Congestion During the Version Update

From SE: This is an update information regarding FINAL FANTASY XI login and version update difficulties due to server congestion after the Apr. 20, 2005 FINAL FANTASY version update. After readjusting the server equipment to relieve server congestion by our technical staff, the situation have vastly improved. However, we will continue to monitor the situation. If you are still receiving POL-1160 or POL-0010 errors on the FINAL FANTASY XI version update screen, please try again some time later. We apologize for the inconvenience and the length of the delay in successfully addressing this issue, and we appreciate your patience.

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annoyed...
# Apr 23 2005 at 12:57 PM Rating: Decent
FFXI isnt everything to me, and I don't mind waiting; because like many others, I have now found time to do else things such as reading or writing, drawing, etc. My problem is, however, that I cannot even get into the server to simply update it. I wouldn't care if I got all the updates done, and then it kicked me out and I couldn't get on for a week, at least I'd have the update through and ready to play when SE does finish

Edited, Sat Apr 23 13:58:49 2005
RE: annoyed...
# Apr 24 2005 at 3:58 PM Rating: Decent
anyone know why I can get online fine with my older pc, but not my newer one, that had been working fine up until the April 18 POL update...I've already gotten the older one updated and gone into the game w/out much trouble, but I still get 1160 error on my newer one right as it checks my POL version
apr23
# Apr 23 2005 at 11:13 AM Rating: Decent
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1,181 posts
even with the congestion which should be over (downloading update for first time on Apr 23) I've been here for 4 hours downloading the update. At least no error codes or freezes, so thats good... but still, 4 HOURS?!
weird problem
# Apr 22 2005 at 5:41 PM Rating: Decent
ok my problem isnt with FF XI its with PLO. I havent been able to log in since before the damn update and i have no idea y. its not my hardware because i called comcast to check it and its fine so my question is, do any of u guys have this problem with PLO and cant even log in to PLO or is it just my computer? i want to fricken play, i can wait for the update but im getting pissed at PLO.
RE: weird problem
# Apr 23 2005 at 8:12 AM Rating: Good
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634 posts
PLO is the former Palestine Liberation Organization... PlayOnline is PlayOnline. _Nobody_ uses PLO as shorthand for it - well except you.

Moral of the story: don't invent your own bad acronyms please ^^

Edited, Sat Apr 23 09:13:30 2005
question
# Apr 22 2005 at 2:12 PM Rating: Default
Is soe even checking it own staff for the Ddos attack i think it was from there
Arghh!!
# Apr 22 2005 at 12:47 PM Rating: Decent
For 3 days I have tried to get the upgrade done...came home from work yesterday to see that it hung up at 35%, so I restarted all was going well...I got down to 10 minutes left and then my comp froze up. restarted it and then tried to log in...I got an error message that said I needed to reinstall all FFXI!! After many failed attempts to get the upgrade going again I decided to uninstall FFXI and reinstall it. This is where the big whammy came from...My windows XP kept telling me that files were missing and that I needed the XP disk...long story short...I had to do a full reinstall of XP too!! Man, talk about getting the royal ***** job because of this damn update! Lost all my documents and stuff!!

Edited, Fri Apr 22 13:51:09 2005
RE: Arghh!!
# Apr 22 2005 at 5:45 PM Rating: Decent
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161 posts
The two of you are on PC, the same thing happened to me, and i play on the PS2. The Download froze during installation of the new update, and when i tried to start over it told me the same thing. Re-Install FFXI. So for the last 6 hours its been doing the Download for the 1st update, of 4. So with the re-install of FFXI, be prepared for about 15-20 hours of downloads, just to play again. Unless you feel like waiting a week or two, when the congestion is gone completely, and hopefully it will work at a decent download speed.
RE: Arghh!!
# Apr 23 2005 at 8:26 AM Rating: Decent
Update...day 2 of updates...man this stinks!
RE: Arghh!!
# Apr 22 2005 at 5:34 PM Rating: Decent
I'm sorry to tell you this but I work for an ISP and you just described the symptoms of catching Netsky Virus.

I have actually confirmed this on my own machine.

It happened to me already.
placing blame on SE?
# Apr 22 2005 at 8:53 AM Rating: Decent
A whole lotta sucky babies goin' on and on about how SE has let them down... How about the bunch of hackers that unleashed the problems in the first place? If it wasn't for the near constant wave of DDoS strikes, we'd all be leveling happily right now. Although judging from about 80% of what I've read in JUST THIS THREAD, I'd say a lot of you would instead find it fit to ***** about the rising prices at AH, or that the mob you've been camping got "stolen" from you.

Boo-frickin-hoo. Knock off the frabba jabba and save your hate for the hackers. SE is working to fix it, and the hackers are only working to eff it up further.

Edited, Fri Apr 22 10:03:56 2005
RE: placing blame on SE?
# Apr 22 2005 at 9:08 AM Rating: Decent
Spoken like a true Prodigy!!!

/thumbsup
I understand
# Apr 22 2005 at 8:38 AM Rating: Decent
ok i understand some people are upset cause there paying for a game they can't play....but i think some of you are being a little impatient...try to see where SE is coming from there trying to hardest to please everyone on the game they bring us great updates and additions to the game...and also deal with hackers on the side...there doing more then you think. It took me about 6 hours to download the update and when i recieved the POL warning i just checked up so see what was wrong...i didn't sit here and whine about it.

Edited, Fri Apr 22 09:41:06 2005
hahaha
# Apr 22 2005 at 6:23 AM Rating: Default
1 hour and 39 minutes total time, and that includes all updates since March 27, since I haven't played in that long. :P
Huh....
# Apr 22 2005 at 3:40 AM Rating: Decent
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786 posts
Last time I had checked, they never said that they had allieviated the DDoS attack...just that they were trying to track it down. This (if still not completely resolved) could be playing a role in this. But, then again I could be completely wrong.....
lol
# Apr 21 2005 at 11:45 PM Rating: Decent
i got no problem im getting tons of reading done ^^
update
# Apr 21 2005 at 11:39 PM Rating: Decent
Ok all you guys just need to chill, stop making such a huge deal about a game online, you make it seem like itsyour life, and if it is thats pathetic. just do the damn updates, wait a while and just chill, eventually it will finish and you will be happy. have some patience.
RE: update
# Apr 21 2005 at 11:46 PM Rating: Decent
yea easy for u to say. i cant even get the updates to start cause of the STUPID POL-1160 error code, and its pissing me off. i wouldnt be complaining if i get it to work but its not working.
RE: update
# Apr 22 2005 at 2:17 AM Rating: Decent
And this is why I pay them $15 a month. To sit in line fileplanet style because "We can't handle the bandwidth. Please accept our apologies."

During the week I don't care...because I play another MMO. But now it's my weekend and I want my FFXI dammit! lol. :P

EDIT: Now that I think about it a little more...Maybe the hack earlier this week has something to do with this and SE is swamped?



Edited, Fri Apr 22 03:32:36 2005
RE: update
# Apr 22 2005 at 2:15 AM Rating: Decent
crap DP >< sorry

Edited, Fri Apr 22 03:30:40 2005
1 hr
# Apr 21 2005 at 11:36 PM Rating: Decent
still got 1 hour i will post my findings when i get there
....
# Apr 21 2005 at 11:10 PM Rating: Decent
38 posts
still updateing >< 6 hours and 30mins ><
ASDFG
# Apr 21 2005 at 11:04 PM Rating: Default
HELLO I CAN LOG ON BUT AFTER I GET IN I DC 2MIN AFTER AND THIS IS EVERYF???IN TIME I LOG ON WTF IS GOING ON
ASDFG
# Apr 21 2005 at 11:04 PM Rating: Decent
HELLO I CAN LOG ON BUT AFTER I GET IN I DC 2MIN AFTER AND THIS IS EVERYF???IN TIME I LOG ON WTF IS GOING ON
tha update
# Apr 21 2005 at 10:35 PM Rating: Decent
i fell asleep while it was downloading...took me 6 hours....and im on cable >_<
RE: tha update
# Apr 22 2005 at 11:00 AM Rating: Decent
I left it downloading lastnight and when I check on it in the morning it had DC. What a bummer, I've been trying for a few days to connect and when I finally got it I was sure that it would finish. It connected to the update quickly so I thought I could just leave it overnight. I'm on dial-up so to leave it on overnight is the only thing that I can do. Let's see what happens tonight.
the end of the world
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:55 PM Rating: Excellent
A lot of people on this site seem to be very apocalyptic. Oh NO! I can't get on the game right now! I'm quitting! It's the end of the world! There's people selling gil and items online! It's going to ruin the economy! The game won't be good anymore! MMORPGs as we know it will end! The game was hacked! Square's gonna stop supporting FFXI! The world will end! Video Games will end! The update is taking too long! The FFXI servers are running on 56K modems! What'll I do!?

Seriously, I got the update done. It took me approximately 6 hours to update. 2 hours in the first attempt, and 4 hours in the second attempt. But I got it done. Know what I did while I waited, and what you can do?
Read a book
Whatch TV
Play a different game
Socialize with the outside world.

And if you can't update right now, you will eventually. Just keep trying now and then, you'll get it. Your character will be there weather you get on now, or get on tomarrow.
RE: the end of the world
# Apr 22 2005 at 8:39 AM Rating: Decent
I think that people expecting what they pay for does not necessarily mean that they are being "apocalyptic" I know that my update started at 5:30 central and didn't finish until 11 o'clock. Now i wouldn't normally complain except that i had to download it last night instead of the 20th because they couldn't get their **** together and support all the users. Personally, i think that TV is crap, i like to read but have finished my last book on the 20th and i get as much socializing during the day as i can handle. when i get home from work i like to relax with FFXI and being out of commission for 2 days in a row is ridiculous. Other than that i'm just glad i got the damn thing updated finally. Too bad my rse was today and i had no time to get keys ahead of time lol oh well, just try another day.
lmao
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:48 PM Rating: Decent
yea i had to do all the updates again but im at 75% or so now, but i had like 5000 or so files lol im not realy complaining i am getting to know this site better. all my posts are about this problom lol look how many i have in 1 day!
RE: lmao
# Apr 21 2005 at 10:32 PM Rating: Decent
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161 posts
Haha im with you Taru, this is like my 10th post, cause i had to re-install today too. Although mine hasn't even started to Download yet, its still scanning all 11229 files. Then the download will start. you would be better off finding something better to do, cause its gonna be a while.
Calm Down
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:43 PM Rating: Decent
18 posts
Yes I sympathise for all the people out there who can't play and the ones who have plants that are waiting, but why are you all making such a big deal outof this? Yes they could get more servers set up but that takes time. To set up a fully dedicated server for a game like this will take around a week or more. But chill out. Go and play basketball or chill with your friends (in RL.) FFXI can take the backseat for a day.
When they release a major update for any MMORPG there will be some down time. SAy that your world server crashes. Are u all gonna come on here and gripe about that too? They are trying their hardest and when computers don't wanna work as fast, there is NOTHING you can do to make them or the network faster. Calm down, get a drink, and wait about 10 minutes between tries. I just got mine updated this morning and yea, I lost 2 or 3 plants but I don't feel bad cuz I know SE had a good reason to implement this update.
The issue with money isn't the problem, it's the time it would take to set up all the extra necessities. And look at what they are doing for you and your leveling. They are trying to make the game better and lowering the EXP needed to level. That takes a while to sort out all of the millions of players stats. Instead of griping about this you should thank them for breing up the best d**** game ever made online.

Edited, Thu Apr 21 22:46:52 2005
RE: Calm Down
# Apr 23 2005 at 9:20 AM Rating: Good
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634 posts
It should take them no more than 2 or 3 hours per server to get a bunch of 'cloned' servers running. These servers are not unique - they have a bunch of identical machines processing identical tasks for the update. Setting up more copies is as simple as using a utility like Ghost and dumping a base image onto the new servers - or if they use a SAN or NAS system, they can clone one of the virtual partitions or just link to it.

I'm not sure how many servers they have, how much total bandwidth they have, and how their disk clusters are set up - but between their infrastructure, the updates and the DDoS, they are over their threshold and need to increase capacity.

Yes people are ******** WAY too much (the seriously addicted ones likely), but PlayOnline / Square Enix are not doing their part - this game makes them HUGE money, but they want to minimize the infrastructure costs to leave a good profit margin... and this seems more important to them than giving a fully satisfying experience to their paying customers. Keep in mind I'm ignoring modem users in this - they will suffer sucky latency issues compared to faster connections, it's just the nature of the beast... but for broadband users to have 1000+ receive delay in Qufim when there's only 50 people there is a sure sign that Squeenix has issues they need to resolve.

As far as taking forever 'to update millions of stats' I'll just take it that you don't have a good idea of what goes on under the hood of a database server or distributed game... Their database keeps track of all your character's stats - in a very efficient structure. If they wanted to give all players a free 10K experience, it could be done in minutes. But that's not what is happening - you are downloading patched library files, that themselves know what the new XP / level limits are - the servers keep track of where players are in a certain map, and how many HP the mobs still have, etc - although the servers 'are in charge', a lot of the work still happens on the local machine... This is why Squeenix is so paranoid and makes the game crash if you're not running it full screen (3rd party windower apps, fraps, etc. excluded). This update was done on the server end well before the patch was rolled out... anything that needed to happen on the servers was done a while ago.

Edited, Sat Apr 23 10:27:00 2005
RE: Calm Down
# Apr 22 2005 at 5:06 PM Rating: Decent
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357 posts
Shut up ><

Dont friggin tell us to go out and play basketball thats none of ur bussiness. When I get home after work on weekdays i have no energy to do anything, and If i pay for this I expect it to work.
RE: Calm Down
# Apr 22 2005 at 9:47 PM Rating: Decent
Just becuase you dont have the energy to play a sport, and dont want to go outside after working doesn't mean that you absolutely "need" FFXI at night. Some serious issues have come up with Square-Enix, and they are putting more time and effort than ever berfore into trying to fix this problem. Did you ever think about that? Running over 30 servers (including keeping a beta server up), inhabited by millions of people world-wide isn't and easy task to accomplish. Those statistics you hear about daily, like "Every nine second a drunk driver hits someone," is starting to equal out into this game for unpleasant phenomena. Problems with the systems (yes, there is more than one system running these programs) come by the hour, and the minute, not the day, or the month. If FFXI has become so important to you, that you will sit here and speak nothing but anger at Square-Enix, maybe you should reevaluate your priorities.

Sorry to sound like im flaming, but you and so many others are complaining about not having access to a luxury. That's correct, Square-Enix doesn't "have" to keep this game running, and can stop whenever they feel as such.

P.S. The quoted statistic isn't proven in any way, just used as an example.
Adhem
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:24 PM Rating: Decent
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291 posts
Adhem wrote:
Quote:If you are still receiving POL-1160 or POL-0010 errors on the FINAL FANTASY XI version update screen, please try again some time later.


Hmmm... it says "please try again some time LATER. how much later? ive been waiting for 3 days for this damn thing to work and ive gotten the same error all three days, so if they cant set atleast a time period then that means they dont know how long it will take. haha i just thought of something... i bet they know y its down they just dont want to fix it to **** us off and take our money. just a thought...

Update's only been around for 1 day, chill out. My pc screwed up and I have to update every update that there was, 3046 files... been downloading all day and only 30% so far and you don't see me *********
Get Real, go outside for a minute or two
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:07 PM Rating: Good
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448 posts
Well, at peak times, I have seen 6K users on Bismark... lets say the average is 4k, which could mean as many as 8K people are subscribed to that one server.

32 x 8,000 = 276,000 users. So lets say that's just 250,000 users total.

Just think of the 15Kb per sec limit. With a max of 4K users per sec, that's 60,000Kb, or roughly 50Mb per sec per server at peak. So multiply that times 32 servers, that makes 1600Mb... or 1.6Gb per second to maintain all 32 Servers.

An OC-48 transmits at 2400Mps, or 300MB per second, half of a cd per sec. a T1, which is 1.5Mb per second, coast 400 to 1500 dollars, depending on if it's dedicated or burstable, and if it's guaranteed.

So to maintain optimal speeds for users, SE needs around 1400 T1's... and if at a bundled rate (more rate means less per bit) lets say they are getting 2Mb for 200 dollars a month, and they probably are using a full OC-48 for full speed. Usually you can get an OC-45, dedicated, for an average of 90 dollars per 1Mb, so for this arguement we will say they are getting it for 75 dollars per 1Mb... that brings the total cost for connectivity to $180,000 a month. Well, the problem is, they are getting such a rate because they have multiple facilities, so one OC-48, but multiple OC-12's are used, and those are 600Mb's per second, which usally don't get the 75-90 dollar rate per Mb...

But, for kicks lets say they are getting their pipe for $200,000, but what about redundency, for they can't have a facility go down, that's $400,000.

Okay, so we have 8000 users per server, at 32 servers. That's 256,000 users, and at 13 dollars a pop, that's 3,328,000 dollars.

Okay, so after they pay for bandwidth, they have roughly 3 Million dollars a month.

So right now that bandwitdh is being heavily used, and probably being hit harder than the average gaming session period.

So they have 3 Million dollars KGO! Why aren't they buying me more bandwidth?

Rent on a hosting facility, and a dedicated facility isn't cheap. Rent, equipment and Utilities is possibly 500K - 1M a month.

Then there is all that administrative staff to make sure your credit cards get charged legally and properly. Multiple offices, europe, americas and asia, then all that support staff, not to mention all that staff that takes the time to design new changes to the game and to POL, not to mention GM's, Secrataries, support staff.

To run a organized structure of facilities like that, it could easily run into the 25M - 35M a year range, maybe 18 - 30M in some countries. Plu, not to mention cost of initial development. So if they are lucky, they are getting some profit, and look, SE is a company, and if a company doesn't make a profit, it can't grow, and it goes out of business.
RE: Get Real, go outside for a minute or two
# Apr 22 2005 at 8:49 AM Rating: Decent
kgochtguerre - you sound like you know what you're talking about.

Only a few months ago, FFXI hit 1.5 Million users. No telling how many they have now.

RE: Get Real, go outside for a minute or two
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:30 PM Rating: Decent
Note out of the nearly 1 year of paying for this game service, I have yet to talk to any real person, and never recieved an email from them reguarding Credit card problems, if your payment doesn't process they cancel your service, it's as simple as a small credit card subroutine in its programming, which durns a switch from on to off if "approved" doesn't show up. so the arguement that it takes that much support staff i dont believe.
RE: Get Real, go outside for a minute or two
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:34 PM Rating: Decent
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448 posts
They do not cancel your service. Many times it hasn't gone against my debit card, and they suspended the account, not cancelled. Once I got my account cleared up they reinstated my account. The only problem was I had to reactive all my Content ID's.

So, don't try to dramatize it when that is not what happens.
lalala
# Apr 21 2005 at 8:54 PM Rating: Decent
Cant we all just get along! go bake some brownies or something... Go get drunk and stupid no one cares if you go to work tommorow with a hangover, just use the excuse that FF11 was being a *****, im sorry. lol
plants o no!
# Apr 21 2005 at 8:46 PM Rating: Decent
man i feel sorry for the people with the poor plants that died... people sometimes put alot of money into that. i tried it once they all died but i admire people who know how to on the game. personaly im a nice gardener in real life. just in game is to hard and costly... my heart goes out to you poor gardeners!
stupid thing
# Apr 21 2005 at 8:38 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
If you are still receiving POL-1160 or POL-0010 errors on the FINAL FANTASY XI version update screen, please try again some time later.

Hmmm... it says "please try again some time LATER. how much later? ive been waiting for 3 days for this damn thing to work and ive gotten the same error all three days, so if they cant set atleast a time period then that means they dont know how long it will take. haha i just thought of something... i bet they know y its down they just dont want to fix it to **** us off and take our money. just a thought...
same Sh|t Different day
# Apr 21 2005 at 8:31 PM Rating: Decent
[b][/b] lets just face it , SE sucks and wants to save money, Stop being such broke b|tches. and fix your sh|t.
RE: same Sh|t Different day
# Apr 21 2005 at 8:33 PM Rating: Decent
yea i agree... FIX YOUR F%$&*@# S%$* GOD!!!!!!!!!
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