Open Server Weekend Update

[H0tK3y]

Indeed. All things considered, I think they did a pretty decent job and the point of the OSW isn't so much to play the games as to test the new server approach and in that regard, we (the community) over did it a bit. They sought to remedy the ridiculous lag and inability to login to the game of previous OSWs by taking on the new instanced approach combined with spawn queues per area. It also made some degree of sense to run a test with 3 servers, running 2 instances each to see how things perform in relation to the 5-6 servers of previous OSWs under similar load. What they didn't expect was a massive DDoS and a substantially heavier server load that they didn't know how to handle. While ideally, no mmo would have instancing of any sort, it's understandable for a small game like this that develops such a large community. Eve Online for example is one of the few mmo's that does not use instancing and has two regular servers... one for China and one for everyone else as well as an extra test server. The main server 'Tranquility' is known for having easily 20-30K players on at any given time. The main difference is that each one of the thousands of solar systems is run on it's own hardware node, so it works out pretty well. A small game like Legends of Equestria on the other hand with only a handful of distinct areas is not so lucky (nor anywhere near as well funded), and thus they must do everything they can to balance server loads and performance with minimizing the cost of their server rentals, never mind the massive volunteer effort to keep everything from falling apart while the game is up. They tried a new approach to their server model and it had mixed results. Adding another server or two might indeed even handle the increased load, however from a technical standpoint, this was clearly a necessary test. No doubt this is something that they are doing everything they can to resolve. As far as the vitriol is concerned, it's unfortunate but to be expected for an online game. To those spewing it (you know who you are), how dare you! You consume their time, bandwidth, and rented computing resources, and then come on their forums (using more of those same resources) to yell at them for their free, WIP service not working properly under an unexpectedly high load. To the development team, keep being awesome and making this game the best it can be! I agree with others that instancing is not ideal, however if it can effectively handle the traffic and possibly even reduce server rental cost under similar loads, then by all means go for it, while of course adding features to mitigate the inherent drawbacks of instancing. I haven't really played much of this OSW before today, but it's been fun, if a little stressful and I can't wait to see what you've got in store for the next one! PS... while there are still user flow issues throughout the world, please at least unlock the race select on already created characters to choose a spawn point or allow us to choose a spawn point directly instead. To that end, I second the earlier idea of a balloon to travel directly between Ponydale and Cloudopolis.

[FlameWolf100]

Does anyone know where "Midway Road" is? Some pony in this quest name Astral Charm in Cantermore said "Swift will be somewhere along the Midway Road. Or, you know, in the entire sky between Cantermore and Ponydale. It's her problem not mine." so I can't find this "Swift" pony. Please help me

[Hash Myth]

Spoiler: show

Indeed. All things considered, I think they did a pretty decent job and the point of the OSW isn't so much to play the games as to test the new server approach and in that regard, we (the community) over did it a bit. They sought to remedy the ridiculous lag and inability to login to the game of previous OSWs by taking on the new instanced approach combined with spawn queues per area. It also made some degree of sense to run a test with 3 servers, running 2 instances each to see how things perform in relation to the 5-6 servers of previous OSWs under similar load. What they didn't expect was a massive DDoS and a substantially heavier server load that they didn't know how to handle. While ideally, no mmo would have instancing of any sort, it's understandable for a small game like this that develops such a large community. Eve Online for example is one of the few mmo's that does not use instancing and has two regular servers... one for China and one for everyone else as well as an extra test server. The main server 'Tranquility' is known for having easily 20-30K players on at any given time. The main difference is that each one of the thousands of solar systems is run on it's own hardware node, so it works out pretty well. A small game like Legends of Equestria on the other hand with only a handful of distinct areas is not so lucky (nor anywhere near as well funded), and thus they must do everything they can to balance server loads and performance with minimizing the cost of their server rentals, never mind the massive volunteer effort to keep everything from falling apart while the game is up. They tried a new approach to their server model and it had mixed results. Adding another server or two might indeed even handle the increased load, however from a technical standpoint, this was clearly a necessary test. No doubt this is something that they are doing everything they can to resolve. As far as the vitriol is concerned, it's unfortunate but to be expected for an online game. To those spewing it (you know who you are), how dare you! You consume their time, bandwidth, and rented computing resources, and then come on their forums (using more of those same resources) to yell at them for their free, WIP service not working properly under an unexpectedly high load. To the development team, keep being awesome and making this game the best it can be! I agree with others that instancing is not ideal, however if it can effectively handle the traffic and possibly even reduce server rental cost under similar loads, then by all means go for it, while of course adding features to mitigate the inherent drawbacks of instancing. I haven't really played much of this OSW before today, but it's been fun, if a little stressful and I can't wait to see what you've got in store for the next one! PS... while there are still user flow issues throughout the world, please at least unlock the race select on already created characters to choose a spawn point or allow us to choose a spawn point directly instead. To that end, I second the earlier idea of a balloon to travel directly between Ponydale and Cloudopolis.

finally another pony who understands small scale server vs a well funded server with sponsors and investors.

And thank you LoE team for all the work and working through all the chaos. Looking forward to the next OSW with the fixes.

[DeceptiveCadance]

Am I missing something? Did you guys pay $40 to play this game? If not, you're not entitled to anything. You guys embarrass me

[Hash Myth]

Am I missing something? Did you guys pay $40 to play this game? If not, you're not entitled to anything. You guys embarrass me

Wait, is that directed towards everyone who did not pay $40 or just the complaints and crying?

Very Deceptive... Cadance 

[Modesty]

Am I missing something? Did you guys pay $40 to play this game? If not, you're not entitled to anything. You guys embarrass me

THIS. Perfect! We should be grateful for having the opportunity to play this game, because the staff here are doing it out of their volition, with limited resources. Sure, not a lot of us got to play, but you know what? Things can ALWAYS improve. We shouldn't be entitled and rage at the staff, unlike many users, unfortunately. All things considered, the latter half of the weekend went by pretty smoothly.  

[PunkOfSteam]

I'm having trouble finding how to get to the Crystal Empire. Anypony have directions?


Post Merge
Also, does anyone know how to leave Applewood? I some how end up there and can't leave. I have 2 stuck ponies there.

[Hash Myth]

I'm having trouble finding how to get to the Crystal Empire. Anypony have directions?


Post Merge
Also, does anyone know how to leave Applewood? I some how end up there and can't leave. I have 2 stuck ponies there.

chrystal empire is from the ponydale train, click on sign, dunno appleewood, never accessed it

[PunkOfSteam]

chrystal empire is from the ponydale train, click on sign, dunno appleewood, never accessed it

Ah. Thank you. I got to applewood by going to the train that is supposed to take you to ponydale from cantermore and with another pony from trying to enter what looked like Rarity's house.

[Hash Myth]

Ah. Thank you. I got to applewood by going to the train that is supposed to take you to ponydale from cantermore and with another pony from trying to enter what looked like Rarity's house.

that weould be why, applewood was not in the list last time... plus I got out of cantermore asap to dodge the sky cam

[PunkOfSteam]

*sigh* Now all my ponies are stuck.  I was trying to use the train from ponydale but it deposited my last pony in applewood again. Is there a way for me to teleport out or something? 

[VekGamingQC]

I am trying to log into a server but I can't, the game always shows me this following error
"That user is already playing"
but I can surely say that I have not a second instance of the game open with my account playing on the server.
And it does this error on the only two servers available at the moment.
Can someone help me?

[Hash Myth]

I am trying to log into a server but I can't, the game always shows me this following error
"That user is already playing"
but I can surely say that I have not a second instance of the game open with my account playing on the server.
And it does this error on the only two servers available at the moment.
Can someone help me?

change your password in case your account is being used by some other hax0r p0ny?

[VekGamingQC]

change your password in case your account is being used by some other hax0r p0ny?

I tried it, but it did not work at all.

[LostSanity]

Well, like I said, it doesn't matter because I've removed the game from my laptop and will never be able to play this game ever again due to having to get a job eventually and pretty much being unable to do anything I want to do anymore.

[Zsaszz]

Spoiler: show

Indeed. All things considered, I think they did a pretty decent job and the point of the OSW isn't so much to play the games as to test the new server approach and in that regard, we (the community) over did it a bit. They sought to remedy the ridiculous lag and inability to login to the game of previous OSWs by taking on the new instanced approach combined with spawn queues per area. It also made some degree of sense to run a test with 3 servers, running 2 instances each to see how things perform in relation to the 5-6 servers of previous OSWs under similar load. What they didn't expect was a massive DDoS and a substantially heavier server load that they didn't know how to handle. While ideally, no mmo would have instancing of any sort, it's understandable for a small game like this that develops such a large community. Eve Online for example is one of the few mmo's that does not use instancing and has two regular servers... one for China and one for everyone else as well as an extra test server. The main server 'Tranquility' is known for having easily 20-30K players on at any given time. The main difference is that each one of the thousands of solar systems is run on it's own hardware node, so it works out pretty well. A small game like Legends of Equestria on the other hand with only a handful of distinct areas is not so lucky (nor anywhere near as well funded), and thus they must do everything they can to balance server loads and performance with minimizing the cost of their server rentals, never mind the massive volunteer effort to keep everything from falling apart while the game is up. They tried a new approach to their server model and it had mixed results. Adding another server or two might indeed even handle the increased load, however from a technical standpoint, this was clearly a necessary test. No doubt this is something that they are doing everything they can to resolve. As far as the vitriol is concerned, it's unfortunate but to be expected for an online game. To those spewing it (you know who you are), how dare you! You consume their time, bandwidth, and rented computing resources, and then come on their forums (using more of those same resources) to yell at them for their free, WIP service not working properly under an unexpectedly high load. To the development team, keep being awesome and making this game the best it can be! I agree with others that instancing is not ideal, however if it can effectively handle the traffic and possibly even reduce server rental cost under similar loads, then by all means go for it, while of course adding features to mitigate the inherent drawbacks of instancing. I haven't really played much of this OSW before today, but it's been fun, if a little stressful and I can't wait to see what you've got in store for the next one! PS... while there are still user flow issues throughout the world, please at least unlock the race select on already created characters to choose a spawn point or allow us to choose a spawn point directly instead. To that end, I second the earlier idea of a balloon to travel directly between Ponydale and Cloudopolis.

This

Spoiler: show

Am I missing something? Did you guys pay $40 to play this game? If not, you're not entitled to anything. You guys embarrass me

And this...

People seriously need to stop bashing against the LoE team so bad for something that they are doing for FREE, you are not paying any kind of retail price for the game or paying monthly fee to have the right to complain about the unstable state of the servers, they are doing all that they have in their hands, but they have their own lifes too and i don't get how some people expect them to extend the osw more so they can feel satisfied thinking that the team dont have their own problems to deal with, if your not paying anything for it then you don't have the right to complain because you're not a customer, you're a user enjoying a free downloadable software, nothing more.

i personally haven't played much of this OSW because of my job, and the fact that when i come home i am barely able to connect and play a little bit before some kind of error kicks me out, but am i mad?, why should i? I've been more than happy to play,even if it's only for short periods just seeing the new things that they added, and that's enough for me.

[Shinoha]

 I understand well that this is a beta and that there are kinks to work out, but I couldn't even get into a session of the game over the whole weekend. Everytime I clicked logged in, I got a screen that said server status and blank under it.

[Hash Myth]

I've said it before and I will say it again..... This time bigger.... Okay here it goes *takes in a deep breath*

[glow=red,2,300]It's PRE-ALPHA![/glow]

Not Alpha, not beta, PRE ALPHA!

What that means is ITS GONNA HAVE BUGS! It's going to crash and burn, its going to have issues and to top it all off... Almost all issues that happened was due to a DDos attack.

So not only is the game overloaded with just the people here in the forum, but ALSO any bandwidth left was killed by the DDos attack.

So say it with me... ITS FREE, its PRE-ALPHA, and the LoE team handled it VERY well considering the lack of resources that a big time multi-million dollar company could have done (like Blizzard and CCP Games (EvE Online))

Thank You LoE Team! You guys are 20% Cooler for learning from this chaotic weekend, now the game can develop in a much positive way.

[Ron_Gamer100]

Is it normal that when you login it says that it can't connect to host?

[Princess Oliver]

*sigh* Now all my ponies are stuck.  I was trying to use the train from ponydale but it deposited my last pony in applewood again. Is there a way for me to teleport out or something? 

Hi PunkOfSteam, can you make sure that you are not using an older build of the Client from the December tests please. People who are encountering the applewood issue are generally using an older client that causes you to be sent to the wrong room.