Load-testing success and new race events

Players frequently suggest that we may need capacity for even higher user numbers once we enter Open Beta. This may be true, if we're lucky, but we're able to order more server hardware if and when that's the case. We're able to get hardware set up within six hours of having a need for it, so if we do have peak concurrency higher than 50,000 users, we should be able to cope with it. These servers aren't cheap, so we don't want to waste the money that you have generously supported us with.

By the way, the load-testing bots had a ladder race.

Speaking of ladder races, the recent one-week hardcore race went really well. Many people devoted a heap of time to it and there was tension between the top players right to the end. Kripparrian posted a summary video about the event.

We've announced five short-duration races over the next week. They're over at the Events forum. Good luck!

The 0.9.13k patch will be deployed sometime in the next week. It will modify how global chat works in preparation for Open Beta.

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Jillys wrote:

Cool stuff. Btw why did you remove "/online"?

We haven't yet found time to re-implement that command after we broke it by sharding the database to three servers.

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Xelrah88 wrote:

To be honest servers lagged quite frequently when those bots were ran. Nothing major most of the time but from time to time there was huge lagspike on EU, I once had 4-5s lag in the middle of several mobs on the map (you can guess the result).
But fingers crossed that launch will be as smooth as possible.

The load-testing would not affect the lag that the game client experiences. It was entirely for stressing our back-end network that is used for saving, party requests, etc. During our test there was no measured delay on any of those internal activities. The lag you experienced would be an internet issue at your ISP or at an ISP between your one and our data center.

(To cut a long story short, when there are wayyy too many players online, you don't experience lag. What happens is that players either can't change area or get disconnected in batches. Thankfully these issues shouldn't occur because we have tested that we can handle the amount of players we have budgeted for.)

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Ken_NZ wrote:

Re. Changes to global chat.

Not sure if it is doable but players need to have 'global chat privileges' which can be disabled without fully having to ban the player account. That way GGG can moderate chat, warn, then revoke global chat privileges for all the idiots and losers that completely spoil the experience.

We do already have muting, yes - it's used hundreds of times per day.