when will DDO be out from the dial-up era?

[Valerianus]

INTRO:

*** this is about a post by lotro new producer, source post link https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...76#post8117276

copypaste:

We don't have any current plans to change server locations, at least none that I'm aware of. (op note: original answer was about real eu servers and performance in general)

As other folks have pointed out, ping can be a bit of a red herring these days, as it's rarely the biggest factor when it comes to lag. It's certainly a contributing factor, and the further away you are from a server the more your performance degrades - if I remember my DevOps days correctly, that's not a linear relationship, but it's been like fifteen years so I could be wildly off for modern stuff.

Anyway, since our lag investigations and improvements got underway in earnest a few months ago, we've made some solid strides. We obviously have a long way to go - I had some pretty frustrating experiences myself playing on Gladden over the break - but we've got additional work coming for Update 32 that we're cautiously optimistic about.

- The 64-bit server work unfortunately didn't wrap up before end of year as we'd hoped, but we made good progress and we're still on it.
- One of the interesting historical artifacts with this game is it was built to assume more/most players were on dial-up. As we continued our archaeological excursions into our networking code, we identified some areas of improvement, some of which are in active testing right now, and assuming we don't find any massive issues we can't resolve, will go out with 32 (op note, 32 as in lotro update 32, near future). This change may actually be on Bullroarer already, I'd have to check (it's behind the scenes, so there's not anything for players to test).
- The game also does some really inefficient queries, particularly on login, that affect not just your login experience but everyone else on the server (although others less so). We've found some improvements that should hopefully improve login times, but also lead to less halo for other players. This work is getting close and will enter testing soon as well.

So progress continues, and we're continuing to dedicate engineering to it in the future.



*** also note a line in the today lotro patch, source post link https://www.lotro.com/en/content/upd...-release-notes

copypaste:

Some adjustments have been made to increase the bandwidth available to players to improve general game performance.



THAT SAID,


the question is simple, it's about if something like this is on the radar for ddo too (both games need better servers and no more dial-up limits, i am assuming since it is totally safe to assume that since ddo is the older game, it has these issues too, if not worse ones).

i know that if something is boiling up, there would be an official statement i guess, like the lotro one...but i'm asking anyway.


important, this is not a ddo vs lotro post, it would be incredibly stupid. i know nothing about tech but i think they are investing in engineering things and it's clear that they start investing in lotro first, also probably it does not depend on ssg, but from above.


i was shocked by reading those words in 2022...dial-up...

i know nothing about tech but...dial-up...was my shock founded? asking.


good that ssg acknowledged lag problems some time ago and now tell the player what they are doing, work on servers and dial-up limits, at least in lotro side


the "it's on your end" narrative, is this the nail in the coffin forever dismissing it?
i mean, now we know what we already knew after all, there was always something wrong but now we are told at least a part about "why and because", something specific, something that was wrong all along in all these years. am i exaggerating? honest question here.


thanks ssg for telling us, good move, really transparent communication. thank you. i think that such operations, or the unwillingness to do them, were never in the hands of turbine\ssg, but from above. so, to whom it may concern, thank you from a player that plays both games (but likes ddo more!!!) and really hopes that finally both games will be taken care of.


i expect no dev answer in this sorta cross-games thread cause maybe nothing is moving yet for ddo but omg let's hope it will after lotro, or even if, maybe can't talk about it yet...but thanks anyway again.

[Cordovan]

We're looking forward to seeing what kind of live impact it has before committing to anything or saying much more, but yeah, assuming it works out the plan is to bring this as quickly as is feasible to DDO.

[rabidfox]

I was planning to upgrade from 2400 to 56k this year.

[Cordovan]

So, clearly I am not an engineer, but in general DDO uses very little bandwidth overall, and many players never get into a place where they would encounter an archaic cap on bandwidth. However, some can, and as we've discovered, some do, so this has the potential to make for a smoother gameplay experience. It goes live today in our other game, and bringing it to DDO will be relatively easy should it prove itself out.

[Juduss]

Not really all that shocking, since he was citing the game’s original networking code. Not sure about LoTRO, but DDO release in 2006, which means development & coding began well in advance of that. Circa 2005 and previous, it would’ve been foolish to design a game around requiring broadband, as it would’ve excluded a significant amount of potential players/customers.

That said… yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve read anything referencing dial-up internet too

[cdbd3rd]

So, logged onto Hobbit-side to see any difference.

Saw no difference, outfits still buggered and the task boards still unreadably cluttered. *shrug*

[BurnerD]

One thing that caught my attention was in reference to logins. Is this account or character?

I have been saying for years that the constant logging in and out of characters looking for inventory items has to have some impact on server performance.. I know I may log in and out of 5 or 10 different characters if I am gearing up a guy after a TR for example. If so then a Inventory UI revamp may have a positive impact on game performance...

not gonna hold my breath though...

[Dnarth]

One of my friends I have been tring with is having a issue. Would seem it maybe a bandwith issue. His game would stop loading when ending certain areas and quests. His client would stop and be disconnected. Logging back in would also result in the same issue. Would have to port via hall of heroes at character select. Been happening since last weekend. Was hoping a tr and the server restart would help but it has not.

I mentioned to him maybe he should repair his client which he did last night after it happened trying to get into a quest in Korthos wilds. It seem to have worked only to have the same issue in a Borderlands quest.

[LightBear]

Dial-up.... that's 0.05 mb/s, I've been on cable for more then two decades.


On the upside, could this mean we'll be getting 24 character raids in the future?
Will DDO actually do right to that first M in MMO?

Also, cudos on getting some decent monitoring software to track the queries.

[Tyrande]

Oh dear, 24 people raid in DDO.

What kind of performance lag are we expecting?

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I believe that this bandwidth thing is a myth.

My bandwidth is only a few hundred KB ( ! ) , and I've never had much lag, except when the main playing time is.
Sometimes I'm glad that I'm European.

And you won't believe me anyway, like with "nobody has a bandwidth of a few hundred KB these days !", which merely shows me of how ignorant people are.
And don't even ask me about the nandwidth in rural areas, dozens or even hundreds of kilometres away from the next real town. Nobody invests in cables there, because there's no profit in that - tha's how the free market works.

[blarhblarhblarh]

Dial up is not a problem.

It´s actually a good thing. If a game can run on a 56kbs modem it means it should run more than fine on any broadband connection. Just need to be a steady one. When my adsl2 is down I connect via cellphone and it runs fine. As a foreigner I strongly advise to use a no-break for the modem so it will never disconnect due to energy spikes.

Lag is not on player side, connection or hardware. And if it´s not on server hardware it´s on the code optimization. Imagine your ram size to play a game that uses 2gb of ram. With 2 gb of ram it will run smooth, with 3 it will be smooth also, with 32gb it will still be smooth. The difference is how much more free ram you have left since it´s enough to run the program you want.


For real, there are tons of quality of life that DDO needs right now and they could even pass far away from the code to do it. Deleting bug npcs or dialogue for example. Making all raid items bound to account. I hope that the lag is fixed so they could merge servers, until then it will be a pain on every hardcore season. It´s being impossible to play in most servers out of hardcore, this is terrible for the comunity.

[rabidfox]

The game also does some really inefficient queries, particularly on login, that affect not just your login experience but everyone else on the server (although others less so). We've found some improvements that should hopefully improve login times, but also lead to less halo for other players. This work is getting close and will enter testing soon as well.

The halo effect of the old code effecting other players in LOTRO is probably the biggest takeaway; but how it would translate to the DDO side with old code is a whole other matter. With DDO, lag is all about nipping away bits and bobs of old code, optimizing code, etc. to eek out the best performance possible; so even if revamping the old dial-up code has a tiny impact, it all adds up over time with each little improvement.

[Valerianus]

We're looking forward to seeing what kind of live impact it has before committing to anything or saying much more, but yeah, assuming it works out the plan is to bring this as quickly as is feasible to DDO.

thanks a lot for answering! we know that it is a step-by-step process, there will be no magic update that will end the lag all of a sudden, but thanks for letting us know that yeah there are defined plans and things on the to-do list.


like another poster wrote, me too i am not seeing improvements on the lotro side after that bandwidth change, but ok, just a first step, at least we know that some progress is being made in some direction, on both games

[rabidfox]

From the live stream today, this should be going live DDO side with tomorrow's update.