SWTOR 2 days later

Ahoy me hearties! Since I've been playing SWTOR for a couple of days now, it's time for a few words on SWTOR client and server performance in comparison with beta, identified bugs and whatever other random thoughts pop in there...

Client performance was pretty good prior to launch and I'm pleased to report it has improved further. I'm running on high settings and get a more than comfortable 30-60 frames per second, only occasionally dipping to around 25 when I'm a particularly manic situation. There are still moments of that memory leak style problem where the game starts chugging and stuttering, but this has only happened twice so far and a reboot cleared everything and sorted everything out. Seriously though I must stress this is a minor gripe and I am extremely happy with how the game runs.

BTW to make those fps numbers mean more, my PC spec is a mere:
Q6600 processor
4gb RAM
GTX260 graphics card
Vista 32 (yes I know.. :P )

The servers have been very stable, I've hardly had any issues other than things getting a little spikey now and again, but compared with other MMO launches it has been very good indeed. Connections to the servers are pretty solid, lag hasn't been much of an issue for me, but obviously since I recently recommended people try out WTFast Lagkiller IF they have problems with lag, I figured I should report my results from the SWTOR live servers. Without Lagkiller running I have a latency fluctuating between 46 and 87ms (which is quite reasonable), but with it on my ping lowers a little and the range stabilises to between 35 and 52ms. So not a monumental change or an urgent requirement in my case, but I'll continue with it as it makes a huge difference for my connection to Star Trek Online (Yes I am still dabbling with that and plan to continue) and since I play SWTOR on a PvP server obviously a slightly smoother connection is nothing to complain about.

There has clearly been a fair bit of work put into how smooth things are with the storyline conversations when grouped and I've hardly had any issues. In fact there's a general sensation that almost everything has been smoothed out and given a little glean of polish, it's hard to list exactly what has changed, it just feels smooth and effortless if that makes sense.

The only real bugs and annoyance I've encountered has been with the guild system. The rosters are broken, randomly listing different amounts of people from one moment to the next. For example at one point last night I know we had 24 people in the guild total and 15 people online, yet the roster listed 2 people, when I checked the show offline box it went up to 5. When i then tried sorting the list by name it went up to 7 people... Five minutes later it showed us as having 3 people. This is a right pain in the arse as I can't set people's guild ranks up because I can't see them in the bloody roster! :P Also officer and member notes do not show up at all for anyone, regardless of changing settings or not. Unfortunately Bioware have done what every developer seems to do when launching an MMORPG and left the guild functionality until last. It's very basic and quite broken. However, with guild capital ships on the way and the promise of other stuff, I'm expecting this to get dramatically improved and to be honest if the only serious bugs are to do with the guild roster, well... that's not too shabby!

So all told it's looking very good. I shall amend my previous "worst MMO launch ever" statement to be:

"The worst organised MMO pre-launch ever, but so far one of the best technically and a joy to play once you're in."

I could also use the word smooth a few more times. Smooth smooth smoothy smooth.

Lag problems

Lag in games is a pain in the arse. Nobody likes to ragequit because of a bad connection to game servers, but most of us have (or will) at some point. Dying due to lag gets old fast and there's nothing worse than losing in PvP because some players seem to do everything that extra bit faster. Plus nobody wants to be that annoying git in the raid that always lags into mobs... yeah you know the type ;)

MMORPG launches in particular suffer from extreme lag due to everyone being in the same zones at the same time and loads of players competing to kill those mobs... And you know what the SWTOR launch on 20-DEC-2011 is going to be like! Of course that's just the extra stress at launch, yet many people suffer with bad latency at all times. A common problem these days is the way ISPs use traffic shaping, which (amongst things) is categorising the data travelling over your connection and priotising it how they see fit. Unfortunately this can mean your ISP totally shafts your connection to MMO servers, despite everything else like websites seeming fine. For example there were the problems myself and other Virgin Media users had with World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online earlier this year.

If you want a bit of an advantage and a solution for the above problems then it is well worth downloading WTFast Lagkiller for free right now and seeing if that sorts things out for you. The app picks the fastest route from your computer to the game server using PingCraft's advanced global server network and can prevent ISP traffic shaping causing problems, basically the end result is that it greatly improves your responsiveness in the game. For example I have had it down to a 9ms ping!

In the past I've had severe lag problems in games, like World of Warcraft when I played on the EU Doomhammer server, or laghammer as we used to call it and as someone that has been a hardcore raider and PvPer I sure as hell know the frustration caused by lag. So if you want a SWTOR lag fix, or improved responsiveness for almost any other MMORPG then I would definitely recommend giving WTFast a shot. You should instantly notice a difference. And if you think I'm just trying to sell a placebo or blag you, well it has a free trial so you've got nothing to lose. Follow this link to try it out.

Oh and it supports ALL games that are TCP based, which thankfully is pretty much every MMORPG, so it works for WoW, RIFT, Aion, EVE, Star Trek Online and more.

The great aura scandal of 2009

If you've ever attended a busy Fortress or in fact any of WAR's other lag magnets, you may have encountered the DoT Aura of Doom. Just in case you've never encountered it, basically this is what happens.

Chosen and Knights of the Blazing Sun auras take 12 seconds to deactivate, so when you click a new aura the old one lingers for 12 seconds before turning off. It's something that is part of the class, players "twist" their auras by clicking a new one before the previous one deactivates and by doing so will often run 3 auras at once. This requires a lot of monotonous clicking or the use of the Twister add on which helps make it easier.

That's fine and just the way the class works, nothing wrong there. However when you twist your auras in a laggy environment, the game freaks out and auras do not shut down properly. End result of which is massive amounts of stacked auras. We're talking double figures... Normally this doesn't really cause any problem to anyone except the Chosen/KotBS themselves, because stat buffs don't actually stack, it's just a visual thing on your UI. Damage Over Time auras are a totally different kettle of fish. In these laggy situations they DO stack, causing huge amounts of damage to any poor soul within 30 foot... This is generally considered as an exploit.

I'm not going to argue with that, though it's not as clean cut as some may think and there is a lot of misinformation going around. I'll quickly clarify a couple of things:

- The Twister add on does NOT cause this. Actually it's a case of twisting auras in any manner whilst lagged can cause it. It's a flaw of the chosen/kotbs mechanic when the game is lagged.
- It is impossible to twist auras and choose NOT to lag stack them. If you play your class as intended and twist auras, then there is a risk of this happening.
- Once it's started its hard to stop, logging out is more than likely not going to work, so you're left with ctrl+alt+delete to shut down WAR.
- People can just choose not to use a DoT aura in forts at all... That doesn't fix the bug though, just avoids it.
- BOTH factions are "abusing" this exploit. People can deny it all they like, but if there's an option to cheat, then some people will.

Get your asbestos lined suit and factor 9000 suncream, then have a look at this thread in my server's forum on WHA: http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=289186

I'm sitting quite comfortably on the fence about the right and wrongs of that night's events. Otherwise I'll get dragged into all the rambling about two wrongs, ivory towers, glass houses and all that crap. There are some good points being made by both Order and Destruction players in that thread, but as so often with a topic coloured in dramatic shades of grey, they're being smothered by all the bile and trolling.

All this anger, rage, denial and nonsense caused by the laggy servers/code/etc. Mythic you're about to cram us all into Land of the Dead... With lag as it is, I'm not alone in feeling a little bit uneasy...

Winds of Change all puffed out

http://forums.war-europe.com/warhammeronline/board/message?board.id=generalannouncementsEN&message.id=32#M32

Good news! It's always pleasing to see that Mythic do listen to their players. Lets hope they can find a better solution.