Stutter Stepping?

[Downdrop]

Level 3 is indeed the Problem, and maybe SE's CSP. At this point however decent VPNs are actually pretty cheap and I think using them is a good alternative. Level 3 bases their contracts with the ISPs off of the amount of traffic they carry. Access to a VPN, atm, can be less than 10 bucks a month. That's like 2 lattes. It is also one less person using Level 3 nodes. The more people who use them the more Level 3 looses, the less money they can ask for in the next contract... so they are essentially forced to upgrade their nodes. It's how Capitalism works... Competition and right now the only competition with level 3 are VPNs, for the most part. Also SE isn't the only one with this issue... Trion has had it as well thanks to Level 3.

I wish I could bring myself to do it. I like the game, but if SE can't provide me with the service I have paid for, regardless of the reasons why they're unable to provide me with it, then I feel I'm entitled to refunds. I won't open my purse to throw cash at the problem, no matter if it's only 10USD additional a month, because that tells corporations and companies that it's okay to treat their customers the way SE is treating us now and really it's not.

[Galibier]

I wish I could bring myself to do it. I like the game, but if SE can't provide me with the service I have paid for, regardless of the reasons why they're unable to provide me with it, then I feel I'm entitled to refunds. I won't open my purse to throw cash at the problem, no matter if it's only 10USD additional a month, because that tells corporations and companies that it's okay to treat their customers the way SE is treating us now and really it's not.

SE has even less influence, and more expense than the ISP though. The ISPs and peers like Level 3 are always fighting. Level 3 thinks the ISPs aren't giving them their fair share, the ISPs say "we have the stronger bargaining position suck it up. The amount of money to move the data centers from Montreal would be, in terms of ROI, A LOT more than it would cost Level 3 to upgrade their infrastructure at their choke points. In essence you are blaming SE for not supplying an adequate supply of water when someone else controls the valves between you and your house. Also remember the issue likely would not improve. The load would just get transferred from one city to another and unless Level 3 upgraded there the problem would follow. Not much SE can do about this it seems.

[Downdrop]

SE has even less influence, and more expense than the ISP though. The ISPs and peers like Level 3 are always fighting. Level 3 thinks the ISPs aren't giving them their fair share, the ISPs say "we have the stronger bargaining position suck it up. The amount of money to move the data centers from Montreal would be, in terms of ROI, A LOT more than it would cost Level 3 to upgrade their infrastructure at their choke points. In essence you are blaming SE for not supplying an adequate supply of water when someone else controls the valves between you and your house. Also remember the issue likely would not improve. The load would just get transferred from one city to another and unless Level 3 upgraded there the problem would follow. Not much SE can do about this it seems.

If they are charging money for the water supply then yes, I will blame who I pay. A person should not sell something if they don't own it. Is it Level3's fault? Yes. It is. But Square Enix is charging money for a service that is not accessible to those it's charging. That is failure to provide services rendered. Regardless of where the blame lay, if I order something and I do not receive it I expect to get my money back for it.

I'm not sure how bad the lags is for others, but in my case, this game is completely unplayable during the hours of 7pm EST to 10:30pm EST every day. If one works from 9am to 5pm weekdays, allowing for travel time home from work, and then dinner, one would just be sitting down at their computer shortly before 7pm to enjoy the entertainment they paid for. But nope... unable to keep a persistent connection and even during the times you are able to, you are lagging so badly you cannot even fish because you lose them all. If you'd like to play you must wait until around close to 11pm, keeping in mind you have to be up the following morning for work so you're not going to be playing very long at those hours.

[Galibier]

If they are charging money for the water supply then yes, I will blame who I pay. /snip

I see your point... Don't get me wrong. The only way for SE to fix this though is to likely build 3 data centers on 2 Continents. 1 west coast NA, 1 east cost and 1 somewhere in the EU.

I am a recalcitrant SOB though. I say if I can stab Level 3 in the eye I will and I like to think of others do the same Level 3 might say "crap time to spend money" because SE is far from the only game that Level 3 screws in the same manner. /shrug

[worldofneil]

If they are charging money for the water supply then yes, I will blame who I pay. A person should not sell something if they don't own it. Is it Level3's fault? Yes. It is. But Square Enix is charging money for a service that is not accessible to those it's charging. That is failure to provide services rendered. Regardless of where the blame lay, if I order something and I do not receive it I expect to get my money back for it.

Square Enix *are* providing you with the service that you're paying them for though. You pay for access to their servers so that you can play Final Fantasy XIV. Their servers are all up and (aside from some occasional maintenance) they're all running just fine so they are fulfilling their obligation.

The problem you are having is your route across the Internet to actually get to the SE servers, none of which is anything Square Enix has anything to do with as they don't control anything outside their own network (so definitely not Level 3 networks where the problems are happening).

Putting simply the Internet is essentially made up of lots of toll roads. These roads vary in size and the operators of each "road" charges various amounts to the Internet providers so that their customers can use them. You and I don't generally have to worry about any of this, we pay our Internet provider their monthly fee so we can access anything on the Internet and they sort out which roads we take to get to those places and it all happens automatically. At least that's the idea.

But in this instance your Internet provider is sending you to the Square Enix servers via Level 3. Basically, they're sending you down a small country road that's already full of traffic instead of taking an alternate route down a nice big empty highway. Why? I can't say for sure, but I feel it's a pretty good guess that it probably saves them money to send you down the small road as the "toll" on that road is probably a lot less than if they paid the toll to someone running a highway.

Unfortunately if you can't get your Internet provider to adjust your routing and moving to an alternative provider isn't an option, your only other option is to get a VPN service.

[Downdrop]

Square Enix *are* providing you with the service that you're paying them for though.

My packet loss reports would disagree with you. Packet loss that doesn't happen while connected to any other service on the internet. I won't sit and argue about it, there's a very long sticky thread at the top of Technical Support all about it. And you forgot to mention the third option, which is unsubscribing.

[worldofneil]

My packet loss reports would disagree with you. Packet loss that doesn't happen while connected to any other service on the internet.

Because the Internet isn't located in a single place. Everywhere you go will take different routes to get to wherever it needs to, and in this case, it goes via L3 to get to Square Enix.

there's a very long sticky thread at the top of Technical Support all about it.

There is indeed, full of people with the same routing problem (most of which are the same ISPs). It might be an officially created thread, but it's not claiming responsibility, it's just there so for the people that don't understand SE are appearing to do something instead of nothing (although ultimately they have no control over L3 so all they can do is tell them it's a problem, they can't fix it, SE isn't L3's customer).

And you forgot to mention the third option, which is unsubscribing.

True, although I didn't think that was much of an option

If 80% of your NA customers are in the US and 20% in CAN, you may consider a move to appease the 80%.

Not everyone on the NA servers is from NA. I play on there myself (as do my friends) and we're all in the EU. I have no idea how many people play that are outside NA, but probably enough that it should be considered. Unfortunately moving isn't really an option because of housing and having to disband/recreate a FC from scratch so we've stayed where we are and probably a lot of others are the same.

[Galibier]

Square Enix *are* providing you with the service that you're paying them for though. You pay for access to their servers so that you can play Final Fantasy XIV. /snip

I agree with you on this point. The thing is ISPs don't necessarily have a choice as to what Peer you use. The way the internet grew there are various choke points for your route and if you are your "average" internet user you just use the automatically selected route choke points and all. These choke points become more common the closer you get to your destination.

If you look at the main thread on NA issues it doesn't matter what ISP people have. People with AT&T, Comcast, Time-Warner, Verizon etc. are all having the issues. They are all hitting Level 3 nodes, because often there is no choice. The difference between someone having an issue and someone not having an issue seems to be where they are, and thus how many level 3 nodes they hit on their way in.

As for my post regarding US v CAN I was just using that to illustrate that you decide if servers will be moved via a cost/benefit analysis.