15.2 Player music

[Katiepie]

To all those testing the system on Bullroarer! THANK YOU XXX

I do not have the testing client but keep myself updated with developments by reading your reports.

I hope we see these issues addressed, if not let Bruzo do it! For he is a wonder in Hobbit form XXX

Thanks to the devs for continuing to work on the matter, however if these issues cannot be fixed I think it time to look at other music system options.

Lilikate

[Siegfriedpf]

If you reboot your machine after you run into the dropped note problem, and then restart the game, does the problem come back immediately? Or take awhile?

[Emere]

If you reboot your machine after you run into the dropped note problem, and then restart the game, does the problem come back immediately? Or take awhile?

The problem doesn't come and go, it has something to do with the new music system, on songs with a lot of notes (seemingly with lutes specifically), it doesn't matter, there is not loss. Play the same songs on live server and no trouble. Its not our machines.

[Emere]

Just read this:
The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Wednesday, February 18th from 7:00AM - 12:00PM Eastern (-5 GMT) to launch Update 15.2.1. Patch notes will be available during the downtime. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!

I really hope the music isn't included in this as it is clearly not ready yet.

[Siegfriedpf]

If you reboot your machine after you run into the dropped note problem, and then restart the game, does the problem come back immediately? Or take awhile?

I was wondering about a memory-leak type issue, that builds over time. It wasn't clear from some of the more recent result posts whether it turned up immediately or after playing several songs.

[Mellana]

I really hope the music isn't included in this as it is clearly not ready yet.

No, there is no word of it in the patch notes.

I think the devs expected the last change to make the music system rdy for this hotfix.
And we showed them, sadly it did not.

As mentioned before: I'm in for tests once BR is up and running again!

Mel (Smila, Solveig et al.)

[SpiritusLOTRO]

Just read this:
The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Wednesday, February 18th from 7:00AM - 12:00PM Eastern (-5 GMT) to launch Update 15.2.1. Patch notes will be available during the downtime. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!

I really hope the music isn't included in this as it is clearly not ready yet.

Vyvyanne was quite clear that their aim is U16, and the new team has been nothing but forthcoming. I wouldn't worry. (Source: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...77#post7312277)

[Emere]

Vyvyanne was quite clear that their aim is U16, and the new team has been nothing but forthcoming. I wouldn't worry. (Source: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...77#post7312277)

Thanks Lifi

[SpiritusLOTRO]

Thanks Lifi

We are all in this together. =).

[Tybur]

Okay.....

It would be nice if we could test some songs with the Dev's so they could walk around and hear what we are talking about.

Greetings from the LOTRO Quality Assurance Team.
We would love to meet you on Bullroarer to see how your musicians are arrayed and hear exactly what you are talking about. We are opening Bullroarer to make this possible (no patching required). Please keep your eyes peeled for a post in the near future with a suggested time (Eastern Standard Time) when we can hopefully meet up with some of you in game.

[DarthCeltics]

Greetings all! Thanks for all of the feedback so far.

QA would like to have some musicians gathered on Bullroarer at 2 pm EST today (2/24/15) to allow us to hear some of the dropped notes that have been discussed. Further directions will be given once players are in game.

(This is sort of last minute notice, so if we don't get much of a turnout we'll reschedule for a later date. Keep your eyes peeled!)

[Gormrid]

Greetings all! Thanks for all of the feedback so far.

QA would like to have some musicians gathered on Bullroarer at 2 pm EST today (2/24/15) to allow us to hear some of the dropped notes that have been discussed. Further directions will be given once players are in game.

(This is sort of last minute notice, so if we don't get much of a turnout we'll reschedule for a later date. Keep your eyes peeled!)

How long will this be up for? I may not be able to make it exactly at this time (+- 2 hours)

[Tulipan]

Hullo Devs!

As I have submitted a music file which displays this issue as a bug report (Bug #24027-88416 Turbine QA) I hope to gather the 7 musicians required to play the file for you at 2pm EST (the issue is mostly with several-part music files). See you!

Oh, and where in Middle-Earth are we gathering?

[Emere]

Greetings all! Thanks for all of the feedback so far.

QA would like to have some musicians gathered on Bullroarer at 2 pm EST today (2/24/15) to allow us to hear some of the dropped notes that have been discussed. Further directions will be given once players are in game.

(This is sort of last minute notice, so if we don't get much of a turnout we'll reschedule for a later date. Keep your eyes peeled!)

Very very last minute! Wish I could have known about it before it happened
Please, if you reschedule it, at least give us a day or two notice first! I would have loved to have been there to help after all the hours I have already put into this.

[diamond-tinidril]

Very very last minute! Wish I could have known about it before it happened
Please, if you reschedule it, at least give us a day or two notice first! I would have loved to have been there to help after all the hours I have already put into this.

Yes, yes, please reschedule! An hour is not enough notice to get a group together

[Mellana]

What a pity, I missed the announcement, too.

My idea is: many of us submitted a ticket related to the occuring problems and at least I included my mail address. I think others did, too.
As this scheduled testing is related to those bugs, is it possible to announce the next testing via mail, too, using the mail addresses of those bug reports?
I am much more likely to see it in time if I get a mail inviting me ...

Btw.: I'm keeping an eye open tonight (EU time) hoping for a new date

[Lolorndinfey]

Apologies to my fellow musician community for not chiming in earlier. RL schedules.

Harlequins was on hand and early taking to the outdoor stage in Bree testing our songs. Present were Toadflax, Acorne, Luincaran of the musicians I recognized. We are a three piece band, usually drum, wind, strings.

Not sure what I can discuss here, so I'll tread carefully.

1. Note drops were detected on pieces.

2. Since the suspect was note density, we went thru pieces as low as 14K to 134K in file size. Fast and slow pieces. 3-4 notes dropped on one 75K slow piece.

3. Snap/pops were heard when note drops were detected.

Note drops were mitigated when lute was swapped out for harp, resulting only a few note dropped. under 10. Roughly 5? 3 really noticeable ones. This was on the 134K song tested. When one of three parts dropped. song played fine.

As requested, we isolated a theorbo part to demonstrate the different tonal nature between the upper octave and the rest. It's like a different instrument was mixed in for the upper register. The devs on hand confirmed hearing the difference, but suggested the note drop issue was higher priority.

As a rough estimate, Note drops started occurring at file sizes of 60K+ I would estimate +- 10K in file size and tempo (fast) that defines the threshold.
Roughly anything with 2 chords, a melody track, and a drum track, is the threshold. Additional chords or harmonies would result in the note drop.

Also detected, and confirmed by devs on hand was a 128th or 64th rest delay in parts where first notes are heard if they were commencing as chords.

So in summary;

1. Note drops occurring on a rough estimate of 60K+ multi-part songs.

2. Snap/pops heard when note drops occurring.

3. Delay in chords coming in.

4. When lute was replaced with harp, note drops vastly reduced, but only a handful of notes still dropping.

Devs on hand seemed confident they know the nature of the problem, and thanked all on hand for demonstrating the audible issue.

Keep watching the forums. They seemed to want to try something by next week, but could be earlier. We were just lucky to be available, and started testing early. We were not avail for the last test, and hope this makes up for our absence last test round.

[Emere]

Thank you very much for the update Lolorndinfey!
I am glad a few of you were able to show up on such short notice.
Bunnyhugs to you for being there to represent us all and for filling us in on what took place
It sounds like you guys are on the right track but if I may, we have Orladans song Guitar Boogie which experienced a pretty big note loss at a file size of only 31k with only four parts. It used three lutes and one theorbo. This leads me to believe that the problem lies more with the lute or with fast paced songs than with file size.
I do hope they are on the right track none the less and if they decided to test again with us, that they will give us a bit more notice next, if there is a next time, since many people would have been there had they known.


(\__/) (\__/) (\__/)
(='.'=) (='.'=) (='.'=)
(")_(") (")_(") (")_(")
Bunny cosmetic pets ftw!

[Tulipan]

Lolorndinfey summarizes it well, though I should like to comment on this:

As a rough estimate, Note drops started occurring at file sizes of 60K+ I would estimate +- 10K in file size and tempo (fast) that defines the threshold.

I have not kept track of file sizes versus note drops and stutter (as this had not occurred to me), but had brought an 11K file consisting of two lute parts, which on Bullroarer displays stutter and (99% certain) note drops, whereas the same file plays smoothly on live.

So this serves as a counter-example to the "file size 60K +/- 10K threshold" hypothesis.

There was no time to play that file for the devs, they had to leave, but they asked to have it sent (so they have it now).

The Traveling Bilberries spent most of the weekend before 15.2 went live on Bullroarer (well not all of us all of the time) and I think we all agreed that the note drop, stutter and drowning out other instruments occurred mainly when using the new string instruments (lute, theorbo), especially lute.

Oh, and what one of the devs said about the way the Bullroarer theorbo sounds was something like "the sounds can easily be changed later, but the note drop etc is the main showstopper" (and this is no literal quote, just me paraphrasing).

It was very reassuring to be there and work with the devs, they are clearly taking these player music issues seriously.

[Lolorndinfey]

Just wanted to clarify on the multi_part file size estimate of 60K+. We'll gladly admit this could be a wrong assumption on our part if it helps the devs.

We went thru a random assortment of songs, and started noticing the note drops occurring on larger file size songs. So we thought we'd use that as a test measure. Bigger files, More .abc syntax. More notes. Better chances of polyphonic occurances ie. simultaneous chords. the 60K mark was zeroed in by playing the spectrum in file size songs, and focused in for attention when that figure was reached. In hindsight, wish the server was up a bit for us to focus testing on the lute->harp substitution. Next test I guess if necessary. Fingers crossed.

The note drops were an odd behavior. When a song has a lute part, other instruments were dropping out. Drums, flute, clarinet were dropping along with parts of the lute.

@Tulipan, I need clarification.

The Traveling Bilberries spent most of the weekend before 15.2 went live on Bullroarer (well not all of us all of the time) and I think we all agreed that the note drop, stutter and drowning out other instruments occurred mainly when using the new string instruments (lute, theorbo), especially lute.

So your results were from 15.2.2, or were you also able to test this on 15.2.4?

Yeah, wish I got the chatlog captured, but as i recall, easily wasn't mentioned, rather something along the lines of can be worked on over subsequent versions. I do remember the plural.

[Tybur]

Thanks to all of you for your time in game, bugs, and feedback. It is going to take time to make changes based on what we saw and heard yesterday, so there definitely won't be anything further on Bullroarer this week. I am sorry for the super short notice for this testing event. If we have another music testing event, we will do our best to give you as much notice as we can.

[Tulipan]

@Tulipan, I need clarification.

So your results were from 15.2.2, or were you also able to test this on 15.2.4?

AFAICT the Bilberries tested on 15.2.3 fron Jan 31st to Feb 2nd.

Yeah, wish I got the chatlog captured, but as i recall, easily wasn't mentioned, rather something along the lines of can be worked on over subsequent versions. I do remember the plural.

Actually I do have a chatlog but thought it impolite if I were to quote it without obtaining permission, hence I just gave my understanding of what was said.

Hope to see you around next time!

[Emere]

I am sorry for the super short notice for this testing event.

Me too....How am I ever gonna be able to beg the Devs for cosmetic bunny pets if I don't get a chance to meet them

[Lavs]

couldn't stay for long, and thus wasn't expecting to or prepare anything to play but did gather my alts at the stage (that was a lucky guess since there was no info about where this was going down. Was also lucky to see another player tweet about it) in case I am available next time. Glad to hear that it does seem something good came out of it & we should have further improvements to try on Beta soon

[Ingleton]

About the dropped notes issue, I feel the need to re-iterate something, because although I have no technical knowledge of all this I feel it might have something to do with the issue at hand. I will be as succinct as I can.

Dropped notes happens on the live server right now. Whatever is wrong, is also wrong on the live server.
Before U15, songs played properly for me on the old system with no dropped notes. When they "uninstalled" the U15 music system and reinstated the old system - The dropped notes started on the live server.

This suggests to me that perhaps something was on the old music system before Update 15 that was omitted (or broken somehow) in the "reinstall" of the old system when they reinstated it?
Perhaps it was also carried over into the test build on Bullroarer?

Changing the direction my character is facing sometimes makes it a little better but it doesn't fully resolve it.
I also stand in the center of my band (quintet) that is arranged like the 5 spots on a dice, except the front two "vocalists" are closer to the centre than the back two - like a 5.1 speaker setup.

I don't know if this was relevant or helpful to finding a fix for the issue but I felt it worth the mention, just in case by chance it is useful.