Concerns About Server Maintenance Sept 3rd

[Naunet]

Now only AFK timer is missing...

 

And an actual queue instead of this fake spam-log-in crap. >_<

[Dravus]

Increasing the amount of players who can be online will only do so much, I fear. The real issue at this point is the amount of players who are online who aren't actually playing the game. There's literally hundreds at any given time on every server. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of punishment dished out, but I suppose that's hoping for too much.

[Proud Dahlia]

Increasing the amount of players who can be online will only do so much, I fear. The real issue at this point is the amount of players who are online who aren't actually playing the game. There's literally hundreds at any given time on every server. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of punishment dished out, but I suppose that's hoping for too much.

 

 

Punishing people on such a massive scale would have major PR repercussions, especially since many are AFKing simply to avoid the distinct possibility of not being able to log back in, a situation that is squarely SE's fault. What would you punish them for? Were people evading an idle-timer, you could argue for punitive measures, but since there is no system in place, it can be inferred that people are entitled to stay logged in as long as they like.

 

I'm hoping for a better queue system and an actual system for booting idle players.

[synaesthetic]

A dynamically-scaling population cap would solve the AFK problem. If a player is AFK for more than a certain amount of time, then the server should consider that player to be worth only 0.25 players. 

 

AFK players aren't using much in the way of server resources. They aren't clogging up the duty finder. They aren't opening leases on the instance servers. If they want to bring back player-run bazaars from 1.0, they're going to have no choice but to do this, because many people are going to stay logged in at all times.

[Asyria]

Now only AFK timer is missing...

 

And an actual queue instead of this fake spam-log-in crap. >_<

 

Word.

 

I'm all happy to see a 30 people queue and suddenly... lol1017!

So evil...

[Gideon Aryeh]

I gotta say I hope this works well. Honestly I am so bummed by people not being able to get in with the two servers that I don't even want to play till tomorrow. I think this is supposed to be done by 7 am est or pdt? If it is people please get up early and see if you can get in. Set those alarm clocks!

[lady2beetle]

So, according to the description from the Lodestone page, posted yesterday (at this link: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/4b021eb3d632f08be9d6198fd595066b31d7fb59) they're putting up new worlds and implementing countermeasures for the duty finder, as well as "several known issues". This doesn't give me a lot of hope for getting onto Balmung, as there's no mention of server capacity getting better. So, anyoen else have insight to this I'm missing? Is there any hope of still getting on Balmung? Because after pulling an all-nighter and other late nights leading up to and over the weekend, the server doesn't seem to be opening up ever.

 

So, I had wondered about this until someone actually explained it on skype last night. The problem with server capacity, apparently, is that the duty servers are actually the ones causing the problem. So they've put a cap on all the servers to keep the people using the duty servers to a manageable level. Once they upgrade the duty servers, they'll be able to use the regular servers to the capacity that they were built for - which is a lot higher than they are current set at.

 

That's why the message indicates that they are upgrading the duty servers but not the regular servers because the regular servers actually aren't the problem. And it means that after the data center has been upgraded (which is primarily intended to upgrade the duty servers), then they'll be able to raise the cap and hopefully unlock the other servers to allow more people to play.

 

I hope this helps I didn't see anyone else explaining this. And I can't promise I did a really good job, but that's my understanding.

[LeCard]

So, according to the description from the Lodestone page, posted yesterday (at this link: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/4b021eb3d632f08be9d6198fd595066b31d7fb59) they're putting up new worlds and implementing countermeasures for the duty finder, as well as "several known issues". This doesn't give me a lot of hope for getting onto Balmung, as there's no mention of server capacity getting better. So, anyoen else have insight to this I'm missing? Is there any hope of still getting on Balmung? Because after pulling an all-nighter and other late nights leading up to and over the weekend, the server doesn't seem to be opening up ever.

 

So, I had wondered about this until someone actually explained it on skype last night. The problem with server capacity, apparently, is that the duty servers are actually the ones causing the problem. So they've put a cap on all the servers to keep the people using the duty servers to a manageable level. Once they upgrade the duty servers, they'll be able to use the regular servers to the capacity that they were built for - which is a lot higher than they are current set at.

 

That's why the message indicates that they are upgrading the duty servers but not the regular servers because the regular servers actually aren't the problem. And it means that after the data center has been upgraded (which is primarily intended to upgrade the duty servers), then they'll be able to raise the cap and hopefully unlock the other servers to allow more people to play.

 

I hope this helps I didn't see anyone else explaining this. And I can't promise I did a really good job, but that's my understanding.

[Details]

- Addition of new Worlds

- Implementation of countermeasures to handle the influx of concurrent user counts as a result of split processing the duty finder

 

That is from the SE loadstone. This tells me that A) New Worlds(aka servers) will be added. (that is sorely needed when you consider that the JP servers are overrun with NA/EU runoff)

B) As you said, the Duty finder servers will be upgraded. (the cause of the 90k error)

 

Personally I think they will need to handle the capacity of another 15-20 servers(worlds) for the NA/EU. I says this because all 50 of SE's servers are at capacity right now. and most of the people clogging the servers are Na/EU. basically we so over ran their estimate of launch players that we may have almost doubled it.

[FreelanceWizard]

So, I had wondered about this until someone actually explained it on skype last night. The problem with server capacity, apparently, is that the duty servers are actually the ones causing the problem. So they've put a cap on all the servers to keep the people using the duty servers to a manageable level. Once they upgrade the duty servers, they'll be able to use the regular servers to the capacity that they were built for - which is a lot higher than they are current set at.

 

This was my thought as well, based on SE statements and my own personal experience in large distributed systems (I don't just do management ). The seemingly random behavior of the 1017 error seems to indicate an external system -- most likely the duty finder/instance system, and possibly the lobby system, both of which experienced capacity issues in beta -- is the source of the problem, not the world server cluster itself. When this other system fills up, it just blocks new connections to worlds it serves to save itself from crashing. The worlds can fill up (which gets you the queue), but when this critical external dependency is full, you just get booted.

 

That said, I wouldn't expect the character creation lock to be lifted immediately. The addition of the new worlds in new duty finder groups will most likely mean they won't remove the restriction for a while in the hopes that they can push the load off to the new hardware.

[lady2beetle]

That said, I wouldn't expect the character creation lock to be lifted immediately. The addition of the new worlds in new duty finder groups will most likely mean they won't remove the restriction for a while in the hopes that they can push the load off to the new hardware.

 

That I agree with wholeheartedly. It's unfortunate, but hopefully they will be smart and give people the option of free server transfers from high volume servers to lower volume servers. If we can convince some of the other non-RPers to move off of Balmung and Gilgamesh, it might make room for our RPers to move in sooner. But that's just a pipedream, I know.

 

Note: Please don't take that to mean I have anything against non-RPers! It's just that RPers have a specific community need, and I'm hoping maybe other players will see a benefit in shifting to newer servers so that we can keep our community together.

[KitKat]

Posted in the Maintenance Rage thread, but I'll post it here, too.

 

Server's are back up and the character creation restriction has already been lifted.