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PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Star Wars Galaxies Technical Difficulties 76

Posted by simoniker from the someone-threw-an-ewok-in-the-works dept.
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..
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Star Wars Galaxies Technical Difficulties More

Star Wars Galaxies Technical Difficulties

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  • Haven't bought a copy (yet?). Anyone out there who wants to say how their first evening of it went?

    • Re:Yikes (Score:5, Interesting)

      by falchion16 ( 685064 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:48AM (#6311161)
      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.

  • To be expected (Score:2, Informative)

    by n_jed ( 301657 )
    Nothing runs as expected. Give it a couple of weeks to settle down, and then get back to us.

    • Re:To be expected (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kris_J ( 10111 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @03:21AM (#6309129) Homepage Journal
      Absolutely. We're in the middle of enrolment at the moment and our bandwidth was utterly consumed on the first day. Turned out we had a set of images in the enrolment system that totalled about 150k when they should have totalled 10k. We used to have no images at all in the system, but it lacked a clear visual message telling students that they hadn't actually completed the process. One quick optimise and bandwidth consumption returned to something more normal.

      • Re:To be expected (Score:3, Insightful)

        by pmz ( 462998 )
        Turned out we had a set of images in the enrolment system that totalled about 150k when they should have totalled 10k.

        This is why users should harbor some forgiveness in their hearts for a new system. It is basically impossible for humans to track every aspect of a complex system, such as computer software.

        However, when an ill-concieved website never gets fixed and, even after one full year, it still breaks and is slow and unpredictable, then heads should roll. (I'm speaking from my experience of havin
        • This is why users should harbor some forgiveness in their hearts for a new system. It is basically impossible for humans to track every aspect of a complex system, such as computer software.

          That's why you do slow, careful roll outs, then load test your service before going live.

          That's what /I/ do when I roll out a new platform for thousands of users.

          (And again, it's not their first time at this).

          (Not that I'm fussed about SWG - after (a) Seeing the types of problems PS has I'm sure it's going to be jus
        • If you think pay stubs are a problem, how about hospitals which now entirely track patient records on a computer. A relative of mine works in a corporate-owned hospital which switched over to electronic patient records a few years ago.

          Makes it nice an easy to "fix" the database when a patient didn't recieve adequate care, in order to make it look like the hospital did provide the necessary care.

          At least on paper it was a bit more obvious when the forms were modified, especially if hundreds of pages of fo

        • No. This is a commercial enterprise that promises a product in exchange for money. If the company cannot provide the product immediately, it is the equivalent of stealing.

          There is no reason why they had to ignore beta testers, or run beta tests like Quake 3... Allow everyone to download and run using test servers. Once you have all of the issues ironed out, testing under times of high stress and bandwidth usage, then they should offer a product. They send a mass broadcast to everyone saying that the

    • Re:To be expected (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Drunken_Jackass ( 325938 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:52AM (#6309790) Homepage
      So the fact that nothing runs as expected is supposed to be expected? That makes no sense!

      Here's the thing. This isn't a first gen MMORPG. This is what, a third generation game? Have they learned nothing from the past failures? I mean, they limited distribution for the first week/month to avoid having a glut of users trying to get on and crash the servers, and it's not like they can't do a little math to figure out how many users they should expect.

      This sort of behaviour has become commonplace, and as a result will never be fixed. The sad thing is, they're only hurting their real fan base with crap like this. I guess somewhere someone said, "Well, these are the hardcore guys that have been waiting three years after 2..3..i forget how many delays. They'll do anything to play this game, so we can do whatever we want the first week. They'll still be there."

      Piss poor.

      • Re:To be expected (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Mar1boroMan ( 648929 )
        I totally agree - you can claim that "You couldn't play EQ for the first 3 years!", but the fact of the matter is - there's examples of good launches out there - DAOC, Planetside, etc.

        The standard excuses of "Oh, we really didn't think this many people would signup", or "There were undocumented bugs in the subscription system", should be translated as "We were getting so excited about finally starting to collect your money, we totally neglected working on subscription software/server stability for the last

  • This makes me happy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mortanius ( 225192 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @03:57AM (#6309203) Homepage
    I'm a longtime Anarchy Online [anarchy-online.com] player (although I have taken a few vacations, the most recent a 6-month romp), it used to bug me to no end when people would get on the public channels simply to rant and rave over how horrible AO was back in the day (it personally didn't bother me a whole lot, it certainly pissed some people off to no end though) and that SWG was going to be akin to the Second Coming. Seeing SWG fall flat on its face at launch makes me so happy. I know none of the fanboys will equate this at all to the problems that AO (and every other MMOG out there) had in its initial stages, but at least it's a bit of justice for me.

    I also glanced over the videos of SWG on one of the larger gaming sites (no clue which it was), I find it hilarious how glamorous they try to make the game look. The video I watched was basically someone running a quest. They talked to a couple people, one NPC (I assume) went with the character while they hunted another NPC down. A big, dramatic firefight ensues. The two NPC's and the PC go at it (read: stand still in the field) with their pistols, while the player's doing all kinds of sweeping moves with the camera and such to try to make the fight more interesting than it was.

    There's been a longstanding problem with MMOG's (at least MMORPG's) in that combat is always a pretty central part of the game (tradeskills in some are right up there though, but typically the tradeskills facilitate combat, so it all comes back to that) and it's really pretty difficult to make combat interesting... It's evolved from the early days of Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior where you'd have your good guys lined up on one side of the screen and the bad guys lined up on the other side, you tell everyone to ATTACK, sit back, and watch the fun. It really hasn't changed too much since then, either. Sure, it's gotten much prettier and a little more complex in terms of setup, but once your characters start doing their thing, there isn't a whole lot for the player to do. I wait for the day that someone finally comes up with this brilliant idea to really draw the player in to combat... AO at least keeps me somewhat involved since my character sucks enough that when soloing I need to frantically heal myself while trying to keep a constant flow of damage heading towards the object of my frustrations...
    • that you can only fire in certain positions (behind the MOB, to the side of the MOB)

      that you can only fire after other special moves for combos

      that you can only fire if you parry or block

      that's the warrior ones I know about, other classes have their own.

      Makes combat slightly more interesting

      SWG combat is okay but it does seem silly two humanoids standing 2m away from each other blasting with guns until one runs out of hitpoints.

      • DAOC was ok. Very similiar to AC with the high-middle-low attacks.

        The one thing about combat that is just lacking is the whole "target and I always hit you thing." It was what made parts of DAOC combat boring.

        Personally I would rather see it be possible to dodge, weave, and roll your way out of the line of fire.
        • high-middle-low attacks

          that sound interesting, does it become just a digital scissors/paper/rock game?

          SWG has in range / out of range (64m)

          So what you do is : stand at 65m, edge into 64m, fire and edge back out to 65m and the MOBS don't come after you.

          Before my beta-char was wiped I had a DOT that did about 1200 HP damage. To do 1200 HP to a MOB wearing armor takes quite a while when you hit for 300, armor absorbs hits, so maybe 150 was getting through. Using the range thing I would pop a DOT into the
      • That's true, I had forgotten about that (had a 6-month affair with DAoC also shortly after it launched.) That was kind of interesting, having certain attacks available only after certain conditions or positions and combined with other attacks. It's a definite start, not sure if it's quite the pinnacle of MMORPG combat yet though.

        And yeah, the people standing 2m from each other and firing is alive and well in AO. Often times if the player or the enemy (or both) are wielding rifles, the barrels of the guns w
    • Having bought AO at launch, I can say that SWGs launch is better.

      AO was nearly unplayable even if you could get into the game. I was playing SWG for about 3 hours last night without any problems, once i got past registration.
    • I think whatever video you saw must have been badly done. Just ranged combat alone, you can aim, kneel, stand, go prone, roll into a kneel, roll to prone, roll to standing, dive for cover and something else I can't remember, and that's not including any specials you get for a particular weapon. (Like Head Shot for Rifle, Point Blank Area for Carbine etc etc). Just letting you know.

  • So impatient (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @04:58AM (#6309320) Journal
    Typical online RPG birth:

    1. Game goes "live".
    2. Players flood the servers.
    3. Shit breaks.
    4. Impatient nerds flood every line of communication with complaints.
    5. More shit breaks. The nerds become as problematic as the original tech problems
    6. Stuff starts to work again.
    7. GOTO 2 (repeat a few times)
    8. A month passes, and then the not-so-nerdy players sign up with no problem, and cruise into the game painlessly.

    • One exception to the rule was Asheron's Call's launch, which went surprisingly smooth.

      Of course their launch of their only expansion patch Dark Majesty, didn't go so smoothly, and the sequal AC2's launch was a mess and continues to be a mess.

    • This is so obvious that producers of the MMORPG should realize and plan for this, shouldn't they?

      Don't blame the users for something that is the developers responsiblilty.

  • Doesn't surpise me as a PlanetSide user (Score:5, Informative)

    by @madeus ( 24818 ) <slashdot_24818@mac.com> on Friday June 27, 2003 @06:38AM (#6309618)
    SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) are useless at server management and treat users with contempt.

    As far as techincal support go:

    Posts with complaints and bugs on the forums are frequently deleted by Technical Support and they constantly palm of users with lame excuses.

    Most of the problems user have are user-side, but the could easily suggest fixes for them, or post known issues, but they don't bother.

    As far as the developers go:

    They don't bother to updated version numbers or the 'News' / 'Info' panels within the game after making significant changes, they just patch away. Recently they posted a patch and said 'we weren't able to get a test server up and running, so we just posted it live' in the announce. Of course the corresponding patch caused more issues than it fixed, and they had to release another patch shortly afterwards.

    Due to problems with the severs they now reboot them once a day. It's like it's running on NT. I can't see why their line managers let them get away with that (unless they are complacent or incompetant).

    SWG, like PlanetSide, appears not ready to ship, and I'm sure it won't be up to scratch for a few months.

    This could be down to commercial pressure from Sony, if so then the developers lives are problably hell and they will end up quitting at some point.

    If that's the case then SOE mangement need to lighten up quickly before they loose staff and customers.

    If it's down to poorly disiplined staff with no focus on customer care and/or bad management (imposing artificial deadlines, not ensuring QOS) then they need to start replacing staff. Middle managment should be the ones to be replace, as it's prmarily a process and attuide issue. If there are issues they need to flag them, if they arn't doing that, then they are not doing their job.

    I really like PlanetSide, it's not a very deep game as the RPG elements are very thin on the ground (it's much more like a huge Counter Strike/Unreal Tournament/CTF game than an Everquest with guns in space), but it's exellent fun and I play it for around 4 hours a day (closer to 8 at weekends).

    I wish they had more displine in managing the service. A lot of users don't bother subscribing after their first month because of all the hassles they've seen.
    • I bought PlanetSide last nite to curb my itch to grab SWG. I'm glad I did, because PlanetSide looks amazing and seems like something I'd be more likely to stick with for a while.

      At the same time, I hit a bug in the tutorial where the continents were locked so I couldn't use the map interface to tell my dropship where to go. Since completing each tutorial opens the next one (after the first two), I can't finish the tutorial section.

      I logged onto the game, ran around for a little while to see if I could fin
      • 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 edi
        • 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).

          Yeah, I found it on the message board. Also, when I click on the 'known bugs' link provided in one of the messages from the moderator, it comes up with a slick page with no text in the 'known bugs' section.

          Most users end up rebooting when they get to that screen because they don't know you can press 'ESC' to bring u

      • I'd advise you to skip the rest of the tutorial. Just head for the virtual training area and learn how to use all the weapons and vehicles.

        When you enter the game, you should see some yellow lines in the air (waypoints) leading you to the training area. Also, look on your map for some triangles with numbers in them (also the waypoints), head to #1, then #2, etc.

        Since there is no death penalty of any substance, just get out there and learn by shooting the bad guys. There is also the old standby of asking

        • I've been playing quite a bit, mostly solo, trying to get a feel for the game, heading for hot-spots, etc. I've managed to 'level up' (in as much as that can be said for this game) twice, and get a handful of kills, some during fairly important battles. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the time when I get near any substantial battle I get disconnected. I haven't quite figured out why this keeps happening, especially since my ping times don't seem outrageous (100-200 most of the time, though I see some v
    • "Posts with complaints and bugs on the forums are frequently deleted by Technical Support and they constantly palm of users with lame excuses."

      If, by this, you mean posts like

      "dude this gaem fcuking sucks hard coer!!!! i cant b a jedi??! wtf!!!11"

      then I'd delete them, too. Besides, tech support forums are generally to be used for tech support issues, not for the reporting of bugs that the end-user can't work around. They have other facilities for that.
      • Besides, tech support forums are generally to be used for tech support issues, not for the reporting of bugs that the end-user can't work around. They have other facilities for that.

        If a user doesn't have a place to find out that the bug he's experience is something that can't be worked around, then how does he know it doesn't belong in the tech support forums?

        Generally a good tech support system would handle both sides because they're connected, and both need to go through the same paths, or informatio
      • 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 (
        • Yeah, like how this message has replaced the one that Slashdot linked to?

          "Somehow our website completely reset itself to yesterday (Thursday) afternoon. I'm attempting to get this sorted out. We may or may not be able to get that day of data back. It seems the SWG servers aren't the only ones having problems. :\"

  • it's ok actually (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27, 2003 @08:07AM (#6309840)
    Don't worry, it's just a beta, next year when they release the full version of the game; you know, the version with the stars and the wars, these problems will probably be worked out.

  • One good thing (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The solution for the registration problems was to download Mozilla'a currect release candidate (1.4 something) and use that to register instead.

    So one benefit of all this is that thousands of folks have now downloaded and used Mozilla that had probably never heard of it before today :)
    • The mozilla thing was definitely true, on both levels, in a couple of forums I frequent. It seemed to work for some people, and more importantly, some of them learned about Mozilla. Many were actually asking things like "Mozilla? Isn't that some spyware?" while there IE6 was probably mailing Bill G. their porn viewing habits in the background.
    • I don't know that Mozilla was key to my succes but I did start it up, as it is my default browser, and went that way to register a station name and subscribe. Worked much better than the system they had going for registering through the patcher.

  • One of our users (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <mrpuffypants@gmailTIGER.com minus cat> on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:23AM (#6310898)
    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?

  • Han Solo Solution (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by cyranoVR ( 518628 )
    They should just get one of the systems guys to go in and smack the server a few times - problem solved!
    • Yeah but this is 2003... Lucas would make it so the server smacked Han first.
    • The only technical information they've given about the problem they had last night was that they were having a problem with Oracle.
      • Ok, I have been modded (-1)Off Topic by some idiot, so I guess I have to spell things out for everyone...

        Remember that part in The Empire Strikes Back where Han, Leia, Chewie and the droids are about to escape from Hoth? - and Darth Vader is coming after them? - and they are having problems with repairs to the Millenium Falcon - and right when they are about to take off and escape the Snow Troopesr, the MF engine sputters and dies? - and then Han glares at the dashboard, GIVES IT A GOOD, SOLID SMACK WITH

  • Its Ironic Really... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LordYUK ( 552359 ) <jeffwright821@noSPAm.gmail.com> on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:09AM (#6311373)
    Seeing as they SWORE the game was ready to launch.

    Another poster hit on a good point, this ISNT a 1st gen MMORPG, this is from the PEOPLE THAT RUN EQ!!

    This game SHOULD have came off without a hitch.

    And the "well, technically speaking blah blah blah" isnt an argument, because MOST gamers (not all) know only the following...

    1) buy game
    2) install game
    3) play game
    4) happy

    if you take out step 3, step 4 becomes "gee I wasted my money on this crap?! wtf?! this sucks"

    Keep in mind, MOST stores wont let you return an opened MMORPG, because the key is used, so theres no reimbursement from the vendor if its sent back.

    Shame on SOE for not having a smooth launch. Its rediculous.
  • I don't understand why anyone would buy a MMOG on the first day, especially experienced MMOG players. In particular attempting to buy a game as in demand as a Star Wars MMOG and expecting to play on the first day is just plain nuts!

    Just wait a month or two - it'll be much better on your blood pressure!
    • 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 t
  • I am sure that, technically, Sony learned from past experience with Everquest about the problems that plague the MMORPG genre of games. I would also be willing to bet that the release of this game was not due to the developers or technicians proclaiming that everything is running correctly. It is all about marketing and sales. With the number of MMORPGs that are due to be released in the near future, Sony needed to make sure that they got as much market-share of the techy geek crowd as possible. People
  • More like personnel issues. You'd think all of SOE's collective experience in MMORPG's would make a difference. Obviously not.

  • I've installed and tried to play launch day on UO, EQ, Dark Age OC, Asheron's Call1, Anarachy Online, and now Galaxies. Galaxies was the second to worst launch.

    I was at work while trying to attach the SWG subscription to my sony station account. It took about 5 hours. I wasn't at it continously. I just kept the browser in the background and gave it shot during compiles or other downtime. A couple workmates and I then gave it a quick runthrough. Created a character, went through the tutorial, and then
  • Since I've yet to see a MMOG "retire" I wonder what the process would entail.

    I can understand that if one was ready to go away, the userbase would be probably be low and the cost to maintain would not be feasible - but what exactly would they say to the hardc0re gamers that stuck with them through the opening server nightmares etc., and contributed for years during the games lifecycle.

    I guess it's no different than any other service, but it would probably have a pretty big impact on the dedicated and fr

    • Re:Phasing out an MMOG (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Motor city online was retired.
    • Earth & Beyond is likely to be retired shortly.
    • Neverwinter Nights, one of the first MMORPGs. This game was hosted by AOL. It ran in a DOS box and the server had a user limit of 500. It was almost always full. One day, AOL said "Ok, we're closing NWN down in X days". And everyone moaned and complained with good right. It was the only game of its kind out, and it was good. The next best thing was a MUD. But they closed it down anyway. The server was full to the end. And they replaced it with card games.

  • Should we blame the game companies, for pushing new MMOG's onto the retail shelves even though they are still beta-quality?

    Should we blame the players, for buying new MMOG's even though they all know that game companies are pushing beta-quality games onto the retail shelves?

    The player looking for a quality game will wait for at least 6 months to let the rest pay to test the game. If it still looks appealing, spend the money. That is unless you are a pure power gamer, then you must get in right away to t

  • Ive been playing the beta (and wont be buying the full version BTW). One thing springs to mind.. Isn't Star Wars about space and space battles.. Xwing ships shooting past and such.. And thats what's completely missing from SWG. So you pay your money and pay your subscription for 18 months before you can do what you really bought the game to do.. fly ships and travel freely.. Damn what a turkey... A case of marketing over content
  • Galaxies? Who cares. I'm waiting for Tron 2.0. Sooner or later, someone's gonna hack Galaxies and fuck everyone up anyway.

    - IP
  • Not that people are reading this thread much anymore, but to be fair, I got the game on Sunday, and managed to play it most of the day with no crashing or noticable bugs. Only real complaint was that the server I'd planned to play on was already full by then. Playing with friends has to come in the top three reasons, if not number one, as to what people want to do with these games, so that's a pretty big downer.

    But, all things considered, a pretty quick recovery from the initial problems. Nobody will mu

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