenimax and the community since not everyone likes and uses social media.

Also it was the weekend and not everyone works on Saturday and or Sunday. Also it's summer so someone could of been on vacation. Zenimax has multiple offices across the United States and Europe with many departments. That can make it a bit more difficult to recieve internal communications or someone could of forgot.

In their note they admitted the mistake that happened and they are striving to improve to do better and undo the mistake. It's a learning process (that can sometimes take longer or shorter duration depending on the situation).

Sometimes hardware makes a goof or malfunctions. It can be unexpected. It's common for that to happen with all tech companies. There is always someone there to investigate, fix, and resolve the problem.

I don't entirely blame Zenimax for this.

rpa

I just tried to access eso discord with my browser and got stuck in "Unable to accept invite". (I tried also access New World official discord with same result so its likely my end issue. Too bad.) I do have Discord application installed but I use it only when required for guild things and anyway looks like finding a working invite is beyond 10s of my google-fu.
Edit: If there is a mention of Discord under "Join our community" at ESO homepage, I can't see it. I dont use Facebook, Xitter, Tumbr, Instagram or Twitch. (And Youtube only to watch some funny things. I think I have never even commented on anything during 18 years.)

ZOS_GinaBruno

shalalaA7X wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno you mentioned both pc servers but was this the cause to console que issues too?

Just double checked and yes, this was also the cause of the long queues on console servers over the weekend.

nightstrike

Will the event be extended for the days lost and being unable to login? I missed out on the first few days of tickets because of these issues.

shalalaA7X

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

shalalaA7X wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno you mentioned both pc servers but was this the cause to console que issues too?

Just double checked and yes, this was also the cause of the long queues on console servers over the weekend.

Thank you for the response @ZOS_GinaBruno

ProudMary

blktauna wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

You're right - we do normally post a forum banner and a tweet from the Bethesda Support Twitter (X?) account so everyone is at least aware that we're looking into things, and this didn't occur this time. This is part of what we have been discussing internally to understand what happened and how it can be prevented again in the future.

Elon's folly is no longer being used by a large number of people so it's becoming less effective as a means of communicating anything. If things go south and someone new or non forum person would be googling where to find out info. You'd be better served by reddit and by actually posting here.

Despite that I'd like to thank the folks who manages the rightful outrage here as best they could during the mess and did it without overreacting.

They should keep all customer communication to these forums first. Some of us refuse to participate in anti-social media for any reason, ever.

wilykcat

Forums first and then social media right after.

Arunei

@ZOS_GinaBruno
Is there a reason the official forums aren't used for communicating things to the playerbase more often? It's been brought up in the past that updates and such commonly get posted to places other than the forums. While it's true not everyone uses these forums, it's as equally true that not everyone uses Twitter or other social media sites. Anything regarding updates or important information REALLY needs to get posted here as well as on other platforms.

That being said, this is not at all directed at you, because you can only tell us what you can tell us. But we keep getting the same communication line over and over. What about the Crate gifting debacle going on? There's been radio silence on that for WAY too long, and yet the powers that be want us to believe they're working on communication?

They can only have you guys (community managers) repeat that line to us so many times. You know how when you say a word a bunch of times it starts to lose meaning? Yeah.

This shouldn't have happened. More server allocation should have been provided or something. Given the influx of new players from Epic on top of an ESO+ week AND a popular event, it should have been obvious the servers would have needed a boost of some kind. Or maybe the timing of these events should have been spread out more, to prevent the crush that made a bad situation even worse.

KappaKid83

Lebkuchen wrote: »

KappaKid83 wrote: »

There is not a single person who has played this game for any period of time that expects anything other than zero communication from the Dev team and community managers. Then you get a long post about how they need to be better and inevitably nothing ever changes but forum apologists say "OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU'RE THE BEST GINA!"

Here is a better idea for all of you. Report the company to the BBB, get refunds for product that you have bought but haven't even come close to being delivered on to it's potential, uninstall and then play a different game.

@KappaKid83 In heavily moderated forums (where posts like yours are normally removed very fast) you will notice a spike in irony, sarcasm and other forms of criticism that are not so easily detected by artificial intelligence, moderators and unfortunately a lot of other forum members.

I bet if you read the "positive" posts again, you will find hidden messages in almost all of them.

The problem with your idea of just uninstalling and playing a different game (like a normal person would do), is that all of us here in this forum fell in love with ESO and see its potential. Love is blind, and we still hope for improvements that will probably never happen.

@Lebkuchen I have thousands of hours in game (more than I want to even admit at this point) from just after Beta until 2019 when I gave up believing that anything would change. I PvP raided 3-4 hours a night 5-7 days a week for a good amount of time with lots of groups, mainly DC. I gave up because I saw how my love for the game had turned into me just being mad at all times about the *** poor performance and the lack of communication. I know where the potential in the game is, I was around went VR12/VR14/VR16 were things before champion point levels, I just haven't seen any improvement based on the comments made on this forum while checking in periodically.

KappaKid83

Erissime wrote: »

KappaKid83 wrote: »

There is not a single person who has played this game for any period of time that expects anything other than zero communication from the Dev team and community managers. Then you get a long post about how they need to be better and inevitably nothing ever changes but forum apologists say "OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU'RE THE BEST GINA!"

Here is a better idea for all of you. Report the company to the BBB, get refunds for product that you have bought but haven't even come close to being delivered on to it's potential, uninstall and then play a different game.

The point is not about what has been, but about what is to come. The mere fact that opening is being attempted, even on small matters such as this ( which granted could have gone ignored - after all, we got good login times since yesterday, who cares yes?). Facing positive facts with negativity will never bring anything good. Better aknowledge the good to get more of it rather than underlying the bad - which invariably will lead to more of that. Set yourself in their shoes for a bit - you have a history of bad communication, you decide to work on that, and suddenly open up to your friends about some small matter - only to be met with rants and negativity. Will you go on?[snip] Really give these people some credit! They are really trying! [snip]

[edited for baiting]

@Erissime I am not sure how long you have been playing the game but the same message has been delivered at some capacity since 2018. The road maps that started with U19(not sure exactly when those started, I would have to go back and look) have never been delivered on in a timely fashion. The countless times the community was told it wasn't server issues but when the servers were upgraded things got better. You can acknowledge that they are trying, still, since 2018 to be better, but within the same breath you can acknowledge that the more things "change" the more they stay the same.

And as for the history of bad communication, you can go back and look at some of the interviews and post CMs have done and made over the years stating they have limits to what they can do because of directives from higher ups.

I know you were trying to bait me at the end there but a mod already had snipped your post by the time I came back so I couldn't see what was said, nor does it really matter.

RMW

wilykcat wrote: »

Forums first and then social media right after.

This!
At the ESO tavern we spoke with Gina at her roundtable - and at the end she asked us where we all go for infos regading the game. Almost everyone said the forums would be the best place to look for game related information.
On Twitter (not calling it X) the ESO account is also sending people here:

So best way communication wise would be to talk to us here.

wilykcat

I don't use social media. The best way for me to get information is the forums.

ZOS_GinaBruno

nightstrike wrote: »

Will the event be extended for the days lost and being unable to login? I missed out on the first few days of tickets because of these issues.

Yes, we actually just announced today that we are extending the Zeal of Zenithar in-game event by one day, changing the end date from August 8 at 10:00 AM ET to August 9 at 10:00 AM ET.

Kisakee

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

nightstrike wrote: »

Will the event be extended for the days lost and being unable to login? I missed out on the first few days of tickets because of these issues.

Yes, we actually just announced today that we are extending the Zeal of Zenithar in-game event by one day, changing the end date from August 8 at 10:00 AM ET to August 9 at 10:00 AM ET.

So why don't we get information like this in here, the official forums? Why is this always neglected? I don't care for any Social Media postings ever, give us the information where they belong to. Would be a good start for your "improved communication".
/s

[Snip]

[Edited for trolling]

wilykcat

Kisakee wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

nightstrike wrote: »

Will the event be extended for the days lost and being unable to login? I missed out on the first few days of tickets because of these issues.

Yes, we actually just announced today that we are extending the Zeal of Zenithar in-game event by one day, changing the end date from August 8 at 10:00 AM ET to August 9 at 10:00 AM ET.

So why don't we get information like this in here, the official forums? Why is this always neglected? I don't care for any Social Media postings ever, give us the information where they belong to. Would be a good start for your "improved communication".
/s

[Snip]

I agree with this. The forums here deserve better and the official announcements too.

[Edited quote]