Cheddar quits. Cheddar rises from dead. Cheddar may be Jesus.

[Cheddar]

I am strongly leaning to changing servers after experiencing Lucan.  My reasons are simple; Oasis has been fickle ever since we joined it.  Random kicks during zoning, random disconnects, hours of server downtime, etc.  The population of our new home (Oasis) is insane. 

What do people think?  If I do this then I will transfer one or two characters, just to make sure we have gold to start off (put us ahead of the game).  Who is interested in transferring, who will transfer characters (as opposed to making new ones), and who does not know?   Lets get some discussion going!

If (already made one) I do this then I WILL start fresh with a new character. 

His name is Cheddar, and he likes cheese.

[Signe]

I might play on the filthy arr pee server now and then, but I'm not ditching my main or my alts on Oasis.  I'm also not particularly interested in starting a new main from scratch.  I've done the n00b route too many times already and I'm tired of those quests at this point.  Maybe at some point I won't mind so much, but I would find it tedious at the moment.

[Cheddar]

I expect no one to move.  I will keep a guild lead on Oasis just in case, and ensure that you guys remain in control.  Call this a heads up. I am completely amazed at all the new quests and whatnot.  This expansion is one of the better ones I have witnessed in my experience.  I like the addition to lore as well.


edit. additional.

[Yegolev]

Oh good.  Something to keep me from subbing, at least until I know where everyone is.

Personally I prefer smaller populations.  My WoW server was merged and immediately went into the shitter.

[Hartsman]

Really sorry about your server's stability.  The version that we just put up an hour or so ago should take care of what's been going on the past couple days. 

One thing to keep in mind -- The downtimes post-move, but prior to the last two days were caused by the physical moving around of servers and rewriring of racks of worlds. 

Those would have happened no matter where you were.  Fortunately, we're well past the time when people are working around those machines 24/7.

- Scott

[Surlyboi]

Willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here, Scott. But the true test will be over the next few days with server stability, lag and all that other stuff taken into consideration.

Why were you moving the servers? Datacenter get an upgrade?

[Tebonas]

Can I use this chance to ask you about the German translation. I know it might not be your foremost concern when servers are breaking down, but it is really really bad. Some things are not translated at all, some things are translated in two different ways in quest texts and in the actual game, some things are translated like somebody plastered a wall with German words, blindfolded himself and threw a dart at that wall.

For example "Decaying Skeletons" is translated to "Gewebte Skelette" which translates back to "Woven Skeletons". Which has nothing, nothing at all to do with the original meaning. How do such things happen?

[Cheddar]

Really sorry about your server's stability.  The version that we just put up an hour or so ago should take care of what's been going on the past couple days. 

One thing to keep in mind -- The downtimes post-move, but prior to the last two days were caused by the physical moving around of servers and rewriring of racks of worlds. 

Those would have happened no matter where you were.  Fortunately, we're well past the time when people are working around those machines 24/7.

- Scott

What are the chances that there will be another free character transfer option?  I know there are numerous people not happy with our current server, and though it was nice that there was a free window already, it was a wee bit short for us casual players.

[Venkman]

I would rather not make a hasty decision of such magnitude because of a few nights of crappy server performance. We are just getting established on Oasis, with the new people, new alts, and so on joining the established core group that was always there. I think at this point the free-transfer window is over, and I'd rather not start completely over either (nor do I think it's worth the fee to pay to move to get off a crappily-performing server).

Further, many servers are having issues, judging by the Gaming Discussion posts over the last few weeks since server merges began. All of them are for the same reason. All of them mean we have a better chance of moving (separately or together) to a server with just as many issues as we have now. It's not easy to experience the population gluts and stability issues on Queens Colony :)

We've all been through this sort of stuff before. I myself played on what eventually became known as Bristlebroke in EQ1, and lived through the plague of instability that was the Pacific/Mountain time-zone servers in WoW for January and February 2005. At the time, not being able to play at all was a huge issue we all complained about. Looking back, if I lost a cumulative 10 hours of total play between both games because of server issues, that'd be lucky.

Because it's the easiest thing to do to ensure guild cohesion, I recommend we stay. The population is already getting less dense in those choke points of content, and either the EQ2 team will fix this or they'll have to split some servers lest they lose people from the game. Everybody's watching these events pretty closely, and while the EQ2 team is not the SWG team, they both report to a division still stinging from the latter. They are motivated to not screw this up.

[Signe]

I guess it's official.  My world is in a rack.  I feel like a magazine or a modem.

[Soln]

Really sorry about your server's stability.  The version that we just put up an hour or so ago should take care of what's been going on the past couple days. 

One thing to keep in mind -- The downtimes post-move, but prior to the last two days were caused by the physical moving around of servers and rewriring of racks of worlds. 

Those would have happened no matter where you were.  Fortunately, we're well past the time when people are working around those machines 24/7.

- Scott

right

any chance we do a character transfer?

[Miasma]

Yeah, I stopped playing last night when I tried to zone back into Castleview Hamlet and the game froze.  That bothers me a little but what really makes me angry is seeing the "Your character is already in the world" error message.  If my character is in the world without me then why not just remove the damn character so that I can login properly?  Who would it hurt except for a few people who share accounts from different computers, and they're not even supposed to do that.  And why does it take many minutes for the server to realize that I'm not connected to my own character?  The client knows when I'm not connected to the server if there is lag or something and drops me to character selection within seconds.

What was this about again? Oh yeah, the rp server.  The only thing I might do is role an evil character because I don't have/want one of those on Oasis.  But I am a terribly negligent parent to my alts, I doubt you would ever see me.  Do roleplay servers in EQ2 have their own set of rules like in EQ1?  Are you limited to one character, or do all of your characters have to be of one faction?

[Sky]

Really sorry about your server's stability.  The version that we just put up an hour or so ago should take care of what's been going on the past couple days. 

One thing to keep in mind -- The downtimes post-move, but prior to the last two days were caused by the physical moving around of servers and rewriring of racks of worlds. 

Those would have happened no matter where you were.  Fortunately, we're well past the time when people are working around those machines 24/7.

- Scott

Will that fix the lag or overcrowding due to having double or more the population we had a couple weeks ago? I try not to be hostile to game company folks, but Oasis sucks.

The third thread that's cropped up about LDL...

[Surlyboi]

Really sorry about your server's stability.  The version that we just put up an hour or so ago should take care of what's been going on the past couple days. 

One thing to keep in mind -- The downtimes post-move, but prior to the last two days were caused by the physical moving around of servers and rewriring of racks of worlds. 

Those would have happened no matter where you were.  Fortunately, we're well past the time when people are working around those machines 24/7.

- Scott

Will that fix the lag or overcrowding due to having double or more the population we had a couple weeks ago? I try not to be hostile to game company folks, but Oasis sucks.

The third thread that's cropped up about LDL...

What does your cholesterol count have to do with this?

[Tale]

I guess it's official.  My world is in a rack.  I feel like a magazine or a modem.

You could be a gun, a ski, a tie, a bicycle, a dish, or even a spice. Or your world could be getting tortured. Do the trees seem a little taller?

[Furiously]

Nice rack.

[Hartsman]

Why were you moving the servers? Datacenter get an upgrade?

Yep, there were four sets of things going on at once in the DC during the moves:

1) The servers that moved away were disassembled and their machines were used to reinforce other worlds.  As of this past tuesday, all worlds are now running on more hardware than previously.  In Oasis' case, the world now has 33% more hardware.  If you saw lag before tuesday, this would be helping to address that.

2) New hardware for the new PvP worlds came in and had to be racked/wired/set up.

3) Some worlds had nodes that got RAM upgrades.

4) All worlds DBs' storage arrays' got additional drives to improve DB performance.

Can I use this chance to ask you about the German translation. I know it might not be your foremost concern when servers are breaking down, but it is really really bad. Some things are not translated at all, some things are translated in two different ways in quest texts and in the actual game, some things are translated like somebody plastered a wall with German words, blindfolded himself and threw a dart at that wall.

For example "Decaying Skeletons" is translated to "Gewebte Skelette" which translates back to "Woven Skeletons". Which has nothing, nothing at all to do with the original meaning. How do such things happen?

It's a big concern no matter what else is going on.  My team doesn't work with translations, but we are the ones ultimately responsible for providing a game that is easy for the localization folks to have localized in a sane way.  Over the past 6 months, due primarily to translation quality, we've been working on a new localization pipeline on our end whose end goal is to make translations happen faster and more reliably.  

As it stands, it's not as easy for them as it should be to figure out what needs to be translated and in what context.  As it gets finished up next month, the idea is that from there forward there will be fewer false translation needs called out, allowing the translators to do a better job.

As for your specific example, bluntly, that just sounds brain damaged.  I'll ask the localization folks.

What are the chances that there will be another free character transfer option?  I know there are numerous people not happy with our current server, and though it was nice that there was a free window already, it was a wee bit short for us casual players.

I definitely didn't mean to screw over casual folks - My hope was that by calling out the specific days of the 2 and a half weeks of free xfers ahead of time, everyone would be able to plan for it.  If that didn't happen, it's something we may evaluate doing as the servers all stabilize.


- Scott

[Yegolev]

I guess it's official.  My world is in a rack.  I feel like a magazine or a modem.

The universe is cyclical.  We are installing a blade rack... that is watercooled.

[Lt.Dan]

I won't be moving.  There's no point.

• I've never noticed huge populations killing my mobs or camping my spawns
• One night of interupted playtime doesn't indicate a broken server
• I've done the noob quests a zillion times and, well, what's the point of doing them again?
• We've just started to get people into a similar level range on Oasis, why start again?
• You're all looking for something, and whatever it is you're not going to find it on another server

[Nebu]

Has anyone noticed if the population had a dip when the pvp servers were opened? 

I was really enjoying this game and can deal with the instability issues.  What really ruined things for me was having to not only compete for spawns with crowds of other people, but the selfish behavior of those unable to wait their turn.  Shame really, I was looking forward to playing this for a while.  Instead, I've gone back to other games where I don't have to wait in a cue to complete my quests.

[Soln]

I can't see going to the one NA PvP server as a solution.  Griefer mosh pit.

[Nebu]

I can't see going to the one NA PvP server as a solution.  Griefer mosh pit.

That wasn't my suggestion.  I was asking if anyone had noticed a decrease in the Oasis population with the opening of the pvp servers.  (i.e. I was interested in a population shift that would make Oasis more playable).

[tazelbain]

I think the crowding problem is a social problem.  With a lower population, people were use to gathering in certain areas to level.  Now, with a high population, people are trained the same and it's problem.  It'll take a bit for people to learn to use the unused areas.  Also, the expansion should help out a bit, because many people were the alts of bored 60s, now they have something to do and the alts will go back on the self.

Worst. Jesus. Ever.

[Nebu]

Also, the expansion should help out a bit, because many people were the alts of bored 60s, now they have something to do and the alts will go back on the self.

Good point.  I may just give it a little time and come back for a bit to see if things have adjusted. 

[Cheddar]

• One night of interupted playtime doesn't indicate a broken server

Many days.  Lag, Disconnects.  Server down.  Out of the last 6 or so times I wanted to play I was only able to twice.  And the second time was interupted with a 30 seconds warning (AKA last night).  I hopped over to Lucan and had no issues.  None.  Nada.  Zilch.

• I've done the noob quests a zillion times and, well, what's the point of doing them again?

They revamped the noob quests.  Its pretty cool checking them out.

• You're all looking for something, and whatever it is you're not going to find it on another server

I am looking to play my fucking game.  Was extremely nice to log in this morning and get the server going down message 5 minutes into play.   

[Velorath]

Don't the servers have regularly scheduled downtime in the morning?

[Surlyboi]

Yes they do.

[Venkman]

Yeppers, at least in the short term:

http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/scheduled_downtime.vm

[Soln]

Yeppers, at least in the short term:

http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/scheduled_downtime.vm

Le sigh   

[UD_Delt]

Really sorry about your server's stability.  The version that we just put up an hour or so ago should take care of what's been going on the past couple days. 

One thing to keep in mind -- The downtimes post-move, but prior to the last two days were caused by the physical moving around of servers and rewriring of racks of worlds. 

Those would have happened no matter where you were.  Fortunately, we're well past the time when people are working around those machines 24/7.

- Scott

Is this going to help with the lag on the rest of the servers. Specifically on Everfrost. Haven't been able to play in the KoS zones at night once they hit about 100 people because of lag. Mobs that I can normally kill easily and lose at most 10%-20% hp are able to kill me quite often during primetime because of the lag.

[HaemishM]

Not planning on moving to Lucan, but I will have an alt on there.

Hartsman, I noticed one weird ass little thing in playing on Lucan.

In West Freeport, the NPC at the Militia House, Lt. Darrius or some such, has some weird shit going on. On Oasis, he has no helmet. On Lucan, he has one of those great skull helmets. EH? Why? I'm serious, the exact same NPC is equipped differently on the two servers.

[Sky]

Weren't those added in the most recent content patch, along with more guards for the city zones? I noticed a skull-helmed guard mounted on a cool horse when I was playing my Bruiser the other night. Might be existing npcs got some juice, too.

[Miasma]

It might have been the new guards with the KoS expansion.  With PvP being put in all the guards got a big boost of power, in Qeynos we now have ^^^x4 mounted guards wandering around.  They have (what I think) is their class specific headgear too.  I imagine your guy just got his shadownight helmet from KoS and you just happened to switch servers between the expansion coming out.

Edit: Beaten by Sky.

[HaemishM]

Except that when I went back to Oasis that same night, no helmet.

[Venkman]

Loot tables on different servers? Or maybe you can give stuff to guards and have them wear it? Wasn't that once a wierd option in EQ1?

Anyway, this is probably something they'd file under: Issue>Aesthetic>Zip-for-severity>Ignore :)