55 replies to this topic

[InnerSphereNews]

Greetings MechWarriors,

We will be extending the current OC Server test in Sydney for another week while we continue to work on a resolution for the high ping rates for the SEA region players and the rest of the world.

As it currently stands, the data has of course shown great improvements for the Australian and New Zealand players, however the number of players now receiving 300ms or higher has also massively increased for the rest of the world.

Here are some raw data from the server tests so far:

Singapore:

Ping Range	% of Population
<100	8.6%
100-200	15.7%
200-300	67.4%
>300	8.3%

 

 Sydney:

Ping Range	% of Population
<100	12.5%
100-200	1.6%
200-300	24.8%
>300	61.0%

Ideally we would like this server to cater to the OC and SEA regions the most, while also maintaining playability for those in NA and EU regions to keep the server’s queue decently populated. 

Therefore we will be continuing to investigate for more options while extending the current test another week on the Sydney OC server location.

[D V Devnull]

Hi there, Tina Benoit (and all other involved PGI Staff)...

Just out of curiosity, what were Ping Times like when the server was in the Old Location? It would be nice to see those for comparison.

Further, between those two sets of data, and whatever you might collect from a possible third location, is it possible that MWO needs to have 4 Server Locations? Perhaps with two placed out near and/or within the OC/SEA Zones in order to provide better communications overall, such as in an attempt to Load Balance? Also, is it possible that the locations that are currently being picked are accidentally far from the internet backbone?

Any which way this goes, I hope that you find a useful solution.

~Mr. D. V. "Wishing to see Game Quality improve for everyone..." Devnull




(p.s.: Dangit... I've got to say it... "FIRST!!!" ...LOL)

[Krist Smith]

D V Devnull, on 28 March 2018 - 10:54 AM, said:

Hi there, Tina Benoit (and all other involved PGI Staff)... Just out of curiosity, what were Ping Times like when the server was in the Old Location? It would be nice to see those for comparison.

That would be the first table, labelled "Singapore".

[Fox the Apprentice]

Thanks, Tina.

Does the population percentage ignore North American and European connections?
It's theoretically possible that the new server helped the target population significantly, but is being drowned out by increased times for the rest of the world. (Not saying that's what happened, just that it's a possible interpretation of the data. Keep in mind a lot of players are probably unaware that the server selection checkboxes even exist.)

Edited by Fox the Apprentice, 28 March 2018 - 11:47 AM.

[SangNamja]

It's so obvious that this new server system is bad, except to selfish aussie players.

It's always funny when you examine who benefits and their reactions. Before, when NA, SEA and OCE players could play together, no Asian player was celebrating because it wasn't a zero-sum situation.

Now that only AUS players benefit, you have them congratulating themselves in their little cause they view it as a zero-sum win. They actually don't want anyone else to have lower ping. Look at the past forum posts with Aussies literally antagonizing the rest of the playerbase lol

[D V Devnull]

Krist Smith, on 28 March 2018 - 11:31 AM, said:

<<<snip>>>

That would be the first table, labelled "Singapore".

Ah, cool. I didn't get that when I first read the News Posting. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

~D. V. "Got it now, thanks!" Devnull

[Nightbird]

Hi Krist, instead of these tables, could we see a lowest ping for each player table for all 3 servers? Basically what is the % of players with <100 ping with the best of (NA, EU, Singapore) choices, versus the best of (NA, EU, Sidney) choices, 100-200, etc

Basically, the total performance for all players matters more than how the world connects to the Sydney server.

Edited by Nightbird, 28 March 2018 - 03:31 PM.

[I cant want to]

what servers are solaris matches going to be played on?

just NA like faction is, or on all servers like QP?

[suffocater]

Everything over 150 will still be unplayable, so I will stay with NA and EU (where I live).

I think you should keep up Singapore AND Sydney.

Edited by suffocater, 28 March 2018 - 01:53 PM.

[NARC BAIT]

SangNamja, on 28 March 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

It's so obvious that this new server system is bad, except to selfish aussie players.

uhhh huh ... most of whom were slogging it out before on the singapore server came along .... were promised a server, and singapore got one ... leaving most of us, no better off for more than 6 months ... no one in singapore had any sympathy for our situation, so you'll struggle to be returned what you never gave out in the first place ...

SangNamja, on 28 March 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

It's always funny when you examine who benefits and their reactions. Before, when NA, SEA and OCE players could play together, no Asian player was celebrating because it wasn't a zero-sum situation.

so, you speak for all asian players ? I remember plenty of incidences of people from singapore saying things like 'our internet is great, thats why we get 3 ping, you need better internet', mostly while saying that ping doesnt give advantage, but whom would mostly not play any other server .... theres a clear advantage in having a ping 1/10th of someone else, especially while spreading damage, and if it were not so, you wouldnt be commenting here, at all ...

SangNamja, on 28 March 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

Now that only AUS players benefit, you have them congratulating themselves in their little cause they view it as a zero-sum win. They actually don't want anyone else to have lower ping. Look at the past forum posts with Aussies literally antagonizing the rest of the playerbase lol

yeah, I'm pretty sure we learnt that whole patting ourselves on the back stuff, from the guys who only started playing because there was a local server that gave them an advantage .... you can blame us all you want, that you got the gift that was promised to us years before .... its been what, two and a half years of 'get gud' from players in denial about their advantage, laughing every time the Se-Me-We cables got broken .... I'm sorry we have no sympathy that you get to experience, our experience, instead of your own, but none of us really expect it to last long term ....

asia could have been a good market for PGI, but it didnt happen ... and part of the reason was probably also the singapore location .... it hasnt really been much better for china / korea, who are the big markets, singapore is tiny, with a population not that much bigger than new zealand .... the only real advantage that its had has been that its probably been cheaper to operate than servers in australia .... at the end of the day ... its pure numbers and economics .... if theres more of us, and we spend more, you'd want to keep that population happier ....

singapore should be getting the reverse route that we eventually got to use, down Se-Me-We ... your pings should be between 100-150, and the only reason it isnt, is because of your ISPs, and the routing decisions that they make .... thats what we were told here in australia, about the singapore servers .... no doubt thousands of complaints went to our ISP's before most of them got their act together, and theres still a few that are terrible ....

[50 50]

Thanks for the info.
Quite interesting to see the data.
It's pretty much as expected but the telling figure is the shift of % to players getting over 300 ping.
I don't believe we could call it an improvement unless we see that majority move to the top two brackets of <100 and 100 - 200.

Let's see what happens and if the routing can be improved but I'm of the opinion that the player base in both SEA and OC simply isn't high enough to justify a server and we are all better playing off NA to consolidate.

@Krist
Would it be possible to get this same break down for the NA and EU servers as a comparison?

SangNamja, on 28 March 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

It's so obvious that this new server system is bad, except to selfish aussie players.

It's always funny when you examine who benefits and their reactions. Before, when NA, SEA and OCE players could play together, no Asian player was celebrating because it wasn't a zero-sum situation.

Now that only AUS players benefit, you have them congratulating themselves in their little cause they view it as a zero-sum win. They actually don't want anyone else to have lower ping. Look at the past forum posts with Aussies literally antagonizing the rest of the playerbase lol

Really?
You want to go there?

The entire region was fairly excited to get the Oceanic server when it was originally announced but on average it didn't really help the actual Oceanic players as we fell into that 200 - 300 ping range which was about as good as the NA server.
So no, it's not a zero sum situation and I am sure if we dig back through the old old posts there would be plenty of SEA players giddy with excitement.

So when it was announced that there was going to be a short test with the server in Sydney, naturally you can expect a bit of excitement from OC players getting a chance to experience sub 100 pings which is kind of unheard of for any game.

It's apparent that many don't read the messages properly but the majority of players, particularly from SEA, that instantly kicked up a stink about the move was significant based on the amount of flame posting that erupted so the backlash from OC could be expected because it seemed that no-one was even willing to give it a go.

There have been several posts where players in OC have said that if it doesn't benefit the wider community to have the server in Sydney then it should move back and this presently would appear to be the case.

[Jade4161]

Could the results be caused by everyone trying out the new server when we would have known just to turn it off?

[_mungus_]

suffocater, on 28 March 2018 - 01:52 PM, said:

Everything over 150 will still be unplayable, so I will stay with NA and EU (where I live).

I think you should keep up Singapore AND Sydney.

Whilst 'unplayable' might be a subjective term, it has been my experience that over 350ms is truly unplayable. Between 150ms and 350 is noticeable but definitely playable.

[Liveish]

SangNamja, on 28 March 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

It's so obvious that this new server system is bad, except to selfish aussie players.

You what mate, Most of the Aussie/NZ players testing this server for PGI asked PGI to hold off going live till they fix the routing problems. Bloody selfish Aussies looking out for there SEA mates...............


Few said moving the Server to West USA would be better for the OC/SEA region as a whole if they can not fix up the routing.

Unfortunately the backbone links of the Hosting company they are using is sub par, and have heaps of unhappy people when they use there server connecting to SEA.


BTW it does take time to get the routing right.

Edited by live1991, 28 March 2018 - 05:51 PM.

[JaggedCrane]

It's nice to have the "Oceanic" server located in Oceania for once

[ET Penang]

The number of people % that has higher than >300 ping could be more as many have "turn off" this OC server on the first few days, due to bad ping....sorry I have to turn off this server from my game search since day 2 of testing.

PENANG LANG

[Tarriss Halcyon]

Well this was always going to be the case; why you did a server migration without ensuring routing is totally beyond me.

However, the sheer salt and complaining from people in SEA, especially comments like this:

SangNamja, on 28 March 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

It's so obvious that this new server system is bad, except to selfish aussie players.

This is why the server should have never been called Oceanic. It should have been called SEA. Because what happened was a case of false advertising; that server was never beneficial for the Oceanic region as a whole. Instead, it benefited Asia while trying to make those of us living in Oceania believe the server would help us (Surprise surprise: A lot of us had ping better to NA).

Yes, the bell curve has changed to more of a tail-end weighting. News flash; that was always going to be the case. Australia is a little bit further from the rest of the world, and if they can't get direct routing of COURSE it's going to be high. It's high for the majority of Australians trying to connect to the server when it's in Singapore because our ISPs route things ridiculously - aside for Telstra, the other major ISPs route out to places like Taiwan then to Singapore, with a few people actually showing that they were being connected to the Singaporean server via the West Coast of the US. Which, by-the-by, would be the neutral point for everybody. Most Oceanic players would have a better connection to a West Coast server, as would most people in South-East Asia. Infrastructure and routing are already there.

So; to PGI, I just ask that you either fix the routing errors for the rest of the world to get that bell curve as close as you can towards the Singaporean distribution; or you move the server to somewhere neutral so that everybody has bad ping just so those living in South-East Asia don't feel like they're entitled to whine about "their" server being moved.

Edited by Tarriss Halcyon, 28 March 2018 - 05:50 PM.

[eminus]

take into considerations that a lot of people in SEA might have unchecked the servers for Oceanic, please include that into your matrix as you might not have the proper data already that represents SEA players

[Mr Steinbrenner]

Not to sound racist, but I've never heard an asian person on coms call shots or say Hi I think ever. Do many in asian play MWO? I hear an Aussie every other game. These stats seems balked to me

[Audacious Aubergine]

Mr Steinbrenner, on 28 March 2018 - 10:11 PM, said:

Not to sound racist, but I've never heard an asian person on coms call shots or say Hi I think ever. Do many in asian play MWO? I hear an Aussie every other game. These stats seems balked to me

I've seen a fair few people in Singapore (based on their pings when the server was practically next door to them) but while the official language there is English the accent can be a bit hard, and maybe they're aware of this and decide to spare the rest of us from trying to understand what they're saying.
As for the rest of Asia, Battletech and Mechwarrior are western franchises (with lots of Japanese inspiration, yes, no need to point that out) so it might not be as popular to them?