f13.net forums - So uhh...problems

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July 21, 2025, 05:14:14 AM

we're back, baby

Seems like alot of people (me included) have been getting stuck at the retrieving character list since last night. This is very annoying, anyone else having this problem?

Yes, happening to everyone.

Something that was mentioned in a previous thread about databases crashing or something.

I believe I read this on the WoW forums last night:

Quote from: Ordinn from WoW forums

Hi all,

A number of inquiries have come in about the lag issues on some of the servers, so we want to take some time to provide more in-depth information for you. Some of you might be surprised to learn that the lag you’re experiencing is an expected and necessary part of the open beta test. Contrary to what some of you might believe, the open beta test is intended as a massive stress test, and not just a free demo of the game prior to launch.

Having hundreds of thousands of testers playing the game at this time lets us analyze how well our server infrastructure -- made up of the best, most up-to-date hardware available -- can handle extremely large server populations. In fact, the open beta test is allowing us to simulate having an even greater number of testers spread across even more servers than we currently have up. In terms of concurrency, we’re already seeing servers with twice as much population as we had during the closed beta test, and our total overall concurrency, across all servers, is already rivaling that of the most popular MMORPGs currently available. Keep in mind, also, that this population is distributed across a relatively small number of servers -- again, for the exact purpose of stress testing them.

In general, lag issues are caused when thousands of players congregate in one or two zones on a server. When this happens, the normal communication that comes from the server -- which includes information about every NPC, monster, player, item, etc. in the area -- increases to the point where the flow of data can get backed up.

For those of you who are concerned about server stability and possible loss of character-related information, take heart knowing that the lag you experience when this backup happens is not at all related to stability; it’s more of an issue with how quickly the data is handled. That is, with an excess of communication from the servers, the data remains stable, it just has to wait its turn in line to be processed. Running a massive open beta test like this allows us to steadily optimize how the data is processed.

With half a million people having signed up and been accepted into the open beta test, we have the unique opportunity of being able to fine tune our code prior to release in a way that most other MMORPGs have not. These code optimizations are done server side and do not require players to patch. As more and more testers finish their beta-client installations and start logging on, we’ll be able to do even more analysis and optimization prior to release. While this process brings about a challenge for those of you facing lag issues, it ultimately helps us maintain our schedule of analyzing and optimizing our code for all of our servers, including the ones that have yet to be brought online.

We are looking forward to having hundreds of thousands of players enter the world of Azeroth on November 23, and we‘re grateful that you all have the interest and the patience to help us do this last, sometimes challenging, bit of testing. Your assistance with this will truly help us ensure that World of Warcraft will run as smoothly as possible at launch.

Edit: After reading it a second time, it really doesn't say anything.

Actually id does say that lot's of players = lots of lag.

In other news, most of the battlenetlers have no clue about this genre ...

CSR's are the same in all games, lots of words surrounding little content. One of the programmers replied and his answer was a hell of a lot shorter and more concise. They're having some sort of scaling conflict in their database. On the one hand that's sort of embarassing, on the other at least they found it in open beta rather than release.

They're using Oracle and the tables are locking? Tsk tsk.

I had the command queue backup problem around 2PM too so I logged off and went on to M59 instead. Tried logging into WoW again just now and can't get past authenticating.

My wife has been on earlier today, but we can't get on now. I got the "nothing happening when I click stuff" problem last night, then couldn't login, then could. It definitely feels like database type errors, because when I got logged off last night, I was dropped back to a previous "save point." To fit in, I should probably condense my post to something a bit more b.netty.

R0LLB@CKZ SUX!!1@!@!

Well, they have 10 days until the retail servers open, and I thought I read somewhere that the beta ends on the 18th.

I really like the game, but past experience tells me to stay the hell away from the launch. The server downtime and lag have only gotten worse over the days, and it doesn't look like they have the ability to set things straight. I'm also the type of person who becomes less and less inclined to buy a game after it's launch, so even though I think this is probably the best mmorpg I've ever played (even though it's nothing really new), I'm not sure if I'll ever play it.

It's a pity that a game so close to being great is getting rushed out the door just a month or two before it's really ready. Launch day is destined to be a comedy of errors, and the following weeks will probably be bumpy as well. I suspect the excitement and fanboism exuded by people for WoW is going to impload upon itself, reaching a vitrolic level never before seen in an mmorpg. B-net and Vault posters unified in a terrible chorus of hate and whine. It's the potential Hiroshima of mmog-dom.

Should be a fun show.

Had to read that a few times to find any substance in it. The WoW forums are similarly borked at the moment, so I can't see the reply from the tech mentioned.

However, what I garnered is that they have twice as many servers up as they do the hardware to support it. So instead of Test 1 being different hardware from Test 2, they have Test 1 and 2 on the same hardware (server cluster likely).

This is plausible if it's assumed they didn't want to blow money on hardware they don't think they'll need. Sure, 500k beta testers is promising to them. But I don't really know how many paying subscribers they expect in December.

Today is really the first best opportunity to see what a post-launch condition could be. 500k testers on a weekend day.

But yea, glad they catch this stuff now rather than Launch day.

What I don't get is how they phrase these problems as if it's a stress test. Didn't they already do two different stress tests? Shouldn't their scalability issues have been at least anticipated? Are they skimping on bringing up their hardware now for the same reasons I bitched at them about the signups?

It's not like we'll ever get answers to those questions. But it does make me somewhat more hesitant to buy the game and try to play on launch day, should I actually decide I want to buy it.