For all the praise poured upon it for the improving MyTeam mode, the fantastic and deep MyLeague and MyGM franchise offerings, and the cornerstone mode known as MyCareer, NBA 2K19 has continued to be panned for its server stability. Or, should I say, lack thereof.
Since its launch in September fans have sent in countless complaints to the NBA 2K19 development staff, looking for answers as to why the game seems to be unplayable online. More specifically, the game’s MyLeague Online mode.
NBA 2K19’s version of an online franchise, the mode allows players to join friends for an association of their own. From custom rulesets to original teams, players can play for multiple seasons, taking part in drafts, free agency, league meetings, and more.
At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do.
Instead, players have had to deal with hiccup after hiccup; crash after crash. But why?
It turns out, SGO has learned, that there are two major issues at play.
the two servers being utilized for the mode are attacking each other.
According to sources with inside knowledge of the situation, the MyLeague Online servers are separate from those of other online modes. Modes like MyTeam and MyPlayer, which involve microtransactions, use the power of Amazon Web Services in order to handle the workload. MyLeague Online, which is a microtransaction-free mode, is powered by two – yes, just two – in-house servers.
This is resulting in limited bandwidth for MyLeague Online players, leading to slow sync times and long general load times.
To give you some more background, every time players do anything during the offseason, the game must talk to the 2K servers. Whether it’s making an offer for a coach or picking a player during the NBA Draft, the game has to hit the servers and then send the data back to the players. If the 2K servers are acting up, then the mode is going to struggle.
That’s where the second major problem comes in.
The servers responsible for managing the data don’t really get along. In fact, the two servers being utilized for the mode are attacking each other. Like that of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack, the servers are flooding each other with data, using up the system’s full pool of available resources. This leads to syncing failures and crashes during play.
It may be tolerable during in-season play, but once leagues hit the offseason, the mode becomes completely unplayable for many. Some – including myself — have experienced it taking nearly four-plus hours just to get through an offseason. From the game not showing everyone as “Readied Up” to players needing to back out of the mode entirely just to see stages of the offseason advance, the problems appear to be endless for MyLeague Online.
Online servers remain in the same status they were when this investigation began.
The source added that 2K has known about this issue from the onset but didn’t know how bad it truly was. When the developers were first introduced to the severity of the problems, one member on the development staff said that testing of the game was only done internally with no outside connections done to test the strain on the servers that the mode could present.
When the team at 2K/Visual Concepts was shown just how bad the situation was, it was mentioned that it would take 1-2 months to fix, but the problem was to be, as the source put it, kept under wraps until the fix was implemented. This discussion took place back in late October.
Now, four months later, NBA 2K19’s MyLeague Online servers remain in the same status they were when this investigation began.
SGO has reached out to 2K Sports and Visual Concepts for an update on the game’s servers, but, as of this writing, no response has been given. Should one be received, this story will be adjusted accordingly.
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