Not a single word from ZOS, at least as mere courtesy

Scaletho · July 2023

A simple acknowledgement of Sunday's huge mess will be suffice, and perhaps some apology as mere courtesy to ESO community.

What happened was not a unimportant hiccup. Sunday's situation was a result of extreme lack of planning. I hope Monday we get some response from ZOS, perhaps some explanations.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Paske · July 2023

I came here to see if ZOS said anything about the cockup with ques.

Naturally - no.

Wonder what will todays prime time look like.

You got to love that "We are above talking to pedestrians" approach we see.

Kiyakotari · July 2023

**settles down in /crochet chair**

PieMaster1 · July 2023

I'm sorry but I just can't side with the players on this. [snip] Have you seen what people have been saying? There was one guy who threatened to refund his game because he had to wait 8 whole minutes

I wouldn't give in to them either if I were ZOS. At first, yeah I would have asked the team for some news/an update. [snip]

Oh, forgot to add my favorite lines.

"I paid for this game!"

"I only have 2 hours to play for the whole week and I spent all my time waiting!"

[edited for baiting]

Hal_Moore · July 2023

Playing on iMac I've seen "Sundays mess" quite regularly on a day to day basis as far as getting kicked, getting errors & getting a brief log in que. it is refreshing to see the rest of the community finally participate. It is really quite amusing watching the meltdowns some of the player base has had.

it is as if someone stole a sweetroll and everyone lost their minds!

On a more serious note I'd like to thank those that work at ZOS for their hard work during the weekend moderating & trying to address the problems. We know you are just trying to have a nice weekend too and appreciate your hard work!

Danikat · July 2023

CreamedPieYum wrote: »

I'm sorry but I just can't side with the players on this. [snip] Have you seen what people have been saying? There was one guy who threatened to refund his game because he had to wait 8 whole minutes

I wouldn't give in to them either if I were ZOS. At first, yeah I would have asked the team for some news/an update. [snip]

Oh, forgot to add my favorite lines.

"I paid for this game!"

"I only have 2 hours to play for the whole week and I spent all my time waiting!"

There's a pretty broad range between a post (or a banner at the top of the forum like they usually do) to acknowledge the problem is happening and giving in to the most absurd demands anyone could make up.

I assume you've seen it before when there's problems and they put something at the top of the forum to say they're aware and investigating, that's all it needs. At the moment it looks like they don't even known there's a problem to investigate.

[edited to remove quote]

mocap · July 2023

Hey ZOS, have a cool idea! Check this out:

- make ESO free week in Epic store and Steam
- run PvP Mayhem event for that week
- run Undauted event
- run Zenithar event
- run Orsinium double drop event
- run Explorer event
- run ESO+ free trial

Everyone will be happy, I'm sure!

PieMaster1 · July 2023

mocap wrote: »

Hey ZOS, have a cool idea! Check this out:

- make ESO free week in Epic store and Steam
- run PvP Mayhem event for that week
- run Undauted event
- run Zenithar event
- run Orsinium double drop event
- run Explorer event
- run ESO+ free trial

Everyone will be happy, I'm sure!

What if the devs created a potion that gives you 60 CP instantly, I want to see that train wreck. All the noobs joining vet trials

pklemming · July 2023

CreamedPieYum wrote: »

I'm sorry but I just can't side with the players on this. [snip] Have you seen what people have been saying? There was one guy who threatened to refund his game because he had to wait 8 whole minutes

I wouldn't give in to them either if I were ZOS. At first, yeah I would have asked the team for some news/an update. [snip]

Oh, forgot to add my favorite lines.

"I paid for this game!"

"I only have 2 hours to play for the whole week and I spent all my time waiting!"

When you pay for a service, you expect that service to be provided.

20 minutes? What rock have you been living under? Downtimes in queues were in the hours. Trials were ruined when people went LD and then could not log back in today. Some people were reporting queue times in the days. A guildy had their queue sitting at 1s for over 2 hours and just gave up.

Go to a restaurant. Order a meal. Wait 2 hours for the meal. Would you be happy paying for it?

This was an outage for most of the server. An outage that was not acknowledges on a day of the week people have off from work. They maybe only get to play for 1 or 2 days a week and they pay a subscription for that.

Imagine your ISP went down for a few hours now. You call them up to find out what is happening or whether it is even going to be fixed, but no one answers and there is no notification on their website.

People should be angry. You pay for a service, you expect the job to be done properly.

Not even going to approach their attitude to nerfing the crap out of things for now reason, ZoZ being the latest addition, with the staff passives coming soon.

[snip] I work for a big financial company. Imagine if we worked on a similar basis.

[edited for bashing & to remove quote]

Stanx · July 2023

CreamedPieYum wrote: »

I'm sorry but I just can't side with the players on this. [snip] Have you seen what people have been saying? There was one guy who threatened to refund his game because he had to wait 8 whole minutes

I wouldn't give in to them either if I were ZOS. At first, yeah I would have asked the team for some news/an update. [snip]

Oh, forgot to add my favorite lines.

"I paid for this game!"

"I only have 2 hours to play for the whole week and I spent all my time waiting!"

[edited for baiting]

Terrible take on what happened

Dark_Lord_Kuro · July 2023

Scaletho wrote: »

A simple acknowledgement of Sunday's huge mess will be suffice, and perhaps some apology as mere courtesy to ESO community.

What happened was not a unimportant hiccup. Sunday's situation was a result of extreme lack of planning. I hope Monday we get some response from ZOS, perhaps some explanations.

But I'm not holding my breath.

What happened yesterday? I personnaly didnt see anything out of ordinary. Server specific problem maybe?

Edit scrolled further on the forum. I guess its the queue stuff? Zenitar event +free play event + i heard a pc platform is giving eso for free?(not sure) the last one would explain why as far as i know only pc got a problem as the third element would be the straw that broke the camel back

UnseenCat · July 2023

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

What happened yesterday? I personnaly didnt see anything out of ordinary. Server specific problem maybe?

Edit scrolled further on the forum. I guess its the queue stuff? Zenitar event +free play event + i heard a pc platform is giving eso for free?(not sure) the last one would explain why as far as i know only pc got a problem as the third element would be the straw that broke the camel back

Up until Sunday late afternoon or so (Eastern time) the login queues got progressively longer over the weekend. By Sunday mid-day they were hours long, with frequent connection drops > reconnect > re-queue as long or longer than before. It was becoming impossible to get logged on to play.

Then, magically, it stopped sometime late Sunday afternoon and people started to be able to log on with little or no queues.

There's been no banner on this forum, no official tweets from ZOS other than some outdated ones from the 28th for an earlier logon issue -- but not anything for this weekend.

Speculations, primarily on Reddit, have been some form of DDOS attack. Whether it was a direct malicious attack or bots signed-up for free through the Epic Games promotion, no one knows.

I'll add my speculation here -- if any sort of attack (malicious with a purpose of downing access or just a flood of bad bots on new free accounts) came in directly as a result of the Epic promotion, ZOS won't be able to say much of anything until it's not only resolved technically, but administratively/legally with Epic. The free promotion plus addition of ESO to Epic's games library would have naturally come with contracts and legal assurances that all necessary security/anti-abuse measures were taken. If any of that fails significantly, it's a Big Legal Deal. ZOS is ethically and likely contractually obligated not to make statements about any issues until they're properly addressed and any statements cleared in advance by the legal department.

Similar conditions could apply if something broke with their server hosting and/or content delivery network and anti-DDOS protection. Although historically, at least minimal information on those fronts has trickled out in the past, officially and semi-officially. So I tend to think it's tied up in the recent contract with Epic and NDAs and other legal/ethical rules are effectively creating a temporary gag order on specific communications about the problem -- at least until it's fully resolved and protection put in place to prevent it from coming back.

TL;DR -- EPIC fail?

Too soon??

Anyway, time to resume the normal bickering about nerfs, fake tanks, PvP, OP sets...

BXR_Lonestar · July 2023

I actually have no clue what you guys are talking about, so obviously it wasn't that big of a deal.

Dr_Con · July 2023

Posts like these are why they may close down the forums eventually.

If you want a personal message acknowledging a situation, email support.

Kiyakotari · July 2023

UnseenCat wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

What happened yesterday? I personnaly didnt see anything out of ordinary. Server specific problem maybe?

Edit scrolled further on the forum. I guess its the queue stuff? Zenitar event +free play event + i heard a pc platform is giving eso for free?(not sure) the last one would explain why as far as i know only pc got a problem as the third element would be the straw that broke the camel back

Up until Sunday late afternoon or so (Eastern time) the login queues got progressively longer over the weekend. By Sunday mid-day they were hours long, with frequent connection drops > reconnect > re-queue as long or longer than before. It was becoming impossible to get logged on to play.

Then, magically, it stopped sometime late Sunday afternoon and people started to be able to log on with little or no queues.

There's been no banner on this forum, no official tweets from ZOS other than some outdated ones from the 28th for an earlier logon issue -- but not anything for this weekend.

Speculations, primarily on Reddit, have been some form of DDOS attack. Whether it was a direct malicious attack or bots signed-up for free through the Epic Games promotion, no one knows.

I'll add my speculation here -- if any sort of attack (malicious with a purpose of downing access or just a flood of bad bots on new free accounts) came in directly as a result of the Epic promotion, ZOS won't be able to say much of anything until it's not only resolved technically, but administratively/legally with Epic. The free promotion plus addition of ESO to Epic's games library would have naturally come with contracts and legal assurances that all necessary security/anti-abuse measures were taken. If any of that fails significantly, it's a Big Legal Deal. ZOS is ethically and likely contractually obligated not to make statements about any issues until they're properly addressed and any statements cleared in advance by the legal department.

Similar conditions could apply if something broke with their server hosting and/or content delivery network and anti-DDOS protection. Although historically, at least minimal information on those fronts has trickled out in the past, officially and semi-officially. So I tend to think it's tied up in the recent contract with Epic and NDAs and other legal/ethical rules are effectively creating a temporary gag order on specific communications about the problem -- at least until it's fully resolved and protection put in place to prevent it from coming back.

TL;DR -- EPIC fail?

Too soon??

Anyway, time to resume the normal bickering about nerfs, fake tanks, PvP, OP sets...

This is by far the best potential explanation I've seen of what might have been going on behind the scenes. Though even with a DDOS attack, I wouldn't think that putting up the typical "We're investigating the issues [some] players are having logging into XYX servers," banner at the top of the forum would cause any legal difficulty or violate any NDA's. It's standard operating procedure for them during unexpected, major server downtimes, after all. Staying silent for something like this - even on a weekend - is far more unusual We had an outage on Easter one time, and people from the ZOS time got on top of it as quickly as they cab, Which means are left to assume that the cause comes from above them, in the form of evaluating and perhaps adjusting policies and procedures in the face of issues, undesired effects, violations.

Unfortunately to us player-customers, especially those who choose to give of their time to post feedback and ideas on this forum; this results in a feeling of shouting into the void over an ever-widening chasm, waiting for the whisper of sound, even your own, and hearing...

Nothing but the creaking oo ice.

Eventually, we must shoulder our packs, heft our weapons, and continue on, turning into the wind. The solo adventurer once more, and always.

Jammy420 · July 2023

Was honestly a bit insulted that there wasn't a single acknowledgment aside from Ginas " oh hey we know about it "

bradleymsimmons · July 2023

I imagine no one really works on the weekends and today was their first opportunity to meet and discuss it. I am, of course, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Now, if tomorrow passes and there's still no acknowledgement, then this company really doesn't know how to run a business.

jrfk2 · July 2023

bradleymsimmons wrote: »

I imagine no one really works on the weekends and today was their first opportunity to meet and discuss it. I am, of course, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Now, if tomorrow passes and there's still no acknowledgement, then this company really doesn't know how to run a business.

Any company selling 24x7 availability needs to employ people to work different shifts and timezones to provide appropriate coverage and/or have automation call out employees when there is some service disruption or slowdown.

old_scopie1945 · July 2023

UnseenCat wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

What happened yesterday? I personnaly didnt see anything out of ordinary. Server specific problem maybe?

Edit scrolled further on the forum. I guess its the queue stuff? Zenitar event +free play event + i heard a pc platform is giving eso for free?(not sure) the last one would explain why as far as i know only pc got a problem as the third element would be the straw that broke the camel back

Up until Sunday late afternoon or so (Eastern time) the login queues got progressively longer over the weekend. By Sunday mid-day they were hours long, with frequent connection drops > reconnect > re-queue as long or longer than before. It was becoming impossible to get logged on to play.

Then, magically, it stopped sometime late Sunday afternoon and people started to be able to log on with little or no queues.

There's been no banner on this forum, no official tweets from ZOS other than some outdated ones from the 28th for an earlier logon issue -- but not anything for this weekend.

Speculations, primarily on Reddit, have been some form of DDOS attack. Whether it was a direct malicious attack or bots signed-up for free through the Epic Games promotion, no one knows.

I'll add my speculation here -- if any sort of attack (malicious with a purpose of downing access or just a flood of bad bots on new free accounts) came in directly as a result of the Epic promotion, ZOS won't be able to say much of anything until it's not only resolved technically, but administratively/legally with Epic. The free promotion plus addition of ESO to Epic's games library would have naturally come with contracts and legal assurances that all necessary security/anti-abuse measures were taken. If any of that fails significantly, it's a Big Legal Deal. ZOS is ethically and likely contractually obligated not to make statements about any issues until they're properly addressed and any statements cleared in advance by the legal department.

Similar conditions could apply if something broke with their server hosting and/or content delivery network and anti-DDOS protection. Although historically, at least minimal information on those fronts has trickled out in the past, officially and semi-officially. So I tend to think it's tied up in the recent contract with Epic and NDAs and other legal/ethical rules are effectively creating a temporary gag order on specific communications about the problem -- at least until it's fully resolved and protection put in place to prevent it from coming back.

TL;DR -- EPIC fail?

Too soon??

Anyway, time to resume the normal bickering about nerfs, fake tanks, PvP, OP sets...

I think you are on the right track, something that was going through my mind when it all kicked off. We are living in uncertain times at the moment.

TaSheen · July 2023

See Gina's pinned post top of forum index.

Stanx · July 2023

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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

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

Quite refreshing to see an acknowledgement on their end. Shame the communication came so late but it's nice it's been recognised and will (hopefully) lead to improvement

tincanman · July 2023

Recent Queue Times & Login Issues.

Redguards_Revenge · August 2023

What happened sunday?

rpa · August 2023

Redguards_Revenge wrote: »

What happened sunday?

Looks like a major login hamster got entangled in wheel. Logins piled up and people got put in login queue and when it was their turn to get logged in they got an error instead. They eventually found and dislodged the hamster but it apparently took a while for all people in the swollen queue get logged in. Because appears to be no contingency for dealing with communication out of office hours, the only response to massive flood of complaints was forum mods trying to do their job of modding forums.

wilykcat · August 2023

Redguards_Revenge wrote: »

What happened sunday?

There was a hardware malfunction when some of the team was gone for the weekend that messed up the server connections.

On sunday, lots of players found out there were lots of sudden disconnections, errors, and log in queues. Later the forums got a lot of posts containing questions, complaints, and feedback. Some were even frustrated with the issue and vented all about it. They(Zenimax) were able to find out what was causing the hardware malfunction and fixed it.

It took some time for the different departments to communicate with each other about the issue due to it being the weekend, and then they eventually got words.

Yesterday(on monday) the moderators cleaned up general discussion and lots of those post but only kept a few. Later on that day one of the community managers (got words from another department) and explained the mistake along with an apology for it. Also a moderator helped others to know about the announcement too.

wilykcat · August 2023

Good times on the forums 👍.