San d'Oria Reputation NPC Dissappeared Briefly

Hello, I noticed something weird happen to Namonutice, the Reputation NPC at Southern San d'Oria's Lion Springs Tavern. Here's a rundown of what happened.

I went to my 2nd character's San d'Oria reputation by speaking with Namonutice.

Namonutice was missing from his usual spot. Took a few screenshots as proof.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fi...111105649a.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fi...111105635a.jpg

I logged in with my 1st character and visited Namonutice. He showed up as usual.

I logged back in with my 2nd character and confirmed that Namonutice showed up in his usual spot. Took another screenshot as proof.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fi...111110740a.jpg

I'm not sure what to make of this incident, but it was certainly a weird one. I decided to post this in case other players encountered a similar incident. This happened on the Carbuncle server and I had trouble inserting my screenshots, by the way.

Sometimes there is a lag when npc's do not load appropriately. If you run out of range and run back (or log/relog) they will load correctly. It is just a server lag issue.

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Originally Posted by Thoraeon

Sometimes there is a lag when npc's do not load appropriately. If you run out of range and run back (or log/relog) they will load correctly. It is just a server lag issue.

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It's not lag, but missing data that got lost in transit from the server to the pc/console. It can happen with any NPC, but you don't tend to notice it until a NPC is not there when you need it.
I've had this happen on a game-breaking scale when my router was dying. It was bleeding packets so bad, I had difficulty doing anything in abyssea. Maws, confluxes or quest NPCs simply refused to load until I walked back and forth a few times. (Router even crashed routinely when it's service log overflowed with error messages.)

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Originally Posted by Kristal

It's not lag, but missing data that got lost in transit from the server to the pc/console. It can happen with any NPC, but you don't tend to notice it until a NPC is not there when you need it.
I've had this happen on a game-breaking scale when my router was dying. It was bleeding packets so bad, I had difficulty doing anything in abyssea. Maws, confluxes or quest NPCs simply refused to load until I walked back and forth a few times. (Router even crashed routinely when it's service log overflowed with error messages.)

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It could also be internet packet loss do to an external ISP router. This game uses UDP for game play to reduce latency. If data is lost it just ignores the packet and assumes the client will eventually get a retransmission.

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UDP uses a simple transmission model with a minimum of protocol mechanism. It has no handshaking dialogues, and thus exposes any unreliability of the underlying network protocol to the user's program. As this is normally IP over unreliable media, there is no guarantee of delivery, ordering or duplicate protection. UDP provides checksums for data integrity, and port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination of the datagram.

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Originally Posted by LordChocoSlime

Hello, I noticed something weird happen to Namonutice, the Reputation NPC at Southern San d'Oria's Lion Springs Tavern. Here's a rundown of what happened.

I went to my 2nd character's San d'Oria reputation by speaking with Namonutice.

Namonutice was missing from his usual spot. Took a few screenshots as proof.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fi...111105649a.jpg

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fi...111105635a.jpg


I logged in with my 1st character and visited Namonutice. He showed up as usual.

I logged back in with my 2nd character and confirmed that Namonutice showed up in his usual spot. Took another screenshot as proof.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fi...111110740a.jpg

I'm not sure what to make of this incident, but it was certainly a weird one. I decided to post this in case other players encountered a similar incident. This happened on the Carbuncle server and I had trouble inserting my screenshots, by the way.

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Still amounts to packet corruption or data transmission loss somewhere.

Greetings LordChocoSlime,

Thank you for posting your concern over the NPC not appearing for you at times. Though this would be more of a Technical Issue. So in order to get this issue resolved for you as quickly as possible we will go ahead and move this thread over to the Technical Support section of the forum. Also for the issue you may want to provide the following information so they can best resolve this for you.

Details:
Steps:
1.
2.
3.
<*Add more steps if necessary.>
Date & Time:
Frequency:
PC Manufacturer & Model Number:
OS:
Graphics Card:
ISP:
Type of Internet Connection:

Thanks again and take care.

Hi and thanks for replying. I encountered this problem on Sunday, November 11, 2012 at around 11:30 am or so (guess or take a few minutes). I only noticed that NPC's disappearance once, but this issue lasted until I logged out with my 2nd character and logged in with my 1st character. I was playing the Xbox 360 version of the game at the time and I was using AT&T's DSL internet service. I hope this info helps.

This issue is reminiscent of a loss of connection, as some of you have inferred. If you are using a router, please configure it to allow packets to pass through these ports:
Port numbers that may be used by terminals such as the XBOX 360.
TCP 25, 80, 110, 443 or 1024 - 65535
UDP 50000 - 65535
*Your router may require that you use a PC to configure your network settings. For more information about how to configure your network settings, please refer to the instruction manual that came with your router or contact the manufacturer directly.

Hi again, I have one other question that might be related to my initial problem. Does this issue have anything to do with unexpected internet connections drops? Ever since I began playing this game in 2010, I've gotten several POL-xxxx error messages whenever my "R" value remains at zero for several seconds. I could never pinpoint the EXACT source those connection drops and assume it was just some freak incident. At the time if these connection drops, I was on the Xbox 360 version of this game, this console was connected via ethernet cable, and those drops occurred on two separate ISPs (Comcast and AT&T). I'll be sure to make note of any POL-xxxx error messages whenever they occur again.