A Thread on Network Instability

With the release of the ATM7 server, and being a long time member of the community (Since like.. 2014 or something.) I've noticed a few things.



This screenshot was taken at 3:40pm EST on Sunday, August 28'th, 2022.
Out of the 26 different Servers / nodes / hub worlds

12/26 Have no population.
7/26 Have a population below 2 players
The remaining 7 servers (One being the Hub World, not even a modpack,) have a population that ranges from 3 to 7 players, showing that over 2/3'rds of the entire network aren't even in active use.

MyM has a tendency to keep old servers purely for nostalgic reasons, allowing RAM allocation to be stretched between old servers and newer servers like ATM7.
With that being said, a few people paid for Patron Tiers just so they could play on ATM7, and while I don't doubt the work that staff put into these servers, the instability of ATM7 is very reminiscent of a lot of server launches on the network. Though I am grateful for the experiences I've had on the network, I am left wondering what I purchased Patron for if all I got in return was an unstable mess that timed the entire population out at random 10 times a day.
This to me feels like a reoccurring issue with MyM itself, where not enough resources are given to a server before it's released, and it flops because players dislike the instability. Player retention goes down, fixes come within the week, or weeks, and by then it's too late. I've been on MyM a while, this is a trend that keeps happening.

In short, I feel like the network is too large and allocates it's RAM poorly. I think it's time to remove these old servers from the list so that more resources can be dedicated to the newer ones.

I also admit that the single screenshot isn't indicative of the network's average player count on any of these servers, but the point still stands regardless.

 

As a reminder, BetaPetey, 1.18.2 modpacks function perfectly fine on other server networks. MyM happens to be the outlier. I'm not disparaging the effort of the staff, I'm merely pointing at the poor allocation of server resources. I can go to another server and have a perfectly fine time on it, but MyM has constant time outs and delays across it's plethora of modpacks, not just ATM7.

 

It's not just about ATM7, I'm using it as more of an example when referring to the trend I mentioned. Server resource allocation, at least in my opinion, seems to be the weakest point of the network at large. Poor tps, timeouts, server delay, all of it can be attributed to the same issue in that a server simply doesn't have enough RAM allocated to it. There's simply too many modpacks running and not enough players to justify their use of resources.

 

@LordFungi imho the main point of problems is that MyM's custom plugins are not updated to handle 1.12+ packs in the first place.
Remember the vanilla? VANILLA, no mods, just few plugins and datapacks and still there was no MyM's plugin included so no1 could get any patron related stuff there.

Maybe hosting the old packs is one hand good bc theres not much networks who did that but on the other hand communication between staff-community is meh. I member almost a year of nothing, just releasing new packs, fixing stuff and rare chatting from staff around. The very postition of Community Manager was founded to try to stop the escaping of players.
Anyone remeber last event MyM hosted? Egg/scavenger hunt on some random hub? Last time I participated in one was halloween skin event 2 years ago, prolly bc there are no event at all?

Also I heard many stuff from previous staff members... and thats why I never tried to be a staff here. When ElectricLemonade and CanadaBunny were the CC's i saw much more traffic around forum, like what event we want to participate to or other stuff, I never saw Liarel or whatever her nick is rn, just made the TWoM's and few discord logos.

I know the staff works voluntary here, more like hobby of yours but maybe focusing on updating plugins and being able to provide the newest 1.16+ packs for everyone would invite more new players around here? Just sayin'

 

@LordEreh In my opinion, having 2/3rd's of the entire network active and unused is what's causing strain. People do go back to the old packs sometimes, it's just not enough people to justify keeping them around. As for plugins, it's not the plugins. AS for events, that doesn't concern new players and to be frank it's not the objective of a modpack network. They are nice when they happen, they just aren't and shouldn't be a main focus.

 

I understand that while people are playing on old servers, it's not like they've been shut down before with an active population (Pick a number between 1 and 10). Regrowth as an example.
I'm pitching a solution, Thanos-esk as it may be, it feels like I'm being argued against the fact that the network is just too large with not enough resources. Resources involving staffing requirements, patron money to run the servers and upkeep them, and the RAM distributed across the network. I'm not a staff member, I haven't seen behind the scenes, I don't know the revenue and costs behind MyM or the amount of work that's done for the public, but I'm fairly certain you have a weekly newsletter that can clarify those kinds of kinds of things.
I'm trying to be supportive of the future.

As for ATM7, how was it that these issues weren't spotted by staff during playtesting? There were less than 10 patrons on the server before it became too unstable to play on. Are we putting the blame on the patrons instead properly performing stress tests or are we the stress test? I apologize if this comes off as standoffish or an attack of some kind, I just want things to be clarified.

 

Since when any new modpack didnt cause some problems? Theres so many interaction between mods you cant possibly eliminate them all bc there will be 1 specific thing that would lead to crash. Even triple A games with dozens od testers and much bigger amount of people working around to fix problems cant find them all.
Also some packs were not configured to be used in multiplayer and often staff need to to many workarounds to make things work, like not spawning boss? Must add it to whitelist or sell its egg in shop. Bad worldgen mod? Disable it and often generate new world.

Idk how long ATM7 will stay as patrons server(its usually 3-4 months right?) but i bet after 1-2 weeks it will be more pleasant to play.
I hope staff will get required experience about issues in 1.14+ packs that could happen so in future 1.14+ pack could be hosted for all MyM players!
I know i sound very grumpy sometimes but i cheer for you guys.

 

I apologize ahead of time for the snarkiness in this post. I wrote it yesterday and held off on posting it in order to rethink or reword it, but my opinions remain unchanged, past Fungi.

I'm sorry, I didn't know MyM only had 2 or 3 staff members available for stress testing their newest server. /s
I count 5 in this thread, 10 currently online on Discord. Compared to the "half a dozen = 6" patrons that might still be playing on the server.
After maintaining a modded network for a decade, you'd think staff would have experience with these things and know the necessary steps to take before opening a server to people who literally paid money to play on it.

It's also not like there are other ATM7 servers to take reference from, or the modpack github itself. Almost feels like there's a community out there working on this thing, the ones who made it probably, that might be able to share problems and solutions. Could also be a discord full of chaps giddy to problem solve, once you properly identify them during playtesting of course.

That's fantastic, what a great way to show the people who fund the server a good time, allowing them to find the problems and pitch the server as a "Work in Progress / Special Access" . What is this dang "pseudo-beta testing" preorder crud? You realize how rude it is to allow people to pay for access to a server that will barely function? I know staff tested it, you were probably confident nothing too bad would occur, but with the aforementioned experience the network staff should have with launching new modpacks, it should be known by now that more players will always equal more problems. If @MaraJade2 's comment on 2-3 staff members is anything to go off of, that too me seems like a pretty poor stress group when expecting a flood of paying players.

That's singleplayer, man. How many times has everyone on the network been told the line "If you'd like to keep your base, you may request the file and we will transfer it to you," when a server is being shut down. Why is there an excuse to keep them around now?

 

@BetaPetey Now this is an answer that starts to clarify things. I didn't know this, this is new information. This helps explain the situation rather than making excuses and giving runarounds.

 

It would appear that the issue is less about making excuses and runarounds, and more that you aren't accepting the given answers.

For one, as Aoife said, RAM allocation often has nothing to due with server issues. Modded packs often are designed with single-player in mind, so stability will inevitably be an issue on multiplayer servers. For perspective: Many people play single-player, and have issues with packs even when running them with 8-12GB of RAM.

As for testing before release, there has to be a balance. Our limited staff team can only do so much. Even if each of us spent hours testing, there are so many mods involved, at different stages of advancement in the packs, that it would be impossible to spot every potential issue, or even most of them. If we wanted to test every item, every block, every multiblock system, it would take entirely too long, and the pack would never be released at all.

And even when we find issues, it's not as if the entire staff team has years of experience repairing issues with game mechanics. Anyone below the Admin level wouldn't be able to help with solutions, for the most part.

In the future, please try and keep all of this in mind before belittling the efforts of the staff team to provide an enjoyable network for our players.