An update on queues

Since launch this has been our number one priority to fix.

We've addressed a number of bottlenecks over the last few weeks including adding a large number of server blades, improvements to our lobby server, and massive code optimizations added during late nights. We are now down to our last identified bottleneck before the biggest breakthrough we've seen yet.

It is always dangerous as a developer to make promises when you just don't know for certain what the future holds, but our latest and largest bottleneck reached so far was our database. It simply becomes overloaded with the amount of data being generated, saved, and loaded. We run a node based system and today we made some massive improvements to a few of our nodes. Based on these improvements we expect this to unlock capacity that should allow us reach a point where our servers can hold most or all of our players at all except the highest peaks (and maybe even beyond that, but see the first part about promises - plus every time we raise the cap more people seem to want to play). In order to get all of the nodes updated and ready by the weekend we're going to need to take the servers offline for an extended downtime and we're going to take three hours tomorrow afternoon to make this happen.

I know we've asked for a lot from you guys in terms of patience and support during the downtime and improvements we've been making and in this case especially I wanted to stop by here to let you know why we're doing it and why it's happening without much warning. When the servers turn back on tomorrow we expect that there will be a change you can see (give us a little time to test the water before we open the floodgate of course, but it should be in short order).

As always thank you for playing and your support. When I started making games I didn't think I'd ever be this excited about database node upgrades but let me tell you, for each of you who have to wait in queue we are right there with you. We know what it means from new players who want to play to you folks who have been with us from the start and we feel it ourselves every day all day (weekends included). If we've been quiet it's because we've been hard at work on making this better, and tomorrow's downtime brings some serious attention to what has been holding us back.

See you tomorrow, and thanks again for being awesome and playing Trove.