@blizzard regarding a queue solution

General Discussion
1

In regards of the insane queues i wonder?

Did you implement the queue system without at the same time implement a inactivity timer?

Im sure you understand in these broadband times that no body will ever log off if not needed to, and i totally understand when i see the insane wait times just to play.

If you dont move the cursor or touch your keyboard in 15 minutes youi should get booted off the servers, e.g inactivity.

This would help a lot, as i am sure many people hesitate to log off even tho they go to scool or work, dinner, go to the mall or whatever, theres no need to log off, please understand this, as this is an easy fix.

Inactivity timer will not boot people looking for games or trading/muling, just those idlers.

Regards
/Thunder

2

Lul I haven’t logged off in 5 days. Why would I with this insane queue. Absurd of Blizzard.

3 Likes
3

So for you the solution is to make players disconnect from their games instead of buying more servers?

Somebody give this guy a Nobel.

3 Likes
4

Probably it was not as easy to do compared to slapping a lazy queue fix asap, but yeah, they need to add auto-logoff feature, queues are becoming longer and longer.

1 Like
5

Obvousely you do not understand what inactivity is or means for any game like this.
Long before these broadband times there where inactivity timers, blizzard used in wow, nobody complains about this and if fix a lot of problems like this.

So yes, boot the players that arent active.

6

Well look at this it might intrest you.

7

Interresting and not surprising really.

I mean it is allowed to be smart, and to add more power isnt always the solution.

As we speak many thousand gamers are in queue because no one ever logs off, the queue would be so much faster if they had added a inactivity timer.

The funny thing is that because of the added 1-2h wait to play the playerbase is totally wrecked, me for one check the queue, over 300 i give up and do other stuff.

I really dont understand why they didnt think this would happen when they nerf active clients to the ground?
Of course no one logs off anymore…

8

it is not smart at all and yes - it is not always the solution, more of that - such issues (hardware bottleneck) are very easy to identify and relatively cheap to do - compared to the full-scale backend code review, preparing the fix, testing the fix and rolling it out. Especially it is weird to keep screaming “add more servers” when Blizz explicitly said that the problem is in code.

As for queues - they just slapped a workaround to avoid server crashes (Region-to-Global db replication) and rollbacks. Constant server crashes can become even more nasty, you never know… keeping your resources constantly busy dealing with this issue makes budget pressure as well. Auto-logoff thing though will take some time to develop for this ancient game, they probably didn’t have time and money for that - it is a tough decision for the product and project managers to do. If the final decision would be to leave queue forever - I’m 99% sure they will put resources to add inactivity tracker.

9

They do but that would mean lose the hype train so what did now was realease it now fix later this also why they did not launch ladder.

10

I was talking more about the current situation when they had to react to the situation and act fast (and relatively cheap), not about the development as such… As for development - it is really weird why they say that they modernised “some parts” of the netcode… this is an ancient game that was running on the old battlenet on a totally different scale - I was expecting this part to be one of the main areas where you should throw your resources to…

11

Every company will put as low as possible time and money in stuff to make it work.

When it works you launch it out of the gate this saves a lot of time and money.

You hit the things that is requested and send it.

This something user not always feels about the product.

12

Thats all i want, i am sure when all the idlers get offline the queue will shorten and i mean 5min queue is not a problem imo.
Also, we havent had a server crash sense the queue system was implemented, and im sure they will up the limit step by step going forward awsell.

When idlers got to be a problem in wow it was done instanjtly, so yes, its possible, and not costly considering how this effect blizzard rep.

13

To be fair - most of users do not even realise the realities of big business as well. It is easy to say - ohhh they are just greedy, or blame China (saw that as well), or dumb devs. No. This scale of business exists in a world where there is a timeline, budget and harsh finacial planning.
Product manager can’t just go to his team, where each member costs 80-180+k/year and say: hey guys, from today we are eating pot noodles and work 13h/day just to make people happy - those days are gone (or exist for small dev studios). I’m not saying Blizz didn’t screw up - they did and they admitted that they did… but a lot of people really do not know a loooot of stuff.

14

That is true.

Given the reputation of blizz is also why the forums are acting this way.

15

I agree

But remember that blizz have many many emplyees, and a load of dedicated online social media staff.
So, there is absolutely no excuse when it comes to feedback to the playerbase.

I havent seen it this bad in ages, its like a total lock on dialog, and thats really a big mistake from a major player in any business, do not forget your customer, ever…

So yes, blizz have had a tuff year, but still sell buckets of games, and im sure if only they where a little more transparent in comunication things wouldnt be as bad online.
It takes a tall man to stand in heavy weather and reflect openly, but sometimes thats what it takes.

16

Well that was the whole point for the queue - keep servers stable and I think it is a good thing: 1 - wait to play vs loosing items? I would prefer waiting. 2 - server level crash + complex rollback may cause far more nasty stuff (chars stuck in the game was one of those) so they had to stop it.

I agree that idlers handler will help, but again… it requires development time. I would prefer them sending resources to review backend and work on scalability of the product, so that you can at least manage issues with a serverpower rather than working deep on the workaround. But in general - idlers issue still must be resolved eventually, because it will bite them in the rear sooner or later, I agree with that.

17

This is where I agree with 1000%. I just don’t get it… copy-pasted tweets every day when servers were down? Really? Even though I understand that they were supposed to be careful with communication but not a copy-paste message! Via Twitter! This is pathetic. I work for a corporate IT and I can imagine the face of our customer if our support replied to them by “hey, yes, I know your prod has issues… just go and read our twitter for any updates!”.

At the same time - they made an awesome Bluepost eventually… explaining where they screwed up. Did anyone from all those angry-posters responded to that? Nah… and I bet that 70% couldn’t even comprehend the message at all. A lot of people were crying “tell us what is happening!!!”, “blame dupers!”, “it’s a DDoS!!!” (in 2021… lol what?!), Blizz gave a response… and what? Some people were even surprised by queues when Blizz explicitly said they gonna do that…