Curse

Silvergun Superman · May 04, 2006, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Since the launch of Factions, at times out of nowhere, Guild Wars would have a massive lag. I would get 7-10 framerates making the game unplayable and I have to close Guild Wars and relaunch it. This lag occurs anywhere; mission, questing, exploring, and etc. If you have the framerates command line executed in gw.exe parameter, which displays the fps in-game, you can actually start to see the framerates gradually declining as you play for quite some time. This usually happens after 2-3 hours of playing. Some times even after an hour of playing. This has never happened in Prophecies. So my question is, anyone else also getting this massive lag periodically?

May be that's why we've been seeing that blue text saying "You have been playing for X amount of hours. Please take a break", to avoid expericing a massive lag, lol. But seriously, this is annoying and it's getting on my nerves.

**cosyfiep** · May 04, 2006, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Yeah, I have had this problem as well, however; I also had this problem during some of the ring of fire missions as well. Though the lag I had gotten there was still playable thru, this new one is so bad my whole group died before I was able to launch my first 1 second attack! The worst area was the city/cantha area...just tooooooooooooo many npcs for my poor processor to handle I guess.

Teklord · May 04, 2006, 04:48 PM // 16:48

I've experience what I would classify as lag once since I installed Factions. This last Monday night I was running around exploring for the fun of it, got a ways from towns and didn't feel like walking all the way back later. So I simply left myself logged in sitting there while I went to watch 24 and CSI Miami. So two hours later I come back still sitting there; however now when I move around I find that my henchies 'jump' around to catch up with me. Plus mobs aren't always where the radar said they were, and would also 'jump' around. After a few very slow battles, I just map jumped into the nearest town deciding to cut my losses. After map jumping I was able to play quests and explore some more territory and everything was back to normal, henchies would run with me and fights proceeded nice and quickly.

That's the only lag I've really experience in this game, other times I've logged in I've played for an hour or more and my fps doesn't drop below 60, at least not very often or for very long.

Nite_Creeper · May 04, 2006, 05:13 PM // 17:13

I experience lag like this too quit a bit. If I just sit for a while, the game will slow down and henchies spike around once I try to move(happens alot when talking to people on Xfire).
Also I get SEVERE lag when leaving The Market Place, going into Waijun Bazaare. For the first battle, there is massive lag and the henchies end up killing the Jade's before the lag ends. This happens EVERY time I enter Waijun. After the one mob though it seems to go fine until it slows down a bit. I've also noticed that it almost always with henchies, although one time running from the center to the market place i experiences severe lag and had to turn the graphics all the way down to make it the rest of the way.

I never used to get lag like this on Prophecies and I played that on an AOL dial-up line.

The Ice Master · May 04, 2006, 05:19 PM // 17:19

I've had this lag happen to some of our monks in high-ranked guild battles. In other words, its happening everywhere.

Merlin Munk · May 04, 2006, 07:06 PM // 19:06

Was just in playing my mesmer, U try interupt in that lag ;-( . It´s unplayable. I never got it so bad when only prophecy was online, but since fraction was released I got so bad lag i quit playing. Thinking of uninstalling the shit.

Forsythe · May 04, 2006, 07:27 PM // 19:27

I've noticed this, though probably not as severely as you first mentioned. Very regularly, since Factions launched, I find entering/leaving towns is delayed, and the lag out in the world is sometimes bad too. You know when you go down a set of stairs, or try to follow some NPCs for a quest and you end up getting stuck in the environment, trying to go down the same three stairs like 30 times? Yeah. That. Annoying.

I'm sure it's just growing pains though, they'll be worked out. Might be worth your while to send a question to their support team. At least they'll know about the problem even if they ask you to defragment your harddrive or something.

Silvergun Superman · May 04, 2006, 07:31 PM // 19:31

So it is happening to many people as well. It's just getting fraustrating. I finally assemble a good group together for a mission in Cantha, it was a really difficult mission I don't remember which one, but once it started I get the crazy lag. I ended having to tell my team that I had to leave because this lag is just unplayable. Thinking about all these recent updates Anet has been releasing, why can't one of those updates address this lag issue? It's affecting everyone.

Markaedw · May 04, 2006, 07:57 PM // 19:57

I play a monk, and I have been seeing more lag. I've lost several people because of lagging, either not seeing they are being spiked or a lag time from casting a spell to the time it actually activates.

Forsythe · May 04, 2006, 11:22 PM // 23:22

I was roaming the crystal desert one night and had to shut the program down because it lagged out and nothing would happen(and it wasn't me, I made sure to check when I windows-d'd out).

I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of the updates had been trying to improve netcode to make the game more efficient, but I think it might be a short-term lack of hardware to handle the huge load since the launch of Factions. They're quick with that stuff though, if they know about it, and they probably do, they're already trying to figure ways to relieve the pressure.

Omega X · May 04, 2006, 11:52 PM // 23:52

I personally think that its Load Lag.

I notice this when an extreme amount of objects appear on screen at the same time. The afflicted seems to never be loaded with the rest of the area since they have a tendency to popup all of a sudden. But once they are loaded, the load lag goes away.

But otherwise I haven't noticed any real extreme net lag since last week.

Wrath Of Dragons · May 05, 2006, 12:31 AM // 00:31

i was doin tragically since factions came out. iv always had lag, but this made somethings unplayable (interrupt, 55, anything that took precision) i would run at about 1/2 speed, but every 3 steps or so, the game would shift around me to put me in the correct location. for example, a 5 sec recharge would recharge in 2 short bursts, a meteor shower would be cast in 2 or even 3 short spazzes. it was a great way to die. I got pissed yesterday, and accidentally switched to fullscreen. all that lag went away. no msn messenger, but oh well.

MaglorD · May 05, 2006, 02:30 AM // 02:30

The lag I've experienced has nothing to do with fps. My fps can be 60+ and I still lag. Thankfully it's very rare and last night when I was playing, I did not encounter one instance of lag. Maybe it's because many ppl are unable to play Factions until they get their retail key.

What happens when the lag hits is my character cannot move. Either that or there's some kind of desync in that I move but the henchies don't.

For those ppl complaining about slowness in towns full of players and npcs, it's because your cpu/gpu cannot handle the stress. Only way to solve this is to upgrade your system.

Matix411 · May 05, 2006, 03:56 AM // 03:56

[QUOTE=Forsythe]You know when you go down a set of stairs, or try to follow some NPCs for a quest and you end up getting stuck in the environment, trying to go down the same three stairs like 30 times? Yeah. That. Annoying. QUOTE]

This happens to you too?
Happens to me WAY too often.

Acually, when Prophecies was out, I still got lag, because my computer is terrible, BUT, if I played in 800x600 resolution with appropriate settings it was fine. If I played in a window, even better.

NOW, if I play in 800x600, and open up any in-game window, my game gets incredibly long lag spikes, progressing to the point where my game basically freezes, as does my entire computer, and I must close.
If I play in a window, I just get terrible spikes, especially in missions.
When loading a new town it takes forever, far longer than in Prophecies, and I also notice a delay when the load initially starts.

It makes doing quests that span 3-4 different areas incredibly annoying, especially when you can't teleport to finish the quest because the NPC is in the outside world, not in a town.

I love the game nonetheless, but I'm tired of having to run everything on max-low settings and even still get terribel lag-spikes.

I'd say it's everywhere.

Hopefully it'll get fixed, I don't want a good thing gone bad for such a stupid reason.

primal98 · May 05, 2006, 02:06 PM // 14:06

Yeah same here :/ I installed factions and played it, played reallys moooooothly... by bro logs in later.... masssssive lag to the point its unplayable.... it just seems very very random. I might have been playing for 5 min or 2 hrs, the massive lag comes for no reason o.O The suddenly disappears...

~prime

CKaz · May 05, 2006, 02:29 PM // 14:29

I've played GW with an error or massive lag spike say 1-2 times a month.
Now it's every day usually several times making the darn thing almost unplayable =(

Can't even remotely imagine going for that hardcore/survivor title right now...

Linksys · May 05, 2006, 05:11 PM // 17:11

When lag happens because of busy servers on Arenanet's side, I'm not sure how exactly it affects framerate lag. But I've gotten it on and off. I got a lot in the Ring of Fire areas as well. But last night it was gone. I read an early IGN interview where they wanted to emphasis more players with no monthly fees, when asked the question about bandwidth. Well, I hope they're purchasing more server capibilities for us.