Any word on what is causing a handful of us to lag?

[RocheKat]

The product (servers) are however working just fine. It's your connection to the servers that has the problem. Your Internet provider chooses how you get to their server and it's their choice of routes which puts you down a path that causes lag on route.

Square Enix have no control over how you are routed to their server, neither do they have any control of any of the nodes on the Internet not managed by them (i.e. all of them before you get to their server!).

SE created a thread so that players can leave feedback and so they can be seen to be actually doing something, but realistically there isn't anything they can do outside of attempting to contact them and saying "Your users are having problems connecting to us, can you pretty please route around the problem networks?". Your ISP likely won't even listen to them because Square Enix isn't their customer. You are.

There is unfortunately no quick fix, but if you look in that feedback thread the same ISP names keep popping up (Orange being the main one!) and the amount of people who haven't actually reported it to their ISP...

Yes it might be Square Enix's game, but you need to talk to your ISP. If enough customers actually did that then they might actually pay attention and do something.

Square Enix cannot fix this, your ISP must do it.

So just a coincidence that it started the day they made major changes to their data center?

[worldofneil]

So just a coincidence that it started the day they made major changes to their data center?

You mean the day they move the data centre from Canada to Germany? No of course that's not a coincidence, no one is saying that it is...

The server you connect/play on has moved 1/4 round the world. Your path across the Internet to the new location is completely different to your path to the old server. That was going to happen wherever SE set up the new servers.

If you think of it in physical terms, if you had a friend in Canada and they moved to Germany, if you were visiting them you would go in a completely different direction (down different roads/air paths). This is exactly the same. Your friend moved house, they have no control over the quality of the roads you have to take to get to their new house, they just moved. The road quality is not their problem and nothing to do with them. The local authorities would be the ones responsible for helping to make your journey smoother (or in Internet terms, your Internet Provider).

Just because SE set up new servers in a new country, still doesn't mean they control your ISP routing on how *you* get to the servers. I don't know how people can expect them to have total control over the Internet...

[Raist]

So just a coincidence that it started the day they made major changes to their data center?

No... there is a ton of activity on the internet at any given moment, and we become more and more dependent on the internet daily for so many aspects of our lives--just streaming alone has ramped up our consumption drastically with all the apps for things like sports and news, not to mention things like Netflix. You are also in the Great Lakes area if I remember right? Which means you are getting routed through areas that routinely exhibit problems. And, as I mentioned, the peering agreements your ISP has in place are weighted heavily towards Level3 and AT&T--the two most frequently reported ISP's at the moment. Didn't I mention that in my previous post?

And no... that does not make me an apologist for SE. The facts are the facts...if anything, I'm more a realist I guess? There is documentation spanning back into the 90's over these issues. Filings with the FCC. Forum posts all over the place for various services--and not all of them games. There is a known infrastructure problem in the US...it is why the Net Neutrality movement started in the first place. The problem is people flat out refuse to hold their ISP accountable...when they are the ones that contributed most to the situation we are in. Think about it...how much has the bandwidth increased since Clinton was President? (back then the premium residential was typically no more than 3Mbits, 6 and 10 were still the typical max when Bush Jr. took over) How many times have the standards been revamped? (back then, DOCSIS 1.x was deployed and 2.0 was coming in...3.1 is now deployed). Would it surprise you to know that some local ISP's are still using equipment that has not gone beyond a standard established between 1998 and 2000?

The internet can go down at any point for any reason...just like a flight can get delayed/cancelled, traffic can get jammed, or your mail/packages don't arrive on time. That doesn't mean it is the fault of the hotel you made your reservation with, the coliseum hosting that sporting event, or Amazon that shipped your package on time. It is because something happened in transit to cause your plans to get monkeyed up.