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EVE Online: Case Study
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
EVE Online and Texas Memory Systems have released a case study, talking about how the game's high and record-breaking PCU can slow the game down, causing players to become frustrated and leave for greener (or faster) pastures. The Solution? We'll let you read on and see:
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RamSan Success Stories: CCP Games Problem: 17,000 concurrent users causing sluggish OLTP response "The effect of the RamSan was immediate on both system performance and customer satisfaction," Hilmar V. P |
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I've been playing Eve for about a year and a half now, and am a member of the Ascendant Frontier alliance, one of the largest in game.
Lag is making life extremely difficult at the moment in game. Classic example came about three weeks ago when G alliance opened hostilities with ASCN. A fleet was spotted in a neighbouring system to an ASCN Outpost and a fleet of 50+ battleships was gathered. Upon jumping in to the neighbouring system not a single one of the ASCN gang even saw the enemy, let alone get a chance to target and fire back, all thanks to lag, before we generally either discovered ourselves in pods, or back in cloning stations. Not one G member even got shot. Out of the entire ASCN gang just 10 made it out with their ships. Due to the way the database is clustered, some systems are on high performance clusters, others are on low performance. Turns out the ones in 0.0 space (lawless Player controlled territory) are on low performance clusters unless we give them sufficient notice to arrange a move next down time. Next time I get my precognitive abilities back I'll be sure to tell CCP about any unexpected attacks will be recieving with at least 48 hours notice
When you can't even have just under 100 ships in a single system fighting, whilst encouraging alliances to build up empires with expensive Outposts (player owned / made stations), etc. etc.; something is seriously wrong with the development approach.
Their new storage solution went in about a month ago and I must admit it has made a noticeable difference to the game, but it is still not enough by a long stretch.
Hopefully Red Moon Rising patch (due next week, 7th Dec) should be making a huge change to the scheme of things, but we all sit and wait with baited breath.
Only time will tell..
I must say that as far as accessing the database goes all is faster than ever: market, skills, info, politics, corporation info, wallet, hanger, inventory, etc. all those recieved great improvment with the new hardware upgrade.
YO YO YO
I've been playing EVE since early beta and CCP has always pulled off miracles to keep lag due to database calls to a minimum... I have to agree that database access is faster with the solid-state disc. To Garp's point... Is there still some lag? Yes. But of all the MMORPG's I've played, EVE has always had less in-game lag than any of the competing MMOGs.
Some lag still exists, particularly in fleet battles etc.
The RAMSAN has made a hell of a difference however.
Good to see that drone changes and further optimisations are in the pipe.
What is best, however, is that CCP have consulted with the players at all times, communicated most of issues, and actively involved players in the upgrade process. CCP should get some kind of recognition for the transparency and feedback they exhibit all the time. I don't know of any other game where the players have such a voice and the devs are so communicative.
Looking forward to my third year of Eve addiction
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'Argueing with an Eve player is like argueing with a religous nut. '
Definately Agree. You keep seeing all these horror stories of devs paying little or no attention to the actual players, in what seems like 90% of the MMORPGs out there. Eve devs consistently listen, respond and interact with players of the game.
Last night we were experiencing a few particular game-mechanics related issues/bugs and one of the major game developers even held an IRC conversation with an alliance member to discuss the issues, in what would have been his spare time.
Eve devs have always put up ideas they're pondering on the forums for debate, and followed the debate. They've always apologised when they've made mistakes (4S and S.A.S naming incident springs to mind), and consistenly shown respect to their players.
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MMOs Retired From: Earth and Beyond, Project Entropia, There, A Tale in the Desert, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, City of Heroes/Villains.
MMOs Currently (worth) Playing: None.
MMO hopefuls: Age of Conan.