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People worried about the bugged quests from last Beta, READ THIS
skyline385
Member Posts: 564
A couple things to keep in mind. One, we're not playing on the same patch as the PTS (Personal EDIT: PTS is on 0.181. It's not confirmed whether the weekend Beta was on 0.18 or 0.181). As a whole, the game is not running at full capacity for a closed beta. They have confirmed on the 14th that we were all playing from a centralized datacenter, and that additional hubs and agreements with content delivery networks were in place, though inactive prior to launch.
The project directors and their army of project managers are all trained the same way for a project launch. If the cost benefit analysis of launching full resources prior to launch does not generate a revenue or value (be it marketing, sales, etc.), the it is not worth the many thousands of dollars it costs for 2 weeks of operation on a dead platform (considering the platform would be gnerating no value or usable information). Because of what the 'Megaserver' is, the implementation of such is one that additional servers will only add to the overall computing power/instancing/connections of the framework when they are added, and ZoS/Bethesda can get a pretty accurate gauge of what they will need to support launch.
They had over 5 million different beta applications/keys for beta. That is more than the bulk of all GW2 copies that have ever been sold...and that is just beta keys. They are promising a 'lag free' experience at launch, and have confirmed that they have agreements in place for swarms of additional server nodes to come online should they need it.
And lastly, every project director and manager is desperately trying to do one thing right now: Manage expectations in the most notoriously angry and loud demographic. If everything was smooth, then every project manager would be sweating the minor inconvenience at launch that would cost them their reputation/jobs or whatever. As a result, they are all trying to walk a fine line between bugs and smooth gameplay, knowing that they will get FAR more value from showing improvement in many areas than they would by proving their competency with a smooth game in closed beta. They can go smooth launch and let the detractors complain about the "little things" they haven't fixed, or they can show dramatic improvement and have the supporters encourage their 'progress'.
EDIT: Post Credit goes to Peridyn, as he was the original Author
Now, if you played the Beta this weekend you might have noticed that most of the bugs were spawn related and the sorts. Many people have also reported that re-logging in was fixing many issues. Why would relog fix it? That's because relog puts you into another shard which is less populated. People also reported that the content up ahead where the population was low was quite bug free. Again, this relates to the same reason here. They didn't use all the server clusters planned for launch hence the servers got stressed a lot which caused the ridiculous number of spawn related and quest completion bugs. So, just calm down and see. Most MMOs are buggy at launch. This one isn't gonna be any different.
Comments
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
So you are telling us that this last beta test, which was more a marketing ploy than test (giving players access to preorder and imperial edition benefits with pop up messages about it on the launcher), was riddled with bugs because the system they were using doesn't work well with lots of players?
wow, great news for a major MMO two weeks before launch
I keep hearing spawn related bugs. Many of my bugs were not spawn related. Cant go through a portal, suppose to follow somebody that doesn't move, suppose to click on somebody that isn't clickable, my ultimates wont charge, Banished Cells was completely bugged out and couldn't do it, etc. Unless I don't understand the term spawn related then many of mine had nothing to do with spawns. If I am wrong then explain what people mean by that better.
Actually everything you just mentioned works on a trigger not unlike a spawn.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Did you even read the post properly? Have you never seen what happens in other MMOs when servers get overpopulated?
I still remember the Karka event in GW2 which caused crazy lag and bugs because a region got populated way beyond what it could support.
I enjoyed the beta even with the bugged quests. It wasn't really any worse than the beta before... and it was the exact same quests that bugged.
Also, I got stuck on the main story, where you are rescuing the girl that gave her life for the prophet... she goes to clear the boulders with her battle axe, does one swing... and nothing happens. I logged back out and in... didn't fix it, even though she attempted the swing again. Ended up going to the map and portaling out since you can't "abandon" the main story and I was definitely stuck. If they fixed it... there was no way for me to get back there, or start over... so that is an issue with main story quests.
That said... I focused my attention on crafting the early levels and not doing the starter island quests. kept myself in a full set of good gear for my level every other level + enchanted all of my equipment + made a few different build choices for the same class + concentrated on trying to block / interrupt more with right-mouse clicks. Made a HUGE difference, compared to my first experience. I still made a ton of cash, too. Then there was getting the horse because I rolled an imperial... yup, awesome. Had a blast.
I guess it boils down to either you love it or hate it... I like it a lot, and bought the imperial edition... and I really don't care what others think of the game. Maybe it's just not for them. There have been lots of MMOs that have come out that weren't my cup o' tea. /shrug
Yep, read every word of it. Tested this weekend and many others previously. Zenimax CHOSE to use the mega server tech, the community didn't hammer them for it. This is their own design choice. Almost every bugged quest this weekend, which was about 40% of them, was related to phasing. Since the game will made up of thousands of phases, and higher traffic seems to not just slow the server down but actually break the freaking game, this launch will be horrific if it is not addressed.
Hard to say what it's going to be like at launch.. Either way, if they don't get this fixed it's not going to look good.
I do have to say though Other than the quest bug thing the game did fairly well considering the traffic, and if this OP is true, only using a small portion of their infrastructure. That's impressive if true, I saw little in the way of stutter even in Cyrodil during these tests.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yep, read every word of it. Tested this weekend and many others previously. Zenimax CHOSE to use the mega server tech, the community didn't hammer them for it. This is their own design choice. Almost every bugged quest this weekend, which was about 40% of them, was related to phasing. Since the game will made up of thousands of phases, and higher traffic seems to not just slow the server down but actually break the freaking game, this launch will be horrific if it is not addressed.
we will find out, wont we? if it's worse than last weekend sure it will be a horrific launch.
no sense in worrying about it unless you are one of those that are actually going to be playing at launch.
Firstly, it's a forum for video games, this is a video game, debating the game is the point of the site, so there is plenty of sense in doing so. Secondly, I will be playing at launch, not that that further validates my opinion. I love the game when it works, the weekend it did not. It was a major step backwards right before launch, if someone doesn't consider that an ominous sign then I question the impartiality of their opinion.
Let's just think of the numbers for a second ....ESO had 5 million Beta accounts for this weekend . That's 350 times as many people as TSW had at launch ....2 times as many people as ever bought GW2 and 5 times population WOW had when it started . So you can debate all you want I still think it was a pretty good showing for a game in Beta that was well overloaded for what will be actual launch numbers .
Neither I, nor anyone else, is somehow indicating this past weekend's event was a "poor" turn-out. What people are concerned about is apparent design flaw with this game, namely the whole "quests bug out when multiple people try to complete them at the same thing" issue. You know, that whole 90% of what people actually do in an MMO thing.
The number of beta accounts that existed for this weekend is irrelevant because Zenimax are the ones that gave the keys out! This technically wasn't an open beta where anyone could downlaod the client and acces the game world. The problem of too much traffic was created solely by Zeni, not some crazed shopping spree by consumers. I'm happy the game has a following and people are interested in it, however, I am very concerned about the capability of their design for launch. How do you not see that?
*edited for grammar
yeah and people had dozens or hundreds of accounts to get an invite, I suspect that 5 million represents maybe half that is real individual people. I signed up for three accounts myself with three different emails. I am sure some crazy people made a hundred or more emails trying to increase their chances of getting an invite. So those numbers are totally meaningless.
As for the OP, been said a million times. Phasing and layering is the main issue. it exists now and will exist at launch to think other wise is very naive.
ZOS even acknowledges it thats why theyre going to have a bunch of overload servers. I suspect there will be so many overload servers it will be just like a 'regular' game with a hundred separate servers, except as people jump ship they wont see how many of them have to be closed.
The log in server was the one thing they seemingly fixed. I didnt notice any major issues with that. So if they have that fixed and it works in conjunction with all the over load servers it might not be as bad as peope think, problem will occur when they try and merger overload servers with the main mega server and if the game can handle that. it also makes it impossible for them to achieve the main goal of this game, getting people who want to play together together, either in guilds or friends lists or groups. I am not sure there will even be an option to start a guild on a over flow server. I know you cant access the guild interface or friends list from there so I would think you couldnt. So that will raise even more issues. Organized guilds arent going to be too happy about it i wouldnt imagine. As in the mega guilds who have members that play multiple games and arent just guilded in one particular game but a guild first and a (insert name here) player second.
So there are goingto be issues at launch what they are and how people handle them remains to be seen, but unless theyre lining up a few hundred overflow servers I dont see it going all that smoothly, but it probably sont be as bad as this past weekend would suggest.
This completely sums it up for me. Thank You Sir.
Perhaps it's a warning that you can't have your cake and eat it too....thousands of folks cried the blues about GW2 where they claimed the game sucked because the world never changed , you saved a town and 15 minutes later the town was back in the same state . Well welcome to the new era now if you put out a fire or kill that troll he's gone ...it's over you won't see him again until you build a new character , too bad for your friends unless they are with you at the moment you'll never see the same thing ,
I'm sure this is a major issue that being overloaded like last weekend just can't handle very easy ,,, but look at the bright side in the future perhaps we'll get that vapour ware AAA sandbox game then the crying will really begin ... Hell I can hear it right now " Fu-- this I'm paying $20.00 a month and I haven't been able to find a bear for 3 weeks "
I think it could be easily argued that these people where going to cancel regardless once the free beta weekends ended. It's a pattern that has been followed over and over again on this site for many years. Look at some of the forum posts for past games just before launch and you will see the exact same posts.
In the grand scheme of things I seriously doubt what a handful of forum posts do or don't do with their pre-order is going to affect ESO at all. It's not like you can suddenly purchase physical Imperial editions of the game today on Amazon.
So what now, stranger number 8365 says it will be ok and we all believe him and not our own eyes?
They had people in previous betas and yet it wasn`t as bad... with the same hardware.
As you can see ZENIMAX has said NOTHING so far they know it was a cluster fuck to invite everyone to showcase your latest build and end up with nobody being able to do quests....
That was just one guy from the internet who said that... not ZENIMAX... its like believing me if i say the servers will be down for 2 months after launch...
Get some real info then get back to us.
I`m still hoping ZENIMAX allows one more beta before launch or they will lose a lot of preorders... i already had a few guild members saying they will wait 3 months before buying based on the last beta.
If they can`t show a working build and let players play that for at least a day before launch... i think they will lose a substantial number of preorders.
So, Zenimax purposely reduced their shards in an effort to overload the servers. To do this they needed a huge number of players.
Sounds like mission accomplished on their part.
I don't understand how people look at it like it was some kinda marketing demo for you to play the game for free.
If they say it was a stress test, it probably was. If they wanted to tell you it was a free open beta, they'd of done that too. It's not like there's some great conspiracy where they call it a stress test but what they really mean is your free trial weekend of the game before you buy. They really did just mean stress test.
As soon as a few people got to the same quest area... nobody could do any quest.
I`d say that is a big problem for a MMO... they tested to see if the servers would hold, they did not...
People are calling it a marketing "demo" because of the sheer number of access codes they were literally giving out and the numerous messages on log in screens, launcher pop-ups and pointing out that they gave everyone access to the pre-order perks while constantly reminding us "don't forget to pre-order!!"
Based on what? This is pure conjecture. Pre-ordering gave no access to the beta specifically, all you had to do to get a key was a google search for "eso beta key" and click on one of the many sites still giving keys away like, I dont know, THIS ONE.
Er.. Zenimax puprosely reduced their server capability to test breakpoints. Breakpoints give you valuable information on how much each server can take and how many you're going to need. It also saves you money on over-investing on what you DON'T need. It would have been pointless for Zenimax to throw 500 servers at the stress test. Sure, everything would have run smooth as butter but they'll never know if 300 servers would have been sufficient, or 200, or 100, since they never reached breakpoint capacity.
this^^^^
+1