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Vendetta Online server-testing this weekend.
We are planning some downtime for Saturday 4/6/13 (tomorrow) between 10AM and Noon central time. During this time we're going to experimentally transition the entire game from our own in-house server cluster (where we own all the hardware, located in a datacenter near our office) to a cloud-based server implementation, and run it there overnight, before bringing the game back to our own server hardware on Sunday evening.
We've had this cloud-based server option for awhile now, just in case we ran into an influx of people that was far greater than our own server-cluster's computational capacity (and we have a lot more in-house capacity than we need or currently use, but there's always the possibility of a really huge number of people in a short period of time). We want to test it in production, in advance of the iPad launch, to make sure all our options are in place and well documented in advance of a new platform rollout.
Since we're launching on iPad alone for starters (eliminating hundreds of millions of iPhone users), and we won't be a free download ($0.99 paid), we don't expect to need the secondary server option, but it's still best to do a little more intensive testing in advance.
As a result, there could be some sporadic downtime or issues over the weekend, depending on how smoothly this process goes. Yes, we may potentially break the game in advance, to keep it from breaking later ;). But in all honesty that is not expected, and if we run into serious problems we can't address, we'll revert to our "in-house" server cluster as quickly as we can.
Once the game is back up and running.. Please Report Issues!
As soon as you're 100% sure the game is back up, please report any game issues you see on the Bugs Forum (ie, anything out of the ordinary, not pre-existing issues). All our in-house testing has been solid, but there's always the possibility that something "different" about these virtualized cloud servers could introduce a problem that we haven't seen ourselves, or didn't anticipate. That's.. what this real-world testing is for. Our game is obviously incredibly complicated and our dev team is incredibly small, so this is where your active feedback is a huge help.
Thanks everyone!
We've had this cloud-based server option for awhile now, just in case we ran into an influx of people that was far greater than our own server-cluster's computational capacity (and we have a lot more in-house capacity than we need or currently use, but there's always the possibility of a really huge number of people in a short period of time). We want to test it in production, in advance of the iPad launch, to make sure all our options are in place and well documented in advance of a new platform rollout.
Since we're launching on iPad alone for starters (eliminating hundreds of millions of iPhone users), and we won't be a free download ($0.99 paid), we don't expect to need the secondary server option, but it's still best to do a little more intensive testing in advance.
As a result, there could be some sporadic downtime or issues over the weekend, depending on how smoothly this process goes. Yes, we may potentially break the game in advance, to keep it from breaking later ;). But in all honesty that is not expected, and if we run into serious problems we can't address, we'll revert to our "in-house" server cluster as quickly as we can.
Once the game is back up and running.. Please Report Issues!
As soon as you're 100% sure the game is back up, please report any game issues you see on the Bugs Forum (ie, anything out of the ordinary, not pre-existing issues). All our in-house testing has been solid, but there's always the possibility that something "different" about these virtualized cloud servers could introduce a problem that we haven't seen ourselves, or didn't anticipate. That's.. what this real-world testing is for. Our game is obviously incredibly complicated and our dev team is incredibly small, so this is where your active feedback is a huge help.
Thanks everyone!
Hope it goes over smoothly.
Good LUCK to cloudify! Cheers, 21st century's latest BUZZword reaches VO!
Even more good luck to iPad launch!! And my votes of fast and complete healing for Incarnate!
Even more good luck to iPad launch!! And my votes of fast and complete healing for Incarnate!
Ping roughly doubled from an average of 52ms to 108ms. I'm in the DC area, currently using DSL (the station is across the street - I couldn't resist).
While I condone going to a cloud based server solution (as it will improve the performance for those in Australia and New Zealand for example), I should hope it's not done at the expense of where most are.
While I condone going to a cloud based server solution (as it will improve the performance for those in Australia and New Zealand for example), I should hope it's not done at the expense of where most are.
We are now switched over to the cloud-based server.
Again, please post any bugs/problems to the Bugs forum.
Again, please post any bugs/problems to the Bugs forum.
It's a west coast server, so it will definitely hurt those across the pond. My ping dropped by half.
Note for those that don't know, or new players reading these forums: missions are currently broken.
Note for those that don't know, or new players reading these forums: missions are currently broken.
Note for those that don't know, or new players reading these forums: missions are currently broken.
Ray fixed missions in "running" sectors an hour or so ago. So most newbie cases should be fine. We are still sorting out mission issues in more rapidly transient sectors.
It's a west coast server, so it will definitely hurt those across the pond. My ping dropped by half.
This is just a temporary testbed. We can spawn instances anywhere, but there are cost differences, and Oregon happened to be the least expensive for this weekend-only test. So, don't read too much into what pings would or would-not be like from this test.
Also, the cloud server is currently an emergency fallback for us, only, since it costs us more than using our own hardware that we already own. But it's a good option to have if a really large number of people show up in a short period of time.
Ray fixed missions in "running" sectors an hour or so ago. So most newbie cases should be fine. We are still sorting out mission issues in more rapidly transient sectors.
It's a west coast server, so it will definitely hurt those across the pond. My ping dropped by half.
This is just a temporary testbed. We can spawn instances anywhere, but there are cost differences, and Oregon happened to be the least expensive for this weekend-only test. So, don't read too much into what pings would or would-not be like from this test.
Also, the cloud server is currently an emergency fallback for us, only, since it costs us more than using our own hardware that we already own. But it's a good option to have if a really large number of people show up in a short period of time.
We can spawn instances anywhere, but there are cost differences, and Oregon happened to be the least expensive for this weekend-only test. So, don't read too much into what pings would or would-not be like from this test.
Ah, that's good to know.
Ah, that's good to know.
And just in case anyone was waiting for it: we fixed the missions properly not long after Incarnate's post.
And we're back up at our colo. Thanks for enduring the tests everyone!
it was torture and unplayable
refunds plz
refunds plz