CMDR_Un1k0rn wrote: »

Have we taken a moment to consider that they are not going to straight up say on a stream that is for selling the game, especially to brand new players, that the server performance is pants right now?

Wait until the upgrade at least guys. It was a marketing event last night. They were not going to say anything that even remotely puts them in a negative light, as that would just put off potential new customers.

I try not to take everything so literally.

They actually did say it. GIna specifically said that it was "unlikely to improve performance".

I honestly think they are being careful not to set expectations up that it will improve performance by saying it probably wont.
If it does even a little but then its a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately there are too many people that have hung all the problems on the servers and believe that simply upgrading them will fix everything. Its not true. The devs have stated it in the past that just upgrading the servers isn't the magic bullet people think it is.

Maybe PvP will have its own dedicated server.

Dream on Aussies! Get Sco'Mo to make a deal for high band internet at reasonable prices!

BackStabeth wrote: »

I think the OP totally misunderstood what was said about the server upgrades.

They specifically made it crystal clear that the server upgrades were only what was required as their current servers are coming to end of life.

I didn't misunderstand anything. I posted this after they made the server upgrade statement in their main reveal event, as though it was a big deal. It was only later on in the post show event (after my OP) that Gina then mentioned it would have no impact on performance, and even that is a vague as hell statement since performance usually means framerate (and of course that won't change - latency might though). Finally, I did make it "crystal clear", as you like to say, in my OP that if there isn't an impact on latency then I won't be rewarding them with a Chapter purchase, so my scepticism has been there right from the top of the thread. Doesn't seem to stop a lot of you guys from spinning this into something else though.

Zos' staff has been talking about performance for a while now.

On a global launch event, Firor kicks off by saying that they will be upgrading (he did not use the word replace) all the game servers.

From what we heard during the same night, the current servers are 7 years old.

All things considered, why would Firor say what he said, and when he said it, if there are no expectations of performance improvements associated with the server upgrades?

Later on Gina did exactly what you would expect from someone who manages communities and expectations for a living: she attenuates the hype that had been building up from the server-related announcement. If things go wrong in the future, Zos' can't be truly blamed for promises they did not make (no one from the staff claimed that the server upgrades entail performance improvements, even if they end up doing so).

I wonder if this means they'll allow more than 18 characters at some point.

Sylvermynx wrote: »

sean.plackerb14_ESO wrote: »

I wonder if they are moving the servers to Azure data centers. Would make sense with them being owned by Microsoft and all now.

That buyout isn't happening until late 2nd quarter or maybe early 3rd. Right now, it's all still ZOS - and from what was said, "the game will go on exactly as it is now".

I wish it can happen sooner...

"All things considered, why would Firor say what he said, and when he said it, if there are no expectations of performance improvements associated with the server upgrades?"

Considering we get one or two the game is about to die threads a week and what was said the why is to let us know they are thinking long term in providing support for the game. Wasn't about performance but was about the game still being here in five years.

kargen27 wrote: »

"All things considered, why would Firor say what he said, and when he said it, if there are no expectations of performance improvements associated with the server upgrades?"

Considering we get one or two the game is about to die threads a week and what was said the why is to let us know they are thinking long term in providing support for the game. Wasn't about performance but was about the game still being here in five years.

You are speculating as to what you think someone was insinuating. What was actually conveyed is that the upgrades will not improve performance.

In the technical field, when you say upgrades it does not mean better. It can mean better, but in this case it does not. I'll explain what I mean.

When I was a WAN admin, we had an AS400. We were pushing and pulling data from 167 remote locations and did so for a very long time using this AS400. IBM decided they were no longer going to support this particular version of the AS400. That means no replacement hardware, no server software fixes, upgrades etc to keep up with technology. They were no longer going to support it as it was old and they were focusing on newer AS400 designs.

So, we had to purchase a new AS400 and a new test server as well. These were upgrades in the sense that it was new equipment, it operated more efficiently, it was smaller and much more compact, the server software was optimized for ease of use and that type of thing, larger drives, etc. But so far as pushing and pulling data back and forth between 167 remote locations it didn't do anything to improve that performance at all. The difference in age was about 9 years if I remember correctly.

I'll point out a few other things as well. ZOS is talking about removing the procs on gear sets in Cryo to improve performance. This is so that not as many checks against your gear have to be done, which means less computation. More or less it means they are going to test, crippling the gear sets in Cryo to see if it has a positive effect on performance. ZOS would not be doing this if they were upgrading to improve performance. They would be testing performance instead of crippling gear sets long before they tested crippling gear sets. That's not happening.

Also, the changes to the CP system are not for our benefit so much as they are for ZOS. It's another way of conserving system resources. The new system again, doesn't require as many checks.

So think of it this way. If ZOS were to invest the money required in equipment to improve our experience, that would also come with the extra added cost of the employees, the talent to run, operate, code etc that equipment. So there is not only the cost of the equipment itself, but also the cost of the people who administer that equipment. When you are talking about a company that is operating for profit, that is a huge hit to take. I was paying the people working for me between 80k and 110k per year, and we were a considerably smaller shop than ZOS is, with fewer people. And this was around the time of the 2000 conversion. I have no idea what ZOS pays their technical people, but it's most likely comparable.

So you have a profit margin to hit, and labor percentage to meet. You go outside your labor percentage and negatively affect your profit margin you can expect to lose your management bonus. The people who have the authority, who are calling the shots, are not doing what we know needs to be done in the way it should because of how it will negatively affect their business. If they can take away functionality, if the managers can apply a lot of pressure on the people who dream up these changes so that the performance issues are addressed without any real expenditure, then that is what is going to happen.

I will never forget fighting hard to get help desk, service calls were a huge issue for the shop I managed. I wasn't given much at all, I couldn't even increase the number of employees. What I ended up doing instead was giving all my people in the field text pagers, and having our remote clients log onto our website to log a request for technical help. Our people in the field received a text message and would call and help our client. It was the wrong solution but the only one I could implement. It put a lot of pressure on our people in the field, however, it saved the company almost 300k the very first year. We had 2 years free help desk from IBM but after that it would have been almost 300k per year.

So long as people are paying for subscriptions, so long as they can make things look flashy and get us to continue to spill money out of our pocket to purchase more digital content, so long as things are selling in the crown store and they make their quarterly statements and profit margins, nobody is going to take seriously anything we complain about. Performance issues will be addressed by taking something away from us. It's like some sort of punishment for bringing up the fact that ZOS has not done a good job in regards to server resources and allocation of those resources. They haven't fixed issues with the base game for years and years. They would much prefer to spend money on a flashy presentation with video clips that cause people to pre-purchase things and then insinuate that things are going to get better, and making crippling what we already have seem like it's going to be of some sort of benefit to us. They raise the CP cap not for our benefit, but rather to keep people engaged and buying crowns as they work towards the new cap. All these things are done in a way to separate you and me from as much money as possible while giving us only what we absolutely need to continue playing the game.

There is not ever going to be any significant investment in equipment because of the cost involved, to resolve the performance issues.