Log-in queues and raiding - a problem?

[Kralljin]

Oh ok! So saying that Blizzard needs to fix it is one-sided, but saying I need to fix it is not one-sided. Got it

Blizzard literally said that there is no solution other than transferring a few weeks ago, absolutely nobody is surprised by this development.

If any company providing a service tells you "if you keep showing up during peak hours, expect long wait times" and you still show up during peak hours + complain about it, then that's frankly on you.

I don't see it as a "me against the world". I see it as: You break it, you buy it.

Who broke what?

But everybody keep licking Blizzards boots.

The issue here is that you frankly do not behave like a functional adult should.

Yeah, sometimes everybody gets the short end of the stick, it happens, but when something inconvenient happens to you, then it's just bloody annoying to turn this into a blame game and tell them to fix this (despite the warning from that party that will absolutely happen) rather than take any alternatives on your part to avoid it.

The reality is here is plainly, most people aren't server engineers, nor have any understanding how Blizzard set up their servers, i cannot (nor the majority of people on this site) provide reasonable technical insight into this matter.
So when Blizzard says "there is no technical solution to this problem", then i'm frankly inclined to believe them until a person of expertise can reasonably disprove their statement.

Blizzard without question carries quite the blame in this situation as they let the mega servers grew to this size, but that's another story.

But i agree with you on one thing: This talk is done, at least on my part, because it reminds me too much of work when i have to put up with coworkers like you who aren't thinking about solving a problem but thinking how they can avoid working on the problem.

[Coldfrostzero]

Hello Mr. successful 6-figures guy. Listen to this homie. The "adult world" where you pretend to live in is filled with expectations laid upon people by people who are being dicks by creating problems they are not willing to solve. It is far from common sense to solve other peoples' problems. It is what society has become. Of course people adapt to situations, but if they pay for a service they can't fully use, it is most definitely NOT their business to deal with it. It's the companies business. Can't believe you don't understand this, when you are making 6 figures.

They gave you a solution. Transfer. The only option if you don't want to remote log in like the rest of us is to do so or sit in queue. You can't just throw money at every solution and expect it to go away. That's not how anything works. Even if it did, you'd be taken advantage of constantly and be broke quickly. There is a guy literally in this thread saying he will take you and people you play with in open arms. Why not take him up on the offer? Seems reasonable and in line with Blizzard's original advice. They've hit their limits in available technology. Plain and simple. Otherwise, you can always play something else. There's a million other games and several top MMOs out there that offer similar experiences.

[sensei]

Man, if only Blizzard could hire you to give them this sagely advice about how to manage their servers. I'm sure that guy who said that there's no technological solution was just lying because it costs too much. Btw, since we're on the subject -- where, again, can I download more RAM?

Yeah, you mean the same Blizzard that said:

“The original WoW developers decided that there would be an array to hold your inventory. The first several entries are things that end up on the paper doll, your head and leg slots and such. After that comes your inventory. At some point they wanted to add a bank to the game, so they added that to the end of the array. Players shouldn’t be able to access their bank anywhere in the world, as it would break the code. This was handled by adding lots of statements in different places in the code, defining what the array position was where the inventory ended and where the bank begins. This value was hardcoded all over the place, but it isn’t just a simple search to find them all. Some math logic may rely on it being constant. If you want to add slots to the backpack, who knows what you are going to break? It becomes very buggy and error prone, and likely that you are going to make a mistake. This mistake would break the game in a way you don’t like. As a result, they would have to put amazing engineers that could be working on new features on a task to look through thousands of lines of code to find all of those cases, as well as the QA department testing every edge case in the world to ensure the change doesn’t break anything. This is how we ended up with a fixed size backpack.”

Which later was proven to be bullshit and they soon after added 4 slots for the accounts with authenticators and later another 8 for Vulperans?

[mishal]

A self proclaimed adult that works 14 hours a day seemingly has plenty of free time to shitpost on an online forum

[Relapses]

Yeah, you mean the same Blizzard that said:



Which later was proven to be bullshit and they soon after added 4 slots for the accounts with authenticators and later another 8 for Vulperans?

What the fuck are you on about? Bag slots? Are you okay? I'm sure you were thinking this is some kind of gotcha but no, I'm not talking about fucking bag slots. I'm talking about the Blizzard server dev who said this:

So put as plainly as possible, we cannot increase capacity any more without inviting additional and likely cascading failures to the service. At present, the best and only way to resolve this issue for the impacted realms, is for people to leave the realm via free transfers. There’s no technology solution to this. There is no hardware solution to this.

This was a post on 9/6/22. Please at least try to be on the same page before you go on some weird, completely unrelated rant about bag slots my guy.

[sensei]

What the fuck are you on about? Bag slots? Are you okay? I'm sure you were thinking this is some kind of gotcha but no, I'm not talking about fucking bag slots. I'm talking about the Blizzard server dev who said this:

So put as plainly as possible, we cannot increase capacity any more without inviting additional and likely cascading failures to the service. At present, the best and only way to resolve this issue for the impacted realms, is for people to leave the realm via free transfers. There’s no technology solution to this. There is no hardware solution to this.

This was a post on 9/6/22. Please at least try to be on the same page before you go on some weird, completely unrelated rant about bag slots my guy.

My point is, engineers lie, sorry to burst your bubble. If you work for a company saying "Yeah we can fix it and its expensive so the boss won't let us do it" is not a good way of remaining employed.

[Relapses]

My point is, engineers lie, sorry to burst your bubble. If you work for a company saying "Yeah we can fix it and its expensive so the boss won't let us do it" is not a good way of remaining employed.

Except they didn't say that. They said that this problem literally cannot be fixed by technology or hardware. Sometimes a spade is a spade and leaning into conspiratorial nonsense about how Blizzard could fix the issue they just don't wanna is about as anti-intellectual as you can get.

[SinR]

BLIZZARD, JUST DOWNLOAD MORE SERVER CAPACITY!

/s


Blizzard has offered a player based solution: GTFO the Mega Servers. You're actively choosing to stay on Faerlina/Grobb/Benediction/Whatever servers the Europeans have and sit in 3+ hour queue. You have Option B which is to take the Free Character Migrations to the lower population servers.

The queues will start to go down a little now that launch is dying down. Pagle has had a 1hr queue at "Prime Time" on Monday, slowly decreasing over the course of the week to no queue Wednesday. It'll go back up once raiding starts up, Tuesday and Weekends will likely have queues even on Pagle. The Mega Servers have had no relief at all (my "Main" guild's vent is full of "WEH QUEUES AT 7AM" complaints) and will likely never go away until the very end of a phase, only to come back when the next phase starts.

[chiddie]

And they had what, 13 years to fix it?

The only issue here is greed. They are just too greedy to actually do something.

They didn’t have to fix it because the idea was to re-launch the game more or less like it was.

They did this Classic thing EXACTLY because they hadn’t much to change of the original code and so it was a “quick win” to use companies nomenclature.

It’s not a remake, it’s not even a remaster, it’s the exact old game adapted to run on W10 instead of XP/7.

If the world in game back then could not handle more than 10k players at the same time or it would collapse, nowadays it’s the same. Maybe they can be 15k due to new hardware and adjusted net code, but not 25-30k.

Do you remember the PvP battles in Vanilla at Hillsbrad? The servers crashed EVERY single evening. But not because server hardware was bad or poor, because the GAME ENGINE was clearly not “prepared” to handle so many people in a single zone.

[SinR]

They didn’t have to fix it because the idea was to re-launch the game more or less like it was.

They did this Classic thing EXACTLY because they hadn’t much to change of the original code and so it was a “quick win” to use companies nomenclature.

It’s not a remake, it’s not even a remaster, it’s the exact old game adapted to run on W10 instead of XP/7.

If the world in game back then could not handle more than 10k players at the same time or it would collapse, nowadays it’s the same. Maybe they can be 15k due to new hardware and adjusted net code, but not 25-30k.

Careful man, people might come in with the "BUT FINAL FANTASY EX EYE VEE!!!!!" argument again.

[Relapses]

They didn’t have to fix it because the idea was to re-launch the game more or less like it was.

They did this Classic thing EXACTLY because they hadn’t much to change of the original code and so it was a “quick win” to use companies nomenclature.

It’s not a remake, it’s not even a remaster, it’s the exact old game adapted to run on W10 instead of XP/7.

If the world in game back then could not handle more than 10k players at the same time or it would collapse, nowadays it’s the same. Maybe they can be 15k due to new hardware and adjusted net code, but not 25-30k.

FWIW, in the post I linked earlier the server dev mentions that both Classic and retail realms run on the same exact technology. And unsurprisingly, the same issues that are currently happening on Classic also happen on high population retail realms at expansion launch. So if they're not upgrading it for retail then they definitely aren't going to be upgrading it for Classic.

Blizzard doesn't want queues any more than players do which is why they came out ahead of this and told people that they need to consider moving realms. Players refusing to heed this advice isn't Blizzard's fault. Pretending you have a triple PhD in MMO server technology and typing "der... uh da greedy Bli$$erd jus dunn't wanna spend enny muneys lul" is such a stretch that I struggle to understand why anybody takes these people seriously.

[SinR]

Players refusing to heed this advice isn't Blizzard's fault. Pretending you have a triple PhD in MMO server technology and typing "der... uh da greedy Bli$$erd jus dunn't wanna spend enny muneys lul" is such a stretch that I struggle to understand why anybody takes these people seriously.

Because everyone loves to watch a trainwreck when its not their own.

[Stickiler]

And they had what, 13 years to fix it?

The only issue here is greed. They are just too greedy to actually do something.

They did try to fix it, the Classic servers are around 12 times larger than the same servers were in Vanilla, but at some point you hit a limitation on hardware and what's comfortable for the players.

Yeah, you mean the same Blizzard that said:

Which later was proven to be bullshit and they soon after added 4 slots for the accounts with authenticators and later another 8 for Vulperans?

They actually talked about that, and the 4 slots for authenticators were taken from the Relic Slots, as they had removed relics an expansion or two before they added the authenticator stuff.

They also said that when they had to refactor the game to function under 64-bit systems, they also took the opportunity to remove the limitation on inventory slots, which opened up the possibility for expanding the base bag in future(which they did for vulperans).

Just because circumstances change, doesn't mean they lied.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

The solution to the problem was to not let it get so out of control to begin with. They even pretty much admitted they sat there and watched as the populations got out of control. They laid some "didn't want to prevent people from playing with other people xyz" crap but the truth is credit cards were sliding and they probably didn't want to do anything to prevent it. Instead of doing the more responsibly thing and merging up smaller realms they offered things like paid transfers until it probably hit the point of not being worth it to keep said realms up and then free transferred people off. Instead of.. damn.. you know.. taking those 4-5 dead realms and turning them into a mid/high pop realm and not having everyone go to realms already loaded.

[SinR]

The solution to the problem was to not let it get so out of control to begin with. They even pretty much admitted they sat there and watched as the populations got out of control. They laid some "didn't want to prevent people from playing with other people xyz" crap but the truth is credit cards were sliding and they probably didn't want to do anything to prevent it. Instead of doing the more responsibly thing and merging up smaller realms they offered things like paid transfers until it probably hit the point of not being worth it to keep said realms up and then free transferred people off. Instead of.. damn.. you know.. taking those 4-5 dead realms and turning them into a mid/high pop realm and not having everyone go to realms already loaded.

Bruh pass the tinfoil hat

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Bruh pass the tinfoil hat

Is it that big of a stretch?

I mean my GM on Grob more or less gave us a class on remoting in an setting up software so you could beat ques. How to judge how long a que is and get into the lobby as you are driving home. I don't think the guy is an expert in social behavior or server equipment. He saw it coming.

Then is it a stretch to say not making the best option to go to already overloaded realms the way to go? I mean.. it seems kinda like walking into it.

But I do suppose I do not actually have the transcripts and data to back it all up.

[Kralljin]

But I do suppose I do not actually have the transcripts and data to back it all up.

To be fair, we're talking about a company that allowed the enterity of Firemaw Horde (biggest Server in the world until recently) to transfer to Gehennas (biggest EU Horde Server) for free via a loophole.

Now Gehennas sits at a 14k queue during peak time, with queues already starting at like 11AM because people log in via remote access software to sit in queue while they're still at work.

Incompetence is very much a possibility here.

[Relapses]

The solution to the problem was to not let it get so out of control to begin with. They even pretty much admitted they sat there and watched as the populations got out of control. They laid some "didn't want to prevent people from playing with other people xyz" crap but the truth is credit cards were sliding and they probably didn't want to do anything to prevent it. Instead of doing the more responsibly thing and merging up smaller realms they offered things like paid transfers until it probably hit the point of not being worth it to keep said realms up and then free transferred people off. Instead of.. damn.. you know.. taking those 4-5 dead realms and turning them into a mid/high pop realm and not having everyone go to realms already loaded.

You new around here? Blizzard fucking hates to merge realms. It's like, y'know, their thing. (That's why it was a pretty big deal when they announced they were merging realms in the lead up to WotLK. They seriously never do this.) I know it's easy to pretend that realm identity doesn't matter on forums and talk about how "credit cards are being swiped" but I honestly don't think there's any malice or nefarious intention behind Blizzard's stance on population control. They like people being to roll on random ass servers, get to max level, forget the game exists until a new expansion then come back and do the same thing. This leads to lots of ghost town servers and active players are naturally going to gravitate towards the larger servers but let's lay off the conspiracy theories.

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair, we're talking about a company that allowed the enterity of Firemaw Horde (biggest Server in the world until recently) to transfer to Gehennas (biggest EU Horde Server) for free via a loophole.

Now Gehennas sits at a 14k queue during peak time, with queues already starting at like 11AM because people log in via remote access software to sit in queue while they're still at work.

Incompetence is very much a possibility here.

This is the same company that was surprised when nobody bothered to do Mythic raid clears after they locked 3 bosses and four-set bonuses behind a lock out that opened the same time as Mythic. Blizzard's foresight could use some work for sure but... again, I don't think they're being intentionally ignorant or incompetent.

[SinR]

THIS IS ALL AN ELABORATE SCHEME TO MAKE MONEY OFF SERVER TRANSFERS!!!

If you believe this then I got a bridge in Brooklyn I could sell you

[Low Hanging Fruit]

To be fair, we're talking about a company that allowed the enterity of Firemaw Horde (biggest Server in the world until recently) to transfer to Gehennas (biggest EU Horde Server) for free via a loophole.

Now Gehennas sits at a 14k queue during peak time, with queues already starting at like 11AM because people log in via remote access software to sit in queue while they're still at work.

Incompetence is very much a possibility here.

I tend to agree. But some people seem to think this is some major bong smoke. "Realm identity" is more the bong cloud situation here in my opinion. I mean no one can actually explain what it is. "Me on server, me like server, server good" is like the cornerstone of most the takes. I mean the corporation that's very being is to make money certainly wouldn't be looking at the bottom line here. It is FOR SURE, instead, focused on "realm identity" because it makes everyone remember the first time they tasted chocolate or had sex. Yeah, I really identify with a server with 60k people on it and 15-20k of them staring at a log in que window.

Fuck the cash + realm identity for free = Blizzard.... LOL...

- - - Updated - - -

THIS IS ALL AN ELABORATE SCHEME TO MAKE MONEY OFF SERVER TRANSFERS!!!

If you believe this then I got a bridge in Brooklyn I could sell you

Clearly not they let people transfer off for free although a lot of people certainly paid to go to a spot. The error was they clearly understand the servers can only take X amount of people. For example and not the actual number, lets call it 20k. Then the number gets to say 25k and you are like.. well.. its a great idea to keep letting to trainsfer here. Lets see how this goes. Then it gets to 30k and you still sit there thinking, well, this might be bad but what can we do about it. Then it gets to 40k and you say something along the lines of "Hey guys this might be bad" but continue to actually do nothing. Then it gets to 50k and you finally lock it. So once it passed over the 20k line you can argue a bit for margin of error, or expectation of people falling off eventually sure. Then continues to go well pasted your overwhleming line and you continue to collect dollars its hard to say anything but incompetency at the very best. When you add in dollars continue to collect its not a stretch to conclude maybe getting dollars played a role. Maybe not the only one. Maybe not the biggest one. But a role at all? For sure.