Yes, there are big problems with the SWG servers. (And yes, this is an OT post, suitable for moving to the OT forum in a bit...:)

First, a link to a review, which puts SWG as below Force Commander as the bottom of the SW computer gaming barrel.

content.guru3d.com/articl...iews&id=49 (http://content.guru3d.com/article.php?cat=gamereviews&id=49)

Second, some recent statements re server problems:

<em>LAUNCH DAY TROUBLES

Just for everyone's information, due to the issues that Star Wars Galaxies has been experiencing, the launch day (Thursday), during most of which the game has been unplayable, will not count against people. That means that everyone's accounts will be as if they activated them today (Friday) instead of yesterday.
Submitted by LiquidAvatar, 04:08


WELL, IT'S BEEN A ROUGH DAY

It has been a rough day for everyone, both players and devs. There is currently a problem with the central Oracle databases that prevents the servers from coming up. Here is the official announcement:

We apologize for the inconvienence, but we have found a serious problem with our database that is being worked on as we speak. We expect to have most of our servers back online sometime in the early morning West Coast time on Friday.. Our best estimate is 8:00am Pacific time… but we will update this time as we get better estimates.
We sincerely apologize for this unforseen problem and we look forward to getting you all back in the game as soon as possible.

Kevin 'Q-3PO' O'Hara
Community Relations Manager</em>



Regardless of what you think of SWG's game design, you would think that server stability issues would have been resolved for a game and company of this level and experience. *shakes head*

I bet Oracle is happy for the mention. "Please blame this other company for our incomptence and not us..."

How can you blame SOE? The've only been doing this sort of thing for 5 years, on their 3rd major product of the type and had a 5 month beta test. It's expected that bugs on day one that make the game completely unplayable would arise. Haha.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
a problem with the central Oracle databases that prevents the servers from coming up
[/quote]
That's interesting. One would assume that the servers would be running for <em>days</em> before launch. You don't boot up a complex system three hours before rollout.

It's also rare to have the <strong>database</strong> prevent a system from coming up. Generally it would be network, disk space, a prior crash, or failure of some component. The actual database software is fairly robust.

Sucks to be curious and have no remedy for it =).

It's also rare to have the database prevent a system from coming up. Generally it would be network, disk space, a prior crash, or failure of some component. The actual database software is fairly robust.

You could have account information stored in the database which cannot be accessed, no access to accounts, no authentication between user and the system. You could have your char files located on that system - no user creation initiation, no main system service boot. You could have database items stored within the system, no access to items, no main system service boot.

If your database is down, there's a lot of reasons why your main application wouldn't/couldn't launch.

If they're trying to blame Oracle though, that's kinda funny. Considering that I'm willing to bet anything that there's bigger and more complex systems out there than the POS that's running the SW:G servers. Mark of a bad Oracle developer/Q&A Department, not of a bad database or database system.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That's interesting. One would assume that the servers would be running for days before launch. You don't boot up a complex system three hours before rollout.[/quote]

Keep in mind that Beta ended less than 24 hours before the scheduled launch. There was not any stress testing of the Registration process that anyone of us in the beta were aware of. They were still making major changes to server code (With more still to come) hours before Beta was shut down.

The Development team at SoE was first rate and doing their best. Though they never said it, it does appear there was significant pressure from Lucas Arts and/or Senior SOE/Sony management. They were simply not ready. They fixed an amazing number of bugs in the last week of Beta but you could see other problems just snowballing with no solution in sight. This launch is a result of that Avalanche.

I really loved the game throughout most of Beta. I could not bring myself to even bother to get the game on release and try and play. Even the most dedicated SWG fans in the Beta (I believe I was one of them) did not expect the launch to go any better than this. People would say, well it will be about as good as most other MMORPG launches.

I for one decided to say not good enough for me, not this time, not ever again.

It is a really great game and I would encourage anyone who really wants to play it and enjoy it to wait a couple of months and give it a shot. Some aspects of it are truly revolutionary, the graphics are amazing (mostly) and the performance (when it was working) was outstanding.

They probably dropped a critical table and don't have any sort of snapshot or DR in place to get it back.

Buy some Veritas software, SOE! (make my stock go up... k?)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Mark of a bad Oracle developer/Q&A Department, not of a bad database or database system.
[/quote]
Yes, that's a better way of saying it. It sounds like they're saying "Oracle Crashed!", instead of "the code someone wrote is ass!" =).

vowelumos, I don't mean to imply that all the devs are idiots, or the game isn't great. But someone, somewhere, made a risky decision. In my experience, most of your big errors occur when you're bringing a machine up (disks are most likely to fail, for example). I am just surprised that someone thought a potentially smoother launch wasn't worth an extra 48 hours.

Bric,
i think you and I agree. I think the developers would have loved the extra week , maybe two they need to stablize and test everything. My point was that the decision came from somewhere else.

I am just upset that something I had looked forward to play I will not be able to play for some time now. Now that it is live the time to fix all the bugs will take exponentially longer than it would have had they extended beta.

Hmmm so I see this game hasn't changed at all from when I played the beta. Servers constantly down.

Actually, I think the Dev Team would have loved having more than just another week or two to work on the game. It was just released too damned early. Months too early.

I would think that if any group of corporations could have afforded the time to "get it right," and, in fact, would have put the emphasis on getting it right over getting it released, it would have been the ones involved with SWG.

Another 6 months would only have helped the game.

A few things made me not buy it when I was in beta... But here was the last few weeks.

On they 'officially' announced the release date.. The added a patch that just created...well 3000+ bugs... literally! Couldn't even play for a few days. This was a HUGE patch because they hadn't patched for a few weeks... It was so bad, like they didn't even test it before sending it out. That was fine... but man did it show how behind they where.

Then, they quickly got a TON of those bugs fixed.... and quick! I was very very impressed (made me think the last patch was just removal of debugging info from code... would make sense).

A week or so later, they added another patch... This one added some high end content I hear... but they removed all low end creatures around town... really!... I couldn't play the week beforehand and this was after a player wipe. So I could'nt do anything.

Then I finally went out and found low end camps to get up to even basic at weapons... And did some kill missions (only way to make money after they removed delivery missions as a way to make cash). And after I got up a few xps in other fields (non-weapon based) I couldn't get any kill missions that I could actually finish. Not even close.. I would be expected to kill 5 - 10 mobs at once when I couldn't kill one without being killed.

They never fixed these in the last days... So I coudln't get high enought to do anything at the end (to test the code they where working on).

But all in all. It wasn't up to them. It was WAY more stable 4 weeks before launch. they wheren't ready. It REALLY is a fun game at times. Soloing used to be fun, but not toward the end... And well... Thats about it.

I'll wait a few months and might buy it then.

Aye, I agree with you vowelumos, and with Scirocco's comment. I really empathize with the devs who've sweated to get out a fun product, only to have some bonus-hungry middle-manager push it out early. I am sure there are some fairly discouraged programmers at SOE tonight.

LOL. you are way too kind.

Have you ever seen a development team deliver a product on time? For all we know they probably are 6 months behind schedule and the more time they get, the less they will be able to mask their incompetence.

The management may have been greedy but why would we believe that SOE can deliver any kind of product that is not buggy and not worth 1/10th of its price.

It took me exactly 15 minutes of beta to decide that was just another POS. The only way to make it worse would be to hire Absor and add him to that team!

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>- someone decided change something major between when beta was open and yesterday
- they really are morons [/quote]

Option C. All of the above:)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"How can you blame SOE? The've only been doing this sort of thing for 5 years, on their 3rd major product of the type and had a 5 month beta test."[/quote]


Uh..... the beta for SWG lasted a <strong>LOT</strong> longer than 5 months. I know, I was in it myself since last Oct. And uh.. I can blame them real <strong>EASY</strong>..they suck! ONLY 5 years?? Gimme a break.. thats a hell of a long time, they shoulda garnered some knowledge in that period of time, unless they are complete morons... people get degrees in less time than that.


<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"It's expected that bugs on day one that make the game completely unplayable would arise. Haha"[/quote]


This kinda attitude makes me wanna hurl! As long as ppl keep spouting this kinda drivel, your gonna get what you expect... crap. Maybe try raising the bar on them abit and expect something to be playable when they say it is "gold"...

I think you forgot to equip your sarcasm detector... :cool:

Tia

Didn't Lucas Arts delay SWG once because they felt it wasn't ready and didn't want to tarnish the SW franchise? Why release it now if it's still not ready?

And if they released it in this state... then how bad must it have been to delay it the first time? :)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Have you ever seen a development team deliver a product on time?[/quote]

Developers always deliver a product on time. The problem is that the damn marketing weasels always promise it sometime before that. :-)

Do we have a lot of game devs here posting? I haven't played SWG so I don't know how bad it's been or what the problems are exactly(except for the ones listed here) but I have to believe that the devs have to take at least SOME of the blame. I know the publishers always push these games out the door before they're ready and it's maddening. I will never understand why they do that. Yes you can list all these money reasons but in the long run they will lose more money for a shoddy product and bad rep from this fiasco. But come on, the devs should be getting SOMETHING right and it sounds like they aren't.

I was going to buy this game back when I heard about it but from the stuff I heard over the last few months I decided not to. I'm glad now I didn't. I so much wanted to play a bounty hunter. :(

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It's also rare to have the database prevent a system from coming up. Generally it would be network, disk space, a prior crash, or failure of some component. The actual database software is fairly robust.[/quote]
In the end, games like Everquest and Star Wars are based on the technology behind text based MUDs and MUSHs. MUDs are basicaly a database engine with special code to emulate mobs and such from the data in that database. In effect, EQ is just one giant fancy overlay on top of some tables in a relational database. Mob stats, item stats, character stats, etc are all stored in a relational database. Changes to zones, last spawn times, and just about everythign related to the game are all database driven.

In EQ's case it used to be relational databases turned into special format flat files but that probably has changed as the game progressed to an oracle back end. Most likely during the development of LoY when they were able to overcome several database limitations that prevented the addition of new bank slots and many of the other features that came in the expansion.

Sounds like the typical boardroom making its projections without knowing the capability of the programmers and systems. I’m sure the higher ups look at their charts and graphs and see how in a perfect world the game can be released on X day.

This is the theory/application (reality) factor. It should come as no surprise to anyone in the computer industry that with so many changes and development of technology there is a lot of room for problems. I can understand projected time frames, but how long do programmers need and what is a reasonable projected time?

I’ve been out of the computer business for a while so I don’t pretend to know the newer technology, but I’m wondering if its short handedness in the Gaming industry/Software industry that could account for some of the problems? I know the Government is now stepping in with Microsoft to insure they have a more stable product.

I’m not suggesting that the Government regulate gaming software, but think about if you were starting up a manufactory company and your product ratio had a 60% to 80% potential for problems and failures, you’d not be in business for long if at all.

I like Sony and its gaming packages. I’m looking forward to EQII, I understand there are going to be problems. Its unfortunate that SWG had such a bad start, first impressions can mean a lot to a company. I’m expecting EQII to have some issues, I just hope they aren’t this bad.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
but I have to believe that the devs have to take at least SOME of the blame.
[/quote]
It's hard to tell from the outside. The programmers might be duds, and QA has to send things back 3 and 4 times. Maybe the work is over their heads, maybe they aren't thorough. That would push the release date, and force unpleasant choices.

The designers might be duds, and continually throw change after change at the programmers. That would cause extra work as devs write, scrap, and rewrite the same piece of code. Parts of the software that used to work together nicely start to have conflicts. People start getting confused about what a package does THIS week.

The managers might be duds, the type that think a list of priorities looks like "1 1 1" instead of "1 2 3". They might be yanking programmers to work on the crisis du jour, and allowing basic tasks to slip through the cracks.

Or the money-men might be duds, determined to release on a specific schedule for marketing or budget reasons. They might be the type that can't understand why twice as many programmers can't release in half the time. They might be the ones that secretly believe coding is trivially easy, and all the devs are lazy geeks who need to stop whining and just FIX it.

I personally believe it's at the money-man level, because restarting the system 24 hours before launch sounds like software engineering from an MBA perspective. But I doubt we'll ever really know.

Batou, I could see the game being buggy because of a data or code error. But the actual database software (Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, etc.) isn't usually the culprit.

I think the lack of vehicles speaks volumes. Vehicles are *SO* key to the Star Wars Universe... it is incomprehensible that they even considered releasing the game without them. For that matter, what is up with SOE and transportation... I read they dropped horses from EQII for an expansion. *Shakes head* Promises do not make a product. So say the great God of Vaporware and Half-Assed Implementation: “Ware any who have their hand in your pocket and promise you the unforeseeable future.”

On the other side of the coin... seems like all the bad reviews come from embittered former-EQ-players, and most good reviews come from those who are not. *shrug*

Yeah not having vehicles in is disappointing but the additional artwork/functionalty/testing that would have been required to do them to the degree that they will be done would have added at least 6 months to release. Basic travel in the form of city to city and planetary shuttles is in game although with no real graphics to them its just a form of zoning.

With the economy of SWG the way it is and the estimated skill and cost required to make and use a vehicle (everything in game is player created) I think that delaying them was a good call as something that could be crossed off the for release list and added to the first expansion is ok as long as that first expansion is early 2004 and not late 2004.

And I agree most of the people posting negatives are either disgruntled with anything bearing the verant/soe tag and therefore won't even try it to form their own opinion or they were expecting EQ in space and had a rude awakening.

From the ironic viewpoint I think it's kinda funny that Sony set a thursday release date wanting to get online for weekend primetime s and are now having to pay the teams double or triple time to work round the clock over a weekend.

Scirocco says: Another 6 months would only have helped the game.

Another 6 months could have killed the game. Developing a game costs money and doesn't make money. Sometimes it's better to throw the product into the market early and try to keep it alive than to keep delaying and ultimately write it off as a big loss.

Look at AO, that must have been the worst launch in MMRPG history but they managed to pull through somewhat.

People asked if a game has ever been released on time. I remember back a few years ago, Heretic2 came out finished and when promised. Of course they were using the Quake engine, so they didn't have that to develop, but the game had a fairly short production cycle and came out on time ready to play.

So it is possible :)

The sad thing is it seems to be getting worse with each release. I would love for some development team to stand up and say "no, we won't release it until it's ready" and then stick by their guns. Probably won't happen, but it'd be nice.

What I love, is how prepared they keep saying they were for launch, and they simply weren't. One of the worst things you can do at launch is not let people register for your service. The registration process always seems to be left to be one of the last things done, and when done that way, it always sucks.

Rough launches have become the standard rather than the norm, however, one would have thought that Sony would have done better with this launch than they did. To their credit, they worked all weekend on stabalizing it. The slow crash that occurred on Saturday night was at least mildly amusing.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I would love for some development team to stand up and say "no, we won't release it until it's ready" and then stick by their guns.[/quote]

Hopefully WoW "won't release it until it's ready"... as that was their mantra early in development. We will see...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I would love for some development team to stand up and say "no, we won't release it until it's ready" and then stick by their guns.[/quote]
And then get fired! I can't tell how many times developers scream "it's not ready!" and corporate/marketing/sales/owners/board reply "oh yes it is".

Then development team managers - the folks in the middle - refuse to stand up to the overall manager, who's getting it from their bosses/owners/board. They say "you have to pick your fight" but then they never do.

Asinine choices, absolutely no logic, trench workers looking to rise above, becoming assholes along the way, puking out the company bullsh!t of "yes, it will do all the functionality and ship on time!"...

I have a lot forgiveness because I see so much crap shoved down on top of those in the trenches.

Hehe.. heres a couple links for ya.


SOE's new PR guy talks about SWG launch :P
<a href="http://www.theinformationminister.com/press.php?ID=612303646" target="top">www.theinformationminister.com/press.php?ID=612303646</a>


Msnbc article:
<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/932310.asp?0si=-&cp1=1" target="top">www.msnbc.com/news/932310.asp?0si=-&cp1=1</a>