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Naxxramas optimization
Crygil posted an important announcement last night concerning the lag and associated performance issues in Naxxramas. Blizzard has made some recent optimizations to Naxx, and they want to know what all of our experiences are like in the instance this week. As such, they're asking everyone to post feedback in terms of performance in the thread over on the official forums.Now by performance I don't think they mean "My pocket Paladin can't tank." What they're looking for are detailed reports such as "When I was attempting to do the Heigan dance, my entire group lagged behind a good 5 to 10 seconds. We decided to go and raid Hogger after we wiped for six hours in a row." Or "The Ice Block appeared after Frost Breath when my guild was taking down Sapphiron because of the 30 second lag."Matt Rossi wrote a great piece yesterday on the need for designing the fights around latency. Hopefully this will become less of an issue as Blizzard works out their backend mechanics; and it appears this change is a major step forward.
Is Blizzard cutting costs?
So with all the hubbub about 3.0.8's problems, a lot of people are wondering who to blame. Activision seems to be a popular target, with people blaming them for nerfing Blizzard's famed "it's-ready-when-it's-ready" game design cycle and rushing things out the door while they're still buggy and imbalanced. Popular MMORPG blogger Tobold is in that camp himself. In one of his latest blog posts, he theorizes that Blizzard has been cutting spending for some time now, be it because of falling stock prices or the need to move WoW team members to Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2 or simply because of the economic downturn in general.
On lag and communication: Two interrelated issues
On Thursday, January 8th Nethaera sent out a memo to all the fan sites asking them to announce it, and Eyonix posted on the forums for all the rest of us. Latency and connectivity issues will be fixed in patch 3.0.8. The crowds cheered, babies cried in joy, and dog and cats started to live together. The world would be right again.Fast forward 15 days later.The high latency while raiding places like Naxxramas and Malygos is still there. The servers are still packed with queue. The patch was a near disaster. And we're still getting bug reports in every 10 minutes, both in comments and via our tip-line.Many people want to know why this hasn't been fixed. People are out looking for blood. The whole head on a pike sort of thing. A better way to approach the situation is to try to come up with contingency plans and other activities to do. If Blizzard cannot get their servers to work, to the point that many consider the game playable, then people will need to focus on other aspects of the game or try to work around the problematic parts.On the couple servers I play on many of the top guilds have decided to stop raiding for the night if there are any problems with high latency in the raid instances. On Alex's server people raid only for a couple hours after 10pm when the queues and population have dropped off. And still other guilds I know have just said forget it completely and are on hiatus until these issues are fixed.
The disaster of patch 3.0.8
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Is_Patch_3_0_8_the_biggest_disaster_to_hit_WoW_since_launch'; Bugs plague any developer of computer software -- even when you think your code is perfect and it's been seen as such by everyone in the company, you'll still have your users find bugs faster and more frequently than you ever thought possible. And Blizzard is no stranger to bugs -- though they have a reputation for quality releases, they've always had a few bugs sneak through. As big a game as World of Warcraft is, there's always bound to be something not working quite right.But patch 3.0.8 goes above and beyond the bounds of normal mistakes. Adam put together a terrific roundup last night of bugs found so far, and the list goes on and on: Wintergrasp (one of the biggest promoted features of Wrath) shut down. Unbearable lag on the realms and in instances (and this patch was supposed to fix that). Blizzard even went live with the patch knowing that major bugs (the Warlock summoning and animation and clipping errors) were in there, and, perhaps worst of all, bugs that have been in the game so long they seem to belong there (we're looking at you, Pet Cower bug) didn't even bother showing up in the patch notes, and haven't been fixed.In short, patch 3.0.8 has been a disaster. If Blizzard feels that this patch lives up to the quality of content they released in Northrend (or if they, unbelievably, somehow though this was meant to be a bugfix patch for Northend, that ended up screwing up more things than it fixed), then they need to take a long, hard look at their quality assurance system again.
Breakfast Topic: Fun in the 3.0.8 sun
Patch 3.0.8 is here! So welcome to the new patch -- much like the old patch, only with more lag, crashes every 20 minutes, and plenty of other entertaining bugs! (Don't you just love patch day?) You would think that, by now, we'd have learned that patch days tend to be a bust for playing, but most of us at WoW Insider HQ rushed to log in as soon as the realms were back online, ready to enjoy some 3.0.8 goodness. Boy, were we in for a disappointment. (Though as some of you may have noticed, it was a great time to catch up on old world achievements, since the Wintergrasp bug was only crashing Northrend.) For those of you who decided to spend your Tuesday outside of the game, you managed to miss out on plenty of patch day fun -- but you may be just in time to enjoy stable playtime as Blizzard has scrambled to get things working again. (If you haven't picked up the patch already, here are some download mirrors to help you out.) Were you in-game on Tuesday night? If so, what were your experiences? Get any playtime in?
Latency fixes coming for Northrend, Naxx
Although I haven't experienced it so much myself recently (fingers crossed), many players have been complaining about high latency both in Northrend and in the various Northrend raids (especially the Heroic versions). I have had Grizzly Hills especially (for some reason) get so bad with the lag spikes that I just logged off for an hour, but that was back in the first few weeks of Wrath. Apparently, the outdoor Northrend lag has been caused by Wintergrasp battles. There is a "server-side fix" (which I read as hot fix) in testing on internal realms at Blizzard, and Eyonix tells us that they hope to be able to patch up the live realms "in the near future" (which I hope is sooner than "Soon™"). As for Naxxramas, we are informed that there are optimizations in the pipe for it, and that those will be coming in 3.0.8 (which I personally predict for next Tuesday). These optimizations will, allegedly, help both latency and disconnects. Are disconnects a big problem in Naxx? I'm not sure I've seen any.
Server issues abounds this evening
Servers seem to be having all sorts of problems actually staying up tonight. A fair portion of the population is experiencing chronic server crashes, including my home server. A few of my guildmates canceled their 10-man raids as a result of players' inability to stay online. Even when the server isn't down, it's a real pain staying connected.We don't really have any information as far as clear upcoming fixes or how long the issue will last, but we here at WoW Insider most definitely know how you feel. Consider this a show of solidarity. It's lame, and hopefully it will go away soon. If you're just sitting down now to dig into your playtime for the night, expect some interruptions.What we do have is a little bit of information about possible upcoming realm transfers that will be opening up in the near future. Free transfers, of course. You can find Zarhym's list behind the cut below.
Breakfast topic: Forgive and forget?
Wrath has been out for about a month now. We were excited about the game, but boy were we angry. We had restarts, extended maintenance, server queues, and whole host of other anomalies. Blizzard's solution was to address as many issues as they could and give us each three days of credit. There are still problems with random disconnects, server lag, and some other bugs. There's still work to be done, but it's getting better.The one thing that I'm still very frustrated with is the evade issue. This seems to happen to me far more frequently than it did pre-Wrath. I hate it when a mob resets just as it would die, particularly when it's an elite. It always reminds me of Jester diving below the hard deck. I have nothing to do but try to kill the mob again or move on to another one that's (hopefully) not evading.Over all though, I'm happy with Wrath of the Lich King. There are some dreadful quests, but some awesome ones as well. A lot of things are reused, but many are new as well. I'm over being mad and back to enjoying the game. But Blizz, if you're reading: please stop the mobs from bugging out and going home.Now readers, it's your turn: Do you forgive Blizzard yet? What will it take to make you happy with WoW?
Making fleet battle reservations in EVE Online?
This is probably a first in the MMO industry... EVE Online announced higher performance server reservations for large scale PvP battles. Unlike most other MMO titles where you choose a server to play on with your friends, EVE Online doesn't make you choose. Although the server cluster is made up of hundreds of IBM blade servers, from a player's perspective, it's all one galaxy with over 5000 solar systems. This is good for a 'sandbox' game, where players are allowed to do whatever they feel like within the rules of that place. It creates a huge galaxy where everyone can potentially interact... or kill each other. But it comes with a rather substantial drawback at times: lag. This 'single server' approach makes EVE Online a game where players hope to have large-scale fleet battles not unlike all those sci-fi shows and films we grew up with. But the harsh reality is that there are limitations of server technology that hinder large scale conflicts. Bring a few hundred of your friends to a fleet battle in EVE and you might not be fighting so much as watching a slide show. Definitely not the most fun to be had in the game.
EVE's call to arms: Thursday fleet battles on test server to help combat lag
EVE Online's latest expansion Quantum Rise brought some new features for the industry crowd, and a few enhancements aimed at PvP pilots as well. But some of the broad changes they've made to the game mechanics have triggered lag, and lots of it, which CCP Games is hoping to combat with the help of the players themselves. CCP Tanis says, "We take this issue very seriously and as a result, our engineering team has been in high-gear working on fixing the problem and we think we are close, but we need your help." The help CCP Games is looking for requires relatively little from players, aside from logging into the Singularity test server and entering the fray, blasting each other apart in battleships. The Wednesday tests were already underway when we got word of this, but they're looking to get a large group of pilots (200 or more) for the Thursday fleet engagements on Singularity. The test will take place on Thursday at 11:00 GMT, and another is tentatively slated for 15:00, dependent upon what CCP learns from the previous fights. CCP Tanis lays out how players can get involved:
Where to begin? (Poll)
Do you remember the night that Burning Crusade came out? I waited in the cold outside Game Stop with about 30 other people. We boasted about our accomplishments and I nearly came to blows with a decidedly orcish young woman who played a Gnome Warrior (with pink pig tails). I rushed home to install the expansion and couldn't wait to get in. First, I ran my character into Orgrimar to get the PvP version of the Hawkstrider. I was disappointed that it didn't exist so I bought a Skeletal Warhorse and trotted on to the Dark Portal. There was a raging PvP battle in Blasted Lands. The ground was covered in skeletons. I ran the gauntlet as quickly as I could, grabbed the quest and zoned in. Through the portal I found the worst monster I've ever encountered in WoW: lag. With everyone starting in Hellfire Peninsula it was like my character was swimming to sand. While there was an uneasy, unspoken truce between the factions quest mobs were hard to come by. It was reminded of Black Friday at Fry's. I still stayed up until seven the next morning.
The price of a game time refund
Is it just me or has it been a long time since Blizzard passed out some free game time? Reader Jim T. emailed me about a conversation he recently had with Blizzard's customer service -- he was disappointed with the lag, the queues, and the downtime on his server lately, and checking in about how he might get a refund or credit. The customer rep told him that while they didn't give out individual credit, they occasionally do give out game-wide credit for downtime mistakes.Which is true -- Blizzard will occasionally give out a free day to folks affected by major unexpected downtime or server issues. But while they used to do it fairly often, by my recollection, they seem much less inclined to pull the trigger on a refund lately. On the one hand, sure, Blizzard does a better job than they used to -- last Tuesday's maintenance lasted quite a while, but it wasn't anything compared to the days the servers used to be offline a few years ago. On the other hand, though, there's no question players are being affected -- by queues, by problems logging in, and by lag on the instance servers and elsewhere.Of course, we have no idea if Blizzard has an actual rule for when they give out free gametime and when they don't -- at this point, the criteria for giving players a refund happens to be "when they feel like it." Which is all right, we guess -- it's their company, of course. But it does seem like the criteria has changed -- we used to get refunds all the time, and even with all the problems lately, Blizzard hasn't decided to give customers any game time back.
Server restarts for Friday October 24th
While the connectivity and general lag seems to have gotten better in the last day or so, there are still some lingering issues here and there. All servers will be undergoing rolling restarts on the morning of the 24th from 5:00 a.m. PDT to 6:00 a.m. PDT. Each realm is expected to be down only 15 minutes.Ideally this will solve all the issues we've had since patch 3.0.2 hit last week, but more likely we'll just see things be better for a short time.If this temporary down time turns into anything extended, we'll update this post.Of course, this restart might have something to do with Zombies hungry for brains.
Free high pop to low pop server transfers incoming
Thundgot over on the EU forums says there's a pretty drastic solution incoming to the busy servers incoming: Blizzard is going to offer free server transfers from high pop servers to low pop, so if you've really been driven nuts by all the queues and lag lately, this might be just what you need. On the other hand, don't jump into anything too quickly -- traffic problems are pretty common, especially when big patches (and, you know, expansions) come down, and odds are that once the expansion actually releases, things will die back down after a little while.Of course, if you just don't want to wait, and don't have any particular ties to the server you happen to be on, then by all means, keep an eye out for the transfers. We're not quite sure which servers will be affected yet, but We Hate PUGs saw Quel'thelas on the list already along with a long list of high pop realms, so while we'll probably see more servers added to the low pop side, the high pop side there now is probably a fairly good indicator of the realms Blizzard sees as trouble. If you're on one of those realms and ready to transfer, sit tight and wait for the announcement today, help is on the way.
The EVE Performance Group
"CCP fix lag nao!!" That's essentially what this writer has been hearing from players since he began EVE Online, and most assuredly it was being uttered long before that. Whether it's a typical forum whine or something much more clever, the message remains the same: Players really want to have fleet battles with several hundred people at once. After all, the shardless galaxy that players populate, in theory, should allow for that. But in practice, lag can turn such engagements into a slide show. Is it unrealistic to assume that 1000-player fleet battles will ever be a reality in EVE? Time will tell. Still, you'd think that CCP Games didn't care about wiping out lag from much of what you read on the forums. They're making some inroads with their new server technologies and ongoing initiatives to improve performance, but players still wonder what goes on behind the scenes. The latest in the recent blitz of dev blogs from CCP Games comes from CCP Tanis, "Introducing: the EVE Performance Group," and is an attempt to explain how this group of developers works to make EVE "run better, faster, and smarter." CCP Tanis lays out how they using monitoring, profiling, and debugging tools to try and reduce server load and increase performance.
EVE server upgrades open possibilities for 1000+ player combat
There's been much talk of late about EVE Online's servers and the underlying technology that powers over 5000 solar systems in New Eden. CCP Explorer's latest dev blog, "EVE64", focuses on the tech side of EVE, and discusses StacklessIO, the blade cluster, and the migration of the EVE servers to 64-bit. The server enhancements, while not without some issues, are showing some promise according to CCP Explorer. "This Monday, 29 September, we saw a fleet battle with over 1100 pilots reported in local. Field reports indicate that the fight was quite responsive for the first 10 minutes but then the node 'missed its heart beat'... and was removed from the cluster...," he says. Despite such setbacks, it's good to see that CCP is doing something about the server issues resulting from an ever-increasing number of pilots in New Eden. Player response to this dev blog seems positive, with a few reporting their experiences being in combat with 1100+ players on the official forums, and even more players weighing in on the server changes at Scrapheap Challenge.
Massively's guide to reducing your Second Life lag
One of the most misunderstood concepts in any online medium is lag. Lag essentially refers to a delay. Most commonly we're referring to the delay between when you expect something to happen and when it actually does happen. What makes lag difficult to understand is that it is a syndrome. There are multiple possible causes for lag, some under your control, and some not -- all of which contribute to that molasses-like feeling, and occasionally crashes or disconnections. To help you make the most of your Second Life experience, we'll look over how to easily and simply identify what kind of lag you're getting, and what (if anything) you can do to reduce it. Jump to a section: Your computer The servers The network Final thoughts Your computer >> Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
EVE Evolved: EVE Online's server model
Almost any time a discussion about EVE Online comes up, one way or another we end up talking about the server. EVE Online is unique among today's most popular MMOs for its single-server approach. While most MMOs deal with large number of users by starting up large numbers of separate servers with identical game universes, EVE maintains only a single copy of its game universe on a massive cluster of servers. CCP's decision to go with a server model that doesn't use any sharding or instancing whatsoever has had a major impact on in-game activities and how the game has developed.Server woes:Unfortunately for CCP, maintaining their vision of a single game universe has proven a lot more difficult and costly than anyone anticipated. Working with IBM, the EVE server cluster is maintained in London and is currently the largest supercomputer employed in the gaming industry. Even with this massive power behind the EVE universe, there are still problems as CCP tries to keep the server upgraded ahead of its ever-expanding playerbase.In this article, I discuss the unique gameplay that is possible thanks to EVE's server model, the problems the server currently faces and what CCP is planning to do about it.
Breakfast Topic: So you're in the Beta now too
If you've hopped onto the Beta realms recently, you may have noticed the heavy lag that's been going on ever since the last wave or two of testers were accepted. If you are one of those testers who entered so late in the process, then you, like myself, might be finding that despite your best efforts, the lag does tend to color your opinions and feedback about the various quests. Personally, I try to add into the comments section that I might have rated the quest as more fun had I not died twice, failed to pick up the items faster than the characters with whom I was competing, or spent what felt like forty minutes trying to kill X number of mobs. Nonetheless, while certain experiences seem so novel and interesting, others can drive players right back to the live realms because they get sick of investing so much time and effort into something that simply does not work with so much lag, or listening to the complaining and counter-insulting that goes on in the chat channels. Are you stuck wishing you'd been able to enter the Beta when the population was more stable? Are you forging on, or have you mostly forgotten about your key and chosen to wait until release on November 13th? Were you an early tester who is now annoyed with the increase in lag and annoying behavior?
WoW Moviewatch: Stuck in the World of Warcraft
Yesterday I wanted to impress you all on my first Moviewatch post, so I showed you a very classy, serious movie. Today? Not so much! Instead, today I offer you a good laugh. MTGScreenie brings us his musical and comedy stylings in the form of Stuck in the World of Warcraft. This music video, set to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," but with WoW-specific lyrics, is a comic ode to the game he loves. MTGScreenie's singing isn't going to win any awards, but I think that makes the song even more endearing and funny, especially when he strains to hit the high notes or runs out of breath because the song outpaces him. The visuals won't blow you away, but you'll see lots of amusing reminders of things you love and hate about playing WoW. Seriously, people, who doesn't love lag and ganking! [Thanks, Terrë Yuki!] If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ...
