Automated server crash detection & reboot

[Fedorya]

I sure don't like bringing the money talk on the table, but thats a fact, once you pay for a service, this one need to do its utmost to satsfy his customers.
... i don't like seeing my right to access a service i subscribe to being denied because of servers issues thats are years old and still not fixed...

If the servers are down for a lengthy amount of time, Haxus normally credit a little gametime to everyone to compensate.

But no, the server issue isn't years old. I don't remember Haxus saying he has any major server crashing issues that has been eluting him for years.

I know he give gametime if things go sour too much, but the main problem lay elsewhere.
If you pay a service, it should guarantee you a minimum of quality (not always true thou), and if im someone working a lot IRL, and when my rest days are here and i wanna enjoy Hazeron, but stay stuck in limbo most of my rest days time, you can understand how an infuriating experience it become. And im not the only one in this case right now.

I played many years ago to Hazeron before coming back for the reset... And limbo was already a feared thing at the time, so yeah these problems are year olds.
And to straighten things : Im not bashing Haxus at all in these posts, but sharing my frustration over a problem thats need a definitive solution to be found quickly. Being victim of a bug thats kill me and make lost my stuff, im okay with that, i just have to re craft them...
Being denied entierly access to the game cause a servers issues is not something that should go on.

[Xantheose]

^
This

Adding new features is a nonsense if players can't log in.

[Deantwo]

i don't like seeing my right to access a service i subscribe to being denied because of servers issues thats are years old and still not fixed...

But no, the server issue isn't years old. I don't remember Haxus saying he has any major server crashing issues that has been eluting him for years.

I played many years ago to Hazeron before coming back for the reset... And limbo was already a feared thing at the time, so yeah these problems are year olds.
And to straighten things : Im not bashing Haxus at all in these posts, but sharing my frustration over a problem thats need a definitive solution to be found quickly. Being victim of a bug thats kill me and make lost my stuff, im okay with that, i just have to re craft them...
Being denied entierly access to the game cause a servers issues is not something that should go on.

I just wanted to make sure that you understood that the "limbo" that existed back before 2014 was different.
See: http://hazeron.com/wiki/index.php/Limbo

But yes I guess we can look at "server crashing prevent me from playing" as a long-term issue.

[Xantheose]

[Fedorya]

i don't like seeing my right to access a service i subscribe to being denied because of servers issues thats are years old and still not fixed...

But no, the server issue isn't years old. I don't remember Haxus saying he has any major server crashing issues that has been eluting him for years.

I played many years ago to Hazeron before coming back for the reset... And limbo was already a feared thing at the time, so yeah these problems are year olds.
And to straighten things : Im not bashing Haxus at all in these posts, but sharing my frustration over a problem thats need a definitive solution to be found quickly. Being victim of a bug thats kill me and make lost my stuff, im okay with that, i just have to re craft them...
Being denied entierly access to the game cause a servers issues is not something that should go on.

I just wanted to make sure that you understood that the "limbo" that existed back before 2014 was different.
See: http://hazeron.com/wiki/index.php/Limbo

But yes I guess we can look at "server crashing prevent me from playing" as a long-term issue.

Reasons may be differents, results are in the end the same.
And in a game made to be played online, servers issues should always be the TOP issue over everything else due to the fact thats well servers are the heart of an online game.
Limbo wathever cause them all result in the same thing : Prevent player from loggin into the game, thus denying them the possibility to play, thus increasing frustration and for some make them leave, slowly draining the player base. The worst outcome.
If an auto restart server is not a viable solution, at least it should be possible to implement a system that transfer the character to the last "active" server he visited or anything like this.
Basicly any system that prevent players to get stuck in limbo. and reduce Haxus work load at always having to manage stuck players.

[NeoKuro]

So from what I can tell / read, the reason theres no automated process to resolve limbo (in the case of server crashes etc) is it gives a chance to isolate / trace the issues which I fully respect and understand.

However I've recently been victim to limbo twice in the last 3-4 days. The first was on Saturday, and that wasn't resolved until Monday, and the second was yesterday and it is still unresolved.
Thats about 2.5-3 days I've been unable to play the game.


Would it not be possible to leave the crashed server...well...down to allow for tracing etc, but transfer the associated resources (Systems, characters etc) over to a backup server until the 'real' server is restored? That way it reduces the impact of limbo and allows people to continue playing the game, whilst the causes can be traced.


Because I've been back in the game about 5-6 days now, and about 50% of that time I've been unable to play the game because of limbo. To me it seems quite a serious and frequent issue that needs to be addressed.

Especially over weekends when it may not be addressed until Mondays, where I'd propose biting the bullet and if a crash etc happens on a weekend, just reboot the server automatically (and try to do a output dump or something with as much information as possible) to reduce the impact on players unless there is someone available to immediately look into these issues and address them.


TLDR;

- Limbo seems a very frequent and serious issue (it blocks players from playing the game entirely, and in my experience has happened about 50% of the time I've been back 'playing' this game)
- I suggest a way to reduce the impact of server crashes / limbo by autoamting some sort of process to transfer resources from the crashed / locked server to a temporary backup server until the cause can be traced to reduce the game-time impact of these crashes etc
- Over weekends I suggest that the server automatically reboot (either a daily event, or when it detects a lock / crash / whatever else could cause limbo) since the issue will not be addressed until Monday. Auto-reboot will reduce the impact of limbo on gametime and allow players to continue playing over the weekend (typically, I'd imagine, when most people have freetime)




(Copied from newer thread, was suggested to append to this thread)
http://hazeron.com/mybb/showthread.php?tid=2328

[Xantheose]

Would it not be possible to leave the crashed server...well...down to allow for tracing etc, but transfer the associated resources (Systems, characters etc) over to a backup server until the 'real' server is restored? That way it reduces the impact of limbo and allows people to continue playing the game, whilst the causes can be traced.

It's by far easier to add a verbose log to know where and why a server crashed and reboot it than managing ressources sharing between servers.

[NeoKuro]

Would it not be possible to leave the crashed server...well...down to allow for tracing etc, but transfer the associated resources (Systems, characters etc) over to a backup server until the 'real' server is restored? That way it reduces the impact of limbo and allows people to continue playing the game, whilst the causes can be traced.

It's by far easier to add a verbose log to know where and why a server crashed and reboot it than managing ressources sharing between servers.

I know, but if the reason there isn't an auto reboot etc is so Haxus can manually trace these issues, then transferring resources between servers would at least be a sort of compromise.