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.
Otkucaji srca BGA: što ima doktore?
Kao što su primijetili naši stalni korisnici, od kraja prošlog tjedna Board Game Arena podnosi vrlo težak teret.
Sve više i više korisnika se povezuje i igra iz svih dijelova svijeta.
Ova izuzetna situacija vrši pritisak na internetske usluge.
Zbog Covid-19, mnogi su zatvoreni kod kuće.
Ne možemo posjetiti prijatelje.
Ne možemo imati zabave.
Ne možemo da igramo noći.
Dakle , velik dio svog života krećemo putem interneta, a za ljude koji vole igrati društvene igre to znači igrati na mreži.
Naravno, nitko nije mogao očekivati ovu situaciju.
Nismo bili spremni za to.
Cijeli vikend smo pratili situaciju i radili na pronalaženju načina kako bolje podnijeti teret.
Prije prošlog tjedna, naše najveće opterećenje bilo je istovremeno oko 4000 priključenih igrača.
U četvrtak smo pogodili 5000 i bilo je još ok.
U petak smo pogodili 7000 i usluga se srušila.
Mi smo ga uspjeli vratiti 40 minuta kasnije, a zatim smo pronašli i riješili problem.
Također smo postavili neke mogućnosti za onemogućavanje nebitnih funkcija da bismo prioritetno dočekali ljude koji se igraju.
U subotu navečer, s tim promjenama uspjeli smo dočekati do 9000 povezanih igrača istovremeno, s nekim zaostajanjem, ali bez većih sudara.
To je malo ludo ako nas pitate
Tada smo u nedjelju ispitivali situaciju i što sve možemo učiniti i shvatili smo da postoji jednostavno previše problema i da moramo ograničiti opterećenje da bismo mogli raditi na problemima, a da ih sve vrijeme ne blokiramo upravljanjem padova ,
Stoga smo postavili ograničenje broja povezanih korisnika (iznimka premium), što odgovara onome što usluga trenutno može obraditi bez većih usporavanja.
Sada ćemo raditi na povećanju kapaciteta poslužitelja kako bismo postepeno podizali ovo ograničenje kako bismo mogli dočekati sve više i više igrača s ispravnom razinom usluge.
Možda bi neki pomislili da je "samo stvar postavljanja nekih više poslužitelja", ali to je složenije od toga.
Neki se teret mogu raspodijeliti, neki ne mogu.
Problemi su ono što se ne može distribuirati, "uska grla".
Na primjer, da biste mogli ući u igre, svi morate doći na isto mjesto da biste se pridružili igrama, u predvorju igara.
Tako između ostalog radimo na tome da lobi istovremeno može primiti više ljudi.
Da biste ga sumirali našim starim korisnicima, budite strpljivi!
Radimo na poboljšanju stvari.
A našim novim korisnicima uslugu otkrivate u vrlo posebnom trenutku, tako da možete naići na neke neočekivane probleme.
Žao mi je zbog toga, ali u svakom slučaju, dobrodošli!
Sretni smo i ponosni što možemo pružiti uslugu koja je cijenjena u ovom stresnom vremenu.
Molimo vas da se dobro pobrinete za sebe i za zajednice oko sebe u stvarnom životu i na mreži!
BGA tim.