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.
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正如我们的普通用户所注意到的那样,自上周底以来, Board Game Arena一直在处理非常重的负载 。
来自世界各地的越来越多的用户正在连接和玩游戏。
这种特殊情况使在线服务面临压力。
由于新冠肺炎 ,许多人被关在家里。
我们不能拜访朋友。
我们不能参加聚会。
我们不能有游戏之夜。
因此, 我们将大部分时间都转移到网上 ,对于喜欢玩桌游的人来说,这意味着要在线玩 。
当然,没人能想到这种情况。
我们没为此做好准备 。
整个周末,我们一直在监视情况,并努力寻找更好地处理负载的方法。
在上周之前, 我们的最高负载是同时连接约4000名玩家。
在星期四,我们达到了5000名玩家,仍然可以。
星期五,我们达到7000,服务崩溃了。
40分钟后,我们将其还原,找到并解决了问题。
我们还设置了一些禁用非必要功能的可能性,以优先考虑欢迎人们玩耍。
在周六晚上,通过这些更改,我们设法欢迎多达9000名玩家同时连接,虽然有些滞后,但没发生重大崩溃。
如果您问我们,那有点疯狂
然后在周日,我们正在研究情况以及我们可以做什么,并意识到存在太多问题,因此我们需要限制负载以能够处理问题,而不会一直被崩溃管理。
因此,我们对连接的用户数量 (不包括高级用户 )进行了限制 ,以匹配该服务当前可以处理的速度而不会出现严重的速度下降。
现在,我们将致力于增加服务器容量,以逐步提高此限制 ,从而能够以适当的服务水平欢迎越来越多的玩家。
也许有些人会认为“这只是设置更多服务器的问题” ,但是要复杂得多 。
有些负载可以分配,有些则不能。
造成问题的是无法分发的“瓶颈”。
例如,要进入游戏,您必须都在同一个地方进入游戏大厅才能加入游戏。
因此,除其他外,我们正在努力使大厅能够同时容纳更多人。
总结一下:我们的老用户,请耐心等待!
我们正在努力使事情变得更好 。
对于我们的新用户,您会在一个非常特殊的时刻发现该服务,因此您可能会遇到一些意外的问题。
抱歉,但 欢迎您 !
我们很高兴能够在这紧张的时刻得到赞赏,并为此感到自豪。
请在现实生活中和线上照顾好您和您周围的社区!
BGA团队。