Star Wars Galaxies Technical Difficulties

Thanks to several readers for pointing to a SWGalaxies.net post summarizing the multiple technical difficulties on both registration and game servers for the PC MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, which launched within the last few hours. The registration servers were down or extremely slow through the afternoon of the 26th, and official word was "..a combination of hardware failures and some other unforeseen technical problems resulted in a severe load on the registration servers." These issues were resolved later on the 26th, and many were able to register their characters, but unfortunately all of the game servers are currently (11.30PM PST) down, as Sony "..found a serious problem with our database that is being worked on as we speak." We'd recommend watching the official site for more information as it happens..

Comments

Re:Load Testing

[Komarosu]

Load testing couldnt really be tested on the beta as they didnt have a "open beta"...they went to the closed 30,000 people beta (beta 3) straight to live...i dont think it was really prepaired for the onslaught it recivied.

Re:Doesn't surpise me as a PlanetSide user

[@madeus]

Yeah you not alone with the dropship tutorial thing, it's been broken for everybody for weeks and they don't seem to care, the don't even include it in 'known bugs' (even thought it is one).

Most users end up rebooting when they get to that screen because they don't know you can press 'ESC' to bring up a menu (seems obvious, but it's not when your in game, as you'd never expect the turorial of all things to be completly busted.

An enterpising users discoverd you can edit one of the data files with a HEX editor to get round it, but that's hardly a good thing :(

It is a good game though, when it's working :)

The developers do seem to have some good ideas about how make it longer lasting and introduce a little more depth, which is a good thing.

I hope they are allowed to carry out their plans and that SOE don't get too complacent with it.

It's a very fun game (definately CFT/CS for a new generation). I hear a *lot* of CS players moving over to it, simply because of the bigger scope. I hope they stay around despite the monthly fee though (I could see a lot of users not wanting to cough up after being able to play games like CS for free).

One of our users

[mrpuffypants]

At my university where I work at the computer help desk I got a call yesterday from a guy that lived on campus for the summer, bought SWG and couldn't connect to the servers.

SWG uses TCP/UDP 1023, which isn't blocked at all on the routes out of the university, but it also requires "bi-directional ICMP", which is blocked leaving the university so that DDoS attacks can be averted with simple ping on the whole campus.

The poor guy couldn't connect with his beand new game and seemed a little angry, but we're not unblocking ICMP just so that he can use his computer for 12 hours at a time killing wamprats.

My question is: why the hell would they need bi-directional ICMP?

Re:Yikes

[falchion16]

The first evening went about as well as the first afternoon. It went nowhere. I picked up the game at about 10:15 am EST and proceeded home to wait for the servers to go live at 11. The sub servers were slammed and their little built in browser applet was a P.O.S. The forums were filled with posts to put the link in a regular browser so that you could go back and refresh but that didn't help other than to let you see two or three different screens rather than the same error screen over and over. Then everyone kept screaming Mozilla. Some folks had better luck with it but they were few and far between. Fast forward 9 hrs, 50 games of Counter-Strike, 2 hrs of Diablo II and 5 chapters in the new Harry Potter book and I finally was able to give them my credit card number, hooray :-(! I managed to get in two 20 minute sessions that basically consisted of me running around a huge city emoting "Where the hell do I go now?" Both of these sessions were on different servers and both were cut short due to disconnects. They say that they're going to give us yesterday free and not count it on our subscription. Should they even need to say this? I think not! The database problem that is causing the problems now might not have been forseen, but the subscription issue is just retarded. If I'm supposed to get a free month for buying the game, why can't I just use that? If I haven't forked over some loot for a subscription by the end of the 30 days, lock the damn acct! Either that or implement a presubscription page a month before the game comes out to eliminate the initial problem. Anyway, 24 hrs into the SWG experience and I have to say I'm having a lot more fun with C-S and D2.

Re:Doesn't surpise me as a PlanetSide user

[@madeus]

They delete eloquent posts with listed known issues that they have refused to acknowledge, or almost anything that criticizes support.

For example: They are refusing to support systems which match the specifications required.

I've posted on this topic and seen the entire thread deleted. Point out they are not allowed to say one thing on the box then refuse to support it unless they are willing to offer a refund. *Poof* threads gone, *TWICE*.

I asked them to clarify, if the box was now considered incorrect (and would they be changing it)? But they don't like to hear that kind of talk. They want users, and money.

They can't be bothered to support nVidia sound cards now, or a whole range of graphics cards, or even the latest drivers for the graphics cards they do claim to 'support'.

And the support you get is laughable - "Oh yeah, it crashes a lot, it's an issue." (!). I spend 3 days working on it and find out that over 60% of users posts on the forums are related to the SAME ISSUE that is distinctly fixable. It took me 3 days to work it out, that they were not able to work it out just shows them up to be incompetent.

I spoke to one very polite Technical Support representative who was helpful, but could have saved me a lot of time if they'd volunteered information they MUST have been aware of (and the even hinted at, but didn't expand on), the other one was a complete monkey who sounded like he was in the middle of something else and just really annoyed I called (he was clearly having a conversation with someone else).

I also have an X-Box - XBox Live support is, in comparison, the *best* support I've ever had. They are really good, freephone number and didn't mind calling me back from the US after they had looked into the problem.

But then, IMO, Sony have *never* been good at support, for any of their products (domestic electronics, laptops/desktops, or games consoles).

SWG is just another shambles in the same line as PS and EQ which had a very similar set of issues and in every case the vast majority of users (not just the pertetually unhappy flakes) said 'this system is nowhere near ready to release' but they did it anyway (even at the cost of subscribers who tired with the never ending bugs very quickly).

Re:Why buy on the first day?

[TheAwfulTruth]

Except that with all the current imbalances etc in the game, getting in on the first day means you can take maximum advantage of leveling yourself up before anyone else. It generally becomes progressively harder and harder to attain high levels in these kinds of games the longer they are on line as they properly balance out the rarities of items or leveling metrics.

I would bet that a lot of the more "experienced" type gamers would all be trying to get in early to take advantage of this common game launch trait.