Toa Lag -- Right-Now Appeal

Ingafgrinn Macabre · Jul 5, 2004

appealed at rightnow today. thought I'd let ye lot know what I wrote. I'll also throw the answer here in the group

Customer (<that's my real name>) 07/05/2004 04:22 AM
Info: [Midgard, Prydwen]
Char: [Ingafgrinn Macabre]

I'm usually experiencing lag in toa zones, and I'm certainly not alone in this. There's always a slight delay ranging from 0.5 - 1.5 seconds at night upto as high as 8 -10 seconds in raids. This is not normal, and impossible to work with seeing your groupmembers die as you try to heal them, and then when they are dead you're getting 20 messages that you can only use that spell on a living target. This lag is not caused by a bad link. It's due to an uncapable server.
I've enclosed a logfile of a survey I've done amongst the members of my battlegroup this afternoon.

I would like to stress you all at GOA to do something about this since people are getting more and more unsatisfied about the performance of the GOA team, not only at this front, but also at other fronts, like on american servers there is an option to test DAoC for a week. you can download the program and install it and test it free of charge. this helps a lot to get new people interrested in the game for the servers in europe are slowly starving. okay the account-count is still high enough, but that's only because there are more and more people walking around with two or three, or even more accounts. Getting new members will help to stabalize the game and keep it interresting for the others.

My 2 ¢

Bluesky · Jul 5, 2004

I'll be interested in what they say Inga as when i was in meso and stygia yesterday the lag was appaling - like 4-5 sec txt and spell delay

really makes ToA suck ass when its that bad

Azathrim · Jul 5, 2004

well, send alot of feedback through RightNow.

If we cannot remove the lag from Prydwen, we can at least create it in their RightNow queue.

Wilburn · Jul 5, 2004

The lag in toa sucks. Cant belive we pay for this game. During most raids (artihunts with +1fg) I experience lag, and this is not due to my crappy computer. Whenever theres ANY ml-raids in TOA the lag goes from 2-3 secs (which is normal lag most days) to 8-10 sec.

Playing a Caveshammy as I or a warrior is utterly impossible. Cant heal with shammy, rezz or dots. With Warrior I often get . Ure preparing to XXX, wait 2 sec for 2nd style, and then u get told... u're no longer preparing to XXX...

Give lagfree ToA GoA, this i going on 4th month now.. and It sucks... we might even start complaining to the EU for crappy customer support...

GM give infor on what GOA is doing on this matter .. and dont give crap about Prydwyn= Excal.. that is not true and you know it

xenia- · Jul 5, 2004

wilburn, do /cancelstyle in your console, then you at least will get a style off, even if its the back-up one :m00:

Xen

Fafnir · Jul 5, 2004

When i played i had bad lag on both my desktop and laptop, the laptop kept on crashing in big raids, but in SI and old world there was no problem with this.

Venom · Jul 5, 2004

Get back in game you stinky Dwarf

Ingafgrinn Macabre · Jul 5, 2004

here's their reply, and mine again:

Customer (<mynameagain>) 07/05/2004 03:00 PM
Sure, Here it is.
I've filtered out my machine name for safety. If one wants to get it there are easy ways to get it... but not gonna hand that over just like that.

Response (CS) 07/05/2004 01:08 PM
Hello,

Could you send us a DXdiag.txt ?
To do it, click on [start], [run], and type DXdiag [ENTER].
Save all the infos in a text file and join it to your message.

Regards,
---------------------------------------------
European Dark Age of Camelot Customer Support

That dxdiag makes a thorough diagnose of a pc.. but I've got an AMD XP 1500+ (1.333 GHz), 768MB DDR266, GeForce 2MX, okay the display card is a bit crappy, but the rest is no problem at all, and pleny enough. so if they're gonna complain about that....... well.. gonna complain right back again :S

Inca · Jul 5, 2004

I have 1 gig of ram, 2700 machine, newest gforce graphics etc etc

If they wanna blame machine for yours, then they are blaiming it for mine as well.

Plus, how come we get so much lag in TOA compared to everywhere else, even 5fg mids vs 5fg albs vs 5fgs of hibbies at an mg causes less lag!

Tiskani · Jul 5, 2004

Was just looking for a thread like this before I posted one myself because at the moment it's an absolute disgrace that we are having to pay for a service like this. If they tell you your machine isnt suitable for the game Inga post here and we'll send them 100 logs of everyones machine so they get the message.

This needs to be sorted ASAP.

Ingafgrinn Macabre · Jul 5, 2004

Customer (<stillmyrealname>) 07/05/2004 03:47 PM
Done that. Here are the results. I've also added the .pp2 file from pingplotter.

Response (CS) 07/05/2004 03:23 PM
Hello,

We invite you to give us an analysis of your connection to our server :
- You will find the software you have to use at the following address :
http://www.pingplotter.com/downloads/pngplt_2.exe

Here is the way to use this software :

1) You have to fill in the address you want to test ("adress to trace")

for the patch server : 193.252.123.21
for Prydwen : 193.252.123.177
for Excalibur : 193.252.123.33
for Camlann : 193.252.123.147

<snip, program usage>

Regards,
---------------------------------------------
European Dark Age of Camelot Customer Support

Added files:
Text results
JPG Results
Saved pp2 file

IainC · Jul 5, 2004

Firstly a couple of clarifications. Excal and Pryd are running exactly the same hardware, the two servers are identically specced with high end server boxes and network gear.
ToA will always be laggier than other zones because of the way it has been made. As it's all one very big zone (which is usually heavily populated), the server has to send your client a great deal of information, much more than other zones. This means that a latency problem which is undetectable in other areas can become a problem in ToA.
If the problem was within our network then every player in that zone would encounter it. This is not the case, there does appear to be a widespread problem but it is not by any means universal.
What I'd suggest you do is to download Pingplotter from http://www.pingplotter.com/downloads/pngplt_2.exe and let it run for about ten minutes. This will give you an idea of where in the routing the latency is occuring. All the pingplot graphs I've seen in RightNow reports have the large packetloss occuring outside our network. The one above shows normal levels of latency (40-50 ms) in our network but it was only run for a few seconds so isn't much of a guide to the situation over time.
If the problem is with a hub outside our network then the only thing to do is to contact your ISP and ask them to look into the routing issue. This is something that we cannot do for you as we are not your ISPs customers.

Tir · Jul 5, 2004

Every single person in my guild has noticed this, sometimes (peak hours usually) it's almost as bad as it was when ToA was released.

RightNowing it was a good call, however, as seems to happen quite a lot they seem to miss the important facts...that is it is not just you and it's not an issue with your PC. When other graphically heavy areas outside of ToA run smooth as silk and you stand in the middle of the desert in stygia and takes 10 seconds to talk to someone it's their end.

Here's hoping it doesn't take them as long to recognise there is a problem and do something about it as last time.

/edit Requiel beat me to it it seems!

Will certainly have a look at the ping times as advised, but having had a huge fight with my ISP when they broke something it doesn't seem like that issue. We shall see.

Lendan · Jul 5, 2004

A very eloquent response. However if the problem is indeed with a hub outside of the GOA network - and huge numbers of different people from different countries and diffrent ISPs are all having this problem - perhaps it would be a good idea for GOA to "look into the routing issue".

I for one intensly dislike the "It's not our fault" attitude. It's all very well asking for customers to individually contact their ISPs, but surely there has to be an effort from both sides to try to resolve this very widespread problem.

Also - even though "a latency problem which is undetectable in other areas can become a problem in ToA" I have not seen this mentioned by those on the US servers. Why should we settle for a second rate service?

So my question is: what actions does GOA intend to carry out in relation to this problem?

PS. I urge you all to read the text file in Inga's original post - makes for some interesting reading on this "non universal" problem.

Dumle · Jul 5, 2004

The only place I experience lag (huge delay in my actions) is in ToA areas, I can experience lag when encountering a large force of enemies in the frontiers too but its not the same kind of lag.
When experiencing lag in the frontiers it usually freezes up for me a split second and then its mostly fine and I can continue playing as normal.
When I experience lag in ToA (which is 99,9% of the time I go there) I get delays to whatever I do, If I press the button for a heal it takes my character anywhere from 1s to 10s to start casting it. This delay remains with me until I port out of ToA areas, then I have no latency at all. The delays are strictly in ToA areas, nowhere else have I ever encountered them.

So unless you have the SI and Normal servers in Europe and the ToA servers somewhere down in Bangladesh Id say its not from my end

Dracus · Jul 5, 2004

I'm sorry Requiel...but that just doesnt fly...i have yet to see a similar problem on excal...i even play quite a lot on hib/exc..and have not seen lag anywhere close to what we have experienced on pryd/mid. I would agree it should the same situation since it its similar servers.

Aside from the fact that excal doesnt seem to be havin the same problems the server has a bigger load to pull and still doesnt seem to be showing the same problems. Something is very strange if you ask me. And if you consider the amount of ppl complaining about it it cant be just random places/ISPs having the problems.

/Dracus

Ingafgrinn Macabre · Jul 5, 2004

Requiel:

Lost packets happen to all of us, but they do not give a constant lag. When experiencing lost packets you have a 2s lagspike and the game continues as normal afterwards. In ToA there is a continues lag which in my opinion can only be caused either by a bottleneck in the link internally, externally, or a server that just can not cope with the amount of data that needs to be processed.

now the first you said you guys have tested and pointed out okay.
The second is not the case for (guessing) 90% of the users, the 10% that do have it will also experience lag in RvR or wherever where lots of data needs to be send thru. That I do not have. The only lag I'm experiencing in massive RvR is my crappy graphics card, but that does not stop my spells from casting. only stops me from seeing it cast.
This leaves me with the 3rd option. so I'd say, throw in another 19" rack and fill it with xeon's

Cerbie · Jul 5, 2004

Yes sorry to say Requiel, but I play hib excalibur too, still low level, but I never experience the amount of lag that we have on prydwen.

I would like you to play a healer on ml raid with about 100 people, well I tell you, its impossible. The lag is worser then on a relic raid.

And I am very sorry to say but I don't believe the explanation you or goa are given. There is something wrong and its not due to our pc's or our internet provider. Its the game itself. I can assure it takes away the pleasure of the encounters and the looking at the graphics.

Posting to rightnow right now :eek2:

Heart · Jul 5, 2004

Why am I not surprised at GoA's response i.e. it is your PC/ISP etc at fault.

If the problem was within our network then every player in that zone would encounter it. This is not the case, there does appear to be a widespread problem but it is not by any means universal.

It's not universal? why? because not everyone playing DAOC decides to e-mail you? and even if it just widespread as you say how come no resolution to the problem is forthcoming?

Venom · Jul 5, 2004

Requiel said:
Firstly a couple of clarifications. Excal and Pryd are running exactly the same hardware, the two servers are identically specced with high end server boxes and network gear.
ToA will always be laggier than other zones because of the way it has been made. As it's all one very big zone (which is usually heavily populated), the server has to send your client a great deal of information, much more than other zones. This means that a latency problem which is undetectable in other areas can become a problem in ToA.
If the problem was within our network then every player in that zone would encounter it. This is not the case, there does appear to be a widespread problem but it is not by any means universal.
What I'd suggest you do is to download Pingplotter from http://www.pingplotter.com/downloads/pngplt_2.exe and let it run for about ten minutes. This will give you an idea of where in the routing the latency is occuring. All the pingplot graphs I've seen in RightNow reports have the large packetloss occuring outside our network. The one above shows normal levels of latency (40-50 ms) in our network but it was only run for a few seconds so isn't much of a guide to the situation over time.
If the problem is with a hub outside our network then the only thing to do is to contact your ISP and ask them to look into the routing issue. This is something that we cannot do for you as we are not your ISPs customers.

From my, and I would assume every other players experience, I would say that it does not appear to be a routing issue. The issue is server side lag of up to 10 seconds in the worst case scenarios. If it was routing problems then why, as soon as you zone out of the main ToA zone either into a ToA dungeon or into the classic zones does the immense lag experienced in ToA suddenly disappear? Of course a ping plot or trace route wont show up anything out of the ordinary.

If as you say that ToA is expected to be laggy (god only knows that 5-10 secs is completely unacceptable) then why are people constantly asked for irrelevant information regarding DXDiag reports, local system info and pingplots? Sounds like smoke screening to me.

IainC · Jul 5, 2004

ToA is not just 'slightly bigger' than other game areas, it is an order of magnitude bigger. The amount of information that the server needs to send you and that your client needs to process is huge and comparing ToA zones on one server with non-ToA zones on another isn't appropriate. As I said due to the basic design of ToA, it will always be laggier than other zones - even heavily populated areas such as frontiers however there shouldn't be game affecting lag in any zone.
The problem isn't universal. I know that not everyone with a problem will write in or complain but I know for a fact that many players play without experiencing the same crippling lag that others do at the same time. If there was an internal network issue or an overloaded game server I'd expect there to be no exceptions to the problem. We monitor our network closely and problems within it are usually quickly identified and resolved.
As for the response from Technical Support, all I can say there is that they have a diagnostic process to go through and they need to rule out clientside problems first.

Bluesky · Jul 5, 2004

Ingafgrinn Macabre said:
That dxdiag makes a thorough diagnose of a pc.. but I've got an AMD XP 1500+ (1.333 GHz), 768MB DDR266, GeForce 2MX, okay the display card is a bit crappy, but the rest is no problem at all, and pleny enough. so if they're gonna complain about that....... well.. gonna complain right back again :S

Inga im 100% convinced its not machine specific - its THEIR SERVER and it begs belief they say it isnt

I have 3 accounts running all the time when i play - on a 1meg ntl cable connection (1meg down, 256k up) and have some small lag in housing zones occasionally (when porting to new village etc) but NONE WHATSOEVER on any of the 3pc's in ANY old world or SI zone other than a small amount in Aegerham when porting in - all dungeons are fine - all permanent 3 green lights. Even last nights relic raid when about 8fg's mids were on excalibur there was only a tiny amount of lag - far less than when just 3 of my chars are walking round ToA zones.

My pc's are all 3200xp cpu's with 1gig ram and varying top end radeon cards. There is nothign wrong with any of my hardware in any part of the game other than when in ToA - I just dont understand why they cant sort this out

I do think it improved a few weeks ago when they announced they were working on teh problem but last week or so its been appaling again

Ingafgrinn Macabre · Jul 5, 2004

Requiel said:
<SNIP>
they need to rule out clientside problems first.

Wrong approach in my opinion. This is a common problem on many different isp's. ruling out clientside problems is the wrong side to start at. takes too much time before you can actually do anything to the problem, which in my p.o.v is still the server. Although ToA is much bigger, we know that, I think that is not the reason of the lag since people with 10/100Mbit connections also have the lag.. but hey.. happy to run a pingscan when on next big toa raid...
also.... if it's the problem of having to send out soo much information, how come my IC isn't fully used? I've got a 2Mbit connection here and it's usage is not nearly 100%

Lendan · Jul 5, 2004

Well said Inga.

I really am astounded that your approach to solving the problem is - try and pin the blame on the customer - only if all else fails shall we do something on our side.

Iceflower · Jul 5, 2004

Requiel,

You state that ToA is a much bigger zone for the server to work with so obviously there is issues that needs to be addressed at your side, the unidentified latency issues you mention. The scary thing with your response (apart from the smokescreen response to avoid spending cash on the prydwen server hardware) is that, correct me if I am wrong, New Frontier is similar in scope and size as ToA, isnt it? So today we see the gameplay quality we will get when NF is implemented?

IainC · Jul 5, 2004

New Frontiers is not nearly as large as ToA. The physical size of the zone is smaller and there are not nearly so many mobs and NPCs to track.

Lendan · Jul 5, 2004

Requiel your responses thus far do not seem to have dealt with the issue brought up by Cerbie and Dracus, who play on Excalibur and experience no lag, and yet when playing on Prydwen do.

What is your response to them?

Tiskani · Jul 5, 2004

I hate to say it but this stinks. 50 people in one battlegroup all complaining of 5 second lag and therefore 50 people in one battlegroup all have a bad ISP? Unlikely. I think the problem needs to be investigated further than it has done. Alot of people I have spoken to have considered canceling subscriptions due to this problem, and I don't think neither you, or them want this, but it seems to be their only alternative since GOA's response is "it's your problem not ours".

I have spoken to people from the Excalibur server who do not have the same problem as we are having on mid/pryd, and it seems to be pointing the finger more and more towards a problem server side than client side. I really hope a closer look can be taken at this otherwise my £16 a month will be heading elsewhere as lately this game has been getting me too frustrated.

20 years old and suffering a heart condition due to DAoC is not good :eek7:

IainC · Jul 5, 2004

Lendan said:
Requiel your responses thus far do not seem to have dealt with the issue brought up by Cerbie and Dracus, who play on Excalibur and experience no lag, and yet when playing on Prydwen do.

What is your response to them?

I'm not a network tech. I really don't know what the answer is, if I did I'd either be posting it here or emailing the network guys with it as appropriate. All I can say is what I've already said - run the Pingplotter and determine whereabouts the lag is coming from. If it is in our network then RightNow it. If not then get onto your ISP. I'm not pinning the blame on customers or ISPs either. In the past a lot of problems like this have been caused by overloaded hubs at network centres like Opentransit - neither you nor your ISP have much direct control over things like that however there are procedures in place whereby your ISP can report routing issues to hubs and other ISPs.
Like I say, we monitor our network closely and the latest information I have indicates no problems from our side. If it changes I'll let you know.

Reebs · Jul 5, 2004

Today when my guildies and I killed the GoV mob I had more then 2 minutes toa-lagg. I had green lag-o-meter and pinged ~30 to server. It is abit sad but if they cnt fix it I guess we have to live with it

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