Joining Servers And Queue Times

[Nathanial Blackandecker]

Hello Shipwrights. Might be an idea to have a look at the mechanism for rejoining the servers after a maintenance period, I noticed today I was in queue for 30 minutes after the servers were restarted, seems to me that as the population increases the situation is going to get worse, I'm a patient man, but I'll bet there are many who aren't.

 

In fact it might be worth discussing how you can handle the whole joining server thing overall, as if a chosen server is full, prob not so cool having to join a different one. 8)

 

o7

Edited January 23, 2016 by Scarper

[B24LIBERATOR]

And unfortunately we can't have our progress saved to join other servers.

 

I have to choose starting completely over or waiting 11.5 hours to play

Edited January 23, 2016 by B24LIBERATOR

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

And unfortunately we can't have our progress saved to join other servers.

 

I have to choose starting completely over or waiting 11.5 hours to play

 

Err, having XP synched across all three servers is hardly starting completely over.  Gold is easy.

[Preserved Killick]

Since early access, things have worked well overall.  Well done Devs!

 

The queue to join PVP One is my only complaint.  A 15-minute wait to join a game is too much.  Especially so when I've got to do it twice, because there's been a patch.

 

It is nice to have other server options, but if there is any chance to wait to get on PVP One, then that is what I want to do.  Apparently many others feel the same way.  Indeed, it's where all our friends are, our ships, our crafting materials exist, and our responsibilities to those friends and crafters and perhaps to our guild's strategic ends.

 

It seems odd that brand new players beyond the number we have owning the game now, players with no gold or XP or assets yet, are being given the option to join an already over-crowded server.  For the second PVP server to make sense, new players need to be forced to join it, and there then should not be an options about which server you join when you come in the game.  Otherwise the Devs are creating a highly desireable, social, vibrant, but always overcrowded server, and an empty one that very few people will want to use.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Preserved Killick

[B24LIBERATOR]

Err, having XP synched across all three servers is hardly starting completely over.  Gold is easy.

 

Ships? Supplies? Equipment? Outposts?

[Nathanial Blackandecker]

Err, having XP synched across all three servers is hardly starting completely over.  Gold is easy.

I can agree on this, though, squadron organised events might provide an issue if you understand me. I think the xp mirror is fine, but just have a few concerns which we all probably need to discuss in a gentlemanly fashion. o7

Edited January 23, 2016 by Scarper

[Nathanial Blackandecker]

It seems odd that brand new players beyond the number we have owning the game now, players with no gold or XP or assets yet, are being given the option to join an already over-crowded server.  For the second PVP server to make sense, new players need to be forced to join it, and there then should not be an options about which server you join when you come in the game.  Otherwise the Devs are creating a highly desireable, social, vibrant, but always overcrowded server, and an empty one that very few people will want to use.

I understand this, but new players could typically want to join a squadron which would make it difficult for recruitment. I think it is more complex than this.

[Preserved Killick]

I understand this, but new players could typically want to join a squadron which would make it difficult for recruitment. I think it is more complex than this.

That makes sense.  I'd also want to join a squadron or clan.  Still, the second PVP server serves no purpose currently.

 

Others have suggested the Devs take whatever resources they're putting into a second PVP server and use that to expand capacity of PVP One.  That is a good suggestion, though it would still probably have its limits.

 

Another solution I've heard suggested is breaking the map into different servers.  In Eve, which I don't play and never have, traveling in hyper-speed between systems apparently gives the game a chance to move your ship from one server to another.  How this could be done in open world, I'm not sure.  But perhaps there's potential for a solution like this.  Moving from OW to battle may already be this type of solution, but could it be utilized further?

[Terox]

Not knowing the load on the server/s when 1800 people all try to join at the same time, i think its sensible to queue after a server restart. But surely the queue time can be reduced somewhat

How much data is being transferred up and down from clients to server per join ?

 

Take the average up and down bandwidth of a client

Monitor the server cps just after a restart and fluctuate the number of joins to maintain a minimal "server cycles per second" 

That should optimise connecting without degrading server performance.

 

Am guessing its probably at a fixed rate at the moment, 1 join every 5 seconds or something like that ?

 

Summary, we as clients do not have the data to criticise the way the restart progress is being done but there must be a way to better optimise it.

Having said that, how many coding resources should be spent on something like this issue when server restarts are not that common. There are other game mechanics that I would say take a higher priority.

Like all projects/businesses, resources are not unlimited and it would appear that the devs for this particular game have a more practical approach than other developer teams I have come across in the past

Edited January 24, 2016 by Terox

[Nathanial Blackandecker]

Not knowing the load on the server/s when 1800 people all try to join at the same time, i think its sensible to queue after a server restart. But surely the queue time can be reduced somewhat

How much data is being transferred up and down from clients to server per join ?

 

Take the average up and down bandwidth of a client

Monitor the server cps just after a restart and fluctuate the number of joins to maintain a minimal "server cycles per second" 

That should optimise connecting without degrading server performance.

 

Am guessing its probably at a fixed rate at the moment, 1 join every 5 seconds or something like that ?

 

Summary, we as clients do not have the data to criticise the way the restart progress is being done but there must be a way to better optimise it.

Having said that, how many coding resources should be spent on something like this issue when server restarts are not that common. There are other game mechanics that I would say take a higher priority.

Like all projects/businesses, resources are not unlimited and it would appear that the devs for this particular game have a more practical approach than other developer teams I have come across in the past

I agree about the priority, but lets face it right now we dont know how many maintenance sessions are going to happen, better to plan no? Especially in the last week i have personally experienced it 3 times, thats a lot of hanging around for limited gametime. Also, as i said above, the whole server joining thing needs to be done as a priority i would say -

• Shuffling between servers is not practical for continuity
• Squadrons will suffer because of members being scattered to three winds
• meeting your friends in the game, assisting and events will suffer for same reason.

Staff, can you reititle my topic please to Joining Servers and queue times or similar. 8)

[gt10]

I have been having some problems recently with skipping on the OS and losing connection to the servers since they have started filling up, so are there plans to improve the server specs to be able to handle increase load?

[BobW-Bristol-RI-US]

[FULL DISCLOSURE - RANT WARNING]

 

Personally, I'm kinda dumbfounded at the server issue.

 

As a Steam game, this is an amateurish situation. When 1 server is overloaded at 3-4K players? Open a second one, but only let XP transfer?  This basically forces the player to decide to essentially choose - pretty much permanently. Really dumb. Not a good situation. Hearing a lot of pissed off players, new and old.

 

PvP One (to me, a casual player, tester) is not worth the effort (what universe are you expecting folks to wait 30+ minutes in a queue to simply log on??) I'll just spend my time on Two or Three or Four and build my experience there.

 

But this 'solution' to bad server load planning - pretty much forcing players to have to fairly well choose permanently which one(s) to play on? You gotta be kidding me.

 

As a Steam blessed professional game software company, wasn't this already planned for, game-planned, red-teamed, white-boarded, worked out, and settled in terms of server load, code balancing, and software functionality long before Steam access?

 

If not (as it amateurishly appears at the moment)... instead of making the usual ad nauseum excuses for the game like those unending ones make for the lousy UI, no Help, no Tutorials which would have tamped down the immediate, constant complaints about these (and the server non-sense) deficiencies from hordes of new players finding the game in this state after plunking down their cash)- hopefully someone's doing some serious damage control?

 

Am I throwing rocks? Ya. Mostly angry because I love the game, loved being a tester, and expected more professional polish and smarts applied before release. We (even us casual folks that love the game and want it to succeed) are now continually having to try to defend these crap problems in chat.

 

I love the game. It's beautiful, fun to play, supremely challenging - but rushed with just a primer paint job that I fear will never be fully finished properly. With this problematic server issue - in addition to the UI, no Help, no Tutorials...

 

It always to me seemed to be a fairly small passionate community (like American Civil War game nuts), but there are some serious things here that need to be fixed immediately - not just launch it, get the cash flow going and hope for the best, we can fix all that other stuff later, oops oh-yeah the server... Just start a second one and only xfer XP (which is what this looks like to me from here, sorry.)

 

At a minimum - someone with any marketing smarts at all - could have 'framed' the server issue and organization into a much more tasty message, for the UP side to the server issue is (since we removed the different character choices/nationalities):

 

FEATURE You now can have your game name with your nationality and XP, with completely different lives on each server - Different outposts, ships, money & crafting on each server separately!  If you try an approach on PvP Two and it doesn't work, try a different tack on PvP Three. You game name and XP is transferred - but you get a completely different game set on the other server!  A Bonus to being an Early Access user!

 

Nuff said, rant over.

 

Regards all, Muttley

[diomedesbc]

Ya I'm in the queue for PvP One.  Started at 27 minutes and I'm down to 15 minutes.  Wish I could play.  I bet people are just logging in and leaving it on so they don't have to wait to login again.

I have to admit the server issues are kind of annoying me as well.  Should I change servers and throw away what I've accumulated so far?

Then there's the characters.  I'm having second thoughts about the faction and would consider changing but I'd have to start over.  Do I do it now because the longer I wait the harder it will be.

Maybe things will be sorted out in a while. 

[Scallion]

you have to understand that the development team very small for this game, I believe its between 8-12, and yes, there may be problem's, but we have just got to have a little bit of patience and faith, these guy's are doing the best they can with what they have, eventually the server's will even out, an the queue will drop, as for the UI, it will be done, but with new content due to be added the dev's have said they dont want to implement a UI yet, an then have to change it again when content is added, which is very reasonable, everything is there, albeit it's a tad bland, but it has all you need.

 

Tutorials are all over the place, in the forums, on youtube, an when anyone ask's, we are polite and direct them to said video's or guides, and there is a help channel in game.

 

Many kind regards

[BobW-Bristol-RI-US]

Lt. Scallion - I fully get and agree with every one of your points. My frustration stems from the fact that I want to see the game succeed commercially, so it'll be around for awhile (say... a Windows version or two - selfish, I admit).  But as I'm sure you are continually seeing in game chat, there is an ongoing barrage of complaints and blasts from the new folks trying it on Steam - obviously expecting a much higher level of polish and completeness in a Steam released game. That's it.  I'm now thoroughly addicted and in it for the long haul But I hate to see folks trying it and being so frustrated that they quit, ask for refunds, badmouth the game, hurt it's chances for long term viability and success.  Regards, Muttley.

 

Diomedesbc -  Just be aware that ( I think ) if you start over you lose any redeemable ships (if you have any), as well as any XP, gold, etc.  But yeah, you can re-do, change names, factions, etc.  One thought (that I a actively pursuing now) is the multiple 'games' method with the different servers. Essentially... with the your name & faction of final choice... use the different servers to try different things (one trade heavy, one craft heavy, one straight XP battle heavy)  Best of luck - Enjoy! Regards, Muttley

Edited January 24, 2016 by BobW-Bristol-RI-US

[Llewellyn Jones RN]

well at 488 th in the queue just because at 3000 people the chat server failed to work its a poor hotfix toi restrict the server numbers i noticed no other lag in game when there was 2888 people logged in on the first night or for that matter issues tonight i have to wait 30 mins to get into the server one as thats where all my mates are why should i have to play on another server and start again when i want to play on server one.

[Nathanial Blackandecker]

Guys let's not get abusive, just chill and come up with ideas, that's what's great about the dev team (however many they are) they listen.

[TheSlickOne]

Err, having XP synched across all three servers is hardly starting completely over.  Gold is easy.

 

XP along across servers is pointless. We also want access to our ships! I grind so I can sail bigger ships. I won't go to another server until I get my ships there too. Period.

[Quarios]

I personally think that two servers is a big mistake, better take the resources of server 2 to expand server 1. Otherwise we will end up with a split community.

[Taco_Salad]

yes, one server only

[Kokerpiraat]

The problem with one server is that there is currently in no way a capacity to hold the amounts we get. The server cap needs to be increased for sure, but I heard the devs were working on that, we also should have an AFK timer this update. So let's hope that will speed up queue's. I'm actually sure it will help a lot.

 

After those additions, I suggest we look at the situation again and look at what we have.

[Sir Texas Sir]

Since for me Server PvP one has been down since the patch listed as UPDATE I went over to PvE one to check it out.  Ok well for me now I have to do a mission several levels higher than the ship I'm in since I'm locked out of the lower missions  I have all ready moved out of cause of my rank.  All this in a cutter.  Would be nice if the base ship made a base upgrade as you ranked and still be a crappy ship, but your not stuck with a base cutter at a higher rank on the other server.   That or let me change char and make a new one on the other server.  I would of be plenty of happy to make a Pirate on the other server while I wait to get back to my US char on the main one I play on.