DEVS: Will Coirnav Experience Agnarr's 'Load Balancing' Failures At Launch?...

Agnarr had the worst launch of any progression server I've ever seen. Even when they wiped servers in the past (Ragefire), everyone got to start out at the same time when the server re-launched each time. Yes the servers filled up to capacity fast, but it rewarded the players who were prepared to log-in and put the time and effort in to be in the first wave of players to get online.

Agnarr was the first server where their supposed 'load balancing' solution caused 80% to 90% of the entire server population to be locked out of the server character select for a good 4-6 hours. Anybody who was here for Agnarr remembers sitting in starting zones all with less than 80 players and no pickzones created yet. Most start-up groups were hamstrung because the majority of players simply couldn't log on.

Agnarr's launch was an unmitigated disaster from a nostalgic point of view. The LAST thing every player in EQ wants is for 10% of the population to get to play for 6 hours on a new server while the rest of us are locked out (unless they happen to be one of the fortunate 10% who manage to get on before the whole system is FNORD). Nobody is asking if improvements have been made to the load-balancing system since then.

The launch of a new server is one of those magical moments in EQ. But the way load-balancing on Agnarr played out made it the least enjoyable launch of any EQ server this player ever experienced (Combine, Fippy, Ragefire, Lockjaw, Phinigel were all better by comparison).

Some reassurance that the developers have made an effort to improve Coirnav's launch would be greatly appreciated. Opening night of a server is one of those magical moments that cannot be recreated any other way. Agnarr had no magic. It was a nightmare. I think I speak for the entire playerbase when I say that we all sincerely hope Coirnav's launch recaptures the magic of EQ!

Throttling players from reaching character creation is what I think slowed us down. I hadn't seen that on the progression servers previously and also never witnessed the 4-6 hour delay in getting on.

They had to throttle character creation because of the resources it uses. I don't remember the specifics but there was some discussion about it at the time. I doubt that will change for this launch. It really was just the first night though. I logged in the next morning and got in fine and the server was running smoothly.

Best advice is don't expect to play the first night. If you get in, great, if you don't, well you shouldn't be surprised. I don't think the Agnarr launch was anywhere near as bad as you are making it out to be. If you spent the whole night trying to get in and failing I could see it feeling like it was really bad. But if you go in with the right expectations then it won't be quite so frustrating.

There is also some question as to whether this launch will be as big as Agnarr's. Nobody really knows at this point how many people will go to Coirnav. Some established guilds from Agnarr and Phinny will likely start over there, so we aren't seeing as much buzz here on the forums about it since they have their own places to discuss that already. But it still feels like it will be smaller launch. While there was the occasional naysayer pre-Agnarr, most were excited about it. The posts for Coirnav have been less overwhelming and frequent. There was also more lead time for Agnarr, more time for word to spread and people to come looking for info about it.

The load balancing system is for in game zones. They don't have such a system for character creation.

No, this isn't right. It was that bad.

There was people that couldn't get in trying repeatedly for many many hours. Many hours after launch there were people that had never yet made it to character creation that had been sitting there the entire time trying to get in.
Some people gave up hours later and ended up going to bed and coming back the next day in the early morning.

You misunderstand. I'm not saying that isn't true, I'm saying that not getting in the first night doesn't make it the worst launch ever. Agnarr has been wildly successful, if any people gave up on the server because they couldn't get in the first night they were a tiny minority.

I was there, I experienced this too. I took time off work for that launch. But because I read the forums ahead of time, I knew the first night was going to be insane and I might not even be able to get in and play right away. When that happened I wasn't surprised or disappointed, because I knew it could happen.

Different expectations make for a different experience. This time around you will know ahead of time that they will be throttling character creation. That WILL make the first night similar to Agnarr's launch. The alternative is more people getting in and the server crashing and everybody losing everything. That would be far worse, which is why they do it this way.

If not being able to get onto a server all night long doesn't make it the worst server launch ever, then please tell us what does qualify as the worst launch ever? What is worse than not being able to log onto a new server while a very small segment of the population lucky enough to get on races ahead of the rest of us? The race is the most fun part of a new server for many of us. Stop trying to belittle, discredit and invalidate the reasoning of this post because you think it's perfectly okay that we should not be able to log onto a server when it launches. Do you always bend over this far no matter what you are served in life? Seriously. If Agnarr's launch wasn't the worst launch in progression history, explain how any other scenario is worse. What is worse than 10% of the player base getting to start on a server before the majority of the playerbase. There's nothing fair or equal about it. It's a problem that needs to be addressed and not swept under the rug by your extremely-thin apologetic on behalf of Daybreak. Notice that the title says this post is addressed to Daybreak. Your opinion is pretty meaningless. The fact is there is a huge population of players who take opening day log-ins very seriously and who enjoy the competition and the racing of a new server, especially in an age when there's so little competition left in EQ.

And for the record it was exactly as bad as I stated. Like I said (I'm guessing you don't actually read and analyze things before posting on them) 80-90% of the playerbase was locked out of the server for 4-6 hours or more. It happened to me too, so I'm speaking from experience. The feeling it left me with and everyone else I know that actually experienced it (not made conjecture about it) was that it was the worst progression launch ever.

When it comes to FUBAR TLP launches, nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever touch the Ragefire launch.

Remember the launch of EQ in 99? They were not prepared!

They have in the past (not recent TLPs) opened up servers for just character creation a day early, maybe they can again to lighten the load.

This would be wonderful.

Day 1 would be way smoother if you were limited to one character creation.


Big part of the problem was reserving 10x names on multiple accounts.

Coding already exists for this (old setting from FV at least allows limiting it to 1, if not being able to alter the number between 1 character slot to all)

Probably could remove this restriction day 2, or gradually open it up over a few days. Yes this would stop some people getting all of "their" names, but more people overall would get one of their top names, and more people would get to play day 1.

I wasn't there for Ragefire but people have said it was the worst. I think there was a wipe in the first few days and other issues. Failure is bad, delay is annoying, but failure is the worst of the two.

I get it now though, yes I don't care about racing, clearly you do, more than anything else. That would explain why this issue appears to be huge to you and minor to me.

We know that character creation was limited, so some number of people could get in and start it, and nobody else could until one of them moved past it. Those who got in next were fully random. Technically that is fair, even if it was frustrating. Nothing anybody did made them more likely to be first or last. Does that make it ideal? No, of course not. It's still frustrating, but there may not be much that can be done about it.

People forget--like daily around here--that a lot of the older code is tricky and not easily modified. They have less man-power, more content to maintain, and plenty of unrealistic expectations to duck. If they can improve this functionality to avoid this problem that would be great, but I wouldn't expect it.

The point is that I'm not trying to belittle, discredit, or invalidate what you are saying, but I am trying to discuss it reasonably. From your perspective I should be outraged, from my perspective it seems silly that you are outraged. I can accept that we have different perspectives, but the reality is that with this game there are some things that can be reasonably changed and some that cannot.

I was super lucky to get in at the start of Agnarr, but you can see just how much lag there was. Not only that, but players were having trouble changing zones and forming groups. Keep in mind that this was on a Wednesday at 2PM Pacific time! I hope they make some changes to the system so we can all log in, but I don't think it will help much because this year Coirnav will be a LOT bigger than Agnarr! Why? First, it opens on a Friday. Second, I'm getting about 8x more interest from viewers compared to last year and it's only been one week since the announcement of Coirnav.

Here is what last year looked like at launch:

My other real major concern in relationship to this problem is that they are launching it on a Friday. Historically they have never launched on weekends because it overloads the system. They are going to test an already borked load-balancing system on a Friday server launch. It just seems like a recipe for disaster.

This is why I'm trying to get some indication that they are going to try to improve the experience at launch this time. I'm honestly in disbelief they are going to try to launch the thing on a Friday. It's like they are setting it up for another disaster.

This would be smart!

You guys really think it's gonna be that bad?

I'm predicting the smoothest launch to date due to record low numbers.

Hope I'm wrong though and you guys who are interested have a good experience.