Orien is crumbling

[Eantarus]

Time for a big fat "I told you so."

Trying to make your own mega server was a dumb idea. And don't expect SSG to clean up your mess for you.

[Mamalian]

And don't expect SSG to clean up your mess for you.

as a paying customer I **** right expect them to clean up this mess.

[Caarb]

This is the kind of lag I'm talking about though. There *has* to be something that could be fixed in your local environment to make it less horrible. The reason I say that is that I *never* get this kind of lag these days.

The "Lag" is definitely not local. Sure most people confuse lag with performance (ie fps) but those of us that know the difference and have experienced the lag can 100% say that the problems are not local. Now I am a layman when it comes to networks but if I had to guess I would say the problem is ancient netcode built for 56k modems that isnt really fit for purpose today.

[Martininice]

Time for a big fat "I told you so."

Trying to make your own mega server was a dumb idea. And don't expect SSG to clean up your mess for you.

Heh, this is the time you decide to side with SSG? Funny! Of cause that was the predicted and occured outcome. So what? People are not little children being told by big daddy SSG where to play. The reasonable approach is to fix the darn technology. Old game, spaghetti code, blah blah.. It is not like having an online game with a few hundred people online is future technology. It is just unwillingness to invest the resources needed to do what every other online gaming provider I know does. Probably every single one in the market, cause I have never heard of any comparable disregard anywhere. Yes, mass migration was unwise. Not fixing the darn problem plagueing this game for years and years is even more so.

[mpetrarca]

Just did a run through Orein with a new character. It was a stutterfest. Nothing crippling just annoying.

Definitely wouldn't be a great first impression for a new player if O was still the default.

Since we are talking specs. 8gb vram 16gb ram. 8 core amd cpu. 570 mobo and gen 4 m.2 SSD. I know it's time for a upgrade.

You peolple are talking like this is the latest AAA title. SSG is the B team at best and SSG has always treated DDO like the red headed stepchild.

[o2t4f]

This is the kind of lag I'm talking about though. There *has* to be something that could be fixed in your local environment to make it less horrible. The reason I say that is that I *never* get this kind of lag these days.

So whatever is causing the lag is very unlikely to be server or population specific. It's possible that server and population are contributing something to the equation, in which case you would get the kind of lag that I see which is intermittent hitching, mostly when I have just logged into an instance or zone. However horrific standstill can't do anything nothing responds type lag can't be a result of something on SSG's end because if it was we'd all have it.

The question is: what specifically on your end is the biggest contributor to the lag you are seeing?

I'm going to give a couple of concrete examples of things that could be causing lag that are specific to your end and not to the process in general.

1. I used to go down to Maryland periodically from the late 00's to the late 10's. I could never play DDO (or LotRO) when I was down there because the lag was horrendous, absolutely what you are talking about. The culprit was the local cable monopoly Armstrong Cable. They were throttling almost all game packets with exceptions for World of Warcraft and Call of Duty made because people were dumping their service for satellite internet. That tells you how bad the throttling was because satellite internet is laggy as hell depending on the weather and even poor latency with a clear sky. I could never get a good answer from their customer service as to why they were throttling and I just came to accept the fact that I would not be able to game down there unless I was playing WoW.

2. I occasionally visit New Zealand and the latency from there is just too high to make DDO or LotRO fun to play. It's not the hellacious lag you are reporting but it's in the mid hundreds of seconds spiking to seconds at times and there is a very consistent hitch in the client. WoW does not have the same problem because they have servers based in Australia and the latency is much lower.

None of this is to belittle the lag and experience you are having. However the odds are excellent that something could be done at your end to make things better if not perfect.

It definitely is on ssg's end not the client end. It doesn't happen to everyone, everywhere at the same time and maybe you are incredibly lucky or there is some bias as to who gets the better server processing power. This constant, massive, game breaking lag didn't happen to me before moving to Orien. Just the usual regular lag and maybe every now and then some rubber banding.

Sometimes when there are two of a public instance, like isle of dread the other day, #1 was totally unmovable. but you could switch to #2 and all was fine. You could go back and forth and see the massive difference between the two instances. Later, when grouping for some e-star quests, after exiting ddtw our group was almost unable to move. After one minute trying to get to the demonweb quest givers, I noticed there was a second instance of e-star and moved to it. There, our group could move again.

Another time, we had a really bad instance of best laid plans. On the ramps where the waves of security spawn, each wave would have one mob spawn every second, not all at the same time as it usually does. That was noticeable in some other places with the same mechanic, though not always that slow.

That kind of thing happening, though clearly not affecting the whole server at once, is most certainly related to ssg's bad code or subpar equipment, not ready to handle every player's demand. I'll be only playing on Orien in the very early mornings of EST, and whenever I see that number on ddoaudit get close to 600 players, I'm off to another server. Because for whatever reason, my setup and connection suddenly don't suck on other servers.

[Bunker]

Gland has a population of about 4 right now so if there was any lag there's definitely something wrong.

Correct. There is something wrong. Particularly players perception of what is lag from the server side, and that of the user side.

It is so easy to jump on the bandwagon and support one side or the other. However, the data from sources like myself and most players is not always as accurate as we wish it was.

The facts that we know specifically regarding Orien and Gland is the current population. And it is easy to correlate the lag experienced, or lack thier of, to the current population of each server. However, this is not the only reason, and therefore not accurately reported.

If people want to preach how awesome thier current server is, for whatever reason they want. Then go right ahead. But lag is happening on all servers, and imo, (which we also know is not 100% accurate) the server population is not the only cause.

If I had a choice between a slow server with lag, and a busy server with lag, I will take the busy one everyday of the week.

The only thing that pains me more than a laggy raid, is one that took me an hour to fill.

[KoobTheProud]

The "Lag" is definitely not local. Sure most people confuse lag with performance (ie fps) but those of us that know the difference and have experienced the lag can 100% say that the problems are not local. Now I am a layman when it comes to networks but if I had to guess I would say the problem is ancient netcode built for 56k modems that isnt really fit for purpose today.

If this was the case it would effect everybody.

I absolutely believe that people are getting hellacious lag but I know others have very little lag by comparison because I am in the latter group.

We should put together a trouble-shooting list for people with terrible lag problems on Orien. If we can begin to identify the factors involved we'll have done a service for everybody in the DDO meta.

[Cathimon]

If this was the case it would effect everybody.

I absolutely believe that people are getting hellacious lag but I know others have very little lag by comparison because I am in the latter group.

We should put together a trouble-shooting list for people with terrible lag problems on Orien. If we can begin to identify the factors involved we'll have done a service for everybody in the DDO meta.

Wait!! You're on Orien and you're having ''little lag?''

May I ask you, how many hours a day you play and whats your timezone and playtimes? I'm really curious.

[erethizon]

This is the truth. Some people will lag, and others will not . It has been this way for years. But the undeniable fact is that the more people that are online, the more lag there is. I play on Sarlona at variouls times during the day, and in early morning on weekdays (5am), there is virtually no lag. As the day progresses and more people log on, lag starts to rear its ugly head. On weekends, its worse because thats when the most people are online. I live on the east coast so Im not really far away from the main server and have a 3 year old computer with plenty of ram, an ssd, and a wired cable connection so theres no problem there. The people from Europe will more than likely experience the most lag as their ping will be higher because of the distance from the server. I have tried other MMO's but I never liked them as much as DDO so Ive stayed here, but those other game had absolutely NO LAG whatsoever that I ever experienced, and thats with thousands of people online at the same time on a megaserver. Lag is a DDO problem thats been here forever, though the devs have reduced it a bit with their efforts to do so. I really dont understand why some people continue to ridicule others for complaining about it. It reminds me of that saying: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

The other problem is that the exact same amount of lag will cause two different reactions in two different people. Some will say the game is unplayable and others will find it completely manageable. For me, anything shy of a complete party wipe is manageable. For others, a little hitching causes them to cry wolf and start a complaint thread. Then someone else will come in and say people are getting what they deserve for transferring and just add fuel to the fire.

If everyone stuck to stating only facts, without any opinion or hyperbole, we would probably have less conflict in these threads, but that is highly unlikely to ever happen.

[Bozone]

Wait!! You're on Orien and you're having ''little lag?''

May I ask you, how many hours a day you play and whats your timezone and playtimes? I'm really curious.

I'm not who you asked, but I play on Orien and have little lag. I play most nights, usually starting 9:00-10:00 PM Mountain time, sometimes starting later (almost 11:00 tonight). I usually play for 1-3 hours, probably average 1 1/2 to 2 hr.

Sometimes I get on while grabbing lunch and take care of some inventory/storage, etc. I sometimes notice lag then but not bad.

[Zillee]

There is lag on Orien particularly at the weekend. It's the sort of lag I remember having on Khyber about 11 years ago when that server was busy. I'm fine with this compromise for the joy of being on a well-populated server.

[Valtan]

A bit of skip lag, a bit of stutter lag, mix it up with freeze lag to leave you hanging in the air. This is how we rock in Orien baby!

In other news, Cordovan has mentioned upcoming performance update in Lam. I bet my house that reaper trees are getting removed to "fix" lag, just like the previous "fixes".

[AgrusKos]

[QUOTE=Valtan;6578427]A bit of skip lag, a bit of stutter lag, mix it up with freeze lag to leave you hanging in the air. This is how we rock in Orien baby!

Yes! I and my friends are experiencing Very bad variable Lag on Orien! lag spikes, freezing, rubberbanding, etc, sometimes bad enough to keep us from being able to play! and or getting us killed! why do game companies not plan for the correct amount of server power / band width, especially when they make these big offers / events that bring lots of players back?? like you didnt know this would strain your servers!! Doh!

[donblas]

What you have said is a direct attack on freedom of speech and last time I checked, USA is a democracy. I am not stating a lie or altering the facts - step into R1 raid in Orien and it is Insha-allah if you have a lag-free instance. Even Cordovan has said they will be looking into allocating more resources to Orien, I am just asking one step extra - provide a dedicated server and not virtualise with other servers (even if it doesnt help much).

The fact a nation is a democracy doesn't tell you what its free speech laws are.

Even in the USA the laws on free speech only relate to the the government's interactions with free speech. SSG is NOT the US government and rightly makes its own rules.

[Eantarus]

Heh, this is the time you decide to side with SSG? Funny!

Hey, I'm not siding with SSG. I'm siding with common sense. It was brutally obvious to anyone with six brain cells to rub together what was going to happen when the players took it upon themselves to build a mega server. If you transferred, this is your fault. SSG won't even fix the problems that are THEIR fault, so they're not going to fix your mess, either.

The reasonable approach is to fix the darn technology.

Good luck with that. Should happen around the time hell freezes over.

Yes, mass migration was unwise. Not fixing the darn problem plagueing this game for years and years is even more so.

If they could have fixed the lag back when the server populations were evenly split, they would have. It should be similarly obvious by now that SSG just does not have the resources to bring this dinosaur of a game up to spec. And before you suggest it, no, they haven't got the resources to make "DDO 2" either. They can't even design a decent VIP bonus package. Its very clear they have no resources at all to devote to this game.

The fact of the matter is this whole DIY mega-server has done nothing but hasten the game's death. They're not able to fix it. This is just one more step in the wrong direction, one step closer to maintenance mode.

[Qeistalan]

as a paying customer I **** right expect them to clean up this mess.

The "mess" is karmic backlash upon the Transfer Pied Pipers that browbeat the forums to eliminate Ghallanda, pining for everyone to move to Fantasy Island (aka Orien).

I may shed a tear when I stop laughing on my Kraken in Ghallanda. [I wouldn't bet on it, though.]

"Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true!" - Aesop's Fables

[Malveaux]

You peolple are talking like this is the latest AAA title. SSG is the B team at best and SSG has always treated DDO like the red headed stepchild.

You think I build my rig so I could play DDO? I used to play it on a business spec laptop. Ran just fine. lol Though it didn't like frills when that was introduced.

[Malveaux]

A bit of skip lag, a bit of stutter lag, mix it up with freeze lag to leave you hanging in the air. This is how we rock in Orien baby!

In other news, Cordovan has mentioned upcoming performance update in Lam. I bet my house that reaper trees are getting removed to "fix" lag, just like the previous "fixes".

This will be phase 2. The cut. First there was the burn of the myth of escaping lag. Phase 3 will be the poison pill. lol

[Bjond]

You know what the fix won't be? Anything that has a cost for SSG.

My guess as to what the fix will be? Free Transfers from ORIEN to WAYFINDER.