GOA will host WAR in the EU

[cHodAX]

Before people jump to conclusions about the differences between US and EU servers, they may want to read the Questions and Answers posted on the official WAR Europe site.
Many of the misconceptions being expressed are covered there.

Regarding the siting of servers, our Paris datacentre is one of the busiest and most efficient in Europe. We have continually striven to provide the best possible hosting for the servers, including leading edge hardware, and have even taken extraordinary steps to counter problems in other networks. I'm not aware of any action taken by any other MMO provider to alleviate problems from outside their own network, to my knowledge we are unique in our efforts to aggressively resolve connectivity problems that we have no control over.

I don't doubt what you say Req, the problem is that once the connection hits OT there is little you can do and lets be honest, OT couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery. Alot if the damage done to DAoC EU is down to them and thier appalling routing.

 

[Alan]

Like Fana said, the problem isn´t GoA, but OT. France gave us a pretty good demonstration of their inability to run a game like DAoC reliably and stable, in addition to their lethargy to even recognize and address problems. It took them months and insane ammounts of pingplots before they even started working on the lag.
I can´t complain about the Service from GoA.

I guess the next year is going to be the decider, if the lag from OT stays away then i'll be happy to play EU, if not ill be on the USA servers,

 

[xxManiacxx]

I have no problem with GOA running it. I do have problem with it being run through OpenTransit though

 

[Gamah]

.

Regarding the siting of servers, our Paris datacentre is one of the busiest and most efficient in Europe. We have continually striven to provide the best possible hosting for the servers, including leading edge hardware, and have even taken extraordinary steps to counter problems in other networks. I'm not aware of any action taken by any other MMO provider to alleviate problems from outside their own network, to my knowledge we are unique in our efforts to aggressively resolve connectivity problems that we have no control over.

Yet there has still been periods of unbearable lag?

 

[Alan]

I have no problem with GOA running it. I do have problem with it being run through OpenTransit though

Agreed, Req. you DO have really friendly and helpfull people at GoA, the datacenter must be pretty damn good looking at the lack of downtime we've had in the last (ohh urm..) 4 years ? when something does go "bang" the service is back up within minutes.

I can see the whine wont be about that, it will be that damn OT backbone - which i'll just add has been fine for the last few weeks - but time will tell

 

[xxManiacxx]

Before people jump to conclusions about the differences between US and EU servers, they may want to read the Questions and Answers posted on the official WAR Europe site.
Many of the misconceptions being expressed are covered there.

Regarding the siting of servers, our Paris datacentre is one of the busiest and most efficient in Europe. We have continually striven to provide the best possible hosting for the servers, including leading edge hardware, and have even taken extraordinary steps to counter problems in other networks. I'm not aware of any action taken by any other MMO provider to alleviate problems from outside their own network, to my knowledge we are unique in our efforts to aggressively resolve connectivity problems that we have no control over.

I hear what you are saying Req and personally I have no issues with GOA as a company. It´s just that there been quite a few times something in OT screws up

(although it´s been nice last couple of months so maybe they finally fixed it)

 

[Fana]

Before people jump to conclusions about the differences between US and EU servers, they may want to read the Questions and Answers posted on the official WAR Europe site.
Many of the misconceptions being expressed are covered there.

Regarding the siting of servers, our Paris datacentre is one of the busiest and most efficient in Europe. We have continually striven to provide the best possible hosting for the servers, including leading edge hardware, and have even taken extraordinary steps to counter problems in other networks. I'm not aware of any action taken by any other MMO provider to alleviate problems from outside their own network, to my knowledge we are unique in our efforts to aggressively resolve connectivity problems that we have no control over.

I think most of us agree with you Requiel, but when the end effect is (regardless of whos "fault" it is) that the game becomes for all intents and purposes unplayable for long stretches of time it doesnt matter much. I am aware its not your fault, and the WoW servers hosted in France suffer from the same problem (not the ones hosted in Germany though).

As someone said, if OT can keep up their end of things over the next year then that might change things but if we keep seeing the OT lag/outages then i think it will seal the deal for alot of people. Which is a bit sad since you really do run a good company in my oppinion.

 

[IainC]

I don't doubt what you say Req, the problem is that once the connection hits OT there is little you can do and lets be honest, OT couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery. Alot if the damage done to DAoC EU is down to them and thier appalling routing.

I can assure you that there is quite a lot we can do about it. Over the last year or so we have continually been working with OT to get faster resolution to problems as they appear. As a result we have special escalation procedures which should ensure that any serious problem gets fixed as soon as possible.

Some people have pointed out that WoW servers hosted in France have had the same problems. I don't play WoW and I don't read the Blizzzard forums so I'd be interested to know what Blizzard have done to address those problems - I'm genuinely curious here, not having a stab at the competition.

Remember that OT is a very large provider and that their priority is to provide the best possible routing for the largest possible percentage of the traffic crossing their network. For 99.9% of that traffic, 2 second lag doesn't make any difference. If you're downloading, surfing, FTPing etc then you won't notice it. Only for applications which require continual communication with a remote server (like MMOs) does it cause problems. While this sort of traffic is a very tiny percentage of their total throughput, we have managed to convince them that it is important.

OT are no more prone to failures than any other provider however any problem is exacerbated by the fact that there are no alternative routing networks. That's not OTs fault, it's just due to the state of internet infrastructure in Europe.

 

[rampant]

oh well - i guess i'll be playing on US servers....

crap support model from GOA, crap game purchasing / subscription organisation, banning over frikken emoting!

Dont forget all the rubbish service we have had to go through - dont forget how they treated the UK customers over the release of Catacombs.

yup looks like mythic in us will be getting my mulla

 

[Jupitus]

What do GOA pay their most senior support managers?

 

[Light]

I think Goa have done okay recently with stability but it has taken time and as Flim says it may be of benefit rather some new startup running the show and learning all the lessons again.

The only small bug bear i have is with Goa's flash website which i find appalling, and the char stats, kills, rps etc which just doesn't compare to the Camelot Herald features - i presume WAR will have even more detailed info on chars, guilds ect but will we be stuck again with a poor web interface and features?

 

[Chilly]

So you rekon hosting the service in, say, the netherlands, will result in zero lag? Dont make me fucking laugh, goa do an excellent job, OT isnt *that* bad and the percentage of time when the service isnt pretty much perfect is fucking tiny. Obviously there have been hiccups, but GOA has extensive experience and are probably the best company to consider when it comes to hosting distributed server clusters for games.

Stop whining about shit you havnt thought about.

 

[rampant]

aah - forgot to mention the eu version of the herald

 

[Alan]

So you rekon hosting the service in, say, the netherlands, will result in zero lag? Dont make me fucking laugh, goa do an excellent job, OT isnt *that* bad and the percentage of time when the service isnt pretty much perfect is fucking tiny. Obviously there have been hiccups, but GOA has extensive experience and are probably the best company to consider when it comes to hosting distributed server clusters for games.

Stop whining about shit you havnt thought about.

If you took some time to read some of the posts you would see that is far from the case, some people would rather suffer a slight constant lag of playing servers located in the US compared to what has happened in the past with OT where you are unable to connect to the game, or if you are you are linkdead within 30seconds.

 

[IainC]

What do GOA pay their most senior support managers?

Not enough. I need to mortgage my beach house just to be able to afford a helicopter to commute from the Cote d'Azur to the office.

 

[Jupitus]

Not enough. I need to mortgage my beach house just to be able to afford a helicopter to commute from the Cote d'Azur to the office.

Touché!!

 

[IainC]

dont forget how they treated the UK customers over the release of Catacombs.

yup looks like mythic in us will be getting my mulla

You mean how we organised an online purchase solution in less than 36 hours after being left high and dry by certain retail partners, thereby ensuring that UK customers could get the game on the advertised release day?

 

[Fana]

So you rekon hosting the service in, say, the netherlands, will result in zero lag? Dont make me fucking laugh, goa do an excellent job, OT isnt *that* bad and the percentage of time when the service isnt pretty much perfect is fucking tiny. Obviously there have been hiccups, but GOA has extensive experience and are probably the best company to consider when it comes to hosting distributed server clusters for games.

Stop whining about shit you havnt thought about.

Ive played on servers hosted in Germany and in the UK (WoW's german datacenter and DDO's UK center) and no, they dont suffer from provider issues. They do suffer from server related issues ofc. If GOA was hosting it in say Germany then i would take out a preorder today (if that was possible)!

 

[cHodAX]

So you rekon hosting the service in, say, the netherlands, will result in zero lag? Dont make me fucking laugh, goa do an excellent job, OT isnt *that* bad and the percentage of time when the service isnt pretty much perfect is fucking tiny. Obviously there have been hiccups, but GOA has extensive experience and are probably the best company to consider when it comes to hosting distributed server clusters for games.

Stop whining about shit you havnt thought about.

Just because you swear alot doesn't make your post anymore factually correct. GOA are doing a better job than they used to, I agree. The efforts of the GM's have impress ed me alot in recent times but the lack of ingame support is still a real bugbear for me when you consider the US players get it and subscription costs are the same.

OT are abysml and I am sorry if you disagree but 1000's of other DAoC players are in the same boat as me when it comes to lag spikes after hitting the OT network, what has always bothered me more is that OT either refuse to acknowledge a problem or take 2 weeks to fix a poorly confgured router. The are crap, end of story. 1 million WoW EU users agree with me.

GOA will lose alot of potential repeat customers because of OT, 90% of people don't give a crap about ingame support but the perodic cycle of lag spikes of the last couple of years really effects the way people play the game. I for one couldn't take another 4.5 years of piss poor connections once the data hits France, I am sorry but that is how I honestly feel.

 

[rampant]

Not enough. I need to mortgage my beach house just to be able to afford a helicopter to commute from the Cote d'Azur to the office.

see - GOA ARE technically and financially incompetent!

its simple enough to invest in VPN technology to allow support staff to work remotely - thus reducing the need for a helecopter, which could be better spent on fast cars / cheap french champagne / loose wimmen (not necessary in that order!)

 

[DavidH]

Will you be a GM in Warhammer as well, Requiel?

 

[cHodAX]

Will you be a GM in Warhammer as well, Requiel?

Are you stalking him?? Can I join in as well?

 

[DavidH]

Are you stalking him?? Can I join in as well?

Yep! Lets call ourselfs for "Requiel Fans" instead. Stalker is such a bad word.

 

[Alan]

Will you be a GM in Warhammer as well, Requiel?

Ohh now theres an interesting question but bet-ya its way too early to tell yet.

 

[ceixava]

Euro wow (and us too) have had huge problems due to alot of issues.

Goa has done a way better job than blizzard europe has done.

Guess ppl are too busy watching their nude night elf (fe)males dance around to realize something was even wrong.

Goa has done a great job apart from some glitches, over a longer time than i spent in WoW which had huge problems rendering the game totally unplayable for weeks during primetime.

 

[Pirkel]

however, competent or not, i think the 2 months wait for expansions and patches will make me move to US,

Reading is your friend.

Q. Will Europe and the US receive patches at the same time?
A. Not only will the game be released in the US and Europe simultaneously but patches and expansions will also reach both groups of players at the same time.

Q. How will the European support of the game compare to the US?
A. GOA and Mythic have a contractual obligation to collaborate and share all tools and techniques that both companies have developed over the years to ensure the same high quality of support to all US and European players.

Anyway agree to what others said ... GOA have almost unplugged their finger from their arses ... I'm just worried about Opentransit. But then again it's been pretty ok the last couple of months.

 

[Shike]

all I want to know is, will GOA follow exact same supportmodel as Mythic or not? That statement on the website says about as much as a fart in the wind really..

I can live with OT, I believe GOA is working hard with them and overall ping in US is indeed higher but used to be more stable overall, last 2 months ive played in EU Ive had no problems whatsoever though which is a nice change from before. Gotta give credit for that imo and not just bash bash bash.

All that worrys me is the support, I aint gonna play under GOA after Ive seen how much better Mythic actually is to deal with for myself.

Ingamesupport > all but one solution, ingamesupport with a websupportform would ofc be optimal but if I had to choose, ingame is the way to go no doubt and I really dont wanna play US just because of that, but if comes to it, I'll do it. Supportmodel is just as important as choice of ISP in my eyes.

If it turns out Mythic scraps the ingamesupport, well then there is no real choice I guess

(if patching is same in US and EU, woa, nice)

 

[Pirkel]

Read the post above yours Shike

 

[rampant]

You mean how we organised an online purchase solution in less than 36 hours after being left high and dry by certain retail partners, thereby ensuring that UK customers could get the game on the advertised release day?

You always manage to make it sound as if its NEVER GOA's fault - when will you accept responsibility for any problem?

lag problems - its OT (who is a french telecom company i believe?)

distribution problems - well its someone else pulled ze plug on us

xml problems - well its the US's problem

and then you want praise for cobbling together a solution - instead of designing a well thought out / executed plan

 

[Shike]

Read the post above yours Shike

as I said, it says about as much as a fart in the wind mate.. its just a statement that gives zero real information about HOW GOA will handle the support, it just says the obvious.