How Disapointing, Cantr Fails in a BIG way

[Gaboo]

This is sad, sad, sad. It is bad enough that we are limited to 200 minutes of play, what is worse is that 150 minutes of that time is spent waiting for pages to load.
What is even more disappointing is that the forums seem to be on the same server so when Cantr fails so do the forums.

What has there been no official comment on the horrible state of gameplay?

I have been able to make 3 moves and it has taken 20 minutes of gametime

The game clock marches on as we sit and wait for pages to load.

FAIL FAIL FAIL...

rant off


Whats the problem? Time for a server upgrade?

[Dogonabun]

That's not the game sucking, it's the amount of people who croud together at peak times and make it impossible to play.

[Gaboo]

Your theory "it's the amount of people who croud together at peak times and make it impossible to play." shot to hell.

37 users is hardly a large load for even the smallest of servers to cope with. The issue is much larger than load balancing.

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[SekoETC]

Amount of people? It's lagging with 30 or 50 people. I bet other sites can tolerate hundreds or thousands of users. It would be ok if those 30 people were in the same town and could communicate with each other but they are scattered across the world so you'll be lucky if there's even one person online at the same time as you.

[rconley]

Let's not forget that this is a free game, with a limited VOLUNTEER staff who do the best they can and have real lives that matter a lot more than perhaps this game does to them. They will fix the issue as best they can when they can and when they can find out what the problem exactly is. Until then let's let them do their job without our insults and impatience making sure they know we want it done now. Have some patience. It's been a few days yes, but sometimes more seroius issues come up that take more time to locate and repair. Give them time to work out the problem without trying to make them feel guilty because they're not working fast enough to suit you.

[Gaboo]

I have not forgotten that it is free.

The most frustrating thing for me is the not knowing.

When you go to log in it would be nice to see a message at the log in page telling the community that there are issues. Rather than frustrating myself with trying to get my character to the next project, I would know to not even try. The game burns minutes even while pages are loading so while I am waiting 5 minutes for a page to load (not an exaggeration), my clock is ticking. If I knew there was an issue I would not waste my precious minutes.

There is a major lack of communication regarding the issues the volunteer staff are facing.

Knowledge is bliss, keep us informed...

[Dogonabun]

I have not forgotten that it is free.

The most frustrating thing for me is the not knowing.

When you go to log in it would be nice to see a message at the log in page telling the community that there are issues. Rather than frustrating myself with trying to get my character to the next project, I would know to to even try. The game burns minutes even while pages are loading so while I am waiting 5 minutes for a page to load, my clock is ticking. If I knew there was an issue I would not waste my precious minutes.

There is a major lack of communication regarding the issues the volunteer staff are facing.

Knowledge is bliss, keep us informed...

Or the 200 minute limit could be changed to 5k clicks or something? So it won't matter if it's lagging.

[rconley]

Maybe staff hasn't figured out the problem yet and therefore has nothing to communicate. Have some patience, you will know something when it is fixed or they decide to inform us more when and IF they have the time to do so.

Comments such as this title "How Disapointing, Cantr Fails in a BIG way", insults and constant badgering and harrassment from certain players is not going to get the game working any faster nor will it make the staff very encouraged to even deal with it faster than they already are trying to do.

I understand that people have invested a lot of their personal free time and emotions into their characters. So have the staff, they are just as interested in getting the game working again as you are and the more they are dealing with harrassment and badgering, the less time they have to spend on the problem.

[Cherize]

I realize the game is free, but dedicated players have made an emotional investment in Cantr and are due the common curtesy of an explanation, at some point.

[rconley]

Perhaps players will get that answer and explanation when there is one to give. Since I've started playing this game, staff has always been good about sending in game messages when they have located the issue and informing players of what has been going on. When time had to be turned back, we were informed of the problem and what was done to fix it, Lag is an issue they are currently STILL trying to resolve so what explanation is there to give if they do not know the problem. This issue seems to be a bit more than the simple lag and they have not found out what the problem is yet or it would be fixed.

[Gaboo]

Maybe staff hasn't figured out the problem yet and therefore has nothing to communicate. Have some patience, you will know something when it is fixed or they decide to inform us more when and IF they have the time to do so.

Comments such as this title "How Disapointing, Cantr Fails in a BIG way", insults and constant badgering and harrassment from certain players is not going to get the game working any faster nor will it make the staff very encouraged to even deal with it faster than they already are trying to do.

I understand that people have invested a lot of their personal free time and emotions into their characters. So have the staff, they are just as interested in getting the game working again as you are and the more they are dealing with harrassment and badgering, the less time they have to spend on the problem.

The fail here is not necessarily the game issue as we all know issues arise, it is the lack of communication that fails.

I would not have made this post had anyone, anyone, taken the time to post a message on the log in page informing us of the fact that there IS an issue and we are working to figure it out.

I would normally come here but it seems the forums crash with the game so we are pretty much in the dark when the game client crashes.

[N-Aldwitch]

Ooh I hate this guy and I don't even play anymore.

[Jos Elkink]

About the communication: the issue, the only thing we could really communicate is: "Please note that the game is slow at the moment ..." which would be a bit stupid ... As it stand, we don't actually know ourselves what is causing the lag and are somewhat clueless. We're searching, of course.

About the server upgrade: with our dwindling players, our funds are also going steadily down. A second or more expensive server is not financially possible at the moment. The real solution would be, I think, to have several servers, but this requires a substantial overhaul of the code to make it possible for the game to use multiple servers (my guess is that it would take about two weeks fulltime) and again, it still requires money. The number of players is on a very steady decline, so betting on a richer future would be stupid.

About the number of players: this can't really be the issue, as people already pointed out. The long history of Cantr of course does translate in very long database tables with notes, objects, etc. - but these are still laughably small compared to many commercial websites, so it should still be blamed on slow, inefficient code, rather than just size, in my opinion. Optimizing code is hard.

About the forum: I agree that it should be moved to a second server, and in fact we already have one (one much smaller than the main server, so not good for the game, but good for the forum). Moving the forum is something I plan to do, but did not get around to yet, and if I have a quick glance at my personal diary, this is not going to change anytime soon. The plan is there, though.

About this thread: I very much appreciate how you defend the volunteer staff, Randy, and I totally support that sentiment, but I also think that Cantr is failing big time at the moment, and that this lag is incredibly frustrating and discouraging, so I don't think we should be too harsh on Gaboo either. He just has a good point, and he's not really saying that people don't seem to care, I think ... And N-Aldwitch - that was uncalled for.

[Tiamo]

Is Cantr played on a dedicated server or on a shared server?

[buddyhall]

I agree sometimes I find it impossible to play very discouraging for new players.

Lag is probly costing us quite a few newer players.
If cantr could come up with a way to make 1000 dollars off of it's player you could buy a server that would hold 1000 people at once with no lag I know a candian company that sells refurbs you could get something pretty nice i'd imagine but every time a mention money people freak out around here *ducks and hides*