good bye FFXIV, thanks to the lag, you lost another customer.

[Fornix]

i know it doesn't matter, that was not my point with that. My point was that the distance between you and your group is the amount of distance the lag creates, between what it shows on your screen and what actually happens on the server.

To hook in on that though. Just like in any multiplayer environment, the positioning of another player on your screen does not just depend on your own latency with the server. But is also dependent of the latency of the other player. So even if you live very close to the server, you'll still see other players lagging behind. The only solution to that would be to have every single player live within close proximity of the server, or for our internet connections to no longer travel by close to the speed of light, but actually teleport from one point to another.

And although researchers have proven to be able to teleport data at 10 kbit per second over a 6mm distance last year, we're still years away from any practical application there.

It's for that very same reason that in games such as e.g. counterstrike it was very common for players with 80 ms or over to be booted. As in a competitive environment their off-positioning was troublesome and posed a possible advantage. However, in an MMO none of that matters. It also doesn't matter which MMO you play. It's all the same. No matter what MMO you pick. Other players will always lag behind. The severity of it depends on how close you and your fellow players are both away from the servers.

To make a point, I actually DO move quite pre-emptively to avoid AoEs like plumes etc, otherwise I'll definitely get hit by it if I move at the same time as say when the cast bar starts. I play on roughly 300ms ping (Australia to NA servers), and while I'm not sure how much that correlates to this subject, I find myself moving close to a second before the WotL cast bar shows up. And usually the AoE under me is in the same position as I was when I was still.

I have no doubt that at some point you can start moving pre-emptively yes. Just to ensure that your movement data is picked up by the server in a timely fashion. However, bear in mind that the Australian player base is a very exceptional one . It's nigh impossible for any MMO company to account for that. Your country lacks the population to realistically sustain the population for most MMO's.

I do believe though that I recall to have read not too long ago that a series of fiber optic connections are to be laid out in the upcoming years between your continent and the southeast Asian territories. Probably reducing your ping to those areas to < 100 ms. Making it likely that in the future global MMO's with SEA data centers may be more likely to open up Aus servers there.

[kidvideo]

That is throughput, not speed.

Technically yes, but for laymen it is speed. No one is going to call comcast & say "you know, you aren't really offering more speed [sucks in air through their braces], you're just increasing packets..."

The English language is a living language & common understanding becomes the accepted definition, irregardless of the facts.

[Raist]

Technically yes, but for laymen it is speed. No one is going to call comcast & say "you know, you aren't really offering more speed [sucks in air through their braces], you're just increasing packets..."

The English language is a living language & common understanding becomes the accepted definition, irregardless of the facts.

But... that perception is wrong. Regardless of how you want to spin it, acceptance of a lie by the uninformed does not change the fact that it is still a lie... and to disseminate that lie could be tantamount to propagating fraud (at least at the business level).

We've actually been having that kind of conversation about speed issues with Time Warner for quite some time now.... ever since they started monkeying with our QAM and channel lineups and have been moving our frequencies/modulation all over the map. It's been causing a lot of issues in some areas because by trying to get us to use the higher frequencies (to increase the raw speed of each channel), we've run into a lot of ingress/reflection because the actual coax in the area is grossly outdated/mis-managed and not really up to the task of being thrust into the upper spectrum (RG-59 is still run in a lot of areas.., not even RG-6, much less quad-shield--and ports/lines remain unterminated). Channels can't get locked or loose it frequently and the modems have to thunk over and over again to re-acquire signal---ultimately many people wind up with outdated configurations at the bottom of the stack with sub-par performance because they can't get far enough away from the OTA and broadcast assignments within the spectrum (50+ plans are falling back to 15 or worse at times).

The assigned frequency(ies) has a direct impact on your speed limit (and by extension throughput), because it is basically what determines how many symbols can be transmitted per second for the assigned modulation type. This table only details how upstream parameters pan out, but the same principles apply to the downstream---you're just dealing with higher frequencies (upwards of 500MHz these days) and the high end modulation options (256 QAM is real popular).


http://www.dslreports.com/speak/slid...aywyNzIwNTY2NQ
grrr... the hard link to the image on the DSL forum is going AWOL... should pull open in a window from that URL, or you can go to the thread here

This is why engineers make the distinctions amongst speed (more specifically transfer rate and/or frequency), bandwidth, and latency. They are all separate elements that combine to determine your overall throughput for a given length of time (which is how you are actually buying it, but is misrepresented as speed--thus the lack of understanding on what you are really buying and many buy waaaay more bandwidth than they really need).

Here is a hypothetical scenario (don't know your actual values, but this is sort of how it works). The head-end is assigned a pool of frequencies and modulation types, and that controls the speed of the entire circuit that is shared with everyone on that line. So the circuit gets configured for a theoretical speed of around 38Mbps per channel that is divvied out to everyone on that circuit. Each modem must go through a request/grant cycle and is assigned a time slice for transmission on it's bonded channel(s). The time slices may or may not be uniform depending on how they run it.. but let's say you are getting granted 0.25 seconds. Within that window, your modem transfers its data at the equivalent of 38Mbps per channel for that 0.25 second window. Then it waits for the next grant cycle to transmit again. Your throughput is basically managed by this time slicing scheme. But, when it is allowed to transmit it transmits at that 38Mbps equivalent per channel. To adjust your throughput for different service levels (15Mb, 20Mb, 30Mb, on up to 100Mb packages), the cable company has several options: adjust the length/frequency of your time slices, adjust the frequencies assigned to your channels, or adjust how many channels you can bond. The simplest route for the longest time has been adjusting slices and bonding... but they've reached a saturation point in many markets, so they are now tweaking our frequencies to increase the base speeds so they are starting with a higher transfer rate at the beginning of the equation. So, we have been having the very type of conversation you mentioned.

Now... here's why all of the big bandwidth options don't really mean a hill of beans in the scope of this game. The typical transfer needs of this game fall between dial-up and DSL-Lite speeds. Run a network monitor while you are playing the game, zoning around and such with nothing else on your system actively using the internet. You may be surprised just how little bandwidth the game uses. Don't even really need to run a network monitor I guess... can just watch your S/R numbers in the corner of the screen. Keep in mind that 1000 bytes is 8000 bits of user data, so to exceed typical old-school 56k dial-up transfer speeds, you would need to be consuming upwards of 3000 bytes receiving or upwards of 1500 bytes sending per second for this game (there is some overhead in the mix, but if you always connected above 33.6, you could run such numbers and even up towards 5000+ as you approach 56k). To exceed 128Kb bandwidth (up or down), it would take upwards of 14,000 bytes. Whether you signed on to the cable company's 15Mb or 75Mb bandwidth plan... you will be sending this game's data at the same speed if things are functioning properly because it is going to fit in the same time slice that is running at the same speed for both packages.

The factors at play here are basically dealing with flow control along our routes... most easily detected by monitoring response time (latency) and packet loss statistics.

[Raist]

5 42 ms 16 ms 7 ms asd-tr0042-cr101-ae8-0.core.as9143.net [213.51.158.12]

5 10 ms 14 ms 8 ms asd-tr0042-cr101-ae8-0.core.as9143.net [213.51.158.12]

You actually may have some wonkiness wanting to creep in from the Netherlands. Hard to say without more samples... but it might be something to watch for if things suddenly go south for you. In just 10 pings, I got one timeout.

[Zantitrach]

People should no better than to post anything that talks against SE, the game or the connection. Will you guys never learn?

You cannot do anything about speed of light but you can reduce distance, that is how games reduce latency. When we play on private servers on counter strike for example we obviously pick the servers closer to us. I think there is a reason for that, oh yeah better latency. Having only one cluster of servers and in Canada was SE's choice. Saying SE has no fault whatsoever sounds strange to me.

Judging by my tacert, the travel to Canada is not my lag. 1/2 of my lag (44%-57%) is the travel of my data to the Atlanta-based CDN that routes to Canada. Oh, I live in Alabama, merely 2 hours (152 miles) from the CDN, yet it takes less time to travel 1,215 miles to Canada.

Canada, is not the problem here.

TL;DR: It takes my signal longer to travel 150 miles to the CDN than it does 1200 miles to Canada. I blame SE. /sarcasm.

[Zentsa]

Ever since the update at the beginning of the year, the lag for me has been getting worse and worse. to the point that i cant even play at night. the fact that i need to pay for another program such as WTFast to resolve the issue is an insult. so ya, thanks SE for the remake of a beautiful game that started great, but now is garbage in my eyes.

Yeah.......

[DeceptionsWrath]

Never had any kind of lag or latency issues and I'm playing from the EU on US servers.

So yes, your internet is bad, don't blame SE for your bad choice of provider.

Never had any kind of lag? lol Okie I Believe this!

[Tadacho]

If there is one thing is the current day and age people should spend a lot of money on (especially if you're an MMO player), it is a stable and fast ISP. Don't blame SE for your lag, blame your unstable and cheap ISP.

[Vespar]

If there is one thing is the current day and age people should spend a lot of money on (especially if you're an MMO player), it is a stable and fast ISP. Don't blame SE for your lag, blame your unstable and cheap ISP.

Some folks are forced to use crap internet services purely because that is their ONLY ISP choice. Can't blame them for that.

[Gilthas]

I'm from Portugal and ever since they changed how often they check player input I haven't had any noticeable lag problems in dungeons.

When I did have problems it was because of my ISP provider. After I changed to a new provider, my random lag/disconnect issues are gone.

Seriously people if you quit, than stop hanging out in the forums after the fact.

But if they don't stick around how will they be able to convince other people to leave too and justify their decision?