As our regular users will have noticed, since the end of last week, Board Game Arena has been handling a very heavy load. More and more users are connecting and playing, from every part of the world.
This exceptional situation is putting online services under pressure. Because of Covid-19, many people are locked at home. We cannot visit friends. We cannot have parties. We cannot have game nights. So we are moving much of our lives online, and for people who love to play board games, that means playing online.
Of course, nobody could expect this situation. We were not prepared for this.
All the weekend, we have been monitoring the situation and working to find ways to handle the load better. Before last week, our highest load was about 4000 players connected at the same time. On Thursday, we hit 5000 and it was still ok. On Friday, we hit 7000 and the service crashed. We were able to restore it 40 minutes later, then found and solved the problem. We also set up some possibilities to disable non essential functionalities to prioritize welcoming people to play. On Saturday night, with those changes we managed to welcome up to 9000 players connected at the same time, with some lagging but without a major crash. That's a little crazy if you ask us 🙂
Then on Sunday, we were examining the situation and what we could do and realized that there were just too many issues and that we needed to limit the load in order to be able to work on the problems without being blocked by managing crashes all the time. So we put in place a limit to the number of connected users (premium excepted), that matches what the service can currently handle without major slowdowns.
Now, we will be working on increasing the server capacity to raise this limit progressively to be able to welcome more and more players with a correct service level. Maybe some people would think that "it's just a matter of setting up some some more servers", but it's more complicated than that. Some of the load can be distributed, some can not. What's causing problems is what cannot be distributed, the "bottlenecks". For example, in order to get into the games, you must all get in the same place to join games, in the game lobby. So among other things we are working on making the lobby able to hold more people at the same time.
To sum it up to our old users, please be patient! We are working on making things better. And to our new users, you are discovering the service at a very special moment, so you may encounter some unexpected issues. Sorry about that, but in any case, welcome! We are happy and proud to be able to provide a service that is appreciated in this stressful time.
Please take good care of you and of the communities around you in real life and online!
The BGA team.
Latido cardíaco BGA: que pasa doc?
Como fixeron notar os nosos usuarios habituais, desde finais da semana pasada o Board Game Arena leva unha carga moi pesada.
Cada vez son máis os usuarios que se conectan e xogan desde todas as partes do mundo.
Esta situación excepcional está a presionar os servizos en liña.
Por mor de Covid-19, moita xente está pechada na casa.
Non podemos visitar amigos.
Non podemos ter festas.
Non podemos ter noites de xogo.
Así , estamos movendo boa parte das nosas vidas en liña e para as persoas que quere xogar xogos de mesa, isto significa xogar en liña.
Por suposto, ninguén podería esperar esta situación.
Non estabamos preparados para isto.
Durante toda a fin de semana, estivemos monitorizando a situación e traballando para atopar formas de manexar mellor a carga.
Antes da semana pasada, a nosa carga máis elevada foi duns 4.000 xogadores conectados ao mesmo tempo.
O xoves acadamos 5000 e aínda estaba ben.
O venres, alcanzamos 7000 e o servizo caeu.
Puidemos restauralo 40 minutos despois, logo atopamos e resolvemos o problema.
Tamén establecemos algunhas posibilidades para desactivar as funcionalidades non esenciais para dar prioridade ás persoas de acollida para xogar.
O sábado á noite, con eses cambios conseguimos dar a benvida a ata 9000 xogadores conectados ao mesmo tempo, con algún retraso pero sen fallos importantes.
Isto é un pouco tolo se nos preguntas
A continuación, o domingo, estivemos a examinar a situación e o que podiamos facer e démonos conta de que había demasiados problemas e que necesitábamos limitar a carga para poder traballar nos problemas sen bloquear xestionando fallos todo o tempo. .
Polo tanto, establecemos un límite ao número de usuarios conectados (excepto a prima), que coincida co que o servizo pode tratar actualmente sen grandes desaceleracións.
Agora, traballaremos en aumentar a capacidade do servidor para elevar este límite progresivamente para poder acoller a cada vez máis xogadores cun nivel de servizo correcto.
Quizais hai quen pensaría que "só se trata de configurar algúns servidores máis", pero é máis complicado que iso.
Algunhas das cargas pódense distribuír, outras non.
O que causa problemas é o que non se pode distribuír, os "bloqueos".
Por exemplo, para entrar nos xogos, todos debes estar no mesmo lugar para participar nos xogos no vestíbulo do xogo.
Así, entre outras cousas, estamos a traballar para que o lobby poida atender a máis xente ao mesmo tempo.
Para resumilo cos nosos antigos usuarios, ten que ser paciente.
Estamos traballando para mellorar as cousas.
E aos nosos novos usuarios, estás descubrindo o servizo nun momento moi especial, polo que podes atopar algúns problemas inesperados.
Sentímolo por iso, pero en todo caso, benvido!
Estamos felices e orgullosos de poder prestar un servizo agradecido neste tempo estresante.
Coida ben de ti e das comunidades que te rodean na vida real e en liña.
O equipo BGA.