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Hot Topic (More than 35 Replies) It Must Be Getting Bad (Read 20399 times)
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #25 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 11:09am
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Asheras wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 9:34am:
WB has decided to concentrate solely on mobile gaming.  Both DDO and LoTRO are latepast life cycle products at this point.


fify

As far as I can tell the datacenter move wasn't Turbine's choice... WB wanted them at the same place as all their other online assets.
( cost reduction, as it gets lost in all the WB datacenter costs... instead of being shown in Turbines reporting )

The problem is that nobody at WB/Turbine took time to look at how to do it hte right way...
They moved AC and got a one month downtime, then moved LoTRO and have been fighting lag since then after days of downtime... DDO moved and has been fighting lag since then.

Obviously nobody has a clue where the source is...
Some Say it will be solve in June because it's hardware/software ( use the appropriate rumor du moment. )

Personally, I'm really starting to suspect that it's something deep in the game engine ( since it hits both LoTRO and DDO ) and that Turbine has no clue how to fix it because all the people that worked with said game engine have been laid off a long time ago.
So they are using the empyrical method : make a change here, see if it changes anything, if not, make another tiny change there, and see what happens...
Basically they are at the shoot and pray stage in the troubleshooting : shoot at a random location and pray it's the one that was causing the issue.



Now we also have another thing that will have to be consided in the next months :
There's the train wreck called Batman Vs Superman... WB is probably going to look after things it can cull to compensate.

  

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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #26 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 11:19am
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LoTRO lacks the staying power of DDO. Most players know LOTRO as "The game based on those peter jackson movies", a few read the books.

DDO, on the other hand, is a D&D game, it appeals to a much wider demographic. And since the popularity of DnD doesn't ebb and flow with the release of big budget films, its got a lot more staying power. A ton of D&D gamers got into it from reading Tolkien's novels(Hell, Gygax kipped all kinds of things out of them). So the orphaned LOTRO players can go play DDO.

Meanwhile, orphaned DDO players aren't likely to hop on the "Everyone's named some variation of Aragorn!" train that is LOTRO Tongue
  

I'll never understand the propensity of people to brag about being good at a video game. Its a toy you play with for fun. The only person who should be proud of you is your mother. If you're 3.
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #27 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 12:18pm
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Flav wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 11:09am:
Now we also have another thing that will have to be consided in the next months :
There's the train wreck called Batman Vs Superman... WB is probably going to look after things it can cull to compensate.



Not really, it may not be the sequel cash cow they were hoping for, but it cost $250 M to make and so far has taken in $700 M   It seems there is a new trend in blockbuster movies that quality and box office receipts have an inverse correlation....
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #28 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 12:35pm
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Tspoon wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 12:18pm:
cost $250 M to make and so far has taken in $700 M 


That is staggering. I don't even watch super hero movies and the title alone was enough to tell me that one is shit.
  

I'll never understand the propensity of people to brag about being good at a video game. Its a toy you play with for fun. The only person who should be proud of you is your mother. If you're 3.
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #29 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 1:04pm
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Tspoon wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 12:18pm:
Not really, it may not be the sequel cash cow they were hoping for, but it cost $250 M to make and so far has taken in $700 M   It seems there is a new trend in blockbuster movies that quality and box office receipts have an inverse correlation....


This.  They made barrels of money.  Not quite as many barrels as they hoped, but they made enough to cover the next two movies they are making out of the profits.  And that doesn't even count the merchandise sales.
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #30 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 1:05pm
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noamineo wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 11:19am:
Meanwhile, orphaned DDO players aren't likely to hop on the "Everyone's named some variation of Aragorn!" train that is LOTRO Tongue


No.  We have an "Everyone's named some variation of Drizzt!" train.
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #31 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 2:14pm
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notajedi wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 6:39am:
Come on people, Turbine has done this exact same weekend bonus in the past, MULTIPLE TIMES, before lag.

Having been done in the past does not automatically rule out the possibility that they are offering up one of the better weekend bonuses as a way to stem the tide of players leaving the game.
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #32 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 2:23pm
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noamineo wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 11:19am:
LoTRO lacks the staying power of DDO. Most players know LOTRO as "The game based on those peter jackson movies", a few read the books.

DDO, on the other hand, is a D&D game, it appeals to a much wider demographic. And since the popularity of DnD doesn't ebb and flow with the release of big budget films, its got a lot more staying power. A ton of D&D gamers got into it from reading Tolkien's novels(Hell, Gygax kipped all kinds of things out of them). So the orphaned LOTRO players can go play DDO.

Meanwhile, orphaned DDO players aren't likely to hop on the "Everyone's named some variation of Aragorn!" train that is LOTRO Tongue


Well, except that according to steam charts, LotRO has 5 times the number of players that DDO does.

Unless DDO has some massive fucking whales still making it a lot more profitable, it'll be the first to go into maintenance.
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #33 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 3:24pm
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Turd_Ferguson wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 2:23pm:
Well, except that according to steam charts, LotRO has 5 times the number of players that DDO does.

Unless DDO has some massive fucking whales still making it a lot more profitable, it'll be the first to go into maintenance.


I'm not saying your wrong, but I am really surprised. LOTRO is a lot more "flavor of the month"y than DDO, I'm actually shocked it's continued this long after the movies ended, since it was really just "Lord Of the Rings(R) The Movie(TM) The Game!(R)(TM)". I've tried it a few times, I can see the appeal but I can't understand the staying power.

Do the "steam charts" actually account for the number of people playing DDO without steam? This is not only possible, but popular. There were credible threats of mass un-subs if turbine were to make DDO steam-only. I know I for one would not be playing.

DDO may also be more profitable since its substnatially cheaper to develop content for it. They get to re-use a shitload of assets, hell the last several content packs were largely re-hashed assets, and the style of modeling the use anyway is fast and cheap to make. Coding is another story, but basic polygonally meshes can be made fast by low-cost artists Tongue (Note: I've done a very significant amount of that sort of modelling/unwrapping/painting, what first attracted me to DDO was my love of the art style).
  

I'll never understand the propensity of people to brag about being good at a video game. Its a toy you play with for fun. The only person who should be proud of you is your mother. If you're 3.
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #34 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 3:44pm
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noamineo wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 3:24pm:
what first attracted me to DDO was my love of the art style


You love old shit?
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #35 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 4:09pm
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there was no datacenter moving, they simply swapped servers.

It was like "lol no 1 gonna notice wayfinder becoming shit! Umm, ok so which room was Thelanis???"
  

Vaultaccount wrote on Aug 29th, 2016 at 7:06pm:
The most broken epic PL in the game is the ridiculous AC buff from martial PLs. But when you include all the inherent benefits from reincarnation, the thing is above the roof. The benefit from TR was supposed to be minimal, but now it is game breaking. start a new character and you will feel, you will get raped in heroics.

Personally I think lower heroics on new characters are harder than Legendary Elite content on a character with good gear and has all destinies farmed.


Arkat wrote on Apr 2nd, 2014 at 4:14pm:
And someone in another thread called ME delusional recently!

Wow.

Have you EVER gone to Law School Feyn? Have you EVER been asked by a United States Senator who is now the Vice President of the United States to write a paper just for him on a particular topic of Constitutional Law for his use as a Senator? Have you ever been asked to help a very notable Harvard PhD turned Constitutional scholar with his very-well received book on Legal Philosophy and Constitutional Revolutions? Have you ever been offered a job as a Deputy Attorney General BEFORE you even graduated Law School?

No? Then STFU you fucking amateur.


Meat-Head wrote on Jul 29th, 2015 at 12:03am:
Thx. I was semi-waiting because windows 10 will be here soon. but, the crashing is making me want to punch old people.


IMARANGER wrote on Sep 8th, 2014 at 5:40pm:
Pretty sure that the fact that a service can be hacked doesn't make it the "community chest".
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #36 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 4:36pm
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Turd_Ferguson wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 2:23pm:
Well, except that according to steam charts, LotRO has 5 times the number of players that DDO does.

Unless DDO has some massive fucking whales still making it a lot more profitable, it'll be the first to go into maintenance.


LotRO has a very strong following in Europe.  Stronger than DDO.  The game does have more players.  But it is also more expensive.  Because of the movies and exclusiviity, the LotRO development license is more expensive than the D&D license.

That said, I don't see either going into maintenance anytime soon, although this lag issue may have changed that.
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #37 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 5:02pm
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Knight Solaire wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 3:44pm:
You love old shit?


Hey, we all have our vices.
  

I'll never understand the propensity of people to brag about being good at a video game. Its a toy you play with for fun. The only person who should be proud of you is your mother. If you're 3.
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #38 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 5:04pm
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Can someone clever steal the server code already so we can just host it ourselves?
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #39 - Apr 8th, 2016 at 10:47pm
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Asheras wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 9:34am:
Lol.  You think Lotro is in any better shape than DDO.  That's clueless commenting there.  They are bleeding clients and revenue worse than DDO.  They are in the same shit bag data center and got used as the guinea pig to boot.  They have had the same lag issues. 

WB has decided to concentrate solely on mobile gaming.  Both DDO and LoTRO are late life cycle products at this point.


The interesting part is that LOTRO has unresolved issues, and yet the DDO move went ahead regardless.
That is very telling.  Turbine mgmt don't give a shit if DDO dies.
They should. When their mobile gaming plan fails in an Epic way, they will need the income from their MMO's, which will be dead or gone because the extensive lag will make even maintenance mode non-viable.

There is no way those creatively starved incompetents will succeed at mobile gaming reading what their internal culture is like.
  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #40 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 1:49am
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PersonaNonGrata wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 10:47pm:
The interesting part is that LOTRO has unresolved issues, and yet the DDO move went ahead regardless.
That is very telling.  Turbine mgmt don't give a shit if DDO dies.



They probably didn't have a choice, they probably had a cutoff deadline to meet imposed from upper in the corporate food chain ( read : WB ) for their datacenter move. Look at how fast they moved the websites and annexes after they moved the game server...


  

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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #41 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 4:13am
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Flav wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 11:09am:
fify

As far as I can tell the datacenter move wasn't Turbine's choice... WB wanted them at the same place as all their other online assets.
( cost reduction, as it gets lost in all the WB datacenter costs... instead of being shown in Turbines reporting )

The problem is that nobody at WB/Turbine took time to look at how to do it hte right way...
They moved AC and got a one month downtime, then moved LoTRO and have been fighting lag since then after days of downtime... DDO moved and has been fighting lag since then.

Obviously nobody has a clue where the source is...
Some Say it will be solve in June because it's hardware/software ( use the appropriate rumor du moment. )

Personally, I'm really starting to suspect that it's something deep in the game engine ( since it hits both LoTRO and DDO ) and that Turbine has no clue how to fix it because all the people that worked with said game engine have been laid off a long time ago.
So they are using the empyrical method : make a change here, see if it changes anything, if not, make another tiny change there, and see what happens...
Basically they are at the shoot and pray stage in the troubleshooting : shoot at a random location and pray it's the one that was causing the issue.


Sounds like it's time to turn on skynet to fix the issue!
« Last Edit: Apr 9th, 2016 at 4:14am by AtomicMew »  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #42 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 8:55am
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Flav wrote on Apr 9th, 2016 at 1:49am:
They probably didn't have a choice, they probably had a cutoff deadline to meet imposed from upper in the corporate food chain ( read : WB ) for their datacenter move. Look at how fast they moved the websites and annexes after they moved the game server...

What I don't get is why this would be a WB directive. Maybe WB offered a data center cheap, but why would they mandate it? Overlords don't usually micromanage to that degree unless they are integrating internal systems, which doesn't seem the case here. They've taken a pretty laissez-faire approach to the people in management positions, why focus on their choice of data center?

Turbine is a blip on the WB balance sheet, and a data center move isn't going to save them even 50k a year, that's hardly worth the time to look at it, nevermind dictate a specific change. Data centers are competitive, a price difference of 10% is huge, and I'm sure they are not paying more than half a million a year to host DDO.

And it doesn't look like a crappy cheap data center either, the last hop before Turbine is registered to Internap, which offers some pretty high performance solutions including bare metal (as well as cheaper ones, of course) http://www.internap.com/ if this were internally connected with a WB system, it wouldn't be limited to crappy hardware and insufficient resources from a technical limitation. Maybe that's all they contracted for, but WB isn't going to put any corporate system in a DC with only crap service available.

So if the move was because WB offered it for free (as you speculated in a post I didn't quote) I could see it, but then it would have much better resources available.

So how does this make sense as a WB problem?

I doubt we'll know anytime soon, it's going to take a disgruntled former employee coming to dish up some dirt, but this has the smell of Turdbin all over it, not WB.

  

Turdbin, keep changing the DDO rules, because McDonalds sold over 200 billion hamburgers by changing the recipe for their Special Sauce every couple of months to keep interest up.
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #43 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 9:58am
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Meursault wrote on Apr 9th, 2016 at 8:55am:
What I don't get is why this would be a WB directive. Maybe WB offered a data center cheap, but why would they mandate it? Overlords don't usually micromanage to that degree unless they are integrating internal systems, which doesn't seem the case here. They've taken a pretty laissez-faire approach to the people in management positions, why focus on their choice of data center?

Turbine is a blip on the WB balance sheet, and a data center move isn't going to save them even 50k a year, that's hardly worth the time to look at it, nevermind dictate a specific change. Data centers are competitive, a price difference of 10% is huge, and I'm sure they are not paying more than half a million a year to host DDO.

And it doesn't look like a crappy cheap data center either, the last hop before Turbine is registered to Internap, which offers some pretty high performance solutions including bare metal (as well as cheaper ones, of course) http://www.internap.com/ if this were internally connected with a WB system, it wouldn't be limited to crappy hardware and insufficient resources from a technical limitation. Maybe that's all they contracted for, but WB isn't going to put any corporate system in a DC with only crap service available.

So if the move was because WB offered it for free (as you speculated in a post I didn't quote) I could see it, but then it would have much better resources available.

So how does this make sense as a WB problem?

I doubt we'll know anytime soon, it's going to take a disgruntled former employee coming to dish up some dirt, but this has the smell of Turdbin all over it, not WB.



A few things you might be missing:

1)  Economy of Scale.  Let's say Turbine is paying 500k per year to be hosted where they were  (That'd be LotrO and DDO and AC, etc).  WB has a large presence at Internap.  They are paying, say, 2-3 million.  They have excess space.  Maybe a planned initiative didn't get off the ground or an expansion was cancelled.  Maybe they virtualized some shit and eliminated some racks.(Most companies I know are using less space than 3-4 years ago, not more.  So maybe Turbine can be moved into the existing DC space that WB has with little to no expansion of cost.  The cost savings in that scenario could be significant.

2)  The contract at the old DC was cancelled.  Once you do that, it's generally time to go as quickly as possible.  If you want to stay past your agreed exit date, the fees will be LARGE.  Possibly double or more what your previous monthly rate was.  Especially if the Data Center made plans and commitments for your space.  DC's don't like empty space.  If it was an in demand/near capacity facility, the other tenants may be chomping at the bit for some extra space.  Staying may be contractually impossible or probatively expensive.

3)  I don't think the issue is that Turbine went to a bad data center or "cheaped out" on bandwidth, etc.  The issues all seem to be that they moved the game onto new equipment and the new equipment didn't play well with the older app that is DDO.  I've seen this a bunch.  You have an app running strong for years.  It was developed 8-10 years ago using .Net 1.1 or 2.0 framework.  You try to move it to a newer Windows 2012r2 server running .Net 4.5, upgrade the SQL server from 2005 to 2012 or 2014 and the thing craps all over you.  And the Windows 10 clients running the Edge browser hate the fucker.  It may run but it is a dog.  And it shows it's age.  Also, the routing seems to be an issue.  There seems to be some sort of static/source routing/route optimization being done that is not dynamic, such that when the servers moved the routes needed some manual adjustment vs just letting the exterior routing protocols adapt.  Also, possibly there were utilities and functions that had some hard coded data center specific components that don't work properly in the new data center.  Over 10 years, there will have been a few short cuts taken and band aids and bubble gum used to fix problems that were always supposed to be redone properly at a later date but it never happened.

The above is wild speculation.  Just some thoughts about what could be happening.
« Last Edit: Apr 9th, 2016 at 9:58am by Asheras »  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #44 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 10:56am
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Asheras wrote on Apr 8th, 2016 at 9:34am:
Lol.  You think Lotro is in any better shape than DDO.  That's clueless commenting there.  They are bleeding clients and revenue worse than DDO.  They are in the same shit bag data center and got used as the guinea pig to boot.  They have had the same lag issues. 

WB has decided to concentrate solely on mobile gaming.  Both DDO and LoTRO are late life cycle products at this point.


If LoTRO is bleeding clients and losing revenue more than DDO, then Turbine would have closed long ago.  I will agree that all Turbine games are losing subscribers, players, and revenue but I am willing to wager there are way more players in LoTRO than there are in DDO.

How many Dungeons and Dragons movies have there been?  One.  If it would have been any good and successful there would have been at least three.  Cost $45,000,000 made $34,000,000 at the box office.

How many LoTRO movies have there been?  Six.  Three LoTRO movies and three Hobbit movies.  All of them blockbusters.  Cost $281,000,000 box office $3,000,000,000.

Mention Dungeons and Dragons to a Warner Bros Executive, you get a blank stare and a lot of ZEROES.

Mention Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to a Warner Bros Executive, you get drooling, tails wagging, and $$$$$$$$$$.

Go here

http://www.warnerbros.com/studio/divisions/home-entertainment/warner-bros-intera...

you see mention of Lego the Hobbit and Middle Earth:  the Shadow of Mordor.  I don't see any mention whatsoever of D&D.

The Datacenter move was a complete cost cutting measure.  Infinite Stupidity has crushed Turbine's cred with Warner Bros.

The employees at Turbine will try to keep the ship afloat, and what product are you going to bank it on?  LoTRO or DDO?

The answer is LoTRO.

No, I don't think LoTRO is in any better shape than DDO, but it does have more players.  Their server consolidation and  the datacenter move and all of its problems show that LoTRO is in the same boat.  They just have more bailers and rowers is all.

With LoTRO you can milk the micro-transactions for a little longer so Turbine can continue to give Free bagel Fridays.
« Last Edit: Apr 9th, 2016 at 11:02am by notajedi »  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #45 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 11:36am
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Asheras wrote on Apr 9th, 2016 at 9:58am:
A few things you might be missing:

1)  Economy of Scale.  Let's say Turbine is paying 500k per year to be hosted where they were  (That'd be LotrO and DDO and AC, etc).  WB has a large presence at Internap.  They are paying, say, 2-3 million.  They have excess space.  Maybe a planned initiative didn't get off the ground or an expansion was cancelled.  Maybe they virtualized some shit and eliminated some racks.(Most companies I know are using less space than 3-4 years ago, not more.  So maybe Turbine can be moved into the existing DC space that WB has with little to no expansion of cost.  The cost savings in that scenario could be significant.

2)  The contract at the old DC was cancelled.  Once you do that, it's generally time to go as quickly as possible.  If you want to stay past your agreed exit date, the fees will be LARGE.  Possibly double or more what your previous monthly rate was.  Especially if the Data Center made plans and commitments for your space.  DC's don't like empty space.  If it was an in demand/near capacity facility, the other tenants may be chomping at the bit for some extra space.  Staying may be contractually impossible or probatively expensive.

3)  I don't think the issue is that Turbine went to a bad data center or "cheaped out" on bandwidth, etc.  The issues all seem to be that they moved the game onto new equipment and the new equipment didn't play well with the older app that is DDO.  I've seen this a bunch.  You have an app running strong for years.  It was developed 8-10 years ago using .Net 1.1 or 2.0 framework.  You try to move it to a newer Windows 2012r2 server running .Net 4.5, upgrade the SQL server from 2005 to 2012 or 2014 and the thing craps all over you.  And the Windows 10 clients running the Edge browser hate the fucker.  It may run but it is a dog.  And it shows it's age.  Also, the routing seems to be an issue.  There seems to be some sort of static/source routing/route optimization being done that is not dynamic, such that when the servers moved the routes needed some manual adjustment vs just letting the exterior routing protocols adapt.  Also, possibly there were utilities and functions that had some hard coded data center specific components that don't work properly in the new data center.  Over 10 years, there will have been a few short cuts taken and band aids and bubble gum used to fix problems that were always supposed to be redone properly at a later date but it never happened.

The above is wild speculation.  Just some thoughts about what could be happening.

OK, I agree with all of that, and I touched on some of it already, what I don't get is how everybody is saying Big Bad WB over this. So WB offered them space free or cheap, totally reasonable, but the decision to take it, and how much of it to consider the minimum viable offering, was the call of Turbine not WB.

And as for #3, when you virtualize a server you usually run the same OS, framework, etc. as the old one, you don't have a Win7->10 or .NET 3.5-> 4.5 issues. You can certainly choose to make a fresh start on a more modern OS which would bring up the issues you mention, but I find the likelihood of WB dictating that level of detail even smaller than the likelihood of WB dictating the data center move. So again, if that's how it went down, the problem is not WB, it's Turbine.

I guess we've got the steaming pile on our doorstep and it doesn't really matter which kid did it, but I hate to see Turbine squirm out of responsibility for their crappy decisions yet again  Undecided
  

Turdbin, keep changing the DDO rules, because McDonalds sold over 200 billion hamburgers by changing the recipe for their Special Sauce every couple of months to keep interest up.
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #46 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 1:18pm
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Meursault wrote on Apr 9th, 2016 at 8:55am:
What I don't get is why this would be a WB directive. Maybe WB offered a data center cheap, but why would they mandate it? Overlords don't usually micromanage to that degree unless they are integrating internal systems, which doesn't seem the case here. They've taken a pretty laissez-faire approach to the people in management positions, why focus on their choice of data center?


Consolidation, economy of scale... all the eggs in the same basket makes for a whole bunch of economies.

Meursault wrote on Apr 9th, 2016 at 8:55am:
And it doesn't look like a crappy cheap data center either, the last hop before Turbine is registered to Internap, which offers some pretty high performance solutions including bare metal (as well as cheaper ones, of course) http://www.internap.com/ if this were internally connected with a WB system, it wouldn't be limited to crappy hardware and insufficient resources from a technical limitation. Maybe that's all they contracted for, but WB isn't going to put any corporate system in a DC with only crap service available.


Turbine was using a PNAP - aka internap - facility in Boston.
They seem to be using a NJ Qwest facility ( at least from my point of view ) now. 

Asheras wrote on Apr 9th, 2016 at 9:58am:
A few things you might be missing:

1)  Economy of Scale. 

3)  I don't think the issue is that Turbine went to a bad data center or "cheaped out" on bandwidth, etc.  The issues all seem to be that they moved the game onto new equipment and the new equipment didn't play well with the older app that is DDO.  I've seen this a bunch.  You have an app running strong for years.  It was developed 8-10 years ago using .Net 1.1 or 2.0 framework.  You try to move it to a newer Windows 2012r2 server running .Net 4.5, upgrade the SQL server from 2005 to 2012 or 2014 and the thing craps all over you.


1) that's the most obvious reason to effect a datacenter move : aggregate several smaller datacenter occupancy into a bigger one - that is smaller than the sum of all the old occupancy added -

3) That's what I think is happening, with a month behind us we ( the players ) can tell when lag spikes will occur before it occurs most of the time.
   They have managed to reduce a lot the constant low level lag that generated constant rubberbanding everywhere - at least from my point of view - but they still need to nail the scripts in the code that generate the lag spikes... some are obvious ( blades, guild renown, ... ) other might prove more difficult.


  

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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #47 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 1:34pm
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Digimonk wrote on Apr 7th, 2016 at 1:56pm:
Looks like they're starting to realize how much of a hole they dug for themselves with the datacenter move and their terrible response to the ensuing lag.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/474271-DDO-Bonus-Days!#post5812011



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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #48 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 1:57pm
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notajedi wrote on Apr 9th, 2016 at 10:56am:
If LoTRO is bleeding clients and losing revenue more than DDO, then Turbine would have closed long ago.  I will agree that all Turbine games are losing subscribers, players, and revenue but I am willing to wager there are way more players in LoTRO than there are in DDO.

How many Dungeons and Dragons movies have there been?  One.  If it would have been any good and successful there would have been at least three.  Cost $45,000,000 made $34,000,000 at the box office.

How many LoTRO movies have there been?  Six.  Three LoTRO movies and three Hobbit movies.  All of them blockbusters.  Cost $281,000,000 box office $3,000,000,000.

Mention Dungeons and Dragons to a Warner Bros Executive, you get a blank stare and a lot of ZEROES.

Mention Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to a Warner Bros Executive, you get drooling, tails wagging, and $$$$$$$$$$.

Go here

http://www.warnerbros.com/studio/divisions/home-entertainment/warner-bros-intera...

you see mention of Lego the Hobbit and Middle Earth:  the Shadow of Mordor.  I don't see any mention whatsoever of D&D.

The Datacenter move was a complete cost cutting measure.  Infinite Stupidity has crushed Turbine's cred with Warner Bros.

The employees at Turbine will try to keep the ship afloat, and what product are you going to bank it on?  LoTRO or DDO?

The answer is LoTRO.

No, I don't think LoTRO is in any better shape than DDO, but it does have more players.  Their server consolidation and  the datacenter move and all of its problems show that LoTRO is in the same boat.  They just have more bailers and rowers is all.

With LoTRO you can milk the micro-transactions for a little longer so Turbine can continue to give Free bagel Fridays.


LotRO had 10 times as many players as DDO and has been losing more than DDO, according to most industry measures.  But probably still has more than DDO by a good number.  I doubt they still have 10 times.  Well, maybe they do now that the lag has killed DDO's player base. 

I agree that the LotR IP has been way more valuable to WB over the last 15 years than D&D.

I will say that I have no idea if either product is profitable today.  We don't have enough information to make any kind of rational guess at that.  I am sure they are less profitable now than they were 3 months ago.  And 3 months ago they were less profitable than they were 2 years ago, but whether they are approaching break even or dipping into the red, I couldn't say.  I don't know their revenue, I don't know their expenses.  So besides knowing that the trend is downward, the entire thing is just wild-assed speculation. 

  
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Re: It Must Be Getting Bad
Reply #49 - Apr 9th, 2016 at 2:02pm
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Flav wrote on Apr 9th, 2016 at 1:18pm:
Turbine was using a PNAP - aka internap - facility in Boston.
They seem to be using a NJ Qwest facility ( at least from my point of view ) now. 

Interesting, would you mind showing me the last few lines of your traceroute and explaining how you're getting Quest from it? I'm seeing
Code
Select All
10  207.88.14.162.ptr.us.xo.net (207.88.14.162)  48.116 ms  53.413 ms  54.832 ms
11  207.88.14.186.ptr.us.xo.net (207.88.14.186)  55.468 ms  58.141 ms  61.545 ms
12  205.197.230.6 (205.197.230.6)  23.541 ms  26.270 ms  31.128 ms
13  border1.pc1-bbnet1.nyj001.pnap.net (216.52.95.9)  23.484 ms border1.pc2-bbnet2.nyj001.pnap.net (216.52.95.73)  26.263 ms  29.349 ms
14  turbine-14.border1.nyj001.pnap.net (70.42.39.234)  33.037 ms  36.248 ms  40.144 ms
 


And a whois on hop 13, the last before Turbine, showed the registrant as "Internap Network Services Corporation".

So what am I doing wrong?
  

Turdbin, keep changing the DDO rules, because McDonalds sold over 200 billion hamburgers by changing the recipe for their Special Sauce every couple of months to keep interest up.
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