Discussion: Dbl XP Weekend and Server Performance
By
Agent_X,
Posted on: 2008-02-06 19:48 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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The thread list for Freedom Server's forum section is rather interesting to read right about now.
My response to the ones complaining? stop encouraging the PL'ers and the farmers, because the ones doing it for money are clogging up your server, using high-speed internet pipes from overseas to log in people ten, twenty, maybe even a hundred at a time.
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Just curious. Do you have any credible evidence the RMT PLers and farmers are on in any numbers? Many people have made your claim, and frankly, I'm pretty skeptical. Now, genuine players who are PLing and/or farming have just as much a "right" to play as you do, whether or not you agree with their play style choices.
The merchants will flock to where there is a market.
And right now, that market is in two places: Freedom, and Virtue.
I don't get RMT spam on Liberty, much. Freedom, on the few times I've created characters there... CONSTANT. Virtue seems to be more player-policed, but it's still a problem.
And with double XP/rewards for three days... hey, the devs just gave their profit margins a MAJOR boost. If I were into RMT farming, you'd be damn skippy I'd be logged into the high-pop servers. Lock or no lock, I'd find a way for entire crews to be on.
It's a freaking gold rush for that business model, is what it is.
as for playstyle "rights"... I'd have to look, but I don't believe the EULA gives the 'right' to claim anything, other than access when access is available. I DO believe there's something in there AGAINST reselling NCSoft's resources/intellectual property... which means anyone PL'ing or farming for PROFIT should get booted whenever they're discovered.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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It's the negative and somewhat hostile responses like some I've seen in this thread that make the development team and its representatives less than excited about communicating anything to the player base. It's "damned if you do and damned if you don't" - if you have concerns, I understand - just try to take the announcement in the spirit in which it was undoubtedly intended: information for us to have BEFORE the event.
What if they hadn't told us there was any possibility of servers being locked if they reached whatever threshhold has been determined? What if they'd simply locked the servers and when you tried to log in on Friday night you were greeted with grayed out servers? Some of you would be here screaming bloody murder why is my server down! And then, when told "Oh, we locked it because it reached a pre-determined threshhold" these same people would be screaming "You never TOLD us you would be doing that!! You have no right!"
By announcing this ahead of time, IF the situation occurs, you'll know WHY the servers are greyed out and to keep checking.
I do wish they would put a queuing system in place now that they have the means to lock servers, as it does seem more fair to me that those who MIGHT get locked out get to access the servers in the order in which they got in line once they become available again. I really hate when I'm 5th in a line of 8 in a grocery store and another lane opens, taking the people who got in line behind me and checking them out before me....
As for those of you who plan to AFK in missions until you are really ready to play - well, I can only observe that it must often be very difficult to be so much more important than everyone else...
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I agree with everythng said here. The Devs are consistently called upon by the formites to share information big or small about what's happening in the game and then Lighthouse lose's a hand for it.
Dragon-King First level 50 -- Fire/Nrg Blaster
(and to many alts to mention)
Protector
Quote:
| Originally by Arcanaville: Everything in Praetoria was designed during a drinking binge in which the devs temporarily forgot the rules. |
Can't even get "single" exp. Been trying for 6 hours. Basically, it's tough "poo". That's it. Go home. Yep, on Freedom for almost two years. Just make double exp rate, the normal expeirence rate. There, just fixed the problem, fixed the pro levelers, cuz they are not needed any more. Everyone is happy, cept Who? don't need pissed off dbl exp weekend anymore!!! Yeah!!!! I guess the down side is they will get back lots of people and sell more games and revive their sales. haha
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The merchants will flock to where there is a market.
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Excellent supposition, but not a case in fact.
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And right now, that market is in two places: Freedom, and Virtue.
I don't get RMT spam on Liberty, much. Freedom, on the few times I've created characters there... CONSTANT. Virtue seems to be more player-policed, but it's still a problem.
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These are personal observations. Generalizing from personal experience will almost always get you in trouble. My own experience with RMT spam on Freedom and Virtue is mixed. Characters with names closer to the front of the alphabet seem to get more spam than characters nearer the back. Were I to base my estimate of the number of RMT farmers/selling on those latter characters, I'd underestimate my guess and vice versa.
Still not proof, though.
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And with double XP/rewards for three days... hey, the devs just gave their profit margins a MAJOR boost. If I were into RMT farming, you'd be damn skippy I'd be logged into the high-pop servers. Lock or no lock, I'd find a way for entire crews to be on.
It's a freaking gold rush for that business model, is what it is.
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Yet, at the same time, double XP weekends do more to undermine the RMT market than expand it -- at least in the short term. The players who would usually buy Inf/Imf from RMT sources are earning it at a far faster rate, making any RMT purchase more expensive from a relative standpoint.
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as for playstyle "rights"... I'd have to look, but I don't believe the EULA gives the 'right' to claim anything, other than access when access is available. I DO believe there's something in there AGAINST reselling NCSoft's resources/intellectual property... which means anyone PL'ing or farming for PROFIT should get booted whenever they're discovered.
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No argument there. I was referring to regular players. Like all of us, we have only the rights and obligations in the contract (EULA and TOS) we agree to every time we log in.
And we are still no closer to proof that there are enough RMT farming accounts logged in to be causing server population spikes.
<QR>
I don't know if someone else already mentioned this, but I think it's interesting to note that this message implies the capacity of the servers is OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
Im a little annoyed the mods keep trying to bury this issue on forums that are rarely read.
Boycott Ncsoft if they close down Coh.
Huh?
It's linked directly from the Announcements page and STICKIED.
Your reality seems to be a li'l warped, there. I'd get it checked.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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Huh?
It's linked directly from the Announcements page and STICKIED.
Your reality seems to be a li'l warped, there. I'd get it checked.
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Like people even bother reading it.
there are almost twice as many posts on the freedom board on the locked out server, and thats on a server board which usually has very low traffic.
Every post thats been on general discussion has been locked or moved.
Just because your paranoid doesnt mean no one is following you.
Boycott Ncsoft if they close down Coh.
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Huh?
It's linked directly from the Announcements page and STICKIED.
Your reality seems to be a li'l warped, there. I'd get it checked.
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He just is ticked off that he started yet another thread on this when there where official threads. This was pointed out several times to him and he didn't care. Then they locked his thread - of course.
Sorry grapes anyone.
General Discussion and Technical Help areas are both heavily moderated, and posts that run contrary to the Forum Rules are pulled.
The server forums are not policed as much, so I'm sure the discussion is a bit more vocal there.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Hey oh powerful red names... is it possible... since its Lincoln's B-Day.. and I have off from class tommorow night, can you extend the DBl XP one more day?
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Hey oh powerful red names... is it possible... since its Lincoln's B-Day.. and I have off from class tommorow night, can you extend the DBl XP one more day?
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Lincolns birthday was the February 12, 1809 and Presidents Day is the 18th (3rd Monday in February ) so why would they give you the 11th off?
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Can't even get "single" exp. Been trying for 6 hours. Basically, it's tough "poo". That's it. Go home. Yep, on Freedom for almost two years. Just make double exp rate, the normal expeirence rate. There, just fixed the problem, fixed the pro levelers, cuz they are not needed any more. Everyone is happy, cept Who? don't need pissed off dbl exp weekend anymore!!! Yeah!!!! I guess the down side is they will get back lots of people and sell more games and revive their sales. haha
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Well sorry you can't get on but now you know how us west coast servers felt.
Shubbie, once there is an official thread for a topic - like, say, this one - it is against the rules to start NEW threads, anywhere else, discussing that topic. This is an important enough issue, the developers want(ed) to have ALL the commentary concentrated in a single thread, so they could digest the players' collective feedback in a more timely manner.
Newsflash: Servers have limitations!
Of course it's the Devs fault for letting people transfer to Freedom. Always their fault, innit?
They're out to get you!!!
Yeah..how dare the Devs grant us movement between servers after we asked so long for it.
Next thing you'll know they'll be giving us real numbers for our status and reducing the grind...those bastards!
So:
Lighthouse- How many shares do I need to buy?
Guy with Volton comment in sig- Maybe the sword has a monster recharge and he can't afford good IOs.
Rest of y'all-Feel sorry you got lagged but, It's not like Freedom and Virtue being super busy is news.
Infinity and Victory mostly
dUmb, etc.
lolz PvP anymore, Market PvP for fun and profit
Yep so I'm not reading 17pages of this thread, but here's my feedback:
1- Server Status over the weekend:
- freedom - at peak hours, greyed out for 40% of the weekend, red all other times.
- virtue - never greyed out, red almost the whole weekend at peak hours.
- protector/victory - green most of the weekend, yellow at peak hours.
- all others - consistently yellow.
2- Suggestion
Stating the obvious: Freedom needs an upgrade. It's by far the most populated server, so that server needs to be bigger to allow for it to never EVER be greyed out.
Virtue could also use this.
Overall though, the servers were much more stable than last year (do we remember when 1 server was actually completely OFFLINE for several hours, and when freedom kept kicking people off and it would take 1-2hrs to log back on?) The subscribers were not happy.
GJ devs... great improvements so far, less lag overall and better server stability.
Just increase freedom's capacity and we'll be good to go for next year.
just wondering, given that Freedom has had a track record of always being the most populated in general but especially during events, was there ever any thought into getting a higher capacity server for freedom than the other server upgrades?
any chance we will get a bigger server than the upgrade now that you have seen its particular popularity?
Bonnie and her bunny
Arc ID: 59406
The Trash Came Back
Arc ID: 350303
Keep in mind that throwing more hardware at something can't fix every problem when it comes to database/server load. There are also limits in the software to consider as well (either OS, language, or codebase limitations). For the sake of adminstration and maintainence (as well as avoiding having bugs crop up on just one server) they likely use the same hardware configuration for all servers.
What I could see them doing if the load becomes a regular issue (or a critical event-related issue) is off free server transfers OFF of Freedom and/or Virtue to spread the load out more. Other MMOs have done the same thing (though more often you hear about server merges due to low-population than server splits/transfers due to high population).
Over the weekend I only played on Virtue and it was always during red times. I had very little lag, and only had one temporary mapserver disconnect (it didn't kick me out of mission and after a couple of seconds resynched). This was much better performance than I'd seen during events. This was also villainside which in general is more laggy than heroside (other than maybe Atlas Park).
While it is unfortunate that they had to lock Freedom, at least I never heard of any of the servers crashing or nasty amounts of lag.
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Keep in mind that throwing more hardware at something can't fix every problem when it comes to database/server load. There are also limits in the software to consider as well (either OS, language, or codebase limitations). For the sake of adminstration and maintainence (as well as avoiding having bugs crop up on just one server) they likely use the same hardware configuration for all servers
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In terms of the "Freedom needs to be bigger" argument, Grazel is correct that scaling the server up isn't as simple as throwing additional hardware at it. If it was that simple, we'd already have the game on on big 'ol server and everyone playing on the same thing.
However, the nice thing is that this bottleneck really only comes up during Double XP weekends. The other 359 days out of the year, it's smooth sailing!
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Over the weekend I only played on Virtue and it was always during red times. I had very little lag, and only had one temporary mapserver disconnect (it didn't kick me out of mission and after a couple of seconds resynched). This was much better performance than I'd seen during events. This was also villainside which in general is more laggy than heroside (other than maybe Atlas Park).
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Despite the need to population cap Freedom, we're really happy with the overall performance of the new server hardware and the additional changes and modifications that have been made along with it. Things have been running great and we can see more areas from this weekend where we can improve even further. Thanks again for the feedback and your continued support.
Lighthouse
Community Relations Manager
If you have a specific in game, account, tech or billing problem please contact our Customer Support team via The Knowledge Base "Ask A Question" page.
I was on Virtue, and while there were some problems (lag in certain heavily used zones, game locked up so completely loading into a TF mission that I had to actually shut the program down through the Processes tab in Task Manager), the biggest one was the global chat server flaked out constantly. We've had this bug where global chat channels would occasionally drop from the chat tab and you would have to re-add them... during Double XP Weekend, this was happening to me every 10-15 minutes. I would get some chat and then the globals would go silent... I'd check the tab, and sure enough they removed themselves AGAIN! I belong to a combination SG/VG, and our group uses the group's global channel as our main form of communication/team-building since some of us would be running blueside and others running redside while having a Ventrilo server for TFs and general things (not all of our SG mates use Ventrilo, so it's option B)... we had to use Vent as our main source of communication. That's bad when an outside program had to be used because the ingame system failed horribly this weekend.
Oh, and I kept a tally of how many times the globals disappeared on me during the Double XP Weekend when I was logged in: 73 times. 73 times I had to re-add my globals to my chat tab and/or the globals were completely greyed out. Since this bug hit initially, I've had to re-add them a total of 3 times since the server upgrades and before Double XP Weekend.
Other than that, the servers did well.
Ashes to ashes,
Pheonyx
The Cape Radio
"It's good to have friends. Wish I did." - Troy Hickman
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if this is how the weekend is gonna go, I want 3 days added to my account. Otherwise I will cancel on Monday. There is no reason to lock paying customers. It's not our fault you supposedly upgraded servers. It seems your upgrade was someone coding in a player cap.
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Interesting. Last time there was a double XP weekend, which was before server transfers, people complained because the lag was so bad on Freedom that they couldn't play.
They fixed that and you still complain. Damned if you do and all that.
There is no way to make servers have great performance and an unlimited number of players. It's not a posibility.
Would you rather they ban people from transfering to Freedom or creating new characters there? You don't think that will make other people mad? Or is it ok if those people get mad, as long as you get what you want?
Here's the thing... did anyone not know that Freedom has the highest population and that this event would bring more players online over the weekend? Are you going to tell us that there was nothing you could have done to prevent this on your own? Like tell your friends, "Hey, in case the server gets too full, maybe we should make some alts someplace else." Justice is often down when I want to play. So I have characters on different servers. Freedom was not locked all the time. You could have played part-time there and part-time elsewhere. Is that idea? No. IS there an "everyone is happy, this is perfect" solution? NO. There is no such thing.
I'd love to see how all the "I won't give you my money anymore 
" people would set up a business model to make their wildest dreams come true. No one can please all of the people all of the time and you're fooling yourself if you think they can of if you think you could somehow manage to do it yourself. You may be playing a game, but it operates on real world limitations.
~Missi
http://tinyurl.com/yhy333s
Miss Informed in 2016! She can't be worse than all those other guys!
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Its not one weekend. It's everytime they do something special freedom bogs down from lag. I have played almost a year, just 2 weeks shy. The only way for me to fix this problem is pay them more money to move my characters. Then who says that will fix it? Whos says the server I goto will not get "full." Then I pay MORE money to move again. NO!
Even Wow allows you to move from over populated servers for free!
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I disagree with your attitude, but letting people move off of Virtue and Freedom for free wouldn't be a bad idea. For a while they were considering not letting people move onto those two servers. This would be kind of the reverse.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie