FAO: Mythic and GOA ppl

[Kaireem]

This comes from BLIZZARD forums. Here's an example of how to communicate with your customers on ongoing issues, hope you guys will learn here cauz I will be playing WoW, and not just me
Anyway, reason i'm posting this is simply because I felt a serious lack of information when playing daoc, 2-3 lines of text just don't cut it when server crashes for the x-th time in 1 week.

POSTED BY Ordinn,
Blizzard Poster

Hi all,

A number of inquiries have come in about the lag issues on some of the servers, so we want to take some time to provide more in-depth information for you. Some of you might be surprised to learn that the lag you’re experiencing is an expected and necessary part of the open beta test. Contrary to what some of you might believe, the open beta test is intended as a massive stress test, and not just a free demo of the game prior to launch.

Having hundreds of thousands of testers playing the game at this time lets us analyze how well our server infrastructure -- made up of the best, most up-to-date hardware available -- can handle extremely large server populations. In fact, the open beta test is allowing us to simulate having an even greater number of testers spread across even more servers than we currently have up. In terms of concurrency, we’re already seeing servers with twice as much population as we had during the closed beta test, and our total overall concurrency, across all servers, is already rivaling that of the most popular MMORPGs currently available. Keep in mind, also, that this population is distributed across a relatively small number of servers -- again, for the exact purpose of stress testing them.

In general, lag issues are caused when thousands of players congregate in one or two zones on a server. When this happens, the normal communication that comes from the server -- which includes information about every NPC, monster, player, item, etc. in the area -- increases to the point where the flow of data can get backed up.

For those of you who are concerned about server stability and possible loss of character-related information, take heart knowing that the lag you experience when this backup happens is not at all related to stability; it’s more of an issue with how quickly the data is handled. That is, with an excess of communication from the servers, the data remains stable, it just has to wait its turn in line to be processed. Running a massive open beta test like this allows us to steadily optimize how the data is processed.

With half a million people having signed up and been accepted into the open beta test, we have the unique opportunity of being able to fine tune our code prior to release in a way that most other MMORPGs have not. These code optimizations are done server side and do not require players to patch. As more and more testers finish their beta-client installations and start logging on, we’ll be able to do even more analysis and optimization prior to release. While this process brings about a challenge for those of you facing lag issues, it ultimately helps us maintain our schedule of analyzing and optimizing our code for all of our servers, including the ones that have yet to be brought online.

We are looking forward to having hundreds of thousands of players enter the world of Azeroth on November 23, and we‘re grateful that you all have the interest and the patience to help us do this last, sometimes challenging, bit of testing. Your assistance with this will truly help us ensure that World of Warcraft will run as smoothly as possible at launch.

Now THAT's providing info about something to your customers...

 

[Icebreaker]

And where is the difference to Goa now? At the Point we got the lag they gave us the Info. Opentransit etc. Dunno where the differénce is. xD

 

[Roteca]

And where is the difference to Goa now? At the Point we got the lag they gave us the Info. Opentransit etc. Dunno where the differénce is. xD

me thinks the diffrent is that wow is fotm atm, daoc is not...
wow is new and long awaited by many ppl, they just havent got the up yet i guess. also wow beta is pretty newly released, and also its a beta.
i guess more info is providing during the beta, and also wanna keep the customers satisfied, as a beta is a chance for ppl to test the stuff out. and they dont have to pay for it. once they are addicted and are giving in there cash to blizzard i wouldnt be supprised if the "friendlyness" of blizzard goes down to goa level when it comes to support/information.

althou goa support has gotten a bit better i think and also the informationt he last month or so. can this have to be planned with the release of other mmorpg's beta/official release ? to make the daoc addicts (like most of us that reads theese boards i guess) happier so they will stay addicted to daoc and not go onto another mmorpg

and yes my spelling and grammar sucks, what you gonna do ? sue me ?

 

[Kaireem]

how long did it take them to post it ?
we're going on year 3 of daoc now, and you've been getting info for what, 6 month's ?

the coming of requil (spelling) and the other goa GM has indeed been great change, so yes you're right, it has improved

but then again, i have quit playing 4 months ago and not planning to come back either so i should probably shut up ^^

 

[Elewyth(TLSOA)]

wow they posted explaining what lag is... hoo fucking rah! never seen that before /sarcasm off

you call that information? any man and his dog already knows what lag is.

 

[Roteca]

nvm

 

[Kaireem]

wow they posted explaining what lag is... hoo fucking rah! never seen that before /sarcasm off

you call that information? any man and his dog already knows what lag is.

good too see you actually read the post,

well IF YOU DID you would have noticed they even said WHAT caused the lag and why it is there etc...

ah well no use talking to a brick wall, i'll just go back and do something fun as starting this thread obviously was a huge waste of your valuable (lol) time.

 

[Skaven]

So they told you something any experienced player already knows. Open beta = lag. Amazing.

I managed to play WoW the other night with a latancey of over 500. It's not the kinda game thats imperitive that you need a uber fast connection so your not going to notice as much.

Edit: Who gives a shit what caused it and how they're fixing it etc? If its being fixed then that's all we need to know.

''In terms of concurrency, we’re already seeing servers with twice as much population as we had during the closed beta test, and our total overall concurrency, across all servers, is already rivaling that of the most popular MMORPGs currently available.''

Yeah, free open beta's tend's to do that.

 

[Elewyth(TLSOA)]

good too see you actually read the post,

well IF YOU DID you would have noticed they even said WHAT caused the lag and why it is there etc...

ah well no use talking to a brick wall, i'll just go back and do something fun as starting this thread obviously was a huge waste of your valuable (lol) time.

haha omg u try to flame me with THAT argument?
oh jees, its not even worth my time... so let me explain this CLEARLY FOR YOU...

1. they tell you that lots of players cause lag? holy shit batman!!!! thats news to me!!
2. why is the lag there? see above!!

3. omg omg omg omg theyre going to optimise theyre code?!?!! aye like every other MMORPG before them...

this isnt information... its drivel to silence the un-educated like you, and apparently it worked... cos you went away thinking they give a rats ass.

 

[Daedalus]

Well, I don't know if you've been playing on the open beta test.. but.. the majority of the players are pretty retarded and seem to be unable to figure out the obvious thing.

Mythic and GoA haven't had to go to these lengths yet, and god I hope they'll never have to. The information on camelotherald.com (grab bag) and camelot-europe.com for EU specific information is enough.

 

[Elewyth(TLSOA)]

Well, I don't know if you've been playing on the open beta test.. but.. the majority of the players are pretty retarded and seem to be unable to figure out the obvious thing.

yeah i have been playing it, full of american retards atm, sick and tired of dealing with little kids... i mean i really hope theyre parents say NO when it comes to using the credit card.

 

[Morchaoron]

Now THAT's providing info about something to your customers...

with what exactly? are you fucking stupid?

 

[Thorarin]

Most of that story is just marketing bullshit

Thousands of players per zone per server, what has he been smoking? Numbers set aside, some of the lag behaviour has little to do with the server load. There are some design issues left to be solved or servers wouldn't behave like they are at the moment.

When Gorre was lagging badly due to it running on low end hardware, GOA provided a similar story, minus the beating about the bush..

 

[Thorwyn]

Just the usual Blizzard fanboyism. If someone at Blizzard hq releases a fart, people are anticipating the arrival of a new messiah and are ready to sacrifice their testicles to celebrate the event.

In general, lag issues are caused when thousands of players congregate in one or two zones on a server.

No shit Sherlock! I thought it was the other way round! Thank god this is cleared up now. I mean.. those really know what they´re talking about aren´t they.

You guys are swallowing this BS ever since Blizzard decided to start a large open beta and introduced their BNet. And the scary thing is, that people are still sucking Blizzards dicks not because their support or their philosophy or their gamedesign is so good... it´s because it´s Blizzard.

 

[Esoteric]

I fully intend to play WoW Euro on release with some friends and that is the reason I will play it. If they said we're off to EQ2 Id be off to that instead, its the people I want to play with not the game.

Having said this I do know Blizzard have made a solid of effort with customer service and so on.

But... only a couple of times have GOA taken too much time to contact us about a serious issue to do with the game and to me that means they are all hands on deck trying to fix it or figure out logically whats wrong then explain it.

The amount of GMs contacting people on these boards at the mo is better than ever Req in particular, he even replies in "hate goa, love blizzard" threads. If something goes wrong and the community start flaming blizzard I'd like to see one of their reps deal with similar hostile posting situations. Im sure they would but many companies like to bury their head in the sand and hum quietly.

Over the past year (in my experience) GOA have been informative to the point that is needed. I don't want to read some bloody essay, just find the problem, say sorry about it and state its fixed or its eta.

Anyway problems aren't information to consumers they are: Lack of population > lack of advertising, no UK 3rd server, no Co-Op server, [Mythic]nasty timesink expansions (MLs are fun, whacking X-mob 100,000 time after hitting 50 to level your weapons is insane), [Mythic] logical generic consumers ignored on balance issues e.g. stealthers and thanes should be groupable, and a ingame csr tool tho rightnow isn't that bad.

Goodnight.
Eso

 

[Awarkle]

you wait Wow expansions will be identical to every other expansion for mmorpgs.

IE new characters are introduced new classes are introduced new weapons.

And so you will just repeat and repeat because thats what the expansions are designed for.

TOA was designed not to be completed in a weekend, the whole idea of artifacts was to mean you spend money playing for longer. NOONE makes you go out and get the "shimmerings mighty sword of WTFPWN" you can rvr in other gear and still do well (i prove this every day when i rvr) the difference is you go up against people whos only goal in life is to be top of some lamer leader board crowing about how their ultimatly twinked capped stat resisted char will win.

I can predict it now

First year of WoW = Major bug fixes server down time probbly nerfs
Second year = free expansion or free content most bugs fixed but obvious ones remain
third year = paied for expansion old bugs remain and you will be in the same situation you are now.

I say this if your going to play a new mmorpg realise this first 6 months will be laggy buggy probbly lots of server down time and almost certainly class balance fixes.

Im prepared to give daoc 1 more year if nothing changes then illl change game to one thats been out a year somthing different but it woudlnt be a new fantasy game probbaly be imperiator looking nice my sort of game.

You guys all complain at information goa and mythic put out but they really dont have to tell you anything they only do tell you stuff because you get so bitchy and whiny

christ we pay what 8 euros a month or what ever ? thats not really that much money.

 

[gervaise]

Let me just highlight a few of points:

<Having hundreds of thousands of testers playing the game at this time;>
<As more and more testers finish their beta-client installations and start logging on>
<With half a million people having signed up and been accepted into the open beta test>
<and our total overall concurrency, across all servers, is already rivaling that of the most popular MMORPGs currently available>

So Mythic explained what lag is and some folks complain that that is no big deal. Well its a fair bet that some people don't know what lag is. And as the original poster said this is just an example of Blizzard not taking their customers for granted. (Yes it may be free but every tester has gone to the trouble of downloading it / maybe joined FilePlanet at a cost etc.

Half a million. And there is a huge clamour from people who haven't yet got into the open beta (which is open but not unlimited).

 

[Kaireem]

finally someone that gets the point i've been trying to make, thank you

 

[vintervargen]

isnt it same player maxlimit on the servers now as it will be on release?