3rd/4th Retainer

[Raist]

Here's an idea: DO SOMETHING WITH THE AFKERS. Hearing all the time about network strain, bandwidth issues, data sizes all the time - you'd think they disallowed something like that's obviously contributing to it. Yet, they don't.

When someone goes into AFK status, they hardly consume bandwidth in comparison. Watch your numbers....it dips considerably below 1 Kilobyte per second when idle. By comparison, an active player running around town or running content with others may be registering 1-6KB (after the initial zoning pull). These translate in most cases to within the range of Dialup or DSL (1 KB=8192bits, or 8Kbits). So to consume anything more than you used to get via a modem, you more or less need to be pulling in north of 7000 bytes per second.

Normal game traffic is not all that heavy by comparison, and an idle character has very minimal impact. My laptop is the only one on the AC side of my wi-fi atm, so it was easy to track my data just now. sitting at the Crozier, with crafters around me and people porting in and out around me, I idled between 1.5 and 2.2kilobytes per second (12-18Kbits), with intermittent spikes hitting just under 16KB (15.8 to be exact) when I popped out of idle status and such (would wake up when I touched Kbd/mouse with game in focus)---so I consumed no more than about 130Kbits per second sitting around in the middle of active players--but it dipped below dial-up levels when truly idle. Then I got up and checked my retainer, ported around the Aetherytes a bit in town. My peak usage was only 36.63KB (just over 300Kbits/second). The average for the last 20 minutes or so was only 7.94KB, or just over 65Kbits per second--even though that is mostly me squatting for DF queuing, it still demonstrates it is just a drop in the bucket for the potential available bandwidth.

At those rates, a single 10 Gigabit port is more than able to handle the traffic flow of well over 23,000 players generically farting around towns, or sitting idle... 7,000,000,000/300,000=23,333 (70% is the threshold where congestive measures might start kicking in--sometimes it may wait to 80%). That is just one port. Typically, you are talking 4 or more at a border router. And then there are 5 peers that feed into Ormuco. Granted, SE probably doesn't have massive bandwidth tothe level of keeping up with the full bandwidth of 5 peers...but last we heard the numbers they were hoping to achieve were around 10,000-15,000 reliable concurrent connections per lobby, and those handshakes and transfers consume a nice chunk of data. Think the last reported number was 7500 for certain. So they apparently bought a LOT of bandwidth. Just reset the monitor, logged out, switched data centers, switched back, and it only hit 41.07KB peak (just over 336Kbits)--logged in completely and it didn't go any higher than that.

Remember also...those lobby servers are also in communication with Japan during the login process (the authentication, mogstation, etc. is all in Tokyo), so it isn't just our client-server traffic taking place at login. But for certain at 7500 users per lobby (3 at the time), that comes out to a little over 7.5Gbits of expected traffic available JUST for the lobby service alone. Would stand to reason they have purchased a considerable amount of bandwidth from Ormuco.

Here are some quotes in an interesting case study from Ormuco:

http://www.ormuco.com/wp-content/upl...hosting-31.pdf

Ormuco engineered, designed and installed the hosting facilities for a leading on line gaming company:

Network connectivity
(3 diverse and managed Fiber links)

Installation and turn up of all necessary hardware
(Servers, software licenses, UPS and networking equipment)

125 Racks to host over 1,400 servers.

Built a datacenter and provided the necessary connectivity (30Gbps of Internet access)
for all European and North American users of a major online MMO game–up to 2 Million concurrent gamers.

Gee.... I wonder... just what could that project have been all about?

[Adire]

I have a question. I've never rented retainers, so what happens if you rent them, stop paying for them, and have stuff on them? Is the stuff just locked out of your ability to access it?

[myahele]

I'd rather they make retainers a one time purchase than having to pay for them per month

[AlphaFox]

I have a question. I've never rented retainers, so what happens if you rent them, stop paying for them, and have stuff on them? Is the stuff just locked out of your ability to access it?

I believe you have to rehire them in order to gain access. I let my sub slip and when I resubbed I had to rehire my retainer from the mogstation, unfortunately I didn't login first to check the status of my retainers, but items and retainer level were intact.

[Shane_Leonhart]

Your retainers will still be there if you stop paying for them. You'll just be unable to access them as their contract is "Suspended".

[Odds_Ends]

But if you fire one without taking off the gear, I guess all items and gil is lost?

I heard something about that the retainers is on another server than the rest, and that is more or less the reason why they can always add more retainers but not add more inventory slots.

[Soge01]

I just want a new retainer for each expansion pack. Just one please, if possible. ^^

[DenebPunkin]

I just want a new retainer for each expansion pack. Just one please, if possible. ^^

One or two... depending on how much extra items they add.

[Soge01]

I would say one, as to not be greedy. When we buy the expansion packs, whether limited edition or not, we should get a new retainer regardlesss as a thank you from SE for continuing to play FFXIV! ^^

I can see why you'd say one or more, depending on how many items given out. But I don't think SE would give us that many retainers, sadly. I can't explain it, but it's just a feeling. ^^;

[DenebPunkin]

I would say one, as to not be greedy. When we buy the expansion packs, whether limited edition or not, we should get a new retainer regardlesss as a thank you from SE for continuing to play FFXIV! ^^

I can see why you'd say one or more, depending on how many items given out. But I don't think SE would give us that many retainers, sadly. I can't explain it, but it's just a feeling. ^^;

Yea... they are being greedy lol. That is why Im wanting 2.. we gotta be just as greedy as consumers.. otherwise they will just nickel and dime us under the pretence of "that is just business"... kinda like their cash shop shenanigans T_T. But apparently Yoshi said we would be getting more free retainers... anyone have a link to this info?