Australia Servers too much lag + question

[SWProzee1]

Hi DEVS,

Just a little question as I tested a lot already. This is about the extreme lag that I get on the Australia Servers.
Very often I just disconnect with Error 4001 ‘Protocol error’. I get over 6000ms delay notification on the screen and then I can just wait for the game to disconnect.

Here some information:
My PC is an Intel I7 8x3800MHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD. NVidia GTX 670 (2GB model).
All is on Gigabit CAT6 wired network in my house and I have a fast Fibreglass Internet connection.

Still I get, on for instance Vena V, that chunks just take a really long time to load. Chunks on that picture below took about 8 to 10 sec to load.

As you can see in the debug screen it is “waiting for chunks”. The rest looks fine (rendering, FPS etc)
I was monitoring the network activity and it only gets peaks of about 2.7MB/sec from time to time. And with my connection that should be just a little bit of bandwidth.

To let you know my connection speed:

So It is not my PC that is slow, or my Internet that is slow. I am just not receiving data. (or data in time.)

I looked up the IP address of the Vena V Server and started a Trace Route to 54.206.109.110.

Here is the output:
Tracing route to ec2-54-206-109-110.ap-southeast-2.compute.amazonaws.com [54.206.109.110] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 172.16.0.139
2 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 195.190.228.7
3 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms static.kpn.net [139.156.112.105]
4 5 ms 7 ms 7 ms 145.54.103.93
5 4 ms 4 ms 5 ms rt2-rou-1022.NL.eurorings.net [134.222.93.140]
6 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms asd2-rou-1043.NL.eurorings.net [134.222.48.210]
7 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms asd-s17-rou-1041.NL.eurorings.net [134.222.48.235]
8 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms TenGE13-2.br02.ams01.pccwbtn.net [80.249.209.37]
9 285 ms 285 ms 285 ms TenGE4-2.br01.tok02.pccwbtn.net [63.218.250.37]
10 286 ms 286 ms 287 ms TenGE0-3-0-9.br02.tok02.pccwbtn.net [63.218.250.133]
11 295 ms 296 ms 296 ms 63-216-242-78.static.pccwglobal.net [63.216.242.78]
12 360 ms 348 ms 346 ms 52.95.30.151
13 376 ms 376 ms 376 ms 52.95.30.54
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.

Also a Ping to see the ms.
Pinging 54.206.109.110 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 54.206.109.110: bytes=32 time=348ms TTL=48
Reply from 54.206.109.110: bytes=32 time=348ms TTL=48
Reply from 54.206.109.110: bytes=32 time=348ms TTL=48
Reply from 54.206.109.110: bytes=32 time=348ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for 54.206.109.110:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 348ms, Maximum = 348ms, Average = 348ms

My conclusion is that I am not receiving the data in time, or just not at all.
But I cannot do anything about this.

So my question to the DEVS:
Is there anything I can still try to do or do I have to accept that playing on the Australia Servers is just no longer an option for me ? (and that sucks as Diamonds/Emeralds are only on Australia Servers)

Hope to hear from you soon !

[nevir]

Out of curiosity, what does a speed test to AWS’ Asia Pacific region look like? (Also compared to other aws regions)

https://cloudharmony.com/speedtest-for-aws (the ap-southeast regions)

[SWProzee1]

Hi nevir,

I have all the details for you.

And all in depth details per connection too:

Let me know what you think about these results please.

[blake]

The fact that the ap-southeast and ap-northeast tests are actually failing probably suggests your internet provider doesn’t have a very stable route to those data centers or entire area of the internet. You could log an issue with them and they may be able to improve the routing, some isp’s are good about this and some won’t pay any attention unless it’s something like Facebook that stops working for their customers.
The other option that some people use is a vpn. A paid for vpn service means you’re literally paying someone to spend time ensuring the best and most reliable route to all locations on the internet. It can help dramatically if your isp has some really bad routes to certain locations.

[SWProzee1]

Ok, in that case I am screwed. Called the ISP and the nice lady on the phone did not even know what I was talking about. Then I asked for a more technical person tot talk to. And he said that as long as I can ping a server I have a connection.

Spent over 30 minutes explaining why that statement is not valid, but I know where this is going… My ISP is not going to change a thing about it.

I will not take a paid monthly subscription service for VPN (they are expensive too) to be able to play more reliable on Australia Servers.

I guess a big part of this game is not available for me then. This ruins it for me to be honest.

[onebitknightly]

I do agree with you, I think certain resources should not be server bound. It might be ok of it is more common on one server but there should be a chance that you get it from somewhere else.

[Dzchan94]

I would think for those matters, we could go like onebit mentioned or depend on trading to get players their resources.

Totally sounds like something unwanted. But I think the server bound resources is too good an idea, to have them appear everywhere. Trading will not solve the 100% of cases, but should offer a way for players to get the resources.

I myself play from south America, and can say that while experiencing more ping to Australian servers (obviously) I found that closing the game once I reach an Australian server and opening the game back again, will make the game smoother.

[SWProzee1]

Yeah but trading is a work-around in this case, not a solution.

Ideally each region (Aus, EU, US East and US West) should have 6 planets with all the resources devided.
And this might not be a bad idea since more players are expected when this game goes live.

But when it stays like this then 25% of the servers to play on is not an option for me.
Also means that 33% of gems are not available for me. (I like to go and mine them myself as it is part of the game)
Not only resources would be an issue, I cannot participate in community things on those servers either.
Was asked before to help building Tjentzu, but I cannot because of conctant disconnects.

Forcing players to play on far Australia servers to get the best gems (Diamond/Emerald) is in my opinion a bad game design choice and maybe that should be looked into in more details.

Since KPN is the biggest ISP in The Netherlands I fear more complaints will follow.
For sure I will no longer promote this game for The Netherlands anymore untill there is a solution found.

[knightsb]

Maybe there will be… 6x4 is only 24… thats less than half of the servers that was mentioned for launch.

[SWProzee1]

@knightsb

Maybe there will be… 6x4 is only 24… thats less than half of the servers that was mentioned for launch.

Any link to this information available ?

[knightsb]

Some one mentioned that there was supposed to be like 50 planets at launch.

[nevir]

It’s probably worth checking in on it periodically - routing issues like this arise (and are fixed) all the time.

For all we know, your ISP may not be the problem, either (could be the networks they connect to, and so on). If we’re lucky, other sites may be impacted and are also making noise about it

(Also @devs - you might have some luck seeing if aws support can throw their weight around, assuming there’s enough info for them to go on)

[michaelb]

The current universe is a very small set of what we want, you wont need to travel to to Australian servers to get a particular gem.

[SWProzee1]

@michaelb

The current universe is a very small set of what we want, you wont need to travel to to Australian servers to get a particular gem.

So this problem would be solved with version 1.0 ? (Like all gems can be found on EU servers ?)

Am I understanding this correctly michaelb ?

[james]

@SWProzee1

This is about the extreme lag that I get on the Australia Servers.

Have you always had extreme lag on the Australian servers?

Or has it been ok in the past?

@SWProzee1

Is there anything I can still try to do or do I have to accept that playing on the Australia Servers is just no longer an option for me ? (and that sucks as Diamonds/Emeralds are only on Australia Servers)

Resources will not be exclusive to regions in the future. It’s just setup this way at the moment as we only have a small number of worlds live and we wanted to make their distributions different.

@onebitknightly

I do agree with you, I think certain resources should not be server bound. It might be ok of it is more common on one server but there should be a chance that you get it from somewhere else.

Agreed. (As I commented above.)

@SWProzee1

Forcing players to play on far Australia servers to get the best gems (Diamond/Emerald) is in my opinion a bad game design choice and maybe that should be looked into in more details.

This isn’t a design choice, but a result of only having 12 worlds online. As you’ve said yourself, as we increase the number of worlds per geographical region all resources will become locally available.

@nevir

It’s probably worth checking in on it periodically - routing issues like this arise (and are fixed) all the time.

For all we know, your ISP may not be the problem, either (could be the networks they connect to, and so on). If we’re lucky, other sites may be impacted and are also making noise about it

Yeah this. If you used to be able to play on the Australian worlds, then it will likely recover.[quote=“SWProzee1, post:14, topic:8019”]
So this problem would be solved with version 1.0 ? (Like all gems can be found on EU servers ?)

Am I understanding this correctly michaelb ?
[/quote]

Yes.

[SWProzee1]

Thx James for the clear answers.

[Barneylee57]

i find it very strange that most players cannot use the AUS servers (i am one of the very few EU players who can)

I also heard from @knightsb (i beleive) that most AUS cannot leave their servers so… network issue ofc… might also be to do with the server lag on portals???

Many of us had to send crash dumps/log files/settings files and etc just to prove it was not our issue so… there deffinately needs to be more server optimization

[onebitknightly]

Or routing issue, light can only go so fast and the route it can cause network issues too. Not saying their servers do not need more work but there is a point where they can only do some much.

[knightsb]

Just wanted to add that I can leave the Aus servers at specific times. There are several windows in the day when the lag will hit me hard on Aus servers and especially hard on any other servers. Beyond that lag is just bearable. I don’t live in Australia but proximity dictates that Aus servers give me the least lag of all the other servers. During times outside of the windows where lag becomes unbearable I can go to the other servers and it will still be fine. I do not know what the problem is, nor can I even attempt to guess at what the problem is. Whatever it is, if its a server routing issue it is beyond the control or influence of either the devs or me. And, I know that the ISP isn’t going to change their server routing because of ONE complain either.

[SWProzee1]

I am no longer concerned about this as the Aus Servers are just no option for me. Tried again yesterday and it states 35000ms delay and then I even get damage hits. Followed by rubberbanding and disconnects.

So I just forget about those servers till V1.0 is available, I can wait to get Diamonds/Emeralds on EU Servers !