[Data Center USA] Ping increased. Report your changes here.

[Jackel]

It seems like you're completely missing the point - anywhere in the middle of the US, or at least not the coast, is a better than this option. Even splitting to both coasts makes more sense than this. Ultimately we'll see how much this affects performance. Undoubtedly however, this makes people less happy, with at best the people who are affected take an apathetic view, which isn't representative of a majority.

Why are so many people assuming that having a data center in the middle most part of a piece of land the most "optimal"?

Unless SE has released a listing of where the majority of inbound connections are coming from there is no way to know where in North America the vast majority of the traffic is originating from.

As I posted earlier, Boston to Sacramento is 2600 miles. Coast to Coast. It's still possible to get under 100 ms ping times.

[ZephyrusVenti]

I'm located in boston and pinging the IPs in OP I'm getting average 152ms with a 200mbps connection, be it SE, my ISP, other ISPs i'm hopping from, I am most definitely seeing a 100+ ms ping increase. I'm on the fence of waiting to see how it really plays out before doom and gloom.

[DRHaymaker]

Why are so many people assuming that having a data center in the middle most part of a piece of land the most "optimal"?

Because it is "optimal" for the widest amount of people. If the datacenter was on the east coast, it would be just as unfavorable to everyone from the center-west.

As I posted earlier, Boston to Sacramento is 2600 miles. Coast to Coast. It's still possible to get under 100 ms ping times.

Not all IPs are the same. Not everyone has the same access or type of connection to the internet. That chart is a moot point because some people are justifiably worried because when they choose a game server that's on the other side of the coast in ANY game, they can notice a change in speed. Again, "We'll see", but let's stop pretending there's baseless concerns.

[Zojha]

Not all IPs are the same.

Truth be told, that's likely the main issue for US gamers.

I'm currently playing from germany, which means around 3600 miles away. My connection to the servers in Montreal had around 110-120 MS latency and 5% packet loss. The infrastructure on the way being an ocean. When an US person tells me:"Under 100 MS latency coast to coast is possible at times", I wonder what exactly the cable providers in the US do with your signal on the way most of the times. It must be taking the scenic route for sure.

[Kosmos992k]

Truth be told, that's likely the main issue for US gamers.

I'm currently playing from germany, which means around 3600 miles away. My connection to the servers in Montreal had around 110-120 MS latency and 5% packet loss. The infrastructure on the way being an ocean. When an US person tells me:"Under 100 MS latency coast to coast is possible at times", I wonder what exactly the cable providers in the US do with your signal on the way most of the times. It must be taking the scenic route for sure.

The truth is simple. For business customers with larger pockets and more options, they have great routing and low latency because they know that large business customers have more options available and more financial clout. For residential customers they know we have usually only a single choice of broadband ISP - the local cable TV monopoly - and so they can route us any which way they please to maintain their premium service for business customers. The end result is that we get reasonably fat data pipes in terms of band width (local infrastructure - 'last mile'), but crap routing and congested backbone segements causing packet loss. But since the ISPs know that we have no choice, they have next to no incentive to do anything to improve matters.

Wish we had Net Neutrality for real, but now we can't even pretend we do.

<resisting the urge to get on soap box>

[Arcsol93]

Truth be told, that's likely the main issue for US gamers.

I'm currently playing from germany, which means around 3600 miles away. My connection to the servers in Montreal had around 110-120 MS latency and 5% packet loss. The infrastructure on the way being an ocean. When an US person tells me:"Under 100 MS latency coast to coast is possible at times", I wonder what exactly the cable providers in the US do with your signal on the way most of the times. It must be taking the scenic route for sure.

What can I say, our providers like to rob from their customers and no one bats an eye...

[HunterD]

What can I say, our providers like to rob from their customers and no one bats an eye...

You have to take into consideration that all of USA isn't on fibre cabling, a lot of it is still on slow coppers, this is what the biggest issue would be, rather than just your service providers. Somehow I doubt there is a direct fibre link from east to west.

[Jackel]

Truth be told, that's likely the main issue for US gamers.

I'm currently playing from germany, which means around 3600 miles away. My connection to the servers in Montreal had around 110-120 MS latency and 5% packet loss. The infrastructure on the way being an ocean. When an US person tells me:"Under 100 MS latency coast to coast is possible at times", I wonder what exactly the cable providers in the US do with your signal on the way most of the times. It must be taking the scenic route for sure.

Comparing your 3600 mile / 120 ms ping (RTT) to that of a 2600 mile 80 ms ping (RTT) is virtually identical. Unless it wasn't worded correctly I may have missed the point being made? :-/

[Jackel]

Because it is "optimal" for the widest amount of people. If the datacenter was on the east coast, it would be just as unfavorable to everyone from the center-west.[/B].

I don't think people are pretending here. And "widest" amount of people only works if you have the login location data to support it.
The ping/stability issue for coast to cast players isn't about location of the data center in this case. West Coast players have been down this road. If high latency and packet loss is occurring for players from origin to destination the issue lies somewhere in the middle, not necessarily because the server is X_distance from Y. Cut the distance and issues could still very much present themselves.

This is a business move that had months of discussion in the pipeline before being deployed. For all we know this serves as the most beneficial for the current player base even if forum users freaking out in this thread are the majority.