LOTRO Server Hardware

[nikosi]

Hi there,

I think I am not the first one who is complaining about the performance of the Lotro Servers...

We all are complaining about massive lags, especially in mounted combat, raids and in most cases, the ettenmoors.
We had 24 freeps in the etten standing in front of Tol Ascarnen, about 20 Monsters crossed the bridge and from this moment on, the whole server only performed a dia show. Not even for us, all the player on our server ( morthond) complained about having massive lags in their instances that time. I am very angry about the performance the lotro servers have. 40 !!! Players in one area and server alsmost crashed?! we all were lagging for about 20 minutes in this area. using skills, moving, or even get in combat while klicking attack skills in enemies was almost impossible ! AND IF TURBINE TELLS US NOW, THAT THATS ALL CLIENT BASED LAGS, I promise I will quit spending any money in lotro anymore and quit playing. Because this would be the biggest lie ever!
And that happens every evening in the ettenmoors for a few weeks now. You all know the "layer boarders" where its impossible to play, but even on a "free" area the servers arent able to give us a fluid or even playable gameplay..
There must be a massive deficite in the turbine Server systems / hardware. You fill the game more and more with extras, decoratives, skills, buffs and debuffs and the server are still on a level that was modern maybe 7 years ago! Users have to upgrade their PC to have a smooth and beautiful game on their screens...WHY DOES A COMPANY, THAT MAKES MONEY WITH THE GAME, NOT HAVE TO UPGRADE THEIR HARDWARE !!!

Please Turbine, think about it, because I can promise you will loose lots of players and payers in the future if you dont't give us back fluid gameplay!

Maybe you can tell us from official site, what hardware you are using at the moment in your servers.
Maybe you think about the server structures, what instance or pvp runs on what servers...
Maybe you just care about your customers....which doesn't mean give us more and more content without caring about the whole hardware behind it..

Please post here if you think the same, or different, but maybe we can shake turbine out of sleep.

Its a VERY VERY NICE GAME ! I really love it but what happened in the last months and especially the last weeks has stolen almost the whole love I had for this game..

Sorry for my bad english, hope you understand my issues... posting in German wouldn't address enough people..

regards..

[Edrogar]

The problem is very likely actually nothing to do with the servers. All MmO companies will perform upgrades and replacements on a continuous basis, usually during normal maintenance down times, they don't announce these because they are part of routine maintenance and they will only announce what would amount to a complete server replacement (servers aren't one single machine, they're dozens, sometimes hundreds of machines hooked together).

It is more likely either poorly written software or external networking issues that is causing the lag for some people. And either of these is extremely difficult to diagnose and solve.

The biggest problem they face is tracking down where the problem actually is. imagine this situation:

You are a developer, you have 500 customers, 300 of them are complaining about lag, 150 of them have lag because of issues between their IP and the servers (their problem) and 150 of them have problems because of problems in the code (your problem). BUT .. they all think it's the same lag everybody else is getting and demand you fix it.

What do you do? how do you actually find the fault when half of them aren't having the same problem, yet insist it is the same problem?

Now multiply this thousands of times with dozens of different possibilities for each problem, then i think you might be close to understanding why it takes so long.

[Sapience]

Your english is very good. You made yourself understood very well.

Servers were upgraded twice in the last five years. The most recent upgrades were in 2010 just prior to the F2P release and the servers created for the migration of the European players to the US service were also based on new hardware (about 18 months ago).

Server performance is always at the forefront of our thoughts and considerations as we plan new features, make changes, and look for ways to optimize both our code and our server structure.