AJAX and Server Performance

[MarVal]

I think I fixed the dice bottleneck. You should no longer experience a delay when rolling during peak hours

Great work behind the scene!!
It works perfectly.

Grtz
MarVal

[Herakilla]

has anyone else noticed a big on screen lag today? its taking 30 secs+ sometimes for the effects of dice to show

It is the dice bottleneck. It happens when there are too many people online rolling the dice at the same time.

that's why i never roll the dice. i mentally controll them and triple sixes appear all the time.

how do you mentally control a computer?

by hitting the "Ctrl" key, duh.

dang... that was really cheesy...

that was cheesy enough for me to consider shooting you.. lol

[hecter]

has anyone else noticed a big on screen lag today? its taking 30 secs+ sometimes for the effects of dice to show

It is the dice bottleneck. It happens when there are too many people online rolling the dice at the same time.

that's why i never roll the dice. i mentally controll them and triple sixes appear all the time.

how do you mentally control a computer?

by hitting the "Ctrl" key, duh.

dang... that was really cheesy...

that was cheesy enough for me to consider shooting you.. lol

And for it to be justified...

[AK_iceman]

God, I hate this pop-up.

[DiM]

God, I hate this pop-up.

what's that for?

[soundout9]

I hate ajax....can't post in in-game chat cause of my connection and ajax

[AndyDufresne]

I finally have some news to report

On the AJAX front, I fixed a problem that was the cause of several complaints: the game would freeze up when there is a communication timeout between your browser and the server. Now, when there is a timeout (which can happen because of a poor internet connection or if the server is overwhelmed) it will ask you if you want to wait another 10 seconds or cancel, after which you may continue playing the game.

I also fixed an AJAX issue with Internet Explorer that sometimes kicked you out of the game, to the home page.

On the server front, I've been doing a lot of monitoring and research and I've found a bottleneck with the dice. A fix is in the works...

--Andy

[3seven1]

It seems to be happening around the same time each day. It was fine this morning but now it's back. Except today there is a pop-up. I'll hold off on my turns for a few hours.

Goodnight everybody!

[3seven1]

It's that time of day again! The lag is back!

[mortalhorton]

why is the server slower than it has ever been put it back to the way it was

[holly2275ca]

This is crazy,why is it the worst ever now? Ive noticed a steady decline in service on here but its terrible now. I cant even finish a turn.It was like this when cc first started,then it got better,now its even worse than when they started.How long before you go back to the other server? Or at least fix this problem.

[TheTeacher]

u gotta fix these bottlenecks w/ the coding. ppl who r completely ignorant of how complicated coding and the internet and internet bussinesses and networks are are starting to get frustrated. Obviously, all they see is a decline in service. Their not going to bother to commit brain power to futile atempts to understand any details of what's going on with CC.

[A4H-3-6-Mafia-BS]

sup dog

[AndyDufresne]

why is the server slower than it has ever been put it back to the way it was

That would actually make it slower for everyone, as the whole site would shut down then!

Lack is working on it. He's doing some code optimization. Alongside that he is also running some data to figure out how to better improve the quality of performance overall. Lastly, Lack may look into a server upgrade to bump up the performance also, but that may be one of the last things he looks to due to the added cost.


--Andy

[Johnny Rockets]

Yo Teacher?
Yeah, those who are not computer literate will not understand how complicated it is. But that is not the issue. I don't come to this site to be sympathetic to the owners or the mods. I come to this site to play a game on a service platform that I pay money for. So I have every right to be pissed when it runs like crap for weeks on end. When instead of playing 15 running games and speed games every day, I'm not starting or joining anything because it's too damn frustrating to play.

Andy, we were told this weeks ago. You can optimize only to a finite point. In the end, hardware upgrades are inevitable with your popularity increasing month after month. But if you scare off all of the members that contribute fiscally to the site, then the funds for upgrading become harder to generate.
Admin. already announced a rate increase (just before the performance went to hell.....) and it was broadly accepted as reasonable and fair. I think those who are willing to pay won't flee if that +5$ a year goes up even more to preserve the quality of game play.

Even so. looking at it from a biz perspective your doomed to fail if you cant....provide....the goods. Regardless of the cost.

The new servers are expensive. Yup. So you finance them, or pay for hosting. But don't cut your throat and say " This is the best we can do!" Cuz if folks ain't having fun, and frustration isn't , then folks loose interest and go elsewhere.

Heres something for admin. to consider:
Why don't you temporarily suspend all of the non paying accounts, and any new applications for accounts, until you fix whatever the hell is wrong? That will eliminate your lag, and secure your credibility and ensure that the folks that pay money for using this site will renew memberships.This way you don't erode your financial base that actually keeps this site on the net.

I'd pay $30 a year to use this site. But I'm not renewing my premium membership for this level of gaming.

JRF

honeyb.ca

[Optimus Prime]

Care to explain to me how suspending the accounts of all of the non-premium players will retain credibility? That makes absolutely no sense, and if Lack were to do that, the site would die. Where did you get the idea that suspending accounts would retain credibility?

As for paying members renewing their premium membership, I think you will find that almost all of them will anyways, despite what may be happening with the server because by the time it gets to the point they have to renew the problem will have been fixed.

Regards, Optimus Prime

[Johnny Rockets]

Lack Wrote: As a member of the Conquer Club, you deserve a high-quality casual-world-domination experience, and it's my top priority to ensure the website performs well for you.

I'm not getting into a pissing match here. But credibility revolves around efforts and results. I'm sure he's doing the best he can, but I'm going to give feedback and suggestions until this gets resolved.

JRF

[Optimus Prime]

Oh, I understand that effort and results mean a lot to credibility, I was just confused as to how kicking out all of the non-premiums would help it. There are more non-premiums than premiums, so if you kick all of them out the forums will die, the games won't fill, and so on down the line.

That's the point I was trying to make.

[Twill]

We've been working pretty closely with our server people and have tweaked a few bottlenecks that were causing some unexpected spikes in load.

We do understand that tweaks can only take us so far and have consistently made additions to our hardware as CC has grown (we have a bit more power behind this site than just an old P3 in a closet somewhere ya know )

We have to decide the best form of server loading and distribution to move forward and there are people much smarter than myself discussing this already (the conversation goes WAY over my head, so I wont pretend to know what they are saying or what all the acronyms mean...)

Do bear with us as we look into the best path forward. We'd rather take some extra time now and give you the best performance possible than just jump into something that might put us in this same position in a few months.

Sorry you guys have been experiencing slow downs, performance improvements are our number 1 priority right now.

Have a good one
Twill

[Johnny Rockets]

Thanks for communicating that Twill.
A little reassurance goes a long way.

JRF

Eat more Honey!
honeyb.ca

[jwithington]

No one is bending anyone's arm and asking any of us to pay for using Conquer Club.

The fact of the matter is that Conquer Club seems to be a grassroots kinda thing, not a business (maybe I'm wrong here?). Their subscription model rewards those who pay by giving them UNLIMITED access for like $2/month. And for those of us who don't pay for premium (including me--i know my internet addiction would flare up if given the chance to play as many games as i want ), this is simply "hey, we like Risk too, come play on our site FOR FREE."

I, for one, didn't ever notice any lag that i didn't chalk up to my old computer. And even if I did--so what? This isn't really a business venture. When I no longer liked reading MacWorld, I didn't renew. If people no longer like playing here because the lag is OMG SO AWFUL GOD WHAT WILL I DO, then let the subscription run out. You can't expect corporate-style support, server speed, etc. from a labor of love.

Thanks, everyone, for making a cool site that rewards the casual gamer. Don't listen to the haters.

[gimil]

Andy, we were told this weeks ago. You can optimize only to a finite point. In the end, hardware upgrades are inevitable with your popularity increasing month after month. But if you scare off all of the members that contribute fiscally to the site, then the funds for upgrading become harder to generate.

Lakc runs his business as efficently as he possible can (Like any competant company). If he can avoid added cost by optimizeing then he will do it rather than eating into his profit margin for hardware upgrades.

Admin. already announced a rate increase (just before the performance went to hell.....) and it was broadly accepted as reasonable and fair. I think those who are willing to pay won't flee if that +5$ a year goes up even more to preserve the quality of game play.

The price incease was introduced not to increase any intake for conquer club but rather to maintain the SAME intake due to the slowdown in the US economie which was rather badly affecting canada (where CC is based) pushing for higher prices isnt as simple an option.

Even so. looking at it from a biz perspective your doomed to fail if you cant....provide....the goods. Regardless of the cost.

The good are being provided and are merly sloin down at peak times, a natural expectation of any site.

The new servers are expensive. Yup. So you finance them, or pay for hosting. But don't cut your throat and say " This is the best we can do!" Cuz if folks ain't having fun, and frustration isn't , then folks loose interest and go elsewhere.

I dont know hardware but im assuming its not as simple as going, "lets get a bigger server"

Heres something for admin. to consider:
Why don't you temporarily suspend all of the non paying accounts, and any new applications for accounts, until you fix whatever the hell is wrong? That will eliminate your lag, and secure your credibility and ensure that the folks that pay money for using this site will renew memberships.This way you don't erode your financial base that actually keeps this site on the net.

For all your business talk this is a rediculse suggestion, cut of potention premiums?

A much more realisitc approach would be to cute the number of games non premiums can play (I beleive lack done this before to de stress the server) but again that would be a last resort.

I'd pay $30 a year to use this site. But I'm not renewing my premium membership for this level of gaming.

JRF

honeyb.ca

You speak as thou you think admin are doing nothing, while they are reinforcing regularly that they are working on it and lack continues to inform the community thenever he does something.

Have a little faith papi.

[Johnny Rockets]

Much better, thanks for upgrading the memory, and thanks for making it fun again.


JRF


Hey Gimli? ...."I dont know hardware but im assuming its not as simple as going, "lets get a bigger server"




Yeah.....it is.

[yeti_c]

Much better, thanks for upgrading the memory, and thanks for making it fun again.


JRF


Hey Gimli? ...."I dont know hardware but im assuming its not as simple as going, "lets get a bigger server"




Yeah.....it is.

So so wrong...

This is why so many games these days don't run on anything sub 2 weeks old PC's...

Too many developers coding craply and saying - It's OK - next weeks PC's will be able to handle all my horrificly slow code...

I agree that current PC architecture is so powerful that the last 10% of optimisation is no longer needed... however the first 80% is definitely required...

I recently rewrote BOB to run a lot quicker... it reduced refresh rate times on games with big logs by about 80%...

C.

[Lanceyboyuk]

even if the premium went up to $50 dollars a year and it meant i got a better server and a better site, id still be the first one in the queue.