ZOS, Massive Spike in Ping/LAG in Recent Days - What Gives?

SkaiFaith · September 29

Wonderful, today not even endeavors: game keeps insta-booting. Lost 1 hour of a Sunday morning just trying to enter the game. What's the point in even trying... Blame's on me I guess for not stopping before.

LadyGP · September 29

Can we start crowd sourcing a list of individuals in leadership positions between ZoS and MS that have ESO under their umbrella? I spent a decent amount of time on ZoS website last night and the info there is outdated and doesn't have any emails.

It's time this thread, mainly the last 10 pages or so, gets elevated outside of the tight inner circle that is ZoS.

TaintedKurse · September 29

HMs are like banging my head against a wall right now. Please fix this. My weekly trials are pain and suffering. Rubber banding for everyone and D/Cs always for at least 1-2 members of my group. Please. So many people are leaving, frustrated, and angry. This is a priority. The update should have been reverted the moment this was noticed as an issue.

It's game breaking. Please by the nines will you source and fix this issue!

LadyGP · September 29

TaintedKurse wrote: »

HMs are like banging my head against a wall right now. Please fix this. My weekly trials are pain and suffering. Rubber banding for everyone and D/Cs always for at least 1-2 members of my group. Please. So many people are leaving, frustrated, and angry. This is a priority. The update should have been reverted the moment this was noticed as an issue.

It's game breaking. Please by the nines will source and fix this issue!

This issue has been going on since May - FWIW.

TaintedKurse · September 29

LadyGP wrote: »

TaintedKurse wrote: »

HMs are like banging my head against a wall right now. Please fix this. My weekly trials are pain and suffering. Rubber banding for everyone and D/Cs always for at least 1-2 members of my group. Please. So many people are leaving, frustrated, and angry. This is a priority. The update should have been reverted the moment this was noticed as an issue.

It's game breaking. Please by the nines will source and fix this issue!

This issue has been going on since May - FWIW.

Trust me I know. But, point still stands. The moment it was noticed they should have reverted what ever changes they made.

LadyGP · September 29

TaintedKurse wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

TaintedKurse wrote: »

HMs are like banging my head against a wall right now. Please fix this. My weekly trials are pain and suffering. Rubber banding for everyone and D/Cs always for at least 1-2 members of my group. Please. So many people are leaving, frustrated, and angry. This is a priority. The update should have been reverted the moment this was noticed as an issue.

It's game breaking. Please by the nines will source and fix this issue!

This issue has been going on since May - FWIW.

Trust me I know. But, point still stands. The moment it was noticed they should have reverted what ever changes they made.

Agreed.

LPapirius · September 29

LadyGP wrote: »

TaintedKurse wrote: »

HMs are like banging my head against a wall right now. Please fix this. My weekly trials are pain and suffering. Rubber banding for everyone and D/Cs always for at least 1-2 members of my group. Please. So many people are leaving, frustrated, and angry. This is a priority. The update should have been reverted the moment this was noticed as an issue.

It's game breaking. Please by the nines will source and fix this issue!

This issue has been going on since May - FWIW.

The issue started in Cyrodiil 5 to 6 years ago. It's just that it's now spread to PvE portions of the game now too.

Jaraal · September 29

TaintedKurse wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

TaintedKurse wrote: »

HMs are like banging my head against a wall right now. Please fix this. My weekly trials are pain and suffering. Rubber banding for everyone and D/Cs always for at least 1-2 members of my group. Please. So many people are leaving, frustrated, and angry. This is a priority. The update should have been reverted the moment this was noticed as an issue.

It's game breaking. Please by the nines will source and fix this issue!

This issue has been going on since May - FWIW.

Trust me I know. But, point still stands. The moment it was noticed they should have reverted what ever changes they made.

They told us once that most changes that are pushed to Live can't be reverted without another planned future change. There's no rollback option, and even that has to be coded from scratch.

The more they alter the code, the more opportunity for dysfunction is introduced. It's like 100 painters each given one brush stroke on a painting. The more hands that touch it, the worse it's going to look.

LadyGP · September 29

Jaraal wrote: »

TaintedKurse wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

TaintedKurse wrote: »

HMs are like banging my head against a wall right now. Please fix this. My weekly trials are pain and suffering. Rubber banding for everyone and D/Cs always for at least 1-2 members of my group. Please. So many people are leaving, frustrated, and angry. This is a priority. The update should have been reverted the moment this was noticed as an issue.

It's game breaking. Please by the nines will source and fix this issue!

This issue has been going on since May - FWIW.

Trust me I know. But, point still stands. The moment it was noticed they should have reverted what ever changes they made.

They told us once that most changes that are pushed to Live can't be reverted without another planned future change. There's no rollback option, and even that has to be coded from scratch.

Imagine if 5 years ago when the entry level dev spoke up and said hey all this engine is really blocking us - if leadership would have listened then.

One can dream, right?

Coo_PnT · September 29

Management and developers (at the end of the line) have very different meanings.
If management says yes, then yes. You should clearly state whether you are done with this game and are investing in the next project.

thinkaboutit · September 29

LadyGP wrote: »

Can we start crowd sourcing a list of individuals in leadership positions between ZoS and MS that have ESO under their umbrella? I spent a decent amount of time on ZoS website last night and the info there is outdated and doesn't have any emails.

It's time this thread, mainly the last 10 pages or so, gets elevated outside of the tight inner circle that is ZoS.

Shrug, maybe we should write Phil Spencer

LadyGP · September 29

thinkaboutit wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Can we start crowd sourcing a list of individuals in leadership positions between ZoS and MS that have ESO under their umbrella? I spent a decent amount of time on ZoS website last night and the info there is outdated and doesn't have any emails.

It's time this thread, mainly the last 10 pages or so, gets elevated outside of the tight inner circle that is ZoS.

Shrug, maybe we should write Phil Spencer

What is funny is I actually reached out to him a few times on social media regarding this.

Jaraal · September 29

Was meatbagging a ball group today, got the 5 second screen freeze, then the rubberband snap, then 2 seconds later "An error occurred..." kick to loading screen. I quit using lancers and coldfire, as they are more expensive timewise to lose. And that's my #1 Cyro kick trigger: hitting ball groups stacking and spamming skills and procs, with siege.

Business as usual.

kyle.wilson · September 29

Whenever people run trace on their lag, it always seems that Akamai is a leading cause. I don't think I would have ever needed to hear about that company if it weren't for lag in this game.

twev · September 29

LadyGP wrote: »

Can we start crowd sourcing a list of individuals in leadership positions between ZoS and MS that have ESO under their umbrella? I spent a decent amount of time on ZoS website last night and the info there is outdated and doesn't have any emails.

It's time this thread, mainly the last 10 pages or so, gets elevated outside of the tight inner circle that is ZoS.

Just some points to consider, and take into account, regarding the communications situation we all find ourselves in:

There's a reason the info is outdated/missing.
Some people have moved on or been reassigned.
Other's don't want the distractions, or the pretense of responsibility, that's why they have the autobots handling the tickets. And I presume that since they get so many redundant reports from so many players all reporting the same stuff - that an autobot database is the default place to handle the stats.

Long gone are the days of help lines and personal tech support in games (specifically, to our situation here).

To everyone asking for updates on steps taken, which ones failed, which ones worked, and a roadmap of future efforts besides just general statements of 'we're working on it', as well as reports of DDoS attacks - well, that info is general proprietary info that could lead nefarious types of players to gaining actual/factual company reported and 'documented' data on what exploits to put effort into, as well as some people who would use the info to disparage the efforts of the devs who are working on the issues.

Those types of specific details are things that generally fall under the heading of 'airing dirty laundry in public' that reviewers and even other companies could/would use to stir up a fair amount of mean-mouthing that any company would prefer not to have directed at themselves.

If everyone in contact with the game was actually a certified honest player with nothing but good intent, we'd be able to see a lot more behind the curtain, but it's clearly obvious that there are a lot of hackers, DDoS types and malcontents who could and would exploit any data that ZOS put out there for us to see, and no company wants to be in that position of feeding the badguys efforts.

Kevin is in the tough spot of not being in the position where he's not only not being told all of the magic going on in the dev meetings, but also not being authorized to pass on some information he may be privy to.

A lot of the people on the forums already know these things, some of us don't, and knowing the reasons we aren't being told every scrap of breaking news doesn't make it any easier to just wait it out. But the game engine is going on 14 years old, metric tonnes of stuff has been shoehorned into the game that were never envisioned into places that were never planned for, on a scope that wasn't possible at the time the tree in Grahtwood was planted, and a lot of the wizards who wrote the original code are gone, along with the arcane secrets they had as to when/why something worked the way it did, or didn't.

silky_soft · September 29

First BG of today full of lag. One team with all the heals mowing people down. Couldn't even breakfree with full stam. Back to west weld.

LadyGP · September 29

twev wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Can we start crowd sourcing a list of individuals in leadership positions between ZoS and MS that have ESO under their umbrella? I spent a decent amount of time on ZoS website last night and the info there is outdated and doesn't have any emails.

It's time this thread, mainly the last 10 pages or so, gets elevated outside of the tight inner circle that is ZoS.

Just some points to consider, and take into account, regarding the communications situation we all find ourselves in:

There's a reason the info is outdated/missing.
Some people have moved on or been reassigned.
Other's don't want the distractions, or the pretense of responsibility, that's why they have the autobots handling the tickets. And I presume that since they get so many redundant reports from so many players all reporting the same stuff - that an autobot database is the default place to handle the stats.

Long gone are the days of help lines and personal tech support in games (specifically, to our situation here).

To everyone asking for updates on steps taken, which ones failed, which ones worked, and a roadmap of future efforts besides just general statements of 'we're working on it', as well as reports of DDoS attacks - well, that info is general proprietary info that could lead nefarious types of players to gaining actual/factual company reported and 'documented' data on what exploits to put effort into, as well as some people who would use the info to disparage the efforts of the devs who are working on the issues.

Those types of specific details are things that generally fall under the heading of 'airing dirty laundry in public' that reviewers and even other companies could/would use to stir up a fair amount of mean-mouthing that any company would prefer not to have directed at themselves.

If everyone in contact with the game was actually a certified honest player with nothing but good intent, we'd be able to see a lot more behind the curtain, but it's clearly obvious that there are a lot of hackers, DDoS types and malcontents who could and would exploit any data that ZOS put out there for us to see, and no company wants to be in that position of feeding the badguys efforts.

Kevin is in the tough spot of not being in the position where he's not only not being told all of the magic going on in the dev meetings, but also not being authorized to pass on some information he may be privy to.

A lot of the people on the forums already know these things, some of us don't, and knowing the reasons we aren't being told every scrap of breaking news doesn't make it any easier to just wait it out. But the game engine is going on 14 years old, metric tonnes of stuff has been shoehorned into the game that were never envisioned into places that were never planned for, on a scope that wasn't possible at the time the tree in Grahtwood was planted, and a lot of the wizards who wrote the original code are gone, along with the arcane secrets they had as to when/why something worked the way it did, or didn't.

Yep, 100% agree Kevin is in a bad spot.

But also, it isn't fair to say that they can't share things because it's a secret or there are bad people out there.

A classic case of trash game followed by great communication resulting in a saved game would be Halo Infinite.

As someone who has loved the series since H2 days I was stoked for that game only to be crazy let down by how buggy and "lacking" it was. 343i ended up having one of their members of leadership be part in a monthly video series. Each month they would talk about the issues they are tracking, how they ranked them, why they had to rank them in that order (was very illuminating to know how things were intertwined), their expectations on how long it would take to fix them, and so on.

Some video series would be about how they tried to fix X issue and went through all of this work only for them to figure out something else was going on - or it flat out didn't fix it like they thought it would. These kind of videos were amazing as a fan because I not only knew they were listening to us but I also got to see their perspective of the issues and why some things took longer than most people thought they would. This went on for like.. 8 months or something until they got the game in a good state.

I'm not asking for a full on video series from ZoS but I do think it is realistic to expect a forum post, that is regularly updated, with first acknowledging that there is an issue (Kevin has said they passed it along and are looking into it but that isn't the same as a straight up acknowledgment of said issue), what they have done thus far, what their priority is for these issues, what they think is causing it, and eta on a fix (even if that slips).

Straight up coms have to improve from this company. Gina herself said in 2018 that they need to improve and there is no excuse. Coms haven't gotten better - that is just a fact.

Yes, I'm still but hurt about "PvP Feature" STILL being on the roadmap and not managing expectations because the entire PvP community knows PvP = Cyro.

thinkaboutit · September 30

twev wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Can we start crowd sourcing a list of individuals in leadership positions between ZoS and MS that have ESO under their umbrella? I spent a decent amount of time on ZoS website last night and the info there is outdated and doesn't have any emails.

It's time this thread, mainly the last 10 pages or so, gets elevated outside of the tight inner circle that is ZoS.

Just some points to consider, and take into account, regarding the communications situation we all find ourselves in:

There's a reason the info is outdated/missing.
Some people have moved on or been reassigned.
Other's don't want the distractions, or the pretense of responsibility, that's why they have the autobots handling the tickets. And I presume that since they get so many redundant reports from so many players all reporting the same stuff - that an autobot database is the default place to handle the stats.

Long gone are the days of help lines and personal tech support in games (specifically, to our situation here).

To everyone asking for updates on steps taken, which ones failed, which ones worked, and a roadmap of future efforts besides just general statements of 'we're working on it', as well as reports of DDoS attacks - well, that info is general proprietary info that could lead nefarious types of players to gaining actual/factual company reported and 'documented' data on what exploits to put effort into, as well as some people who would use the info to disparage the efforts of the devs who are working on the issues.

Those types of specific details are things that generally fall under the heading of 'airing dirty laundry in public' that reviewers and even other companies could/would use to stir up a fair amount of mean-mouthing that any company would prefer not to have directed at themselves.

If everyone in contact with the game was actually a certified honest player with nothing but good intent, we'd be able to see a lot more behind the curtain, but it's clearly obvious that there are a lot of hackers, DDoS types and malcontents who could and would exploit any data that ZOS put out there for us to see, and no company wants to be in that position of feeding the badguys efforts.

Kevin is in the tough spot of not being in the position where he's not only not being told all of the magic going on in the dev meetings, but also not being authorized to pass on some information he may be privy to.

A lot of the people on the forums already know these things, some of us don't, and knowing the reasons we aren't being told every scrap of breaking news doesn't make it any easier to just wait it out. But the game engine is going on 14 years old, metric tonnes of stuff has been shoehorned into the game that were never envisioned into places that were never planned for, on a scope that wasn't possible at the time the tree in Grahtwood was planted, and a lot of the wizards who wrote the original code are gone, along with the arcane secrets they had as to when/why something worked the way it did, or didn't.

Checkmate
https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-mortem-on-cloudflare-control-plane-and-analytics-outage/

twev · September 30

thinkaboutit wrote: »

twev wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Can we start crowd sourcing a list of individuals in leadership positions between ZoS and MS that have ESO under their umbrella? I spent a decent amount of time on ZoS website last night and the info there is outdated and doesn't have any emails.

It's time this thread, mainly the last 10 pages or so, gets elevated outside of the tight inner circle that is ZoS.

::snip my long-winded discourse::

Checkmate
https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-mortem-on-cloudflare-control-plane-and-analytics-outage/

Cloudflare took the high road, and worked hard at putting their customer's fears to rest by showing they had an understanding of what the issues were, and outlining the steps taken, with explanations, to show they had the means and tech knowledge to fix the probs.

*other* companies (ahem) view problems with the secret sauce as a public relations nightmare that needs to be contained as much as possible hoping that lack of attention will limit the uproar, and hoping that the furor dies down from the starvation of details.
They may be working hard at solutions in-house, but many businesses feel that any information given addressing potential solutions that fail ultimately lead to accusations of incompetence when details of failed efforts can be cited with company provided details.
Some companies prefer to be open and forthcoming, some play turtle, and hope the magic spontaneously occurs, the storm passes, and everyone forgets.

I specifically avoided naming names and associating names with situations because i was trying to avoid waking any 'conspiracy and unfounded rumor' accusations leading to some forum user being made to sit in the corner wearing the pointy hat, much less all evidence of said poster ever existing on the forum being erased from the database.

It happens.
I didn't/don't want it happening in this form and thread, especially to someone particularly associated with me.

MrGarlic · September 30

PC/NA. Error 334 Lost Lobby Connection, seems to be my targeted error lately.

When it happens, which is far too often, I just shut down the game and go do something else.

Is that what you want ZOS? People like me to just leave the game?

Elder Scrolls Online - Great game, shame about the unreliability and lag.

Nharimlur_Finor · September 30

LadyGP wrote: »

thinkaboutit wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Can we start crowd sourcing a list of individuals in leadership positions between ZoS and MS that have ESO under their umbrella? I spent a decent amount of time on ZoS website last night and the info there is outdated and doesn't have any emails.

It's time this thread, mainly the last 10 pages or so, gets elevated outside of the tight inner circle that is ZoS.

Shrug, maybe we should write Phil Spencer

What is funny is I actually reached out to him a few times on social media regarding this.

What did he say? How funny was it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Gaming

Microsoft Gaming shut down three development studios on May 7, 2024: Alpha Dog Games in Canada, Arkane Austin in the US, and Tango Gameworks in Japan. Additionally, Roundhouse Studios will merge with ZeniMax Online Studios in the US.[60] According to Microsoft Gaming, this move is a part of a larger "reprioritization of titles and resources" that Microsoft's gaming division is carrying out. The intention is to boost investment in their library of games and new intellectual assets while focusing on high-impact titles. Some teams have been reassigned to other projects inside Bethesda and ZeniMax, and production on some games has stopped as a result of these companies closing.

pfft.

manukartofanu · September 30

@twev May I ask, who are you telling this to? Those who work in this industry know without any statements from anyone that information about what work is being done cannot help any wrongdoers. Yes, not everything can be said. But that's no explanation for complete silence or standard repetitive answers.

P.S. If what you're writing about actually worked that way, we wouldn't be getting any announcements or patch notes.

ChaoticWings3 · September 30

PS5 NA. Server occasionally lags out before not being able to log in for x amount of time. It has been occurring rather frequently since the fallen leaves event so wanted to post my 2 cents here.

twev · September 30

manukartofanu wrote: »

@twev May I ask, who are you telling this to? Those who work in this industry know without any statements from anyone that information about what work is being done cannot help any wrongdoers. Yes, not everything can be said. But that's no explanation for complete silence or standard repetitive answers.

P.S. If what you're writing about actually worked that way, we wouldn't be getting any announcements or patch notes.

Simple.
The explanation for the stuff that is silenced is that that is what the mother ship feels is best for their own ends.

Who I'm talking 'to' is the people who have a passing acquaintance with tech, networking and general business without being inside the machinations of big business intrigue and subterfuge.

Lots of things that non-tech people would think are just normal info are guarded as proprietary information, and many things that are in the public domain of information would get a tech worker or dev fired for breaching a non-disclosure clause in their contract, by even just commenting on the record about info that is being discussed in public.

I was just commenting about the constant requests for 'updates', and 'what are you working on?, 'how many people are working on the problem?', What have you tried so far?' and other 'innocent' questions that keep being repeated, with increasing frustration.

Some companies answer questions, other companies ignore many such questions that they feel answering is not in their fiscal interest to address.
Many people here seem to think that the company can be badgered into responding, when, clearly they have little interest in posting such information.
If they wanted us to know, they'd have told us details long ago.
If they were able to fix the issues for what they consider to be a worthwhile expenditure, they would have by now.
They either can't, or won't, do certain things, and they don't feel obligated to inform us of which those things are.
Some people can't or just won't, accept that.

It's like asking your kid 'Who broke the vase??', and they start telling you about their day in school.

Posting patch notes is completely outside the scope of answering many/most of all the tech questions and requests that get posted here.

Players here who work in tech already know what most of those things that can be discussed under company non-disclosure agreements are. A lot of players not in tech don't know how many things aren't for public consumption.

The complete silence you referred to in the penultimate line of your post isn't company incompetence at communication, rather, it's what they feel benefits them the most.
We can ask Kevin 12 times/day for details, and most of the questions will go unanswered because he's not permitted to comment, or he's not given details pertaining to the questions asked.

I was just addressing some of the causes behind the actions that result in forum user's frustrations in a 61 page thread.
In no way am I implying the frustrations are without merit.

silky_soft · September 30

Just got over 4000ms in a bg. Then dc after a couple of min. Can't log back in. Now I got to wait 15mins.

Sluggy · September 30

Its been terrible in Cyrodiil all weekend for me. Its like I get stuck in a state where I can't get out of it. I'm blocking and I get stuck that way. Can't move. Can't cast any skills. Can't STOP blocking. And it just stays that way for seconds. Sometimes upwards of ten or fifteen. Happens any time the action picks up even slightly and I just have to hope I can hold out long enough to regain control and start healing again.

thinkaboutit · September 30

twev wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

@twev May I ask, who are you telling this to? Those who work in this industry know without any statements from anyone that information about what work is being done cannot help any wrongdoers. Yes, not everything can be said. But that's no explanation for complete silence or standard repetitive answers.

P.S. If what you're writing about actually worked that way, we wouldn't be getting any announcements or patch notes.

Simple.
The explanation for the stuff that is silenced is that that is what the mother ship feels is best for their own ends.

Who I'm talking 'to' is the people who have a passing acquaintance with tech, networking and general business without being inside the machinations of big business intrigue and subterfuge.

Lots of things that non-tech people would think are just normal info are guarded as proprietary information, and many things that are in the public domain of information would get a tech worker or dev fired for breaching a non-disclosure clause in their contract, by even just commenting on the record about info that is being discussed in public.

I was just commenting about the constant requests for 'updates', and 'what are you working on?, 'how many people are working on the problem?', What have you tried so far?' and other 'innocent' questions that keep being repeated, with increasing frustration.

Some companies answer questions, other companies ignore many such questions that they feel answering is not in their fiscal interest to address.
Many people here seem to think that the company can be badgered into responding, when, clearly they have little interest in posting such information.
If they wanted us to know, they'd have told us details long ago.
If they were able to fix the issues for what they consider to be a worthwhile expenditure, they would have by now.
They either can't, or won't, do certain things, and they don't feel obligated to inform us of which those things are.
Some people can't or just won't, accept that.

It's like asking your kid 'Who broke the vase??', and they start telling you about their day in school.

Posting patch notes is completely outside the scope of answering many/most of all the tech questions and requests that get posted here.

Players here who work in tech already know what most of those things that can be discussed under company non-disclosure agreements are. A lot of players not in tech don't know how many things aren't for public consumption.

The complete silence you referred to in the penultimate line of your post isn't company incompetence at communication, rather, it's what they feel benefits them the most.
We can ask Kevin 12 times/day for details, and most of the questions will go unanswered because he's not permitted to comment, or he's not given details pertaining to the questions asked.

I was just addressing some of the causes behind the actions that result in forum user's frustrations in a 61 page thread.
In no way am I implying the frustrations are without merit.

What is the point of your post? Nice job being condescending with your little "passing acquaintance" comment there.

Here's the bottom line, the issue has been ongoing for months. What would you have us do? Sit in silence?

twev · September 30

thinkaboutit wrote: »

twev wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

@twev May I ask, who are you telling this to? Those who work in this industry know without any statements from anyone that information about what work is being done cannot help any wrongdoers. Yes, not everything can be said. But that's no explanation for complete silence or standard repetitive answers.

P.S. If what you're writing about actually worked that way, we wouldn't be getting any announcements or patch notes.

Simple.
The explanation for the stuff that is silenced is that that is what the mother ship feels is best for their own ends.

Who I'm talking 'to' is the people who have a passing acquaintance with tech, networking and general business without being inside the machinations of big business intrigue and subterfuge.

Lots of things that non-tech people would think are just normal info are guarded as proprietary information, and many things that are in the public domain of information would get a tech worker or dev fired for breaching a non-disclosure clause in their contract, by even just commenting on the record about info that is being discussed in public.

I was just commenting about the constant requests for 'updates', and 'what are you working on?, 'how many people are working on the problem?', What have you tried so far?' and other 'innocent' questions that keep being repeated, with increasing frustration.

Some companies answer questions, other companies ignore many such questions that they feel answering is not in their fiscal interest to address.
Many people here seem to think that the company can be badgered into responding, when, clearly they have little interest in posting such information.
If they wanted us to know, they'd have told us details long ago.
If they were able to fix the issues for what they consider to be a worthwhile expenditure, they would have by now.
They either can't, or won't, do certain things, and they don't feel obligated to inform us of which those things are.
Some people can't or just won't, accept that.

It's like asking your kid 'Who broke the vase??', and they start telling you about their day in school.

Posting patch notes is completely outside the scope of answering many/most of all the tech questions and requests that get posted here.

Players here who work in tech already know what most of those things that can be discussed under company non-disclosure agreements are. A lot of players not in tech don't know how many things aren't for public consumption.

The complete silence you referred to in the penultimate line of your post isn't company incompetence at communication, rather, it's what they feel benefits them the most.
We can ask Kevin 12 times/day for details, and most of the questions will go unanswered because he's not permitted to comment, or he's not given details pertaining to the questions asked.

I was just addressing some of the causes behind the actions that result in forum user's frustrations in a 61 page thread.
In no way am I implying the frustrations are without merit.

What is the point of your post? Nice job being condescending with your little "passing acquaintance" comment there.

Here's the bottom line, the issue has been ongoing for months. What would you have us do? Sit in silence?

By all means, no, don't sit in silence.
One of the best things about an open forum is players sharing the stuff in this thread, so we aren't feeling 'alone'.
Just look at how many players post here that they are relieved to know it's not just them, and the diversity of locations and connections/equipment/platforms lets us know that it's not our fault when half of a group all freeze or disconnect at the same time.

Some of the problems probably stem from jamming all the new stuff, locations, flashy effects into an old old engine that wasn't designed for it.
Some of it probably stems from the number of DLCs and locations the engine is trying to keep knitted together.
Some of it is the servers keeping track of the population density in game, especially in a map, or specific area.
Some of it is the increasing number of items, collectibles, in inventory, and banks as more players log in on the servers.
[Notice how logging into a guild bank at random times shows the 'I'm thinking about it' icon forEVAR, or until you close the attempt and try again, maybe a few times.]
Some of it is probably even due to a dodgy circuit board or two/many in the servers thats doing the countdown to eventual failure. (we had that one a few months before the server rebuild, where they found a few boards that were going bad.) Some IC boards just drift further out of spec over time.
Lets not discuss the issues with Akamai. That's it's own black hole of info.

But to the point, this thread alone has allowed us to compare notes and see just how pervasive the issues are for many of us, outside of our own sphere's, regardless of the number of blessed players who chime in with 'Working for me, never had a problem'...

And the forum population is small compared to the number of game licenses.
I'll bet the majority of players with issues don't even know about the forum, deal with issues for a while, and then just delete the realm from their drives and move on to other games without ever being heard.

We're lucky that as many of the players with issues even came here and voiced their concerns, hoping to keep the game not only alive, but make the game a better experience for everyone else.
About all we can do is point out the issues, and try to convince the Mother ship that we're here, we care, and we're worth being heard, so the game doesn't circle the drain before problems get fixed.

And I'm about as cynical as they come.

[edit to add:]
I'm sorry if you thought I was being condescending.
It was not my intent.
I was merely pointing out that of the roughly 20 million licensed copies of the game in circulation - you can count on a rather large population of players who have never worked in tech, for some of them this is even their first game on their first computer.
There are a lot of people here who have never assembled a computer, configured a network, or can diagnose which addons might be causing a problem with the game.
Many people here have looked at error msgs and tried to figure out what they were referring to, and can't understand why they didn't have a particular problem last week, or last month, but now it's a problem that happens several times a day.

I got out of tech years ago when I realized that there were too many times when management made it harder to fix a problem than it could/should have been.

And as an aside, I've been in on many guild conversations, and group conversations over the years in this game alone where it was revealed that half the guild or group was made up of retired people, people who had worked the trades for their careers, and half the tech they learned was from gaming forums like this one.

it's not condescending to recognize those players as people who haven't had the benefit of inside experience hands-on with tech companies while they're just trying to figure out why their game doesn't work right.

But I appreciate you pointing out the opportunity to clarify the wording in my original responses.

Coo_PnT · September 30

The trouble with this problem is that it is not consistent and you never know when an event will occur.
If I join a raid and I am the only one disconnected, I will blame myself for inconveniencing others. The raid members understand what has happened and are willing to offer kind words, but it ends up costing everyone valuable time.

Aurielle · September 30

This thread was just shut down by a mod, so I'm reposting it here on behalf of the OP for visibility:

Title: Biggest disconnect in Cyrodiil history about 10:30 EST on PC NA

AngryPenguin wrote:

I've never seen anything like it. I'd estimate over 75% of cyrodiil disconnected at once about an hour ago. Only a few of us DC were spared I think, and even most of us crashed too.

AD and EP were fighting over the hammer at sej, and all of a sudden *POOF*, everyone in Cyrodiil was offline. Supposedly the hammer was just sitting alone in the field by Sej until some EP grabbed it. Then they ran it Chalman with three EP thinking all the DC disconnected too, but we lost fewer people to the disconnect than they did I think, so it was pretty easy to get the hammer.

I also heard there was a queue to get back into the game for those that disconnected. Not a queue to get back into Cyrodiil. A queue to get back into game.

I wonder, does ZOS maybe need to work on their servers?

This right here is why I'm getting closer and closer to uninstalling the game. Not just keeping it around to log in for dailies and such...straight up uninstalling.