Daily server downtime and rollbacks

[Beastiel]

Im a pretty reasonable and patient guy but man the connection issues that have plagued this release is something else.

Weeks after launch and ive had queues all week and right now I cant even play my online character.

yeah, i feel the same way. Getting kind of tired of people saying the game is fine when it feels like i don't even play very often yet any time i try to hop on a whim it feels like more often than not the game doesn't work.

[PC2]

yeah, i feel the same way. Getting kind of tired of people saying the game is fine when it feels like i don't even play very often yet any time i try to hop on a whim it feels like more often than not the game doesn't work.

The game has been 99% fine since launch in offline mode. It's just network communication that is hard to manage at the largest scales. If you've ever worked on the nitty gritty aspects of computers/servers then you'll find that even with their purely logical nature computer systems are far from being reliably deterministic for human purposes. Currently there is no way to run a beta test where the good results are guaranteed to generalize to launch month. Everybody in the business already knows this...

But yeah, for a primarily online game that is only playable for 12 hours every 24 hours there absolutely should be instant refunds to anyone who didn't beat Baal, impo.

[minkage]

The game has been 99% fine since launch in offline mode. It's just network communication that is hard to manage at the largest scales. If you've ever worked on the nitty gritty aspects of computers/servers then you'll find that even with their purely logical nature computer systems are far from being reliably deterministic for human purposes. Currently there is no way to run a beta test where the good results are guaranteed to generalize to launch month. Everybody in the business already knows this...

But yeah, for a primarily online game that is only playable for 12 hours every 24 hours there absolutely should be instant refunds to anyone who didn't beat Baal, impo.

Im not asking for a refund I just think its kinda silly for the issues to be this bad and I guess thats my bad for going all in on an online character.

[Vespian]

yeah, i feel the same way. Getting kind of tired of people saying the game is fine when it feels like i don't even play very often yet any time i try to hop on a whim it feels like more often than not the game doesn't work.

I have just played from ..~18:00 , it's 23:25 right now. I had no queue and I have had no crashes.

Maybe we differentiate in opinion so much, because our experiences actually vary and perhaps there are more issues with other regions (mine is EU) or perhaps this is related to the platform you are playing on. I have heard there are more significant issues with consoles. Based on my experiences, the last ~3 days have been extremely stable and I've had a blast.

[Zeta333]

The game has been 99% fine since launch in offline mode. It's just network communication that is hard to manage at the largest scales. If you've ever worked on the nitty gritty aspects of computers/servers then you'll find that even with their purely logical nature computer systems are far from being reliably deterministic for human purposes. Currently there is no way to run a beta test where the good results are guaranteed to generalize to launch month. Everybody in the business already knows this...

But yeah, for a primarily online game that is only playable for 12 hours every 24 hours there absolutely should be instant refunds to anyone who didn't beat Baal, impo.

if only blizzard was a game with lots of experience running these sorts of very large scale online games.

- - - Updated - - -

I have just played from ..~18:00 , it's 23:25 right now. I had no queue and I have had no crashes.

Maybe we differentiate in opinion so much, because our experiences actually vary and perhaps there are more issues with other regions (mine is EU) or perhaps this is related to the platform you are playing on. I have heard there are more significant issues with consoles. Based on my experiences, the last ~3 days have been extremely stable and I've had a blast.

it seems the ques start up on the weekend all the time, and weekdays when asia is getting primetime. I dont see a que untill around 5-6am pst.

[perkocet]

I think once people realize that their experience is not universal, the immature arguing and off-topic name calling that is RAMPANT in this thread will cease. Some of you have no problems. Some of you apparently have nothing but problems. It is not acceptable that you can't speak like adults and treat each other like human beings, regardless of where you fall on that spectrum. Good lord.

[Onikaroshi]

Im not asking for a refund I just think its kinda silly for the issues to be this bad and I guess thats my bad for going all in on an online character.

It is kinda silly, I was in support of them after the post, but the queue time is horrendous and if you're super unlucky you get dc'd almost immediately and they want you to sit in another queue.

[PC2]

if only blizzard was a game with lots of experience running these sorts of very large scale online games.

They could have a billion years of experience in the past but as soon as they introduce one new thing into a computer system then they can never guarantee that the overall system will work the same at scale. It's the nature of computer systems and their evolution.

I think once people realize that their experience is not universal, the immature arguing and off-topic name calling that is RAMPANT in this thread will cease. Some of you have no problems. Some of you apparently have nothing but problems. It is not acceptable that you can't speak like adults and treat each other like human beings, regardless of where you fall on that spectrum. Good lord.

Excellent point we should all work on being more respectful.

However that still doesn't address the central dispute involving D2R, which is whether Blizzard could fix all this merely by throwing more money at the problem. While it is true that more money, more brain-power, and more servers can help it would still never guarantee smooth sailing and that new problems won't constantly arise with each update.

[Zeta333]

They could have a billion years of experience in the past but as soon as they introduce one new thing into a computer system then they can never guarantee that the overall system will work the same at scale. It's the nature of computer systems and their evolution.



Excellent point we should all work on being more respectful.

However that still doesn't address the central dispute involving D2R, which is whether Blizzard could fix all this merely by throwing more money at the problem. While it is true that more money, more brain-power, and more servers can help it would still never guarantee smooth sailing and that new problems won't constantly arise with each update.

they thing that are having issues with is capacity they said so themselves. I dunno how a company that ran a 25million player count mmo can not figure out how to handle capacity.

[Biomega]

they thing that are having issues with is capacity they said so themselves. I dunno how a company that ran a 25million player count mmo can not figure out how to handle capacity.

That's not how it works. They know how to do it - they're just not sure how money is actually worth putting in to do it. It's not like their IT guys are just sitting around a table in a dimly-lit room going "we just. don't. KNOW!". The solution is simple and obvious IF money is no object; what makes it hard and complicated is when you need to do it cheaply, and/or limit how much you vs. how much you spend.

Doesn't help that D2R is buy-to-play, so a lot of the people they'd lose as customers have already paid anyway. Calculating future losses based on present-day server issues is difficult, especially if you're dealing with a strong IP like Diablo where you can probably count on a good number of people buying future product despite the current problems. Why throw money away if it doesn't lead to more money down the line?

It sounds callous, but that's basic business mechanics. Of course, the reality is more complicated, and they have entire departments doing nothing but trying to predict these things accurately. And it's not like they won't get it wrong plenty of times, too. But at the end of the day, bottom line is what matters to the people in charge.

[burek]

I dunno how a company that ran a 25million player count mmo can not figure out how to handle capacity.

People who were involved in that are no longer there. You have twitter warriors & diversity hires instead, hence the incompetence. They even had to buy a whole other studio for this because their own 'workers' are dogshit

[Onikaroshi]

People who were involved in that are no longer there. You have twitter warriors & diversity hires instead, hence the incompetence. They even had to buy a whole other studio for this because their own 'workers' are dogshit

They didn't buy another studio. Vicarious Visions was part of Activision before the Blizzard merger was even a gleam in Bobby's eye.

[PC2]

they thing that are having issues with is capacity they said so themselves. I dunno how a company that ran a 25million player count mmo can not figure out how to handle capacity.

And? They have a lot more players than your typical ARPG. If you're trying to imply they should waste money by buying 300% more servers with specialized architecture at launch and then try to sell the extras after a couple month then you're being unreasonable. Part of overcoming new technical challenges is by finding better ways to do things and not throwing away resources just because there's a few people who apparently must play D2R for 24 hours a day and can't wait til the initial popularity dies down.

[Dartz1979]

I'm not gonna buy it til they have all issues resolved with the rollbacks not gonna spend hours doing something only to have it gone in a roll back.

[Onikaroshi]

I'm not gonna buy it til they have all issues resolved with the rollbacks not gonna spend hours doing something only to have it gone in a roll back.

They've solved the rollbacks by not letting anyone play :P

[lolbubble]

I was successfully able to get a refund today, if you're tired of this shit, do the same.

[Wilian]

I already admitted I forgot about Open Bnet. I do wonder why you're circling TCP/IP. I never said that wasn't there. Yes, they are both locally hosted games.

Because you appeared to be under delusion that Diablo 2 offers LAN option which TCP/IP is not (neither is it a "hack" as your post implied.)

[Vespian]

they thing that are having issues with is capacity they said so themselves. I dunno how a company that ran a 25million player count mmo can not figure out how to handle capacity.

No, I don't think that's what it translates to. They have a SERVICE running, which is based on old code, that cannot handle the amount of traffic. THAT was misjudged. Nothing to do with hardware.

Because you appeared to be under delusion that Diablo 2 offers LAN option which TCP/IP is not (neither is it a "hack" as your post implied.)

Wait..what? I never even suggested a hack. Don't just put words in my mouth or dream up your own imaginative conversations with me. I said there could be outside aggregators of TCP/IP games, like game lobbies for Quake, UT, etc etc.

The reason I said TCP/IP LAN is twofold. Most games I used to run that had the option TCP/IP that I used to play were LAN and some even had it in the title. The other is simply me mixing up LOCAL HOST and LAN. That's all.(TCP/IP is ALSO a LAN option )

To clarify, the reason I made the response in the first place, is to contest your statement that open battle net is online. It is not. You're playing over the internet, but the game is hosted locally. That's not online play.

[Wilian]

To clarify, the reason I made the response in the first place, is to contest your statement that open battle net is online. It is not. You're playing over the internet, but the game is hosted locally. That's not online play.

So let me get this straight. You are saying that playing a game through internet is not online play?

[EyelessCrow]

As far as I remember both are locally hosted. TCP/IP is just a protocol that is utilized on both (because well...it is required as an internet protocol so open uses it as well). If I remember right open battlenet gave you the option to browse games listed, and list your own. Tcp/ip was connecting directly without it being listed. You could host a tcp/ip game and friend could join from another state if they wanted to, although I never did this. You both just needed proper ports opened in your firewall and router firewall.

I feel this is an argument of semantics and blizzard poorly labeling something a certain way back then.