Release date chaos

[saviornt]

Yes methinks it could be an "error 37" all over again....
Hope not though as I really want to get to playing properly. Instead of trying to break stuff and report it!
Par for the course these days with online games. But after the initial furore, it's ON =D

Error 37? ERROR 37!!!

Yea.. there has not been one game that features an online component (DRM or MMO) that has not experienced server failure on launch day due to not having enough overhead to support the traffic.

You would think that within the first 125 failed launches by various studios that people would get enough server capacity for at last 5x their maximum expected user base (to start with) and then scale down from there. But in the end, it has always failed, and this game will fail as well. Fail as in, the servers will massively crash on launch day and we probably wont be able to play the game for the day or days after.

It is to be expected.

 

[David frm Operations]

Well... Thats was terrible... people trample eachother for some "discounted LCD TV"? Sad thing...

/sigh

And they say us Americans are bad. Internet shopping for the win. Some skins, some books, a pair of 24 inch monitors, all coming vis UPS without all the trampling.

 

[Scryed]

Thats if there are enough people playing the game on that day to even stress the servers to be honest.

 

[Tiamat]

I just can't believe there's will still be launch with server crash. Servers cluster are so easy to build and you can "scale" them up for the launch and then discard them and/or place them elesewhere (or just lease them for 1-2 month). We are in 2014... it's not the first "massive launch" in the history.

They use Amazon clusters so they should (and have stated this) be able to scale up very quickly if needed. Beta and gamma have pretty much stress-tested the system already.

That said I will be surprised if it all goes off without a hitch as there is always something unexpected when a launch happens and we usually see the servers woblle a bit after a new patch. They key is how quickly they deal with it and those wobbles don't last long at all if the past few patches are anything to go by.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

EA can't get it right. Ubisoft can't get it right. What is the expectation a much smaller outfit like FD can get it right?

I don't blame them. It would be nice if it will go smoothly but i won't expect it to happen.

What I do know is the forums will be full of rage posts screaming, crying, threatening to kill people, threatening to kill cats and other small creatures, all because they can't log in. Even though its launch day and everyone should know what is going to happen.

And its probably the same people who have got stung my launch day woes a dozen times before with other games who will make the most noise.

 

[BigBadBeef]

EA can't get it right. Ubisoft can't get it right. What is the expectation a much smaller outfit like FD can get it right?

I don't blame them. It would be nice if it will go smoothly but i won't expect it to happen.

What I do know is the forums will be full of rage posts screaming, crying, threatening to kill people, threatening to kill cats and other small creatures, all because they can't log in. Even though its launch day and everyone should know what is going to happen.

And its probably the same people who have got stung my launch day woes a dozen times before with other games who will make the most noise.

And exactly because of that I believe they should put it on p2p, maybe even pirate bay, let us find something legal on that site for a change.

 

[Hexen]

I think it will be fine. No rush.

Spoiler

 

[McBadger]

EA can't get it right. Ubisoft can't get it right. What is the expectation a much smaller outfit like FD can get it right?

I don't blame them. It would be nice if it will go smoothly but i won't expect it to happen.

What I do know is the forums will be full of rage posts screaming, crying, threatening to kill people, threatening to kill cats and other small creatures, all because they can't log in. Even though its launch day and everyone should know what is going to happen.

And its probably the same people who have got stung my launch day woes a dozen times before with other games who will make the most noise.

I just love how you mentioned the two worst AAA companies the industry has to offer.
The problem with AAA companies release AAA titles is that they always budget for less anyway to save money, margins and whatnot.

Not every company has had failed launches, those that do struggle tend to clear out and resolve issues within a few hours. At least in my experience, most issues arise from the client side or poor internet strength. Amazon has always provided fantastic server sided support to cope with "most" demand influxes anyway

The forums will be bad, we all know it, But at the end of the day there will be legitimate people among the angst and "rage" who will be new to this game. They will come to the forums requiring some form of help. Sure, some could do with a little decorum and manners but they will need help none the less.

The only problem I'm fearing is the forums current angst is going to impede on the the folk waiting for launch..

 

[saviornt]

Blizzard couldn't get it right either...

 

[McBadger]

Blizzard couldn't get it right either...

That.. was due to DDOS attacks on the servers if memory serves me correctly. The thing to take from that expansion launch (The rest were fine, Exception to BC which had minor hiccups) was how Blizzard dealt with it. They held their hands up, Gave players full reasoning to what happened, what they should have done (and sooner)

Not to mention given everyone 5 days free. Think of the loss Blizz will take when those 5 days eventually kick in to the masses?
And they did that without question.

It might have been embarrassing, but boy they really look after their subs. Most other companies wouldn't follow through with the same.

NCsoft springs to mind oddly enough.. lol!

 

[saviornt]

I'm mainly talking about D3 when I mentioned Blizzard, although they run into server issues every time they release an expansion if memory serves. For the D3 launch, it was a form of DDOS attacks.. the attack was a couple of million people all trying to log into the game at the same time (which is what a DDOS technically is.. too many connections for the servers to handle).

Besides, there are ways to handle DDOS attacks pretty easily. LOIC is, or rather should be, ineffective at taking down a big company that has the resources.

 

[foxpur]

Just beware. Expect the servers to fall over. Often. Possibly. At least this is my experience with other games. Release day/patch day stress test.

The servers are Amazon, so they are used to this kinda load I should think.

 

[BigBadBeef]

Hey everyone, I didn't start this to be ranting about the problem, I did this to propose a solution, back on topic, please!

 

[anday]

Basically there are only two reasonable solutions to this problem. And you can bet the guys at Frontier already know about them.

1. Use p2p distribution, like you suggested (Cheap but uncertain performance because you'd need more seeding bandwith than leeching bandwitdh. Unfortunately in reality the ratio will be the exact opposite.)
2. make use of a commercial CDN (implies more cost for Frontier but better user experience)

Furthermore I think the potential problem won't be downloading the game files but rather too much load on the game servers themselves when everyone will be logging in on release day. I'm really curious how that will play out on amazon servers. Allthough ultimately it all will depend on how much money (for server rent) Frontier ist willing to pay for a smooth take off.

Hey everyone, I didn't start this to be ranting about the problem, I did this to propose a solution, back on topic, please!

 

[tomPhoenix]

This game won't see as many users as Diablo3, World of Warcraft, or EVE Online. I hope there aren't server issues. Though there's always more traffic than expected and devops and management always under-estimates.

 

[McBadger]

I'm mainly talking about D3 when I mentioned Blizzard, although they run into server issues every time they release an expansion if memory serves. For the D3 launch, it was a form of DDOS attacks.. the attack was a couple of million people all trying to log into the game at the same time (which is what a DDOS technically is.. too many connections for the servers to handle).

Besides, there are ways to handle DDOS attacks pretty easily. LOIC is, or rather should be, ineffective at taking down a big company that has the resources.

Ah! My apologies if needed then

Never played D3, Always wanted too, But Torchlight 2 felt the better option.
Been with Blizzard since Vanilla WoW myself, BC Launch was shaky, a few hiccups but they underestimated the sheer amount of new players by a whacking large amount. Wrath and Cataclysm were clean and easy, Don't know about Mists, But this latest from them was difficult.
Hence why they put their hands up, They have the tech to prevent these issues but didn't feel the need to put them into place.

In EDs case.. This should be relatively easy for the Amazon servers to handle. Shoving the main download up as P2P might not be a bad idea though. If they haven't already thought about implementing it. (P2P cuts my patch times for League of Legends down by almost 80%) Incredible stuff!

You've refreshed my desire to want to try out D3 now lol!

 

[BigBadBeef]

Basically there are only two reasonable solutions to this problem. And you can bet the guys at Frontier already know about them.

1. Use p2p distribution, like you suggested (Cheap but uncertain performance because you'd need more seeding bandwith than leeching bandwitdh. Unfortunately in reality the ratio will be the exact opposite.)
2. make use of a commercial CDN (implies more cost for Frontier but better user experience)

Furthermore I think the potential problem won't be downloading the game files but rather too much load on the game servers themselves when everyone will be logging in on release day. I'm really curious how that will play out on amazon servers. Allthough ultimately it all will depend on how much money (for server rent) Frontier ist willing to pay for a smooth take off.

I am talking about fully open p2p distribution, where every downloader becomes a seeder. Of course you can expect hit and run download (I'm afraid I will be among them since I have metered internet connection, but will seed during night hours), but generally somebody walking away from the computer and the game just seeding a little on its own before one comes back is enough for it to run up to 3:1 ratio.

 

[BigBadBeef]

So then... would any of the staff care to comment on whether and what preparations are being made for the release date chaos?

 

[CMDR ASBESTOS]

Man.....this is like a conspiracy theory thread

sugar happens, wait till the 16th before attacking the whole frontier servers. From what I understand they are either Amazon servers or the same as what Amazon use. Its so difficult to predict server loads. Its more cost effective to react quickly to problems than building out servers that are redundant (maybe).

And these guys at Frontier will fix it...

 

[Tiamat]

I am talking about fully open p2p distribution, where every downloader becomes a seeder. Of course you can expect hit and run download (I'm afraid I will be among them since I have metered internet connection, but will seed during night hours), but generally somebody walking away from the computer and the game just seeding a little on its own before one comes back is enough for it to run up to 3:1 ratio.

I don't think the p2p end covers the launcher/patcher as you would have to leave it open to seed. The p2p aspect of the game is the netcode model they use to control and merge the player islands. As far as I can tell the launcher just checks the hashes of files locally and downloads the latest from the patch server if the hashes don't match. Almost all of the files are tiny so I doubt delta patching (replacing just updated sections of files rather than the whole file) is being used.

So then... would any of the staff care to comment on whether and what preparations are being made for the release date chaos?

I doubt FDEV will comment other than to reassure us that if any problems do arise they will be quickly addressed to be honest but they have surprised me before with behaviour that isn't consistent with other dev houses (and I mean that in a good way).

I saw a comment from David or Michael somewhere I can't find now saying that they had the ability to scale up quickly if needed and this has been necessary in the past (probably premium beta). The infrastructure has been pretty well tested over the beta and gamma so the launch day hit won't be the same as many other games that only allow a small number of people into the beta and then get swamped on release. Realistically it should just be a case of slinging a new more nodes into the clusters if they start to wobble under the load.