Request for Sins Rebellion: A hard look at upgrading ICO server capacity and latency

from Sins Forums

Well, the title pretty much covers it all.  I know having a server is a cost, not only in initial purchase and setup, but in energy and maintenance costs.  However, a lot of the community, I feel, thinks this game is BEST played online.  However, with how laggy ICO can be, it really does put off a lot of players and I think the player counts on ICO are a reflection on the frustration many of us have with ICO.

Having a revamped ICO up and running when Rebellion goes live will be the perfect time to get ICO up-to-snuff since so many new players will be added.  It may be the last chance the multiplayer community has to really get it's numbers to the point where the community is self-sustaining.

Please, please, think about it.

25,324 views 30 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Isn't Rebellion supposed to run on Imulse::Reactor thingy? That would mean death of ICO altogether if I get it right.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I would be cool with that if it's a better service.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I agree with Howthe?.  This game's online multiplayer performance needs improvement.  Because Rebellion will be a stand-alone game that will (presumably) be on store shelves, it's like releasing a Sins-2, and it's a chance to do fresh marketing for the game.  It should be highly polished and near perfect upon release, and that includes the online multiplayer performance.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

something needs to be done, and i would hate to see minidump and desync plagued servers cripple the online basis of rebellion before it gets off the ground.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

I'm more in the mindset that ICO needs to die entirely, and a new system put in place with proper matchmatching, ladder functionality, and an end to smurfing entirely (ie one account per person).  Simply putting new paint on the current ICO system will result in the same dead multiplayer very quickly.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

imagine if this game got sold to blizzard who in turn made it playable thru battle.net then got funded to update sins1 to 64bit ver or sins2 cause thats all they did with the starcraft they just updated part 1 and called it part 2...

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

We're currently investigating the lag issues with Sins multiplayer and have some good leads. If these pan out, the updates will be backported to Trinity/Diplomacy.  The Reactor system doesn't provide multiplayer code support, it merely provides additional features like matchmaking, achievements, logins, chat, etc.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

That you have a couple leads sounds a little encouraging.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting DalekZek, reply 6
imagine if this game got sold to blizzard who in turn made it playable thru battle.net then got funded to update sins1 to 64bit ver or sins2 cause thats all they did with the starcraft they just updated part 1 and called it part 2...

Maybe Ironclad should sell the game since they are so reluctant to update the game properly. Yes, I'm bitter.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Both the Diplomacy and Vanilla/Entrenchment servers are down now.   :'(

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Yes, we're looking into it.  :annoyed:

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

As of now, at least the Diplomacy server is back on line.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 7
We're currently investigating the lag issues with Sins multiplayer and have some good leads. If these pan out, the updates will be backported to Trinity/Diplomacy....  

It is fixed?!  The lag is gone!?  Today, I noticed that it is faster!  It logs on, and lists games much quicker for me.  Maybe the downtime was used for repairs?  At least, I can say with confidence, that I can get online, and into chat, and see who's there, and which games are available, all much, much quicker than I have been able to for months (ever since 1.2 came online). 

So that looks like progress... but as I type out chat, it appears erratically, like its still laggy.  So I don't know yet, if the lag is all gone?  

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Later, I chatted a bunch (and played a couple more games) and I'm convinced that lobby chat has also improved.

Halleluhah!  Can anyone else confirm?

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Ummm...I think we should give it at least a week before we conclude that the lag has been fixed or removed.

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

Probably not, as the cause is unrelated to the server code. :P   We're testing a fix internally now that does appear to have solved the lag issue.  If it pans out, we'll release it in a patch in the nearish future. :)

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 16
Probably not...

Wow!  Maybe the type of lag I was experiencing was specific to my type of system!? (I have Vista, Norton's IS, Charter hi-speed cable access, Core2Duo E6750 2.66Mhz, 4Gigs etc).

Maybe the server just needed to be reset (to help my situation)?  Because I've seen a remarkable change!  Log in is instantaneous now, whereas it used to take like a "minute", much as Howdidudothat describes here.

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 16
Probably not, as the cause is unrelated to the server code. We're testing a fix internally now that does appear to have solved the lag issue. If it pans out, we'll release it in a patch in the nearish future.

 

Awesome!

 

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

I hate to report it, but the ICO server is down.  You wouldn't be updating with the patch would you?

Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

Nope, unrelated.  I can relate that we'll be releasing a patch tomorrow that should drastically help with the lag when using Alloy.  We've eliminated over 1 second of lag from our testing. :)

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top

Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 20
Nope, unrelated.  I can relate that we'll be releasing a patch tomorrow that should drastically help with the lag when using Alloy.  We've eliminated over 1 second of lag from our testing.

Patch tomorrow!  Holy hey!  I figured it would take at least a month.

Will the patch tweak anything else other than fix the lag?

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 20
Nope, unrelated.  I can relate that we'll be releasing a patch tomorrow that should drastically help with the lag when using Alloy...

Good.  Because I don't know what happened after Sunday's (yesterday's) reboot, but the lag is terrible today!  All the improvement that I've seen in the past couple weeks is gone.  And it may currently be worse than before.

I just don't get it.  And I can't believe that no one else has chimed in with similar experiences?  If the lag was specific to my system, or even just a few others like me, I could see how we would slow down a whole game, or even the whole server.  Its that bad.

Edit:  I know I was complaining the day before a patch to potentially fix the problem, but I wanted them to be aware of what was happening.  I am happy to report that my first experiences with the new patch (1.21-5/24/11) are nothing but good.