#1 Priority

[Cookie]

The lag issue is the number one priority: It would take away a huge amount of frustration if the server did not go into epic lag when large numbers of people logged on, or lagged for other mystifying reasons. This effects so many things the players do.

For example if I am picking branches, without lag there is a neat steady rhythm so that I can stop the process when I have enough branches in inventory for my construction. With lag it's anyone's guess how many seconds the procedure will take or if the branches will be visible when they are supposed to be and I have to guess when I might have enough. Half the time I either don't have enough or that one extra branch that has to be dropped.

Hunting is another thing that lag makes aggravating. Click on an animal? No, sorry, it actually moved a few seconds ago.

Crashes - I am assuming this situation is related to the lag problem -make overland travel totally frustrating. Portages have a nasty tendency to return you suddenly to hearth fire, minus boat and cargo, of course.

I could go on listing reasons why this is a significant impediment to play, but that would devolve into this being complaint, rather than the explanation for my opinion. I suspect we could make a long, long thread supporting this viewpoint.

Anyone here who disaggreees with me about lag being the number one priority, would you care to post your rebuttal here, and why?

I would be more than happy if all other development stopped for a month until this was thoroughly addressed. And this is although I live for those exciting new developments every weekend...

[jorb]

Well aware. More RAM is in the mail, and we are considering dedicated hosting. I would like to take this opportunity to point out the "Donate" button below.

[Flocke]

i'm not sure if you have heard about this:

Heh. You may have noticed that it was just lagging a tiny bit.

The reason is to be found in the fact that Apache was hammered to the degree where it started so many worker processes that it swapped out the game server almost entirely, which made it kinda hard for it to work properly. The solution is to be found in two things; first of all, the server will soon be given more RAM (Thanks for the donations that payed for it!), and second, Apache should still be moved to a machine of its own. It's just a bit of work involved in the latter, so I have yet to do that.

Since the game was clearly unplayable anyway, I stopped the game server without advance warning for a while to let Apache finish whatever it was doing.

[minck1]

I would gladly donate except via paypal. I have had bad dealings with them in the past and no way will I give them my bank or CC#. If you add another donation method later I will donate then. Thanks for the great game.

[Delamore]

Crashes - I am assuming this situation is related to the lag problem -make overland travel totally frustrating. Portages have a nasty tendency to return you suddenly to hearth fire, minus boat and cargo, of course.

Crashes are rarely related to the servers not being good enough or lag, although I think one of the latest downtimes was related to lag.

[Cookie]

A lot of the crashes I experience occur when the lag has just moved me down to glacial speed. I assumed those one had to be related, although not the ones that only look like lag just because me and the bunny start jogging on the spot instead of chasing each other.

[GabrielZorrilla]

Well aware. More RAM is in the mail, and we are considering dedicated hosting. I would like to take this opportunity to point out the "Donate" button below.

I would GLADLY donate some bucks every moth for a dedicated hosting service like Slicehost (VPN). You know what you should do? Setup a donation meter with X goal, for example:

"One year remote hosting: 1000 USD" You should do it anually, and then us, donors, will donate and check the progress of the collect in real time.

Seriously, if you can not handle 250 players, you should really host i somewhere else with 100mbit connection and all your requierements. And i would not mind to see some ads either, if that means improve the quality of the service and give you the dollars you deserve (i know this is a non profit proyect, but non profit proyects do not last long, and i want you guys stick around for a long time).

[Alamarian]

The lag issue is the number one priority

It's annoying but I disagree that it should be a number one priority. Fixing the lag is a convenience issue. It's great if it can be done but fixing code or implementing features is significantly more important. At this stage of the game I think getting planned features in first is the best option. I've never built a game but my experience in similar ventures is that you have to put the foundation in before you start smoothing out edges. If we suffer a little lag, so what?

[GabrielZorrilla]

Its alpha but only on paper. Could perfectly be gold by others standards. Lag is a serious issue. 250 clients and then lag is a joke. The devs wanted some people to test it, they got them, found a scalability problem and now are fixing it. If they wanted only 100 or so players to test it, they would have done a private alpha.