Data Center Update

[Alakin93]

Dear Players,
Now that we have been in the new datacenter in New Jersey on the new hardware for several weeks now, we have learned a lot about how our service works with domestic and international ISPs. Early efforts at tuning have been showing progress, leading to measurable improvement in latency for both US and EU players. Based on this early information we believe that players will be best served by us focusing on improvements to the new datacenter, rather than moving the EU servers to Amsterdam.

Going forward we’ll continue to work on with the technology team at our datacenter as well as key regional ISPs to improve the performance of LOTRO for all players worldwide. The next step of this process will have us on a new routing system in the next few weeks. This is expected to improve performance for players in much of the EU, and certain parts of North America as well.

For those players experiencing issues in PvMP we are adding in client side optimizations with Update 18 that we hope will lessen the strain on client and server alike when in battles with large groups. We are also looking into the cause of client crashes when traveling and changing instances. We will continue to optimize the configurations of our servers to improve service stability. These efforts will not be over night, but should improve the situation over time so that your play experience will be even better than it was prior to the move.

Once again we thank you for your patience and understanding while we work through this construction.
Thank you,
Athena “Vyvyanne” Peters”

This is the main reason that lead me to unsubscribe from VIP and move to another game 2 months ago. You dear Turbine, are the biggest liars company I ever met. Just awful how you played with EU players.

[FreedomPress]

I probably come across as a huge Turbine fanboy, but I assure you I'm not. In any forum where the mob is making ridiculous, absurd statements, I always adopt the opposing position. I'm a defender of sanity and moderation, is all.

Creating an updated list of system requirements and system recommendations isn't a trivial exercise. It has real costs, not only in terms of manpower, but also you have to somehow get access (i.e. buy) a large number of pieces of hardware so you can try them out. Turbine decided they'd rather use their limited resources for other things, and that's why they haven't published an updated list.

The reason they deleted the previous list is because they knew it was out of date, and they didn't want to mislead the users. The reason the didn't delete the German version is probably because they forgot.

All of this is patently obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense.

sure believe what you will
just pointing out facts.

[Fratonia]

I keep seeing people that "won't pay" Turbine anymore now that the move to the EU is off the table. We have Update 18 coming, and Update 18 will bring us new content and leveling to 105. Now, you could just run the same old instances over and over and over and over to level up, but most people will want to buy the quest pack. Moreover, in the past it has always been that if you were a F2P or Premium player, you had to BUY all instances. With a new raid coming, are the people that are not paying anything now going to deed like crazy to get the 995 TP required for the next level 105 zone (which seems to be the default price for new zones past Helms Deep....) and possibly another 995 TP to get the raid that comes with it? Or will you, at that point, reconsider subbing again just to get the zones and instances for free?

Personally I have lots of TP still lying around from my VIP time so I could buy quest packs whenever I want. Also with lots of characters it's not that hard to collect TP on the fly. I stopped paying when the issues with performance became severe. I would like to spend my money for good service but LoTRO couldn't provide that for some time. So if Turbine doesn't want my money they are not going to get it.

If you really want to boycott Turbine, it's probably better to not log on at all, and don't support the game in any way.

That's probably what will be going to happen. I already took a long break when Wildermore was released and Turbine completely broke the web proxy support so the game couldn't even patch or start anymore. At the moment I already play LoTRO only a few minutes on the weekend because Turbine managed to pull my motivation to the ground. My characters are still in DA so you see how long I haven't really played this game.

And a problem between Telia Sonera and Internap, is Turbine's problem HOW exactly?

Internap was Turbine's Internet provider, right? If I was the owner of a company that uses a ####ty Internet provider I would tell that Internet provider to get their connections fixed or select another provider that actually can deliver good service. It's not like Internap is the only provider around...
After all it's in Turbine's interest not to lose customers because of issues at their Internet provider. Also it should be in the interest of that Internet provider not to lose a big customer. So they have a mutual interest to improve service, right?
I have been told in the past that good service is a big concern for businesses in the US. I'm starting to get the impression that this has changed.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

I probably come across as a huge Turbine fanboy, but I assure you I'm not. In any forum where the mob is making ridiculous, absurd statements, I always adopt the opposing position. I'm a defender of sanity and moderation, is all.

Creating an updated list of system requirements and system recommendations isn't a trivial exercise. It has real costs, not only in terms of manpower, but also you have to somehow get access (i.e. buy) a large number of pieces of hardware so you can try them out. (Edit: Maybe there's a company that provides a lab you can go to that has all of this hardware laying around. If not, there should be.) Turbine decided they'd rather use their limited resources for other things, and that's why they haven't published an updated list.

The reason they deleted the previous list is because they knew it was out of date, and they didn't want to mislead the users. (Edit: Arguably, this was a sneaky and underhanded move.) The reason the didn't delete the German version is probably because they forgot.

All of this is patently obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense.

As I've got bucket loads of common sense, and a better memory, I was able to quickly locate:

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...rements-Update

Recently we asked players to complete a survey telling us what kind of hardware they were running. We also conducted a number of tests with our game client running against a wide variety of hardware configurations including those mentioned by players. We also ran these tests against our minimum and recommended hardware configurations.

As a result of this process we’ve created new guidelines for minimum and recommended hardware for playing The Lord of the Rings Online.

New Minimum System Requirements

OS: Windows XP
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz or AMD Equivalent
System Memory: 1GB (2GB for Windows Vista)
Graphics Card: at least 128MB Onboard graphics memory.
Internet Connection: Cable or DSL Connection
Direct X Version: Directx 9.0c
Disk Space: 12 GB (+3 GB for international clients)


New Recommended System Requirements

OS: Windows Vista 64-bit
CPU: Dual Core 2.66 GHZ
System Memory: 2GB
Graphics Cards: 512MB dedicated discrete card
Internet Connection: Cable or DSL Connection
Disk Space: 20 GB (+3 GB for international Clients)


Please keep in mind that these are requirements we feel should allow you to run the game reliably at low to moderate settings. If you wish to experience the game at the highest settings, additional system memory and higher end graphics cards should be considered.

and these new recommended specs can be found on the Turbine support website by searching for "Recommended Spec"

http://support.turbine.com/link/port...ents-for-LOTRO

Now, what's funny is that this version is actually different to that listed earlier - so the English and German ones are out of sync.

However in any case, both sets of specs are woefully out of date - a dual core 2.66ghz processor sounds suspiciously like a E6750 Core 2 Duo from 2007 and a 512mb GFX card with no further specification requirements could refer to one of those dodgy £25 quid cards that nvidia sells and as such has as much chance of running lotro at medium settings as does a Raspberry Pi Zero.

Anyhow, if I worked at Turbine I would have a 15m chat with their QA team and find out from them what they thought the new recommended specs would be. But I must have more common sense than you.

[UwS-Harledir]

and these new recommended specs can be found on the Turbine support website by searching for "Recommended Spec"

http://support.turbine.com/link/port...ents-for-LOTRO

Now, what's funny is that this version is actually different to that listed earlier - so the English and German ones are out of sync.

However in any case, both sets of specs are woefully out of date - a dual core 2.66ghz processor sounds suspiciously like a E6750 Core 2 Duo from 2007 and a 512mb GFX card with no further specification requirements could refer to one of those dodgy £25 quid cards that nvidia sells and as such has as much chance of running lotro at medium settings as does a Raspberry Pi Zero.

Anyhow, if I worked at Turbine I would have a 15m chat with their QA team and find out from them what they thought the new recommended specs would be. But I must have more common sense than you.

thanks for the good clear up!

[Frelorn]

As I've got bucket loads of common sense, and a better memory, I was able to quickly locate:

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...rements-Update



and these new recommended specs can be found on the Turbine support website by searching for "Recommended Spec"

http://support.turbine.com/link/port...ents-for-LOTRO

Now, what's funny is that this version is actually different to that listed earlier - so the English and German ones are out of sync.

However in any case, both sets of specs are woefully out of date - a dual core 2.66ghz processor sounds suspiciously like a E6750 Core 2 Duo from 2007 and a 512mb GFX card with no further specification requirements could refer to one of those dodgy £25 quid cards that nvidia sells and as such has as much chance of running lotro at medium settings as does a Raspberry Pi Zero.

Anyhow, if I worked at Turbine I would have a 15m chat with their QA team and find out from them what they thought the new recommended specs would be. But I must have more common sense than you.

This is actually something we are in the process of doing.

[FreedomPress]

This is actually something we are in the process of doing.

oh fun fun fun ... this will be interesting! Lets see what you guys come up with this time!

[BangoTwinkletoes]

This is actually something we are in the process of doing.

Excellent stuff. More than willing to offer my assistance, given the number of MMOs that I play and the hour upon hour that I spend on the PC (so my wife tells me), I should be pretty well clued up in what's needed to run lotro

[maartena]

Internap was Turbine's Internet provider, right? If I was the owner of a company that uses a ####ty Internet provider I would tell that Internet provider to get their connections fixed or select another provider that actually can deliver good service. It's not like Internap is the only provider around...
After all it's in Turbine's interest not to lose customers because of issues at their Internet provider. Also it should be in the interest of that Internet provider not to lose a big customer. So they have a mutual interest to improve service, right?
I have been told in the past that good service is a big concern for businesses in the US. I'm starting to get the impression that this has changed.

Typically, Internet provider contracts for businesses are renewed on a yearly basis. You then do have the option to go month-to-month, but it is usually a lot more expensive. Also, in the case of Internap, they were both the internet provider and the datacenter provider, and since they had all of their servers in their data center, they were sort of stuck with them until they figured out a new solution, which they did in 2015. After some problems in 2014, I think the decision was already made to dump Internap altogether, regardless of the server consolidation.

Also, it may not have been Internap's problem nor Telia's problem, but an issue with a backbone provider in between, such as Level3 or whatnot. Since the problems you described seemed to affect ONLY the clients of the ONE provider you mentioned, I am actually inclined to say the issue was with THAT provider, not with anything on the US side of things.

[Macdui]

Ah, my initial thought was that all of a sudden I'm going to go under "min recommended" when yesterday I could image my rig as being "kick ####".

Mac

Edit: or 90% of us will find ourselves under-geared, we quit and Lag goes away for the 10%

[Ogmios]

This is actually something we are in the process of doing.

Does this mean that you will officially support Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 now? (The sticky in tech support PC still says Vista . . . )

[Hurin]

This is actually something we are in the process of doing.

With respect though, the problem with the client and all the things it's now being asked to do in the Minas Tirith era (and prior, to some extent), is that there literally is no PC currently capable of running the client with what many would consider reasonable/decent performance.

Independent of the datacenter issues, internet-based latency/lag, crashing, or whatever, the simple fact is that even when all of those things are no longer an issue, the client can't handle what is being asked of it on even the most powerful PC available.

Hence, even on a 4.5GHz Haswell CPU, we have 100% CPU usage (maxing out a single core, leaving others idle) and premium graphics card sitting essentially idle while we experience Minas Tirith and the Pelennor at approximately 35-40fps. And even that 35-40fps is constantly interrupted by client-side "hitches" and stutters.

Is there any hope that we will see substantial improvements made to the client to better handle what is now being asked of it?

Incidentally, there's a thread on this (though people keep wanting to divert it into talking about "lag" and server performance).

Best Regards,

H

P.S. Sorry if the above seems harsh. I don't mean to "shoot the messenger." I realize there's only so much a CM can do given certain realities.

[Humbabumba]

Simple solution - ALL EU PLAYERS CANCEL SUB AND CONTINUE AS PREMIUM, MONEY IS THE ONLY THING TURBINE UNDERSTAND.

Thats exactly my plan. Money talks. Nothing else is cutting here.

[siipperi]

Excellent stuff. More than willing to offer my assistance, given the number of MMOs that I play and the hour upon hour that I spend on the PC (so my wife tells me), I should be pretty well clued up in what's needed to run lotro

NASA computer

[Kenomica.]

New Minimum Requirements (for silky smooth 30fps in Minas Tirith) :

Operating System: Windows Vista (service pack 2) or 7 (service pack 1) (64-bit)
Processor (CPU): Dual-Core 2.66 GHz
System RAM Memory: 2GB minimum
Graphics Card: 512MB dedicated discrete card
Internet Connection: Cable or DSL Connection
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (Latest Version)
Disk Space: 20GB (+ 3GB for international builds)

New Recommended Requirements (for silky smooth 35fps in Minas Tirith) :

Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Processor (CPU): Intel i7-5960X
System RAM Memory: 32GB minimum
Graphics Card: 3-way SLI Titan Z
Internet Connection: Really long wire that plugs in to Turbines data center.
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (Latest Version)
Disk Space: 20GB (+ 3GB for international builds)

[Ogmios]

New Recommended Requirements (for silky smooth 35fps in Minas Tirith) :

Graphics Card: 3-way SLI Titan Z

Oh no, my coffee!

I laughed out loud . . .

[roooooster]

With respect though, the problem with the client and all the things it's now being asked to do in the Minas Tirith era (and prior, to some extent), is that there literally is no PC currently capable of running the client with what many would consider reasonable/decent performance.
.

What are you talking about? I can play this game fine and even multibox 6-8 toons and have great performance on all of them. My laptop is 2 years old and is far from being a top computer!

Toshiba Qosmio X875-Q7380 is my model. i7, 16GB, and Nvidia 670M 3GB. (This is well outdated but it works so I won't be upgrading for awhile yet)

[Hurin]

What are you talking about? I can play this game fine and even multibox 6-8 toons and have great performance on all of them. My laptop is 2 years old and is far from being a top computer!

Toshiba Qosmio X875-Q7380 is my model. i7, 16GB, and Nvidia 670M 3GB. (This is well outdated but it works so I won't be upgrading for awhile yet)

. . .
or you just have incredibly low standards.

[Munzel]

If you want to play Lotro at Minas Tirith in ultra High Settings with constantly 25 Frames and above , you need a 2 Years old Toshiba Notebook and a very good Routing of your local ISP^^...10 US Servers in New Jersey, which US Server does the Australian Players prefer? Evernight,Belegaer or Landroval or Sirannon? It doesn`t matter, all of the 10 US Servers stands at the same Datacenter in NJ...

[Munzel]

The Main Message for the World Transfer was, 5 Remaining US Server will move from Boston to New Jersey, And 5 Remaining EU Server will move from Boston to Amsterdam, and now all 10 Remaining Worlds are stuck in New Jersey...and now the Fun begins...maybe only for the EU Players...

[Munzel]

Improvements to the Brand New US Datacenter at New Jersey, forget the EU Datacenter at Amsterdam...

[Munzel]

Vyvyanne and Frelorn said some Month ago something about the World Transfer, that the 5 EU Servers goes from Boston to Amsterdam...and if it doesn`t happened, the EU Players have to remind them sometimes, so Frelorn and Vyvyanne doesn`t forget that...

[Munzel]

Forget Routing and Regional ISP`s at New Jersey, think about the Brand New Datacenter at Amsterdam...^^

[Pipo]

This is actually something we are in the process of doing.

Ofcourse, as if you don't have enough on your hands already.

Should we start making a list? Maybe that would help you better get those priorities straight?

Trust: Zero
Motivation: Zero
Hopes: Zero

Everyday I log in it gets worse and worse, just as I thought it was already at an all-time low...

Like, WHAT ARE you doing?! Luckily we got you responding to and replying to the forum-users, so that's at least something... Smh
I'm sorry to say this, but at this point I'm sorry we've met and I really wish you all the best, with all the datacenters in the world!
I've had some great times in the past, but I doubt that will ever come back.

I will want to witness the downfall, like Denethor came to his..

[Pipo]

When are you going to enforce another set of new rules upon us? You can easily make it so that all forum-users get banned or unable to login for certain type of players, that fit your description?
I just want to know why aren't you closing this or making sure the negative comments won't get displayed and warn with bans, if this negativity persists?

You can do whatever and don't have to justify anything or communicate about anything, like let's say for instance, in-game tickets?

What made your company suddenly change their minds?
I wish I could speak just as well English as my native tongue, because short on words for this, but I think you get the point.