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Server lag is inexcusable


DarthZak

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To Joveth or whoever reads this,

 

Those who've seen me before know that I always defend BioWare and the admins on this forum. Ive seen the workings of a multimillion (billion I guess for EA) company and know how things work. I dont agree but I understand.

What happens now however is not right.

 

With F2P there was a massive influx of people, I applaud this and I love it! I like helping out new people, running them through Esseles Story Mode with my Campaign/Dreadguard geared Sentinel just so people can see how awesome they can become.

I love answering questions in General.

 

I also love raiding and keeping my rotation up. I also like not walking into trash because my game is lagging. I also like my friends not crashing in the middle of a boss fight. Also I like stopping people from capping a node in a Warzone.

 

The crashing was bad in 1.4 but with the F2P in 1.5 and the influx of people its stacking with massive server lag making primetime unbearable. This is robbing me and a lot of other players from enjoyment. These are the players who have been loyal for almost a year now. I dont ask for much, Ill gladly pay my $15 a month and play this excellent game for however long its up but as it is now I dont play during primetime anymore unless I have to.

Fix the server lag or create F2P servers or something, I dont care how but fix the problem. Dont let me wipe on bosses just because you guys didnt anticipate a massive influx or are calculating that the numbers will drop in a few weeks or months and then everything will settle down again, thats not good enough.

 

Thanks for reading and I hope Ill get a reply

Elycia

 

 

 

PS. Awesome game but Customer Support could be improved upon as well

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You'd think a multi-million dollar company would have had the thought of, "Huge influx of players, it'll effect latency!"

 

But, they didn't... It's funny to me that they launch F2P, broken to all hell and back, but they didn't think that having 1,000's of new players come in would effect their servers?? SERIOUSLY?? Bioware/EA, if you're trying to fly this game into the ground, you're doing an outstanding job!! If not, then *** are you doing?!

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They really should open up another server for f2peeps and then allow a limited number of HELPFUL subscribers to copy characters to it as Guides. I wouldn't mind spending a few hours a week on an F2p server answering questions to genuinely new people... up to the point I run into those who constantly beg instead of using resources I point them to.

 

Regardless, yeah.. the lag has been pretty horrible in some places, especially for those on machines not even made to handle the game. I feel for those people. I've had a few issues (especially in section X, but those aren't F2peeps.. just lots in a space) but most of my issues stemmed from 1.4 and seemed to have been corrected in 1.5... except for fleet lag. That's worse than ever.

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I posted on these forums along with many other people warning them of this very situation. When you have played MMOs for 13 years you learn and thing or 2. Where you get to experience your company, we experience dozens.

 

Listen to us when we express these concerns. We do so because we do not want these mistakes repeated. Especially when we wish so desperately for the game to be successful and see poor choices being made.

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This is a real issue and it's a shame that threads about this on the customer service forum are almost immediately taken off the first page by threads about missing cartels coins and locked accounts. As the OP correctly stated, certain areas of the game, mostly areas that contain dailies, are simply unplayable now. I tried the new section X two days in a row, it was a major lag fest, and just gave up on it.

 

If players' ping is in the 30-50 ms range throughout, but still you experience extreme ability delay, it means your servers cannot cope with the amount of players. Don't start asking people for ping paths, it aggravates them even more.

 

What boggles me is the lack of communication from the side of Bioware/EA. The first 5 days there was total radio silence from their end in response to all the issues people were having. Being on top of things and reassuring people that their problems are known, would go a long way to instilling confidence that you are handling the situation.

 

Instead I see almost no CS reps posting in the CS forums since 1.5 and the first real information coming from the community manager states that 1.6 is on the PTS. This same manager then tells us a few posts later that the reason we're all waiting on responses from them is that they are understaffed because of the holidays!

 

I'm sorry. But this is arguably the most important release for the future of your game and you go ahead with it when there is no one to handle problems?? How does that go? Your engineers implement the patch and go home for a long weekend?

 

Don't get me wrong, I love this game and I really enjoy playing it when it works. However you guys have no clue whatsoever how to communicate with your supporting community. Just talk to us and for once let us know what is going on if you want us to keep faith in this mess and keep subscribing.

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Sigh... This is the exact same complaint people had at launch - "OMG server queues/lag suck, open more servers Bioware!" So they did, and then when the launch rush ended, the complaint became, "OMG BIOWARE WHY U OPEN SO MANY SERVERS NOW I HAVE NO ONE TO PLAY WITH SERVER CONSOLIDATIONS PLS!"

 

You really expect them to make the same mistake twice? Give it a couple weeks, the rush will die down, server populations will stabilize again, and everything will be just like it was before.

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Ping is not the issue. I run on The Shadowlands (US EC) and live in Europe. Since day 1 Ive had between 90-100ms lag which is not a problem for me.

 

My PC isnt a problem for me either. HD6890 2GB, Phenom X4, 16GB DDR3, should not have any issue with it, and it didnt until the last server merge. Right then I noticed it starting to stutter but it was still ok.

 

Opening F2P servers sure... but then theyd have to transfer them onto normal servers if they pay? And paying subscribers transfer over to F2P when they want to play F2P? If they could do this then sure, as long as it doesnt affect anything but it will since names etc. When I said it it was more said as a "Just DO something!" argument

 

Ive worked in several levels of customer service and I applaud what Joveth and Allison are doing in these forums. Ive done their jobs, literally and I hated it. Theyre probably powerless on this and have to accept what the techs and management says. So to them two I say this, and send this thread to your managers:

 

Explain to them how you have a serious community issue. This isnt about not liking a new mechanic or F2P. Or not being happy with a simple repaint as a new Armor Set. This is a bug, a game breaking bug.

Section X? Off limits. Dreadtooth? Got him once for the title, never going there again.

You guys blogged about how you like your shadows and how you invested time (thus money to you bigshots) in making them so nice, right? Well none of us have them even turned on because it'll give us lag.

 

You have a fickle community that has 2 extremes but in the end love Star Wars, love BioWare and most of all love this game. Otherwise they wouldnt be this passionate or negative about it. If you have engineers on holidays pull them back from it, pay them some overtime and have them install better servers. Use the money Im giving you to let me play this game. I dont need the Fleet to render at 150fps because I dont care about that. Just the rest of the world.

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Sigh... This is the exact same complaint people had at launch - "OMG server queues/lag suck, open more servers Bioware!" So they did, and then when the launch rush ended, the complaint became, "OMG BIOWARE WHY U OPEN SO MANY SERVERS NOW I HAVE NO ONE TO PLAY WITH SERVER CONSOLIDATIONS PLS!"

 

You really expect them to make the same mistake twice? Give it a couple weeks, the rush will die down, server populations will stabilize again, and everything will be just like it was before.

 

Did you miss the part where I said "Waiting a few weeks is too long"?

 

Even if the servers balance out they will still be on overdrive. They were (in my opinion) at the max after the last merge, maybe another 10% capacity to allow decent playing. Theyve overshot it and for their sake I hope they have more than an extra 10% players. They need to expand the server space, not make more servers just bigger ones as in actual physical servers.

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Sigh... This is the exact same complaint people had at launch - "OMG server queues/lag suck, open more servers Bioware!" So they did, and then when the launch rush ended, the complaint became, "OMG BIOWARE WHY U OPEN SO MANY SERVERS NOW I HAVE NO ONE TO PLAY WITH SERVER CONSOLIDATIONS PLS!"

 

You really expect them to make the same mistake twice? Give it a couple weeks, the rush will die down, server populations will stabilize again, and everything will be just like it was before.

 

Pretty much this people always whine. Before they add servers or hardware they should wait for 2 to 3 weeks at minimum so they know how much hardware they need.

 

I personally do not experience the issues on The Progenitor and that is the heaviest in the EU region I think.

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Pretty much this people always whine. Before they add servers or hardware they should wait for 2 to 3 weeks at minimum so they know how much hardware they need.

 

I personally do not experience the issues on The Progenitor and that is the heaviest in the EU region I think.

 

Im not whining, Im making a statement. There is an anticipating they should've done. There are people being paid by EA to figure out how much money F2P would make and how many people would most likely join. They calculate this not for the techs but for the stockholders and the upper management to make sure they still make money.

That means they have the info there but they refuse to use it.

Even if the servers settle over the course of 2 months then that means that everyone on my server (and others) will have to deal with lag and framerate issues for 2 months? Just because they dont want to shell that extra few grand on bigger servers? Not good enough.

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Im not whining, Im making a statement. There is an anticipating they should've done. There are people being paid by EA to figure out how much money F2P would make and how many people would most likely join. They calculate this not for the techs but for the stockholders and the upper management to make sure they still make money.

That means they have the info there but they refuse to use it.

Even if the servers settle over the course of 2 months then that means that everyone on my server (and others) will have to deal with lag and framerate issues for 2 months? Just because they dont want to shell that extra few grand on bigger servers? Not good enough.

 

And here is the entitlement. Not good enough ? I am on a very busy server for example and I do not have any of the issues you describe. So they estimated how many people are going to be influenced and what are the risks and potential revenue impacts. IF those are smaller then cost of the new sever hardware then they did not upgrade or add new servers. It is really simple business logic. But because of you having problems they are going to change course and spend several hundred thousands on new iron hmmmm....

 

See my point they know the average per account revenue per anum and if you have in this thread so many people that be complaining that all those accounts will add to be more or equal to the costs they will do it.

 

You can not possibly estimate how many people will join up for f2p with any reliability that is needed for infrastructure upgrade anyone who tells you that is lying.

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Normally my ping is 23ms but the game plays like if it was well over 300 at times. Especially highly populated zones. No, not fps. Actual lag when my ability is used few seconds after selection. My ping also likes jumping high and losing one line for several seconds. Enough to get you annoyed. And for God's sake, fix the memory leaks :(
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Server lag is there. I personally find it very suspicious if someone says they don't have any lag. It's widespread. You CANNOT. I repeat. Cannot do your missions in section x. It actually used to be as bad in Black Hole. I cannot for the life of me understand why BW and co continue to milk us without fixing game breaking stuff!!

 

It is easy for a well content to say, well don't play. Get out of here. I invested in the game since beta and the game is good and so are the people who created it. It's just that these issues break the game for many and people are turning a blind eye to it.

 

I expect them to be professionals or else I would have left (which I sorta have since I unsubbed).

 

I remember beta and the first 2 months. I remember riding a speeder in hutta and the stuttering was immense. I was like **** my computer can't run the game? I also remember 4-5 months of everyone trying to tweak the game when in reality something was and is wrong with the design. If they could say they were working on it instead of releasing F2P I would understand.

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INB4 the biodrones with the... just patiently wait, its only been 6 months of lag problems. INB4 the biodrones say.... what are you talking about... the game runs great on my 4 year old computer with dial up access. INB4 the biodrones tell you.... youre just an inpatient self entitled (insert name here)

 

 

 

Oh wait... I was too late.

Edited by Soluss
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The crashing was bad in 1.4 but with the F2P in 1.5 and the influx of people its stacking with massive server lag making primetime unbearable. This is robbing me and a lot of other players from enjoyment.

 

Please tell this to all the thread-creators whining about how they don't get X or Y as a F2P player, would you? You know the type, the ones that want more access to this or that, or more toolbars, etc.

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Hmm, I have rarely ever had server lag, even on prime times and highly populated zones...

 

Maybe I am just lucky... hope I am not hogging all the bandwith... OH GOD AM I THE CULPRIT?! -runs out crying-

 

Nope, your not the culprit. I'm in there with you, I hardly have any lag as well. I might get a spike every couple days or so. Yet it's probably usually caused by someone around me that has crapping internet and the Game is DDOS'ing the server with syn statements trying to get an acknowledged return from the server. Which in turn causes problems for everyone else around them.

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So many saying "because they don't have problems; there is no problem." :rolleyes:

 

There is a problem. Dallas Dickinson admitted that the SWTOR version of the Hero Engine needs an overhaul and are working on it to address this issue (specific to the influx of free loaders). The problem has been plaguing WZs for a while now.

 

He gave no estimate as to when this would be corrected but, he did acknowledge there was a problem (search for threads about the Austin Cantina Crawl). :cool:

Edited by Urael
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Sigh... This is the exact same complaint people had at launch - "OMG server queues/lag suck, open more servers Bioware!" So they did, and then when the launch rush ended, the complaint became, "OMG BIOWARE WHY U OPEN SO MANY SERVERS NOW I HAVE NO ONE TO PLAY WITH SERVER CONSOLIDATIONS PLS!"

 

You really expect them to make the same mistake twice? Give it a couple weeks, the rush will die down, server populations will stabilize again, and everything will be just like it was before.

 

This is the side of the argument I come down on. BioWare is in a darned if they do, darned if they don't position. If they open up f2p servers, it may alleviate some of the lag and crowding now, but then in a few weeks or so, those servers will be ghost towns, and this absolutely terrible community, (and make no mistake, this community really is terrible) will be flaming BioWare for opening up too many servers. Can't you hear it now? I can.

 

"OMG BIOWARE WHY YOU OPEN SO MANY SERVERS WHY DIDN'T YOU LEARN FROM BEFORE FAIL EA!!1"

 

While I agree that the server lag is incredibly aggravating (we wiped last night in HM Kaon Under Siege a couple times because of weird lag and rubberbanding) I don't think there's much BioWare can do about it that wouldn't imbalance the game in the long term.

 

I don't mean to flame the developers or anything, but I'm just not confident in their abilities to fix things, because their solutions always seem to create more problems or do just enough to exasperate and already irritable community.

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I don't mean to flame the developers or anything, but I'm just not confident in their abilities to fix things, because their solutions always seem to create more problems or do just enough to exasperate and already irritable community.

 

^QFT ... :cool:

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