[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Height]

If anyone is bored you should add your toon's pictures too. I like looking in this game for some reason.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe they'll just keep open beta up all week so they cat fix it. I have a feeling it's going to be a hard one to solve without having the servers stressed anyway. That is the optimist in me though. They could also wipe phase 4 and say we cannot fix this bug because it's game breaking and we cant get rid of the bug without wiping everything. Lol

[Sirfailalot]

If anyone is bored you should add your toon's pictures too. I like looking in this game for some reason.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe they'll just keep open beta up all week so they cat fix it. I have a feeling it's going to be a hard one to solve without having the servers stressed anyway. That is the optimist in me though. They could also wipe phase 4 and say we cannot fix this bug because it's game breaking and we cant get rid of the bug without wiping everything. Lol

Keeping the beta open would be by far the wisest thing they can do. This way they can actually test the fix before EA goes up and a bunch of preorders get pissed.

[-aiko-]

They could also wipe phase 4 and say we cannot fix this bug because it's game breaking and we cant get rid of the bug without wiping everything. Lol

Nobody is enjoying this beta more than I am, but if there was one thing that forced me to quit it would be a character wipe.

20 ACN / 20 THM / 20 weaver / 11 alchemist

That's a lot to lose...

[Height]

Keeping the beta open would be by far the wisest thing they can do. This way they can actually test the fix before EA goes up and a bunch of preorders get pissed.

I agree. People will be happy with that surprise too. I don't care if it just keeps the lvl 20 level cap either.

[skitzin]

Really wish they hadn't locked servers off like this. Forcing people to play on a server they clearly don't want to play isn't good.

[TirielWoW]

From Twitter:

While recovery is not fully complete, we have been able to address a large number of characters that were affected by error 3102.
If you have submitted your World/Character Name on the Error 3102 thread we created, please check to see if you can log in.
If you're still unable to log in, we ask that you please wait and try again later as we work to address the issue for remaining characters.

Sadly, I am still locked out.

[Iamanerd]

Or you could add insight instead...

I would but I'm more of the coding side, and I do IT for a living with business servers not MMO server farms. But here is a nice post that I think sums it up well:

This discussions here is not about me but suffice to say I have had plenty of experience with MMO server clusters, infrastructure design and loadtesting to be able to provide some experienced insight on the subject to folks debating the release of LoTR release setup. I will caveat my post here with the tidbit that each MMO engine is a little (if not a lot) different than others and so although this informations pertains to MMO engines I have worked with it is in no way specific or directly relational to LoTR. Take it for what it is or leave it.

MMOs require many many PC boxes to operate a single "server". These clusters of boxes are often called a server farm. In your server farm you can have as few as 3-4 servers right up to 20-30 (or in the case of WoW, 80+) servers. Truely the number is unlimited but for network management purposes going beyond these numbers in a cluster makes for a logistics and backbone nightmare.

Inside your server farm there are usually 3-4 distinct tasks that are divided up aming the servers. Patching, authentication, database and world/zone servers are a pretty standard jobset. The patching servers are usually nothing more than a customized FTP/HTTP server that allow connections from a game client which is then updated as required using checksums to validate the necessary client files on the patch server. The authentication server is pretty much just that. A server that takes the user name and password from game clients and authenticates the account against the entries in the database, verifies the account is active and flags the clients account for access to their player data. Database servers are... well.. database servers.. duh They are customized to optimize the datastream between the database and the auth/world servers for player data parsing. The world/zone servers are the boxes that handle the actual player data for specific areas of the game world, including load blancing, as needed, for multiple boxes to handle a single area.

Where all this becomes important is when a company underestimates or overestimates their world's population numbers and is unprepared to deal with the fallout for that. As an example, in MMOs the authentication and patcher servers are generally the hardest hit. As MMOs have grown in size, it is not uncommon for a game client to see massive (even over 1 gig) patches at release to make adjustments (that probably should have been done in beta *sigh*) to the game. PErsonally I dont anticipate a "massive" patch for LoTR due to that fact that yes, eventhough they need some tweaks and adjustments, the game is in a very polished state and I don't forsee any sweeping changes. Even IF a game should reuire massive patches for hundreds of thousands of clients simultaneously though the great part is these patch servers dont have any effect on game server performance because they have zero interaction with the databases or the world servers. This means that players ingame arent having their datastream jammed up by 600k people trying to patch 500MB each into their game client.

Authentication servers are the next lot of servers to get hammered. Every single player trying to connect to the game has to bounce through an Auth server in order for the game to verify their username and password and pass back the appropriate player selection info for their account. The great part about auth servers is they run a VERY simple process that is just a checksum of UID/PWD data against the account database and pass back a small stream to the client. Sure the auth servers can back up but when most database servers today can process thousands (if not tens of thousands) of reuests per second it's kind of hard to imagine a company having to deal with more than 50 thousand login attempts per second and causing authentication issues.

World servers and Zone servers are the heart of every MMO. This is also the area that most people are very clueless about the workings of an MMO. World servers generally take up the lions share of the actual server farm. These are the boxes that share the duties of maintaining world object data for their specific area or landblock. The beauty of technology today is that load balancing server power with today's blade platforms means that as a servers load becomes unmanageable the MMO engine can "recruit" more servers dynamically, "on demand" so to speak, within seconds.

Think of a cluster of world servers under "anticipated" traffic. Lets use an example of 10 servers slugging away happily with average load.. In the wings there are another 20 servers, configured and running just idling away with no traffic telling the master server they are there and waiting for instructions. Then it happens!!!! AMG a Gandalf sighting in section 13B!!!! All of the sudden hundreds of players swarm into section 13B to hail the mighty white wizard and the poor server(s) running that section begin to panic. They reach their predetermined "performance" threshhold and send a panic'd scream for help to the shard's master server. After some gentle reassurance to the beseiged world server the master server reaches into the overflow server pool and assigns backup servers A, B and C to alieviate some of the load from sector 13B. Thirty seconds into the great lagfest that was sector 13B the overflow servers step in and all of the sudden the lag becomes more bearable.. all of the sudden the 500 hobbits charging the brandywine bridge trying to head off Gandalf the Gray are actually able to move again and the world is a better place..

Configuring servers the first time is tough. I've been there Optimizing the servers and software for maximum data throughput and performance levels takes time but once it is done, replication is accomplished in minutes / hours not in days or weeks. Having a server farm of xxx servers, a good network team can configure the appropriate database/world servers in hours. If release is a raging success and they STILL end up swamping their entire overflow pool of servers it's a matter of mere hours to load their software and configure NEW DB and world servers once they are made available from the service provider.

The link is here. Yes I understand people want shit to work but you also have to understand MMO's require a lot more work with how these connections are set up and bugs will pop up.

Also Sirfailalot, to call their programming inept is a joke, do you have single clue how much time and man power goes into something like this? I am almost 100% confident they are working on these issues but patience is needed. I mean do you really think they would say nah fuck it lets take our time? Fuck no they would not, it would lose sales so stop acting like they don't give a shit. Also since this is a relaunch they also re-did the game completely and with that brings in new problems, shit doesn't magically all work 100% of the time.

[Lefrog]

Sadly, I am still locked out.

Do you happen to remember what page you posted your issue on? I'm pretty sure they are just going down a list and it's first posted first served.

[TirielWoW]

Do you happen to remember what page you posted your issue on? I'm pretty sure they are just going down a list and it's first posted first served.

Somewhere between 445 and 465.

[-aiko-]

Somewhere between 445 and 465.

They have a lot of work to do! I didn't realize this issue was so widespread.

I feel really bad having never encountered it.

[Sirfailalot]

Also Sirfailalot, to call their programming inept is a joke, do you have single clue how much time and man power goes into something like this? I am almost 100% confident they are working on these issues but patience is needed. I mean do you really think they would say nah fuck it lets take our time? Fuck no they would not, it would lose sales so stop acting like they don't give a shit. Also since this is a relaunch they also re-did the game completely and with that brings in new problems, shit doesn't magically all work 100% of the time.

As I said. If this is still going on a week past live they are in fact inept. This is the kind of thing you put ALL your manpower on. That's (If they actually have enough to keep an mmo functioning.) a LOT of 'supposedly' skilled programmers working in tandem to isolate the cause and fix it. And remade or not it's still the same error according to a lot of the V1 people. Not just error 'code' but the same error itself. Still logged in when clearly we aren't. At the VERY minimum that should narrow down the potential issues considerably. A week is the kind of thing that would see programmers fired in a decent company. They have until EA as far as I'm concerned, then it's preorder cancelled and I REALLY hope I won't be the only one.

Also noted is when the error goes wrong. While zoning. And it's something that only seems to occur on the US/EU servers. They have more to go on than WoW's programmers typically do from what I can tell. They want us to believe they really feel bad for their previous failures, then they need to prove it now. I couldn't care less about not getting back into OB, but if it's still fucked in EA or worse afterwards they'll have hell to pay. And they'll deserve it.

[Iamanerd]

Also could someone explain what these jobs are and how they work? I'm honestly a little confused on them.

- - - Updated - - -

As I said. If this is still going on a week past live they are in fact inept. This is the kind of thing you put ALL your manpower on. That's (If they actually have enough to keep an mmo functioning.) a LOT of 'supposedly' skilled programmers working in tandem to isolate the cause and fix it. And remade or not it's still the same error according to a lot of the V1 people. Not just error 'code' but the same error itself. Still logged in when clearly we aren't. At the VERY minimum that should narrow down the potential issues considerably. A week is the kind of thing that would see programmers fired in a decent company. They have until EA as far as I'm concerned, then it's preorder cancelled and I REALLY hope I won't be the only one.

Also noted is when the error goes wrong. While zoning. And it's something that only seems to occur on the US/EU servers. They have more to go on than WoW's programmers typically do from what I can tell. They want us to believe they really feel bad for their previous failures, then they need to prove it now. I couldn't care less about not getting back into OB, but if it's still fucked in EA or worse afterwards they'll have hell to pay. And they'll deserve it.

While I agree to an extent, they should have it done in a week from now, and if they have the issue a week past release then yes it has been kind of long. But what if they communicate with us and that they fix this issue but another issue pops up from the fix? It happens a lot and is why programmers are constantly fixing issues as there is and will never be a perfect piece of software.

[TirielWoW]

Also could someone explain what these jobs are and how they work? I'm honestly a little confused on them.

They're like "Prestige Classes" from D&D. You combine 30 of one class with 15 of another to qualify for them, and they are sort of like a more powerful version of the level 30 class.

[Sirfailalot]

Also could someone explain what these jobs are and how they work? I'm honestly a little confused on them.

- - - Updated - - -


While I agree to an extent, they should have it done in a week from now, and if they have the issue a week past release then yes it has been kind of long. But what if they communicate with us and that they fix this issue but another issue pops up from the fix? It happens a lot and is why programmers are constantly fixing issues as there is and will never be a perfect piece of software.

A new issue is exactly that. New. Whole new time table, though admittedly I'd expect them to handle that a little quicker given they can be pretty sure where the new one came from. A week from now is EA though, and there'll be no way to adequately test the fix if they shut OB down before its done :/

[Remilia]

As I said. If this is still going on a week past live they are in fact inept. This is the kind of thing you put ALL your manpower on. That's (If they actually have enough to keep an mmo functioning.) a LOT of 'supposedly' skilled programmers working in tandem to isolate the cause and fix it. And remade or not it's still the same error according to a lot of the V1 people. Not just error 'code' but the same error itself. Still logged in when clearly we aren't. At the VERY minimum that should narrow down the potential issues considerably. A week is the kind of thing that would see programmers fired in a decent company. They have until EA as far as I'm concerned, then it's preorder cancelled and I REALLY hope I won't be the only one.

Also noted is when the error goes wrong. While zoning. And it's something that only seems to occur on the US/EU servers. They have more to go on than WoW's programmers typically do from what I can tell. They want us to believe they really feel bad for their previous failures, then they need to prove it now. I couldn't care less about not getting back into OB, but if it's still fucked in EA or worse afterwards they'll have hell to pay. And they'll deserve it.

Illustrate the 'same' thing but not at the same time.

If for example you have an error that causes a crash in the game from let's say a different game.
Let's say game A crashes at the start 10% of the time at start up.
Let's say game B is the remake of game A and crashes 10% of the time at start up.

For really dumb sake.
Game A crashes because it was loading things that didn't exist into and the game tried to use it.
Game B crashes because of a recursive function failing.

Both A and B are essentially crashes at the same time but achieve it differently.

Programming has many methods to screw up, no complex piece of software will ever be bug free.

[Iamanerd]

They're like "Prestige Classes" from D&D. You combine 30 of one class with 15 of another to qualify for them, and they are sort of like a more powerful version of the level 30 class.

Ahh thanks, so for a white mage its 30 conjurer/15 arcanist? so i just level to 30 once release comes around and 15 in arcanist and i can become a white mage?

[-aiko-]

And remade or not it's still the same error according to a lot of the V1 people. Not just error 'code' but the same error itself.

That would make little sense a it uses a new engine on new servers.

Regardless, this error never happened in beta (and I've been in since phase one). Servers during the first days of each phase were just as packed. Hell, I remember phase 1 (stress testing) and how awful it was. Tons of people jammed into a server at full capacity and more. Even then, we got nothing but EXTREMELY bad lag. Making any progress this early on sounds fine in my book.

With that said, I agree that the issue persisting after launch will be nasty.

[Stayfrostee]

From Twitter:

While recovery is not fully complete, we have been able to address a large number of characters that were affected by error 3102.
If you have submitted your World/Character Name on the Error 3102 thread we created, please check to see if you can log in.
If you're still unable to log in, we ask that you please wait and try again later as we work to address the issue for remaining characters.

Sadly, I am still locked out.

what is this thread they are talking about?

edit: found it

[-aiko-]

Ahh thanks, so for a white mage its 30 conjurer/15 arcanist? so i just level to 30 once release comes around and 15 in arcanist and i can become a white mage?

That is the current thought, but unfortunately without access to the quests we don't know.

[Sirfailalot]

That would make little sense a it uses a new engine on new servers.

Regardless, this error never happened in beta (and I've been in since phase one). Servers during the first days of each phase were just as packed. Hell, I remember phase 1 (stress testing) and how awful it was. Tons of people jammed into a server at full capacity and more. Even then, we got nothing but EXTREMELY bad lag. Making any progress this early on sounds fine in my book.

With that said, I agree that the issue persisting after launch will be nasty.

A nasty issue I want them to avoid. I'd like this game to be hugely successful. Hell even just pushing back launch a bit but letting OB go on to test their fixes would be acceptable.