Real EU Servers

[South3rs]

As the title suggests I’d like to politely request real EU servers. I know it’s been asked for before but I’m really struggling to enjoy many parts of the game due to ping and lag which I think is mainly related to the distance from client to host (I.e. across the Atlantic and then some).

I play on evernight, and this is a constant topic of discussion in world chat. For a few it seems okay but in raids, pvp and busy times like weekends it’s a nightmare!

I just ask this, what would it take to give us this?

[Harvain]

Here is LOTRO Community Manager Cordovan's comment on EU Servers back in October 2021 and still is the current stance as far as publicly is known here in 2022:

Couple of followups:

- On the Elf and Orc Camp placement, we will be looking into moving their placement.
- We have no plans to bring server infrastructure to Europe at this time.

So what it would take is unknown for the "If we had 100% this List *insert List of things*, we would have an EU Server Host Location!".

Some things that are easy to know with dealing with such:

- An EU Server Host Location. Where such is, the Server Host, etc would all need to be determined and discussed. This has an unknown upfront Money amount, Yearly amount and the work to get LOTRO Servers over to such.

- SSG Staff who are dedicated to EU Servers for both the EU Server Host Location and dealing with such and also the EU LOTRO Servers. This has an unknown Money amount tied to it. Right now here in 2022 also SSG Staff are working from or able to get to SSG's HQ in the USA. Granted SSG is mostly working from home.

- Customer Service Staff that are EU Dedicated. Again another unknown Money amount tied to this. This would require having folks who can speak English, French & German (the main 3 Supported Languages) and likely having folks who also speak the largest spoken Languages for potential Tickets.



And so on.

Personally I am of the "LOTRO with an EU Server Host Location" Camp as this would give X amount of benefits mostly to those playing on EU Servers but unless there has been, is or will be behind the scenes work to make this a reality then pretty much LOTRO going forward will be only hosted from 1 USA Server Host Location.

[South3rs]

I know it’s not simple but I struggle to understand why it’s such a problem to some degree.

I don’t know who SSG outsource too but I’m sure (depending on who) most would use cloud based server infrastructure these days. If that’s the case then you’d expect to be able to host from many different points around the world fairly easily.

I’m no expert clearly, but surely this has to be on the longer term roadmap… I’m confident this is a big reason people leave or are unhappy with the current state of the game. And I’m sure it’s not just a problem in the EU either…

[Pontin_Finnberry]

I know SSG has no plans for servers in EU, but they also said its possible given EG7 is European based company and they could make plans through that, but this is them just saying its possible, not that anything is in the works.

[TearMaker]

They can't even organize customer service to close tickets... would you really trust them to decamp your server infrastructure and database to the EU and be confident it would come up with everything and all your data still intact?

It would be far better to put that cash into finding out what the bottlenecks are. I am almost certain that it has nothing to do with where the servers are sited but the way the servers are balanced and the hap-hazard mix-match of coding over the years creating patch on top of patch to hide the issues for a while until something else upsets the equilibrium.

By now I am guessing that it too far gone to be viable to even start it. It is sadly something that we are going to have to put up with - the temp fix and fail nature is a thing that will stay...

[maartena]

This has been a want for a number of years, basically since the servers were pulled from Codemasters in 2011, and brought back under (then) Turbine's umbrella. I completely agree that this is something that SHOULD happen, but there are a fair number of obstacles to overcome.

They initially HAD plans for this when they were still Turbine, and they could more easily pull it off because they could use WB's data center in Amsterdam, which already serves game servers for other WB owned games. WB has an office location in Amsterdam as well, so it would have been possible to utilize their IT staff for maintenance and updates. This plan fell by the way side when the procurement of Lotro and DDO by Daybreak Games happened. They announced that they would not be able to do the planned EU data center well before the official takeover by Daybreak, but of course these kinds of organizational changes take a lot of time to do, and the purchase probably was already known internally long before it was announced to the public. Back then they said it was because of "technical reasons" but I am thinking it was because WB said no, as they were planning to sell to Daybreak.

So, fast forward a few years, and Daybreak has now been brought under the EG7 umbrella, which may open new opportunities for a data center location within the EG7 data centers in Europe. There is of course a CHANCE that this may happen, but at this moment there are no longer any plans to do so.

There are also some technical problems to overcome, based on blue name comments in years past..... in that the login servers and database servers are all integrated, and it proved to be a challenge to have game servers running in one country, and login/database servers running in another. So in essence they would need to split the currently combined billing systems, login systems, database systems into two separate entities again. They brought them al together in 2011, but I do not know (from a technical point of view) how permanent this change was, and whether they could once again be split off into separate entities.

Doing this also comes at a cost. Some servers may have to be duplicated as mentioned above, but you would also need access to personnel that can physically go to the data center in case of issues or to perform routine maintenance. I do know that from a technical point of view, patches and updates still have to be done at the SAME time of all other servers, meaning the downtime windows will not change and will likely still be done during US East Coast mornings, and as such personnel in the EU will have to routinely work in the evening when it is patch day. Not a huge issue, but it could potentially be harder to schedule updates. And of course we'll start seeing complaints from the less technical players about why the patch times for EU servers have to be in US time still...

Finally, there may also be some LEGAL issues. We all know about the lootbox laws that exist within the EU (at least in several EU countries including Germany and Belgium), but as the game is a US based game those laws do not apply. If they were operating servers within the EU, they may have to comply to certain laws they do not have to comply to now. The whole Brexit thing may also have made things a bit more complicated on the legal front as EU law no longer applies to Great Britain, but they may have their own laws in regards to online games. I am by no means a legal expert, but these are things to take into consideration when deciding to host servers somewhere.

All in all I think it is a good idea, and it really should happen...... but the reality of the situation is that it will likely not.

Part of it may be technical.
Part of it may be legal.
Part of it may be financial.

We won't fully know (or ever get told) why this cannot happen, but yeah.....here we are. It's been about 5 years since Vyvyanne put the kibosh on EU servers, and I do not see that changing now.

[South3rs]

Thanks guys. I do feel like we’ve talked ourselves out of any solution already. What should we do, just flop over and accept the lag?!

Technology moves on, things do change and ultimately as a consumer if this is a really pressing issue for us then I think we should continue to push for answers and change.

I’d be keen to hear an update from SSG, why is Evernight in particular still struggling compared to other servers?

[egarthur]

Thanks guys. I do feel like we’ve talked ourselves out of any solution already. What should we do, just flop over and accept the lag?!

Technology moves on, things do change and ultimately as a consumer if this is a really pressing issue for us then I think we should continue to push for answers and change.

I’d be keen to hear an update from SSG, why is Evernight in particular still struggling compared to other servers?

As we discuss in Evernight wc often, having servers in EU will do little, if anything, to solve the lag issue. I'm U.S.-based, with typically 35ms ping, and I experience lag on Evernight, when everyone else does. Several other U.S.-based folks report the same. It's mostly a server thing. I speak from decades of experience working in the Networking department of a large, multi-billion-dollar, transatlantic company. Network latency is rarely the culprit, and in the cases where it is, it's because the app is making an inordinate number of tiny transactions between the client and the server. Sometimes that can be helped with a configuration change, other times, code changes are necessary. Even an infrastructure change is sometimes called for (e.g. the Teamcenter app, for CAD/CAM work, has "2-tier" and "4-tier" infrastructures, where 4-tier is recommended for high-latency situations). Only as a last resort, do you move the central server infrastructure closer to the clients.

I'll also note that recently -- the last few days -- the skill lag on Gladden has actually been worse than Evernight's lag. We've been seeing quite a bit of lag on Treebeard too, but that may be attributable to an influx of players, given that Moria just became available. My point? Lag is currently endemic to LOTRO; it's not really a U.S./EU thing. Maybe the 64-bit server upgrade will help.

[Once_of_Bree]

As we discuss in Evernight wc often, having servers in EU will do little, if anything, to solve the lag issue. I'm U.S.-based, with typically 35ms ping, and I experience lag on Evernight, when everyone else does. Several other U.S.-based folks report the same. It's mostly a server thing. I speak from decades of experience working in the Networking department of a large, multi-billion-dollar, transatlantic company. Network latency is rarely the culprit, and in the cases where it is, it's because the app is making an inordinate number of tiny transactions between the client and the server. Sometimes that can be helped with a configuration change, other times, code changes are necessary. Even an infrastructure change is sometimes called for (e.g. the Teamcenter app, for CAD/CAM work, has "2-tier" and "4-tier" infrastructures, where 4-tier is recommended for high-latency situations). Only as a last resort, do you move the central server infrastructure closer to the clients.

I'll also note that recently -- the last few days -- the skill lag on Gladden has actually been worse than Evernight's lag. We've been seeing quite a bit of lag on Treebeard too, but that may be attributable to an influx of players, given that Moria just became available. My point? Lag is currently endemic to LOTRO; it's not really a U.S./EU thing. Maybe the 64-bit server upgrade will help.

Finally a voice of reason & common sense. Server location is not the reason we're seeing the lag issues we're all experiencing

[Pavlin]

As we discuss in Evernight wc often, having servers in EU will do little, if anything, to solve the lag issue. I'm U.S.-based, with typically 35ms ping, and I experience lag on Evernight, when everyone else does. Several other U.S.-based folks report the same. It's mostly a server thing. I speak from decades of experience working in the Networking department of a large, multi-billion-dollar, transatlantic company. Network latency is rarely the culprit, and in the cases where it is, it's because the app is making an inordinate number of tiny transactions between the client and the server. Sometimes that can be helped with a configuration change, other times, code changes are necessary. Even an infrastructure change is sometimes called for (e.g. the Teamcenter app, for CAD/CAM work, has "2-tier" and "4-tier" infrastructures, where 4-tier is recommended for high-latency situations). Only as a last resort, do you move the central server infrastructure closer to the clients.

I'll also note that recently -- the last few days -- the skill lag on Gladden has actually been worse than Evernight's lag. We've been seeing quite a bit of lag on Treebeard too, but that may be attributable to an influx of players, given that Moria just became available. My point? Lag is currently endemic to LOTRO; it's not really a U.S./EU thing. Maybe the 64-bit server upgrade will help.

False. Im sure no american will come to play on EU server and add 150ms to his ping. Which will lees to less ppl on server + better overal performance.
In adddition while server is EU located, its more likely to have EU support .... Hope you get it. Nothing agains NA guys but, ok how to say it. You guys S..K when it comes to meintaining anithing.

[Harvain]

False. Im sure no american will come to play on EU server and add 150ms to his ping. Which will lees to less ppl on server + better overal performance.
In adddition while server is EU located, its more likely to have EU support .... Hope you get it. Nothing agains NA guys but, ok how to say it. You guys S..K when it comes to meintaining anithing.

All LOTRO Servers are hosted from the same USA based Server Host Location and have all been USA based Servers since 2011. So an American Player will have X Ping on every Server regardless of NA, EU or Legendary.

I would add that I play various games and don't always stick to low Ping/Latency Servers as some games don't offer many if any options more local to myself.

A good example is Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad Multiplayer. You basically are only going to be able to play on 3 or 4 EU Servers which get to full capacity on a daily basis. While it is noticeable to someone who played the game a lot and especially on Servers which were likely USA based the game while having no true Updates and Optimizations in years allows a person to play comfortably when on a Server with a high Ping/Latency.

[South3rs]

That’s a great reply and I’m sure you are right but part of me still can’t help but imagine it still plays some role in my misery. Any other game I play seems to have EU servers with <50ms ping while US servers are 2-300ms for me. I tried four or five games I could think of tonight and this happened.

I also did some ping tests and simply changed my server around the world and it changed my ping considerably.

I also don’t get this thing guys. It seems like such a problem having / maintaining separate servers around the world but why can’t someone literally pickup the box/ boxes and move them to a location in the EU, then plug them in. I know I’m massively simplifying the process but can someone actually explain to me why that wouldn’t work? Sure you might have to pay a dude to everynow and again reset it but isn’t all this stuff done virtually now anyway? Can’t engineering stuff be done from the US still. Or are we still stuck in the 1990’s.

I’m sorry. I’m sure you guys really know what you are taking about and I don’t but just throwing it out there. Distance must be a factor at least…

[Harvain]

That’s a great reply and I’m sure you are right but part of me still can’t help but imagine it still plays some role in my misery. Any other game I play seems to have EU servers with <50ms ping while US servers are 2-300ms for me. I tried four or five games I could think of tonight and this happened.

I also did some ping tests and simply changed my server around the world and it changed my ping considerably.

I also don’t get this thing guys. It seems like such a problem having / maintaining separate servers around the world but why can’t someone literally pickup the box/ boxes and move them to a location in the EU, then plug them in. I know I’m massively simplifying the process but can someone actually explain to me why that wouldn’t work? Sure you might have to pay a dude to everynow and again reset it but isn’t all this stuff done virtually now anyway? Can’t engineering stuff be done from the US still. Or are we still stuck in the 1990’s.

I’m sorry. I’m sure you guys really know what you are taking about and I don’t but just throwing it out there. Distance must be a factor at least…

That isn't a possibility really.

It's just moving Data to X Server anyway but it just comes down to all the OTHER Factors that can be guessed at or are behind the scenes which we aren't aware of.

It has been 10+ Years since LOTRO had EU Servers hosted from an EU Location and it doesn't seem like this will change in 2022 or for the rest of LOTRO's lifespan.

[maartena]

Thanks guys. I do feel like we’ve talked ourselves out of any solution already. What should we do, just flop over and accept the lag?!

No, but I think the type of lag that players are experiencing does not have a lot to do with the distance to servers, but rather with the servers themselves and how they are setup. At this time they are still running 32bit software, meaning they can only ever address 4GB of ram, and that may be one of the issues causing lag. There is a plan to replace the servers with a 64bit version, but that has not yet happened. I think Raninian said they would make a start at this some time in December, but I do not know how long it will take to finish. Certainly with the holidays it is quite possible they have not started yet.

The solution does lie with the servers, and hopefully they will be able to modernize them to current standards....

[SavinDwarf]

The difference in ping time between someone in Los Angeles and some in London is about the same.

Here is a link that will show the base ping time from cities all over the world to New York https://wondernetwork.com/pings/New+York

You can add about 30-50 seconds to those ping times for everyone's local loop and the entry point to the LOTRO Servers - and that is even if you live in New York.

As everyone keeps saying, the huge lags are happening on the servers. Its also probably nothing to do with the server hardware, but is being caused by the game engine handling and the improvements in the game overtime that it was never designed to handle.

[Raninia]

We don't have any current plans to change server locations, at least none that I'm aware of.

As other folks have pointed out, ping can be a bit of a red herring these days, as it's rarely the biggest factor when it comes to lag. It's certainly a contributing factor, and the further away you are from a server the more your performance degrades - if I remember my DevOps days correctly, that's not a linear relationship, but it's been like fifteen years so I could be wildly off for modern stuff.

Anyway, since our lag investigations and improvements got underway in earnest a few months ago, we've made some solid strides. We obviously have a long way to go - I had some pretty frustrating experiences myself playing on Gladden over the break - but we've got additional work coming for Update 32 that we're cautiously optimistic about.

- The 64-bit server work unfortunately didn't wrap up before end of year as we'd hoped, but we made good progress and we're still on it.
- One of the interesting historical artifacts with this game is it was built to assume more/most players were on dial-up. As we continued our archaeological excursions into our networking code, we identified some areas of improvement, some of which are in active testing right now, and assuming we don't find any massive issues we can't resolve, will go out with 32. This change may actually be on Bullroarer already, I'd have to check (it's behind the scenes, so there's not anything for players to test).
- The game also does some really inefficient queries, particularly on login, that affect not just your login experience but everyone else on the server (although others less so). We've found some improvements that should hopefully improve login times, but also lead to less halo for other players. This work is getting close and will enter testing soon as well.

So progress continues, and we're continuing to dedicate engineering to it in the future.

[Harvain]

We don't have any current plans to change server locations, at least none that I'm aware of.

As other folks have pointed out, ping can be a bit of a red herring these days, as it's rarely the biggest factor when it comes to lag. It's certainly a contributing factor, and the further away you are from a server the more your performance degrades - if I remember my DevOps days correctly, that's not a linear relationship, but it's been like fifteen years so I could be wildly off for modern stuff.

Anyway, since our lag investigations and improvements got underway in earnest a few months ago, we've made some solid strides. We obviously have a long way to go - I had some pretty frustrating experiences myself playing on Gladden over the break - but we've got additional work coming for Update 32 that we're cautiously optimistic about.

- The 64-bit server work unfortunately didn't wrap up before end of year as we'd hoped, but we made good progress and we're still on it.
- One of the interesting historical artifacts with this game is it was built to assume more/most players were on dial-up. As we continued our archaeological excursions into our networking code, we identified some areas of improvement, some of which are in active testing right now, and assuming we don't find any massive issues we can't resolve, will go out with 32. This change may actually be on Bullroarer already, I'd have to check (it's behind the scenes, so there's not anything for players to test).
- The game also does some really inefficient queries, particularly on login, that affect not just your login experience but everyone else on the server (although others less so). We've found some improvements that should hopefully improve login times, but also lead to less halo for other players. This work is getting close and will enter testing soon as well.

So progress continues, and we're continuing to dedicate engineering to it in the future.

Hopefully such work starts bearing fruit and soon.

The only thing holding back LOTRO is LOTRO itself.

[DavidWe]

We don't have any current plans to change server locations, at least none that I'm aware of.

As other folks have pointed out, ping can be a bit of a red herring these days, as it's rarely the biggest factor when it comes to lag. It's certainly a contributing factor, and the further away you are from a server the more your performance degrades - if I remember my DevOps days correctly, that's not a linear relationship, but it's been like fifteen years so I could be wildly off for modern stuff.

Anyway, since our lag investigations and improvements got underway in earnest a few months ago, we've made some solid strides. We obviously have a long way to go - I had some pretty frustrating experiences myself playing on Gladden over the break - but we've got additional work coming for Update 32 that we're cautiously optimistic about.

- The 64-bit server work unfortunately didn't wrap up before end of year as we'd hoped, but we made good progress and we're still on it.
- One of the interesting historical artifacts with this game is it was built to assume more/most players were on dial-up. As we continued our archaeological excursions into our networking code, we identified some areas of improvement, some of which are in active testing right now, and assuming we don't find any massive issues we can't resolve, will go out with 32. This change may actually be on Bullroarer already, I'd have to check (it's behind the scenes, so there's not anything for players to test).
- The game also does some really inefficient queries, particularly on login, that affect not just your login experience but everyone else on the server (although others less so). We've found some improvements that should hopefully improve login times, but also lead to less halo for other players. This work is getting close and will enter testing soon as well.

So progress continues, and we're continuing to dedicate engineering to it in the future.

I'm very glad to read this. I don't know if any hardware improvements would help, if they haven't already been engaged, such as improved drives from the last 5 years, improved networking hardware, making sure that old Cat3 cabling isn't bottlenecking traffic in some corner, etc.

[auximenes]

- The 64-bit server work unfortunately didn't wrap up before end of year as we'd hoped, but we made good progress and we're still on it.
- One of the interesting historical artifacts with this game is it was built to assume more/most players were on dial-up. As we continued our archaeological excursions into our networking code, we identified some areas of improvement, some of which are in active testing right now, and assuming we don't find any massive issues we can't resolve, will go out with 32. This change may actually be on Bullroarer already, I'd have to check (it's behind the scenes, so there's not anything for players to test).
- The game also does some really inefficient queries, particularly on login, that affect not just your login experience but everyone else on the server (although others less so). We've found some improvements that should hopefully improve login times, but also lead to less halo for other players. This work is getting close and will enter testing soon as well.

Thanks for sharing.

[Braer]

We don't have any current plans to change server locations, at least none that I'm aware of.

As other folks have pointed out, ping can be a bit of a red herring these days, as it's rarely the biggest factor when it comes to lag. It's certainly a contributing factor, and the further away you are from a server the more your performance degrades - if I remember my DevOps days correctly, that's not a linear relationship, but it's been like fifteen years so I could be wildly off for modern stuff.

Anyway, since our lag investigations and improvements got underway in earnest a few months ago, we've made some solid strides. We obviously have a long way to go - I had some pretty frustrating experiences myself playing on Gladden over the break - but we've got additional work coming for Update 32 that we're cautiously optimistic about.

- The 64-bit server work unfortunately didn't wrap up before end of year as we'd hoped, but we made good progress and we're still on it.
- One of the interesting historical artifacts with this game is it was built to assume more/most players were on dial-up. As we continued our archaeological excursions into our networking code, we identified some areas of improvement, some of which are in active testing right now, and assuming we don't find any massive issues we can't resolve, will go out with 32. This change may actually be on Bullroarer already, I'd have to check (it's behind the scenes, so there's not anything for players to test).
- The game also does some really inefficient queries, particularly on login, that affect not just your login experience but everyone else on the server (although others less so). We've found some improvements that should hopefully improve login times, but also lead to less halo for other players. This work is getting close and will enter testing soon as well.

So progress continues, and we're continuing to dedicate engineering to it in the future.

It's good to have some detail finally but it's sad after all these years it's only been a few months ago that it started yet you had the CM continue to troll us asking for feedback and location data/videos.

Anyone who's looked at the connection info tooltip could tell you we've always run much the closer to dialup data amounts than the fibre many of us have these days. Yes I did play AC1 on dialup. As for the network code that likely goes back, literally, to the last century with AC's development are you actively looking for circumstances where one client can receive short shrift from the server and another no issue, relayed from dual box experiences? Explaining "random" losses in connection to an extent that "Cleaning up the connection" can be not evident on a client restart sometimes.

Given that the login process has been touted by PR to be one of the reasons that limit data storage and limits to wardrobe, shared and vault capacity, would capacities be open to increases in the future if the SQL is resolved? And make a carry-all actually carry ALL.

A few weeks ago we had a brief period of between 8 to 10 days, at least in my experience, that server performance was less impacted under "high" population load (1000+ non anons). Nothing was heralded, nothing was acknowledged your end. What was it? I'm assuming it wasn't sustainable; bandwidth? It worked! Also given that performance degradation tracks so closely with rising population are you looking at other SQL beyond the login process "affecting" other players? I been on the Evernight night shift latterly and experienced performance levels reminding me of the game ten years ago with less than 150 on line. As people come online ready for the daily resets the deg rises consistently along with the pop increase. Are you noting the pops on Gladden when you experience our issues and frustrations?

Cheers

[Harvain]

It's good to have some detail finally but it's sad after all these years it's only been a few months ago that it started yet you had the CM continue to troll us asking for feedback and location data/videos.

Anyone who's looked at the connection info tooltip could tell you we've always run much the closer to dialup data amounts than the fibre many of us have these days. Yes I did play AC1 on dialup. As for the network code that likely goes back, literally, to the last century with AC's development are you actively looking for circumstances where one client can receive short shrift from the server and another no issue, relayed from dual box experiences? Explaining "random" losses in connection to an extent that "Cleaning up the connection" can be not evident on a client restart sometimes.

Given that the login process has been touted by PR to be one of the reasons that limit data storage and limits to wardrobe, shared and vault capacity, would capacities be open to increases in the future if the SQL is resolved? And make a carry-all actually carry ALL.

A few weeks ago we had a brief period of between 8 to 10 days, at least in my experience, that server performance was less impacted under "high" population load (1000+ non anons). Nothing was heralded, nothing was acknowledged your end. What was it? I'm assuming it wasn't sustainable; bandwidth? It worked! Also given that performance degradation tracks so closely with rising population are you looking at other SQL beyond the login process "affecting" other players? I been on the Evernight night shift latterly and experienced performance levels reminding me of the game ten years ago with less than 150 on line. As people come online ready for the daily resets the deg rises consistently along with the pop increase. Are you noting the pops on Gladden when you experience our issues and frustrations?

Cheers

Asking for Location Date & Videos wasn't trolling.

It was a way to give the Higher Ups within SSG, Daybreak and EG7 visible evidence of: "Look, we have X amount of videos from folks showing off all kinds of issues they are experiencing." Which is a great way to actually get folks who have no true clue or grasp of what is occurring in anything not just gaming to be given a more personal experience they otherwise likely would never encounter. A picture or video can paint a thousand words better than compared to a thousand words attempting to paint a picture.

[Pavlin]

All LOTRO Servers are hosted from the same USA based Server Host Location and have all been USA based Servers since 2011. So an American Player will have X Ping on every Server regardless of NA, EU or Legendary.

I would add that I play various games and don't always stick to low Ping/Latency Servers as some games don't offer many if any options more local to myself.

A good example is Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad Multiplayer. You basically are only going to be able to play on 3 or 4 EU Servers which get to full capacity on a daily basis. While it is noticeable to someone who played the game a lot and especially on Servers which were likely USA based the game while having no true Updates and Optimizations in years allows a person to play comfortably when on a Server with a high Ping/Latency.

Now yes, no diference in ping for NA player, but move one of the servers to EU.
Ping will drop with 150 ms for ppl plaing from eu, and will scale from 30 to 180 to ppl playing fron NA.
Almost all eu ppl will leave their current NA servrs /even if its named EU, Evertnight is stil server located in NA/ and will join the new server.
This wiill divide NA fri EU ppopulation /like in all other MMOs/ and will increase server performance in both NA and EU server.
Dont know why ppl fail to see it.
Ofc it will be costy for SSG, and will literaly wont increase the in come. This is the main reason we will never see it.

[Harvain]

Now yes, no diference in ping for NA player, but move one of the servers to EU.
Ping will drop with 150 ms for ppl plaing from eu, and will scale from 30 to 180 to ppl playing fron NA.
Almost all eu ppl will leave their current NA servrs /even if its named EU, Evertnight is stil server located in NA/ and will join the new server.
This wiill divide NA fri EU ppopulation /like in all other MMOs/ and will increase server performance in both NA and EU server.
Dont know why ppl fail to see it.
Ofc it will be costy for SSG, and will literaly wont increase the in come. This is the main reason we will never see it.

It wouldn't truly divide the Population just as it doesn't in any game beyond folks who solely play on Servers close to them. Folks could still play on whatever Server it would just be the current situation faced by X amount of folks at larger distances than those within 1,000 Miles or 1,609 Kilometers who see Latency/Ping that are less than or around 100 milliseconds.

Having a better Connection with Latency is always preferred and always will provide the optimal experience.

Also if there was an EU Location again pending as some folks pointed out that the NA & EU Servers were integrated into 1 System and it's effects back in the day, Evernight and other EU Servers + likely 1 Legendary Server (or more) would be said EU Servers for an EU Server Host Location. And people will pay for a good experience, 2021 with the amount of comments of folks just frustrated and unwilling to give Money to LOTRO due to Performance was fairly telling. And that's before even getting into the issues folks were having even when they wanted to spend Money. Pending of course issues outside of SSG's control.

Granted an EU Server Host Location is a mute point, SSG has reconfirmed their end of 2021 Stance with their Early 2022 Stance of no plans for an EU Server Host Location at this time.



And just to make one comment about it being costly, "won't increase the income" and is the main reason this won't happen. Start/end of the day: You have to spend Money to make Money. And spending Money wisely and where it can/will bring the most potential profit is good business. And if SSG wants to continue making Money, they need to invest it where there is the most potential while providing the best Product they can which I don't think anyone can argue that SSG is providing the best Product they can atm. A good Product can and will sell itself especially when complimented by other elements to increase potential profit. What areas this might be can be up for debate at least from the Community Perspective but Money not being spent to try and increase the amount of Money being made ensures that there is less of a chance of this occurring.

[Arantha]

@Raninia
Thanks a lot for the kind answers and details. Just a simple question from my side: Would EG7 be able to contribute some servers for SSG?
They are really keen on developing especially this year Lotro for some good reasons.

[Mithithil]

>>>As we continued our archaeological excursions into our networking code,<<<

This expression made my morning, it brings up some wonderful impressions of a dev (with whip and hat ofc) encountering a trapped room full of bugs :-)