Posted - 2008.09.04 13:44:00 - [32]

 

The logs show nothing. Using our magical powers of extrapolation we have determined that you did in fact click the 'terminate character' button before being disconnected, so we have biomassed your character and created an account on a WoW server for you.

Posted - 2008.09.04 14:56:00 - [34]

 

Are you running premium or classic graphics?

Posted - 2008.09.04 15:33:00 - [36]

 

Hate to burst your bubble but quadcore means almost nothing unless you are running multiple clients. CCP's software threading abilities are roughly equivalent to their network prowess.

Posted - 2008.09.04 15:51:00 - [38]

 

One server does not handle one system. If your system is empty (or nearly empty) you can still experience server lag.

I lost a ship to lag yesterday, very likely due to the server lag generated by a 50 vs. 50 battle happening two systems away (Kamela). I just experienced a couple of seconds of module lag, but by that time my Inty had passed the gate jump perimeter and was webbed down. Sucks, but all considered part of normal game play.

Posted - 2008.09.04 16:22:00 - [40]

 

Edited by: Melegaunt Tanthul on 04/09/2008 17:56:13
Since I personally know Djumma I can verify that there is not any issue on his network as he uses the same ISP I do with the exact same route to the EVE cluster. Traceroutes come up clean and latency is always in the 40-65ms range except 8 months ago when the route was plagued by a broken router that ate packets for 2 months or so.

With my experience as a game engine designer I'll tell you that this was indeed a server-side issue. And first things first:

1) EVE doesn't send keepalive packets (at least not in the TCP sense). EVE uses UDP which has absolutely no error control as a protocol. It's just a stream of data that never gets acknowledged by the other side (ACK/etc).

2) EVE diversifies upon the classic UDP networking approach that was introduced by the original Unreal engine. To make a long story long, the engine kind of predicts the location of the player while computing the player's known data (previous confirmed xyz location/direction/speed/etc), then when it receives data from the player it confirms or corrects the predicted information. If data from the player is delayed or the server's load prevents real time calculations, desync issues can occur.

3) TCP is ineffective for any kind of realtime multiplayer game engine due to it's structure. Hence it's rarely used as a support protocol only (eg connection to html server/news/bulletin subsystems.

4) The reason we see lag and desync issues on EVE is the very nature of game engine networking. It happens with every online game. EVE's implementation though of one-big-server-for-all, utilizing a unified database and a server cluster farm (using stackless python on top of that) makes it far more prone to server side issues. Cluster-farms are prone to load balancing issues. And if you all read the latest patch notes, they are working in the right direction by changing their load balancing scheme:

Quote:

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The database will now generate population statistics from systems with more than 5 players at any given time. This information will be used to analyze load balancing in heavily populated areas.

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5) Imho, refusing to reimburse everyone claiming lag/desync issues (although weirdly, I have been reinforced before on very evident lag spike) is mostly a matter of it being cost-inefficient or low level GMs not having access/ability/time to interpret performance log data.

EDIT: More on number 4: An even better move on their part would be to migrate their entire server cluster and database infrastructure from MS Server to some sort of barebones customly compiled (for their specific hardware) Unix. That would vastly increase performance and lower latency... (but then again the cost/work for that would be great for the server applications -- databases can be ported between platforms almost effortlessly)

Posted - 2008.09.04 16:44:00 - [42]

 

It's practically the first line of the reimbursement policy:

Lag is not an excuse for getting your ship back.

Posted - 2008.09.04 17:21:00 - [44]

 

I had a RL friend who lost a ship like that and DID get it back (took 3 weeks, and when they gave it back they of course took his insurance money which put him at -70 million in his wallet), but that was a year ago.

I think they just gave up. Having had the same issue on a mission once and somehow getting it 'resynced' before I went poof (luckily week rats, they were shooting me from 4.2 AU away on my screen) I know this can happen for real.

Posted - 2008.09.04 17:36:00 - [46]

 

Originally by: Grarr Dexx

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It's practically the first line of the reimbursement policy:

Lag is not an excuse for getting your ship back.

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Must be the "hidden" first line. Anyways i'm not even asking a reimbursement anymore! I'm simply pointing out to EVE forums readers that a GM clearly stated they think of lag and desync as part of this game. It's sad i have to point out everything twice. Seems some people fail at reading and then fail at replying.

P.S. Thanks Melegaunt for the game mechanics explanation. You will always be my ueberpcguru

Posted - 2008.09.04 17:52:00 - [48]

 

Edited by: Seeing EyeDog on 04/09/2008 17:52:21

Originally by: Djuma Nihilist

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Originally by: Grarr Dexx

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It's practically the first line of the reimbursement policy:

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Must be the "hidden" first line.

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bolded "practically" for you, you simple minded ****

Posted - 2008.09.04 18:26:00 - [50]

 

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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No they are not part of normal gameplay by any means. They are side-effects of current technology and coding implementations that we have to live with.
In EVE there is a great difference. Death means losing a lot of the game's currency (which can be rough if you're not rich) and very time consuming to buy and refit the ship you lost.
In most other MMO's death is handled by a simple death penalty that anyone can easily forget about in a few seconds as it doesn't significantly hinder your gameplay by design. In few MMO's worst case scenario on death is dropping expensive items which can be picked up by someone else or members of your group or replaces without much hassle and that happens only in PVP (so lagging out on that is less likely to happen unless you PVP 100% of the time you play).
With EVE death is much more painful so lagging out to death usually costs way too much regardless if it happens on PVP or PVE.

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It hurts, no doubt, but that doesn't make it any less part of playing the game. You can put up semantical arguements about whether networking is part of the actual game or not, but the fact is it is one of the required components of play, and therefore part of the game.

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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He never tried to get into an epeen fight, he was just stating what he knew as fact but apparently you are quick to jump on to him instead of having a civilized conversation.
Normal internet packet loss can not cause 10 minute lag spikes (unless there's something on your route to host that eats 90% of the packets and what he said is that it was not the case). Server load and graphics lag can. The first more often than the later and the later is easily detected by someone who knows or someone who checks their current framerate.
Network issues exist and will exist for the forseeable future yes, but stop making misinformed assumptions and most importantly stop jumping onto people like that.

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He made the statement that he has a 24mbs connection and therefore shouldn't have connection problems. I'm not the one that is misinformed here.

"normal" internet packet loss can cause all kinds of things. Including but not limited to long lag spikes. And no, you don't need to lose more than a few percent of the packets (if they are the right packets) for this to happen. (for the record, thats not LAG)

Lastly, I didn't jump on him. I laid it out in clear and simple terms. The epeen comment was simply to head off further "I have an uber connection ,it's not me or my computer or my ISP, it must be CCP" garbage. Anyone who thinks or says that has no understanding of how networking works. Maybe that applies here, or maybe not.

You my friend are off base. Lets make it simple...


SERVER
.
.
internet
.
.
You

As long as this is the case, you can expect desync, lag and other network related problems. If this is somehow shocking or unacceptable to you, I suggest you find a new hobby. I'm not being rude, I'm being realistic.

Posted - 2008.09.04 20:46:00 - [52]

 

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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With my experience as a game engine designer I'll tell you that this was indeed a server-side issue. And first things first:

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You may have experience with game engine design, but you did not check what protocol EvE uses over the Internet.

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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1) EVE doesn't send keepalive packets (at least not in the TCP sense). EVE uses UDP which has absolutely no error control as a protocol. It's just a stream of data that never gets acknowledged by the other side (ACK/etc).

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EvE does not use UDP. It uses TCP.

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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2) EVE diversifies upon the classic UDP networking ...

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What you write is correct ... except for the fact that EvE does not use UDP.

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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3) TCP is ineffective for any kind of realtime multiplayer game engine due to it's structure. Hence it's rarely used as a support protocol only (eg connection to html server/news/bulletin subsystems.

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TCP may or may not be ineffective. But it is what EvE uses.

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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4) The reason we see lag and desync issues on EVE is the very nature of game engine networking. It happens with every online game. EVE's implementation though of one-big-server-for-all, utilizing a unified database and a server cluster farm (using stackless python on top of that) makes it far more prone to server side issues. Cluster-farms are prone to load balancing issues. And if you all read the latest patch notes, they are working in the right direction by changing their load balancing scheme:

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Correct.

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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5) Imho, refusing to reimburse everyone claiming lag/desync issues (although weirdly, I have been reinforced before on very evident lag spike) is mostly a matter of it being cost-inefficient or low level GMs not having access/ability/time to interpret performance log data.

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I think so too.

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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EDIT: More on number 4: An even better move on their part would be to migrate their entire server cluster and database infrastructure from MS Server to some sort of barebones customly compiled (for their specific hardware) Unix. That would vastly increase performance and lower latency... (but then again the cost/work for that would be great for the server applications -- databases can be ported between platforms almost effortlessly)

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I disagree. I hate MS and everything they do. But their SQL Engine (the real one you deploy on serious servers, not the fake stuff you get for free) is extremely solid and performing.
Having the MS engine DB at the back-end is only a problem if you want to have portable SQL scripts and portable data dumps. For scalability, reliability, serviceability etc. it's a good choice.

IF the DB back-end is causing lag, they should do more DB proxing or do more "local" transactions outside of the database. Not sure however: I suspect they already do and the problem is not the DB.

Posted - 2008.09.04 21:06:00 - [54]

 

I prefer the new system of "Do not reimburse for lag/desync at all" instead of the "Keep petitioning/escalating until you finally get a GM that gives you your ship back" old system

A few seconds lag is not enough to fully determine whether the problem was server lag or client lag. Too bad, so sad, it happens to everyone. Get a new ship.

Posted - 2008.09.04 21:12:00 - [56]

 

Originally by: Melegaunt Tanthul

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It's not "part of gameplay".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay

What you are describing is part of game and networking technology which happens to be my area of expertise as a game engine developer. It's not semantics and it's not in any case "intended". It's a side-effect and as I said we have to live with it BUT it's not gameplay by any means possible nor will it ever be.

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First, you realize I can just change the quoted article on wiki to literally say it gameplay includes lag right? Second, I didn't have to it's the first sentance...
Gameplay includes all player experiences during the interaction with game systems,...

Quote:

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True at that. But then again you could explain to him in a civilized manner why that doesn't matter instead of replying like you did, aggressively and without any real information.

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Opinion, I didn't feel I was being agressive. If you see it that way, well, what can I say?

Quote:

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Of course it can cause all kinds of glitches BUT it can't cause 10min lag spikes no. You need to research networking implementation on client-server game engines. All game engine network implementations are built with packet-loss proneness in mind. ALL of them. Read my overly simplified post above for a small introduction. Read this for a more detailed reference:

http://unreal.epicgames.com/Network.htm

Most modern MMO game engines are based/evolved on this architecture.

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Congratulations on quoting an architecture which EVE is not based on.

Quote:

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Unfortunately that's what you read in his post instead of reading that he doesn't know exactly how networking works which is true for 99% of the playerbase that would post here as this is not a tech or programming forum. And there I detect your attitude problem.

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Mom? Is that you? No? Oh, ok, well in that case long walk, short pier, you.

Quote:

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...Read the information I provided...

EDITED: For clarity of URLs posted.

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EVE
...
...
...
Internet
...
...
...
You

At each ... you have possibility of lag. Get used to it.

Posted - 2008.09.05 05:27:00 - [58]

 

Originally by: da go

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What you write is correct ... except for the fact that EvE does not use UDP.

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Hi mate. Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that TCP is only used over the login process. I will sniff EVE traffic and get back to you on that.

Quote:

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I disagree. I hate MS and everything they do. But their SQL Engine (the real one you deploy on serious servers, not the fake stuff you get for free) is extremely solid and performing.

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Indeed. But in the majority of the scenarios I have experience with, when we profiled MS SQL on Win Server against stripped_down_compiled_from_scratch unix+mysql we saw a big difference in performance in favour of the second solution. Mostly due to OS and filesystem bottlenecks present on the Win platform. I'm fairly sure that the overall faster I/O would benefit EVE's db.

Quote:

---

Having the MS engine DB at the back-end is only a problem if you want to have portable SQL scripts and portable data dumps. For scalability, reliability, serviceability etc. it's a good choice.

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Agreed and I doubt EVE has any need of portability. Although what I was originally debating was the performance of the entire infrastructure and not the SQL engine alone.

Quote:

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IF the DB back-end is causing lag, they should do more DB proxing or do more "local" transactions outside of the database. Not sure however: I suspect they already do and the problem is not the DB.

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They are already doing a LOT of proxying. It is evident by all the 5min "delayed" stuff in EVE (channels, assets, etc)... I'm not sure they can go further than that. That's also evident by the fact that most of their db optimizations include reducing cell sizes (eg they shortened bios, pos structure name sizes etc). I'm fairly sure the implementation of the "Warp to zero" feature was put in game mainly as means to destroy the need of the zillions of insta-bookmarks that were kept in the db (if you get my drift;)).

Posted - 2008.09.05 20:47:00 - [60]

 

Originally by: Djuma Nihilist

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Edited by: Djuma Nihilist on 04/09/2008 11:04:16
To make a long story short i loose a ship in a plex due to server lag in an empty system. How? I'm alligned out cause the plex has neuts and warp scrambling frigs. Frigs are dead but the guy who tanks it gets heavily nosed so he warps out and call me to warp out also. I press warp out repeatedly and nothing happens. After a couple of secs the screen refreshes i'm all out of cap and getting pounded by the rats still trying to warp out with no luck. Then i get the ship out of control lovely msg and i'm in a pod warping out. When everything is finished i send a petition for reimbursement explaining the situation and this is the msg in return i got answered that they do not reimburse ships when lag desync hits and that they just call it "NORMAL GAMEPLAY".

Just never thought of desync as normal gameplay up to now this is why i'm posting this in forums and at this point i don't even want a reimbursement.Thank you ccp

edit: GM response got removed

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I was podded for the first time in over 3 years due to a similar thing a couple of weeks back.

Undocked from a station in a nano covert-ops (with a scout outside ensuring it was clear), alligned to warp, physically got into warp and was half way across the system. The client then skipped a frame and I was back at the station when it refreshed, still with no one on grid but me and a corpmate.

I then selected the stargate again, hit warp to zero and my speed bar changed to "warping" again, ship climbed to full speed (past the velocity marker to get into warp). I clicked the button several times, and the client responded with "You can't do this while warping".

Client skipped a frame again, and I was tackled at the station by a Dictor, a raptor and several other ships were on grid all hostile, I then recieved the message "You cannot warp because you are warp scrambled". Cue death and poddings.

Petitioned it, and guess what?

"Oh, there's no problem with the game, our logs show nothing." Amusingly enough, I didn't have a connection issue... and my FPS didn't drop below 160 for the whole time.

I can handle a loss if I know it was my fault, was inevitable or was during a normal engagement but I have do admit that I was somewhat annoyed with Eve for the first time in years purely because of the completely **** response I got from customer service and the fact I was basically stonewalled.

I rarely petition, in fact I can't remember the last time I did so before this one. While the GM Team are a great bunch of guys, the whole customer service from CCP at times leaves something to be desired. All players ever get is "The logs don't show anything".

I mean, what's the point in having logs to log client and server issues if they're not logging REAL problems that effect players in the first place?

So yeah, **** happens. You just learn to sort of accept the fact you're not going to get anything even remotely resembling customer service after so many years playing. Of late, everyone seems to have too much of a hard on for pointless stuff like the CSM to actually give a toss about the playerbase.

Sad, but true.