All Realms Pls Read:

[rhemis]

so you read the excuse from GOA, no server upgrades due..

so what now? clearly as things stand..we cant do Mass RvR Relic Raids, the server will drop almost everytime.. so whats the solution? i cant see mids just handing over relics..nor can i see it being good having a culture of Ninja/alarm clock raids...but looking at the situation were faced with..what can be done?
on a lighter note we could go to court and have a part-time share agreement where by each realm babysits the relics for 4 weeks then hands them over =P (jk)
honestly i cant see how this will improve, they claim the hardware is top notch....that i DOUBT VERY MUCH!.. so my question is this:

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE RELICS?
HOW DO WE GO ON FROM HERE?
ARE YOU REALLY WILLING TO MASS RR IN THE VAIN HOPE IT WONT CRASH?

i know im not, id rather play a server than watch it be re-booted everyday until the albs get their relics.

**edit** just to clarify.. no i dont blame the albs, and no it isnt the fault of the mids doing alarm clock raids, this would have happened sooner or later anyway..so no whine here!! =)

 

[acei]

Albion will not leave Midgard alone until the relic's are back under Albion control, simple as that

 

[lac_desariel]

Agree with both of the above tbh, Albion wont stop, and its none fault but the machines at head office. as for the future of RR I so dont wanna be out of hours only and i wont get up early for it, I need my beauty sleep cos i is teh ugly

and besides its a game sod waking for it, give better servers or reduce fees imo

 

[old.Ramas]

ARE YOU REALLY WILLING TO MASS RR IN THE VAIN HOPE IT WONT CRASH?

Speaking for myself....

Yes, I will pretty much be doing whatever I can to encourage alb to do exactly this.

Apart from anything else - this actually makes RvR fun, rather than turning it into endless, aimless, pointless, 1fg roaming for rp.

 

[choonz]

Yep, the past few days have been none stop fun. Having a great time. This makes me 10x more bitter when the server dies though

 

[Sohan_THC]

I think we just need to go on doing this.

Im sure we di nothing special compared to other servers.
maybe in europe but worldwise hmmm doubt it. there must be more RR with 1000 ppl tho.

Strange thing still is when we went to brocaile server and there were 3200 ppl on there was really no lag @ all.
no even @ hib emain port were excal and avelon server ppl were gathering up. all chanter thingies so a lot of castig / pets / mushrooms. it run fine.

If the zone's keep crashing im sure it turns up
in some reports , the main company will ask
1 why they hand out so manny free-day's
2 why the server hangs every time.
3 why hq(goa) is getting so much email from xcal ppl.


RvR has been great fun these day's
we can not give it up tho. we're albs !


maybe some solution is , give every realm his own relics back.
but for now , I LOVE /TRANSFERCORPSE

 

[the_fnord]

Well last night both the Malmo and skona zones crashed. I've also expirienced lagg in most other zones lately... there must be sum shite with the servers 'cus it wasn't like this before x-mas..

 

[rhemis]

well im glad for once we had a proper discussion on a thread rather than a flame fest, but i agree with the poster above, surely GOA HAVE to be looking at the Excal server and wondering why it aint performing, in the case i guess we should keep going, i understand its frustrating to crash and lose time, but in that sense theyre losing money cos of all the free days were getting, i can assure you theyre accountants wont be happy, =)
still i hope things work out eventually, but it does raise the question, yes i logged onto the French server and was thoroughly impressed by the way it coped ABOVE the playerbase we had on Excal...so whats different about Broc over Excal?? thats a question ive sent to GOA and hopefully i can get an answer soon to post.

regards,

Rhemis.

 

[Telamon]

Considerations ..

hm .. I'm not defending goa .. yet a thought popped up.

I think Broc is a french server if memory serves me.

So this is what I believe:

French server
- french speaking people
- mostly french people

Excal Server
- english speaking people
- People from basically everywhere
(from Norway to the Bahamas, Singapore and Australia)

Broc would get mostly local connections meaning short round
trip times and that could give it an edge as compared to Excal
who has to handle and keep in sync (combat rounds etc.)
threads from all over the world.

Depending on the software architecture of the server this
*could* pose a problem - provided they use a 'cursor' approach
to hadle clients .. i.e. poll each one in turn. Little lags could add up.

That's the only thing I can think of that makes sense to me.
GOA would not be lieing about the hardware. They must know
Excal is THE english server and they would have made it their
best one.

If they were able to provide top notch service, my belief is they
would. What company can afford to lie about their servers?

 

[Thorgood]

If excalibur has a top notch server then they need to have a look on the upgrade patches they have made to the server. I know for a fact that some server patches (microsoft) can reduce server performance and in some cashes bring down the server in very odd times. I don't know what kind of platform DAoC runs on. But if it is Windows server in any kind they should investigate the patches for known problems and also contact the company where they buy their hardware about known issues with the patches they have put on server. This is the first thing you do when you host any server at all. You ask the platform company for known issues then ask the hardware companies for known issues. If they can't get any straight answer from hardware company they should change to another one. But in any case we need to get excalibur investigated and in any form upgraded or downgraded (if patch) so that we can have these kind of numbers on server. The game is designed for it! And they can't just say:

"Sorry but we have a problem somewhere and we don't know where but anyway please accept that you cannot go on a full scale war on this server or it will crash again. You just have to live with it as we are not going to upgrade our server. We have some people looking at the problem but that could take some time. You will hear from us again in the near future. Have fun. Ohh btw don't forget to renew your account Have a nice day."

That kind of behaviour and attitude really makes me go insane.

GOA we are having a problem and as long as you or Mythic don't put up some kind of "zone limit" for how many that can enter 1 zone you will keep on having this problem. you can't close youre eyes and think it will go away. We are going to have alot of LD's and server crashes in the near future. Albs wont stop attacking Mids and Hibs wont feel as a third wheel not being able to join in. We all want to fight for our relics. Albs because we stole it, hibs because they are the next in line so they rather let Albs have them so Albs and Mids can stay fighting and don't turn to them. Mids just likes to pick fights and therefore wants everyone to attack them so they can have some fun (and ofcourse also for the precious 20% melee attack). So you see we are still going to war in big numbers and there is nothing you can say or do to stop us from it! We just want the server to be able to handle the kind of battle we wants. GET IT?

Well that should have been on e-mail or Rightnow or something (actually don't know wich one that willl get through the filter).

Well that was my 2 cent! Thanks for letting me get some steam out

 

[Whisperess]

Originally posted by Thorgood
Ohh btw don't forget to renew your account

". But don't worry, we know you want to play our great game with perfect servers, so we will renew it for you. Even if you quit 4-5 months ago."

 

[i-scream]

As some have pointed out, DAoC is a Massive Multiplayer game.

The game is designed in that way, that for a relic raid, you need to be massively present.

Reading GOA's post and our own experiences, GOA's top notch Excalibur servers are not designed for that massive presence.

Who is to blame ?

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by i-scream
As some have pointed out, DAoC is a Massive Multiplayer game.

The game is designed in that way, that for a relic raid, you need to be massively present.

Reading GOA's post and our own experiences, GOA's top notch Excalibur servers are not designed for that massive presence.

Who is to blame ?

mythic for doing sloppy coding, which makes the server crash.

Nah it might not be the fault of mythic, but dont forget that the software on the server is provided by mythic and only the OS/patches for the OS and the hardware is run by GOA.

Also 100 vs 100 is pretty massive to me and the server can easily hold that. Its when complete realms try to battle it out on the same realm it goes wrong.

 

[old.Ramas]

Originally posted by Driwen

Also 100 vs 100 is pretty massive to me and the server can easily hold that. Its when complete realms try to battle it out on the same realm it goes wrong.

Contrary to popular belief - the last couple of crash^H^H^H^H^H tears in the fabric of space-time, happened when the amg/hlid was only running at a little under 150 vs 150. /who and guard spam was very clear on this.

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by old.Ramas
Contrary to popular belief - the last couple of crash^H^H^H^H^H tears in the fabric of space-time, happened when the amg/hlid was only running at a little under 150 vs 150. /who and guard spam was very clear on this.

uhm if you had read what GOA had said it isnt only important how full the zone is, but how full the frontier and the complete realm is. So when 60 albs port in and 100 mids at svasud going to leave and alot of mids are PvE'ing in midgard classic (and not in dungeons) than the crash might happen. As we only know the numbers of the people at the fight and not of how many were in mid frontier and in the mid realm, we wont really know what the server can actually hold.

Anyway with frontiers the frontiers will have their own server, so that atleast means that PvE'ers and active RvR can crash the server. Besides they might improve the software so the servers can withstand 1000+ people on one zone (meaning whole frontier area, inner realm not something like jamtland).

 

[Naewae]

As Mids know we're gonna get the relics anyway but we won't "cheat" by doing it out of hours and to also stop the frontier crashes I think they should just hand them over politely

 

[Whisperess]

Originally posted by Driwen
mythic for doing sloppy coding, which makes the server crash.

How come large scale battles are in and working properly in the US but not here?

Originally posted by Driwen
and only the OS/patches for the OS and the hardware is run by GOA.

not true.

 

['Shy]

Originally posted by lac_desariel
Agree with both of the above tbh, Albion wont stop, and its none fault but the machines at head office. as for the future of RR I so dont wanna be out of hours only and i wont get up early for it, I need my beauty sleep cos i is teh ugly

and besides its a game sod waking for it, give better servers or reduce fees imo

Awwww, you're not that ugly, you just need to shower and shave once in a while

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by Whisperess
How come large scale battles are in and working properly in the US but not here?

we have had 200 vs 300 here on excalibur aswell, without the server crashing. So either the server software has changed (or they undid the hardware upgrade) or there are more people around.

Also what does GOA exactly provide? The game server software is mythics, I doubt GOA has a right to see the source code, so they can modify it.

 

[old.Ramas]

Originally posted by Driwen
uhm if you had read what GOA had said it isnt only important how full the zone is, but how full the frontier and the complete realm is.

If that was the case, then if you believe the mids, alb's inner realm would drop dead every 20 seconds.

And crashing wouldn't happen in the middle of pitch battles, it would happen on a big port.

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by old.Ramas
If that was the case, then if you believe the mids, alb's inner realm would drop dead every 20 seconds.

And crashing wouldn't happen in the middle of pitch battles, it would happen on a big port.

why albs are spread over SI classic and dungeons. Thats three different servers.

Also crash might happen when server has had too much for too long or too much suddenly. Both might happen during a fight as suddenly hibs could port to odins or some mids could come back into the classic realm from somewhere.
We just dont know when the server exactly crashes only when it has being overloaded by people. We also know that earlier on big fights were possible, so something is different (allthough tonight the server seems to be holding up even though its 100+ vs 100+).

All I am trying to say is that GOA might not be the cause of what happened, it could have been mythics fault. And big fights are actually possible, they happened earlier and the server was fine.

 

[Sohan_THC]

Originally posted by Driwen
why albs are spread over SI classic and dungeons. Thats three different servers.

Also crash might happen when server has had too much for too long or too much suddenly. Both might happen during a fight as suddenly hibs could port to odins or some mids could come back into the classic realm from somewhere.
We just dont know when the server exactly crashes only when it has being overloaded by people. We also know that earlier on big fights were possible, so something is different (allthough tonight the server seems to be holding up even though its 100+ vs 100+).

All I am trying to say is that GOA might not be the cause of what happened, it could have been mythics fault. And big fights are actually possible, they happened earlier and the server was fine.

In short terms:

It is a cluster and zone's are spread over the node's
that means that the combination we have now , albs hibs mids fighting in odin and ppl in classic realm , results in over 1000 ppl and the server has a problem atm with it.

is it not possible to switch some zone's so you get other combinations with zone's who are empty more.
for instance alb zone snowdonia and area are hmm really empty.
even loyonesse is pretty empty and those ppl will be in rvr anyway.

just an idea

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by Sohan_THC
is it not possible to switch some zone's so you get other combinations with zone's who are empty more.
for instance alb zone snowdonia and area are hmm really empty.
even loyonesse is pretty empty and those ppl will be in rvr anyway.

just an idea

that would result in loading time at the weirdest locations then. You are entering snowdonia and then getting a logging screen. Doubt anyone would want power relics in albion for sure (or maybe it makes it easier?).

I dont think you can rearrange which zone is on which node, as that would mess up the game.

edit: unless you redesign the game a little (like they are doing with frontiers).

 

[Sichama]

I have the perfect solution, never did expect Albs to think about it but i have posted it again, but for the slow minded here it is one more time...
...try and take them with less people.

What a brilliant idea heh? how come none of you thought of this before?

 

[Whisperess]

Originally posted by Driwen
that would result in loading time at the weirdest locations then. You are entering snowdonia and then getting a logging screen. Doubt anyone would want power relics in albion for sure (or maybe it makes it easier?).

I dont think you can rearrange which zone is on which node, as that would mess up the game.

edit: unless you redesign the game a little (like they are doing with frontiers).

Seriously Drivel, think before you post.

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by Whisperess
Seriously Drivel, think before you post.

or show me where im wrong, instead of just insulting me?

 

[redfern]

I se some good posts here and quite a few stupid too.

Let's all agree on one thing: The problem is GoA. Not the game, nor Mythic. The games has been running without this kind of problems on the US servers for more than 2 years now. The French servers do not have theese problems. I cant help thinking what I do every time I upgrade my pc.... I give the old parts to my friends. I have a feeling here that Goa upgraded some servers, and used the old to do a minor upgrade on Excalibur.

As to the suggestions for alarm clock raids.... dont... this will only get us , the users pissed on eachothers. The game IS ment to be a massive multiplayer game AND other servers both european and US runs with even bigger battles than those we had the last few days. My suggestion is that we continiue pooring people into Odind and crash the server again and again, because THAT WILL get Mythics attention for sure. If one single server crashes time and time again it is very bad publisity for the product and that they do not need. Especially now that ToA is upcoming in europe - and extension that promotes even bigger RvR battles.

 

[Driwen]

do you actually know for sure that none of the french servers had zone crashes or that none of them were down for a day, because of a crash?

We can have big fights on excal as has been proven by earlier fights. Hell last RR of albs, there were 300 albs at mjollner, 200 albs(iirc or atleast 100) in other zones and 100+ mids at svasud getting ready to go to mjollner. So thats atleast 400 people in the same zone and 500+ in the same frontier. If that ever came to a fight (it didnt as mid were to slow) than it would surely have been a big fight and the server wouldnt have crashed.

Either there is something different between our server now and the time of albs last RR or we were now unlucky a few times (with people being in classic inner realm and overloading the server). We dont know what caused the crash or if there is a difference between excalibur off now and few months ago.
Only way to know how much stress excalibur can take is to test it though. If it does break down rather often, the problem will probably get GOA's attention and they might realize that there is something different between Excal right after hardware upgrade and now.

Btw Mythic already knows off this problem, there have been mails send to sanya and letters will arrive (or have already) at mythic. So getting mythic attention isnt really needed as they have already given it some or are doing it.

 

[Whisperess]

Originally posted by Driwen
or show me where im wrong, instead of just insulting me?

I'm not trying to insult you. Since I like you as a person it hurts to see when you add stuff that's way wrong, making people disregard the good points of your posts.

Originally posted by Driwen

that would result in loading time at the weirdest locations then. You are entering snowdonia and then getting a logging screen.

Doubt anyone would want power relics in albion for sure (or maybe it makes it easier?).

I dont think you can rearrange which zone is on which node, as that would mess up the game.

edit: unless you redesign the game a little (like they are doing with frontiers).

Now, what's wrong with this post is that it seems you think that it matters what node a specific zone is in, for loading purposes.

There is a reason to why this game use harddrive space, and that reason is that the textures/models and zones etc are stored locally. The loading screens are for when you dump the old memory for the old zones, and load the new textures/data etc into memory. ( For major zone changes, otherwise it's streamed in )

You do not download textures/models and zones from the servers on the fly. That's what the patcher is for. Do you get a loading screen when you approach the alb zerg? Didn't think so. You get loading time for when your client is loading textures for the new models/textures for those people, described as lag by some. ( cheap man's radar by others ^^ )

The only thing the servers are concerned about when you're moving around zones are peoples position and actions. When the calculations for these actions take place ( doesn't seem to be all that many server side, sadly ), and client accesses to that information on the server, that's when the real lag comes in that regards zones. Or, as is the topic here - server crashes.

The lag many people are referring to though is frame rate lag induced by too much data for their graphics card and/or CPU to handle. You ever notice the difference with /effects none in a zerg environment? Texture blending which is used almost exlusively for the spell effects cause fillrate stalls etc which make your poor little fps choke. The game code handled this a little bit better when they introduced the LOD models, but it seems it's not enough. The players use long distance LOD models anyway since they have no problem with the fillrate usually. It should be more automatic, the client should disregard what you prefer and use LOD ( level of detail btw ) in times when it really need to.

That's for the loading screen part. As for "I dont think you can rearrange which zone is on which node, as that would mess up the game." That's just not true, as can be read a bit up.

It's actually a good idea. The RvR zones should each and every one be on a different node if possible, to lessen the strain on each node with accesses. If you have a few hundred people in one zone ( Relic Raid for instance ) - you don't want the people killing Gjalpinulva to interfere. ( just an example, I do not know where they draw the line for nodes ).

It would mean that the client possibly have to access more than one node if the zone they're entering is on another than their current. It would hardly "mess up the game".

 

[old.Ramas]

Originally posted by Driwen
All I am trying to say is that GOA might not be the cause of what happened, it could have been mythics fault. And big fights are actually possible, they happened earlier and the server was fine.

It could indeed, GOA do, after all, use an internationalised version of the code base - even on the English language servers.

However, we have a commercial relationship with GOA not Mythic, so it's not unreasonable for responsibility to lie with them. Donaldson vs Stevenson and all that. As Mythic is simply a supplier to GOA, it's GOA's responsibility to get good service from Mythic, you do not bring to customers tales of woe about your dodgy suppliers (and to be fair GOA are not trying to).

And what we do know, is that the US servers run happily with larger battles than our servers, and indeed that our servers have happily run with larger battles in the past than they seem to be doing right now.