[HN Gopher] World Login Errors and Resolutions
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       World Login Errors and Resolutions
        
       Author : wallflower
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2021-12-08 00:22 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (na.finalfantasyxiv.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (na.finalfantasyxiv.com)
        
       | joe-collins wrote:
       | Yoshi-P's status as the very public face of the team, even in
       | difficult times, continues to earn my respect. Even more so to
       | actually discuss the nitty-gritty of the technical issues they're
       | facing, rather than just gesturing to vague "issues". It signals
       | reciprocal respect for their players, in a way that too often
       | feels absent when dealing with other studios.
        
         | hajhatten wrote:
         | Something I've noticed more and more following the gaming
         | industry the last decade. Developers openly loathing it's end
         | users. And if they're brave enough to speak about it publicly,
         | who knows what they're saying behind closed doors.
        
           | rstupek wrote:
           | Have you seen the entitlement some end users display towards
           | developers? The vitriol hurled at them through twitter, etc?
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | ianbutler wrote:
             | Not that I think any of that is excusable but a lot of
             | studios have been churning out garbage and expecting
             | players to swallow it and say thanks.
             | 
             | Look at the infinite multiplayer debacle right now,
             | probably the worst f2p monetization I've seen since the f2p
             | model started taking hold like 20 years ago.
             | 
             | So many games release as barely working beta states right
             | now and I think players should be angry. How they take it
             | out isn't right and often who it's directed at is wrong but
             | a lot of the times AAA and the like Game Studios are just
             | putting out bad products and anger I think is a valid
             | feeling to have when as a player, you see that.
        
               | joe-collins wrote:
               | Despite your guarded opening, I think your stance is
               | overly equivocal. There isn't a strong "both sides"
               | argument when one side engages in death threats and
               | doxxing while the other merely produces subpar products.
               | Would you consider your opinions reasonable if consumers
               | targeted the same vitriol at the manufacturer of a faulty
               | appliance?
        
               | ianbutler wrote:
               | I think telling someone they made a shitty product when
               | they did is warranted regardless of industry, especially
               | if you're paying or being manipulated into paying money.
               | I don't think extreme behaviors are okay, which I said -
               | but you're right it was maybe a bit ambiguous, so to note
               | to be extra clear, death threats are a form of extreme
               | behavior.
        
       | virtue3 wrote:
       | They're so strapped they decided to bring dev server's online to
       | support the login process. OOOF.
       | 
       | The chip shortage and their own success is a really bad combo
       | here.
       | 
       | But overall Yoshi-P's attitude keeps me playing and interested.
       | He really loves this game and his community and it shows through
       | their thoughtfulness and general open-ness and direct
       | communication with the fanbase.
        
       | falcolas wrote:
       | One thing they're not mentioning is the queues being unstable -
       | being kicked out of the queue by their 2002 errors. I'd love to
       | see them address this beyond "it's likely a client networking
       | issue". Once you're in the game it's rock solid, which leads me
       | to question the "client networking issue" explanation.
       | 
       | The large and unstable queues are leading to the use of mouse
       | jigglers and such, so people can log in in the morning just so
       | they can play at night. An interesting, but not helpful, emergent
       | behavior.
        
         | jdknezek wrote:
         | I haven't verified myself, but [1] & comments assert that the
         | client attempts to open a new lobby server connection
         | periodically based on time or byte count, which causes your
         | client to bump into the lobby server limit even mid-queue.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/r9r25a/error_2002_is...
        
         | virtue3 wrote:
         | My pro-tip here is to use the XIVLauncher (get it from github).
         | 
         | Logs you in much faster than the default launcher.
         | 
         | They brought in dev machines to address this. The issue is the
         | queue is for your data center. And it maxes out at 15k. I think
         | they're going to be operating at 17,500 now?
         | 
         | There's most likely some really long open socket connection
         | with no retry logic. So anytime you get a hint of packetloss
         | it's over. Polling would be better but would also require a lot
         | more hardware? I'm not sure how I'd design a better system.
         | 
         | As soon as the queue hits 15k people get booted and you end up
         | with about 2-3 minutes to get back in and keep your spot.
        
         | derefr wrote:
         | > Once you're in the game it's rock solid, which leads me to
         | question the "client networking issue" explanation.
         | 
         | Could be different architectures between the "queue" and the
         | in-game session.
         | 
         | Presumably with the in-game backends, the client gets told to
         | connect to a _specific_ backend (or through an LB with a sticky
         | session), which keeps some of your active player state in-
         | memory; and because of that, they 'd want those backends to be
         | robust to disconnection, allowing the client to reconnect and
         | resume the existing backend session on the same server.
         | 
         | The queue, on the other hand, is the first-in-line protection
         | for the game -- equivalent to Cloudflare for an HTTP site. It
         | has to deal with bots, DDoS attacks, etc. I would guess that
         | they "solved" this by requiring a kind of proof-of-work -- that
         | "work" in this case being "keeping a socket open and responding
         | to pings for the whole time you're in the queue."
         | 
         | If this were true, "client networking issues" _would_
         | technically be the proximate cause of a client falling out of
         | the queue and having to get back in line at the end. It 'd be a
         | problem the devs created for themselves, but it would indeed be
         | the problem.
        
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