Ridiculous Lag

[Centaur0001]

In the 75 minutes it just took for me to load the main screen of my Wartune session in your mini-client, my partner as Guild Master had logged in, had her own issues, and said she'd handed me control of my guild...which, of course, means we missed running scheduled events for the guild tonight because of this insane issue.

EVERYONE in my guild is experiencing growing lag problems again, from the badly inconvenient to the profound.

So, great, I'm logged in and one screen is loaded. I still can't actually PLAY anything, because by the time the game loads, I may well have a guild who evolves an extra set of arms or something.

I'm on Wartune GameRocks (Kabam) Server 36, on the Server 14 cluster.

If you want to know who has said they've been impacted, open the guild roster screen, and look for all active players...many will have far more picante observations than I am sharing here.

The entire server is seeing these issues.

It's not an individual browser, though your mini-client seems worst of all in handling this...we've tried Opera, Opera Neon, Opera GX, Chrome, Edge, Internet Explorer, Maxthon, Maxthon Gold, Vivaldi, your mini-client, and quite a few others.

There is no way this is on the player end with everyone impacted to some degree or another.

We've tested with machines with 32Gb of RAM and up.

This has been scaling up for a couple of weeks, but today is the worst.

I'm on the same browser right now with an open Wartune session, but the forum here seems fine, no visible lag for me. It's a new install and new session in Opera GX and there's been no other overhead, no other cookies or cache in here, it's brand new to make certain this isn't one of those famous things you push back on users with and try to eliminate as root cause...it's not.

The game takes an unusual time to get to the "Loading" screen, but everything takes forever. When the game screen is loaded, game mail takes forever to open, inventory, event rooms, and so on...starting Battleground at the start of a half hour today, the event was over before the window loaded.

Test your game on an outside line, please, and after you fix this, please take better care not to inflict this on us again.

Right now, unplayable is understatement, and you need to get in immediately and address this problem.

[MemoryLane]

This will be forwarded . If they ask for a toon to check with, which name should I give them?

[Centaur0001]

Have them take mine down, logged in or not, please. I'll make sure I hand off the GM chair right now.

Specifically, Centaur, on Wartune GameRocks S36.

Always unsettling to hear players seeing this again and talking about quitting...we work too hard to keep it fun here, this was not a good day.

Thanks for diving in here so quickly.

[MemoryLane]

Thank you. I haven't been asked yet, but if/when I am, I'll let them know they have permission to boot as needed. Hopefully they can figure out what's going on quickly.

[Centaur0001]

Just got this comment from another player, thought it might be helpful...but, everyone is saying something about loading issues and lag. Haven't found any exceptions in days, but today's by far the worst.

(See attached.) The player who added that info just tried to log in here and post comments for herself and doesn't seem to have permission...anything we should know about rights? She says she's had her R2Games account since 2012, though the account was only recently restored to her after the conversion thing that we all know and love.

And I got into Castle Wars just now quickly...to my surprise...then combat started and I'm locked up again with a loading graphic and going nowhere fast.
If like other events today, I won't get as far as a single kill when my guild needs 25 from me. :-(
(Follow-up regarding Castle Wars...booted for inactivity after 5 minutes, and the combat screen loading graphic still loading after I'm booted from the room, and I'd tried to enter combat seconds after the event started. Adding a screen cap also of that loading still going on, 10+ minutes after the event has ended. Absolutely can't play like this.)

[Centaur0001]

Sabrina1 from my guild reporting it has sometimes taken her 30+ minutes to log in this week, all week. I wasn't aware it was that bad for anyone before today, even though it has been pretty difficult.

Phoenix66 limiting game time this week already due to lag. Seems he's logged out for the day because of performance issues, others following his lead, everyone getting intensely frustrated.

After a fresh login, I can't run Catacombs because the game says I'm in Expedition Blitz. Nothing working right.

[MemoryLane]

PMs still don't function. The only places where there's post restrictions are News and Events sections, and the only restriction is that new topics can't be created by normal members. 'No permission' to post in this thread could be the forum isn't recognizing the login. That sometimes happens when the Remember Me box isn't checked when logging in. I'd help troubleshoot on my extra accounts, but my computer is in the shop at the moment so I'm quite limited.

I haven't heard anything back yet on the report. I'll check in with the team in an hour and see if they can give me an update.

[Centaur0001]

Again, many thanks from all of us for getting to this quickly. We've tried to put up with what we could, because the issue of lag is always seen primarily as the user's fault somehow, and it has to get really intense before the support experts really seem to want to take off the blinders. I promise you, we're suddenly well past that point. Will pass along your comment about the Remember Me box and see if it helps.

[MemoryLane]

You guys should all stop putting up with things and start yelling about it on the forum. I'm being serious - every issue, every time. Everyone should speak up about things that are wrong in the game on the forum.

The increase in traffic would benefit me because then they'd fix the forum. It would benefit you because there's strength in numbers and maybe we'll get stuff fixed.

If the login issue doesn't resolve for your friend, please ask her to send in a ticket about how the forum is broken I should have my computer back tomorrow, and will see if I can reproduce the issue then.

[Centaur0001]

I'm not sure the ticket system is working. On any given day, it may or may not.

We've tried tickets in the past and got so much pushback, it was frankly demoralizing...people were tired of being told game deficiencies were their fault...many quit more over support issues than anything else. It's hard to have a ticketing system in place and instinctively know to go instead to the forum site to report problems...simply confusing.

We have a few brave, willing souls, and I will gladly point them here again...am already doing so. And, to voice my own feelings a bit, I feel almost ashamed to be taking advantage of you so often, even though there seems to be total dysfunction when choosing any other path, and we're forced to do something.

But, support has been dishing out denial and abuse in a lot of ways for so long, I must have some sympathy with individual players having lost patience a bit when just trying to get in, have fun, and play a game.

Let me see what I can do, though. It's not like the lag is all that isolated, it's just worse for some than others at this point.

Hoping the screen cap of the loading graphic 15+ minutes after trying to enter combat, 10+ minutes after the event ended, is at least convincing someone we're seeing something real...instead of hearing we need a screen cap or they'll just ignore us again...which has been such a lame policy from the start that the person who is collecting a bonus for implementing it needs 1000 lashes with a wet noodle.

It might also bear saying to support and the devs, with proper and timely support, a good QC/QA test bench in place, and fewer profound problems, there would be a lot more still playing this game, and a lot more people spending a lot more...and we might even convince more players to return, which you know well that I'm trying to do every single day, with some success. We know R2Games is adding games, still hasn't converted Wartune to HTML5 (which may simply be a mistake) and is trying to push us to try other games. Without doing a better job here, they're not likely ever to get anyone there, to the new stuff, from here. If they earn it, I want them to take away a lot more money here from those that will choose to spend. Players aren't the enemy, and, like any other business with a supply chain, we're actually partners. When we report things, we're giving them free help. (Most of us, anyway!) I wish they'd take it in that spirit.

And, sir, you are simply vastly underpaid for what you are doing for all of us here.

[davidj72466]

I have been having the same issues with lag and long wait times to log in. Missed World Boss yesterday as it took 15 mins to login to the game. And for the last 3 days I hardly ever even saw my toon or anyone else's as there was nothing showing but grey ghost figures instead of my toon. Lag is terrible and seems to be so with the Mini Client and any other browsers I have tried!

[MemoryLane]

The problem with going through ticket for some issues is they have a set procedure they have no choice but to follow, and that often leads to frustration for us when we think an issue should be pretty simple to get reported, like lag that we all know exists. I've recently tried to attack the issue of lag from the perspective of things that can reliably be reproduced, like the concentration cannon lvl 5 issue (take that off, if you have it), in the hopes that they'll find what's wrong with that and be able to apply that knowledge to other areas as well. It's been a slow process. "They know" is the last update I received about that.

Where the forum is beneficial in some cases is, players from all servers can come and bounce ideas and thoughts off each other, and together we come up with a pretty good list of things everyone has tried with no resolution, and then I take all of that information and bypass the support process. Not just for lag, but game bugs as well. It doesn't always pan out in the game, and sometimes things eventually do get addressed but far later than the original group reporting the issue had patience for (looking at stuns that get addressed in patch 10 finally, hopefully it's a good change). Instead of you guys having to fight with support, it's me fighting with the people above support on your behalf, and I don't mind doing that.

Wartune won't be going html5. Wartune is going to be a client based game instead of a browser based game. Different games have different teams and different devs, so while I do understand where you're coming from, one hand is not involved with the other. Wartune is still one of the most popular games here, they aren't trying to push you to leave Wartune. They hope Wartune players will like the other games and play more than one, but they need you to stick around Wartune lol. I'm hoping things will pick up a bit once we get the client up and running, as that and patch 10 have taken all the focus.

I'm not a sir. Yelling at R2 employees like I'm the boss is kind of a fun perk, though I still wish there were more people around to help with the yelling. I'd say that's a hint, but the forum's broken so I don't have a way to take applications while protecting my contact information.

Back on the topic of the lag, I will continue to forward your concerns.

I have been having the same issues with lag and long wait times to log in. Missed World Boss yesterday as it took 15 mins to login to the game. And for the last 3 days I hardly ever even saw my toon or anyone else's as there was nothing showing but grey ghost figures instead of my toon. Lag is terrible and seems to be so with the Mini Client and any other browsers I have tried!

Are you on the same server as Centaur? If not, please provide your server number.

[evilharry666]

if some of the players who have concentration pearl attached to player in nemesis devil armour please remove this as this causes lag and freezes during fights

[Centaur0001]

Opera GX, being promoted as a game browser, is actually showing me how badly Wartune performs in other browsers. (Opera GX is still running Wartune and has other R2Games tabs open like the forum and is using less than 10% of RAM on my machine, consistently. So far, I'm really quite happy with it.) The grey ghost figures are often what's present in any other browser instead of opponents, the World Boss HP bar, especially in the mini-client, sometimes goes to zero as soon as the Boss can be killed, but combat continues without being able to tell how much life the Boss has left...not so in Opera GX, so long as the room opens in the first place (which, last night, it didn't always). What I'm also seeing in Opera GX quite nicely is all the game graphics during combat, such as when a spell is used or reaches a target...with none of this even visible via the mini-client due to the heavy lag, and probably also contributing to the lag, all this really gorgeous development work is entirely useless because I'm guessing 90%+ of those playing Wartune have never seen it, and all it does is contribute to the lag in here for everyone. I know we can turn off skill effects, too, but with all the effort made on developing things when so much is broken and not working, has anyone ever thought through the fact they've been sending their own game past the point of being playable? (And, yes, for play testing when I have issues, I do toggle this on and off, trying to get a sense of what's going on, and perhaps finding more data points worth mentioning.)

With that, if you're saying Wartune will be a client-based game, it's entirely clear and certain the client now in place just can't handle the game. Not even remotely close. At the very best, you'll get some impaired game play on a normal machine, and you'll have to refresh every few minutes because of all the overhead (which includes cookies from FaceBook, apparently). My vote is for someone to wake up and change direction before it's too late. And, if we will be kept from using browsers, there will be another cluster of people who just drop from the game.

With a machine bearing 24Gb or 32Gb of RAM, Wartune is usually playable even if graphics-impaired due to lag, but competitiveness is unfair because of one player or server lagging more heavily than another in combat or competition during an event...and both hating it and expecting they're lagging worse than the opponent...that's almost ALWAYS the case now, that Wartune isn't as fun because you know competition isn't fair due to lag the game is causing, and that's a big detractor for the game.

Meantime today, I actually got into the "morning" World Boss event and played it. It was relatively smooth, though lag is still certainly there, and definitely cost me a few attacks today.

What I'm also seeing is that with smaller accounts, (so less data in inventory, often simpler clothing pieces and mounts, which has been a past factor,) there's less lag. Also, lag on other servers usually doesn't align, so it's not something local and consistent to my own machine if I have several windows open, not something across all game hosts (where sometimes in the past it has been), lag seems to peak on specific accounts at certain times but "targets" those accounts for return visits (no, I don't think this is the imagination of the players, but wonder if there are more specific triggers we haven't discovered yet). If this goes to a client-based game, how will I have multiple windows for multiple accounts, servers, gamehosts open at the same time and still have it work?

[Centaur0001]

davidj72466 is also from my guild from the Kabam Server 14 cluster...I just double-checked with him and confirmed.

I've also followed up in that other place you've been finding messages lately....

And finally had a player tell me she hasn't had "much" lag in the past few days...wondering why any one player would be such an exception to the rule, though this one had actually been away from the game for some months at one point, so perhaps again we're discussing lag caused by equipping something or having something in inventory? I'm looking for clues wherever I can find them.