As everybody knows from all the recent watermelon chat in the MA, we as a community are seeing alot more laggy planes than we were use too. In fact, in my 2 years of AH, I had to say that Lag was never a problem consistently. But now, it seems to be for many.
Admittedly, I'm blessed with a Verizon ADSL connect that is very consistent at 80ms, and no packet loss. But I still see alot of planes that warp.
So what is it?
Is it the recently installed Server that lets us have 400 players in the Arena? I honestly don't think so. For one, I know HiTech's and Skuzzy's dedication to the game, and how hard they work to give us a clean connect and a working server. If it was a hardware/server software problem, they would have fixed it, or pulled it until they got it working. Plus, if it was server lag, I would expect to see all planes acting strangely, not just one or two here or there.
Is it just the fact that we now have massive numbers of players (a huge load) and the current technology just can't handle it? Again, I don't think so. For the reasons above, plus the fact that I see similar problems whether we have 180 plp online (like today), or we have 300+ online. Additionally, if it was some critical router on the pipe into HTC, it should show some problems with trace routes. Every time I check mine (and I do it both inside and outside of AH), even right after I see problems, I see no problem with the diagnostics.
Is it the new players connects? Well, its pretty obvious that this is the point I was getting too. And before someone gets all huffy and blows a brain gasket, realize that I'm not pointing the finger at anyone in particular.
I guess this is my not so subtle hint to people to please check your connect. And if they're bad, get a new ISP or fly during times when your connect is good. We've all been there before.
But lets also be honest.
In the past AH players tended to be from WB's or the FR arena's of AW. They tended to be more versed in computers, how to set one up correctly, and how to check they're connections. Overall they tended to be hard core simulator grognards.
Now we've had a huge influx of players from the shutdown of AW. And I think this is a
good thing.
I'm really enjoying the arena right now. But also we are picking up alot of the more casual gamers, and large numbers of the pure "shoot em up!" crowd. Again this is ok with me (in fact I luv all the new targets
). But again, alot of these players don't know they're connect from a Pratt & Whitney 2800.
Its my suspicion that alot of these people are on dialups from AOL and such, which was fine for AW since it was very lag "resistant". In fact it wasn't unusual for the majority of people to be flying with 800+ pings.
But anyone who has flown AH for a while knows that this is not anywhere near acceptable for a smooth flight experience in this game.
So I guess my point is guys. If someone tells you that you are warpy, be polite and check your connect. And if its a consistent problem, you may wish to look into a new ISP.
Thoughts? Opinons? Reactions?
*Anti-Flame Mode ON*
[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: Vermillion ]
