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I don't think distance from the server should affect anything much, I live in the same time zone as Zaltys (different country), and I haven't had any individual performance problems with FR of much notice.
I don't think distance from the server should affect anything much, I live in the same time zone as Zaltys (different country), and I haven't had any individual performance problems with FR of much notice.
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[quote name="Niverdia" date="2013-10-19 10:39:34"]I don't think distance from the server should affect anything much, I live in the same time zone as Zaltys (different country), and I haven't had any individual performance problems with FR of much notice.[/quote] @Niverdia Here's an explanation of how physical distance impacts a connection with a server: http://www.numion.com/calculators/Distance.html It used to be way more of an issue in the earlier days of the Internet, but it still exists. Normally we don't notice it because websites are super optimized and we've sped up information transfer so much. But there is a practical limit on how fast information can travel over distance, as the most efficient way we currently have to transfer information is bottlenecked by the speed of light. The speed of light, while very fast, is not instantaneous. Plus... all the stuff said on that page about packets that I'm not clever enough to regurgitate in a meaningful form. Seriously! Go check it out. It's fascinating -- and it's why when you're trying to download a big file (like gigabytes in size) usually the people you are downloading it from will try and hook you up with a sever in closer physical proximity to you. If FR is like every other English speaking non-country specific site I've been on, I'm willing to believe that most of the users are from the US - and I'd suspect the server is housed in the US. The reason I mentioned the physical proximity thing is because it is conceivable that there are certain bugs on the site which would make proximity lag worse. Thus, to someone near the server they might not notice the tiny, tiny increase in their lag. But for someone a continent away it might be a much larger increase in lag. It's also possible that these bugs are not universal. Some condition on the account might be triggering the bug. It could seriously be something like one misplaced line of code in thousands upon thousands of lines of code. Something as ridiculous as one achievement, or one item in your inventory, or one too many dragons or what have you (I'm not familiar with FR's code so I couldn't say WHAT is impacting Zaltys' speed. These are just examples!). Without a bunch of players experiencing the problem and sending in bug reports (which helps narrow the search by creating a situation in which you can ask yourself 'what do all these accounts have in common?') it's a needle in a haystack situation. FR might not be having proximity issues at all! Just, that's a Thing that can happen if there's a certain bug that interacts with it -- and that's why I brought it up. Computer programming is a super weird beast. Computers seem so much like magic that it can be kind of jarring to realize what weird physical things can limit their abilities (the speed of light, the conductive properties of certain elements, the way they can only function in certain temperatures*. But this is the kind of thing the FR code-slingers are thinking about and looking for... on top of the "normal" bag of frustrating weirdness that is working on code. --- * I once lost a computer to dust. It was a mini-tower -- my first mini-tower and I was entertained to have a desktop on top of my desk for once. I'd never had bad dust issues before, and I didn't realize that positioned on top of my desk a mini-tower would effectively be an air-filter for my room trapping mass amounts of dust. Then one night after an all nigher to finish a paper my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I were cuddling when we were abruptly interrupted by this evil-sounding computer noise. Like, this unearthly devil-shriek. Weeks later it came out that what had happened is that all the dust in my tower had caused my hard drive to overheat so badly that the arm in it had crashed into the little disc where data was stored. It rendered the data completely unrecoverable - and even after popping a new hard drive in the computer it (the computer) quickly started acting up. I suspect it's because the heat had damaged other components. So. Uh. The moral is weird physical things (Amount of dust in the house, temperature of the house, position of the computer within the house) can do weird things to computers. Also. Break out the compressed air and dust your computers.
Niverdia wrote on 2013-10-19 10:39:34:
I don't think distance from the server should affect anything much, I live in the same time zone as Zaltys (different country), and I haven't had any individual performance problems with FR of much notice.

@Niverdia

Here's an explanation of how physical distance impacts a connection with a server:

http://www.numion.com/calculators/Distance.html

It used to be way more of an issue in the earlier days of the Internet, but it still exists.

Normally we don't notice it because websites are super optimized and we've sped up information transfer so much. But there is a practical limit on how fast information can travel over distance, as the most efficient way we currently have to transfer information is bottlenecked by the speed of light. The speed of light, while very fast, is not instantaneous. Plus... all the stuff said on that page about packets that I'm not clever enough to regurgitate in a meaningful form. Seriously! Go check it out. It's fascinating -- and it's why when you're trying to download a big file (like gigabytes in size) usually the people you are downloading it from will try and hook you up with a sever in closer physical proximity to you.

If FR is like every other English speaking non-country specific site I've been on, I'm willing to believe that most of the users are from the US - and I'd suspect the server is housed in the US. The reason I mentioned the physical proximity thing is because it is conceivable that there are certain bugs on the site which would make proximity lag worse. Thus, to someone near the server they might not notice the tiny, tiny increase in their lag. But for someone a continent away it might be a much larger increase in lag.

It's also possible that these bugs are not universal. Some condition on the account might be triggering the bug. It could seriously be something like one misplaced line of code in thousands upon thousands of lines of code. Something as ridiculous as one achievement, or one item in your inventory, or one too many dragons or what have you (I'm not familiar with FR's code so I couldn't say WHAT is impacting Zaltys' speed. These are just examples!). Without a bunch of players experiencing the problem and sending in bug reports (which helps narrow the search by creating a situation in which you can ask yourself 'what do all these accounts have in common?') it's a needle in a haystack situation.

FR might not be having proximity issues at all! Just, that's a Thing that can happen if there's a certain bug that interacts with it -- and that's why I brought it up. Computer programming is a super weird beast. Computers seem so much like magic that it can be kind of jarring to realize what weird physical things can limit their abilities (the speed of light, the conductive properties of certain elements, the way they can only function in certain temperatures*. But this is the kind of thing the FR code-slingers are thinking about and looking for... on top of the "normal" bag of frustrating weirdness that is working on code.

---
* I once lost a computer to dust. It was a mini-tower -- my first mini-tower and I was entertained to have a desktop on top of my desk for once. I'd never had bad dust issues before, and I didn't realize that positioned on top of my desk a mini-tower would effectively be an air-filter for my room trapping mass amounts of dust. Then one night after an all nigher to finish a paper my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I were cuddling when we were abruptly interrupted by this evil-sounding computer noise. Like, this unearthly devil-shriek.

Weeks later it came out that what had happened is that all the dust in my tower had caused my hard drive to overheat so badly that the arm in it had crashed into the little disc where data was stored. It rendered the data completely unrecoverable - and even after popping a new hard drive in the computer it (the computer) quickly started acting up. I suspect it's because the heat had damaged other components.

So. Uh. The moral is weird physical things (Amount of dust in the house, temperature of the house, position of the computer within the house) can do weird things to computers. Also. Break out the compressed air and dust your computers.
[quote name="Microraptor" date="2013-10-18 22:11:11"][quote name="CorNocte" date="2013-10-18 15:47:50"][quote name="AthkoreOmnirok" date="2013-10-18 14:50:39"][quote name="Microraptor" date="2013-10-18 13:08:35"][sub]A few things. 1) It's perfectly clear that the lag varies wildly from user to user. This means that the issue isn't going to be a clean or simple fix. More users will exacerbate the problem areas that they need to fix and allow them to find out HOW they are breaking. If the problem only happens for a few dozen people it can be hard to track down the source -- but when it's happening for many, many more it can make it much easier to suss out the source. 2) It doesn't matter how the site performs if the core gameplay breaks. The core gameplay of the site is breeding - there's not much to do on here besides breeding (or RPing, if you're into it). Unless we all wildly exalt we're eventually just going to run out of lair space. Then there will be no selling dragons, trading dragons, breeding new dragons. The game totally breaks down. We need more users because of their glorious delicious lair space and the time they can put in to things. 3) The site is first, and foremost, a business. Without revenue -- and that means eyeballs looking at ads -- it'll fail. No more site. No more site stabalization. Nothing. Nada. I can't be the only one who's noticed the number of users dropping off in the last few weeks (likely due to frustration with the economy). The site needs to keep its numbers bolstered in order to afford the work it'll take to stabilize it. For many users the things 'broken' on the site right now are fairly minor -- like achievements not being up and running. But, the amount of people scared about new users in this thread indicates that for many people the site is inherently unstable. But there's a kind of catch 22 -- in order to A) see where the problems on the site lie, and B) to ultimately keep the site and its improvements funded, the developers have to let more people in. If new people are kept out until everything seems perfect, what'll likely happen is A) the community will be substantially smaller, less engaged, and very niche, B) the market will grossly dragon-clogged and C) when the site DOES open, the new people coming in [i]wil still break the site[/i] because a site that appears to be functioning perfectly under that community load will not necessarily be able to function under a full load of users.[/sub][/quote] This. All of this. I can't believe that some members of the community here is still can whine about this. No, new people won't save the economy, but they -certainly- can't hurt it... It really seems like the lag issue changes on a person-to-person basis. I for one have absolutely no lag, at least not to the point that the site is unplayable. [s]The only time it lags is when I bond with familiars and that's because I open a ton of tabs.[/s] And on that note, I'm -super- excited for new people to join :D My roommate has been so excited to join that I actually reserved a hatchling in my lair for her haha. Can't wait to meet all the new members ^__^[/quote] Yeah, seriously, I haven't run into any lag or bugs for at least two weeks, and I know about a dozen other people who haven't either. :I I feel bad for players who [i]are[/i] having issues with the site, but they must also consider the possibility that some problems might be on [i]their[/i] end, not FR's. I recall there being a week or two where FR was running like molasses for me 24/7, but not for my buddies. Turns out it was a problem with Verizon, not FR, pfft. Anyhow, I'd like to extend a big thank you to the dev-team for all they've done, and I look forward to seeing all the new faces next week. :>[/quote] @AthkoreOmnirok @CorNocte And see, here is what I wanted to avoid. You'll notice in my original post which gets quoted I didn't shame or try and bully the people worried about opening the site with my language. I legitly wanted to help answer their questions -- partially by repeating information that the developers had posted pages back or that I'd seen elsewhere or worked out for myself (like... that they need more eyeballs for ads on the site - sometimes the ads don't load for me and I've seen the 'plz no adblockers we need the ads for monenies' messager (that is not the actual text)). The people who are worried and scared about the site opening? They are not whiners. They are not whining. They are reasonably frightened. I can understand that they feel bummed that they don't get to play the game - but just like YOU all are doing they are assuming that the way the game works for them is the way it works for everyone else. Obviously there are TWO large groups in the game. And if you'd actually read through the thread you'd see that at least one of these people with issues tried a friend's account on their computer and THAT account worked fine. Computer programming and HTML are very finicky. More than that, some things players CAN'T control like their physical proximity to the server might be exacerbating issues that are undetectable for players in a different location, or on a slightly different browser version, or different OS, or with a different ISP... etc etc etc. Bottom line: I am willing to believe that a great deal of this lag that people who are not me are experiencing, and pages crashing, is on FR's end. I am also willing to believe that the only way to fix these problems - and perhaps the only way to detect the issue is to let more players in. No-one but the staff knows which group is dominant -- but the decision to reopen the site would indicate that the site is stable enough that they believe it can and should handle new members. I was making a post because lots of people were like "Why are they doing this when the site won't even let me do basic stuff!?". Which. Ok. I've certainly had bugs on this site before that other people didn't have. I'm willing to trust that other players have trouble shot to the ends of the earth. Most of these posts describe a situation where the [i]entire internet[/i] besides FR works fine. Much as the devs have to open the site to make money for their business, they also have to make their site very, very, accessible for their business. If players are having to trouble shoot and obsessively clear their caches? That is an issue on FR's end. Just because one may trouble-shoot it on their end does not make it an issue that the devs cannot or should-not fix. [b]Can we not shame the people who are having issues with the site? Can we not treat them like whining babies for being upset about legit issues? Can we not just automatically assume they're doing something wrong because the site works for [i]you[/i]? Thanks[/b].[/quote] Hold up hold up, where are these two shaming other people for not being able to connect to the site??? I understand everyone's concerns, but these two aren't shaming. I don't know where this assumption came from. They're simply stating that FR might NOT be the cause for everyone's lag, not that they are irritating and need to get over themselves.
Microraptor wrote on 2013-10-18 22:11:11:
CorNocte wrote on 2013-10-18 15:47:50:
AthkoreOmnirok wrote on 2013-10-18 14:50:39:
Microraptor wrote on 2013-10-18 13:08:35:
A few things.
1) It's perfectly clear that the lag varies wildly from user to user. This means that the issue isn't going to be a clean or simple fix. More users will exacerbate the problem areas that they need to fix and allow them to find out HOW they are breaking. If the problem only happens for a few dozen people it can be hard to track down the source -- but when it's happening for many, many more it can make it much easier to suss out the source.

2) It doesn't matter how the site performs if the core gameplay breaks. The core gameplay of the site is breeding - there's not much to do on here besides breeding (or RPing, if you're into it). Unless we all wildly exalt we're eventually just going to run out of lair space. Then there will be no selling dragons, trading dragons, breeding new dragons. The game totally breaks down. We need more users because of their glorious delicious lair space and the time they can put in to things.

3) The site is first, and foremost, a business. Without revenue -- and that means eyeballs looking at ads -- it'll fail. No more site. No more site stabalization. Nothing. Nada. I can't be the only one who's noticed the number of users dropping off in the last few weeks (likely due to frustration with the economy). The site needs to keep its numbers bolstered in order to afford the work it'll take to stabilize it.

For many users the things 'broken' on the site right now are fairly minor -- like achievements not being up and running. But, the amount of people scared about new users in this thread indicates that for many people the site is inherently unstable. But there's a kind of catch 22 -- in order to A) see where the problems on the site lie, and B) to ultimately keep the site and its improvements funded, the developers have to let more people in.

If new people are kept out until everything seems perfect, what'll likely happen is A) the community will be substantially smaller, less engaged, and very niche, B) the market will grossly dragon-clogged and C) when the site DOES open, the new people coming in wil still break the site because a site that appears to be functioning perfectly under that community load will not necessarily be able to function under a full load of users.

This. All of this. I can't believe that some members of the community here is still can whine about this. No, new people won't save the economy, but they -certainly- can't hurt it... It really seems like the lag issue changes on a person-to-person basis. I for one have absolutely no lag, at least not to the point that the site is unplayable. The only time it lags is when I bond with familiars and that's because I open a ton of tabs.

And on that note, I'm -super- excited for new people to join :D My roommate has been so excited to join that I actually reserved a hatchling in my lair for her haha. Can't wait to meet all the new members ^__^

Yeah, seriously, I haven't run into any lag or bugs for at least two weeks, and I know about a dozen other people who haven't either. :I

I feel bad for players who are having issues with the site, but they must also consider the possibility that some problems might be on their end, not FR's. I recall there being a week or two where FR was running like molasses for me 24/7, but not for my buddies. Turns out it was a problem with Verizon, not FR, pfft.

Anyhow, I'd like to extend a big thank you to the dev-team for all they've done, and I look forward to seeing all the new faces next week. :>

@AthkoreOmnirok
@CorNocte

And see, here is what I wanted to avoid. You'll notice in my original post which gets quoted I didn't shame or try and bully the people worried about opening the site with my language. I legitly wanted to help answer their questions -- partially by repeating information that the developers had posted pages back or that I'd seen elsewhere or worked out for myself (like... that they need more eyeballs for ads on the site - sometimes the ads don't load for me and I've seen the 'plz no adblockers we need the ads for monenies' messager (that is not the actual text)).

The people who are worried and scared about the site opening? They are not whiners. They are not whining. They are reasonably frightened. I can understand that they feel bummed that they don't get to play the game - but just like YOU all are doing they are assuming that the way the game works for them is the way it works for everyone else.

Obviously there are TWO large groups in the game. And if you'd actually read through the thread you'd see that at least one of these people with issues tried a friend's account on their computer and THAT account worked fine. Computer programming and HTML are very finicky. More than that, some things players CAN'T control like their physical proximity to the server might be exacerbating issues that are undetectable for players in a different location, or on a slightly different browser version, or different OS, or with a different ISP... etc etc etc.

Bottom line: I am willing to believe that a great deal of this lag that people who are not me are experiencing, and pages crashing, is on FR's end. I am also willing to believe that the only way to fix these problems - and perhaps the only way to detect the issue is to let more players in.

No-one but the staff knows which group is dominant -- but the decision to reopen the site would indicate that the site is stable enough that they believe it can and should handle new members. I was making a post because lots of people were like "Why are they doing this when the site won't even let me do basic stuff!?". Which. Ok.

I've certainly had bugs on this site before that other people didn't have. I'm willing to trust that other players have trouble shot to the ends of the earth. Most of these posts describe a situation where the entire internet besides FR works fine.

Much as the devs have to open the site to make money for their business, they also have to make their site very, very, accessible for their business. If players are having to trouble shoot and obsessively clear their caches? That is an issue on FR's end. Just because one may trouble-shoot it on their end does not make it an issue that the devs cannot or should-not fix.

Can we not shame the people who are having issues with the site? Can we not treat them like whining babies for being upset about legit issues? Can we not just automatically assume they're doing something wrong because the site works for you?

Thanks
.

Hold up hold up, where are these two shaming other people for not being able to connect to the site???

I understand everyone's concerns, but these two aren't shaming. I don't know where this assumption came from. They're simply stating that FR might NOT be the cause for everyone's lag, not that they are irritating and need to get over themselves.
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Yay! Welcome to our new members~
Yay! Welcome to our new members~
Nocta | she/they | +10 FR time
"Even in the darkest of times, there is always hope."
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[quote name="Microraptor" date="2013-10-18 22:11:11"]Can we not shame the people who are having issues with the site? Can we not treat them like whining babies for being upset about legit issues? Can we not just automatically assume they're doing something wrong because the site works for [i]you[/i]? Thanks.[/quote] Hey, man, I wasn't shaming anyone (nor did I or AthkoreOmnirok accuse [i]you[/i] of doing so); I'm just letting the dev-team know that things are okay on my end, and if that helps them in any way, that's awesome. I realize that other players are having legit problems with the site, and all I'm saying is that they should double-check before jumping to the conclusion that it's all FR, like [i]I[/i] mistakenly did. Better to be safe than sorry. ;)
Microraptor wrote on 2013-10-18 22:11:11:
Can we not shame the people who are having issues with the site? Can we not treat them like whining babies for being upset about legit issues? Can we not just automatically assume they're doing something wrong because the site works for you?

Thanks.

Hey, man, I wasn't shaming anyone (nor did I or AthkoreOmnirok accuse you of doing so); I'm just letting the dev-team know that things are okay on my end, and if that helps them in any way, that's awesome. I realize that other players are having legit problems with the site, and all I'm saying is that they should double-check before jumping to the conclusion that it's all FR, like I mistakenly did. Better to be safe than sorry. ;)
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I am on a great internet connection that's rated as being faster than 98% of the US yet I still lag a lot. The economy is broken, the site lags.. it's basically unplayable. I'm worried about getting more newbies right now, especially around holidays.
I am on a great internet connection that's rated as being faster than 98% of the US yet I still lag a lot. The economy is broken, the site lags.. it's basically unplayable. I'm worried about getting more newbies right now, especially around holidays.
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Not sure whether distance has an impact. I'm in Italy and FR is running perfectly for me, no lag and no issues. [quote name="Alphaeon" date="2013-10-18 21:16:20"]I actually think a little blurb should be made about multi-accounts, just as a refresher. I'm already seeing people posting about making a new account because they don't like their flight (and people are agreeing that they should, yikes!). Of course we should all know the rules and ToU, but a note about it on these registration news posts might be helpful.[/quote] Well, multi-accounting (aka playing [i]with more than one[/i] account to game the system) is one thing, but if someone wants to start over and abandons the old account, not using it anymore (thus [i]always[/i] playing with a single account), how's that wrong?
Not sure whether distance has an impact. I'm in Italy and FR is running perfectly for me, no lag and no issues.
Alphaeon wrote on 2013-10-18 21:16:20:
I actually think a little blurb should be made about multi-accounts, just as a refresher. I'm already seeing people posting about making a new account because they don't like their flight (and people are agreeing that they should, yikes!).

Of course we should all know the rules and ToU, but a note about it on these registration news posts might be helpful.

Well, multi-accounting (aka playing with more than one account to game the system) is one thing, but if someone wants to start over and abandons the old account, not using it anymore (thus always playing with a single account), how's that wrong?
[quote name="Seleya" date="2013-10-19 15:08:19"][quote name="Alphaeon" date="2013-10-18 21:16:20"]I actually think a little blurb should be made about multi-accounts, just as a refresher. I'm already seeing people posting about making a new account because they don't like their flight (and people are agreeing that they should, yikes!). Of course we should all know the rules and ToU, but a note about it on these registration news posts might be helpful.[/quote] Well, multi-accounting (aka playing [i]with more than one[/i] account to game the system) is one thing, but if someone wants to start over and abandons the old account, not using it anymore (thus [i]always[/i] playing with a single account), how's that wrong?[/quote] Registering for another account just to change Flights is a waste of space at the moment (think about all of that wasted data due to those abandoned accounts). Best to ask an admin, though, just to be sure. Oh, and I can't find the post, but the admins [i]did[/i] say something about how they're working on a feature that allows you to change Flights without making another account. It's not a top-priority project right now, but maybe everyone should hold off on making new accounts just in case. :I
Seleya wrote on 2013-10-19 15:08:19:
Alphaeon wrote on 2013-10-18 21:16:20:
I actually think a little blurb should be made about multi-accounts, just as a refresher. I'm already seeing people posting about making a new account because they don't like their flight (and people are agreeing that they should, yikes!).

Of course we should all know the rules and ToU, but a note about it on these registration news posts might be helpful.

Well, multi-accounting (aka playing with more than one account to game the system) is one thing, but if someone wants to start over and abandons the old account, not using it anymore (thus always playing with a single account), how's that wrong?

Registering for another account just to change Flights is a waste of space at the moment (think about all of that wasted data due to those abandoned accounts). Best to ask an admin, though, just to be sure.

Oh, and I can't find the post, but the admins did say something about how they're working on a feature that allows you to change Flights without making another account. It's not a top-priority project right now, but maybe everyone should hold off on making new accounts just in case. :I
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Last I checked the ToS Creating another account because you dislike your flight for any reason is considered multi-accounts and is not allowed ~
Last I checked the ToS Creating another account because you dislike your flight for any reason is considered multi-accounts and is not allowed ~
vTHE CLAN OF HELLSYv
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@Seleya - The admin were asked by many before the last registration window if they could make a new account simply because they did not want to be in their flight any longer. They were asked not to do this, because it would indeed to breaking the ToU.

But it was also mentioned that a future flight change method would be introduced sometime in the future. The members that want to switch were asked to wait for this feature. ^^

Here's a source, if you wish to see one.
@Seleya - The admin were asked by many before the last registration window if they could make a new account simply because they did not want to be in their flight any longer. They were asked not to do this, because it would indeed to breaking the ToU.

But it was also mentioned that a future flight change method would be introduced sometime in the future. The members that want to switch were asked to wait for this feature. ^^

Here's a source, if you wish to see one.
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