After Update 33 launched alongside the Ascending Tide DLC for The Elder Scrolls Online, there were rampant server issues, mainly affecting the North American PC megaserver. Now, Director Matt Firor has posted a lengthy update explaining just what happened and what ZeniMax will do to help make up for access issues.
The PC launch of the update and new DLC was clearly frustrating for players that were unable to log in, or hitting crashes and instability if they could, so the team began an investigation when the initial issues were reported.
Firor begins the explanation with 2021’s promise to increase server stability for the game and how this process began with plans including the use of database sharding. DB-sharding meant that current characters and older characters (often inactive and even as far back as beta characters) could be separated so the entire PC database doesn’t have to load when someone logs in. This was also enabled after Update 33 launched on the PC megaservers.
After they enabled the DB-sharding on Monday after the update, they noticed some slowdowns and activity finder was having issues as well as a general slowdown or hang ups that made things non-functional. They tried a few options but troubleshooting didn't last. Ultimately, Firor says, it was a hardware issue:
“The issue was actually caused by a bad (as in failing) network port that was unable to process as much bandwidth as it was configured for. It wasn't a software problem at all; it was a hardware failure that, in essence, slowed down the entire megaserver. Tuesday’s maintenance was to take that device out of service and reconfigure a replacement, and once that was up, everything returned to normal and the DB Sharding process ran as intended: behind the scenes and with no player impact.”
They do believe they have resolved this issue. Since PC players haven't been able to log in to play and participate in the events like the Explorer’s Celebration and bonuses, ZeniMax will be giving out five 150% Experience Scrolls starting April 1st through the daily login rewards and there will also be triple the number of weekly Endeavor Seals for players on all platforms.
Read the full update over at The Elder Scrolls Online.
