Official response concerning the lag plaguing this game?

[Turin]

We need to put the pressure on them to upgrade/reconfigure as needed to avoid the congested corridors. They have plenty of ways to remedy these issues...they are just choosing not to spend the necessary resources to do it--even when a partner offers to split the costs.

"them" as in SE or the ISPs?

[Clavaat]

"them" as in SE or the ISPs?

CDN's and ISP's.

[Turin]

CDN's and ISP's.

Well, it seems we have little control or impact over that. Is there anything SE can do in the interim to prevent players from experiencing these issues? I've never gotten lag like this with any other game.

[PureEclipse]

/snip

No I totally understand and its why I sympathize to begin with, tons of factors involved, I just question the reasoning why it is something that SE is responsible for,
an analogy would be, the Air Force has jets, aircraft carriers carry jets, thus the air force should be in charge of aircraft carriers, and this is the way I see the argument spun every time this is brought up, its WHAT is SE going to do about it, not what am I going to do about it with the provider/location/routing/whathaveyou

[WizardShotTheFood]

Well, it seems we have little control or impact over that. Is there anything SE can do in the interim to prevent players from experiencing these issues? I've never gotten lag like this with any other game.

Is there anything the driver of a semi truck can do to stop tens of thousands of other vehicles from clogging up the highway?

(it is a car analogy)

[Clavaat]

Well, it seems we have little control or impact over that. Is there anything SE can do in the interim to prevent players from experiencing these issues? I've never gotten lag like this with any other game.

I would recommend getting the IP address for said other games, run a tracert, and post the results compared to a trace route for FFXIV. Take those results next to each other, post them on the Tech Support section here, call SE and email them, call Verizon and email them. Be polite, informed and stern. Don't let them detract you with "uhhhh did you reset your router?" bullshit. Post information on facebook, twitter, etc. If SE can't badmouth Verizon/Ormuco/Level3/Alter.net, we totally can. Get the information out there as publicly as possible. The more people that see it, the more people will go "Oh wow, that sucks, I'm going to avoid that ISP." They lose money, they start working harder to fix the problem. Also, threaten to leave. It could be an empty threat (I totally can't leave my provider), but it makes them work harder as well.

[Raist]

Links/sources/contact info? Would going directly to ISP's be the best route? I'm not sure there's a customer service rep category exactly for this haha. This is getting into territory I'm honestly not 100% sure on, so I'd like to know exactly where/how to make demands. I know I've wanted to make a point of contacting Alter.net or level3 directly, but I'll be damned if you can't get through to anything. I've been at it for months and any other help would be appreciated

Your ISP has different tiers in their organization. When you call in to the help desk and get technicians on site and such, you are pretty much just dealing with Tiers 1 and 2. They simply can't deal with this stuff. What you need is escalation to a higher tier. As we continually mention, you need to be dealing with Tier3. Don't get me wrong... I don't mean to disparage the guys working in these lower tiers. Many actually know what is going on, and may otherwise be able to help you address your problems--but the policies in place prevent them from taking the steps it would require. They are given limited tools/access/authority that just doesn't cover this scope of the diagnostics/resolution that is needed--so you need to push for a higher tier of support. You may need to ask for a supervisor to get the escalation, but it does exist and you need to demand it. Alternatively, you could go to their forums/twitter/facebook and push for the escalation as well. If all else fails, there are databases containing contact info provided when they applied for their IP addresses and domain names. This is publicly available at multiple sources. ARIN is a pretty popular one. Just plug the public IP address in the Search WHoIs box to get the information (can get yours from this tool). If the IP is for a region not maintained in their database, they will usually link you to the database that does maintain the data. Most of them will list the generic ones like postmaster, admin, or abuse @domain.com that get aliased to someone in the organization to monitor and forward emails appropriately. Even if you don't see the specific one listed for network admin (like the tech contact may say abuse @ispname.com), you can try using admin @ispname.com.

"them" as in SE or the ISPs?

The ISP's mostly. You pay them for the service. They set the policies in motion that govern how your data is routed. Thus, they are responsible for fixing things when they go wrong. Whether that involves splitting nodes, re-assigning channels, adusting metrics to switch you to an alternate exchange (or partner for that matter), upgrading the headends with more ports, or escalating the matter up the engineering chain to lease additional ports at the exchanges---it is their job to maintain, a job for which you are paying them a monthly fee to do.

Well, it seems we have little control or impact over that. Is there anything SE can do in the interim to prevent players from experiencing these issues? I've never gotten lag like this with any other game.

They can ask politely for them to investigate the routing issues... but that is about it. SE is not their paying customer. We are. As such, we actually do have some measure of influence. It's basically the power of the purse. We pay the ISP for service. With that payment comes an expected minimum quality of service, even though there is no written QoS agreement, it is implied and fair practices philosophy should prevail. If it does not, you can threaten to pull the plug--whether you have an alternative option or not, the threat becomes real when you ask to be transferred to someone that can terminate the service. You'd be surprised just how many rules the retention departments are suddenly magically able to bend and break. You may also have consumer advocacy in your area, or there may be a local/regional regulatory authority you can contact. Contact info should be included with your bill if it is available. Last but not least, complaints can be filed with the Federal Trade Commission. Note they have oversight over mergers/acquisitions and such when it comes to telecommunications (as in , the most recent TWC/Comcast mess that is currently pending). As such, they do actually take complaints for unfair practices involving the internet.