10-25-2005, 10:18 PM
I always have to chuckle to myself at the arrogance of people whenever the discussion of lag comes up. It always seems that everyone is doing the exact same thing they're cursing (insert company here) for supposedly doing. Hubris anyone?
Nine times out of ten, it IS a problem on a client's end. And when that isn't the case, it can very often be somewhere inbetween a client and the server. I sometimes wonder if people even understand how a network works.
(The following is just a generalization for anyone unfamiliar with networking and network traffic. This bit is not directed at you, Hedon, not that the first paragraph truly was, either, so keep that in mind too. ;))
Think of a WHOLE bunch of interconnected highways - some big, some small, but they all end up at the same place eventually. When one clogs up, what happens? Traffic gets redirected to other areas, thus bogging them all down, too. You can see this in everyday life (for example, by me, backups on the Mass Pike can cause backlash into 495 (which in turn causes problems on Rte 9), Rte 9 (which causes problems onto Rte 30, right by my driveway, often leaving me trapped in my driveway for 15+ minutes at a time), and Rte 30, directly. Each road that gets bogged down causes overflow into other surrounding, interconnected roads because people try to find ways around the problem. This in turn causes bogging on THOSE roads, which in turn forces overflow into yet MORE roads. It's actually quite amazing to watch, even in a small town like my own, how at certain times of the day you simply cannot get ANYWHERE in a reasonable amount of time because of a traffgic jam halfway across a completely different town. Although, we DO have several major highways criss-crossing through here (including one Interstate), so I guess that has something to do with it, too. ;) I try to think about the science behind it when I'm waiting 20 minutes just to pull out of my driveway so I can have some milk with my dinner.
This is what really kills me. Do you have any idea how much bandwith WoW uses? Bandwith, like all resources, is limited. Now, think just for a minute how many simultaneous players there are at any given time. Most hail in the several thousand area, maybe even ten thousand, with a SUBSCRIPTION high of maybe half a million. Blizzard broke 1.5 million in, what, their first month of release? Even one tenth of their subscription base (probably close to 2 million or more by now) would be around 150,000 people logged on at any given time! Up to 15x what any other MMO to date (that I know of) has gotten, if not more! That's a prettty staggering figure, and that's just for ONE game from ONE company! Now add up all of Blizzards OTHER titles, for which they use the same ISPs (Diablo, Diablo II, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Starcraft). For arguments sake, we'll say they add up to around 50,000 people, combined, at any given time. You're now talking 1/5th of a million people all hammering away at their network. That consumes a TON of bandwith, and that is something only ISPs can provide. Moreover, there are probably only a few ISPs around, in any given global region, that can handle that much bandwith. Hence, their options for providers are probably not as diverse as it is for (most) consumers looking for, say, home internet. It's a LOT easier to provide bandwith for general residential consumers (downloading bandwith is, for whatever reason, infinitely easier to obtain that uploading bandwith, hence why most ISPs do not allow servers to be run in residences) than it is for a business built around online gaming.
Even all that aside, there's also the politics involved. You're probably talking multi-million dollar contracts on a yearly basis. It's not so easy to simply pull the plug on that sort of thing simply because of a few hiccups (and really, despite all the problems Europe is having, at least you can play; if it was just constant downtime, like the early days of beta, then it'd be a much easier decision, obviously). Really, how easy is it to simply switch doing business with someone whom you've done business with, major business, for over a decade? And for that matter, drafting up an entirely new contract, with a new untested business partner, takes time in and of itself, which doesn't solve the immediate problems in any way, shape, or form.
To put it bluntly, due to the extreme demands required of any ISP Blizzard chooses to use, their selection of ISPs is probably slim at best (I'd be surprised if they could find 3 or more ISPs that could serve their needs). And even if it was as simple as switching over to a new provider in as short a time as possible, it would still cause severe downtimes not only to switch over everything, but also for the DNS addresses to repopulate throughout the internet, so you're talking about a 24 - 48 hour complete downtime, minimum, which IMHO is probably far worse than simply having heavy lag during peak hours (and even during offpeak hours, since I know people are mentioning it being a constant problem).
I'm quite certain that, despite how insincere Blizzard may SEEM, they are not only WELL aware of how serious the problem is (far more than you are, I can assure you, as you are only one player; they have to deal with a few thousand of you, complaining about the same problem, and the greater overall impact of how that affects their reputation to subscribers elsewhere in the world and non-subscribers everywhere; ANY problem that causes this much player distress is a grave issue, that NO company would EVER make the mistake of trying to ignore if they valued their business at all), but ARE in fact doing everything they can to fix the problem. It's kind of hard to do anything to fix a problem that you truly have no control over whatsoever. At my job, for example, we had a period of time where customers' cars were completely undriveable for several days, simply because we did not have the proper part to fix them with (a part that takes, literally, all of 20 minutes to completely change, but a part that is vital to running the car). Was this in any way OUR fault, when the ENTIRE COUNTRY was on backorder from overseas? As in, all the dealerships across the U.S., in addition to the independents like us, and all the non-dealer parts distributors, were completely out of this much-needed part simply because of the fact that they started to have a lot of problems with them, and as such wiped out their entire national supply for about 2 weeks? We had plenty of customers pissed off at us, but there was absolutely nothing we could do about it, because we don't manufacture the parts, and we couldn't order them from anywhere because everyone was sold out. A rather ridiculous problem that causes us to start stocking said part in multiples, despite it being a very expensive item (retails for ~$450), because we couldn't afford to wait another two weeks when we were getting 3 - 4 cars each month with this same problem.
Anyway, enough chatter. :P I think I've driven my point home by now, and that is that:
a) Yes, there is a problem.
B) No, there is no simple, quick fix, or it would have been done already.
c) Yes, Blizzard is well aware of it (most likely; I'd be highly skeptical that they are really sitting on their asses about this, when it's costing them a lot in both revenue and reputation), and is doing all they can on their end, despite seeming "insincere" or "dodgy". Remember that they are probably fielding thousands of e-mails with much harsher language than you are doling out every day.
d) We've ALL been through it (the U.S. release has had plenty of problems, all-too reminiscent of the early days of Diablo II), and we know exactly how you feel, and we sympathize greatly (I know I do, at least).
Bite the bullet and just try to get through it. And if it truly bothers you that much, cancel your account for a month and simply take a breather. By then I'm sure that, not only will the problem be fixed, but it should (we all hope) be hardened against recurring in the future. I've taken several months off from all MMOs (mostly due to financial and, moreso, time constraints), and I've actually found the time away very therapeutic. I thoroughly enjoy WoW, and it was not an easy decision to simply give it up, but I'm actually glad I did. It's allowed me to not worry about "having to play" simply to get my "money's worth" out of it, since it is a pay-to-play game. It's also allowed me to spend more time doing other things in my life, without having to try and cram everything into a single, all-too-short day. My g/f will assuredly tell you that HER life has improved since I've stopped playing. ;) The dreaded word "eventually" (which is my usual response to her constant "Please come to bed (soon)?" has almost vanished from my vocabulary, which brings her no end of enjoyment. :)
Take care, and as I said, if it grates on your nerves that much, just take a break. It's really not worth the aggravation, especially since the whole point of the game (and thus playing it) is to get enjoyment out of it.
Hedon,Oct 25 2005, 07:17 AM Wrote:What really is getting me angry is dodginess on Blizzards part: They alway try to blame lags on players connections first, before they admit as indirectly as possible that there might be a problem on the server side of things.
Nine times out of ten, it IS a problem on a client's end. And when that isn't the case, it can very often be somewhere inbetween a client and the server. I sometimes wonder if people even understand how a network works.
(The following is just a generalization for anyone unfamiliar with networking and network traffic. This bit is not directed at you, Hedon, not that the first paragraph truly was, either, so keep that in mind too. ;))
Think of a WHOLE bunch of interconnected highways - some big, some small, but they all end up at the same place eventually. When one clogs up, what happens? Traffic gets redirected to other areas, thus bogging them all down, too. You can see this in everyday life (for example, by me, backups on the Mass Pike can cause backlash into 495 (which in turn causes problems on Rte 9), Rte 9 (which causes problems onto Rte 30, right by my driveway, often leaving me trapped in my driveway for 15+ minutes at a time), and Rte 30, directly. Each road that gets bogged down causes overflow into other surrounding, interconnected roads because people try to find ways around the problem. This in turn causes bogging on THOSE roads, which in turn forces overflow into yet MORE roads. It's actually quite amazing to watch, even in a small town like my own, how at certain times of the day you simply cannot get ANYWHERE in a reasonable amount of time because of a traffgic jam halfway across a completely different town. Although, we DO have several major highways criss-crossing through here (including one Interstate), so I guess that has something to do with it, too. ;) I try to think about the science behind it when I'm waiting 20 minutes just to pull out of my driveway so I can have some milk with my dinner.
Quote:If their server park provider isn't able to maintain a normal latency, they should really look somewhere else for hosting.
This is what really kills me. Do you have any idea how much bandwith WoW uses? Bandwith, like all resources, is limited. Now, think just for a minute how many simultaneous players there are at any given time. Most hail in the several thousand area, maybe even ten thousand, with a SUBSCRIPTION high of maybe half a million. Blizzard broke 1.5 million in, what, their first month of release? Even one tenth of their subscription base (probably close to 2 million or more by now) would be around 150,000 people logged on at any given time! Up to 15x what any other MMO to date (that I know of) has gotten, if not more! That's a prettty staggering figure, and that's just for ONE game from ONE company! Now add up all of Blizzards OTHER titles, for which they use the same ISPs (Diablo, Diablo II, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Starcraft). For arguments sake, we'll say they add up to around 50,000 people, combined, at any given time. You're now talking 1/5th of a million people all hammering away at their network. That consumes a TON of bandwith, and that is something only ISPs can provide. Moreover, there are probably only a few ISPs around, in any given global region, that can handle that much bandwith. Hence, their options for providers are probably not as diverse as it is for (most) consumers looking for, say, home internet. It's a LOT easier to provide bandwith for general residential consumers (downloading bandwith is, for whatever reason, infinitely easier to obtain that uploading bandwith, hence why most ISPs do not allow servers to be run in residences) than it is for a business built around online gaming.
Even all that aside, there's also the politics involved. You're probably talking multi-million dollar contracts on a yearly basis. It's not so easy to simply pull the plug on that sort of thing simply because of a few hiccups (and really, despite all the problems Europe is having, at least you can play; if it was just constant downtime, like the early days of beta, then it'd be a much easier decision, obviously). Really, how easy is it to simply switch doing business with someone whom you've done business with, major business, for over a decade? And for that matter, drafting up an entirely new contract, with a new untested business partner, takes time in and of itself, which doesn't solve the immediate problems in any way, shape, or form.
To put it bluntly, due to the extreme demands required of any ISP Blizzard chooses to use, their selection of ISPs is probably slim at best (I'd be surprised if they could find 3 or more ISPs that could serve their needs). And even if it was as simple as switching over to a new provider in as short a time as possible, it would still cause severe downtimes not only to switch over everything, but also for the DNS addresses to repopulate throughout the internet, so you're talking about a 24 - 48 hour complete downtime, minimum, which IMHO is probably far worse than simply having heavy lag during peak hours (and even during offpeak hours, since I know people are mentioning it being a constant problem).
Quote:This is a serious problem since raiding is next to impossible atm, with at least half of the raid randomly being "debuffed" by the ping of death. 30 sec or more flash heals ftw *grr*
I'm quite certain that, despite how insincere Blizzard may SEEM, they are not only WELL aware of how serious the problem is (far more than you are, I can assure you, as you are only one player; they have to deal with a few thousand of you, complaining about the same problem, and the greater overall impact of how that affects their reputation to subscribers elsewhere in the world and non-subscribers everywhere; ANY problem that causes this much player distress is a grave issue, that NO company would EVER make the mistake of trying to ignore if they valued their business at all), but ARE in fact doing everything they can to fix the problem. It's kind of hard to do anything to fix a problem that you truly have no control over whatsoever. At my job, for example, we had a period of time where customers' cars were completely undriveable for several days, simply because we did not have the proper part to fix them with (a part that takes, literally, all of 20 minutes to completely change, but a part that is vital to running the car). Was this in any way OUR fault, when the ENTIRE COUNTRY was on backorder from overseas? As in, all the dealerships across the U.S., in addition to the independents like us, and all the non-dealer parts distributors, were completely out of this much-needed part simply because of the fact that they started to have a lot of problems with them, and as such wiped out their entire national supply for about 2 weeks? We had plenty of customers pissed off at us, but there was absolutely nothing we could do about it, because we don't manufacture the parts, and we couldn't order them from anywhere because everyone was sold out. A rather ridiculous problem that causes us to start stocking said part in multiples, despite it being a very expensive item (retails for ~$450), because we couldn't afford to wait another two weeks when we were getting 3 - 4 cars each month with this same problem.
Anyway, enough chatter. :P I think I've driven my point home by now, and that is that:
a) Yes, there is a problem.
B) No, there is no simple, quick fix, or it would have been done already.
c) Yes, Blizzard is well aware of it (most likely; I'd be highly skeptical that they are really sitting on their asses about this, when it's costing them a lot in both revenue and reputation), and is doing all they can on their end, despite seeming "insincere" or "dodgy". Remember that they are probably fielding thousands of e-mails with much harsher language than you are doling out every day.
d) We've ALL been through it (the U.S. release has had plenty of problems, all-too reminiscent of the early days of Diablo II), and we know exactly how you feel, and we sympathize greatly (I know I do, at least).
Bite the bullet and just try to get through it. And if it truly bothers you that much, cancel your account for a month and simply take a breather. By then I'm sure that, not only will the problem be fixed, but it should (we all hope) be hardened against recurring in the future. I've taken several months off from all MMOs (mostly due to financial and, moreso, time constraints), and I've actually found the time away very therapeutic. I thoroughly enjoy WoW, and it was not an easy decision to simply give it up, but I'm actually glad I did. It's allowed me to not worry about "having to play" simply to get my "money's worth" out of it, since it is a pay-to-play game. It's also allowed me to spend more time doing other things in my life, without having to try and cram everything into a single, all-too-short day. My g/f will assuredly tell you that HER life has improved since I've stopped playing. ;) The dreaded word "eventually" (which is my usual response to her constant "Please come to bed (soon)?" has almost vanished from my vocabulary, which brings her no end of enjoyment. :)
Take care, and as I said, if it grates on your nerves that much, just take a break. It's really not worth the aggravation, especially since the whole point of the game (and thus playing it) is to get enjoyment out of it.
Roland *The Gunslinger*