Any update on...ANYTHING (notably fixes)?...because they said it was fixed, and clearly it's not.

Jailbirdy · July 2016

Just call them at the office:

ZeniMax Online Studios LLC

Address: 200 International Cir, Cockeysville, MD 21030

Phone: (410) 568-3200

xSILVER_SHAMANx · July 2016

Jailbirdy wrote: »

Just call them at the office:

ZeniMax Online Studios LLC

Address: 200 International Cir, Cockeysville, MD 21030

Phone: (410) 568-3200

If I wasn't down in Australia I'd go one step further and visit the office and offer my services.

Malsidius · July 2016

xSILVER_SHAMANx wrote: »

Jailbirdy wrote: »

Just call them at the office:

ZeniMax Online Studios LLC

Address: 200 International Cir, Cockeysville, MD 21030

Phone: (410) 568-3200

If I wasn't down in Australia I'd go one step further and visit the office and offer my services.

That would be interesting, I actually work in DC; and they are about 30 minutes away from my office. Calling them seems moot, at this point. Perhaps it's just time to seek out another MMORPG platform. I like the concept of the game, but it's riddled with so many issues - which makes it frustrating to play and enjoy.

Zeddakis · July 2016

An articles just posted about consoles and MMOs on one of the leading MMORPG news sites. This would be a great opportunity for some of us to go over there and post about the issues with ESO and Xbox and how ZOS does not seem to be addressing them. There are several posts about this already, but more would bring more light to it and maybe get the issues on Xbox an article of their own.

http://massivelyop.com/2016/07/28/the-daily-grind-is-console-support-a-bad-idea-for-mmos/

PlaceboSoul · July 2016

First mmo I've ever seen with only one server for a community. Especially now that it is really picking up in popularity, I'd think they need to look at additional servers, or at least one more anyway.
The issue is too many players. How do I know this ZOS? The only places I experience these issues are areas with a ton of players, especially places with a bunch of knob ends running around spamming their aoes randomly.
I've also now got the issue I cannot hear any chat at all.

Come on ZOS, fix this ***. Some of us pay for it, like myself.

xSILVER_SHAMANx · July 2016

PlaceboSoul wrote: »

First mmo I've ever seen with only one server for a community. Especially now that it is really picking up in popularity, I'd think they need to look at additional servers, or at least one more anyway.
The issue is too many players. How do I know this ZOS? The only places I experience these issues are areas with a ton of players, especially places with a bunch of knob ends running around spamming their aoes randomly.
I've also now got the issue I cannot hear any chat at all.

Come on ZOS, fix this ***. Some of us pay for it, like myself.

I think you are getting confused about what the "Megaserver" technology actually is. It does NOT mean there is only one single physical server that everyone connects to. It's simply a way of connecting friends and guildies together into the same instance of the game world and ensuring there are no "dead zones".

ZOS hasn't released much information on the actual workings of the technology but one thing that they have made clear is that there ARE HUNDREDS of physical servers running, you just don't have to choose a particular "shard" to join. People are secioned off into what are called "Channels" which run on their own physical server, but they are all interconnected to the main Megaserver which determines where to place people based on population density, friends, guilds etc.

I am dumbing it RIGHT down, but that's basically what it's doing.

As for the problems only being in highly populated areas. NO.... That's simply not true. I have experienced all the recent (post DB) problems in extremely LOW population areas and even in SOLO instances (apart from other characters only loading as silhouettes, obviously as there are no other players in my solo instance). SO what you are assuming in your post is simply not the case. The issues we are facing have nothing to do with server congestion. The problems are with their code being written hastily and haphazardly and not being thoroughly tested prior to going live.

PlaceboSoul · July 2016

Yeah.... I'm not confused at all actually. I never once thought it is just one big box.

My point is, there are only so many variables a console or any hardware are able to contend with. For every player that is in your console's purview, your console has to manage that data. The more players, the more variables. If there are too many people all playing together, eventually you reach a point the console cannot keep up. Even pc have limitations in a similar way. That is why most mmo have, "shards" as you called them.

Call it mega if you want, call it a super fantabulous server if you want. Eventually you reach limits no matter how you like to name it.

Surgee · August 2016

With every next update, the game becomes less and less playable. WHen I first bought ESO on release date, it was working perfectly fine. Crowded cities had no FPS drops, I didn't have a limbo mode when entering new area, dungeons were super smooth. Now few patches later that are supposed to improve the game further, completely screwed it up. I have to wait like 1 minute when I enter some place before I can see enemies (who already are killing me) or can switch skills bar. Framerate in dungeons drop even when nothing is happening. Sound when using a headset stutters and cuts off completely during fights or when in the city...I could go on and on...and when I've reported the issues...the answer I got is that I should restart my xbox and clear the cache....FFS...
I would advise everyone to report these bugs DIRECTLY in game via customer support. At least you can be sure they read it, especially if you are ESO PLUS member. Let's spam them with BUG REPORTS IN GAME.

PlaceboSoul · August 2016

Sadly, customer support doesn't read the tickets fully, or very well, I'm 95% sure. I've gotten the same exact cut/paste response back from my last 8 tickets now, clearly showing they don't read them, as they advise me to do things I've stated in my ticket are already done.
I don't want to be s downer on the CS department, but until they show me different, thus far they've proven to me to be lazy and I'm sorry to say absolutely useless. PLEASE customer service, prove me wrong.

xSILVER_SHAMANx · August 2016

PlaceboSoul wrote: »

Yeah.... I'm not confused at all actually. I never once thought it is just one big box.

My point is, there are only so many variables a console or any hardware are able to contend with. For every player that is in your console's purview, your console has to manage that data. The more players, the more variables. If there are too many people all playing together, eventually you reach a point the console cannot keep up. Even pc have limitations in a similar way. That is why most mmo have, "shards" as you called them.

Call it mega if you want, call it a super fantabulous server if you want. Eventually you reach limits no matter how you like to name it.

I don't call it "mega", that is the name ZOS gave their "new" technology they developed for ESO -- "Megaserver". And the way you worded your post it sounded like you were saying that they don't have enough servers, if not then I misunderstood and oops my bad.
Regardless, it is simply not the case that they are lacking the physical facilities required. There is more than adequate computational power available.
The problems we are facing are not hardware related. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that ZOS hasn't got enough (if any) decent low level programmers who are skilled at working close to the metal and squeezing out those performance optimizations. They would have had some back when they were working on the engine, but they are abit more expensive to keep around and aren't the ones that churn out new content, that's mostly handled by the artists and script programmers (I'm pretty sure ESO uses Lua for its event scripting, somebody please correct me if I'm wrong), and high-level-language "programmers" simply don't have the required skills for fixing serious performance issues.

My apologies to any HLL programmers out there for making such a blanket statement. Of course there are MANY excellent programmers out there who are well versed in the use of lower level languages but use HLLs for the greater abstractions and pre built data structures and other commonly used implementations which speed development up by removing the need for so much ground work when you are starting off fresh and may not have access to the libraries you have built over the years in C or C++... I am referring to the type of young coder that seems to be a lot more common today who only deals with abstractions and wouldn't know how to perform bitwise operations, or read a disassembly, or feel comfortable working with a matrix of double pointers. YES, I know I'm ranting, but that's what it's come to after trying to play for the last hour but not beinng able to bar swap without copping a major beatdown while waiting for it to work, then even more again every time I
try to fire off an ability or perform any kind of combat.

The amount of time I play has decreased significantly over the past weeks and I'm almost at the point of giving up entirely, until I hear news that all's well again.

sadownik · August 2016

@xSILVER_SHAMANx ZOS didnt invent anything. Its the same as in other games fluid server architecture, when depending on population of instance people can join it freely. Its the same as in GW2 or Firefall (RIP).

Edit: Besides the above very informative post and thank you for this. Thoguh my comment could be seen as little snarky.

xSILVER_SHAMANx · August 2016

sadownik wrote: »

@xSILVER_SHAMANx ZOS didnt invent anything. Its the same as in other games fluid server architecture, when depending on population of instance people can join it freely. Its the same as in GW2 or Firefall (RIP).

Edit: Besides the above very informative post and thank you for this. Thoguh my comment could be seen as little snarky.

Yes, that's right. They basically took a well established technology and added a bit to it then labelled it their "megaserver" tech.
Although I'm not 100% sure, I think they may have done a similar thing with their game engine and not built it from scratch but instead built on top of the Hero Engine. I may be wrong about that though so don't quote me on it. I know they definitely did all their prototyping with it, and it seems likes a waste to get so far along and then have to re implement using a completely different engine. Apparently Hero wasn't capable of doing what they wanted so they were instead going to make their own engine from scratch but whether they actually did that or if they extended Hero to meet their requirements I am unsure of.

sadownik · August 2016

@xSILVER_SHAMANx they keep saying that HERO engine was "white board" at which they designed their engine, but playing many games on HERO i see much too much similarities to believe they did much more that writing "by ZOS" on it.

PlaceboSoul · August 2016

Look, all I know is that when I play at 3 in the morning, I see these issues dramatically less than when I play while a lot of others are on. I don't have the time or inclination to sit here and type out five hundred paragraphs to prove myself top dog in a tech savvy pissing match.

All I know is the less people on, the less issues I see. Tell me I'm wrong

xSILVER_SHAMANx · August 2016

PlaceboSoul wrote: »

Look, all I know is that when I play at 3 in the morning, I see these issues dramatically less than when I play while a lot of others are on. I don't have the time or inclination to sit here and type out five hundred paragraphs to prove myself top dog in a tech savvy pissing match.

All I know is the less people on, the less issues I see. Tell me I'm wrong

I am telling you that the issues the majority of people are experiencing are NOT dependant on population or hardware. Perhaps you are experiencing different issues to the ones we are talking about, I don't know?

I have a feeling it is your ISP that suffers from poor speeds during peak times and you might be making a false connection between ESO population and lag, when it is simply a congested ISP, multiplexing, packet loss, etc... That is what it sounds like to me if you are just experiencing straight up lag issues.

There is no "pissing match" here I am just trying to get you to understand that the problems that have plagued us since DB release are not related to the things you are attributing to them. If you are not experiencing any problems during off-peak hours then I would guess you are one of the lucky ones and I would look into your overall internet speeds/bandwidth during the periods that you experience poor gameplay in ESO.

Also, if you are going to say something like, "I can play X game at that same time and it works fine." That is not really much of a proof that it isn't a problem with your ISP.
IF this game is built on a modified Hero Engine then the way it deals with sending packets is atrocious and there is FAR too much data being sent over the network that isn't really needed and a slight drop in speed from your ISP will have a FAR more noticeable impact on this game compared to most other online games.

The next time you are experiencing issues, I would run a speed test and compare it to the speeds you get during off-peak hours.

Sorry if I am sounding like a total prick here, it's not my intention to be an ass or to be condescending at all. I am just presenting the facts I have and showing you where I believe there are flaws in your logic. Obviously, there is a performance hit during peak-hours, but that is not what we are all complaining about, as I ahave stated previously, I experience performance issues in SOLO instances, which shows that population is not a factor in the issues.

As for taking the time to write up a structured and informative post, I understand that a vast majority of people don't "have the time" ( ~< 5 mins) or the inclination to do so, but that is just the way I express myself, both in writing and verbally. I have been known to blabber

PlaceboSoul · August 2016

Nothing wrong with my speed, I have a great isp. Look, I'm not posting this thread anymore because you are putting way too much attention on me rather than the real issues. I didn't say I experience no issues when there are less people on, I said less often.

When I zone into a place and I crash to desktop after 10 seconds, happens at least 75% more often during busy times. That is one example, everything else is the same story though. You want to believe it is my 80 Mbps isp speed? Ok, sure. Believe whatever you want. I'm not saying congestion and server stress is the whole problem, but I'm sure it is contributing. This is not pacman we are trying to play on a console.

Anyway, please get back to the actual post, I'm sure you know more about this than I do, there happy? I was only giving my opinion.

xSILVER_SHAMANx · August 2016

PlaceboSoul wrote: »

Nothing wrong with my speed, I have a great isp. Look, I'm not posting this thread anymore because you are putting way too much attention on me rather than the real issues. I didn't say I experience no issues when there are less people on, I said less often.

When I zone into a place and I crash to desktop after 10 seconds, happens at least 75% more often during busy times. That is one example, everything else is the same story though. You want to believe it is my 80 Mbps isp speed? Ok, sure. Believe whatever you want. I'm not saying congestion and server stress is the whole problem, but I'm sure it is contributing. This is not pacman we are trying to play on a console.

Anyway, please get back to the actual post, I'm sure you know more about this than I do, there happy? I was only giving my opinion.

Sorry. It was never my intention to cause any upset. I do apologize, truly.

Just one final thing I will mention.

I have 100mbps connection but during busy times I will notice a drop. Not as drastic when downloading files, but with streaming or playing games, yes. And that in part is due to the way ISP's kind of rip you off by using multiplexing, unless you are paying top dollar for a guaranteed bandwidth, like big business, government, research, and large education facilities do, you almost never get the full bandwidth your plan is capable of. It's just the way it works, there's no other way they could provide for the amount of people they do. So having a "good" internet plan doesn't necessarily mean you will not experience congestion issues with your ISP. And also, I am not saying that this IS the problem you have, I am just putting it out there, like I said previously, when you next have a bad experience on ESO it'd be an idea to do a speed test (there are plenty of websites for it) and compare your result against a speed test taken at a time you are not having any issues in ESO. That's what I would do any way, just for my own piece of mind in knowing whether the problem was strictly ESO related or ISP related. But it sounds like it doesn't really matter to you, which I can totally understand.

All I was trying to get across was that based on the things I have experienced myself and read on these forums in regards to other peoples issues, coupled with the knowledge I have in these kinds of matters, it is more likely that the problems the community have been complaining about post DB are almost purely software related and that ZOS doesn't need more hardware (as you had originally stated), they need better project leads who will get their coders to prioritise working on known issues over working on new material and squash these nasty bugs and performance related issues so we can all enjoy the game we paid (and some of us continue to pay) for.

Again, I truly am sorry if I have offended or upset you in any way, that was not my intention by any means.

Now go, journey and fight on...

"Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory." - Frandar Hunding.