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

[Kosmos992k]

it might take a few days, if im right. hopefully not much longer than 2 weeks.

I feel bad now though, i get to play the game without packet loss....how dare i!? O=

I would guess anything up to a couple of weeks as well. Even basic DNS changes can take several days to fully propagate throughout the DNS server tree beyond the major root servers. Routing tables in possibly millions of routing nodes will need to update themselves, it's not something SE can push out, it is something that has to happen on its own.

With regard to ping times though, we've seen reports from players in South America and Europe talking of ping times in the 120-150ms range which is far from poor, and perfectly playable. That demonstrates that the server relocation is not game breaking - as long as the routing between the player and the server is decent.

They are most likely losing all subscriptions from South America. It got unplayable for us.

No they won't, and no it didn't. People need to stop running around screaming like the sky is falling and understand that the new location itself does not cause egregious ping times, bad routing and poor ISP service does. Better to give it s week or two and complain at your ISP about the bad routing than to quit the game over something that SE cannot ever control.

Well, I am in Edmonton, Canada.

My geographical distance from Montreal is about 2,978km, used to have about 75ms.

My geographical distance from Sacramento is about 1,774km, and now I have about 94ms.

I did a brief test with my BLM just now in the game, and I can see no difference in how I performed.

So, longer geographic distance gave a lower ping time and shorter distance gives a longer ping. I believe that this is a perfect confirmation that it is routing and not geographic location that influences your ping time.

[Thyranne]

I would guess anything up to a couple of weeks as well. Even basic DNS changes can take several days to fully propagate throughout the DNS server tree beyond the major root servers. Routing tables in possibly millions of routing nodes will need to update themselves, it's not something SE can push out, it is something that has to happen on its own.

With regard to ping times though, we've seen reports from players in South America and Europe talking of ping times in the 120-150ms range which is far from poor, and perfectly playable. That demonstrates that the server relocation is not game breaking - as long as the routing between the player and the server is decent.

I'd love to see these South America pings. I'm getting 315 right now. it was 200 before.

[MOthe]

I'd love to see these South America pings. I'm getting 315 right now. it was 200 before.

270 and 300, both from Brazil.

[Kosmos992k]

270 and 300, both from Brazil.

The data center moved physically closer to South America, so the ping should be better than before logically speaking, where it is not, it is likely the result of poor routing, which may improve in the next few days or weeks.

It's entirely possible that the routing your data is taking right now routs towards the old location and then detours to the new resulting in a more extended ping. As that routing improves and becomes more direct your ping should drop.

[Voltres]

The data center moved physically closer to South America, so the ping should be better than before logically speaking, where it is not, it is likely the result of poor routing, which may improve in the next few days or weeks.

It's entirely possible that the routing your data is taking right now routs towards the old location and then detours to the new resulting in a more extended ping. As that routing improves and becomes more direct your ping should drop.

You are really missinformed. The network does not follow a straight imaginary line into the destination. South American network goes through a submarine cable which ends up in the North American east cost, so it is logical that our ping has been increased, since SE did a pretty dumb decision of moving the servers all the way to the fucking west coast without doing any kind of research about it's impacts in South American players.

[Kosmos992k]

You are really missinformed. The network does not follow a straight imaginary line into the destination. South American network goes through a submarine cable which ends up in the North American east cost, so it is logical that our ping has been increased, since SE did a pretty dumb decision of moving the servers all the way to the fucking west coast without doing any kind of research about it's impacts in South American players.

You're really misinformed and should read my posts closer. I know precisely how the Internet and tcp/IP is routed, how the routers and their routing tables work and how DNS handles things. Moving the servers physically closer to you in South America doesn't increase your ping, and it's pretty ignorant to claim that it does. The routing of the data packets from your system to Sacramento is the issue, not the server location. Good grief there are players in Australia who are seeing 60ms drops in ping times and sub 300 pings now. You're closer to the servers than they are now, you have to recognize the role of poor routing in your current trouble. The idea that moving the servers however many hundreds of kms closer to your location increased your ping is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet works. It's an entirely dynamically routed network. If you pick up a server and move it 3000 km it will take time for the routing tables to update across the Internet to reflect that new location and optimize the routing of data to that new location.

There is more than one path for data to take from South America to North America, it's not just a single undersea cable.

As for the use of curse words, thanks for the emphasis, it was unnecessary. I've seen more than one player from South America quoting improved pings in the region of 150ms. I have no doubt that performance will vary from country to country and ISP to ISP. But, that is not something that SE can account for when they move their servers. However, the dynamically routed nature of the Internet will ultimately help resolve the issue, unless you happen to be in a country that has very limited Internet connectivity inbound and outbound, in which case you have my sympathy. However You should be aware that any undersea link from SA to NA likely hits the US in Florida, the straight line distance from there to the old data center location vs the new location is broadly similar so you shouldn't see any major change in ping due to that. It is, once again, a routing problem that may resolve itself over time.

Out of posts for the moment, so replying here;

Who's the ignorant one here? South America is a special case because laying cables through the most dangerous terrain in the entire world is not cost effective. And that's not even considering the politics of some of the regions those cables would have to run.

**snip image**

Um, that's prehistoric in tech terms, it's from 2010.

Try this;

http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/

[Zeroblade]

Just saw this thread and read some of the responses and lol'd hard. Its so refreshing to see a proper IT professional response. Doing a server move and especially from coast to coast put in some serious overtime costs for the workers that I expect baseline performance before they tweak for improvement. All these people who "demand" the servers go up and "dropping game cause my ping jumped 50 points etc" have no clue how any of this works. Let's see them stay up throughout the night staring at a computer monitor while being in a conference call at 1 AM.

[Rakhabit]

There is more than one path for data to take from South America to North America, it's not just a single undersea cable.

Who's the ignorant one here? South America is a special case because laying cables through the most dangerous terrain in the entire world is not cost effective. And that's not even considering the politics of some of the regions those cables would have to run.

[Raikki]

YHowever You should be aware that any undersea link from SA to NA likely hits the US in Florida, the straight line distance from there to the old data center location vs the new location is broadly similar so you shouldn't see any major change in ping due to that.

Sprint.net Looking Glass:
Miami, FL -> Montreal Datacenter: 36ms
Miami, FL -> Sacramento Datacenter: 94ms

Cogent:
Miami -> Montreal: 40ms
Miami -> Sacramento: 90ms

Hurricane Electric:
Miami -> Montreal: 47ms
Miami -> Sacramento: 100ms


Montreal is MUCH closer to Florida than Sacramento is in a straight line as well, ~1400 miles vs ~2500 miles.

[anryo]

I'd love to see these South America pings. I'm getting 315 right now. it was 200 before.

170 before, 235 now.