Game Performance Improvements and Feedback

[SirShen]

Thank you for the update Cordovan.

Honestly, it has gone on so long that I'd just be glad to see it working smoothly again. The only thing I would ask is for an extension on the 10th anniversary dungeon and associated turn-ins (including the djinn). If they could bump that by an extra 2-3 weeks, that would be awesome.


-Jayron

Not worried so much about compensation, but I would very much appreciate an extension of the anniversary events. I Would like to see it end on a positive note, rather than with all the vitriol being spewed at the moment.

I felt that the data center move was not timed well. Release the update, let people play, let vacations happen, then move. *shrug* Hindsight is 20/20 (I think we need a new set of magic goggles called Hindsight - True Seeing, Search +20, and grants an auto reroll of any failed save, cannot occur more than once each minute).

Yes please, can you please think about extending the anniversary event a few more weeks.

I will say it again (said it on facebook), why the hell do a date center move during the 10th anniversary? Now when i long back to this, all i will think about is how bad it was due to lag, its very sad.

[BrokenButton]

As part of our move to the new data center we updated some architecture to modern operating systems and virtualization technologies.

That explains a lot. And, as always, thank you for your communiques.

I hope you guys have better luck with virtualization than what I'm seeing out in the wild. While it definitely saves money to be able to, say, run a virtual DNS, Domain, File, and SMTP server all on the same physical server via Hyper-V, VMware, et. al., every time we've done it there's a performance hit, often a significant one.

It's the age old tradeoff of price vs. performance, of course, but if that's the route you're taking you may have to significantly dumb-down the coding (i.e., straight line mob pathing, consolidation of buffs, more client-side collision detection, etc.) because the additional overhead and added coding layer of the virtualization manger which eats up CPU cycles, while the game server has to compete for resources with the other virtual servers during heavy loads which also eats up CPU cycles. Again, that's just our experience (with virtualization in general), YMMV.

Regardless, I don't envy you at all, those are significant coding revisions to have to make. In the end, I hope the costs saved by moving to virtual servers is more than the revenue that may be lost by players leaving in frustration.

[goldengibblet]

This is how every business in America runs. Cordovan did not have to post this information. Why move data centers if not to optimize performance?

Re-evaluate your expectation and behavior might be in order as well.

Why move the data centers if not to optimize performance? Wow, just wow.

1 save money
2 reduce infrastructure as player population is expected to keep dropping (I.E. save money)
3 preparation for DDO to go into maintenance mode
4 in preparation for the game maintenance to be sub-contracted just as they subby'd the DDOstore
5 allows multiple servers to be reduce to smaller overall serve numbers through the use of virt

And that's just off the top of my head.


So lets be real buddy, if the move had been made to optimize performance (oh god that makes me laugh to write) they would have been trotting out that reason since the very beginning. The very beginning, not now when and the hassle and lag that their wind-down tactics resulted in enough outcry that they had to come up with a re-branding, and they decided to float the optimize performance excuse.

Re-evaluation of your blind following instinct and behavior might be in order.

[Bolo_Grubb]

Thanks for the update

[goldengibblet]

Graphics are rendered on your PC. No "graphics" information is being sent across the web. This game works with real-time collision detection, when many other MMOs do not.

Not defending Turbine. They broke some stuff with their move. They need to fix it. But this game isn't "simple", and an older graphic engine doesn't mean the network code must be easier.

Yeah.... I'm not going to even go to the effort to point out how many mistakes, suppositions and nonsense is in the statement as your posting history would indicate that you just want to believe what you want to believe.

Instead I will invite you to go play any of a dozen MMO's operating right now with raids well in excess of 12, with massive player populations, that all seem to 'miraculously' not have lag like DDO. Granted I'm sure that you a) wont go play them and b) wouldn't admit to being wrong even if you did.


As someone who codes for a living and has been lucky enough to be invited to peek under the hood of DDO, I know for a FACT that it is a dead simple product and that the lag we are experiencing and the bugs we have been afflicted with during the last year are sure proof of mis-management of the coders and incompetence by the technology dept, too bad you don't know enough to understand that.

Oh well, get back to posting endlessly.

[Nyata]

even though I personally have not farmed the aniversary event much, and never had the intension to do so cause all I wanted was a cosmetic broccoli for my druid, I am kind of ambiguous about extending the aniversary event.

I think it would be very apreciated to extend it by a couple of weeks by the people who wanted things from it, but just couldn't or wouldn't farm because of issues and frustration with these issues... on the other hand... I can't help but see a slide show in my mind of all the posts by people complaining every time an event starts about how that causes lag for them and how it takes away players from the content *they* want to run.

I think what DDo needs right now is an incentive for the raid crowd to come back. someone suggested in another thread to up raid loot drops for a couple of weeks. announcing it on a grand scale, and maybe even send emails to players with something like 'look, we are offering you a better chance to get raid loot, and in turn we hope for you to come back and test and see if things maybe are better now.'

For that however the DDo team has to be convinced that game performance will stand up to what they promise. so I for one actually would like to see the event closed at the initially planned date, but by all means, bring it back later. there has to be some other reason to party in the near future, right? because I enjoyed the aniversary challenge, gave me a lot of giggles and fun clicking NPCs. and doors. and cakes. and... okay I clicked everything that seemed remotely clickable.

[mikarddo]

During last 2 hours on Ghallanda.

Ran MoD EN twice with 10ish people. Very little lag.
Then ran DoJ EN once. Huge lag issues. Major stuttering, rubberbanding and some freezing in place. Definitely not fun at all even if we did win.

Definitely need much more improvement if DDO is to be considered playable at the raiding level.

[tanuki013]

Thank you fix.
The frequency of the lag has declined.

But still lag have left, is a good state better before the data center migration.

Symptoms of Lag is, we are continuing the behavior that already sent by PM.

[PsychoBlonde]

Not worried so much about compensation, but I would very much appreciate an extension of the anniversary events. I Would like to see it end on a positive note, rather than with all the vitriol being spewed at the moment.

I felt that the data center move was not timed well. Release the update, let people play, let vacations happen, then move. *shrug* Hindsight is 20/20 (I think we need a new set of magic goggles called Hindsight - True Seeing, Search +20, and grants an auto reroll of any failed save, cannot occur more than once each minute).

I support this idea, but it should be this instead:

Hindsight -- Belt, True Seeing, Search +20, Spot +20, Slippery Mind, Rolling a 1 on a reflex save is not an auto-fail

[PsychoBlonde]

Thank you for the update Cordovan.








Yes please, can you please think about extending the anniversary event a few more weeks.

I will say it again (said it on facebook), why the hell do a date center move during the 10th anniversary? Now when i long back to this, all i will think about is how bad it was due to lag, its very sad.

Probably because their lease was up and they didn't want to have to sign a year or more worth of contract or pay a sharp increase in fee due to lack of contract or something of that nature. Asking this is like demanding to know why a friend decided to move apartments in the middle of a week-long blizzard. When your lease is up, you go.

[Elsbet]

If you are continuing to see poor in-game performance, then any information you can provide is helpful.

Argo, 8-9 p.m. Wheloon prison and quests. Lag at its worst just like the last two weeks. Hitching, rubber banding, freezing. Deaths and rage quits all over the place. Roughly the same elapsed time after the data center move as this time for it to show up. It was better for a little while.

[PsychoBlonde]

Instead I will invite you to go play any of a dozen MMO's operating right now with raids well in excess of 12, with massive player populations, that all seem to 'miraculously' not have lag like DDO. Granted I'm sure that you a) wont go play them and b) wouldn't admit to being wrong even if you did.

I don't know about him, but I have played some of these other MMO's. Here's what I found:

You can walk right through enemies in most other MMO's. And they can walk right through you. The game doesn't care who is standing where.

You can't jump, grab hold of terrain, and climb up it in the ones I've played, either.

Characters have one class.

There are no buff bars that roll off the edge of the screen due to quantity of buffs.

Ditto for debuffs.

You don't roll several checks for every attack to see if it lands or not.

You attack much more slowly, and so do mobs.

A "big" fight is usually around 8 mobs. In DDO it can be a couple dozen (although this is unusual even in DDO.)

Oh, and Diablo 3, where you can only have 4 people in your group, has had FREQUENT, CATASTROPHIC lag, connection drops, etc. It can have this when you're playing BY YOURSELF. I've seen people get dropped by SWTOR and WoW to the point where they gave it up for the night, too. Diablo 3 is by far the worst of the 3, but it also has the fastest-paced action.

Heck, I've seen lag in a text-based MUD before. (My housemate, who is a network admin, actually crashed his old MUD once.)

Also "coding" is not "administrating a network".

[Powerhungry]

During last 2 hours on Ghallanda.

Ran MoD EN twice with 10ish people. Very little lag.
Then ran DoJ EN once. Huge lag issues. Major stuttering, rubberbanding and some freezing in place. Definitely not fun at all even if we did win.

Definitely need much more improvement if DDO is to be considered playable at the raiding level.

Although, DoJ has always been a hit or miss lag-fest and is a bad stick to measure by (they need to remove those floating spinning blades and see how that effects performance - remove from shroud too).

[SirShen]

Probably because their lease was up and they didn't want to have to sign a year or more worth of contract or pay a sharp increase in fee due to lack of contract or something of that nature. Asking this is like demanding to know why a friend decided to move apartments in the middle of a week-long blizzard. When your lease is up, you go.

Didn't think of this, thanks for your reply makes more sense now. Still bad timing on Turbines part, still could have done this before the 10th anniversary but anyway whats done is done. Hope the fixes get rid of the lag.

[JOTMON]

If you are continuing to see poor in-game performance, then any information you can provide is helpful.

While solo and basic level gaming has improved it is by no means lag free.

Raid performance is still abysmal.
joined a LN Shroud last nite 11 people in the group. everyone in the group experienced lag throughout the raid.
Theres no way we will be able to convince players to come back to the game for LE runs with this kind of game interaction delay.

Its not even a level playing field where mobs lag as we do, they continue their actions while we are unable to interact.
all that ends up happening is casters dump sp trying to repeatedly recast spells and spam heals and drink pots that don't return sp during lag.
Its a bad situation.

I don't mind spending money on a game and on store items like sp pots, but when those pots don't work.... not a fan of wasting money...

[Lerincho]

Why move the data centers if not to optimize performance? Wow, just wow.

1 save money
2 reduce infrastructure as player population is expected to keep dropping (I.E. save money)
3 preparation for DDO to go into maintenance mode
4 in preparation for the game maintenance to be sub-contracted just as they subby'd the DDOstore
5 allows multiple servers to be reduce to smaller overall serve numbers through the use of virt

And that's just off the top of my head.

You realize that some of these are in essence optimizing, right? To save money is optimizing cost and preparation is a form of optimizing.

So lets be real buddy, if the move had been made to optimize performance (oh god that makes me laugh to write) they would have been trotting out that reason since the very beginning. The very beginning, not now when and the hassle and lag that their wind-down tactics resulted in enough outcry that they had to come up with a re-branding, and they decided to float the optimize performance excuse.

Re-evaluation of your blind following instinct and behavior might be in order.

Did I state that the only reason was to optimize? No. Congratulations on your reading comprehension, your teachers must be proud. What I said was since they were moving why not optimize.

[J-2]

I do appluade the post. It was communicative and informative where others have not been. Its a good start.

[Edwardt]

Wayfinder
10.20 to 10.40 am (est)
massive lags (7) between 3sec and 30 sec duration, loads of minor lags < 1 sec
solo party
cannith challenges
according to teamspeak feedback from other parties on the server doing other quests at that time, it wasn't a client based issue

[IronClan]

Yeah.... I'm not going to even go to the effort to point out how many mistakes, suppositions and nonsense is in the statement as your posting history would indicate that you just want to believe what you want to believe.

Instead I will invite you to go play any of a dozen MMO's operating right now with raids well in excess of 12, with massive player populations, that all seem to 'miraculously' not have lag like DDO. Granted I'm sure that you a) wont go play them and b) wouldn't admit to being wrong even if you did.


As someone who codes for a living and has been lucky enough to be invited to peek under the hood of DDO, I know for a FACT that it is a dead simple product and that the lag we are experiencing and the bugs we have been afflicted with during the last year are sure proof of mis-management of the coders and incompetence by the technology dept, too bad you don't know enough to understand that.

Oh well, get back to posting endlessly.

I am a big critic of lag and Turbine. This is consistent with things I've posted elsewhere. I am also 100% sure they are saving costs and this move was WB corporate strategy and NOT done for the benefit of players.

That said nothing Thrudh posted there is untrue and your assertions here are no more convincing than the first post he replied to..

[Silverleafeon]

Wheloon prison and quests.,.

Have not visited Wheloon yet, it used to be the mass graveyard of lag deaths, probably needs some special attention sometime...that and a full group in thunderhelm...