Anet switched to higher ping Amazon servers since 2 weeks ago

[FtoPScrub.5476]

> @Bossun.2046 said:

> > @FtoPScrub.5476 said:

> > In case you guys have not seen it yet.

> >

> > Question on reddit:

> > > Any chance of using central US servers at least for ranked PvP? South-West players went from having modest 50-70 ping to 90-110+ due to this change. If you're a competitive player it's very noticeable and is negatively affecting match outcomes. I realize that it's statistically better for most players, but I don't quite understand the reason for moving from a location that is seemingly centered to provide even ping throughout the US to an east coast location.

> >

> > Anet response:

> > > Unfortunately the game doesn't work in a way that makes it practical to have "offshoot" datacenters. We've thought about placing game servers in various places like a lot of PvP games do, but our megaserver architecture (in use since 2005) works better with a couple of big datacenters.

> >

> > More information here:

> >

>

> Well, that guy just kept on saying that the connection got better for the east coast (ovb) and it didn't matter if it got worse for everyone else since their majority is there...

>

> Guess I am not buying any more gems.

 

I don't actually agree with what they are saying, just posting in case some have not seen it. The problem is that the east coast of the US realistically is the eastern most boundary of where you will receive connections from. Any more east you hit EU server territory. Now if east coast players actually had high ping then moving it east to benefit the majority would be a reasonable decision, but people on the east coast aren't the ones with 200-300 ping.

 

It's like having a group of similarly salaried employees and giving 60% of them a pay raise of 10K and 40% a pay cut of 10K. Just because more people benefit doesn't make it more fair :/

[Ziggityzog.7389]

Woop i retract my previous statement. I was just not around any other players in pvp. As soon as someone else is on my screen it jumps from 60 ping to 100/110. Definately not putting anymore money into the guild wars franchise. Bought ult pack of every single exp from gw1 to gw2 but no more. If gw3 comes out i'll wait for the free to play weekend to test if pvp is worth anything. As for gw2 pvp it's dead and will never recover from all the constant bad ideas put into it.

 

I mean are we really still playing the most un competitive map style out there? Why is conquest even still around?

[MLGKorno.5419]

> @FtoPScrub.5476 said:

 

> It's like having a group of similarly salaried employees and giving 60% of them a pay raise of 10K and 40% a pay cut of 10K. Just because more people benefit doesn't make it more fair :/

 

Spot on

 

texas servers: east coast 60 ping west coast 60 ping

new amazon servers: east coast 25 ping west coast 110 ping, both sides getting random spikes also to 150

[Unholy Pillager.3791]

> @MLGKorno.5419 said:

> > @FtoPScrub.5476 said:

>

> > It's like having a group of similarly salaried employees and giving 60% of them a pay raise of 10K and 40% a pay cut of 10K. Just because more people benefit doesn't make it more fair :/

>

> Spot on

>

> texas servers: east coast 60 ping west coast 60 ping

> new amazon servers: east coast 25 ping west coast 110 ping, both sides getting random spikes also to 150

 

As someone on the east coast, my ping has not improved.

[Vena.4276]

+1 to this. game has recently become unplayable to a lot of players after the amazon servers migration and the latency is noticably bad especially during peak hours.

[takatsu.9416]

I'm secretly hoping that they are temporarily using amazon servers due to upgrades to their real data centers.... Who uses amazon for their legitimate mmo?

[Joxer.6024]

I gotta laugh at the "100 or so ping"! really guys? try playing with a constant 280+ as an average! many of us would LOVE to have under 200 ping so um yea.....doubt you be getting much sympathy mate. But, your concern is valid to you so good luck with it! ;)

[Ardid.7203]

PFFF. I'm from Chile.

First world problems XD.

[Inoki.6048]

I've been wondering why am I lately getting massive lag spikes although I run on 100 Mbps optic fiber connection with a download of 10 Mbps. I knew it's not my connection and the lags I'm getting....... 2.9k+ ping.

[Bopha Debs.3290]

> @takatsu.9416 said:

> I'm secretly hoping that they are temporarily using amazon servers due to upgrades to their real data centers.... Who uses amazon for their legitimate mmo?

 

Considering they are (or at least were a week ago) looking for server programmers I think its likely that you're spot on.

[SkyShroud.2865]

I think I got 50 more pings used to be 220ms.

Lag spike and skill lag for wvw are so common that at least half of my guildies got it in every fight.

 

Oh well. pve is anet's focus.

[Pestulance.3471]

I live in South Africa and at night the ping is so bad i can't even play. During the day it's 180 - 200 which is great but at night 3000 + Please fix it.

It makes game play so unpleasant

[zoomborg.9462]

Dont worry u NA people, we also get these 10.63.75.X IP's in EU with about +60-70 more ping than b4. New servers are complete trash and i think this is permanent. Good job Anet, "lets screw over our customers".

[Silmar Alech.4305]

> @zoomborg.9462 said:

> Dont worry u NA people, we also get these 10.63.75.X IP's in EU with about +60-70 more ping than b4. New servers are complete trash

Cannot confirm. I play in the EU, my map IP addresses are reported as 10.83.75.*, and the ping is constantly around 25. At least for me, this is not higher than before - actually it is 5-10 lower than before.


[Healix.5819]

> @"Bopha Debs.3290" said:

> > @takatsu.9416 said:

> > I'm secretly hoping that they are temporarily using amazon servers due to upgrades to their real data centers.... Who uses amazon for their legitimate mmo?

>

> Considering they are (or at least were a week ago) looking for server programmers I think its likely that you're spot on.

 

Server programmers write the code that runs the game on their side. They'd be needed more for utilizing Amazon's servers, and hopefully their multiple datacenters, than for the NCSoft side.

 

For the old servers, the hardware would have been up to NCSoft, and if they were upgrading, it would have been done in stages and not have affected operations. Why would ArenaNet move? Amazon is certainly more expensive than using their own datacenter. ArenaNet is either looking to move further away from NCSoft, or they were hitting a limitation due to the servers (like the Wintersday JP problem). Amazon is obviously going to have a lot more resources, but if they only wanted more power, there was no reason to move nearly everything. Who uses Amazon? Building for Amazon is like optimizing for >4 core CPUs; most games don't. GW2 however was designed for this type of structure, as every instance is a virtual server.

[zoomborg.9462]

> @"Silmar Alech.4305" said:

> > @zoomborg.9462 said:

> > Dont worry u NA people, we also get these 10.63.75.X IP's in EU with about +60-70 more ping than b4. New servers are complete trash

> Cannot confirm. I play in the EU, my map IP addresses are reported as 10.83.75.*, and the ping is constantly around 25. At least for me, this is not higher than before - actually it is 5-10 lower than before.

> 

 

I play a shiton of games and universally i sit at 70 ping. After the past weeks GW2 is the only game that i actually get 150+ ping, I repeat, ONLY IN GW2. From my point of view this smells and smells bad....And talking with the support actually triggered me really hard as they tell u to check your modem/ISP even after the logs from pingplotter/GW2 diagnosis/Game Advisor specifically show that the ping spikes ONLY when pinging the game servers....

[Bopha Debs.3290]

> @Healix.5819 said:

> > @"Bopha Debs.3290" said:

> > > @takatsu.9416 said:

> > > I'm secretly hoping that they are temporarily using amazon servers due to upgrades to their real data centers.... Who uses amazon for their legitimate mmo?

> >

> > Considering they are (or at least were a week ago) looking for server programmers I think its likely that you're spot on.

>

> Server programmers write the code that runs the game on their side. They'd be needed more for utilizing Amazon's servers, and hopefully their multiple datacenters, than for the NCSoft side.

>

> For the old servers, the hardware would have been up to NCSoft, and if they were upgrading, it would have been done in stages and not have affected operations. Why would ArenaNet move? Amazon is certainly more expensive than using their own datacenter. ArenaNet is either looking to move further away from NCSoft, or they were hitting a limitation due to the servers (like the Wintersday JP problem). Amazon is obviously going to have a lot more resources, but if they only wanted more power, there was no reason to move nearly everything. Who uses Amazon? Building for Amazon is like optimizing for >4 core CPUs; most games don't. GW2 however was designed for this type of structure, as every instance is a virtual server.

 

Could be. I don't work for arena-net so I really don't have any idea what they are doing or why.

[Zaxares.5419]

It's not just affecting PvP. It's also bleeding over to Fractals and PvE maps. As a SEA player, I'm used to my ping hovering around the 200-range, but ever since the switch I've been getting occasional lag spikes that shoot up to 3k or even 4k. Skills basically become completely locked out and the game is entirely unplayable. The truly bizarre thing is that I can still see everybody else's actions and movements in real time. Chat is often also unaffected. I once had a conversation with my friends in Fractals saying that none of my skills were responding, and they told me that I was just running into the wall even though on my screen I was standing next to the boss.

 

If the server switch is really the cause of this, then ANet, you need to switch it back ASAP. The higher lag may be annoying for US players, but it's rendering the game unplayable for your overseas customers. Whatever savings you've made by switching to Amazon servers, I think it's not worth the cost of having to build us SEA/OCX servers because as it is right now, we're basically not getting what we paid for. :P

[Healix.5819]

> @Zaxares.5419 said:

> The truly bizarre thing is that I can still see everybody else's actions and movements in real time. Chat is often also unaffected. I once had a conversation with my friends in Fractals saying that none of my skills were responding, and they told me that I was just running into the wall even though on my screen I was standing next to the boss.

 

That means something in-between is blocking your uploads. You can try switching to port 80 or 443 (-clientport 80) to get around the most basic blocks, or alternatively use a VPN to completely work around it.

 

A lot of Amazon's servers have pings disabled, so you can't actually get a full trace of the route, but if you want to ping Amazon, ping dynamodb.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

 

> @Zaxares.5419 said:

> Whatever savings you've made by switching to Amazon servers, I think it's not worth the cost of having to build us SEA/OCX servers because as it is right now, we're basically not getting what we paid for. :P

 

ArenaNet was previously using NCSoft's datacenter, who owns ArenaNet, so using Amazon probably isn't going to save them money. Amazon has datacenters around the world, so they actually could host a few oceanic instances now if they really wanted to; they've already shown that it's possible.

 

[Zaxares.5419]

> @Healix.5819 said:

 

> That means something in-between is blocking your uploads. You can try switching to port 80 or 443 (-clientport 80) to get around the most basic blocks, or alternatively use a VPN to completely work around it.

 

I'll give that a try later. See if it improves anything.

 

> @Healix.5819 said:

> ArenaNet was previously using NCSoft's datacenter, who owns ArenaNet, so using Amazon probably isn't going to save them money. Amazon has datacenters around the world, so they actually could host a few oceanic instances now if they really wanted to; they've already shown that it's possible.

 

That would be incredible if they could. You can't know how frustrating it is to always be effectively playing under a handicap. From tiny things like your CC being slower than everyone else's, to major factors like using a leap skill in PvP only for your skill to aim for where the enemy player was half a second ago (and subsequently missing), to aggravations like the orbs in 99CM never being where your screen is showing them to be, it's galling to know that you'll never be as good as another player simply because they don't have one hand tied behind their back like you do.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

If ArenaNet used an Australian Amazon datacenter, and someone from the US was playing PvP vs. someone from Australia, would they be using 2 different datacenters, or does one of them have a long transit for data? Or...same question with WvW, or partying up in PvE? I'm not sure how it works.

[Healix.5819]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> If ArenaNet used an Australian Amazon datacenter, and someone from the US was playing PvP vs. someone from Australia, would they be using 2 different datacenters, or does one of them have a long transit for data? Or...same question with WvW, or partying up in PvE? I'm not sure how it works.

 

Currently, they're hosting map instances at both NCSoft and Amazon, showing that it's possible to host single instances at different locations. In short, imagine if all the remaining 64.* servers were in Australia. If a US player wanted to play with an AUS player, one of you would need to go to the other's instance. For WvW, it'd probably be entirely US, though AUS could maybe have its own borders.

 

Keep in mind that although possible, it's way out there, probably won't happen and would first require some core changes to how megaservers worked and an actual instance browser / queue.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

So, you are saying that one or the other of the players would have a high ping due to distance. Thus, as always discussed before, having a data center in Australia would not work for play that might include players from regions outside the Australia area.

 

Also, I never get 10. IP addresses, but I do now get 28. or 34. or 38., etc. I'm guessing those are the Amazon servers?

[Healix.5819]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> So, you are saying that one or the other of the players would have a high ping due to distance. Thus, as always discussed before, having a data center in Australia would not work for play that might include players from regions outside the Australia area.

 

Someone is always going to have a higher ping, since it's based on the distance from the datacenter and quality of the networks in-between. Using Amazon's other locations would be a great benefit to anyone closer to them than they are to the current servers, but using those other locations is realistically only going to happen if the population is high enough to warrant it.

 

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Also, I never get 10. IP addresses, but I do now get 28. or 34. or 38., etc. I'm guessing those are the Amazon servers?

 

10.* is what Amazon's using for its local network. You'll see their real IP on -maploadinfo and 10.* with /ip.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Yes, I know that the 10. is just in-game. No one has ever talked about the -maploadinfo numbers, so I was just curious.

 

I hope players understand about data centers. Having a local one will only work for local players; which truly limits the available player population to play with.