Regarding the server issues and the vitriol

[Azravos]

Sigh, you guys...

EVERYONE has now had AMPLE evidence that this is what will happen EVERY SINGLE TIME that a new online-only game releases that becomes popular. No matter age, size or experience of the company releasing it. Meaning you should already have expected this.

I doubt any one of us "apologists" are saying that we should celebrate the devs for this. But rather we're saying that maybe try to be a little more understanding...

I mean do you always succeed in everything you do in life or at work? I doubt it. So instead of sitting here spewing vitriol every time the servers go down. How about just take a chill pill. Let the devs do their jobs and just do something else for awhile? Or if that isn't working for you.. simply request a refund.

I mean would you like to have the very same "feedback" from thousands of users every time you yourself screw something up at work? Would that really motivate you to do better? Really?

This is reality and it's not going to change any time soon. Every single company that has released this kind of online services for the last 10+ years are going through this. No matter if it's Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, or smaller indie devs. Don't you think there has to be a reason for this?

You can ofc start blaming "bad devs" for this but if so that would mean that every single company out there has "bad devs". Logically that doesn't quite add up does it? So there must be something else?

Maybe the companies are simply refusing to pay for launching more servers to handle the load? However if that were the case then that would be economical stupidity. There is such a thing as player momentum and if all you have to do is take the cost and fire up some more server instances to handle the increased load, every company would be doing it. Why?

Because handling the load to keep the player momentum going would easily earn back any money spent on buying more server instances. So that could not be it either.

So taking all this into account.. what could it be then?

Maybe the complexity of the systems involved in an online service game combined with the fact that unless you get to test your system with a large concurrent workload of ACTUAL players instead of simulated stress tests is the reason why online-only game services always fail at release?

Which is why the Diablo 4 release day was one of the more stable releases (it wasn't perfect mind you, there were some lag spikes, and disconnects during the first days). But the servers never crashed. Reason for that is that Blizzard had something that most other games companies will never have.

They got to have around 2.6 million users playing their open beta. So in effect they got to have a REAL stress test of their systems before release. I played all open betas they had and let me tell you there were server crashes and downtime, lag spikes, disconnects, stuck loading screens, etc. All the good stuff. Which WOULD 100% have happened at release day had they not managed to get so many people to show up to their open betas..

For most games, open beta tests are able to get at most 1/10 or 1/20 of the player numbers compared to release. Meaning the release is the only real stress-test a game service actually gets. Hence we get this situation with every new release.

Perhaps the solution for a somewhat stable online-only game releases is for the game companies to actually pay 1-2 million players to stress-test their systems in a beta. (At least for games that are unable to get those kinda numbers from hype alone). But I doubt that is feasible. But who knows.

[Tactical Drongo]

estimating how much server load to expect on release day (and short after) and how much on average are really hard things

that is one of the few things I wont blame any dev (especially smaller studios) for

[VonFIDDE]

They can rage as much as they want (without making a gazillion posts), still 193k in-game players at the moment.

[FhqwhTODD]

Originally posted by Azravos:

Perhaps the solution for a somewhat stable online-only game releases is for the game companies to actually pay 1-2 million players to stress-test their systems in a beta. (At least for games that are unable to get those kinda numbers from hype alone). But I doubt that is feasible. But who knows.

Blizzard did this in 2 Betas where they scaled their servers and for that had a very good launch of Diablo 4. But they also have the servers at their disposal if they want to.

[NationX]

1million sales, 5 years and game servers folded at 150k. But they were prepared.

"We’ve scale tested for months with third parties, consultants, the help of infra providers, and our own backend team. We have the ability to scale servers quickly, have reserved a large amount of bare metal machines, and do not have a maximum spend for cloud overflow- it’s all elastic. From the extensive testing we’ve done, unless we do have a really crazy turnout, we should be stable."

[Krainz337]

game had server problems for almost a year now and they were never fixed for full launch and gotten only worse. i played the entire EA offline because of this and i though that they would fix these before launch and they didnt

[El Jefe]

Problem is not about server capacity. If people would actually read the updates they would know that there has been bugs that has been revealed due to the amount of people who wants to play. LE has never had 200k people trying to connect and play at the same time before. Is it annoying, sure, yes it is, but unlike many other similar games at least you can still play in offline. Don't like it? get a refund and move on or play something else that while waiting. If for some odd reason this isn't possible for the collective "you" and the only thing is to moan about it then some reevaluation of your life priorities are in order.

[Azravos]

Originally posted by Gottkaiser Fhqwhgod:

Originally posted by Azravos:

Perhaps the solution for a somewhat stable online-only game releases is for the game companies to actually pay 1-2 million players to stress-test their systems in a beta. (At least for games that are unable to get those kinda numbers from hype alone). But I doubt that is feasible. But who knows.

Blizzard did this in 2 Betas where they scaled their servers and for that had a very good launch of Diablo 4. But they also have the servers at their disposal if they want to.

It's just not only about the servers. Scaling up a system is just as much about the software involved in the service as it is about the servers hardware/instances.

Having a real player stress-test for your software will quickly reveal any weak points/bottlenecks in your software. Which you're then able correct before release. Because firing up new server instances is very quick in today's world of cloud computing. It's the software changes and/or rewrite that takes a lot of time. Depending on the severity of the weak point/bottleneck.

[Astasia]

That's a lot of text for people to ignore and remind you that very few online games are unplayable for multiple days after release. The issues here are truly exceptional at this point and not at all "the norm." If I had any interest in online I would be flipping my lid like everyone else by this point. There's no excuse for this.

[Pancakeparty]

I don't see the devs making the excuses you are, there is no excuses. Not anticipating the server load for their game is a fail.

[forumcrybaby]

Originally posted by Azravos:

Sigh, you guys...

EVERYONE has now had AMPLE evidence that this is what will happen EVERY SINGLE TIME that a new online-only game releases that becomes popular. No matter age, size or experience of the company releasing it. Meaning you should already have expected this.

I doubt any one of us "apologists" are saying that we should celebrate the devs for this. But rather we're saying that maybe try to be a little more understanding...

I mean do you always succeed in everything you do in life or at work? I doubt it. So instead of sitting here spewing vitriol every time the servers go down. How about just take a chill pill. Let the devs do their jobs and just do something else for awhile? Or if that isn't working for you.. simply request a refund.

I mean would you like to have the very same "feedback" from thousands of users every time you yourself screw something up at work? Would that really motivate you to do better? Really?

This is reality and it's not going to change any time soon. Every single company that has released this kind of online services for the last 10+ years are going through this. No matter if it's Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, or smaller indie devs. Don't you think there has to be a reason for this?

You can ofc start blaming "bad devs" for this but if so that would mean that every single company out there has "bad devs". Logically that doesn't quite add up does it? So there must be something else?

Maybe the companies are simply refusing to pay for launching more servers to handle the load? However if that were the case then that would be economical stupidity. There is such a thing as player momentum and if all you have to do is take the cost and fire up some more server instances to handle the increased load, every company would be doing it. Why?

Because handling the load to keep the player momentum going would easily earn back any money spent on buying more server instances. So that could not be it either.

So taking all this into account.. what could it be then?

Maybe the complexity of the systems involved in an online service game combined with the fact that unless you get to test your system with a large concurrent workload of ACTUAL players instead of simulated stress tests is the reason why online-only game services always fail at release?

Which is why the Diablo 4 release day was one of the more stable releases (it wasn't perfect mind you, there were some lag spikes, and disconnects during the first days). But the servers never crashed. Reason for that is that Blizzard had something that most other games companies will never have.

They got to have around 2.6 million users playing their open beta. So in effect they got to have a REAL stress test of their systems before release. I played all open betas they had and let me tell you there were server crashes and downtime, lag spikes, disconnects, stuck loading screens, etc. All the good stuff. Which WOULD 100% have happened at release day had they not managed to get so many people to show up to their open betas..

For most games, open beta tests are able to get at most 1/10 or 1/20 of the player numbers compared to release. Meaning the release is the only real stress-test a game service actually gets. Hence we get this situation with every new release.

Perhaps the solution for a somewhat stable online-only game releases is for the game companies to actually pay 1-2 million players to stress-test their systems in a beta. (At least for games that are unable to get those kinda numbers from hype alone). But I doubt that is feasible. But who knows.

feel better now after writing that essay likely at your desk in your underwear, neck unshaven and surrounded by empty Pepsi 2 liters and crumbled up fun sized Cheetos wrappers?

[Azravos]

Originally posted by biofail:

Originally posted by Azravos:

Sigh, you guys...

EVERYONE has now had AMPLE evidence that this is what will happen EVERY SINGLE TIME that a new online-only game releases that becomes popular. No matter age, size or experience of the company releasing it. Meaning you should already have expected this.

I doubt any one of us "apologists" are saying that we should celebrate the devs for this. But rather we're saying that maybe try to be a little more understanding...

I mean do you always succeed in everything you do in life or at work? I doubt it. So instead of sitting here spewing vitriol every time the servers go down. How about just take a chill pill. Let the devs do their jobs and just do something else for awhile? Or if that isn't working for you.. simply request a refund.

I mean would you like to have the very same "feedback" from thousands of users every time you yourself screw something up at work? Would that really motivate you to do better? Really?

This is reality and it's not going to change any time soon. Every single company that has released this kind of online services for the last 10+ years are going through this. No matter if it's Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, or smaller indie devs. Don't you think there has to be a reason for this?

You can ofc start blaming "bad devs" for this but if so that would mean that every single company out there has "bad devs". Logically that doesn't quite add up does it? So there must be something else?

Maybe the companies are simply refusing to pay for launching more servers to handle the load? However if that were the case then that would be economical stupidity. There is such a thing as player momentum and if all you have to do is take the cost and fire up some more server instances to handle the increased load, every company would be doing it. Why?

Because handling the load to keep the player momentum going would easily earn back any money spent on buying more server instances. So that could not be it either.

So taking all this into account.. what could it be then?

Maybe the complexity of the systems involved in an online service game combined with the fact that unless you get to test your system with a large concurrent workload of ACTUAL players instead of simulated stress tests is the reason why online-only game services always fail at release?

Which is why the Diablo 4 release day was one of the more stable releases (it wasn't perfect mind you, there were some lag spikes, and disconnects during the first days). But the servers never crashed. Reason for that is that Blizzard had something that most other games companies will never have.

They got to have around 2.6 million users playing their open beta. So in effect they got to have a REAL stress test of their systems before release. I played all open betas they had and let me tell you there were server crashes and downtime, lag spikes, disconnects, stuck loading screens, etc. All the good stuff. Which WOULD 100% have happened at release day had they not managed to get so many people to show up to their open betas..

For most games, open beta tests are able to get at most 1/10 or 1/20 of the player numbers compared to release. Meaning the release is the only real stress-test a game service actually gets. Hence we get this situation with every new release.

Perhaps the solution for a somewhat stable online-only game releases is for the game companies to actually pay 1-2 million players to stress-test their systems in a beta. (At least for games that are unable to get those kinda numbers from hype alone). But I doubt that is feasible. But who knows.

feel better now after writing that essay likely at your desk in your underwear, neck unshaven and surrounded by empty Pepsi 2 liters and crumbled up fun sized Cheetos wrappers?

Yep!

[L O]

So the OP is saying we should just take bad products and be happy with it. How about no.

[Azravos]

Originally posted by Astasia:

That's a lot of text for people to ignore and remind you that very few online games are unplayable for multiple days after release. The issues here are truly exceptional at this point and not at all "the norm." If I had any interest in online I would be flipping my lid like everyone else by this point. There's no excuse for this.

Cool, can you then please provide me a list of popular online-only (no dedicated servers or anything that splits the workload up to anything else than per region, e.g EU, USA, Asia) that launched with a large user-base from day one? Oh and the service can ofc not be using peer-2-peer connections either. I'll wait :)

[AlucardNoir]

Originally posted by Azravos:

Sigh, you guys...
But rather we're saying that maybe try to be a little more understanding...

No. Just no. The older I get, the less understanding I get. Say you go to a restaurant and get food poisoning and it gets so bad you need to be taken to the hospital. How understanding are you going to be with the restaurant staff? after all, they were also just people, and ♥♥♥♥ happens. NO. the older I get the less understanding I've become. To quote Cave Johnso: When life gives you lemons don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back. Get MAD!

As others have pointed out, there were issues with the game's servers in EA as well. I had issues loading new zones in EA. And it was not fixed in EA despite many people reporting it.

Also, for the people that keep harping about the hardware side, that was not and is not the issue. The guy in charge outright said it. Either in the discord or on Reddit. The problems they encountered were software related. Hardware was not and is not an issue, at least not as far as the launch was/is concerned. They have hardware that on paper should be able to handle anything they needed. That wasn't an issue and it should be put to rest. They might not be AAA but they had enough money to make sure that they were set hardware wise

[NationX]

Originally posted by Azravos:

Originally posted by Astasia:

That's a lot of text for people to ignore and remind you that very few online games are unplayable for multiple days after release. The issues here are truly exceptional at this point and not at all "the norm." If I had any interest in online I would be flipping my lid like everyone else by this point. There's no excuse for this.

Cool, can you then please provide me a list of popular online-only (no dedicated servers or anything that splits the workload up to anything else than per region, e.g EU, USA, Asia) that launched with a large user-base from day one? Oh and the service can ofc not be using peer-2-peer connections either. I'll wait :)

Using another's lousy launch to justify another is lazy. The fact that we have to accept that game launches being like this is the norm or acceptable is staggering. Gaming gone down the drain