HUGE CONNECTION PROBLEM

[Jeza]

How very unfortunate for FFXIV:ARR to be connected to so many unreliable ISPs that keep their players (from all over the world, east and west coast US and all over the map betwixt the two, Canada, England, Japan, Malaysia, Kuwait and all points in between) who play the game on consoles and computers, through Steam and not, from connecting to the game at the SAME TIME...

Gosh, what horrible, completely coincidental, luck for such a large company! They must just be heartbroken for all those poor customers that just happen to be connected to them through such a shoddy system.

Maybe they should contact other game companies who aren't having such a large scale and widespread issue and see if they can't find out why their games are fine but sadly it seems the interwebs doesn't want FFXIV customers to play their game anymore?

Poor SQ-ENIX, all those ISP's ruining their player's ability to play their game...maybe its a conspiracy! And here I am, all out of tinfoil to make a protective hat....

FIX IT!

[Raist]

How very unfortunate for FFXIV:ARR to be connected to so many unreliable ISPs that keep their players (from all over the world, east and west coast US and all over the map betwixt the two, Canada, England, Japan, Malaysia, Kuwait and all points in between) who play the game on consoles and computers, through Steam and not, from connecting to the game at the SAME TIME...

Gosh, what horrible, completely coincidental, luck for such a large company! They must just be heartbroken for all those poor customers that just happen to be connected to them through such a shoddy system.

Maybe they should contact other game companies who aren't having such a large scale and widespread issue and see if they can't find out why their games are fine but sadly it seems the interwebs doesn't want FFXIV customers to play their game anymore?

Poor SQ-ENIX, all those ISP's ruining their player's ability to play their game...maybe its a conspiracy! And here I am, all out of tinfoil to make a protective hat....

FIX IT!

Guess you missed that it is just 3 ISP's betwixt the US and Canada that are in control of the traffic. If level3 is having issues at even just 1 of their 2 trunks into Canada from the NY/MA area, then half of their customers are impacted. That means 50% of all players coming through the Eastern Seaboard via Level3 as their partner are impacted. That can be TWC, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon... any number of the last mile ISP's that are using them as their routing partner to Montreal.

In that scenario, said ISP's can either work with Level3 to address the peering issue, or switch to one of their other providers... TATA, who has 3 trunks from the US, or Cogent who also has 3. But... then again, if just one of their routes into Canada is having issues, then that is 33% of those customers. And so and so and so forth.

The ISP that you pay for internet service is NOT the one carrying you into Montreal. It is a THIRD PARTY. And the options for that third party are so limited that when one is having issues, a LARGE number of users are having issues ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

[Jeza]

I guess you missed the England, Japan, Malaysia, and Kuwait part....let's not forget Brazil and all the other countries affected in this.....or are they all connected through Canada too?

I feel like I am suddenly in a South Park episode debating with Cartman...BLAME CANADA!!!!!!!

The fact is, we have players from ALL OVER THE WORLD having this issue, all of them at the exact same time and nothing is being done about it...that is a problem.

SQ-ENIX is the root of this evil and no amount of blame passing will solve it, they...need...to....FIX IT!! NOW!

[Raist]

I guess you missed the England, Japan, Malaysia, and Kuwait part....let's not forget Brazil and all the other countries affected in this.....or are they all connected through Canada too?

I feel like I am suddenly in a South Park episode debating with Cartman...BLAME CANADA!!!!!!!

The fact is, we have players from ALL OVER THE WORLD having this issue, all of them at the exact same time and nothing is being done about it...that is a problem.

SQ-ENIX is the root of this evil and no amount of blame passing will solve it, they...need...to....FIX IT!! NOW!

If they are connecting to the Canadian Data Centers, then yes... they are potentially impacted as well. It can also apply to the Tokyo servers as well, depending on the route they are taking. Intercontinental connections can be even more susceptible to this issue because they may have even more limited paths to follow. Follow the path from Australia and surrounding islands for instance. Go look at the maps linked in that post if you aren't familiar with their routing woes. When it comes to interconnectivity between different companies networks, there is a big choking point at the peering/transit level. That is where the bulk of this instability has been found.

Oh, and as for the England reference... it was documented about a year ago to be an issue with a routing partner for the BT subscribers (think it was O2/Orange or something) where they had to work with their routing partner and SE to track down an issue with the handling of their traffic. Something to do with the packets getting a lower priority and getting delayed/discarded in route through the UK. It was posted at the forums for BOTH games, as well as on the ISP's forums as well. This is a very common issue that has existed ever since I started online gaming in 1996. There is plenty of precedent for it... you can find it related to a host of other games by different companies, even some hosted here in the US (LoL, GW2, LOTR, Blizzard's game library...).