Maintenance: October 24th, 2017

[Wopr]

i cancel out just tired of the lies. The high pings now and the legacy unlock lie. Whats next? Tired of this. I'll head back to WoW and give them my money.

[TheGreatHambino]

Hey folks,

 

As many of you know, on Tuesday Keith explained that in preparation for United Forces we moved all current west coast servers into our Virginia data center. Here’s some of the key questions we have received about the North American datacenter change:

 

Why not communicate this ahead of time?

We made the decision to not communicate this information ahead of time because we wanted you to have the ability to immediately login and determine the impact to your gameplay experience. This meant we could quickly start gathering feedback on what you were seeing in-game (more on this in the next question). However, we have seen posts from players who made specific decisions based on location (such as character transfers) and we will be in touch with them to discuss. To ensure there is no confusion about this update in-game, we adjusted the server selection screen to reflect that all NA servers are on the east coast.

 

My ping has gone up since the change and it is affecting my gameplay, what options do I have?

Please continue to report it! As Keith mentioned in his forum post this is something we are actively tracking and working with our network partners to address where possible. We will be working through this especially over the next two weeks as we ramp up to United Forces.

 

Could there be one data center in the Central US so that pings are more even for each coast?

Creating an entirely new datacenter is a daunting task, even above and beyond the substantial changes we have already made this year. This just isn’t something that was viable in the scope of the changes we made for United Forces.

 

Since all of NA is in one datacenter, shouldn’t we just have one server?

Moving all of NA together would create a very heavily populated server. This would introduce several challenges: 1) Players would likely experience queues accessing the server and 2) It would increase the chances for server instability and downtime. There are also a variety of other issues, but a key concern was combining all of North America would result in substantially more character name collisions.

 

We hope this answers some of your questions and lets you know what’s going to happen over the next couple weeks. Please remember, on November 8th we will move all players to their new servers during an extended maintenance (currently looking like 12 hours). We are also discussing starting a few hours earlier than usual (e.g., 2 or 3am CT), but will let you know a few days beforehand.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

I think this best describes by feelings about what was written here.

[Darth-Gorog]

I'm from Australia, East coast for us is bad, connection wise, due to the routes and increased distance across America.

I was fine playing swtor at 200-250ms steady for all activities, and had been for years, but now I'm getting everything from 400-700ms before I even enter a warzone or flashpoint, or do anything at all actually, both of which my game enjoyment just dies from all the rubber banding, lag and 2-4 second delay on what I see on my screen compared to what's actually happening in-game. at a stretch I'd deal fine with a steady 300ms but I like to pvp so anything higher starts really affecting what I can do in the warzones.

 

it's this that people are getting hot and bothered over xD Im jsut in a ultra disappointed in the devs stage now. I don't get riled up too often, I have my days but usually 2 days later I'm over it and it no longer matters so much, but when it's likely a permanent impact on my gaming experience like this is.. yeah I'm disappointed.

 

I play from Australia too (well usually I would, this year I have been in Florida, but return home next January) and and got by on the East coast servers by just trying to be predictive with what will happen, which is much easier in a pve scenario than pvp. I can see how it is a considerable issue for us International guys who chose west coast cos it was the closest route home, guess I will have to wait to go back home to see just how terrible it must be now

[kimiko_tomiyama]

I should preface my comments with the admission, that I I only tried a west coast server once, even though, being a player living in east Asia, it would likely have made more sense to play there regularly. As I recall, my rates were over 100 then. They have been stable on the east coast servers. Prior to the changes this year it was pretty much around 180 though 300-400 spikes were a fairly common. Post server relocation they have consistently been sitting at 215-220.. So yes my game play has actually been, if not better, more stable.

 

That being said. How they handled it left a bad taste. It smacks of "We need to set up for maintenance mode. This is going to be unpopular, so let's bury it and hope nobody notices. And if they do just misdirect until the uproar settles." I joined the game right after Hutt cartel came out and, this is the first time I can recall where rather than hyping the next big expansion, they are silent on the issue. "Trust us. It'll be great!" almost never is. Command system is the latest example. Believe me, my anger is long since spent. But in all honesty, I'm trying to find another mmo that suits my tastes before I move on. It was that way with LotRO when they largely went into maintence mode after Rohan dropped.

 

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

[Icykill_]

I think this best describes by feelings about what was written here.

 

LMAO .. that was priceless

[Zhedzaban]

Thanks guys for letting me fall in love with your game then in literally one maintenance day you basically tell me you don't want me anymore. I have been a loyal player since launch and a strident defender, but what am I supposed to do when you make it physically impossible to play and enjoy your game?

 

I understand that cutting the APAC players probably won't hurt the bottom line, but how cold and cruel to just discard a portion of your player base like that. In a game that struggles to keep players it's just hard to fathom why you would do something like this.

 

My subscription is cancelled, along with thousands of others I imagine. My only hope is that there is a calamitous fall in sub players that causes you to rethink this decision and you put a west coast server back. Not likely I know but hope is all I got.

[Keta]

Hey folks,

 

My ping has gone up since the change and it is affecting my gameplay, what options do I have?

Please continue to report it! As Keith mentioned in his forum post this is something we are actively tracking and working with our network partners to address where possible. We will be working through this especially over the next two weeks as we ramp up to United Forces.

 

 

-eric

 

And just how would i report the doubled ping? Filing a bug report? Sorry my doubled ping makes such a thing an exercise in futility.

 

Nice going. Just put a disclaimer on the game "Those outside the 48 contiguous United States will not have acceptable performance levels. Go Away." (and that's being generous from what I've seen of reports from the West Coast).

 

And yes, I understand .. it's cheaper. So is not having a subscription. Aloha.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Keta

[Keta]

Thanks guys for letting me fall in love with your game then in literally one maintenance day you basically tell me you don't want me anymore. I have been a loyal player since launch and a strident defender, but what am I supposed to do when you make it physically impossible to play and enjoy your game?

 

I understand that cutting the APAC players probably won't hurt the bottom line, but how cold and cruel to just discard a portion of your player base like that. In a game that struggles to keep players it's just hard to fathom why you would do something like this.

 

My subscription is cancelled, along with thousands of others I imagine. My only hope is that there is a calamitous fall in sub players that causes you to rethink this decision and you put a west coast server back. Not likely I know but hope is all I got.

 

 

I live in Hawaii. It's not quite as bad as Australia/NZ etc... but it's usually quite bad. When it's not quite bad it's just bad. I'm not far behind you.

[jockjon]

I'm an Aussie player. I read the posts above and it's all been said. In essence my ping has gone up too much and it is effecting game play. One third of a second is just too much. I've been around since launch and feel Aussies have been treated very poorly. The people in charge continue to show they don't understand their customers. Anyone remember the scrubbed DvL achievement fiasco?

[jockjon]

And here's the reply you get to a Ping ticket

 

Hello,

 

I’m sorry you’ve had some technical problems with Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

 

To get back in the game as soon as possible, please try the following steps collected for you by Protocol Droid M0-T0, Human-Cyborg Relations:

 

• Check that your graphics drivers are up to date, and try a clean installation of your graphics driver:

http://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-perform-a-clean-installation-of-your-graphics-driver

 

• Work through the launcher troubleshooting guide to clear up any problems with patching or launching the game:

http://help.ea.com/en-us/help/star-wars/star-wars-the-old-republic/swtor-launcher-troubleshooting-guide

 

• If you’re still having trouble connecting to the game, you’ll find additional help here:

http://help.ea.com/en/article/connection-troubleshooting-basic/

 

• Check the Star Wars: The Old Republic board on Answers HQ to see if any other players have had the same problem as you:

http://answers.ea.com/t5/STAR-WARS-The-Old-Republic/bd-p/star-wars-the-old-republic-en

 

If you’re still having trouble after trying these steps, please contact us again and let us know what you’ve tried.

 

Galactic Support is our Specialty…

 

The Star Wars ™: The Old Republic™ Customer Service team.

[americanaussie]

And here's the reply you get to a Ping ticket

 

Hello,

 

I’m sorry you’ve had some technical problems with Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

 

To get back in the game as soon as possible, please try the following steps collected for you by Protocol Droid M0-T0, Human-Cyborg Relations:

 

• Check that your graphics drivers are up to date, and try a clean installation of your graphics driver:

http://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-perform-a-clean-installation-of-your-graphics-driver

 

• Work through the launcher troubleshooting guide to clear up any problems with patching or launching the game:

http://help.ea.com/en-us/help/star-wars/star-wars-the-old-republic/swtor-launcher-troubleshooting-guide

 

• If you’re still having trouble connecting to the game, you’ll find additional help here:

http://help.ea.com/en/article/connection-troubleshooting-basic/

 

• Check the Star Wars: The Old Republic board on Answers HQ to see if any other players have had the same problem as you:

http://answers.ea.com/t5/STAR-WARS-The-Old-Republic/bd-p/star-wars-the-old-republic-en

 

If you’re still having trouble after trying these steps, please contact us again and let us know what you’ve tried.

 

Galactic Support is our Specialty…

 

The Star Wars ™: The Old Republic™ Customer Service team.

 

Yeah I got the same. I tweeted Eric and he said that shouldn't be happening. But to pm him or Keith directly about the ping issues.

Edited October 27, 2017 by americanaussie

[nyrkverse]

What.A.Cluster****. APAC players thrown to the wolves and zero care to maintain even the illusion they have a modicum of respect for their customers. The decision itself is bad enough (I get it, you save some more $$ which is obviously more important than such outdated concepts as providing good quality of service to your paying customers), not informing us ahead of time is inexcusable. My sympathy to Eric who has to make this BS look good. He failed but it was an impossible task.

 

How can anyone be okay with this and still making excuses for them, it's beyond me.

[Azerdayne]

Well this is a right mess.

 

It's like watching an old friend die from self-inflicted wounds.

 

Yes. This. A very apt analogy.

 

I was actually optimistic about the server merger, the gentle serving of upcoming new content, and the possibility of more next year, but this debacle of lies is terrible. It beggars all imagination that no one at BW/EA knows what it would take to right this ship and make SWTOR a game on par with today's actual triple-A MMO's. Clearly, no one in a position of real authority cares about this game's success or BW's reputation. Not to mention Keith's and Eric's reputation, such as they were.

 

If I had to have my name attached to the kind of duplicitous, contradictory garbage in these latest announcements, I would be ashamed of myself, and certainly trying to find a new job that didn't require me to publicly lie and publicly ruin my professional reputation. Who will ever trust anything that Keith or Eric announces in the future? I certainly won't.

 

What a disappointment on this long and disappointing road that is 5.x

[SubjugatorX]

Hey folks,

 

As many of you know, on Tuesday Keith explained that in preparation for United Forces we moved all current west coast servers into our Virginia data center. Here’s some of the key questions we have received about the North American datacenter change:

 

Why not communicate this ahead of time?

We made the decision to not communicate this information ahead of time because we wanted you to have the ability to immediately login and determine the impact to your gameplay experience. This meant we could quickly start gathering feedback on what you were seeing in-game (more on this in the next question). However, we have seen posts from players who made specific decisions based on location (such as character transfers) and we will be in touch with them to discuss. To ensure there is no confusion about this update in-game, we adjusted the server selection screen to reflect that all NA servers are on the east coast.

 

My ping has gone up since the change and it is affecting my gameplay, what options do I have?

Please continue to report it! As Keith mentioned in his forum post this is something we are actively tracking and working with our network partners to address where possible. We will be working through this especially over the next two weeks as we ramp up to United Forces.

 

Could there be one data center in the Central US so that pings are more even for each coast?

Creating an entirely new datacenter is a daunting task, even above and beyond the substantial changes we have already made this year. This just isn’t something that was viable in the scope of the changes we made for United Forces.

 

Since all of NA is in one datacenter, shouldn’t we just have one server?

Moving all of NA together would create a very heavily populated server. This would introduce several challenges: 1) Players would likely experience queues accessing the server and 2) It would increase the chances for server instability and downtime. There are also a variety of other issues, but a key concern was combining all of North America would result in substantially more character name collisions.

 

We hope this answers some of your questions and lets you know what’s going to happen over the next couple weeks. Please remember, on November 8th we will move all players to their new servers during an extended maintenance (currently looking like 12 hours). We are also discussing starting a few hours earlier than usual (e.g., 2 or 3am CT), but will let you know a few days beforehand.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

How do you look yourself in the mirror?

[Lundorff]

How can anyone be okay with this and still making excuses for them, it's beyond me.

 

I fully suspect that some of them are employed by EAware to mitigate social outrage and divide us. In fact I would be shocked if EA didn't have media trolls to act subversively. The very last thing they want, is for the players to unite and boycott their products until they give in to very specific demands (e.g. a West Coast server).

Edited October 27, 2017 by Lundorff

[Ansultares]

I believe the servers were actually "downgraded", quality-wise, likely for cost saving reasons.

Based on some of the performance I've seen the last few days, I'm inclined to agree. But, they are moving to "new" servers soon enough, so that may only be a temporary issue.

 

I fully suspect that some of them are employed by EAware to mitigate social outrage and divide us. In fact I would be shocked if EA didn't have media trolls to act subversively.

It's one of the dirty secrets of social media. The level of influence exerted by corporations and governments is astounding. And 99% of it is done under the radar.

 

Though a company such as EA very likely outsources the bulk of the work to a third party firm. There's an entire industry out there specializing in faux social media interactions.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Ansultares

[OrmEmber]

Snip

 

Tis very rare for me to post here. I am content to mearly observe usually, but this...

 

Oh Bioware, what have you done? You were the chosen one! I'm sitting here so deflated, so sad. That you would lie to your customers like this....this is not what you guys are. Or it wasn't before EA got their hooks into you.

 

You are gonna lose so much more over this than a few subs, and the subs you lose will be greater than if you'd just been upfront about no west coast servers.

 

What with microtransactions and multiplayer being slowly forced into your games, then the ME:Andromeda fiasco, then Anthem (who even cares about that game?) and now this..My faith in you has been severally shaken. You'd better make Anthem the best it can be, otherwise it will tank and take you/Bioware down with it.

 

A final note:

 

I am not a wealthy guy, but I was going to buy the Unstable Peacemakers lightsaber today as a treat for myself coz I REALLY want one, but after this treatment, you don't deserve the money I would have spent. I will go without my shiny pixels..probably for the best anyway.

[Mzuta]

Hi all,

 

Today’s maintenance was part of the United Forces effort!

 

We have completed the upgrade of the Game Servers along with all their supporting infrastructure in the Data Centers. We made a large investment of new hardware and software and one of our primary goals was to substantially reduce our footprint while improving our overall server capacity. During our evaluation of the new servers, we determined we could also combine our North American datacenters. That also occurred today and we have officially moved out of our West Coast location. Our testing showed no impact on the gameplay experience, but we expect some of you playing on formerly West Coast servers may see higher ping times. We’ll use the next two weeks to smooth out any kinks and resolve any performance issues encountered.

 

You’ll see the same Servers today that you saw yesterday. They’re just running on new hardware and, some, in different locations. As announced previously the move to the five (5) new Servers will be on Wednesday, November 8, 2017. At that time all Game Servers and the SWTOR website will be down for up to 12 hours. We’ll let you know the actual start time a few days before.

 

Report any specific issues you encounter to Customer Service as we’ve established an escalation process for critical issues. Please be a bit patient with us over the coming weeks as we unite players from a variety of servers and try to make this a smooth and painless process for everyone.

 

Cheers!

 

-Keith--

 

patience what's that? a form of compensation? lol

[ExarSun]

"Trust us. It'll be great!" almost never is. Command system is the latest example. Believe me, my anger is long since spent. But in all honesty, I'm trying to find another mmo that suits my tastes before I move on. It was that way with LotRO when they largely went into maintence mode after Rohan dropped.

 

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

 

Funny thing is LOTRO even in maintenance mode has been able to produce more content than this game for the last year with way smaller team and resources than BW.....this is incredible. I would be laughing my *** off about such incompetence if wasn't so sad about what those people have done to my favourite IP. So think about it people....a game such as LOTRO in maintenance mode for a long time is able to put out expansions and more content than SWTOR...Refocusing on group content...LOL....they ruined this game with the pathetic amount of content, no quality story, GC, server merges and etc...all bad decisions.

 

Also yeah non of us unaffected players by those server merges would jump to defend such horrid and cruel decision to abandon your APAC players and outright lie about those questionable server merges. I was never a fan of server merges, but the way handled them is something no self-respecting studio would do.

You've gone and ruined some of my favourite franchises in the face of ME, no you are ruining SW...nobody is going to get fooled by this Anthem project i tell you....I for one will never go and buy it....also I will seriously consider dropping my longyear sub and all the money i gave you for CC. Instead of giving us a new expansion you have wasted this year with stupid decisions. Nobody would stick around for that...

[SteveTheCynic]

for some of us the ping either doubled or tripled, some even more then that. once you go from being used to 250ms for years, and then suddenly dealing with 500ms or more and knowing it cannot go lower now... yeah that is going to make an impact in affected people's gameplay and it will understandably upset them since it rules out, for them, many aspects of the game as they won't be able to perform or play in those (PvP, operations, some flashpoints).

Of that extra 250, about 40 cannot be gotten rid of because it is dictated by physics, specifically how electrical signals propagate in copper wire or optical signals propagate in data fibres(1). The rest is down to network issues, and that can (possibly) be fixed. I'm not expert enough in Internet routing issues to predict the best method of fixing it, and how much can be removed, though.

 

It was a spectacularly bad decision, at multiple levels, though.

 

(1) The *signals* in copper wire and data fibres propagate (travel) at around two-thirds of the speed of light in a vacuum. (The fibre is NOT a vacuum, and a non-vacuum medium slows this propagation in proportion to its "refractive index" which is around 1.5 for most forms of glass.)

[AlrikFassbauer]

Please remember, on November 8th we will move all players to their new servers during an extended maintenance (currently looking like 12 hours).

 

An interesting birthday present this is for me ...

[docbenwayddo]

Really putting Hanlon's Razor to the test with continued malicious stupidity while being stupidly malicious.

[JattaGin]

We made the decision to not communicate this information ahead of time because we wanted you to have the ability to immediately login and determine the impact to your gameplay experience.

 

What?

 

Do we have a master of linguistics here who is able to decode what this means?

[QuinlanSaathis]

What?

 

Do we have a master of linguistics here who is able to decode what this means?

 

It means they wanted us to test the servers without bias and see if there was any problem before raising the alarm.

This was a spectacular failure of course.

[Eshvara]

It means they wanted us to test the servers without bias and see if there was any problem before raising the alarm.

This was a spectacular failure of course.

 

If they wanted that then Keith shouldn't exactly have said that they moved the server location. Then people would just think they have bad ms for no reason