Unity Version Community Update
Dear Settlers,
As you know, we are aware of the current situation and working hard on solutions. This includes not only issues with the live game, but also technical challenges that are more or less “behind-the-scenes” and invisible for you, but which solution is nonetheless very important to have a sustainable and successful future for The Settlers Online.
Many of you have repeatedly asked for a more in-depth communication of what we are working on and what you can expect for the next updates. We would like to meet that request with an update on many of the points the community has raised during the last days and weeks:
Mailbox Issues - There will be a significant improvement to several Mailbox-related issues in the upcoming version.
Star Menu Lag- Currently investigating. There is no time estimation for a general fix yet.
Sometimes, items in the star menu change their icons randomly, this will change back to normal once it is reloaded- Fixed in the upcoming version.
Specialists create issues, as they partly are greyed out or not visible anymore- Fixed in the upcoming version.
Chat performance / reconnects- Currently investigating. There is no time estimation for a general fix yet.
Additionally, we’re working on other issues that might make it for the next version but can’t announce yet. Please refer to future changelogs for further info.
We would also like to address some specific questions we have seen getting repeatedly asked on the forums:
What did we fix in the last maintenance?- The most important of the solved issues in the last version were:
- Locked zone issues were solved.
- Improved fonts; they are now less blurry.
- Improved performance of star menu items
What is the reason for the general unresponsiveness and bad performance?- There are different causes for different types of “lags” and performance issues.
Generally speaking, the new architecture of the current client is being optimized step by step via analyzing each and every one of the processes that lead to “lags”. In addition, the general architecture and fundamental code structure need to be looked at closely to further find potential for optimizing performance on a broad level.
What is your honest feedback on when the players can expect to play without lag again?- This will be improving progressively as the causes are identified, evaluated and worked on.
A particular deadline can't be provided for having the same performance as before. We are however aware of the importance of the current performance issues and they will remain to be one of the main focus points - together with working on important “behind-the-scenes”-issues and keeping the current game flow intact.
Any tips to help with game performance issues?- Have the game window focused - logging in and immediately switch to another tab/window because "it takes so long to load" will further increase the loading times,
- When the game is "not focused" for more than ~30 seconds, expect a lag and a chat reconnect when returning,
- If possible, use the Chrome browser; it should have the best performance. Also, make sure it is up to date
- Make sure your graphics card drivers are up to date.
- Make sure your browser’s hardware acceleration is active.
- If you encounter issues, provide details on which situation EXACTLY has bad performance, so we can reproduce and improve it.
Why is there a "zone refreshed" popup on live, when it was mentioned as being only happening on the test server?What does "Out of memory" actually mean from the viewpoint of a developer- Generally speaking, “out of memory” means that the resources assigned to an application have run out. This might happen for different reasons but commonly it's due to a big amount of data being generated in loops. Usually, it's due to a bug.
Do you plan to run any event during the current situation?- Given the current issues, we have decided to postpone the upcoming Anniversary event and will not run it before September 6th.
When can we expect the next improvements?- Momentarily, we are preparing and testing another round of bug fixes, which will come to the live version in August. We can’t give any specifics yet, but you can expect your in-game mailbox to run better once the fixes have gone live.
We hope that our answers help you to get a clearer picture of the situation and how we are going forth in solving issues and progressively improving the game’s stability and performance. We would like to thank you for staying despite all the hassle and inconveniences around our beloved game. Rest assured that the current situation is not what the team has wished for and that we are working and working and working to improve it bit by bit, every day.
Thank you again for your patience and your support going through this storm.
Your “Settlers Online Team”
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