Lag problems in EA's network

[Llewen]

Major issues with the lines, lol.

They came out last year, and replaced the cable running to the box in the backyard, and now they wanna do it again. But its nothing to do with my line.. When I have the net, it runs fine, lag free for the most part.

When it goes out, the whole neighborhood emerges from their homes, and wanders around like zombies.

(as i sit here and type this, i hear my TV cutting out, going to a snowy screen, and comming back.. lol)

Could someone in my hood downloading gigs and gigs be the culprit? I wouldnt think that would have an effect, and cut service for everyone, but i have no clue..

There is bad hardware (line, connector, router or switch) in or near your neighbourhood, not in your back yard, and it has nothing to do with anyone downloading.

 

[Thangorodrim]

But what truly astonishes me is the ignorance of EA's technical support. Their line seems to be that no one should be playing behind a hardware firewall (a router), which is just patently ridiculous. In fact everyone absolutely should be connecting to the internet from behind a hardware firewall, for security reasons, regardless of what you are planning to do, be it gaming, or simply browsing the net. Even if you only have one computer in the house, you would be well advised to go out and purchase a router.

For a technical support person to be telling clients that they shouldn't be connecting to a game from behind a hardware firewall, is beyond mere stupidity, it is dangerous and irresponsible. A properly configured router should have no effect whatsoever on online gaming, and most routers come properly configured for online gaming out of the box, and if they aren't, EA's technical support should have the information at hand to help assist it's clients with configuring their router, not telling them to get rid of it. It really is unbelievable.

This is beneath contempt. Really, truly.

 

[Thangorodrim]

They have packet loss.

Unless they have the lamest gear and admins, they will know about any frame or packet drops.

Doing something about it is another matter as these devices are expensive and touchy.

There is a chance of a device misconfiguration or failure, in which case this may be cleared up. Otherwise, I would not hold my breath.

The real issue, from my perspective, is the use of TCP for this game in the first place. UDP would make more sense but would require more effort in design and programming.

 

[Llewen]

Well, my ping today is the best it has been, maybe ever, but I am still getting small lag spikes. However, I can live with this the way it is now. I don't know whether they have actually had a systems engineer look at the problem and fix it, or whether the tweaks I applied from SpeedGuide.net.

I'll have to wade through a couple of days of peak service hours before I know for sure whether the problem has been fixed, but so far, so good.

 

[Llewen]

I have cancelled both my UO accounts. This was the last response I received to my help request:

You will need to contact our Technical Support Department for assistance and
information regarding the problem you are experiencing. Technical Support
can be reached via our web based support by following the steps provided
below.

1) Go to the following URL http://support.ea.com
2) Click the ‘Contact Us’ tab and enter your EA Member or UO game
account information
3) Choose the appropriate options from the drop-down lists that match your
issue

I did as directed, and entered my new help request exactly as I had entered my old help request. I'll cut and paste in the two basic urls for the two support requests.

http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/myq_upd.php

http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/myq_upd.php

The uri's are much longer with I assume the specific id's for the question, but the truth is I followed exactly the same procedure for both support requests.

I have never, in my life, seen worse customer support than that provided by EA. I worked for five years as a court filing clerk, essentially delivering and processing legal documentation with the court offices where I lived, and even there, I have never been run around, and dealt with the level of ignorance I have with EA.

I have seen some pretty awful customer support, I remember waiting for hours for technical support for my dialup internet back in the early days of the internet. I have had some pretty long extended battles with my ISP, but all of that pales by comparison with the in game support available from UO gm's, and now with this so called technical support from the EA website.

I have put up with now, more than two years of playing with cheaters, who openly cheated, and experienced no consequences as a result of that cheating. I've had it. I will never buy another EA product again, and I will ensure that anyone who mentions any EA product within earshot of me gets a very clearly worded speech detailing exactly why they should never purchase an EA product either.

 

[Farsight]

Which leads me back to my conclusion that I had when reactivating my account a year ago... (what a nightmare that was)

If there's a choice between calling customer service or cancelling my account, I'll take option #2.

There is no conceivable reason that customer service should be THAT BAD.

 

[Poo]

I have cancelled both my UO accounts. This was the last response I received to my help request:



I did as directed, and entered my new help request exactly as I had entered my old help request. I'll cut and paste in the two basic urls for the two support requests.




The uri's are much longer with I assume the specific id's for the question, but the truth is I followed exactly the same procedure for both support requests.

I have never, in my life, seen worse customer support than that provided by EA. I worked for five years as a court filing clerk, essentially delivering and processing legal documentation with the court offices where I lived, and even there, I have never been run around, and dealt with the level of ignorance I have with EA.

I have seen some pretty awful customer support, I remember waiting for hours for technical support for my dialup internet back in the early days of the internet. I have had some pretty long extended battles with my ISP, but all of that pales by comparison with the in game support available from UO gm's, and now with this so called technical support from the EA website.

I have put up with now, more than two years of playing with cheaters, who openly cheated, and experienced no consequences as a result of that cheating. I've had it. I will never buy another EA product again, and I will ensure that anyone who mentions any EA product within earshot of me gets a very clearly worded speech detailing exactly why they should never purchase an EA product either.

i hear ya.

only thing i can say at this point is that your Canadian like me.... winter is fast coming..... unless your taking up knitting your gonna be back putting up with the lag, hehehe.

 

[Llewen]

I'm checking out EvE. Want to see something posted on the EvE forums that immediately made me happy? This was from a newbie "must read" thread:

* You are not safe in 1.0 security space. CONCORD is there to punish, not to protect. Get used to the idea.

* In most cases, the only way to be 100% safe from agression inside the game is to be docked in a station. Being cloaked in a secret safespot could work too.

* Never fly something (or with something in the cargo) you can't afford to lose. Yes, not even in highsec.

* Never grant corporation rights to stuff you can't afford to lose either. No exceptions.

* People offering free stuff ? Probably traps. Use caution.

* Free stuff usually isn't. Not even minerals you mine yourself.

* If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Paranoia pays off here. Double-check everything.

* Scamming and unethical behaviour some would consider griefing is not only allowed, it is encouraged and rewarded by the game mechanics.

* Harrasment or real-life threats however aren't, and you can get a shiny ban for them. Learn the difference.

* If you lose stuff, it's ALMOST ALWAYS YOUR FAULT. Really, only yours.

* More expensive stuff is not always better stuff.

* Slightly better stuff usually costs many times more as slightly worse stuff. Choose wisely.

* T2 is usually cheaper and better as best named, but harder to fit. Sometimes it's not better. Other times it's not cheaper. And occasionally, neither cheaper nor better.

* Showinfo and Variants->Compare are your best friends. Use it on all stuff you can.

* There is always heavy lag in Jita and other trade hubs. But then again, you almost always find what you might need there, and can get better prices for the stuff you want to sell fast. So, it might be worth the risk of getting stuck there. Just know you COULD get stuck there.

* Just HAVING ISK doesn't matter all that much, it's MAKING ISK that's important. If you BOUGHT your ISK (either "illegally" from some site, or from a valid GTC trade), expect to soon be parted with all of them.

* Total skillpoints count doesn't matter much either, it's level of relevant skills to the current situation that does. Yes, that does mean a 2 mil SP combat-oriented newbie could badly beat up a 60 mil SP industry-oriented veteran.

* ALWAYS check your clone before you undock.

* ALWAYS check your ship insurance before you undock. If it's a T2 ship however... not THAT important.

* There are no "solopwnmobiles" in EVE. Everything you can fly blows up if it's shot hard enough.

* All other things being equal (experience, skills), superior numbers more often win a fight rather than superior ship value. However, things are hardly ever equal.

* There is no such thing as "a fair fight" or "an unfair fight". There's only "a fight". Circumstances are irrelevant.

* Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.

* Just because you CAN fly something doesn't mean you SHOULD.

* With enough skills and experience, ship size really doesn't matter all that much.

* If you logoff in space without a PvP timer, you're only safe after 2 minutes... and then only until you log back in. If you logoff with a PvP timer, it's at least 15 minutes. Bottom line, once a fight started, don't logoff. You'll only die anyway.

* If you PvP long enough, you WILL lose your ship. It's only a matter of where and when.

* Just because some character is just a few minutes old doesn't mean he's a newbie. Many people have alts. The reverse is also possible, people come back after very long breaks, and characters are sold. You could see year-old newbies around too.

* Skills that take less than 1 day to train are short skills. Over one week is long.

* You're in this game for the LONG HAUL. Don't expect to do something meaningful in the grand scheme of things in the first day of your first trial account ever.

The details are EvE specific, but the attitude? I love it!

 

[Llewen]

Again, this is just too precious not to post. I started a second request for technical support, as instructed, I attached a trace route from UOTrace that clearly showed the problem I am having, which included over twenty polls to each problem address. They requested another trace route from UOTrace with approximately ten polls to each address in the route.

Fine, I provided it, but explained that this trace route didn't show the problem as clearly as the first one that I provided, and there are a number of addresses in the route which aren't configured to respond to ping requests, and they will show 100% packet loss. This was the response I received back from EA's technical support:

Currently your connection to our servers is below par as you are
experiencing excessive data loss. You will have to contact your Internet
Service Provider to resolve this issue. You may wish to show them the
results from your trace route as it is proof that connection is having
issues. I'm sorry we could not be of any more help.
If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to reply to this
email.

I'm furious, simply furious. They basically wrote back and told me that the addresses showing 100% packet loss on the polls were the problem, after I carefully explained to them that they will always show 100% packet loss on ping requests, as that is how they are configured. They respond perfectly well to trace routes, and on the trace route they clearly show there is no problem.

Absolutely unbelievable.

 

[Thangorodrim]

You could install wireshark and capture a UO session where you experience lag.

Forward the pcap to them.

MAYBE you will get lucky and an actual engineer can take a look at it. I doubt it, but it is worth a try.

If you do hits, please post your pcap here as well. I would like to take a look at it.

Good luck.

 

[Llewen]

I installed Wireshark, and looked at it, but I think it might be a bit beyond me... I'll see what I can do though...

edit: I see it isn't that complicated. I'll try cap it next time I start having problems.

edit again: On second thought, I'm not sure that is the kind of thing I want to post here. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[sickis300]

Hey I am having the same problem but through a ton of researching this issue I think that I have found the source of the problem!! I have even located the actual area down to the street and crosstreet where the tower or satellite is located where we are getting our packet loss looks like its located in Witchita Kansas, hmm maybe a tornado ripped down our satellite!! so Liewen I will keep you posted as I find out more information believe me I feel your pain I am a big sports gamer and I have been experiencing the same problems through EA games, I will be sure to write up a full detailed review after I do get to the bottom of this so that hopefully no one else has to go through what we are going through!! All i can say is it's pretty sad that we the consumers or these games have to go above and beyond to get to the bottom of technical issues!! :gun:

 

[blood rayne]

Ive been lagging for the past 2 weeks on uo and its not my internet because my i have really good internet and ive reset my modem and router and all that stuff.




I ran a tracert to lakesuperior.owo.com and im receiving 10-30 on everyone except 3 of them. During the day i ping terrible on all shards i can barely move
during the night 10 pm or later i ping super good and i dont lag at all.. can anybody please help?


13. 100 ms 103 ms 117 ms 12.116.77.34
14. 116 ms 114 ms 122 ms fert08-eqx-iad.ea.com
15. 100 ms 94 ms 98 ms 159.153.233.83

 

[Mystikal GIL]

Is this crap getting fixed EA?

Host Name IP Address Hop Ping Time Ping Avg % Loss Pkts r/s Ping best/worst
te1-4.ccr01.cph01.atlas.cogentco.com 149.6.136.29 4 6ms 12ms 0% 952 / 952 5ms / 246ms
te3-3.ccr01.ham01.atlas.cogentco.com 130.117.3.205 5 13ms 24ms 0% 952 / 952 11ms / 273ms
te2-2.ccr01.dus01.atlas.cogentco.com 130.117.3.210 6 18ms 29ms 0% 952 / 952 16ms / 254ms
te3-1.ccr02.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com 130.117.3.89 7 22ms 26ms 0% 952 / 952 20ms / 290ms
te2-1.ccr01.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com 130.117.1.170 8 30ms 34ms 0% 952 / 952 28ms / 255ms
te9-3.ccr01.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com 66.28.4.41 9 113ms 118ms 0% 945 / 952 111ms / 429ms
te4-1.mpd02.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com 154.54.5.50 10 127ms 131ms 0% 951 / 952 126ms / 522ms
vl3492.mpd01.dca02.atlas.cogentco.com 66.28.4.86 11 121ms 144ms 0% 950 / 952 119ms / 514ms
te8-1.ccr01.iad01.atlas.cogentco.com 154.54.2.50 12 129ms 134ms 0% 948 / 952 126ms / 334ms
* Unknown Host * 192.205.35.105 13 113ms 112ms 0% 952 / 952 111ms / 137ms
tbr1.wswdc.ip.att.net 12.123.8.186 14 114ms 100% 0 / 952
gar2.ascva.ip.att.net 12.122.113.9 15 113ms 100% 0 / 951
* Unknown Host * 12.116.77.34 16 203ms 198ms 0% 948 / 951 125ms / 221ms
fert07-eqx-iad.ea.com 159.153.224.226 17 210ms 201ms 0% 950 / 951 119ms / 421ms
* Unknown Host * 159.153.233.47 18 210ms 190ms 0% 951 / 951 114ms / 214ms

 

[soze]

All of these posts in the past couple of days must indicate to EA Mythic that something is not right with something

There are far too many issues lately for it to be otherwise. I monitor this board almost daily, and play daily.

I have never expericence lag like this (on a consistant basis since saturday), nor I have seen soooooo many posts by people saying the same thing about the lag

EA.....Hellooooooooo....you have an issue, please address it with us!