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I Demand An Explanation!

ComnitusComnitus Member Posts: 2,462

Well, here you go.


The biggest issue we’ve had today is that getting into the Champions Online open beta was more popular than even we hoped for. While I know this doesn’t make the people who have been going through the challenges of getting online today any happier, it has been a great test for us in terms of diagnosing and working to fix problems on numerous fronts. In short, here’s what happened:

Our game and account servers were thoroughly tested with up to ~40,000 concurrent players. Unfortunately our game patching software was dependent on being able to ping the website to generate a dynamic information page, and it stopped updating when we experienced downtime from massive amounts of players hitting our web servers.

Concurrently, our installer had an error where it placed certain file types to an incorrect directory. When the patcher ran, it didn’t find those already downloaded files where they were expected to be. This caused the 3.6 GB patch to occur.

We quickly released an interim patcher that moved the already installed files to the correct folders. But as we had no way to message this through the patcher, this was incorrectly displaying as it being a 2 GB “patch.” It actually took only as long as moving the files, but unfortunately caused more confusion. The amount of data transferred by the patcher is the "Received" line.

There is now a new build of the installer at fileplanet.com that addresses the incorrect file placement and patch size, as well as a known Windows 64 Bit issue. We tried to keep the new install a simple single-file .exe autoextract, but those can't be bigger than 2GB in size. This requires players to do a second ~300MB patch after newly installing the game. If you previously downloaded the game from fileplanet.com, you do not need to do so again. The latest version of our patcher will move the incorrectly installed files and not require the previously massive patch.

Some players are currently experiencing issues where the Patcher can “freeze.” The main problem is we’re delivering a 400 MB patch to ~20,000 people simultaneously. At the current speed, the patching crush should clear up in about six hours. We are also currently working with our hosting partner to deploy more patch servers.

We appreciate the patience of our testers and hope that you’ll all stick in there as we go through our first day of getting the huge number of moving parts that is putting an MMO out there meshing together.


Just going to have to deal with it until they fix it. Source.

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Comments

  • CromicaCromica Member UncommonPosts: 657

    Don't worry you are not missing much, the best part was designing  my character after that is kinda meh

  • ComnitusComnitus Member Posts: 2,462
    Originally posted by Cromica


    Don't worry you are not missing much, the best part was designing  my character after that is kinda meh

    I was in the Closed Beta. I already have my own opinion, thanks.

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  • xcaliburxcalibur Member Posts: 571
    Originally posted by Comnitus


    Well, here you go.

    The biggest issue we’ve had today is that getting into the Champions Online open beta was more popular than even we hoped for. 

     

    I hate when companies do this.  "We couldn't have known this many people would want in beta, etc."  They know exactly how many beta keys they sent out to sites...

  • ComnitusComnitus Member Posts: 2,462
    Originally posted by xcalibur

    Originally posted by Comnitus


    Well, here you go.

    The biggest issue we’ve had today is that getting into the Champions Online open beta was more popular than even we hoped for. 

     

    I hate when companies do this.  "We couldn't have known this many people would want in beta, etc."  They know exactly how many beta keys they sent out to sites...

    I suppose. It sounds like they expected large numbers, but their equipment still failed and they had to try to quickly fix it... but that only lead to more problems. That's sloppy on their part, I'll give 'em that. The main reason for my posting this is to show that Cryptic communicates. "Cryptic doesn't communicate! What a terrible company!" isn't exactly what they need right now.

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  • BlurrBlurr Member UncommonPosts: 2,155
    Originally posted by xcalibur

    Originally posted by Comnitus


    Well, here you go.

    The biggest issue we’ve had today is that getting into the Champions Online open beta was more popular than even we hoped for. 

     

    I hate when companies do this.  "We couldn't have known this many people would want in beta, etc."  They know exactly how many beta keys they sent out to sites...



     

    Well they may have given them a bank, or perhaps a key generator. There's no saying that the sites reported in "oh by the way we gave away 20,000 keys" or anything like that. By the time they knew, perhaps they figured their server would hold.

    "Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000

  • DevalonDevalon Member UncommonPosts: 496
    Originally posted by Blurr

    Originally posted by xcalibur

    Originally posted by Comnitus


    Well, here you go.

    The biggest issue we’ve had today is that getting into the Champions Online open beta was more popular than even we hoped for. 

     

    I hate when companies do this.  "We couldn't have known this many people would want in beta, etc."  They know exactly how many beta keys they sent out to sites...



     

    Well they may have given them a bank, or perhaps a key generator. There's no saying that the sites reported in "oh by the way we gave away 20,000 keys" or anything like that. By the time they knew, perhaps they figured their server would hold.

     

    They should atleast predict a 100k load. Also it would of been cleared up long time ago if it wasnt for the freezing files transfers

    --
    "Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow

  • Nightbringe1Nightbringe1 Member UncommonPosts: 1,335

    The current issue I am having is that I am no longer able to connect to the patch servers at all.

    How long is that going to take to clear up? I've already spent the last 7 hours babysitting a patcher that constantly freezes and does not apply the data it has already downloaded.

    The last 8 times I my connection timed out I lost the 40+ mb of the download and had to start all over. Now I cannot even get that far.

    Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
    Benjamin Franklin

  • DevalonDevalon Member UncommonPosts: 496

    If only people learned from history, It seems like the history book is never open, look at , fuck it history not even even glance at.

    --
    "Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow

  • Thunder_HeadThunder_Head Member Posts: 304
    Originally posted by Nightbringe1


    The current issue I am having is that I am no longer able to connect to the patch servers at all.
    How long is that going to take to clear up? I've already spent the last 7 hours babysitting a patcher that constantly freezes and does not apply the data it has already downloaded.
    The last 8 times I my connection timed out I lost the 40+ mb of the download and had to start all over. Now I cannot even get that far.

     

    I'm having the same problem. Tells me it's trying to update the patcher (before I can even log on), and it just sits. After 5-10 minutes, it tells me the connection has been idle for too long and closes it.

  • ComnitusComnitus Member Posts: 2,462
    Originally posted by parrotpholk


    Its a BS excuse to say you didnt know. Open betas are like flypaper to MMO players. Its new and shiny and they all find a way to try something new. Game isnt my cup of tea but the excuses sounds like the ones DF devs were shouting.

    What I'm grading them on now is how quickly they resolve these issues, and whether or not they'll learn from them. Because I like the game, and the Beta was going very smoothly until now, this transition from CB to OB.

    The Darkfall devs lie. At least Cryptic has taken the time to explain the situation - it won't make most people any happier, but give credit where it's due. If they just ignored the playerbase, it'd be much worse. To diffuse a high stress situation, you need to communicate.

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  • The user and all related content has been deleted.

    "Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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  • ComnitusComnitus Member Posts: 2,462
    Originally posted by solareus

    Originally posted by Comnitus

    Originally posted by parrotpholk


    Its a BS excuse to say you didnt know. Open betas are like flypaper to MMO players. Its new and shiny and they all find a way to try something new. Game isnt my cup of tea but the excuses sounds like the ones DF devs were shouting.

    What I'm grading them on now is how quickly they resolve these issues, and whether or not they'll learn from them. Because I like the game, and the Beta was going very smoothly until now, this transition from CB to OB.

    The Darkfall devs lie. At least Cryptic has taken the time to explain the situation - it won't make most people any happier, but give credit where it's due. If they just ignored the playerbase, it'd be much worse. To diffuse a high stress situation, you need to communicate.

    they are simply trying to sell Fileplanet subscriptions at this point. They had a client magically ready right when it was all going wrong, and instead gicving players a link to download, they feed off to Fileplanet.

     

    Most of the Open Beta keys were available through Fileplanet, like many MMO betas. They fed the new client off to Fileplanet because that's where most of the overload of players is coming from - people who got it through Fileplanet who all wanted to get in the game today.

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  • donjuanamigodonjuanamigo Member Posts: 256

    im stuck in a loop of downloading the same files over and over. im really getting aggravated now.

  • AbrahmmAbrahmm Member Posts: 2,448

    So, they gave out a specified number of open beta keys, but didn't know the open beta would be as popular as it was... Right.

    That is a terrible attempt at trying to twist something bad into something good.

    Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
    Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
    Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
    Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
    Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.

  • LarpusLarpus Member Posts: 12
    Originally posted by Comnitus

    Most of the Open Beta keys were available through Fileplanet, like many MMO betas. They fed the new client off to Fileplanet because that's where most of the overload of players is coming from - people who got it through Fileplanet who all wanted to get in the game today.

    As another possibility, during the game developping they went to Fileplanet for some financial support, perhaps giving them exclusivity over the pre-release downloaders or something; and quite obviously they can not break the contract like that, even if that feels unfair to the players.

     

     

    Signatures are for the weak!

  • DevalonDevalon Member UncommonPosts: 496
    Originally posted by Larpus

    Originally posted by Comnitus

    Most of the Open Beta keys were available through Fileplanet, like many MMO betas. They fed the new client off to Fileplanet because that's where most of the overload of players is coming from - people who got it through Fileplanet who all wanted to get in the game today.

    As another possibility, during the game developping they went to Fileplanet for some financial support, perhaps giving them exclusivity over the pre-release downloaders or something; and quite obviously they can not break the contract like that, even if that feels unfair to the players.

     

     

    Easier said when they are developing two mmos at once. It must be a lot of money moving around over there. Also why they need more money upfront because of two mmos. I expect decent Hero game anyway. CoH was fun but i hated the class system. So if it even turns out unbalance but I enjoy the class system and combat/PvP. I think I might stick around till another next gen mmo comes out.

    --
    "Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow

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