MARK JACOBS APOLOGIZES TO THE COMMUNITY [Author: myschyf]

Folks,

The last few nights have been difficult ones for DAoC. Through a combination of events, some expected, some not, we have not lived up to our usual standards of stability. While we all know that these things are to be expected during a Beta test, we at Mythic are not comfortable simply relying on that statement as an explanation for what occurred during the last few nights night. So, first I would like to extend our apologies for the frustration that many of you have experienced during this time. While I cannot promise that it will not happen again during the testing period, I can promise you that we will all benefit from the information we have gathered during this time. In a nutshell, here\’e2\’80\’99s a quick rundown of the problems as well as some additional points regarding our beta test.

First, the entire structure of DAoC is running on a 30M pipe up at Worldcomm. We are currently using approximately 118% of that pipeline. Our plan for launch is to increase that pipeline to 300M sitting on a 1G line. We are loath to increase the pipeline prior to launch due to the additional expense but if the measures we are taking over the next few days don\’e2\’80\’99t improve the situation dramatically we will increase the pipe.

Second, over the last couple of days there has been about a 10 \’e2\’80\ldblquote 20% packet loss due to our overburdening of our bandwidth. This overuse is not caused by the proper game but rather to the bandwidth consumed by our patcher. We are taking steps to prevent this from happening again. The result of this will be slower but more consistent patches but the game should no longer be affected. Also, we will not have any more large updates (10M+) for the rest of the testing period. While new people will have to download the whole game, the process should be smoother for all.

Third, we had a major problem with our monster generators that caused the game to implode. As we informed the community yesterday, this problem was resolved and should not happen again.

Finally, we had a couple of problems last night due to the number of simultaneous people playing the game with over 1200 in the game (a new high) and the number of people in one realm. This highlighted a problem in our code which we have since corrected. This problem is exactly the kind we need to find and correct during beta so as to remove it before the game goes LIVE. So, other than the packet loss (due to the overburdened pipe), we were thrilled with the results even if it meant the game crashed twice.

Beta is a difficult process for any game especially when Mythic is focused on cleaning up these things now, rather than later. I thank all of our testers and the community for its support that you have given us now and hopefully you will continue to give us in the future. I promise you that it will be rewarded.

Mark Jacobs