10-26-2005, 08:26 PM
The confusion is because we're still mixing up latency and server performance.
The time between you doing something in WoW and seeing a result is the sum of the latency and the processing time, i.e. time taken to pass data to the server and back + time taken to process it. If you're seeing poor performance it is either because there is high latency or because the server is struggling. The way to tell which is the problem is to look at the latency bar.
So, if I have a red latency bar the problem is latency. If I have a green latency bar but get a "bid accepted" message 5 minutes after leaving the AH, the problem is the server.
Since latency is almost entirely determined by the Internet, it is outside Blizzard's control. That is why it is good for some people and bad for others. Poor server performance, which affects everyone on the server at the same time, is within their control.
It is interesting that the worst examples of poor performance - the AH and mailboxes - are ones which involve database access. It is good architectural practice to host your database and applications on different servers, but I would guess Blizzard haven't done this (because character transfers are such a big deal. If the database were separate from the servers it would not be necessary to transfer any data, just update the field containing the server name on the database record).
The time between you doing something in WoW and seeing a result is the sum of the latency and the processing time, i.e. time taken to pass data to the server and back + time taken to process it. If you're seeing poor performance it is either because there is high latency or because the server is struggling. The way to tell which is the problem is to look at the latency bar.
So, if I have a red latency bar the problem is latency. If I have a green latency bar but get a "bid accepted" message 5 minutes after leaving the AH, the problem is the server.
Since latency is almost entirely determined by the Internet, it is outside Blizzard's control. That is why it is good for some people and bad for others. Poor server performance, which affects everyone on the server at the same time, is within their control.
It is interesting that the worst examples of poor performance - the AH and mailboxes - are ones which involve database access. It is good architectural practice to host your database and applications on different servers, but I would guess Blizzard haven't done this (because character transfers are such a big deal. If the database were separate from the servers it would not be necessary to transfer any data, just update the field containing the server name on the database record).