Evernight is unplayable due to lag... again

[LagunaD2]

Naively, it seems like one or both of two general problems must be responsible for the population-sensitive lag:

1) There is a network bottleneck (either at the edge of SSG's network, or inside it) unable to handle the traffic from ~1k players, and/or

2) The servers are unable to respond to incoming traffic at the rate it arrives from ~1k players

This is almost tautological.

While these problems may not be easy to solve, they should be completely trivial to monitor and track on SSG's side.

To check whether #1 is happening, you compare the traffic into, and out of, each network node, in both directions.

To check whether #2 is happening, you look at the server latency (response time to incoming client requests).

These types of server-side metrics (and a lot more) should be available at their fingertips, and yet they're asking for emailed dxdiag printouts and anecdotal video clips of people lagging out?

[oggbnvwnyc]

Happy-talk about 64-bit servers and unspecified improvements coming in the indefinite future could *technically* be considered "working on it", couldn't they?

I mean, they're paying people to do it, right?

Technically correct, yes, but the scale of SSG's denial + ineptness is bordering on being absolutely delusional.

This article that IGN did a while back is pretty good in lots of ways, but here's the relevant part I want to call out:

As other folks have mentioned in this thread, we're working on this from several different directions. We're seeing some improvement, but it's not broad or sustained enough yet, so we're going to keep poking at it from other angles. I'm aware of at least three performance-related initiatives that we're working on right now, and all the ones I can remember are targeted for this year still. So it'll continue going, but I fully expect that we'll have to keep working on it beyond this year, and we've already planned additional work beyond 2021 and into 2022.

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...17#post8103217

The "producer" can't be more specific than "we do stuff" which "improves" stuff.

I don't really see a reason that we'd ever want to get rid of appraisal, but this game has been around for almost fifteen years, and we want at least fifteen more, so I can't promise never

If we ever were going to, we'd announce it. But that day is a long ways away atm.

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...92#post8104292

The "producer" wants 15+ more years of Lotro while SSG still utterly fails at providing stable servers for a few thousand players since like forever.

We apologize for the issues you have been experiencing on Evernight. Our IT folks would like additional information to help them investigate, so if you could private message me the below info it would be helpful:

1. A Direct X Diagnostic. From the Windows desktop, press the Windows and R keys to open the Run window. In the Open: field of the Run window, type dxdiag. Click OK or the Enter key to open the DirectX* Diagnostic Tool. If prompted to check if your drivers are digitally signed, click Yes.
2. IP address
3. Internet Service Provider
4. Character name (and server if not Evernight)
5. Location in game with a /loc along with more detail about what you experienced.
6. Video if possible. Please consider recording some video and getting it to us through an unlisted or whatever video on YouTube or something.

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...19#post8107219

It's palpable how SSG either:
- A: has no idea whatsoever how to run a few servers and is poking in the dark
- B: systematically ignores every feedback regarding server performance, as evident by the underlying notion of "All of you people having issues with our servers can't possibly be true", something they've done for years
- C: is now backed into a corner and grasping for straws in an attempt to not having to admit it's solely on them and their garbage servers

[oggbnvwnyc]

No, they've been working on stuff but new problems always arise when you change, add, or remove coding.

You always need as much information as possible especially with issues that Evernight is seeing.



Personally, Evernight shows the extreme of LOTRO's Servers and how they work for all of them it's just not every Server sees Evernight type numbers to get to said Server's issues.

This is showing how LOTRO and how it's Servers are working is hanging over the edge and hanging on for now and that if SSG doesn't start dedicating a lot more resources to any and all ways to Optimize every bit of Coding, System, etc they'll be looking at a lot more problems in 2022.

As it stands heading into the last days of 2021, LOTRO cannot especially with Evernight, have any major influxes of Players in 2022 and beyond until Optimization is worked on for months and sees true meaningful progress with Evernight being the main Server that will show if such is working.



Things are still just in SSG's court. The ball is in their hands. They have to start making the winning plays.

Otherwise by this time next year in 2022, LOTRO is really going to be hurting.

Those are just pathetic excuses.
Do some forum archaeology and search for "server", "performance" or "lag" and you will have threads ranging back years, often in regards to Evernight, which were either completely ignored by SSG or offered the "We need more information" excuse, like they do right now.

As I already said in another post: fan-run unofficial servers of MMOs/MMORPGs run just fine being also based in the US with ~20-25k+ players or more, but SSG's servers can't handle like 1k non-anon players on Evernight at the start of prime time?

[Braer]

Normally it's in the first few days of a new job when colleagues send you off to get some left hand nails for the other side of the wall. Or "pop your head up and check to see if the snipers are back". That stuff soon stops one way or another but we've had it for years.

Only the dumbest of players can possibly still be taken in by this corporate self-delusion so why on Earth do they keep trying it on?

If they want my data then I want to know how much bandwidth Turbine were paying for and using back 2008 and what the figures look like now. Whatever paths they been duped into taking HAS NOT WORKED.

They have literally trolled themselves into this stunningly inept stance.

My calendar is set for midday Friday for some Landroval gameplay if Cord is really looking for evidence! He can show us his Diag and a tracert if he has the first clue how to do one.

[oggbnvwnyc]

*snip*

These types of server-side metrics (and a lot more) should be available at their fingertips, and yet they're asking for emailed dxdiag printouts and anecdotal video clips of people lagging out?

That's the most efficient course of action for SSG if they want to avoid their own burden of proof by not showing any kind of evidence that those issues aren't caused by them or their servers, right?

[Utherkai]

Just wanted to chime in as well and say that the lag has been horrible since the expansion has come out (wasn't great at times before in all honesty) and as someone said earlier, if we say nothing about it, then nothing will get done.

If something doesn't get done soon (a proper acknowledgement and course of action would go a long way), you're in real danger of losing players, myself included (been here since the start) I'm sad to say.

Just my 2 pence worth

[Feldanor]

Not to go full Karen, but can we speak to the manager? ????

To be fair to cord, he is just gonna say what he's told. But as a community who are all pretty fed up to say the least, I feel like we need more reassurance than he can give. At the moment it's so bad I'm considering asking for a refund for the exp and my recent VIP, not that I would have a chance at getting it. The situation is that bad. We need to know what SSG is doing about this and what they have been doing for all the time they claim to have been looking into it. I can only see 2 excuses. 1 they haven't looked into this at all and have lied. Or 2, the have looked into it but are unable to fix it, in which case they have to hire someone who can.

So I beg, please can we get a response from some who can actually answer our concerns and help build some trust in SSG.

[Braer]

So I beg, please can we get a response from some who can actually answer our concerns and help build some trust in SSG.

Building trust is an exercise in deception, being trustworthy is an entirely different entity; be careful what you wish for. Calls for greater communication can be similarly handled and can have nothing to do with transparency.

I doubt the person responsible has a login to these forums.

[Braer]

Just wanted to chime in as well and say that the lag has been horrible since the expansion has come out (wasn't great at times before in all honesty) and as someone said earlier, if we say nothing about it, then nothing will get done.

If something doesn't get done soon (a proper acknowledgement and course of action would go a long way), you're in real danger of losing players, myself included (been here since the start) I'm sad to say.

Just my 2 pence worth

And the over populations go away and the whales dutifully pick up the slack, job done.

[Feldanor]

Building trust is an exercise in deception, being trustworthy is an entirely different entity; be careful what you wish for. Calls for greater communication can be similarly handled and can have nothing to do with transparency.

I doubt the person responsible has a login to these forums.

I don't agree. If they communicated even slightly regarding their plan, they'd have a chance. It would also allow us to hold them accountable. No communication just reinforces the belief that that don't give a duck about us and are just ignoring us. As for someone responsible not being able to login to the forums, it's not difficult to sort.

[Braer]

I don't agree. If they communicated even slightly regarding their plan, they'd have a chance. It would also allow us to hold them accountable. No communication just reinforces the belief that that don't give a duck about us and are just ignoring us. As for someone responsible not being able to login to the forums, it's not difficult to sort.

I've only seen Daybreak execs post on some of their other game's forums to immediate condemnation. Their plan is to blame every one and every thing beyond their responsibility, it's clear as day.

[Anglion1]

I have just cancelled my sub.

I am a player from day 1 in 2007, and i spent tons of omeny on this game, but i will no longer until the long standing issue of the horrible lag hets resolved.

The attitude of devs on this matter makes me sick really. How can such issue that makes the game unplayable, be so low on priority list? How can nobody communicate with us on this matter?

We should have constant updates on what is beeing done, and when the issue will be resolved!! This is not the way to treat paying customers.

As it was said here before, if we don't vote with our wallets, they will remain silent, and the issue will not be fixed.

I feel like a fool tbh that i spent money on the new expansion

[Shazzbot]

It's simple. The server is not coping with the amount of players online at peak times. I play on Evernight mainly but I do play on Shadowfax also. I lag on Evernight, which gives me a lot of rubber banding and inability to move forward at times and sometimes I can't
move at all until eventually it disconnects me. At times it takes up to 20 seconds or so to cast a single spell (LoreMaster) to loot and to interact with npcs. Constant error interaction messages because the server isn't updating my true location fast enough.

I don't lag on Shadowfax at all, which has a smaller amount of people on at peak times.

I'm in the UK on Plus.net and have no problems at all with my connection.

Device name (Edited for safety reasons)
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Installed RAM 16.0 GB
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Edition Windows 11 Pro
Version 21H2
Installed on ?08/?11/?2021
OS build 22000.318
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22000.318.0

[NacMac]

It's simple. The server is not coping with the amount of players online at peak times. I play on Evernight mainly but I do play on Shadowfax also. I lag on Evernight, which gives me a lot of rubber banding and inability to move forward at times and sometimes I can't
move at all until eventually it disconnects me. At times it takes up to 20 seconds or so to cast a single spell (LoreMaster) to loot and to interact with npcs.

I've just been on Evernight (12:00 GMT) and experienced no lag whatsoever. Vault to bag - instant. Hand in mission to Horin +- 5 seconds .... reason = Only 570 players online.

[DKenny]

I don't agree. If they communicated even slightly regarding their plan, they'd have a chance. It would also allow us to hold them accountable. No communication just reinforces the belief that that don't give a duck about us and are just ignoring us. As for someone responsible not being able to login to the forums, it's not difficult to sort.

Ignoring you in the sense of your forum posts, undoubtedly. What they're not ignoring are the sales of the recent expansion, which I gather were pretty good. Handing over the money and then complaining about the game via forum posts is not an approach likely to yield results.

[DKenny]

And the over populations go away and the whales dutifully pick up the slack, job done.

That's ultimately an approach that could work, and might be what they're deliberately doing. The number of players online obviously is a major factor, which is why individuals sending detailed information about their gaming set up isn't likely to matter much. If any one person was on at one time, there likely wouldn't be a problem. It's ultimately a load / capacity issue. But yeah, I expect the 80 / 20 rule applies (20% of players provide 80% of revenue. So if they can reduce the population to that core 20%, plus a bit, it would likely solve many performance issues without costing them much.

[Banaticus]

I don't agree. If they communicated even slightly regarding their plan, they'd have a chance. It would also allow us to hold them accountable.

This is why they won't give details. Because they don't want to be held accountable to those plans.

It's the same problem as getting IRS guidance to new tax laws. You can either have quick responses that quickly explain the nuances of the law but which may or may not be correct and which could be changed later, or you can have responses that take a long time to come but which you can definitely legally depend upon. And if you want a faster response that you can legally rely upon, you hire your own tax lawyer and depend on their errors and omissions insurance to make you whole if it turns out that they were wrong.

[Zoroasterax]

There has been communication, although admittedly it's in multiple places. As far as I know SSG is working on server performance patches, 64bit servers (end of this year hopefully), working with network engineers form Daybreak to look at incoming pathing issues, and prob more stuff.

It's a layered issue, think about it as a commute to work; how many steps are between you and the office? Hundreds which you dont think about when it goes smoothly but one breaks down ..

[Winzhi]

EQ2 still have ONE EU server hosted in the UK and its the only EQ2 server that has not experienced lag for years. called Thurgadin. Planetside 2 is also hosted in the UK. So there obviously is alternative hosting options.

Why dont they ask Daybreak to move the EU servers there and see if that could help out the EU players. We could also then play with 50ms instead of 250ms. The game is borderline unplayable as soon as we see 800+ non anon players online.

[Kordoo]

Oh you're hilarious.

I guess no.

[oggbnvwnyc]

That's ultimately an approach that could work, and might be what they're deliberately doing. The number of players online obviously is a major factor, which is why individuals sending detailed information about their gaming set up isn't likely to matter much. If any one person was on at one time, there likely wouldn't be a problem. It's ultimately a load / capacity issue. But yeah, I expect the 80 / 20 rule applies (20% of players provide 80% of revenue. So if they can reduce the population to that core 20%, plus a bit, it would likely solve many performance issues without costing them much.

If you use deliberately as in "Being utterly incapable of providing stable servers for a few thousand players for countless years and thus welcome fewer people playing which might resolve that issues on its own without having to lift a finger", then yes, I agree with that notion.

[maartena]

The questions originally requested are what I would deem first stage investigation with the idea in mind that this is a single user issue, not reflective of the 10+ pages we see in this thread. Logging onto the server, and replicating the issue first hand is a very valid troubleshooting exercise.

I am just saying..... that at this point, ANYTHING that gives them a clue will help. If players are unwilling to help, that is fine.... but if it gives them any sort of clue as to what might be happening and why, I am all for it. Because it is pretty obvious that if they KNEW how to solve the lag, they would have done it by now.

[oggbnvwnyc]

I am just saying..... that at this point, ANYTHING that gives them a clue will help. If players are unwilling to help, that is fine.... but if it gives them any sort of clue as to what might be happening and why, I am all for it. Because it is pretty obvious that if they KNEW how to solve the lag, they would have done it by now.

You're kidding, right?
How many more "clues" does SSG need, over the course of several years, to "what might be happening" in regards to their atrocious server performance?

At some point you have to come to the conclusion that SSG either actually couldn't care less or is absolutely incapable of operating a MMORPG that requires servers to host more than a few thousand players.

[LagunaD2]

Because it is pretty obvious that if they KNEW how to solve the lag, they would have done it by now.

Oh, my sweet, summer child...

They know perfectly well how to solve the lag, but it would cost them money.

So the lag will stay.

[LagunaD2]

No doubt they've received the requested information from a number of helpful players like Maartena by now.

I wonder when we'll get a detailed update on the resulting progress toward a solution?

Any predictions?