Why can't ZOS simply throw more servers to the cluster to handle the load?
-
ZakuBeta✭✭✭
...as one of those degree-holding IT professionals I will politely disagree.
My Brother has an IT job, never went to school for it, self taught in everything. Granted he works on small servers for a construction company that services multiple states. He also sets up servers for clients of said company. Nothing big, but it is possible to learn the trade without the schooling. Many trades have a school, and an Apprenticeship Program, including IT if you know where to look.0 -
raglau✭✭✭✭✭ESOUser0x00 wrote: »ESOUser0x00 wrote: »I'm not familiar with MMORPG tech but for cloud to scale up, you simply throw more machine resources.
Not quite that simple. There are two approaches to scaling IT services:
Scale up - i.e. add more resource too each node, such as more CPUs, more RAM, faster hard drives, more NICs etc
Scale out - i.e. add more nodes to the cluster/load-balanced array
Most services use a combination of the approaches but crucially, each has laws of diminishing returns depending on the software architecture. Some services, say Exchange Server, Active Directory and SQL Server, scale out excellently, in some cases hundreds of nodes can be uniformly load balanced automatically. Other services, e.g. vanilla LDAP directories, scale out badly and should be scaled up, but you then reach physical limitations of the host, e.g. perhaps it can only hold 32 CPUs or something. Some hardware architectures scale up better - NUMA for example - but the hosted service must run NUMA aware code (such as Exchange or SQL) or that service will fail to scale with it, in fact it may perform worse the more CPUs you add.
Now, we don't know how ZOS have done this but let's be honest, they're not really on the ball in terms of modernity of their code, so we can easily envisage a case where they're in a corner due to weak architecture decisions early in development and therefore cannot easily take advantage of hardware scalability.
Hmm, why does active directory scale out excellently while vanilla LDAP directories don't?
It's because AD uses SRV records so instead of returning a list of, say, 8000 domain controllers from anywhere in the world located across any quality of WAN link, it can return a targetted list in the site in which the client is located or choose the ones located across fast links with low hops (as the service has a site model designed to work in tandem with the WAN to ensure scaling out works well). Whereas a vanilla LDAP directory will respond to a simple LDAP query and simply return an unordered list of hosts, this list can be large and the hosts offering a service may be located anywhere in the world. So the more you scale out, you increase the problem of this list getting larger and larger. In this scenario the best architecture is a small number of very high performing hosts, whereas in AD it's far more tolerant of large numbers of hosts.
Of course, the correct architecture may be scale up, anyway. I have in the past designed an AD for 3 million users on 4 very powerful DCs, split across 2 datacentres for resilience, because this met the business requirements successfully and was lowest total cost of ownership. This was probably the 'largest smallest' AD I've done, but it worked excellently for 10 years until we moved them to Office 365 (itself a vast scaled out AD/Exchange/Sharepoint/SfB infrastructure).
But for scale out architectures, we've just wrapped up the delivery of AD for a large global retailer with nearly half a million staff in tens of thousands of offices, usually with locally represented services, and the native AD scaling outwards was superb, of course as soon as we had non-native clients performing basic LDAP queries, we start to to run into the above issue (which has always been the case). We solution around it with RRSets, but it's simply that vanilla LDAP is quite restrictive in this way, and that's just because people did not think about these huge global spanning services we have now, when they put together these old standards.
Also, as ADDS is a native 2012 R2/2016 process, it's NUMA aware and scales far better with multiple CPUs, this is not the case with all directory services on the market.
I am not saying there are no other good DS out there, there are many great ones, but as an example of one that was designed from day one for massive scaleability, AD is a very strong reference architecture. Hence its massive market penetration, in enterprise terms there's not really any other identity architecture worth considering, and where they are deployed, the first question people ask us tends to be, "OK, how do we federate xxx with AD?"
Edited by raglau on February 11, 2017 1:59PM0 -
Mitrenga✭✭✭✭✭I think the janitor in the server building might have unplugged a server accidentally.
Just saying..0 -
raglau✭✭✭✭✭TequilaFire wrote: »TequilaFire wrote: »Let's also not forget about poorly optimized client side code either and flat out bugs like memory leaks.
After all this time you would think game devs could take advantage of multicore processing client side as well.
Servers are an issue but it takes two to tango.
When ESO was coded multicore gaming was still very much in its infancy.
But multicore computing was not, also the 64 bit client got a workover.
I can't get away coding old school in my industry, no excuse for game development.
A significant issue is the API they are coding for. DirectX, up to and including 11, uses a single-threaded renderer. Therefore you will see that most games have a 'main thread' that is responsible for squirting stuff into the renderer. If you run up FF14 you'll see this, ESO, any number of games. There is little point having a multi-threaded process in the app delivering data for processing by a single-threaded procces. Some people have tried to get around this with buffers but they still cannot overcome this inherent limitation of a single-threaded renderer. Trion famously multi-threaded Rift by adding a load of buffers and after all the work, people said there was little improvement.
Now, Vulkan and DX12 are multi-threaded renderers and it really makes a difference. I run the Vulkan version of Doom on my 12 core PC and it flies along at 120FPS with everything on, and only loads each core by about 20%.
So once ESO move to DX12 we'll open the door to improvement in the client, but they still need to recode the actual game, because in that scenario the multi-threaded API will be sat waiting for the single-threaded process to give it something to do, until such time as they increase the bandwidth in the pipeline process feeding the renderer. So, don't hold your breath ;-)Edited by raglau on February 11, 2017 2:08PM0 -
Entegre✭✭✭Why fix issues with lag and ping, random disconnect and disappearing mails/items when you can release a software house for 100s of dollars and profit? They have even somehow managed to break grouping tool..1 -
cjthibs✭✭✭✭✭
✭
...as one of those degree-holding IT professionals I will politely disagree.
My Brother has an IT job, never went to school for it, self taught in everything. Granted he works on small servers for a construction company that services multiple states. He also sets up servers for clients of said company. Nothing big, but it is possible to learn the trade without the schooling. Many trades have a school, and an Apprenticeship Program, including IT if you know where to look.
I don't disagree with you here at all.
If you read what the guy I was responding to actually said, and some of my subsequent posts you'd see that.
You can learn through experience, but not through passion.
Which agrees with what I was saying, he does the work, and has practical, relevant experience.
Hell, I learned the trade while in the USAF, and went back and got a degree later.0 -
Castagere✭✭✭✭✭
✭You think its bad now wait till Morrowind comes out. If they don't do anything about this before then it will be stupid of them. This is why i will never sub.to this game. Everytime i click the launch icon i never know if i will get into the game. I get error messages saying i'm already logged in or i'm stuck in loading screen loops. And if i do get in i crash back to login. This happens all the time. And look where their priorities are they spend 5 million dollars for a 30 second ad in the super bowl. Look at the housing update and how it broke so many things in game. Just think what Morrowind will do to it.0 -
Get rid of proc sets, problem solved. Learn to play with real skills, dodge, block, parry, attack with position and timing.
the problem with that is there were still plenty of issues they completely ignored, or just flat out couldn't fix before the proc sets came out. the proc sets may be to blame why everything is worse, but there is an underlining issue that needs to be resolved. in my opinion, if the game dont get these things together, when another mmorpg comes out that people are waiting for releases then their gravy train is over0 -
ZakuBeta✭✭✭
...as one of those degree-holding IT professionals I will politely disagree.
My Brother has an IT job, never went to school for it, self taught in everything. Granted he works on small servers for a construction company that services multiple states. He also sets up servers for clients of said company. Nothing big, but it is possible to learn the trade without the schooling. Many trades have a school, and an Apprenticeship Program, including IT if you know where to look.
I don't disagree with you here at all.
If you read what the guy I was responding to actually said, and some of my subsequent posts you'd see that.
You can learn through experience, but not through passion.
Which agrees with what I was saying, he does the work, and has practical, relevant experience.
Hell, I learned the trade while in the USAF, and went back and got a degree later.
He Started with a passion, with his first rebuild computer when he was 14 and progressed from there. So passion does hold a key, and is what started him on his road to the experience.
1 -
raglau✭✭✭✭✭I am certainly holding off on Morrowind, in order to check what my esteemed colleagues here think before I commit!
No way would I ever pre-order anything from ZOS. You're better off setting fire to your money.Edited by raglau on February 11, 2017 6:09PM1 -
ZakuBeta✭✭✭I am certainly holding off on Morrowind, in order to check what my esteemed colleagues here think before I commit!
No way would I ever pre-order anything from ZOS. You're better off setting fire to your money.
For me Palladium Books holds that position. I at least get enjoyment out of ESO, but then I'm playing the game, not powering through it. I've been playing since console release, and haven't completed all three main quests yet on my primary character, and have barely touched any of the DLC even though I have them. One of those characters is going to be deleted and changed into the Warden.1 -
raglau✭✭✭✭✭
For me Palladium Books holds that position. I at least get enjoyment out of ESO, but then I'm playing the game, not powering through it. I've been playing since console release, and haven't completed all three main quests yet on my primary character, and have barely touched any of the DLC even though I have them. One of those characters is going to be deleted and changed into the Warden.
I get enjoyment from ESO, I think it's a very good game. But think that ZOS are not to be trusted to manage the game properly. I can quite imagine that the initial release of Morrowind is a broken and bug-filled mess requiring several patches before it starts to be what it ought to have been.
I've formed this opinion from my experience with ESO since PC beta. The game was released way too early, I think by the time you got it on console we PC players had essentially been in a prolonged beta!1 -
Serjustin19✭✭✭✭✭I love how everyone is suddenly an IT professional and expert software developer.
I'm not. But honestly. It's making my head kinda hurt. All this stuff is fascinating. All the knowledge and wealth. Wealth of knowledge. Mind you. But to much to take in. Least for me.Formerly Serjustin19, Save for Forum Of Course.... Fiery_Darkness (PC NA) currently.1 -
Tomg999✭✭✭✭I'd never assume what ZOS's problems are because I haven't seen what they're working with.
The variables are simply too numerous to make assumptions.
Many of us here are IT professionals (and many of us without degrees, but that's another discussion)
We're guessing, and we really couldn't know or have any confidence in our hypothesis regarding issue causality without really understanding the System Architecture, the Software architecture, the network & load balancing system, and a bunch of other factors. We would want to know how the system was designed, implemented, and is maintained.
They may well know what the issues are. Once identified, the economics, logistics, and practicality of the various solution options then come into play. If there was some flaw in the design or plan in any area that requires major change, that could be a difficult decision.
And the Economics are not to be ignored. The decision makers are removed from the details; they are asking about ROI. Maybe the Super Bowl add was better for the game. We can't advise on those decisions without understanding the business any more then we could the technical issues.
1 -
Elsonso✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭AlexTech0x wrote: »
That would leave them dishonored. I am sure they feel rage.Throwing more hardware at a problem isn't always the solution. That's like saying - "I want to tie my shoes faster so having a 1000 people doing it instead of just me should make it 1000 times faster".
Yeah, this is the classic issue. If it takes one woman nine months to make a baby, obviously, nine women should be able to make one in a month.I read somewhere on here that the super-server is something like 16 servers linked together in Texas.
The megaserver is running HP Blade, and lots of it, as of last time they let us know what they were running. I would guess that this is rented hardware, so it is probably not running the exact same hardware today as it was in 2014.
By the way, I am pretty sure that each "instance" (zone, for example) is running on a single physical computer within the megaserver. That means that zones, including Cyrodiil, are limited in performance to what they can get out of a single physical computer.Edited by Elsonso on February 11, 2017 8:13PMXBox EU/NA:@ElsonsoJannus
PC NA/EU: @Elsonso
PSN NA/EU: @ElsonsoJannus
Total in-game hours: 11321
X/Twitter: ElsonsoJannus0 -
Xundiin✭✭✭✭
...as one of those degree-holding IT professionals I will politely disagree.
My Brother has an IT job, never went to school for it, self taught in everything. Granted he works on small servers for a construction company that services multiple states. He also sets up servers for clients of said company. Nothing big, but it is possible to learn the trade without the schooling. Many trades have a school, and an Apprenticeship Program, including IT if you know where to look.
I don't disagree with you here at all.
If you read what the guy I was responding to actually said, and some of my subsequent posts you'd see that.
You can learn through experience, but not through passion.
Which agrees with what I was saying, he does the work, and has practical, relevant experience.
Hell, I learned the trade while in the USAF, and went back and got a degree later.
He Started with a passion, with his first rebuild computer when he was 14 and progressed from there. So passion does hold a key, and is what started him on his road to the experience.
See, what he keeps confusing is that I said knowledge, which he took as skill. You don't need skill to understand how the game of Baseball is played, or be a pilot to understand how a plane works, or even be an IT tech to understand what is all involved with the field.
As I was trying to make him understand, though I'm convinced that he can't understand this for fear that his piece of paper means little to nothing because of it, is you if you have the passion to learn the field, you don't need to have the job to have the knowledge. All the problems that can cause issues with servers and networking is well documented in various sources of information. Information that most techs that aren't conceded will use as a reference to help them do their job. But again... he can't see the difference. To him knowledge = skill.#SavePlayer10 -
cjthibs✭✭✭✭✭
✭
...as one of those degree-holding IT professionals I will politely disagree.
My Brother has an IT job, never went to school for it, self taught in everything. Granted he works on small servers for a construction company that services multiple states. He also sets up servers for clients of said company. Nothing big, but it is possible to learn the trade without the schooling. Many trades have a school, and an Apprenticeship Program, including IT if you know where to look.
I don't disagree with you here at all.
If you read what the guy I was responding to actually said, and some of my subsequent posts you'd see that.
You can learn through experience, but not through passion.
Which agrees with what I was saying, he does the work, and has practical, relevant experience.
Hell, I learned the trade while in the USAF, and went back and got a degree later.
He Started with a passion, with his first rebuild computer when he was 14 and progressed from there. So passion does hold a key, and is what started him on his road to the experience.
See, what he keeps confusing is that I said knowledge, which he took as skill. You don't need skill to understand how the game of Baseball is played, or be a pilot to understand how a plane works, or even be an IT tech to understand what is all involved with the field.
As I was trying to make him understand, though I'm convinced that he can't understand this for fear that his piece of paper means little to nothing because of it, is you if you have the passion to learn the field, you don't need to have the job to have the knowledge. All the problems that can cause issues with servers and networking is well documented in various sources of information. Information that most techs that aren't conceded will use as a reference to help them do their job. But again... he can't see the difference. To him knowledge = skill.
That's not what I said at all. I said experience results in skill.
A degree exposes you to things, training gives you knowledge, experience gives you skill.
Try to actually read what I wrote before you criticize it.
Experience is the only thing that's really necessary. The rest is nice to have, but not critical. You're getting wrapped around the axle with things you -think- I said.
Furthermore, you are saying exactly what you claim I'm saying.
"...if you have the passion to learn the field, you don't need to have the job to have the knowledge. All the problems that can cause issues with servers and networking is well documented in various sources of information."
Possessing information is called knowledge. TO know something. You can know all sorts of things and not be good at them. What you need to understand something rather than simply being knowledgeable about it is different. Understanding something is having skill with it. ...and it is different than knowledge, or having a passion for something.
What I am saying, put very simply, is that you can know facts about something, but not have the skills to fix it, or even postulate the proper fixes. You need a practical skill, and experience for that.Edited by cjthibs on February 11, 2017 9:29PM1 -
raglau✭✭✭✭✭As I was trying to make him understand, though I'm convinced that he can't understand this for fear that his piece of paper means little to nothing because of it, is you if you have the passion to learn the field, you don't need to have the job to have the knowledge. All the problems that can cause issues with servers and networking is well documented in various sources of information. Information that most techs that aren't conceded will use as a reference to help them do their job. But again... he can't see the difference. To him knowledge = skill.
Knowledge alone can only take you so far, you can only become a skilled practitioner of anything by application of knowledge in a real world environment.
For example, if I say to you that I have a Windows desktop running an application that is performing badly, what are your first 3 troubleshooting steps?
Edited by raglau on February 11, 2017 9:27PM0 -
Elsonso✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭As I was trying to make him understand, though I'm convinced that he can't understand this for fear that his piece of paper means little to nothing because of it, is you if you have the passion to learn the field, you don't need to have the job to have the knowledge. All the problems that can cause issues with servers and networking is well documented in various sources of information. Information that most techs that aren't conceded will use as a reference to help them do their job. But again... he can't see the difference. To him knowledge = skill.
Knowledge alone can only take you so far, you can only become a skilled practitioner of anything by application of knowledge in a real world environment.
For example, if I say to you that I have a desktop running an application that is performing badly, what are your first 3 troubleshooting steps?
You only need one. Switch from Windows to Linux.
XBox EU/NA:@ElsonsoJannus
PC NA/EU: @Elsonso
PSN NA/EU: @ElsonsoJannus
Total in-game hours: 11321
X/Twitter: ElsonsoJannus0 -
Xundiin✭✭✭✭
...as one of those degree-holding IT professionals I will politely disagree.
My Brother has an IT job, never went to school for it, self taught in everything. Granted he works on small servers for a construction company that services multiple states. He also sets up servers for clients of said company. Nothing big, but it is possible to learn the trade without the schooling. Many trades have a school, and an Apprenticeship Program, including IT if you know where to look.
I don't disagree with you here at all.
If you read what the guy I was responding to actually said, and some of my subsequent posts you'd see that.
You can learn through experience, but not through passion.
Which agrees with what I was saying, he does the work, and has practical, relevant experience.
Hell, I learned the trade while in the USAF, and went back and got a degree later.
He Started with a passion, with his first rebuild computer when he was 14 and progressed from there. So passion does hold a key, and is what started him on his road to the experience.
See, what he keeps confusing is that I said knowledge, which he took as skill. You don't need skill to understand how the game of Baseball is played, or be a pilot to understand how a plane works, or even be an IT tech to understand what is all involved with the field.
As I was trying to make him understand, though I'm convinced that he can't understand this for fear that his piece of paper means little to nothing because of it, is you if you have the passion to learn the field, you don't need to have the job to have the knowledge. All the problems that can cause issues with servers and networking is well documented in various sources of information. Information that most techs that aren't conceded will use as a reference to help them do their job. But again... he can't see the difference. To him knowledge = skill.
That's not what I said at all. I said experience results in skill.
A degree exposes you to things, training gives you knowledge, experience gives you skill.
Try to actually read what I wrote before you criticize it.
Experience is the only thing that's really necessary. The rest is nice to have, but not critical. You're getting wrapped around the axle with things you -think- I said.
Calling the kettle black aren't we. I've read what you wrote... and I also know that someone who has the passion to learn the field can be just as knowledgeable as someone in the field. That's what I said... you took it as an affront to you as a skilled tradesman thinking that no you can't. Which I know for a fact through many examples that yes you can. I have friends that got into IT and do their jobs better than most with countless degrees and licensing and they started off with it being a hobby. This is what I was trying to convey which you completely ignored....#SavePlayer10 -
raglau✭✭✭✭✭lordrichter wrote: »As I was trying to make him understand, though I'm convinced that he can't understand this for fear that his piece of paper means little to nothing because of it, is you if you have the passion to learn the field, you don't need to have the job to have the knowledge. All the problems that can cause issues with servers and networking is well documented in various sources of information. Information that most techs that aren't conceded will use as a reference to help them do their job. But again... he can't see the difference. To him knowledge = skill.
Knowledge alone can only take you so far, you can only become a skilled practitioner of anything by application of knowledge in a real world environment.
For example, if I say to you that I have a desktop running an application that is performing badly, what are your first 3 troubleshooting steps?
You only need one. Switch from Windows to Linux.
Ha! It could have been a Linux desktop, but alas in my thought experiment you are right, it is a Windows desktop ;-)Edited by raglau on February 11, 2017 9:42PM0 -
Balamoor✭✭✭✭✭
✭Its about game design, no amount of extra servers is going to solve this problem because the way the game was designed, the calculations, and the amount of players interacting at one time unless you are suggesting that everyone gets their own personal sever like the days of ultima online where everyone had their turnkey.
This is unmitigated horse crap. the lag is due to a combination of network transport latency and server processing lag not game design. What needs to be addressed are sever and network load balancing and it isn't as easy as it sounds, I know because before I retired I was a Consulting Engineer contracted to Digital Reality. We provided server systems for many online games.
Also if these Data centers are anywhere near North Dallas there is a very good chance they are on Century link which has the single worst infrastructure in the country, also those data centers won't be changing anytime soon, so the best we can hope for is a new contract with new data centers which brings its own stabbing your eye out with a fork issues.
If you people are going to ***, *** about the right things not something as idiotic as bad design.
Seriously? You sound like some one who is still running a 286.
Instead of offhadedly dismissing something you cant know if it's true or not, consider the idea. While I agree that SOME of what you said is correct, that wouldnt explain the extreme lag that happens every evening. In reality, there are too many calls to the same resource. And in response to the person you responded to, it is doable. It just takes the will. Every programming issue CAN be solved and resolved. It just takes the want to do it. And as long as you keep spending money, they will get the idea you like their ideas. Money drops off with the reason that it's there lack of will to solve it, they WILL get the will to solve it. Whether it's hardware, software or network issues.
And FYI, I've been into programming since before there were hard drives. Dont dismiss some one's idea because you dont get it. Next time try... I dont think that's the issue or that may be so but I think it has more to do with. I programmed my own games on a commodore64 portable with a 3 inch screen and spent more time getting the coding right and trying to find my typos than actually playing. I coded several things for NWN1 private servers. Things change and when you dont change with them, problems occur.
My personal opinion? Your both almost right.
So bad sever and network load balancing wouldn't explain what happens to some people every evening? And having a provider with a terrible infrastructure at the data center is an opinion from the from the 286 days? I think you're trying way too hard to prove me wrong, good luck with that.
Edited by Balamoor on February 11, 2017 9:46PM0 -
cjthibs✭✭✭✭✭
✭
...as one of those degree-holding IT professionals I will politely disagree.
My Brother has an IT job, never went to school for it, self taught in everything. Granted he works on small servers for a construction company that services multiple states. He also sets up servers for clients of said company. Nothing big, but it is possible to learn the trade without the schooling. Many trades have a school, and an Apprenticeship Program, including IT if you know where to look.
I don't disagree with you here at all.
If you read what the guy I was responding to actually said, and some of my subsequent posts you'd see that.
You can learn through experience, but not through passion.
Which agrees with what I was saying, he does the work, and has practical, relevant experience.
Hell, I learned the trade while in the USAF, and went back and got a degree later.
He Started with a passion, with his first rebuild computer when he was 14 and progressed from there. So passion does hold a key, and is what started him on his road to the experience.
See, what he keeps confusing is that I said knowledge, which he took as skill. You don't need skill to understand how the game of Baseball is played, or be a pilot to understand how a plane works, or even be an IT tech to understand what is all involved with the field.
As I was trying to make him understand, though I'm convinced that he can't understand this for fear that his piece of paper means little to nothing because of it, is you if you have the passion to learn the field, you don't need to have the job to have the knowledge. All the problems that can cause issues with servers and networking is well documented in various sources of information. Information that most techs that aren't conceded will use as a reference to help them do their job. But again... he can't see the difference. To him knowledge = skill.
That's not what I said at all. I said experience results in skill.
A degree exposes you to things, training gives you knowledge, experience gives you skill.
Try to actually read what I wrote before you criticize it.
Experience is the only thing that's really necessary. The rest is nice to have, but not critical. You're getting wrapped around the axle with things you -think- I said.
Calling the kettle black aren't we. I've read what you wrote... and I also know that someone who has the passion to learn the field can be just as knowledgeable as someone in the field. That's what I said... you took it as an affront to you as a skilled tradesman thinking that no you can't. Which I know for a fact through many examples that yes you can. I have friends that got into IT and do their jobs better than most with countless degrees and licensing and they started off with it being a hobby. This is what I was trying to convey which you completely ignored....
*sigh*
They can be skilled in some parts, yes. You're not going to be skilled at managing complex compute clusters unless you've managed them. Or petabytes of online storage. Or enterprise-grade backups, etc. etc.
I know this because I've been on both sides of this argument. I started using computers in the early 90's, and I have seen enough of the inside of the field to know that someone who messes around desktop PC's, no matter how much they enjoy it, still lacks the skills to manage complex systems.
You don't learn things because you want to, you learn them by actually doing it.
If you think that someone with a desktop and a desire to learn can learn how to manage a server farm with no other exposure...well, obviously you've never managed a server farm.1 -
Yolokin_Swagonborn✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I'm glad we finally have a thread like this. Part of me has always felt that way back when craglorn launched, and PvP framerates and performance died, there was a top level decision to move resources away from the PvP side of the game.
You could kind of tell that was the case watching ESO lives at the time where ZOS would routinely IGNORE all PvP related questions. The game was designed to let hundreds of players on screen at the same time and it ACTUALLY WORKED at launch.
I wouldn't be surprised if all this pain and suffering inflicted on the PvP community for the past two years was completely avoidable and upper management just made a business decision to limit resources and some bright person said something like "well we could still make it work with less." So they did, and it didn't work. But instead of correcting their mistake and adding more resources to PvP, they told players to spread out.
I am glad we are talking about this and it would be amazing to know if ZOS just is unwilling to invest in something that would actually make this game work.
If they are unwilling to invest in us, why are we investing in them?0 -
Elsonso✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Its about game design, no amount of extra servers is going to solve this problem because the way the game was designed, the calculations, and the amount of players interacting at one time unless you are suggesting that everyone gets their own personal sever like the days of ultima online where everyone had their turnkey.
This is unmitigated horse crap. the lag is due to a combination of network transport latency and server processing lag not game design. What needs to be addressed are sever and network load balancing and it isn't as easy as it sounds, I know because before I retired I was a Consulting Engineer contracted to Digital Reality. We provided server systems for many online games.
Also if these Data centers are anywhere near North Dallas there is a very good chance they are on Century link which has the single worst infrastructure in the country, also those data centers won't be changing anytime soon, so the best we can hope for is a new contract with new data centers which brings its own stabbing your eye out with a fork issues.
If you people are going to ***, *** about the right things not something as idiotic as bad design.
Seriously? You sound like some one who is still running a 286.
Instead of offhadedly dismissing something you cant know if it's true or not, consider the idea. While I agree that SOME of what you said is correct, that wouldnt explain the extreme lag that happens every evening. In reality, there are too many calls to the same resource. And in response to the person you responded to, it is doable. It just takes the will. Every programming issue CAN be solved and resolved. It just takes the want to do it. And as long as you keep spending money, they will get the idea you like their ideas. Money drops off with the reason that it's there lack of will to solve it, they WILL get the will to solve it. Whether it's hardware, software or network issues.
And FYI, I've been into programming since before there were hard drives. Dont dismiss some one's idea because you dont get it. Next time try... I dont think that's the issue or that may be so but I think it has more to do with. I programmed my own games on a commodore64 portable with a 3 inch screen and spent more time getting the coding right and trying to find my typos than actually playing. I coded several things for NWN1 private servers. Things change and when you dont change with them, problems occur.
My personal opinion? Your both almost right.
So bad sever and network load balancing wouldn't explain what happens to some people every evening? And having a provider with a terrible infrastructure at the data center is an opinion from the from the 286 days?
Yeah you might want to stick to the NWN private servers. SMH
Y'all do realize that we cannot diagnose and solve server performance problems from where we are sitting, right? Could be inefficiency in how the server software is handling player load. Could be poor network configuration internal to the megaserver, or even in the datacenter. Could be slow NAS or too much dependence on some other slow network resource. Maybe they are just running too many players for what they are willing to spend and the server isn't designed to scale properly. Maybe some of all of those.XBox EU/NA:@ElsonsoJannus
PC NA/EU: @Elsonso
PSN NA/EU: @ElsonsoJannus
Total in-game hours: 11321
X/Twitter: ElsonsoJannus1 -
raglau✭✭✭✭✭Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »I'm glad we finally have a thread like this. Part of me has always felt that way back when craglorn launched, and PvP framerates and performance died, there was a top level decision to move resources away from the PvP side of the game.
You could kind of tell that was the case watching ESO lives at the time where ZOS would routinely IGNORE all PvP related questions. The game was designed to let hundreds of players on screen at the same time and it ACTUALLY WORKED at launch.
I wouldn't be surprised if all this pain and suffering inflicted on the PvP community for the past two years was completely avoidable and upper management just made a business decision to limit resources and some bright person said something like "well we could still make it work with less." So they did, and it didn't work. But instead of correcting their mistake and adding more resources to PvP, they told players to spread out.
I am glad we are talking about this and it would be amazing to know if ZOS just is unwilling to invest in something that would actually make this game work.
If they are unwilling to invest in us, why are we investing in them?
It's entirely feasible. The definition of a business is an org that generates value through the provision of services and/or goods. PvP players make up a very small contingent of the player base, and we all know PvP is where performance suffers most. If ZOS are able to generate greater value through provision of services primarily to their core market - PvE players - then that is logically the business approach that will be carved out.
You are correct however, ZOS will continue on their chosen path as long as they do generate value through provision of ESO. So, if we don't like it, we have to leave. Usually however, the game performs 'just well enough' to get by, in PvE terms anyway.
Edited by raglau on February 11, 2017 9:49PM0 -
Xundiin✭✭✭✭Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »I'm glad we finally have a thread like this. Part of me has always felt that way back when craglorn launched, and PvP framerates and performance died, there was a top level decision to move resources away from the PvP side of the game.
You could kind of tell that was the case watching ESO lives at the time where ZOS would routinely IGNORE all PvP related questions. The game was designed to let hundreds of players on screen at the same time and it ACTUALLY WORKED at launch.
I wouldn't be surprised if all this pain and suffering inflicted on the PvP community for the past two years was completely avoidable and upper management just made a business decision to limit resources and some bright person said something like "well we could still make it work with less." So they did, and it didn't work. But instead of correcting their mistake and adding more resources to PvP, they told players to spread out.
I am glad we are talking about this and it would be amazing to know if ZOS just is unwilling to invest in something that would actually make this game work.
If they are unwilling to invest in us, why are we investing in them?
It started about the time they put in AOE caps. So many people suspect it has something to do with the game code that isn't playing nice. The servers them selves have never had great ping rates even at launch. Though with this last patch it's gotten much much worse.#SavePlayer10 -
raglau✭✭✭✭✭willlienellson wrote: »Have you considered the possibility that.....they don't care.
Basically this. Like all businesses, ZOS are there to make money. If people are throwing money at them on crap like Crown Crates, and Crown Store mounts & manors, then it's entirely apparent to ZOS that the game is at a point where trials/PvP/dungeon performance is mere ephemera in terms of generating revenue.0
