Your complaint is absolutely legitimate. DR received theirs on 8/15

She did respond on the SimuCon boards yesterday: http://forums.play.net/forums/SimuCon/SimuCon%20'17/General%20Discussions/view/234

>Hey guys,

>Sorry for the lack of response so far. We had a major snafu with the scripted item we had planned, and I'm working on getting a replacement. Hopefully I can get this turned around in the next week. I'm really very sorry about the delay. :(

>--Zythica

Just copying this update here for those that don't read the other Simucon folder:


<Hey everyone, we're sorry about the delay in this goodie bag. Some staffing changes happened during the development of the Goodie Bag that has delayed the distribution of the items.

The memento item is being finalized and then everything will be ready. Due to the delay, we'll also be adding an additional item to the Goodie Bag.

In previous years, a GameMaster usually tries to track everyone down in game, but moving forward, we're going to use another system that we already use for global item distribution to hopefully speed this up.

Again, sorry for the delay.>

I'm curious why ANY number of users now would create as much lag than there was in the 90s, running on modern hardware. Is it possible that all the scripted items and weighted/padded/etc. items that folks are using now are doing hundreds of division calculations on the fly each time they are swung, or swung at? Or just a router issue? I don't particularly mind the lag, but I find this interesting.

maybe that group should break up into smaller groups and go on different nights for the sake of everyone else. I applaud their success, but it should not come at the cost of everyone else's enjoyment.

XPost from Elanthian Forums:

Hand of the Arkati farms Reim every Wednesday night. "Farming" Reim means that unlike a normal Reim progression, we're just hanging out in the plaza for 2 hours from 8:30 to 10:30 PM. Being in the first area allows people the ability to invest in simucoin Reim entries, and re-orb their progress. If you burn a simucoin entry while in the midst of a run, it will reset your scrip progress. On a typical farming night, most individuals can reorb up to 10 times, for 10k scrip. Since many of us are going for Ethereal armor, Adding ethereal armor on armor and fully unlocking it requires 2,280,000 scrip. Doing this once a week boosts weekly gains from 7k scrip up to 18k scrip. Meaning we can complete in 2.4 years instead of 6.2 years.

There are proportionate spawns to the participants in Reim. Having more people means more per wave, means more script per wave, means faster scrip gain per person, means more silvers (but more splits... kind of nets out). We are not spam-attacking. With >25 people, each person can usually only attack once per wave for the tag, credit, etc. We really just want scrip as fast as possible. The timetables are intense, and we want our shiney armor! People come and go, burn their Long Term boosts, their instant absorbers, refill favor, gather their necro energy, etc. It's our little service night... except... in Reim, killing creatures.

It's worth pointing out that our recent Wednesday farming nights are far from the maximum quantity of people we've had in Reim with us. We've reached up to 32 people running Reim, without falter, without lag. I have detailed information about how many people have run any event with HoA since our first run on 7/19/2016, and over 280 events since then. We have been running Wednesday farm nights officially on the calendar since 5/20/2017. It's a great display that combat, and the systems that use to support Gemstone are becoming more complex as times go on. While it's obvious when we see lag with >700 people when we used to see lag with only >2500 people, it's because every attack is now not just evaluating a weapon for enchant, weighting, flares, but also now confirming your enhanced stat, looking for a variety of script flares, evaluating ensorcelling potential, potentially checking both weightings, etc, etc. Everything across Gemstone has gotten infinitely more complex since yesteryears. Complex for the better. But realistically, outside of early Dreavenings, there really wasn't an organization such as this to really stress the servers. So, every <.1% processing speed loss over the last 20 years may have added up! All that said, I admit this is mostly speculation on anecdotal observation.

We are doing our best to attempt the various built-in mechanisms for lag reduction. Wyrom stated in Discord that the lag was predominantly generated by third-party messaging. That doesn't mean Lich, that's more about Whirlin casts 518, and then the other 27 people get a bunch of scroll with his 99999 AS attacks against 52 different critters. That transmission to the 27 other people was more strain than the calculation/execution of the attack. To help remediate this, we tested out the combatbrief flag yesterday, and observed a decrease in the quantity of XML that was being transmitted to our clients. That being said, the xml packets still contained critical flavor text, which while was not prompted on the UI, was incredibly prevalent in the logs being sent by the simu Servers. Unfortunately, combatbrief alone (for at least a dozen of the 28 people) was insufficient to curb the lag. We discussed Lost Ranger's ;briefcombat script, but it's really a post-transmission filtering process, and would not reduce the Simu Server load.

Changing the date does not address any of these underlying concerns. There is a structural concern with how groups of this size are managed. We are looking to further expand the HoA roster, and Wyrom has stated that end-game content is on the horizon, probably even before Savants (yes, that was a joke). Changing the date isn't kicking the can down the road, it's moving a mattress from the middle lane of the highway to a different lane of the highway rather than having it removed. It's still going to cause an issue until the mattress is removed. While also impacting every single one of our members and guests that have scheduled Wednesday nights with us to gather their Favor, their Necro-Energy, burn their Long Term boosts, their Instant-clearers, their Reim Orbs. We have a roster of 78 with probably about 2 dozen rotating guests to consider. We are willing to work with the GMs on stop gaps, and sit down with further discussions about things we'd like to see from capped hunting, etc... but swapping the dates does not address anything that caused it to be a problem in the first place.

Don't misunderstand, we want this lag gone too. I know of at least 3 people that would join our ranks if our events were more feasible to execute. But with the lag introduced, they were having more difficulty hitting the rares, and progressing through Reim, and they didn't feel welcome because of their 286 computer with their 14.4 modem not being able to keep up.

Wyrom stepped in last night on Discord and said that he will be making it a priority to speak with Rester and some on-site people regarding options. We welcome anything short term such as capping out spawns in Reim based on X people, but would request script per kill increased proportionately as to not directly/exclusively nerf us. This is likely easier/faster to do than an overhaul of the combatbrief command. And once that overhaul does go live, I will work with our members to ensure that they are running the commands to reduce system utilization and streamline the game for all players. We just need time to get there.

Regarding specific comments here:

JGalt, mentioned above already.

Kandor, I agree

Khariz: Simultaneous execution of commands is not the culprit of the lag, as confirmed by Wyrom in Discord Last night. Our scripts have absolutely NOTHING to do with the lag; the attacks are resolved server side no problem, in rapid succession, the problem comes populating the attack to the Non-attacking viewers in the group, and sending that information their way. The scripts that we run actually REDUCE additional actions being taken per wave and help mitigate lag concerns in that regard. XML corruption is a Lich byproduct associated with a buffer overload depending on the number of objects in a room. This was exacerbated by the introduction of 709. Yes, we script XML corruption fixes through LNET, which have 0 system implication on the Simutronics side. There's also assumptions in simultaneously executed commands which rely on personal systems not only receiving, but also interpreting, and responding to XML packets in the same speed, and responding at the same time, which is an erroneous assumption. I'm sorry, your complaint sounds like someone with limited knowledge of the mechanics of what we run, how we run it, and downplays the technical expertise of the individuals that we have working on supporting these things for us.

Allereli: It defeats the purpose, as outlined above. More people, more tags per time, more rewards, more XP, more fame, more favor, more everything. Breaking the group into smaller groups not only fragments our participation, could causes clicks for people that want to be in close proximity to other members, forks any pre-made reorbing scripts already set to return to the plaza (off the beaten path, per request by Retser), introduces an additional unsafe rooms in the Reim area for soloers, etc. It's overall a lose-lose-lose, it defeats the purpose of a single, cohesive MHO, it reduces individual benefits, and potentially introduces more drama. Additionally, it does not address any underlying system concern that are causing the problems in the first place.

This further solidifies my concerns with spending anything beyond my monthly subscription moving forward if the framework of the game is not being actively developed and maintained to be able to handle the increase in players and or features.

Wyrom says, "Ordim is the reason savants won't be coded as well."

/Tongue in cheek

that idea will totally ruin my immersion durring Reim runs.

That's what I was stating as well in Discord as well. Would be nice to know if it landed or missed though. This would also be beneficial during big invasion storylines to cut down on the lag that can happen there as well.

Bobby swings at an orc, hit!
He also swings at a goblin, miss. (same for evaded, blocked, etc, miss for all of them)
He also swings at a kobold, hit!

Johnny casts at a wraith, success!
He also casts at a lich, warded!


The above would be helpful for bandits, Reim, etc for when you need to know everyone landed on something.

That should work. Or something similar.

>Allereli: It defeats the purpose, as outlined above. More people, more tags per time, more rewards, more XP, more fame, more favor, more everything. Breaking the group into smaller groups not only fragments our participation, could causes clicks for people that want to be in close proximity to other members, forks any pre-made reorbing scripts already set to return to the plaza (off the beaten path, per request by Retser), introduces an additional unsafe rooms in the Reim area for soloers, etc. It's overall a lose-lose-lose, it defeats the purpose of a single, cohesive MHO, it reduces individual benefits, and potentially introduces more drama. Additionally, it does not address any underlying system concern that are causing the problems in the first place.

you're being selfish. Until the hardware is updated on the Simu side, you should keep in mind that GS is more than your group, and if your group is causing problems for everyone, then you should do whatever it takes to not cause problems for everyone.

When Darkstone castle was closed and we built new critters for it (roa'ter, harbingers, kiramon, banshee, MTKs, etc.) one of the things I designed was a trap in the magic system to "do really bad things on occasion" to magic spells, up to and including casting a different spell than was cast, fizzling, damaging the caster, spell failures, etc.

Upon testing, I had the system working great, and we were ready to release. We did our little RP event to open the area (you guys killed me as Estrion... way to fast... RIP Estrion), and let the masses in. They fanned out into the area, starting attacking the critters there (including casting spells at them)...

The game slowed... and slowed.. and... CRASH.
We came back up, the game slowed... and slowed... and... CRASH.

A couple of times later, Greg says to me, "Blake, your magic system in Claedesbrim is killing the game...". "What?? But we tested this!"

It turns out, I was pushing just enough memory onto the stack that we were running out of resources ONLY when enough players were trying to cast spells at the same time within the Darkstone area.

I ended up having to close it for 2 or so weeks, while I totally re-built the system a different way in order to reduce stress on core memory.

It's an example of a MASSIVE change in a short period of time being affected by # of users. This situation with Reim however is an example of many SMALLER changes over a longer period of time, but the end result is very similar. The combination of those changes is likely causing some resource constraint that didn't exist before, be it message bandwidth, CPU, Memory, etc. etc. (there are many many things that could be at play here).

That said, there are two things I think will or SHOULD happen:

1 - I am confident the team will find and fix the issue. There are many more tools available to them to find the source of the problem than I had.
2 - I do not think the Reim group should change their timing, # of people in the area, Plans, or anything having to do with their weekly event. End game content and large player organizations are too important for GemStone's continued growth and viability.

#1 will take care of #2.

I know it sucks for everyone else, but what I do is just plan on doing non-lethal related things on Wednesday nights. The fact that we had a lot of raffles going on was great, but maybe we could have done some stuff for basic accounts too that did not involve requiring them to engage in combat as well. Typical Wednesday nights for me include locker cleanup, artisan stuff, working on alts, or whatever. At the end of the day it's really only a 2 hour window out of a much longer week.

The Hand of the Arkati doesn't want to lag out other people. Heck, we hate the lag ourselves. However, we've been running Reim every night at 8:30, with generally 10-20 people, for over a year. The lag spike is a recent issue and will ideally be fixed on the back end shortly; Wyrom and Retser and such are already on it. A MassCombat flag, or something that works like the Room window, which auto-disables with X number of people in the room, would be great. We could indeed move farming to a different night (though it breaks a schedule people are used to now), but we run a Reim group every night at 8:30 (come join us; it's open to anyone 90+!), so there would be minimal impact to doing it on a different night.

Accusing us of being selfish for playing the game the way it was designed because we're slowing down your alchemy script is just rude.

~ Nuadjha, the Briar Fox

You inhale deeply upon your pipe, puckering your lips as you send out three rings of smoke before you, then puff out a small vine of smoke that darts right through all three which causes them to disperse in a hazy shroud!

>Accusing us of being selfish for playing the game the way it was designed because we're slowing down your alchemy script is just rude.

I've completed all my guild work, I help others during guild night. I don't think the game was designed for group hunting to mean regular groups of 30+ double and triple capped characters with all the toys and all the spells standing in one room for two hours.

If everyone not coming with HOA to Reim could not play on Wednesdays between 830 and 1030pm est this would go a long way to help us reduce the lag we get as well while in there. Thanks for stepping up and showing us how not to be selfish in advance.

how about instituting a group number max of what the game can take in terms of these farming activities until hardware issues can be resolved?

These lag issues crop up with every event that has too many people in one room. Even some raffles have caused it, though for shorter periods of time. We have needed a server side solution for a while now, let's hope we get one soon.


Speaking in Faendryl, Jahosk says, "You will now be known as Blade Durakar, the Palestra."

>Could we also cap how many guild ranks you can earn durring guild night so people dont stay logged in and make more lag?

since people don't typically sit in a room with 30 other people running scripts and casting AoE spells during guild night, the lag is not caused by that. It has been identified to be mainly caused by one group.

>You've got a week! <whipcrack!>

actually they have until Sunday evening, when the storyline for EG starts. We all know how fun the lag for that is.

I thought the 64 bit upgrade was supposed to solve this, way back when.

I've been wondering what was causing me lag in the evenings lately. It's been so bad at times I've had to either find something to do other then hunt in the short windows I've been able to be on or just not play.

I wasn't going to post here cause NIR is looking for a solution (kudos for that), but then I got to some comments from the group that's apparently responsible for the lag that they should truly be ashamed of. Sure, you're playing as it was ment to, but you're also knowingly causing others to have a difficult time enjoying a game that they too are paying for during peek hours. Whether or not that's griefing, it's definitely inconsiderate.

The least you all could do is put your massive group hunts on hold or shorten their duration until Wyrom et al find a solution.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

I have to second Kerls comment. Not saying longterm change your habits but short term until a fix is in change of habits that benefit all wouldnt hurt. I get the want to max out each run bjt missing a week or two for the good of the whole during prime time isnt asking for much.