EA/Origin Access for Anthem Begins, But Not Without Issues - MMORPG.com

SBFord

EA/Origin Access for Anthem Begins, But Not Without Issues - MMORPG.com

Anthem is going live today for EA/Origin Access members, but it appears that launch is not without its issues. According to players, servers have hit capacity and many are stuck on the start screen and informed that "services are currently unavailable". EA Help tweeted that it is aware of the issue and is working to address it ASAP.

Read the full story here

SBFord

I'm kinda surprised.

Oh FFS...who am I kidding? Not surprised at all.

Honestly, shouldn't the influx of players have been something they were anticipating? After all, this is the game that EA / BioWare are betting so heavily on.

BizkitNL

I'lle just play Apex untill things clear up. It's all good .

Pher0cious

GOOD!! Another stress test!! LOL!! Pay premium stress test the game for everyone else!! YES!! WOOT!!

Albatroes

The moment everyone has been waiting for! Finally can know the REAL cosmetic prices!!!!

black9ice

SBFord said:

I'm kinda surprised.



Oh FFS...who am I kidding? Not surprised at all.



Honestly, shouldn't the influx of players have been something they were anticipating? After all, this is the game that EA / BioWare are betting so heavily on.

Not surprised because? There is no way to anticipate user load on any new product or title. There is no existing historical data that would support that anticipation. Except, prior title or services knowledge, which is not the case here.

I am sure as any business, they have equipment and bandwidth at the ready. Its just a matter of configuration changes and TIME to make said changes. But continue on with bashing things you seemingly have no idea how they work.

Ridelynn

black9ice said:

SBFord said:

I'm kinda surprised.



Oh FFS...who am I kidding? Not surprised at all.



Honestly, shouldn't the influx of players have been something they were anticipating? After all, this is the game that EA / BioWare are betting so heavily on.

Not surprised because? There is no way to anticipate user load on any new product or title. There is no existing historical data that would support that anticipation. Except, prior title or services knowledge, which is not the case here.

I am sure as any business, they have equipment and bandwidth at the ready. Its just a matter of configuration changes and TIME to make said changes. But continue on with bashing things you seemingly have no idea how they work.

No, they had two different open demo periods. And they know exactly how many Origin subscribers there are. 

Not really any good excuses here.

SBFord

They know exactly how many people are subscribed to EA Access and Origin Access. They should have been ready for the maximum number being in game at the start. And it's the same problem as 2 weeks ago and last week.

SBFord

Someone brought up a good point in that EA Help thread: Apex Legends, another game published by and run on EA servers, had no issues like this. I wonder what the difference is between the two as far as being able to log in to the servers?

Octagon7711

It's actually hard for me to remember which MMO launched that didn't have problems due to everyone starting at the same time.

The only thing I don't like about this would be not having a cue countdown or having screens that don't know if you're frozen, have a slow timer, or you just crashed. But I refer to the demo as I'm not playing early access.

MadFrenchie

Ridelynn said:

black9ice said:

SBFord said:

I'm kinda surprised.



Oh FFS...who am I kidding? Not surprised at all.



Honestly, shouldn't the influx of players have been something they were anticipating? After all, this is the game that EA / BioWare are betting so heavily on.

Not surprised because? There is no way to anticipate user load on any new product or title. There is no existing historical data that would support that anticipation. Except, prior title or services knowledge, which is not the case here.

I am sure as any business, they have equipment and bandwidth at the ready. Its just a matter of configuration changes and TIME to make said changes. But continue on with bashing things you seemingly have no idea how they work.

No, they had two different open demo periods. And they know exactly how many Origin subscribers there are. 

Not really any good excuses here.

I was about to say the same.  Since you've explained the facts and logic applicable, all I can add to respond to his post is: /facepalm.

Wizardry

Well the obvious difference is they see Apex making money and very popular so they put all the servers on that game and left Anthem with the 1990 mouse and wheel servers.
I do not see them buying anymore servers,they know things will slow down and quickly then they can tell us how fast their team worked lol.
Now if they see Apex ,a game with way more possible longevity than Anthem which is about 1-2 weeks tops,as being on the rise,they might buy more servers for that game.
Unless they can figure some con job with Anthem,that game has already made it's money,there will be very little cash flow afterwards,while Apex will keep going as long as the horses pulling the bandwagon don't need a rest.

alkarionlog

SBFord said:

Someone brought up a good point in that EA Help thread: Apex Legends, another game published by and run on EA servers, had no issues like this. I wonder what the difference is between the two as far as being able to log in to the servers?

possible? expectation, they kewn then a battle royal would get a huge influx, and if in anyway people get on the wait line or can't log they WILL go back to fortinite, or PUG, they would lose numbers from start, they know very well the main reason to keep they new BR in competiton was NOT TO FAIL on the login.

now anthem? first they still consider the bioware fanboys, they know they try to sell garbage all they need is put a bioware tag and it will sell some, and some would even defend it, any problem they have they will spin its a "beta"(not a hype overflow try), plus I don't belive they think it would sell that much, so they will not invest too much till they get the return they wanted

all in all, I still think you guys give then too many chances, I will not bother to play this game till its get a sale or something, my time and money is too valuable to waste on a EA game again

Signex

I had no issues getting into the game. Playing for couple hours now, but performance seems to be still the same wich is bad.

BrotherMaynard

SBFord said:

Someone brought up a good point in that EA Help thread: Apex Legends, another game published by and run on EA servers, had no issues like this. I wonder what the difference is between the two as far as being able to log in to the servers?

The difference is in the PR and hype.

Apex is an unexpected hit - not much for PR to do there in terms of planning. Anthem is a much anticipated release (for better or worse) - a lot is riding on it for Bioware and EA.

You can't hype "everything is as planned, normality is steady at 100%, we have nothing to report".

You can, however, deliberately start with one server for 100k players and a day later flood Twitter with "OMG, you guys are awesome, there's so many of you we have to add more servers! Such success, so much win!".

Sovrath

Octagon7711 said:

It's actually hard for me to remember which MMO launched that didn't have problems due to everyone starting at the same time.

The only thing I don't like about this would be not having a cue countdown or having screens that don't know if you're frozen, have a slow timer, or you just crashed. But I refer to the demo as I'm not playing early access.

The only one I remember "not having issues" was lord of the rings online.

The only negative thing I remember at launch was a character planted in the middle of everyone with the name "I'm bored."

It is very possible that bioware missed something or that something else is causing these issues or that they really didn't take into account how many people would be using the service (I highly doubt it though. So random players on the internet will suggest it out of the blue but seasoned developers who spend multiple hours in meetings discussing the game inside and out would have missed that?).

Thane

payed softlaunch, not the best idea

FlyByKnight

The issue isn't about these developers not knowing exact numbers. It's about them not wanting to spend the money to provide an overestimate buffer so there isn't interruption in service. They don't GAF because there's no repercussions. The idea that in 2019 software engineers are flying blind on user base is laughable.

They KNOW for every player who paid to play and can't there will be 2-3 goofballs who will say "durr durr durr bad launches are normal durr durr durr fix your internet"

Heaven forbid if service up-time was an important aspect of online games. Each user could get 1 month with a 99.XX% up VPS provider with half the money they spend on these AAA titles.

I want to play, not until I know it's safe. I'm holding the line to see where the canaries drop.

BlueThunderBear

And this is why we wait a week after launch for games like this.

timeraider

EA "OMG ALL THE EXPECTED PLAYERS ACTUALLY SHOWED UP, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO???"
Meanwhile at Apex "We only expected like 50k players, atm we have 2.5 mil? Ah well, we will just expand the servers a bit more"

Octagon7711

Sovrath said:

Octagon7711 said:

It's actually hard for me to remember which MMO launched that didn't have problems due to everyone starting at the same time.

The only thing I don't like about this would be not having a cue countdown or having screens that don't know if you're frozen, have a slow timer, or you just crashed. But I refer to the demo as I'm not playing early access.

The only one I remember "not having issues" was lord of the rings online.

The only negative thing I remember at launch was a character planted in the middle of everyone with the name "I'm bored."

It is very possible that bioware missed something or that something else is causing these issues or that they really didn't take into account how many people would be using the service (I highly doubt it though. So random players on the internet will suggest it out of the blue but seasoned developers who spend multiple hours in meetings discussing the game inside and out would have missed that?).

Good points, LotRO was pretty smooth when it first came out and I think SWG was smooth.  The only problem with SWG was that a lot of things weren't ingame yet, you had to run everywhere because mounts wasn't ingame at launch.  There were probably others but I'm never surprised by jammed servers at launch anymore.

Sovrath

FlyByKnight said:

The issue isn't about these developers not knowing exact numbers. It's about them not wanting to spend the money to provide an overestimate buffer so there isn't interruption in service.

Possibly. That does seem logical. though it's also logical that any company that wants to make sure their new release, which HAS TO go well for them, would want to do all they could in order to insure success.

A friend of mine who is a programmer once told me that he didn't understand why online games had such issues as it should be pretty simple to make them.

A few years later we were having a similar discussion and he said that it was indeed very hard as many things had to happen in order to make things work. Clearly he had a discussion with someone that changed his mind.

Most of us aren't developers or even programmers but sometimes we can come up with plausible reasons why things are the way they are. But a good many times they are just guesses.

Scot

I recon they may be putting a cap on numbers to keep them manageable, then once they have sorted out any issues with big numbers they will let more in.

ShadowStyleB

Well considering the problem isn't all players that is a whole lot better than the last two instances the game was live. Not as smooth as everyone wanted but not as bad as most (you know the ones that want the game to fail) expected. Friends are playing now no issues other than some lag here and there but of course I have to wait a week for PS4 release.

gervaise1

SBFord said:

I'm kinda surprised.



Oh FFS...who am I kidding? Not surprised at all.



Honestly, shouldn't the influx of players have been something they were anticipating? After all, this is the game that EA / BioWare are betting so heavily on.

in their results call the figures they gave out for Anthem were only 5-6M by the end of their financial quarter - so the end of March. Which I felt was financially very conservative.

And as @FlyByKnight says they can have overestimate buffers. And to be fair to EA this is an area in which they have done pretty well going back at least as far as SWTOR. And recently Apex Legends etc.

This news suggests that either things have gone "somewhat better" or there is another problem - as you say above. Hopefully an easy fix.

Thane

well, there is a saying:

don't play on patchday (and that includes release days).
especially not if you can't handle a few bucks :>

i will be one of those payed testers in a few!