No flame here, just total disagreement.
All of the lag that you see when you play Everquest is internet traffic. It
does not have anything to do (at least presently) with Verant's servers, or
your internet connection (you can play at 2Kb/sec with no lag). I am not
going to just throw this out here, and ask you to believe, but here are some
concrete facts:
Up until about a week ago, I was playing over a modem, and connected at
44Kbits/s (roughly 5Kbytes/sec.) I have a program called SyGate that allows
my roomate to be online through our network. Both of us were able to play
on ONE dial-up line, simutaneously, with no lag on either end. Verant's
network code is extremely efficient. Hit F11 and look at the data transfers
when you are in-game. You will see that most of the time the game is
transferring under 1Kb/sec! In heavily populated zones, you will see around
1.5 to 2kb/s of transfer. Having seen other networked games (and being a
network tech) I can really appreciate the code behind their networking.
On the subject of moving characters to other servers, I disagree with you
again. In order to form a community, and establish at least SOME degree of
role playing, in my opinion you need to keep each "world", or server,
totally seperate from the others. No player interaction, no moving
characters, nothing. This is why Verant did NOT allow chars to move from
server to server. It destroys the sense of community on your server. I bet
you can name one of the 5 highest leveled characters on your server, just as
everyone knows who Mark McGuire is. Now what if some stranger appeared on
earth and was phenominal at hitting, and bashed 60 home runs in a season,
and nobody (NOBODY) had heard of him before. If that happened frequently
(and it would), what kind of community is that?
Now that I have been civil, I feel I must inform others of some things (not
you Manuel):
1. If you don't know anything about networking, don't speculate about lag!
Mr Core Leader assumes that the network talk between servers would cause mad
lag... that is not true at all. Those machines are most definitely
networked together, and have an extremely high bandwidth network to send
tiny insignificant messages on. Rule out lag on that.
2. If you don't know anything abotu programming, don't speculate about how
"loopholes" would appear if this happened or that happened. Again Mr Core
Leader assumes that Verant would write code that accepted third party
packets, processed them, and give characters unique items and "100000 plat".
If Verant changed their mind about switching chars between servers (and I
hope they do not), they would not write code that allowed other machines to
interact with that. They would simply query the server on which the char
exists (or a global database if they decide to store the characters on a
non-world server) and get the information. Having Static IP's, they could
rule out any packets with a non-Verant header. Easily done, I might add.
Sorry for the rants here, but it gets old reading message after message of
garbage.
Eari, High Elf Enchanter
(Formerly Loreweaver of the Eldritch Collective)
or my RL name,
Brian Rittermann
----- Original Message -----
From: Manuel Revilla <manuel.revilla@...>
To: <eqenchanters@onelist.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 1999 7:42 AM
Subject: Re: [eqenchanters] My 2 cents on the status of EQ
> From: "Manuel Revilla" <manuel.revilla@...>
>
> Remember, we are trying to have a sharing of ideas here. If the best you
can
> do is flame, you probably had nothing worthwhile to say to begin with.
>
> I've been playing online games since '89, and I believe a part of our lag
is
> due to having entire databases stored locally. We can debate data
structures
> and use of algorithms to our hearts content, but I still believe it is a
> cause. It is possible to design a system that allows you to store data on
a
> server (to help avoid hacks) and still allow you to play any one of your
> characters on any server. Think about it. There would be allot of
benefits.
> I still maintain having a character permanently tied to a specific server
is
> a serious design flaw in EQ. A flaw easily avoidable by anyone who wants
to
> compete with EQ. I still hope Verant allows us to transfer characters
> between servers in the future, even if it involves a fee. Otherwise, we
have
> no intention of renewing our EQ subscriptions once something else becomes
> available.
>
> Now if someone wants to flame me further, I suggest:
>
> 1) Use English. Maybe discover the wonders of paragraph structure and make
> an attempt at grammar.
>
> 2) Try to present a clear, concise logical rebuttal.
>
> 3) Have the guts to sign your flame.
>
> Who knows, if these suggestions had been followed, the post might have
been
> worth reading.
>
> Manny
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Core Leader [mailto:coreleader@...]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 1999 6:32 PM
> To: eqenchanters@onelist.com
> Subject: Re: [eqenchanters] My 2 cents on the status of EQ
>
>
> From: "Core Leader" <coreleader@...>
>
> Switching characters between servers is the stupidest idea anyone ever
> thought of... how are you ever going to be able to contact friends you
made
> on one server? Of course YOU live near all your friends and can call them
up
> saying let's all go to this server but everyone doesn't have that
option...
> DO THEY? Think about it from a programming point of view, the transfering
of
> characters would leave many many loopholes and whereas a program similar
to
> uoextreme could jump in and give you 1000000 platium... hmm... You didn't
> think things through did you? Okay, you still don't agree so here goes
some
> more... A new server comes up and everyone playing it is a newbie then all
> the sudden verant let's us do this stupid server switching crap and
> blacksmiths go over there selling everything at 5 times the cost they
could
> get on an established server. This would also let high level parties go to
a
> new server and camp all the huge monsters... Emporer Crush for example?
> Let's look a bit deeper... How would a guild be able to keep in contact?
> Talking between servers would cause ungodly 24 hour 7 days a week 365 days
a
> year LAG!!!!! Not to mention the constant character switching would cause
> more lag therefore screwing up your playing anyways... So basically pick
> your server and STICK TO IT!!!! Why are people always wanting to move?
When
> I first started playing I picked the server with the least amouth of
people
> on it... Bertoxx, and it still remains towards the bottom of the server
list
> and even if it had 2000 people playing all the time I would not switch
> because all my friends on that server... so thank you and sorry if it
> sounded like a flame because it was suppose to sound worse than that.
>
>
>
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