Orien is crumbling

[mpetrarca]

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.

I started playing this game on a Core 2 Duo and now with a 12 core 3900X I see more lag than ever. I have now left the network status up in game and it always shows no problems, but like so many other things in the game does network status really work?

[Eantarus]

I started playing this game on a Core 2 Duo and now with a 12 core 3900X I see more lag than ever. I have now left the network status up in game and it always shows no problems, but like so many other things in the game does network status really work?

For a 17 year old game DDO is shockingly picky about its hardware. CPU type/number of cores/speed doesn't seem to matter(I'll be shocked if DDO is even multi-threaded given the engine is based on Asheron's Call circa 1995). The I/O speed of whatever you have the game files sitting seems to be the biggest factor for loading screens, not sure how much hardware impacts lag. But there's a noticeable difference in loading speeds between spinning disk, SSD, M.2, fast thumb drive, and pure RAM drive.

[Wizard1406]

For a 17 year old game DDO is shockingly picky about its hardware.

Yeah.... I have an old PC i5 3,2 Ghz, 2GB VRAM Graphics, 16BG RAM.

Stonecrypt Chronicle has almost unplayable low FPS for me, and some other low FPS areas exist like Soul Survivor, Yester Hill (used to be almost unplayable but got semi-fixed)

But games with much higher graphics details run smooth (FFXIV, GW2, Genshin Impact, etc.)

[Eantarus]

Yeah.... I have an old PC i5 3,2 Ghz, 2GB VRAM Graphics, 16BG RAM.

Stonecrypt Chronicle has almost unplayable low FPS for me, and some other low FPS areas exist like Soul Survivor, Yester Hill (used to be almost unplayable but got semi-fixed)

But games with much higher graphics details run smooth (FFXIV, GW2, Genshin Impact, etc.)

What kind of storage do you have attached to that? EG hard disk, SSD?

A certain amount of DDO's lag is definitely down to poor decisions in the coding and architecture. If you consider it was launched in 2006 when most people had a spinning hard disk at best, its utterly incomprehensible the game should require a top flight NAND storage to be playable today.

[Wizard1406]

I have DDO on SSD, load times are very short, so that's not the problem with the performance.

[KoobTheProud]

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.

Depends on the day of the week. Work days I play 9PM EST to maybe 11PM EST. Off days I play starting at 9AM-ish and going until noon or so. Then back on at 4PM until I decide to go do something else. Wednesdays I start right after the servers come back up and go for a few hours then again in the evening from 6PM-ish to 9PM or so.

I have mild intermittent lag both solo and in groups. I TR'd for the first time on the server last night and I had some lag for the rest of the evening. Nothing that rubberbanded or hitched but some delay in accessing the banks for the rest of the evening. This afternoon everything seemed very smooth after the servers came back up. Logging in in a bit and curious to see if I have some bank lag again.

The only place I am seeing consistent lag at this point is when I logout to the character screen. That is consistently a minute or two to log out. This would definitely be explained by a large queue to login/out.

[Eantarus]

I have DDO on SSD, load times are very short, so that's not the problem with the performance.

So you've eliminated at least one of the bottlenecks. That means the problem is server-side.

[adamkatt]

DOOM!


Well thats just too bad!

[Valtan]

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.

Game not dying anytime soon - DDO is having the highest ARPU (average revenue per user), beating LOTRO by a significant margin. They pay their devs a living wage, Cordovan is basically free, they host their server (yes - one physical server) internally on Pentium x86 so no infrastructure costs either. This leaves only the Executives and we can all see where the millions are going (hint: to Executives).

Its not about the money - SSG makes hundreds of millions - it is about will to spend the money.

[Stradivarius]

So instead of out hard erned money going to servers or the gamr or even the line-worker devs, it'a going to Exec's Ferrari fund?

I have never heard of this happening in the business world, ever!

[mpetrarca]

For a 17 year old game DDO is shockingly picky about its hardware. CPU type/number of cores/speed doesn't seem to matter(I'll be shocked if DDO is even multi-threaded given the engine is based on Asheron's Call circa 1995). The I/O speed of whatever you have the game files sitting seems to be the biggest factor for loading screens, not sure how much hardware impacts lag. But there's a noticeable difference in loading speeds between spinning disk, SSD, M.2, fast thumb drive, and pure RAM drive.

I have not had DDO on a hard drive since about 2014. Also for those bringing up DDO servers, SSG is using Akagami Technologies servers which are physically in New Jersey.

[superevbully]

Game not dying anytime soon - DDO is having the highest ARPU (average revenue per user), beating LOTRO by a significant margin. They pay their devs a living wage, Cordovan is basically free, they host their server (yes - one physical server) internally on Pentium x86 so no infrastructure costs either. This leaves only the Executives and we can all see where the millions are going (hint: to Executives).

Its not about the money - SSG makes hundreds of millions - it is about will to spend the money.

hmmmm hundreds of millions .......gonna assume thats a typo

[Eantarus]

I have not had DDO on a hard drive since about 2014. Also for those bringing up DDO servers, SSG is using Akagami Technologies servers which are physically in New Jersey.

DDO uses(optionally) the spyware-laden Akamai Net Session to distribute the game client. Akamai Technologies operates web servers(and a botnet), not game servers. And yes, it does take specialized technology to serve an MMO, you can just slap it on a web server and hop for the best.

[SiliconScout]

hmmmm hundreds of millions .......gonna assume thats a typo

Agreed in 2020 when E4 acquired them in December they reported 6.9 million in YTD revenue for DDO. Let's be nice and say that was not including any of December then you could estimate they might end the year around the 7.5 million mark. Even if that is a historical low it would be unlikely that they have even brought in $100,000,000 in revenue in their entire history let alone hundreds of millions.

[SiliconScout]

So instead of out hard erned money going to servers or the gamr or even the line-worker devs, it'a going to Exec's Ferrari fund?

I have never heard of this happening in the business world, ever!

except it's not.

[shmagmhar]

Tis cap bruv . Orien is my server now I moved from Cannith . sure it lags sometimes but when has'nt it .? takes me back to using a cheapo laptop stealing my neighbors wifi back in the day . compensating for lag is a skill in playing the game that we all learned early on . Have excess of 4k HP and an aura that auto heals you incase lag or afk

[KoobTheProud]

I'm only seeing lag in four cases at this point:

1. When I zone into a new zone I get a lot of data inbound from the server and it can take 15-30 seconds for everything to stabilize. I just don't touch any of the controls until the network monitor shows a normal amount of traffic and I don't see lag in these instances. If I try to move before the inbound packets have stabilized I will either be frozen or stuttering.

2. When I open my bank it can take 15-30 seconds for the banks to appear. This is fairly new and relates to having a TR cache since my first TR on the server. I was getting a 5 second delay before the TR. Don't want to do the work required to clear the cache and see if it resolves most of the delay. I'll do some tests on this when I am ready to TR again.

3. When I log a character out I will sometimes experience a delay of a minute or two in the process. When I quit the client I will sometimes get a black screen that last several minutes before I am at the desktop. I am guessing these are both queue related as the login server resolves a queue of players logging in and out.

4. I get very intermittent response lag at times in instances. Typically this will be a delay in a cast spell resolving happening as often as several times an instance. I cast the spell, noting happens and then a second later the effects resolve and I see the damage.

All of these lag events have happened on other servers however I think they are more likely to happen on Orien at this time. Number 1 and 3 above are reliable to the point I can predict them.

[cadaverash]

So I'm farming into the deep for an item and am in one of the spawning fights last night.

I cast blade barrier.

Nothing happens.

Two seconds later, everything dies with damage numbers above their heads.

A further two seconds later the blade barrier graphic appears.

Working, but not as intended.

I blame i2049 for everything...

[Atremus]

Can we get any comment about the server issues on Orien?

Any upgrades to hardware planned on the server side to handle the load?

[Valtan]

Can we get any comment about the server issues on Orien?

Any upgrades to hardware planned on the server side to handle the load?

Have we heard anything from Tolero since she posted her Exec.producer's letter? What exactly is she doing in her role?