The game was still hinky for me, unfortunately at 7:00 PM Pacific Standard time. It seems to be okay if I just let it run, but as soon as I try to do anything to the zoo, whether it's laying paths or track, landscaping, building habitats etc., I get the frequent disconnect messages. That wouldn't be impossible, since hitting escape always gets rid of them, but the trade center is still very buggy, and not only are no "good" animals for sale, the selection of isn't changing at all. Frustrating we haven't heard a thing a for the four days after the New Year's holiday, but game companies in general seem to be extremely close mouthed about the nature of issues or the timeline for fixing them. I haven't even seen the usual Sunday night message about server maintenance.
Franchise server issues since update
- Thread starter criswaller
- Start date
I am able to buy animals from the market again, BUT I have to use a very degenerative way of doing so... When I enter a zoo I am able to buy a maximum of one! animal. Then the disconnects start as soon as i try to buy any more. So to be able to buy more than one, I have to go back to the main menu and log into the zoo again, and then rinse and repeat. And because of the problems of infinite loading screen when going back to the main menu (having to force close the game from the steam page) and unability to re-enter franchise zoo's because of the disconnect error in the spinning globe screen, this can take an extreme amount of time...
I got that response for my original report of the issue more than two weeks ago now
I assume their whole team has been back at work for almost a week now, but nothing more definitive has come in yet. It's possible that they have another issue, one that seems to be widespread in the gaming industry over the past year: widespread layoffs within the company? I haven't heard of this at Frontier specifically, mind, and in the US it's related to a number of mergers and buyouts. Frontier hasn't been bought out or merged with anyone, AFAIK. Their Wikipedia says they are a limited public company, headquartered in Cambridge (lovely city).They've brought out game expansions prior to the holidays before without this degree of problem, at least that I've noticed. I can't remember if more disconnects were happening than usual for me last December and Jan. Certainly it wasn't anything that made the game virtually unplayable on Franchise. Was this Expansion more popular than others or did a large number of new players purchase games at this time and put an extra strain on the servers? Or, possibly, the servers are getting a bit old now, and that issue is synergizing with the holiday rush and skeleton crew staffing over the holidays.
I actually feel sorry for some of the folks who are going to have to deal with the aftermath of this mess and may end up shouldering more than their fair share of blame.
Re Arrakai: I've noticed the thing with being sometimes being able to buy the first animal too, as long as I open the trade center as soon as I log in, and then not being able to connect to the trade center again. Generally, the issue gets worse the longer I stay logged in and the more I actually try to do things with my zoo. Yesterday was particularly bad, though, with the male red deer dying as soon as I logged in, but only four female cash-only animals available in the trade center. Unfortunately, I had no unrelated male in my own storage, and there were no good genetic specimens. Logging into other franchise zoos to find an appropriate replacement is also very cumbersome and challenging right now.
Completely unrelated, but one thing on my wish list for this game is a feature that allows one to keep track of all animals at all your franchise zoos, including their genetics, and to make comparisons about their breeding compatibility etc. I've tried creating spreadsheets of my own for each zoo, but things change so quickly during play I gave up on it. I suppose it's not likely we'll get something that puts even more burden on the flow of data in Franchise mode, though.
Oh it's definitely impacted Frontier as there has been widespread layoffs, most notably the community managers for planet zoo and jwe. As public knowledge stands, there are no community managers on the forums for those 2 games. Surely development side has taken a hit too leading to longer times for patch updates and figuring out how to solve server problems.
That explains the recent lack of posts about this (and other) issue in the staff/developer section anyway.
I don't pretend to understand how reduced customer service and reduced product support and reduced product development improve profitability for companies, but sadly this is not an issue limited to the gaming industry. Someone up thread suggested this would change if we stopped supporting them, which may be true, but not supporting means not buying a company's games at all, right? Since all the game companies seem to have this issue nowadays, that means finding something else to do with our free time? Well, I've been reading more books since this problem started (another game I was hoping to spend some time on over the holiday break also seems to be on an "ignore the customer's concerns about bugs and cumbersome features" jag as well), but I already paid for the Xpac...
I kinda hope they wont do this, as that will deff make my Franchise implode on itself, as I have well over 10 000 animals in total!
I was just hoping they gave us access to the trade center animals without opening a zoo. But then comparisons currently only work in the active zoo, so .. they'd have to change that functionality as well.
Yeah still have disconnection issues, thought it would have been over by now
That is a thought! The servers don't seem to be able to handle things, even now.
I experienced the same issues as everyone described here, especially during the holiday season. Server issues every two minutes, gift shop errors, etc. But it seems the new update with the fixes helped a lot! Today, I played for the first time this year and had no trouble with the server or gift shop! I could also sell and buy animals in franchise mode, all worked fine. So, I would say, yay!
gonna test it out!I experienced the same issues as everyone described here, especially during the holiday season. Server issues every two minutes, gift shop errors, etc. But it seems the new update with the fixes helped a lot! Today, I played for the first time this year and had no trouble with the server or gift shop! I could also sell and buy animals in franchise mode, all worked fine. So, I would say, yay!
I find this so odd. For some people it works just fine now, but for others, like me, the problem is as bad as everI experienced the same issues as everyone described here, especially during the holiday season. Server issues every two minutes, gift shop errors, etc. But it seems the new update with the fixes helped a lot! Today, I played for the first time this year and had no trouble with the server or gift shop! I could also sell and buy animals in franchise mode, all worked fine. So, I would say, yay!
Still get constant disconnects and can only buy one animal per session Maybe multiple unrelated causes to the issues people are having, and the patch may have somehow fixed some of the issues because of their causes but not others because they had different causes.I find this so odd. For some people it works just fine now, but for others, like me, the problem is as bad as ever
I haven't tested my big zoos since the patch yet ( I think ) so when I do I might be back to say whether I still get the problem or not .. that I'm getting.
Over on the usual steam forum thread, one of the frontier staff (unsure if support or an actual dev), mentioned the update didn't address any issues with franchise but rather all focus towards the gift shops breaking save files. The next patch will likely focus on franchise as the second patch is often the bigger one.
makes sense .. breaking game files is more important than not being able to play for a few days. Those losing animals due to the franchise issues might be due to full storage. Since that franchise issue surfaced I have tried to keep at least 10 spots free in storage just in case I did lose some and they come back when I am not looking rofl
I was excited because of the patch notes, but after playing for a few minutes and purchasing one animal from the trade center successfully, the issue is back.
Would be nice if there was some spillover to benefit the franchise server problem, at least, but evidently not. Hope that second patch comes out soon. Though come to think of it, the problem with franchise servers may not be due to a game issue to patch, per se, but something involving server hardware or software itself? I'm not an IT person by any stretch, but the disconnect and trade center things aren't new problems, though they've certainly gotten much worse and persistent since the last expansion pack.
For now, it's on to different games.
Would be nice if there was some spillover to benefit the franchise server problem, at least, but evidently not. Hope that second patch comes out soon. Though come to think of it, the problem with franchise servers may not be due to a game issue to patch, per se, but something involving server hardware or software itself? I'm not an IT person by any stretch, but the disconnect and trade center things aren't new problems, though they've certainly gotten much worse and persistent since the last expansion pack.
For now, it's on to different games.
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Oh, I'm sorry to hear that it still doesn't work for you! I hope the next patch will fix it for everyone!I find this so odd. For some people it works just fine now, but for others, like me, the problem is as bad as ever
I tested a few zoos out over the weekend and found that my big zoos were micromanageable without disconnections. Granted, that process doesn't usually hit the hour mark for the most part. But did zoos A and B in one session and R,S and T-Z in another session. In the second session I only got 1 disconnect, when selecting Franchise from the main screen. But my newest zoo has yet to have a problem and that was created when I still had problems with the bigger zoos.