Does TWC actually work WELL for anyone?

[Noahlimits]

In every thread I see how TWC works terribly with this game. Does any user with TWC actually have a pleasant gaming experience? If so, please post here just for peace of mind.

I'm especially curious to see if anyone from California specifically has a good connection to FFXIV with TWC.

Thanks in advance!

[Ed_N_Ants]

I have Twc extreme 30 down 5 up, Im east cost and have no problems at all, usually play at night 11:00 pm to 4:00 am (sometimes all day depending)... Its not the service provider its the servers for the game... Thats all your provider provides is the connection to the internet... After it leaves their hub it's no longer there problem...

[Noahlimits]

I have Twc extreme 30 down 5 up, Im east cost and have no problems at all, usually play at night 11:00 pm to 4:00 am (sometimes all day depending)... Its not the service provider its the servers for the game... Thats all your provider provides is the connection to the internet... After it leaves their hub it's no longer there problem...

I haven't heard of anyone East Coast with TWC having the issue. Maybe it's a west coast thing.

[Hechicera]

I have Twc extreme 30 down 5 up, Im east cost and have no problems at all, usually play at night 11:00 pm to 4:00 am (sometimes all day depending)... Its not the service provider its the servers for the game... Thats all your provider provides is the connection to the internet... After it leaves their hub it's no longer there problem...

I do have problems with TWC's routing from NC. The route only congests in primetime EST evenings usually. Congests at TWC's backbone going over to TATA's, so since both the last TWC node and the first two of TATA's, I'd say its thew pipe between them. Using a tunnelling service and getting around that juncture fixes things well enough for me.

[RaineMagus]

This looks like a good time to further clarify, since everyone that I speak to ingame appears very confused on this issue as well.


-The internet is a "mesh network", not a straight connection between point A and point B (there are many points of failure [not just your ISP and SquareEnix] ).
-Data is not guaranteed to reach its destination intact, at all, or even to arrive in order. (the internet is inherently unreliable)
-The path that data flows is not necessarily optimal, nor consistent (The internet is "not" connection-oriented, only protocols simulates this behavior | path can change from time to time, automatically, depending on the metrics / rules used by each gateway forwarding data). [hop count, load, loss, 'cost', a combination of the above, etc]
-protocols such as TCP buffer, re-sequence, and retransmit data (simulate a reliable connection over an unreliable one) ... if a single packet is missed and needs to be re-transmit [or arrives out of order], NOTHING at the application layer will be received "until" the missed packet is re-transmit and received by the remote end. [which can cause bursty-behavior, even from a tiny hickup of a single packet being missed]


You can argue if you want that SquareEnix picked the wrong protocol for FFXIV, and that they should've used UDP rather than TCP.. This is indeed a legitimate argument, despite that virtually no MMORPG's in existence use UDP. (yet, latency critical games such as FPS's tend to)

--If the game's netcode was written with UDP rather than TCP, then data not received on the remote end could be discarded rather than re-transmit (for example: where an enemy "was" doesn't matter, only where it "is") ... this would permit the game to continue functioning with deemed non-critical data, in addition to updates being received out of order (can reduce perceived latency, accelerate connection recovery, and grant some immunity to packet loss).


*Problems with the internet, however, are not the fault of SquareEnix and imo -- fairly out of their control.

SE can do the same thing that your ISP can in placing pressure on owners of problematic gateways (as a business their complaints have more bearing than you do as a consumer). There's not much beyond this that they can do, however, short of moving all their servers to a physically different location (different datacenter / fairly impractical).

[Noahlimits]

non relevant stuff

All I asked is if anyone with TWC on the West Coast has a good connection when playing FFXIV. I didn't ask how the game's netcode was written, nor how data is sent. Thanks for posting stuff not relevant to my question, I guess. At least it was a bump.

[RaineMagus]

All I asked is if anyone with TWC on the West Coast has a good connection when playing FFXIV. I didn't ask how the game's netcode was written, nor how data is sent. Thanks for posting stuff not relevant to my question, I guess. At least it was a bump.

The above explains how TWC in different parts of the country can have no problem, whereas they might where you live. Either way, sorry if that post came off as aggressive in any way.


Please don't misunderstand, I want everyone to be able to enjoy the game. Just this is a potentially very complicated issue and not isolated to one specific ISP.

[KrazyKupo]

It sounds like a west coast thing with TWC, I live in the midwest and the service hasn't cause anything horrible like your talking about, occassionally there will be a lag spike seems to only happen right in the middle of something important too, but for the most part it's the best option for ISP here :/.

[Raist]

Was flaky originally here on the East Coast (TWC-SC), but after pulling in Tier3 and their tweaking the last couple months it is getting progressively better on the residential side. Grabbed my lappy at lunch and ran some pathpings periodically on a business class line and it is still pushing into around the 20% loss area--but that line is still going through Raleigh and Ashburne, while the Residential line I use is now going through Charlotte and Atlanta. So, there are still some circuits that need some love... but in some areas it's running pretty good.

At pre-launch and shortly after, I was in the 200-230ms latency range with consistent losses above 25%, peaked to up around 48% losses when they shot me across to LA and up through Seattle. That was a rough 2 weeks there. Since they brought me back to the East Coast corridors, I've stayed under 200ms latency and below the 25% loss ranges. Last run of tests was showing 80-100ms with around 7% loss. Disheartening to see they are still having issues with the LA and Palo Alto areas. Washington may still be having trouble too--they've been back and forth for a long time as well.

Things still till not perfect in SC, but seems to now be usable in my area on Residential service--BizClass is so oversold, it may take longer to get things resolved there. Time will tell how well they can clean things up though...hopefully they aren't done with the tweaking.

[Noahlimits]

Was flaky

I actually have decent (not great) pings when there isn't packet loss. Always around 110ms. It's just the packet loss that hurts my insides.