Solution to the lag issue

[Metaljaw]

So. Everyone knows there is no lag in DDO. Before you start ranting on me, I was a sceptic as well. There have been isolated instances here and there that were easily dealt wtih. Basically a CR10 lag monster quickly dealt with. HOWEVER, tonight i was handed a full on Jaws/Suulo/Demon Queen mutant CR105 lag monster while running Madstone with a fellow triple TR and a full on "I won DDO" completionist. Normally we can run through this in about about 10 minutes if we split up. However the JSD lag monster refused to go away. 8 deaths. 68 minutes to complete. The only reason we did not just recall out is from sheer stubbornness. I am not sure what caused this, but it was not temporary. It lasted the entire time we were in the quest with only minimal periods of relatively free movement.

Clearly 68 minutes of sustained jerky lag affecting 3 people remotedly connected from diverse geographical locations have only 1 point in common. The DDO servers.

SO. My solution is going to be this. I have downloaded the Taksi video capture program. (Open source free to use available at http://taksi.sourceforge.net/). I am going to be taking videos and sending them to every MMO reviewer/retailer/blog/forum that I can think of when this sort behaviour crops up in all of its glory. I am going to show them that this is not an isolated problem that is common to many MMO's, but rather deals with specific implementation issues with DDO. This may not be good for the game in the long run, but I am hoping that Turbine/Warner Bros realizes they need to provide a playable product without complicated work arounds and it helps the game improve.

I am asking others to do the same thing until the Devs/Turbine actually addresses this problem. Clearly something is wrong with the way Turbine has chosen to allocate server resources. There is ample research posted on this forum as to the causes, which was done with a heck of a lot less access than Turbine has available. Additionally, having a non-time intensive, but extrememly data intensive thing like crafting halls share hardware with questing is probably not the best call ever made.

Feel free to flame away. Hopefully, this is not just another "Frickin Lag" thread as I am trying to actually motivate movement to result in action on the problem by hitting them where it hurts. With the new expansion coming along this would be the type of press Trubine does not particularly want.

[UltraMonk2]

Clearly 68 minutes of sustained jerky lag affecting 3 people remotedly connected from diverse geographical locations have only 1 point in common. The DDO servers.


I have had troubles connecting to various internet sites today, so I happen to disagree with your conclusion.

[Teharahma]

/IBTL

Just you wait :')
(I do approve of the idea though)

[Full_Bleed]

running Madstone with a fellow triple TR and a full on "I won DDO" completionist. Normally we can run through this in about about 10 minutes if we split up.

Your premise above is a clear indicator that the lag you experienced is, in fact, atypical of DDO.

First, by your own admission, you "normally" run it in 10 minutes.

Second, you have triple TR's and a Completionist in that group so, obviously, this is a crew that has played the game a lot. And if they had been experiencing the kind of lag you've described with any serious or sustained frequency, then they are either gluttons for punishment, the game is so good that the lag isn't much of a negative, or (most likely) the kind of lag you're complaining about is atypical.

A little perspective goes a long way.

[Narmolanya]

Tonight was a very bad lag as well for me and a guildie on Kyber. We were running Von 3 and have no problems ever with it. Tonight was a different story with rubber banding all over the place and lagging out to wind up dead to the drow. Luckily it cleared up before the beholders but the lag at the first half of the quest added about 20 minutes of extra time.

Lag was getting better for a while but it seems the progress made to fix it has been reversed the last couple weeks.

[Metaljaw]

Your premise above is a clear indicator that the lag you experienced is, in fact, atypical of DDO.

First, by your own admission, you "normally" run it in 10 minutes.

Second, you have triple TR's and a Completionist in that group so, obviously, this is a crew that has played the game a lot. And if they had been experiencing the kind of lag you've described with any serious or sustained frequency, then they are either gluttons for punishment, the game is so good that the lag isn't much of a negative, or (most likely) the kind of lag you're complaining about is atypical.

A little perspective goes a long way.

If you had read my first post as thoroughly as you thought then you would have noticed near the very front:


So. Everyone knows there is no lag in DDO. Before you start ranting on me, I was a sceptic as well. There have been isolated instances here and there that were easily dealt wtih. Basically a CR10 lag monster quickly dealt with.

I expect a certain amount of lag and delay in a distributed application such as an MMO. The places where lag did happen were normally easily tolerable such as running to the chests in part 1 of shroud. Occasionally a lag spike would hit and it would have to be dealt with. No biggie. Like you said they were not serious and sustained. BUT last night was the second time that I have seen some extremely heinous lag. It happened in Shadow Crypt when the same group had to wait approximately 5 minutes when we zoned in before we could move in any sort of fashion to allow us to start. Last night was 68 mminutes of sustained lag. To the point that 2 of the deaths were from running into one of the lava pits in the cave and not being able to jump out of it due to the lag.

What I am seeing now is multiple instances of sustained serious lag. Not a random spike here and there, but 15-30 sec delay in the action-response chain. That makes the game un-playable. Before I had not experienced such behaviour. Hence the triple TR. Now we broke group and called it a night after that because we were not willing to deal with it again.

The point of my post was that something has happened since the last update/patch which has massively increased load on the servers or the load balancing algorithm they are using is no longer functioning properly or there is an increase in overhead which is not being taken into account by the load balancer. Whatever.

If this were a business application then the vast majority of clients would be gone by now. Look at all the companies that left services the day after they experienced major problems. This has been a month without even a "Hey, our bad. On the top of our list. Expect a patch in X days." For Turbine not to even acknowledge the problem and give us what they are doing to rectify the situation means that it is not a high priority concern for them. They need to be informed and made to think otherwise.

Does that have enough perspective for you?

Oh, and to be honest, I would not be suprised if they tried to bury threads like this. However, I think the better solution would be to respond with some information and what they are planning to do to make it right.

[1nth]

So far this week it's been hit or miss whether or not my connection to ddos servers flakes out a couple of xp services forcing a reboot to use any network functions. Doesn't happen with any of my other current games or online programs but it reminds me of how the windows98 stack used to choke on udp in a mixed network.
.
Shouldn't happen on a modern-ish system with graphics and cpu to spare. Swap isn't thrashing and the system is snappy until ddo crashes.
.
Could also be behind-the-scenes throttling by my isp...
1nth

[Full_Bleed]

The point of my post was that something has happened since the last update/patch which has massively increased load on the servers or the load balancing algorithm they are using is no longer functioning properly or there is an increase in overhead which is not being taken into account by the load balancer. Whatever.

<snip>

Does that have enough perspective for you?

Well, since you asked--No, frankly, it doesn't. Especially when you consider your over-reaction to what is, by your own admission, a new and fairly isolated negative experience.

Making them aware of the problem is part and parcel of playing an MMO. Giving them some time to correct the problem is as well.

You've decided to go absolutely ballistic though and attempt to smear the entire company's name... to "shame them" into addressing the problem which you seem to think they don't care about... a company, btw, that has, until now (as far as your post seems to indicate) provided you with years of acceptable service.

Your OP illustrated ONE lag filled adventuring experience in contrast to what must have been an inordinate amount of good service for the collective amount of time the group you talked about must have spent in the game. So, yes, your so-called "solution" to the problem shows a distinct lack of perspective.


I feel for the fact that you had 68 minutes of unplayable DDO since update 13. I've personally had about 30-40 hours of totally playable, lag free, gaming in the same time-span. I agree that you deserve to get that same level of service. But your "solution" is neither constructive or a true representation of the state of the game for the vast majority of the people playing.

[haku-ba]

I feel for the fact that you had 68 minutes of unplayable DDO since update 13. I've personally had about 30-40 hours of totally playable, lag free, gaming in the same time-span. I agree that you deserve to get that same level of service. But your "solution" is neither constructive or a true representation of the state of the game for the vast majority of the people playing.

You made me log in just so I could +1 you! Are you sure you belong on this forum?? Your posts indicate you actually put some thought into them before making them ;)

[Symerith]

Interesting solution, but since turbine has shown absolutely no interest (oh well it's easy to say "We are working on fixing the lag", it's a bit harder to actually do something about it), I think players that love the game have to come up with new ideas.

Unless Turbine does smthg, I'll put down my eSoS and look for new horizons.