A few ideas as to why I think we have massive lag in DDO

[Drfirewater79]

Hey all

its just my rant timer going off .... haven't made anyone hate me in a while so figured i would give it a go again.

these are my top 5 reason we have lag in DDO

5) F2P model ... lots of people is good for business ... lots of people on the same server = lag out the ying yang and most of it is people sitting around doing nothing but a free long distance chat channel ... but this is a small portion of the lag ... and since the f2p dont have there own server we are kinda stuck with it anyway. Back before F2P when you signed up it had suggested server to prevent this same kind of issues .... does this still happen ? personally i dont know but i dont see it anymore ... i used to see it all the time even as a "VIP" or as i like to call it paid beta tester in the pre-f2p game.

4) Red Lighters .... yup you know who you are ... going into dungeons agroing everything and killing nothing that doesnt gain you access to a chest ... but this is not as bad as some other issues ... but contributes alot to lag issues.

3) Hirelings ... especially in groups with multiple hirelings you might think you control it and that makes it the same as a player controlled character but your wrong computer has to map out its movement and actions and distance from player and and and all on top of mobs as well and then when it has to do it for three in a mission of three players and three hirelings ... oh my

2) server capacity .... the servers can only hold so many people at a time ... VIP's are told they get priority access .... this is all fine and good but if there are 1000 f2p'ers not in mission not in groups and just running around cities doing nothing then the People (vip f2p and p2p) who do get in get bogged down with so much lag that they cant play the game properly ... they need to add a kick you for not being productive feature for non VIP's ... if you haven't clicked on a vendor or haven't entered a mission or adventure area in over an hour ... booted ... this would eliminate alot of the lag built up from people doing nothing but taking up server space and would let more VIP's get into the game instead of getting qued.



LAST BUT NOT LEAST .... THE NUMBER 1 REASON FOR LAG IN DDO

drum roll


1) DUNGEON ALERT SYSTEM - yup you heard it here first ... i know what your gonna say ... But Dr ... 404 said that DA is helping the lag ... BS ... before DA the computer had to track movement lines and actions for mobs .... lag was apperantly caused by people activating large numbers of mobs at once and kiting them causing the server to have to track movements hps and actions for multiple mobs at once as well as pop back features and so on and so forth .... what has changed ...

so now the computer has to monitor movement and actions for mobs AND calculate the number of mobs active ... AND calculate number of mobs killed since mobs became active ... AND factor in an alert if mobs numbers are too high .... AND generate a debuff for each character who gets hit after the alert .... AND put a silly swirling graphic over there head ... AND sub in and out new debuffs based on level of alert ... AND AND AND ...

Its stupid ..... they try to cancel servers from being over worked by WORKING THEM HARDER?????

Dont have all the answers to all the lag but these are the few things i notice day after day that cause the lag in shroud specifically to be so bad that half the time you dont know if part 4 is over cause he is dead or cause the party wiped for a good 5 mins after its already happened.

[Narmolanya]

Have to agree with you there.

I find hirelings to be a realy big contibuter to lag. I see when I do solo slayers in GH for example. In a group little to no lag. Solo with a hireling I lag so bad I have to quit game and log back in to avoid frozen mobs. Since what effects me must effect the overall efficency of the server and then multiplied by how ever many other there are running around in similar situations then we have a big problem.

As far a DA. This is the lamest idea ever on Turbines part. I think they thought everybody was going to just start killing everything because of it. That's not the case players still runn past mobs to get to main objectives and as you pointed out with DA there are even more calculations that have to be made now. Bad bad idea. Don't even get me started on all those quests you simply walk into a room and boom you have a green or yellow DA.

[Drfirewater79]

Have to agree with you there.

As far a DA. This is the lamest idea ever on Turbines part. I think they thought everybody was going to just start killing everything because of it. That's not the case players still runn past mobs to get to main objectives and as you pointed out with DA there are even more calculations that have to be made now. Bad bad idea. Don't even get me started on all those quests you simply walk into a room and boom you have a green or yellow DA.

yeah i agree .... i think this was an option to try to stop out zerging and exploitive play instead it just made them work more efficiently .... if you dont get hit alert doesnt effect you so now you get casters with mass holds and web and rangers with paralizers zerging through quests not killing anything that doesnt happen to die by chance of crit and then just kill end boss and get reward ... at that point doesnt matter if you die cause quest is done and end reward is often more likely to be useful for that character then **** chest loot.

and now you can take a hireling along park him at the entrance and just call him when you get somewhere safe for heals if needed until your debuff wears off.

DA is stupid .... they just aren't willing to admit it was a mistake ... even if they dont remove it they should still call a spade a spade and say ... yeah it was dumb ... its too intricate to remove right now without causing other issues as soon as we come up with something better we will change it until then sorry its staying put.

if they said it that way no one would care even if it took years ... instead they put it on the players for not playing the game the way they intended and say DA is here to stay suck it up or dont play ... .

[IronClan]

/facepalm

Okay simply put, DA unless they did something really odd, just looks up an integer variable in a database that the server ALREADY has to know and keep track of, that is ALREADY a part of the code overhead (a tiny part) and because it only needs to retrieve this variable once in a blue moon (every second? every 10 seconds? every 20 seconds?, any of those are like an ice freakin age in CPU cycle terms).

DA adds trivial code overhead...
DA works the same way that your client knows what ARMOR CLASS you and every other player has (by periodically retrieving a variable in a database that is kept by the server).
DA probably takes less code overhead than updating your client when you are near a Paladins aura with the new buffed AC etc.

Once Active DA takes no more CPU cycles than any large battle with lots of AIE (A.I Entities)... Once you hit higher alert levels the extra buffing and spawning add a little code overhead because most of the time AIE's don't buff that much, if at all, and spawing doesn't happen in normal combat. So yeah there's some lag that can occur here, but anyone should be able to manage DA and not let it get to this point anyway (except in a couple broken examples)

Anyone familiar with Game development knows that smart AI takes up lots of resources... even DUMB AI takes up lots of resources, and the more AI you have running around "activated" or "alert" the worse of a Cluster efff it becomes...

For this reason "red lighting" (AKA Zerging) is highly detrimental to server resources... this and the admission by Turbine that new players are turned off by "zerging" caused them to implement DA.

DA is very simple to avoid in most quests except a few where it's actually broken due to the layout or mechanics of the quest...

All that said there are better more elegant ways to fix zerging, however some of these involve mechanics that would make Zergers even LESS happy than Dungeon Alert does. So as the saying goes: be careful what you wish for.

[elldur]

Actually haven't noticed any lag lately, 'cept since the maintenance yesterday. Now, I have experienced lag at the bank and at mailbox. 'Course I generally solo, so most of your 5 lag reasons don't affect me, less'n I cause the dungeon alert myself:D

[Drfirewater79]

/
For this reason "red lighting" (AKA Zerging) is highly detrimental to server resources... this and the admission by Turbine that new players are turned off by "zerging" caused them to implement DA.

Zerging and red lighting are not the same thing ... although red lighting is caused by a specific type of zerging ...

I zerg all the time ... but i also kill everything i see .. And i dont wait for anyone ... especially if i can heal myself ... but i never see red light cept in aramath generally or any mission that spawns 100 guys on top of you at once ...

no matter how little code it is or how little time the computer has to check for it .. .its still more things the computer has to do that it didnt before

even the spinning dizzy **** over our heads is a un-needed graphic ... so see how angry people get when you cast dance ball in shroud or solid fog or acid fog or anything that is large graphic ... its cause the extra graphic causes some people to lag ...

now when you have a server that is near full with population (any server that people get qued on in my case sarlona) now you have the 1 check every 10 seconds x 6 -12 people depending on the party x 20,000 parties = ALOT OF LAG.

the truth is DA didn't need to be implamented especially not as a lag sync which is what it was reportedly added to do ...

in fact i believe it was mentioned in this way

" I dont think we killed the lag monster but he wont be making as big an impact again"

well lag in shroud is worse then it has ever been ... so DA isnt working.

[Slink]

Forget the game, it took me 5 mins just to load this page!

[stainer]

Newer player here with a question. Wasn't there lag issues prior to f2p? Wasn't that the reason DA was created?

[IronClan]

Zerging and red lighting are not the same thing ... although red lighting is caused by a specific type of zerging ...

I zerg all the time ... but i also kill everything i see .. And i dont wait for anyone ... especially if i can heal myself ... but i never see red light cept in aramath generally or any mission that spawns 100 guys on top of you at once ...

no matter how little code it is or how little time the computer has to check for it .. .its still more things the computer has to do that it didnt before

even the spinning dizzy **** over our heads is a un-needed graphic ... so see how angry people get when you cast dance ball in shroud or solid fog or acid fog or anything that is large graphic ... its cause the extra graphic causes some people to lag ...

now when you have a server that is near full with population (any server that people get qued on in my case sarlona) now you have the 1 check every 10 seconds x 6 -12 people depending on the party x 20,000 parties = ALOT OF LAG.

the truth is DA didn't need to be implamented especially not as a lag sync which is what it was reportedly added to do ...

in fact i believe it was mentioned in this way

" I dont think we killed the lag monster but he wont be making as big an impact again"

well lag in shroud is worse then it has ever been ... so DA isnt working.

Lag is worse because the servers are filling up with players due to the resurgence from EU and the F2P model.

Turbines quote on DA was that it was introduced to reduce server load, and the negative "new player experience" some players feel due to zerging... It is clear that they did not ONLY introduce it to lower lag from too many active AI's.

I'm chuckling at the reference to graphic effects causing lag, unfortunately most players don't have this slightest clue what causes lag and the spell effects point this out very well... I still get annoyed when ignorant players kick "high ping" players out of FPS games because "they cause lag" it's been decades since a Peer to Peer networking client was used for a multiplayer game (last major game might have been Duke3d over the Kali IPX simulator)... Imagine if Turbine actually coded their engine in such a way that a client side graphic effect could lag other people... The whole server would grind to a halt every time someone entered the marketplace :)

[Slink]

Newer player here with a question. Wasn't there lag issues prior to f2p? Wasn't that the reason DA was created?

Yes there was.
DA was implemented as a fix (supposedly).
I think personally it was created to slow the long time players down so they dont leave the new players at the gate, this is what I honestly believe.

It removed the ability to zerg efficiently.
(edit:well as efficiently as we used to anyways)

However, I remember how smooth this game was when it was released.
I also remember that with every single module/patch/update the lag has grown.

[knightgf]

DA or no DA, I WILL still zerg in quests. The servers WILL still lag bad, whether or not they take out dungeon alert. And even if it becomes illegal to zerg in-game, I WILL still do it, no matter what the consequences. Matter of fact, I'm not the only one that zergs in quests, there's tons others that I know of that do that.

I know this subject has been brought up tons of times now on the forums, and yet Turbine has somehow remained adamant by keeping dungeon alert. To be honest, I think they're fighting a losing battle, because a horde of players will not give up as easily as a small company. Turbine has lost plenty of customers because of their decision to turn on dungeon alert, and over time, more customers are slowly bleeding away from Turbine...

However, since Dungeon Alert was planted in before the re-release of DDO:EU, and during the Mod 8 Depression(Correct me if I am wrong), I think Turbine was trying to do away with players anyways, since they knew the game was gonna fail unless they changed it in some way. When they released dungeon alert, I bet they were thinking, "Ok, the game's gonna fail, and we're gonna go bankrupt sooner or later, so we're gonna start trimming away players from the game. Here you go! NOW GO PLAY SOME OTHER GAME!". Then again, it doesn't make much sense, considering that the Devil Assault pack is still in the game, alongside Dungeon Alert since Turbine Re-Released their game. Though there could still be some truth hidden in the darkness...

Overall, Turbine is fighting a losing battle. And the longer this battle wages on, the more they will lose.

[BLAKROC]

some of your ideas have some merit,

but kicking peeps off that are f2p so vips can log on ? i think not as with most things it's first come first served :)


and i do agree that da systems is a cause of lag no the solution, i mean how can the ai activate all the mobs in a zone and not cause lag ? common sense seems to be missing from all the dev actions on the whole da system.

[Krag]

Forget the game, it took me 5 mins just to load this page!

I bet someone zerged the forums and aggroed too many trolls without killing them.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

4) Red Lighters ...

3) Hirelings ...



*points to own signature*

More AI means more lag.

[IronClan]

and i do agree that da systems is a cause of lag no the solution, i mean how can the ai activate all the mobs in a zone and not cause lag ? common sense seems to be missing from all the dev actions on the whole da system.

It could be argued that zergers who get DA to the point of being "RED" don't exactly deserve a lag free dungeon any more, even if it is 100% unintentional... The red alerts I've seen weren't particularly laggy... though they often had frame rate issues from all the effects going off and the extra mobs on screen... IMO most players simply don't know the difference.

You ever hear about how forest fire fighters often create a smaller fire (fire line) or a "burn out" fire to fight the uncontrolable larger fire? Lagging out someone who's zerged up the entire Dungeon is a little like fighting fire with fire... it's also insanely ironic :) although again it's almost certainly just a side effect.

[Tarrant]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.

[IronClan]

dungeon Alert Helps Lag. That's Not An Opinion, It's A Fact. Our Data Proves This, And Your Ability To Continue To Enjoy The Game Despite The Enormous Increase In Player Population We've Seen Since Ddo Unlimited Launched Should Be An Indicator As Well. No, It Hasn't Completely Fixed The Lag Problem, But I Can Assure You Dungeon Alert Does Far More Good Than Harm.

There Will Always Be Players That Second-guess What We Say, Even With No Evidence Other Than Their Own Assumptions, But For Those Of You That Are Unsure, Take My Word For It. Dungeon Alert Is A Good Thing.

Yoink:

[Slink]

Just to reiterate.

I have no choice but to believe what Turbine says.
I am sorry but my addiction to tinfoil hats does spill over into otherwise productive discussion.

Carry on!

[Gratch]

Tarrant, DA aside, can you have PHAX or some engine dev comment on the current status of a fix for Client FX raid lag?

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=241620

[IronClan]

Yoink:

that would made more sense if my newly created sig had shown up... [edit ahh there it is]

[stainer]

I see random lag spikes that I can attribute as anomalies or glitches that may be caused by anything, ISP, net lag, etc.

I have had some internal networking issues (my issues) that have caused lag problems.

I have graphics issues from time to time, but this isn't lag, that is a cheap graphics card. I think people mistakenly call this lag.

The only lag issue I see that Turbine could impact is the stupid dps lag. They should eliminate barbarians and greensteel to reduce the amount of raid dps. Or you could just raid with 8 ranged rangers (Bringing the Awesome) a sorc, a bard and two healers. Yeah, harry will be a pain on normal, but dang it will be smooth.

[ckorik]

Playing side by side with my wife I have a unique perspective on the lag issue. 99% of the time when one of us lags the other does not.

What happens is one of us will suddenly loose synch with the server - and the actions/rolls will start to crawl through to the client - yet on the non-lagging computer everything is happening in real time.

What is interesting is that if the lag happens to me - I can ask my wife to turn her monitor - and still play normally from 3-4 feet away watching her screen - as my actions and commands are being sent to the server real time - they just aren't displaying on my screen. Sometimes it takes literally 4-5 minutes of standing around doing nothing for it to catch up.

The fact that the server still accepts my commands (I can monk buff while lagged and move and kill things) and she is not lagged while I am - seems to indicate that the biggest lag issue is client related.

It is like the client gets out of synch with the server - and doesn't know how to handle that - when large amounts of data (fights) are occurring.

Just very odd that the server is fine - the network is the same - the computers are the same (exact same components ordered at the same time) and you can flip a coin who will lag when it hits.

[Dragonhyde]

Can I just blame Firewater for the lag because of the huge amount of damage numbers his barbarian takes when we shroud? All those incomeing numbers plus heal numbers can't be good for speeding up the lag :p

[Stormwine]

I still believe its the "Hidden Rare Encounter" Lagzilla. This is a giant Kobold Shaman that jumps randomly from one wilderness area to another. If each server can organize enough parties to patrol all the wilderness areas at once then perhaps we can find Lagzilla and take him down on each server. But be warned he will not be easy to kill aside from all of the standard kobold tricks he is also known to use Ice Storm, Grease, Inflict Critical wounds mass, and hold person mass so it wont be easy. But If you bring him down on your server you will be Lag Free!

[hydra_ex]

Dead wrong.

The "usual" type of lag, i.e. running in place, unable to move, is actually quite low in DDO. It was before F2P, it was after F2P. In fact, I remember a time when it was much worse.

The second type of lag, loading lag, is caused by an larger playerbase. This issue probably has to do with server capacity, but since its hard to test what causes it, I have to leave it by saying "deal with it." Its not all that frustrating.

The third type of lag, the one you are experiencing, is what most players term "DPS lag." Symptoms of DPS lag include: Lag in sending tells, changing equipment, and having spell effects go off. Combat chat and party chat are fine. You can still move and attack fine. However, activating/spawning of mobs/objects is delayed, and the as well as the actions of other players (resulting in a choppy weapon sound, IMO, the hallmark of DPS lag). Regardless if you see them, most of your actions do go through and happen as you do them, you simply have no feedback.
The cause of DPS lag is well known; simply, the more numbers you have over a single targets head, the more information has to be sent to the servers and back to your computer. Thus, even if the DPS were the same, someone swinging a greataxe with no numbers besides the base would generate less DPS lag than someone dual wielding khopeshes with many extra effects, simply because there is less data, fewer individual packets to be sent. Of course, this has something to do with the servers and their use, although not much. Mainly, it is a problem with your connection. Theoretically, an extremely good connection would eliminate DPS lag. Unfortunately, since most people don't have such a connection, we experience DPS lag. The problem is not turbine's servers, per se, its the way in which their engine handles extra numbers on a swing. I, just like everyone else here, including you, cannot tell what the exact cause is, since we do not know what the code is or how their engine works. Thus, the above description is all we know.

PS If you start getting DPS lag, call a "DPS pause" where everyone stops swinging. After 2 or 3 seconds, the lag is gone. This has the added "advantage" that the main tank can continue swinging and consolidate the aggro of his target.

Addendum: Further proof of DPS lag being caused by too much data sent is this: Consider playing with someone on the same connection as you (perhaps two wireless computers). The lag is worse, because it has to send both your numbers through the line.

[Yaga_Nub]

All of those reasons are wrong but unfortunately it wouldn't do any good to explain the real reason since I'm not Phax.

[hydra_ex]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.

I believe you that it fixes server lag, but that's not the issue. I don't believe that it fixes DPS lag, as player testing shows that the cause is not in the servers, its unique to a party fighting a single target. I, for one, would trade in dungeon alter for a little more "regular" lag. Thus, to me, although it helps with one type of lag, its not a fair trade, and so I think it is actually a bad thing.

[Eladiun]

Outside of the shroud I never lag...i think you all just need better rigs.

[Siskel]

All the lag I experience happens when I have a hireling in a certain area of a dungeon. Even happens in explorer areas. Leave the hireling at the entrance and I am fine. If I call the hireling to me while fighting I get massive lag. Maybe people are experiencing lag in other situations like raids that don't have hirelings, because the object or whatever it is uses the same problem code that hirelings do.

[hydra_ex]

Outside of the shroud I never lag...i think you all just need better rigs.

Even in ToD? Or the very end of VoD? Or epic DQ?

[Narmolanya]

Newer player here with a question. Wasn't there lag issues prior to f2p? Wasn't that the reason DA was created?

Lag has been the bane of DDO since I have been playing. It fluctuates how bad it has been however.

[Vengeance777]

I recently performed a fresh reinstall with the latest version available for download and 99% of my lag disappeared. Had really bad lag in spots before the reinstall. Like Arry still at half health when he was dead. The only place I still get lag is in shroud when heading for the chests. I don't see the massive DPS lag I used to get in shroud, tod, and epic von anymore.

I really recommend downloading the latest version and reinstalling the game if your having a lot of lag, cleared mine up.

[Narmolanya]

Outside of the shroud I never lag...i think you all just need better rigs.

I read this kind of thing all the time when it comes to lag. I dismiss this at least in my case because I could play AofC with no problem and the log into DDO and lag. Same rig and AofC is said to be a much more demanding game graphicly.

[Onesikpup]

While im sure there are many reasons for lag, I think the foremost reason is TELEPORTING MOBS. we had some lag, sure, but before teleporting mobs it was very minimal. Im sure there are a great number of us who can remember the lagfest that was the marketplace tent "explosion". Removing a mob orPC isnt that big a deal...but the trouble comes with re-inserting. Most PC's spend a minute or 2 loading when they log in and 2-15 seconds zoning out of an instance...and lets not forget the never ending load screen. All im saying is that we didnt really have much of a lag issue until mobs started teleporting...at least not to the severity it is today. Im sure there are now more contributing factors as well which compound the problem.....DPS lag (combat log), tons of PC's since f2p and DA.

[dragonmane]

I have notice that there are lots of threads about DPS lag, that for me might be an issue. I never have lag unless I am in the shroud or at GH, those are the only places. I even get lag when I solo in GH. Well, that isnt really true, what happens is when I get to the first rare I will get a hugh lag moment, something like 35-50 seconds of where nothing is happening then all at once all the damage I was taking in that time hits me. When I am in the shroud the only place I get lag is at the beginning when we are destroying the portals. I dont know if its my computer or just that place.

[Eladiun]

I recently performed a fresh reinstall with the latest version available for download and 99% of my lag disappeared. Had really bad lag in spots before the reinstall. Like Arry still at half health when he was dead. The only place I still get lag is in shroud when heading for the chests. I don't see the massive DPS lag I used to get in shroud, tod, and epic von anymore.

I really recommend downloading the latest version and reinstalling the game if your having a lot of lag, cleared mine up.

Interesting... because mine is a fresh install on a new Win7 box as well and as I said I don't suffer from most of the lag issues people gripe about.

[Thrudh]

Hey all

its just my rant timer going off .... haven't made anyone hate me in a while so figured i would give it a go again.

these are my top 5 reason we have lag in DDO

5) F2P model ... lots of people is good for business ... lots of people on the same server = lag out the ying yang and most of it is people sitting around doing nothing but a free long distance chat channel ... but this is a small portion of the lag ... and since the f2p dont have there own server we are kinda stuck with it anyway. Back before F2P when you signed up it had suggested server to prevent this same kind of issues .... does this still happen ? personally i dont know but i dont see it anymore ... i used to see it all the time even as a "VIP" or as i like to call it paid beta tester in the pre-f2p game.

4) Red Lighters .... yup you know who you are ... going into dungeons agroing everything and killing nothing that doesnt gain you access to a chest ... but this is not as bad as some other issues ... but contributes alot to lag issues.

3) Hirelings ... especially in groups with multiple hirelings you might think you control it and that makes it the same as a player controlled character but your wrong computer has to map out its movement and actions and distance from player and and and all on top of mobs as well and then when it has to do it for three in a mission of three players and three hirelings ... oh my

2) server capacity .... the servers can only hold so many people at a time ... VIP's are told they get priority access .... this is all fine and good but if there are 1000 f2p'ers not in mission not in groups and just running around cities doing nothing then the People (vip f2p and p2p) who do get in get bogged down with so much lag that they cant play the game properly ... they need to add a kick you for not being productive feature for non VIP's ... if you haven't clicked on a vendor or haven't entered a mission or adventure area in over an hour ... booted ... this would eliminate alot of the lag built up from people doing nothing but taking up server space and would let more VIP's get into the game instead of getting qued.



LAST BUT NOT LEAST .... THE NUMBER 1 REASON FOR LAG IN DDO

drum roll


1) DUNGEON ALERT SYSTEM - yup you heard it here first ... i know what your gonna say ... But Dr ... 404 said that DA is helping the lag ... BS ... before DA the computer had to track movement lines and actions for mobs .... lag was apperantly caused by people activating large numbers of mobs at once and kiting them causing the server to have to track movements hps and actions for multiple mobs at once as well as pop back features and so on and so forth .... what has changed ...

so now the computer has to monitor movement and actions for mobs AND calculate the number of mobs active ... AND calculate number of mobs killed since mobs became active ... AND factor in an alert if mobs numbers are too high .... AND generate a debuff for each character who gets hit after the alert .... AND put a silly swirling graphic over there head ... AND sub in and out new debuffs based on level of alert ... AND AND AND ...

Its stupid ..... they try to cancel servers from being over worked by WORKING THEM HARDER?????

Dont have all the answers to all the lag but these are the few things i notice day after day that cause the lag in shroud specifically to be so bad that half the time you dont know if part 4 is over cause he is dead or cause the party wiped for a good 5 mins after its already happened.

**** Drfirewater, how many times you going to beat this dead horse?? Learn to play with DA or quit already...

#1 makes #4 happen less often... therefore, even though #1 may add more CPU calculations, by reducing #4, the net number of CPU calculations go down...

I cannot believe you don't understand this after 57 threads on the same topic...

[Drfirewater79]

Newer player here with a question. Wasn't there lag issues prior to f2p? Wasn't that the reason DA was created?

yes there was lag ... or so i was told ... i personally never experienced any lag at all for any reason and on a much worse computer (just got a new comp last november) and really didnt see any lag when DA was first added either .. .but since the last two updates i have seen massive lag to the point of wiping full parties in raids from what is being called DPS LAG ...

but that was when aramath was not being run much ... now people are comfortable with it ... that was when epic wasnt run much ... but now people are comfortable with it

these are two areas that have massive DA aramath missions are a breading ground for DA and both offering and von 1 with the way they are both constructed and run on epic often have anywhere from green to red at least once if not twice per mission.

increase the amount of players doing something at one time all causing DA and you got quite a load on that server.

[Eladiun]

**** Drfirewater, how many times you going to beat this dead horse?? Learn to play with DA or quit already...

#1 makes #4 happen less often... therefore, even though #1 may add more CPU calculations, by reducing #4, the net number of CPU calculations go down...

I cannot believe you don't understand this after 57 threads on the same topic...

http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0804/learning-lol-plane-crash-learn-demotivational-poster-1207085257.jpg (http://www.motifake.com/learning-lol-plane-crash-learn-demotivational-poster-3313.html)

[Drfirewater79]

Newer player here with a question. Wasn't there lag issues prior to f2p? Wasn't that the reason DA was created?


**** Drfirewater, how many times you going to beat this dead horse?? Learn to play with DA or quit already...

#1 makes #4 happen less often... therefore, even though #1 may add more CPU calculations, by reducing #4, the net number of CPU calculations go down...

I cannot believe you don't understand this after 57 threads on the same topic...

who said anything about not being able to play with it ... this thread is about the current lag-a-palosa

nothing to do with personal feelings on DA just 5 things i think contribute to LAG on my server of choice.

I cannot believe you don't understand that from reading this one thread let alone the 57 you seem to have read over and over trolling them as well.

[Drfirewater79]

Interesting... because mine is a fresh install on a new Win7 box as well and as I said I don't suffer from most of the lag issues people gripe about.

I had to reinstall on windows 7 ... i have no lag except in shroud ... but i do see it from time to time in other raids ... just not as bad as in shroud and epic dragon

[IronClan]

DA or no DA, I WILL still zerg in quests. The servers WILL still lag bad, whether or not they take out dungeon alert. And even if it becomes illegal to zerg in-game, I WILL still do it, no matter what the consequences. Matter of fact, I'm not the only one that zergs in quests, there's tons others that I know of that do that.

I know this subject has been brought up tons of times now on the forums, and yet Turbine has somehow remained adamant by keeping dungeon alert. To be honest, I think they're fighting a losing battle, because a horde of players will not give up as easily as a small company. Turbine has lost plenty of customers because of their decision to turn on dungeon alert, and over time, more customers are slowly bleeding away from Turbine...

However, since Dungeon Alert was planted in before the re-release of DDO:EU, and during the Mod 8 Depression(Correct me if I am wrong), I think Turbine was trying to do away with players anyways, since they knew the game was gonna fail unless they changed it in some way. When they released dungeon alert, I bet they were thinking, "Ok, the game's gonna fail, and we're gonna go bankrupt sooner or later, so we're gonna start trimming away players from the game. Here you go! NOW GO PLAY SOME OTHER GAME!". Then again, it doesn't make much sense, considering that the Devil Assault pack is still in the game, alongside Dungeon Alert since Turbine Re-Released their game. Though there could still be some truth hidden in the darkness...

Overall, Turbine is fighting a losing battle. And the longer this battle wages on, the more they will lose.

It would be interesting to run a servers wide poll and see what percentage of zerger versus anti zergers (and in betweens) there are.

Personally I would be inclined to "live and let live" I have zerged a few times (Cleric elite solo favor running Stealthy Repossession with those Kobold Phrophets I pretty much had too) and I can personally put up with how zergers occasionally ruin pugs (even ones that say "no zerg" in the title some times)...

However the truth is that activating lots of AI unnecessarily causes undue server loads... and this is unfairly lagging ALL players.

It's also appears to be true that many new players seem to find it lame and exploity. I know I do. The first time I witnessed it I though it surely had to be a punishable exploit.. and I found the vocal zerger fans on this forum to be a bit of a shock... especially how they openly discuss the issue and seem to often call attention to it and even seem to suggest some measures that would completely nerf themselves into non-existence with the "closed doors until every room is cleared" idea often proposed by zergers as a better solution than DA... talk about committing play-style suicide.

That's not even the worst part... If Zergers want to try nerf themselves with awful suggestions that's none of my business... but Nintendo-izing all the great quests in this game because some people are too bored or jaded to bother playing as intended would be a huge negative for everyone.

One thing seems certain, DA is here to stay unless and until they do something ELSE to lower/eliminate/discourage zerging. You Zergers might want to keep in mind that sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't...

If they took out autorun, and put in fatigue, and a short term sprint key (just as an example like Counter strike or Half Life 2 both highly twitch oriented games that have slower movement) you all might be howling and wishing for the good old days of DA... Just sayin'

I'm sure I wont be popular for saying it but personally I'd welcome such a mechanic...

[Drfirewater79]

Can I just blame Firewater for the lag because of the huge amount of damage numbers his barbarian takes when we shroud? All those incomeing numbers plus heal numbers can't be good for speeding up the lag :p

Lol dual weilding dps lag ... thy name is hack

[Cyr]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.

Perhaps providing the actual test results and methodology would stem most of this critique instead of blanket statements like we say it works well so take our word for it. If the methodology is good and the testing reveals a resource savings of let's say 50% many players would change from DA haters to DA as a necessary evil for the time being.

However, if the testing actually was based upon DA processing numbers taken after DA had been active for some time and then when DA was turned off for a brief period there is a serious issue with the testing methodology. I mentioned this before when DA was turned back on and was met with silence making me strongly suspect this was the manner that DA was 'tested' and it is an extremely flawed method if it was.

The main issue here of course is that there was a surge of veterans who played MUCH MORE THEN AVERAGE during the days DA was off. There was thread after thread about it. Those same veterans were also taking the opportunity to run many of the quests that DA had made a complete pain in the *** the way they liked to run them...by zerging. This of course means that it led to a surge of player behavior doing exactly what DA was meant to discourage which is disproportionate to normal player behavior without DA.

Of course the proper method of doing this testing would have been an extended period of time with DA off at the end of which the measurements were taken and the same with DA on to reduce the surge effects in both directions.

In other words, when testing the results of a change meant to influence player behavior your testing procedure must take player behavior into account.

[Cyr]

**** Drfirewater, how many times you going to beat this dead horse?? Learn to play with DA or quit already...

#1 makes #4 happen less often... therefore, even though #1 may add more CPU calculations, by reducing #4, the net number of CPU calculations go down...

I cannot believe you don't understand this after 57 threads on the same topic...

Not the best response to any poster Thrudh. Suck it up or quit is hardly a convincing argument for any position.

[Drfirewater79]

DA or no DA, I WILL still zerg in quests. The servers WILL still lag bad, whether or not they take out dungeon alert. And even if it becomes illegal to zerg in-game, I WILL still do it, no matter what the consequences. Matter of fact, I'm not the only one that zergs in quests, there's tons others that I know of that do that.

I know this subject has been brought up tons of times now on the forums, and yet Turbine has somehow remained adamant by keeping dungeon alert. To be honest, I think they're fighting a losing battle, because a horde of players will not give up as easily as a small company. Turbine has lost plenty of customers because of their decision to turn on dungeon alert, and over time, more customers are slowly bleeding away from Turbine...

However, since Dungeon Alert was planted in before the re-release of DDO:EU, and during the Mod 8 Depression(Correct me if I am wrong), I think Turbine was trying to do away with players anyways, since they knew the game was gonna fail unless they changed it in some way. When they released dungeon alert, I bet they were thinking, "Ok, the game's gonna fail, and we're gonna go bankrupt sooner or later, so we're gonna start trimming away players from the game. Here you go! NOW GO PLAY SOME OTHER GAME!". Then again, it doesn't make much sense, considering that the Devil Assault pack is still in the game, alongside Dungeon Alert since Turbine Re-Released their game. Though there could still be some truth hidden in the darkness...

Overall, Turbine is fighting a losing battle. And the longer this battle wages on, the more they will lose.

AMEN BROTHER ...

Zergers will always be around DA didnt solve that issue lol ... as for people who say they hate it when zergers ruin there parties that say NO ZERGING ... I dont know anyone who is a good player that zergs that would join and lfm that says no zerging .. .in fact NO ZERGING in the lfm to me says one of two things NOOBS or GIMPS ... not to say that its true but its the way i see it ... if a mission takes longer then 30 mins to complete and its not epic then your not trying.


Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.

Tarrant ... Its not that i dont trust the turbine staff that talk about DA like its the second coming of Druids or something ..... oh wait ... like its the first coming of Druids or something ...

its that Nothing that seems to be the heavens gate to fixing anything in this game seems to stick ... annoys players more then it seems to help ... .. and if DA really does help fix lag ... then what is the next step ... make it that if you agro one mob you get red alert? will that stop zerging and make the lag go away ...

wait a min i will answer that myself .... making it so that when you agro one mob it goes red alert wont stop zerging but it will fix the lag issue cause 90% of the people wont play anymore.

I didnt start this thread as an anti DA thread just calling em like i see em ...

there is alot more in the OP that isnt DA .. no one seems to care about the rest cause they are to busy raging on the #1 issue in my book ...

please if you would ... could you tell us outside of numbers which are an obvious cause of lag ... what is the next highest contributing factor?

is it bad equiptment at turbine ? is it the data center cant handle the new load of players?

I mean if we had more information from turbine about the problems we wouldn't have to blame the things we THINK are the issue cause we would know the truth.

Zerging isnt causing the lag ... cause no one is zergin shroud part 4 ... they are just standing there and swinging on auto attack only one who even does anything during the worst of the lag in shroud is the clerics ...

are you gonna tell me healing causes all the lag in DDO ... maybe we should get rid of clerics and FVS ....

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.

I believe you. The reason is simple. The things the devs say about DA makes sense, to me as a programmer for the past 25 years.

The things people say against it, are just hilariously crazy, and makes no sense.

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

I believe you that it fixes server lag, but that's not the issue. I don't believe that it fixes DPS lag, as player testing shows that the cause is not in the servers, its unique to a party fighting a single target. I, for one, would trade in dungeon alter for a little more "regular" lag. Thus, to me, although it helps with one type of lag, its not a fair trade, and so I think it is actually a bad thing.

It's not supposed to fix dps lag. Do you throw away your hammer because it doesn't help you tighten a bolt? It was designed to address 1 source of lag, and that's it.

Other sources require other fixes. Removing DA is not a fix to any other source.

[IronClan]

in fact NO ZERGING in the lfm to me says one of two things NOOBS or GIMPS ... not to say that its true but its the way i see it ... if a mission takes longer then 30 mins to complete and its not epic then your not trying.

Maybe this kind of attitude is what Turbine meant when they mentioned "negative player perception" of zerging just a guess...

[IronClan]

I believe you. The reason is simple. The things the devs say about DA makes sense, to me as a programmer for the past 25 years.

The things people say against it, are just hilariously crazy, and makes no sense.

+1 me too

[Greydeath]

Dungeon Alert :mad:

Not to mention the original 'Datacenter move to improve performace' that originally started it all... :rolleyes:

[UltraMonk2]

+1 me too


I believe you. The reason is simple. The things the devs say about DA makes sense, to me as a programmer for the past 25 years.

The things people say against it, are just hilariously crazy, and makes no sense.

Yep been a programmer for about the same time, been a server/network admin for many years as well, and I totally agree with you.

There are people playing this game on laptops, geez of course they are going to experience lag, laptop's aren't designed for gaming!

To everbody who experiences this 'lag':

If you don't have at least 2 gigs of ram, a decent cpu (with maths co processor), an dedicated video card, a stable internet connection, and your graphical setting NOT set to the absolute best because of your need of that extra few frames per second then you increase your chances of experiencing client side lag.

I live on the opposite side of the planet from where the servers are and I certainly don't experience the majority of the lag that people report. I reset my computer about once a month and it is on 24/7.

So please look at your own computer first, see if you can find ways of improving it, make sure it is defragged, disable any programs from loading up that don't need to be loaded up, remove that high resolution photo you took of your family/gf/etc from your desktop. Try decreasing some of your graphical settings within the DDO Client and see if it makes a difference. There are plenty of things you can do to your own machine to increase performance.

[hydra_ex]

It's not supposed to fix dps lag. Do you throw away your hammer because it doesn't help you tighten a bolt? It was designed to address 1 source of lag, and that's it.

Other sources require other fixes. Removing DA is not a fix to any other source.

Removing DA is a fix to my playstyle in some situations. I'd throw away a hammer if it took a room I could fit a much better wrench there instead.

I understand that its probably not supposed to fix DPS lag, as I said in my other post (using the word "believe" in the sense that I might be wrong, but I hold that assumption anyway).

Now, they way I see it (which I'm going to say right now may be completely off) is as such:

Good: Reduces server lag. I don't how much, but I assume that its significant, but still easily playable* without.
Bad: Some quests it automatically spawns, such as Threnal East III, making it harmful. In explorer areas, it discourages the "divide and conquer" strategy, especially classes like FvS or sorc who kite many mobs at one time. Additionally, it occasionally triggers in some quests when you're doing everything right, such as BoP. Also, it demotes certain favour speed-running, since a quest which you could easily run through before might harry and kill you**. There are of course other quests and situations as well.
Neutral: It does nothing in most quests.

IMO, the bad outweighs the good, so although I know it reduces what I'm calling "sever lag," I would accept an increase in it if I could run without it. This is assuming that my assumption in * is right.

*I'll define playable as better than the nuisance which DPS lag causes now.
**In quests several levels lower. Not super easy, but ones you could do if DA weren't there.

Of course, I may be wrong with the amount it helps, but I have no hard data to neither refute nor support my claim, so, I'll risk being wrong until proven otherwise.

[LordPiglet]

Yep been a programmer for about the same time, been a server/network admin for many years as well, and I totally agree with you.

There are people playing this game on laptops, geez of course they are going to experience lag, laptop's aren't designed for gaming!

To everbody who experiences this 'lag':

If you don't have at least 2 gigs of ram, a decent cpu (with maths co processor), an dedicated video card, a stable internet connection, and your graphical setting NOT set to the absolute best because of your need of that extra few frames per second then you increase your chances of experiencing client side lag.

I live on the opposite side of the planet from where the servers are and I certainly don't experience the majority of the lag that people report. I reset my computer about once a month and it is on 24/7.

So please look at your own computer first, see if you can find ways of improving it, make sure it is defragged, disable any programs from loading up that don't need to be loaded up, remove that high resolution photo you took of your family/gf/etc from your desktop. Try decreasing some of your graphical settings within the DDO Client and see if it makes a difference. There are plenty of things you can do to your own machine to increase performance.

The last wintel chip I can think of without a math co-processor is the Nexgen 5x86, and those were RISC based.

Plenty of laptops can run the game fine. All it takes is a discreet (non-intel) video. The graphics engine for this game isn't exactly demanding, especially considering Vista and Windows 7 go into basic mode while the game is running. It runs fine on my xps m1330 when I'm traveling and away from my main rig.

That said, the biggest system lag causers are video lag from integrated intel graphics and lack of ram.

[SilkofDrasnia]

seriously this is the prob :http://www.losethattyre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/computers-and-tape-reels-old6.jpg

lol

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

Bad: Some quests it automatically spawns, such as Threnal East III, making it harmful.

It was fixed in that quest quite a while ago. You shouldn't repeat things without knowing if they are still true. As people bother to file the bug reports on specific quests the devs have been fixing them.

The rest of your post, that I didn't bother quoting goes on about playstyle.

I do not in any way shape or form believe that all playstyles have equal merit. Specifically, any playstyle that is known to have a negative effect on server performance for everyone else, is something that I could never do. I guess some people don't think like that, and I find that absurdly selfish.

[Eladiun]

In explorer areas, it discourages the "divide and conquer" strategy, especially classes like FvS or sorc who kite many mobs at one time.


Take note of the difference between the explorer area in the Reaver's Refuge and older areas. The tether on MoB's is significantly shorter in Reaver's (sometimes a little too short but beggars can't be choosers). It makes DA much less likely. I assume this is a change that will be mirrored into older areas.

[Thrudh]

Not the best response to any poster Thrudh. Suck it up or quit is hardly a convincing argument for any position.

I agree that it's not a good response to most posters... but dire keeps bringing up the same post over and over...

Dire: Waaaaa! DA sucks!! DA causes lag!!

Devs: No it reduces lag...

Dire: Lies! The devs are liars! Common sense shows that adding DA calculations must INCREASE lag!! It must! I will not listen to any logic that goes against my premise!!

[Zippo]

Hey all

its just my rant timer going off .... haven't made anyone hate me in a while so figured i would give it a go again.

these are my top 5 reason we have lag in DDO

5) F2P model ... lots of people is good for business ... lots of people on the same server = lag out the ying yang and most of it is people sitting around doing nothing but a free long distance chat channel ... but this is a small portion of the lag ... and since the f2p dont have there own server we are kinda stuck with it anyway. Back before F2P when you signed up it had suggested server to prevent this same kind of issues .... does this still happen ? personally i dont know but i dont see it anymore ... i used to see it all the time even as a "VIP" or as i like to call it paid beta tester in the pre-f2p game.

4) Red Lighters .... yup you know who you are ... going into dungeons agroing everything and killing nothing that doesnt gain you access to a chest ... but this is not as bad as some other issues ... but contributes alot to lag issues.

3) Hirelings ... especially in groups with multiple hirelings you might think you control it and that makes it the same as a player controlled character but your wrong computer has to map out its movement and actions and distance from player and and and all on top of mobs as well and then when it has to do it for three in a mission of three players and three hirelings ... oh my

2) server capacity .... the servers can only hold so many people at a time ... VIP's are told they get priority access .... this is all fine and good but if there are 1000 f2p'ers not in mission not in groups and just running around cities doing nothing then the People (vip f2p and p2p) who do get in get bogged down with so much lag that they cant play the game properly ... they need to add a kick you for not being productive feature for non VIP's ... if you haven't clicked on a vendor or haven't entered a mission or adventure area in over an hour ... booted ... this would eliminate alot of the lag built up from people doing nothing but taking up server space and would let more VIP's get into the game instead of getting qued.



LAST BUT NOT LEAST .... THE NUMBER 1 REASON FOR LAG IN DDO

drum roll





http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs532.ash1/31213_1471786517491_1318482926_1316653_1978675_n.j pg

Fixed that for ya

[Thrudh]

Zergers will always be around DA didnt solve that issue lol ...

DA has reduced zerging... Even the most die-hard zergers I've witnessed still usually stop and kill stuff once they hit red-alert... Before many of them killed nothing...

And less people zerg... Especially new players... They would have picked up the bad habit of zerging from the vets except that DA discourages that type of play... So if nothing else, a million NEW players aren't learning to zerg.



Zerging isnt causing the lag ... cause no one is zergin shroud part 4

And for the 40th time, DPS lag is different from AI lag... You've been told that at least 40 times, and you still bring up the same stupid argument... There are others against DA who at least can see the difference between the two types... You continually make the same posts with the same failed logic over and over and over.

I'm done with you.

[Eladiun]

Dire: Lies! The devs are liars! Common sense shows that adding DA calculations must INCREASE lag!! It must! I will not listen to any logic that goes against my premise!!

Especially considering the calculation is probably as simple as...

MoBsAggroed++

[hydra_ex]

The rest of your post, that I didn't bother quoting goes on about playstyle.

I do not in any way shape or form believe that all playstyles have equal merit. Specifically, any playstyle that is known to have a negative effect on server performance for everyone else, is something that I could never do. I guess some people don't think like that, and I find that absurdly selfish.

Neither do I. If you had read more carefully, and actually taken note of the nuances of the words "I for one," "for me," "I believe," "the way I see it" and "in my opinion," you would have noticed that nowhere do I say "I advocate," getting rid of it. I merely say that if it were up to me alone, I would. It's a very subjective thing. My original post argued with Tarrant about using the term "good" without qualification. I qualified it speaking for myself and others of my opinion, stating that in my opinion, it is bad and would prefer it not to be there.

I find it ridiculous that I have to keep on telling you that I know what I'm talking about (well, beyond that one little mishap) and that what I stated was merely an opinion. Your opinion is not right. Neither is mine. So stop telling me that mine is wrong and unfounded. For me, mine is right and sanely based in the game. However, since I am but one person, who cares what my opinion is?

Must I really keep on reiterating that? Perhaps. I'll just conclude briefly. My initial post argued with Tarrant's unqualified use of use good. I qualified it and discussed my belied on why I think its bad. You then attacked me for that opinion, possibly based on a misunderstanding. I clarified my opinion for you, constantly repeating that is was nothing but my own opinion. You attacked me again, putting words in my mouth, and saying again that my opinion was wrong. Perhaps it was another misunderstanding. Either way, please stop hounding me. I'm getting tired of defending a point which I'm right about, namely, I know what my opinion os, which for me is a sound one, and you don't.


Take note of the difference between the explorer area in the Reaver's Refuge and older areas. The tether on MoB's is significantly shorter in Reaver's (sometimes a little too short but beggars can't be choosers). It makes DA much less likely. I assume this is a change that will be mirrored into older areas.

Maybe. I wouldn't put my money on it, though.

[Fafnir]

Lag is a killer in this game. Vanguard has such a bad release and bad reputation but (now) performs much better than DDO. DDO is saved by its great combat system and character flexibility.

Additionally for Australian players, the 'backup lag' that occurs for say 45 minutes every night in our prime time makes this even worse.

[Thrudh]

Removing DA is a fix to my playstyle in some situations. I'd throw away a hammer if it took a room I could fit a much better wrench there instead.

I understand that its probably not supposed to fix DPS lag, as I said in my other post (using the word "believe" in the sense that I might be wrong, but I hold that assumption anyway).

Now, they way I see it (which I'm going to say right now may be completely off) is as such:

Good: Reduces server lag. I don't how much, but I assume that its significant, but still easily playable* without.
Bad: Some quests it automatically spawns, such as Threnal East III, making it harmful. In explorer areas, it discourages the "divide and conquer" strategy, especially classes like FvS or sorc who kite many mobs at one time. Additionally, it occasionally triggers in some quests when you're doing everything right, such as BoP. Also, it demotes certain favour speed-running, since a quest which you could easily run through before might harry and kill you**. There are of course other quests and situations as well.
Neutral: It does nothing in most quests.

IMO, the bad outweighs the good, so although I know it reduces what I'm calling "sever lag," I would accept an increase in it if I could run without it. This is assuming that my assumption in * is right.

*I'll define playable as better than the nuisance which DPS lag causes now.
**In quests several levels lower. Not super easy, but ones you could do if DA weren't there.

Of course, I may be wrong with the amount it helps, but I have no hard data to neither refute nor support my claim, so, I'll risk being wrong until proven otherwise.

This post I like... I don't agree with all of it... but I respect it...

[hydra_ex]

This post I like... I don't agree with all of it... but I respect it...

Yay! I'm respected! Why?

[knightgf]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well.

I hope you didn't forget to save that data, because I certainly would love to see a comparison of some kind regarding Dungeon Alert, even if its some silly graph you made in Microsoft Paint...

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

Neither do I. If you had read more carefully, and actually taken note of the nuances of the words "I for one," "for me," "I believe," "the way I see it" and "in my opinion," you would have noticed that nowhere do I say "I advocate," getting rid of it. I merely say that if it were up to me alone, I would. It's a very subjective thing. My original post argued with Tarrant about using the term "good" without qualification. I qualified it speaking for myself and others of my opinion, stating that in my opinion, it is bad and would prefer it not to be there.

I find it ridiculous that I have to keep on telling you that I know what I'm talking about (well, beyond that one little mishap) and that what I stated was merely an opinion. Your opinion is not right. Neither is mine. So stop telling me that mine is wrong and unfounded. For me, mine is right and sanely based in the game. However, since I am but one person, who cares what my opinion is?

Must I really keep on reiterating that? Perhaps. I'll just conclude briefly. My initial post argued with Tarrant's unqualified use of use good. I qualified it and discussed my belied on why I think its bad. You then attacked me for that opinion, possibly based on a misunderstanding. I clarified my opinion for you, constantly repeating that is was nothing but my own opinion. You attacked me again, putting words in my mouth, and saying again that my opinion was wrong. Perhaps it was another misunderstanding. Either way, please stop hounding me. I'm getting tired of defending a point which I'm right about, namely, I know what my opinion os, which for me is a sound one, and you don't.



Maybe. I wouldn't put my money on it, though.

Your post makes no sense with respect to what I said in this thread. It's as if you are talking about things I never said. Very weird stuff here.

You can say, "I believe" and "the way I see it" all you want, it does not prevent you from being wrong. Get over it.

You said why you wanted it to not be there. I pointed out that the things you want to do have a negative impact on server performance for everyone. Your beliefs don't change those facts. Your opinions about how you want to play don't change those facts.

Of course your opinion is wrong. The devs have the performance stats that say agroing lots of mobs, or zerging past lots of mobs has a negative impact on everyone else on the server. Wanting to do it anyway is wrong no matter how much you care to hold dear the opinion that it's how you want to play.

I truly find it mind boggling the way you can just keep on ignoring that point and instead keep up the self entitlement act about how your opinion is somehow a sacred thing to be respected just because it's an opinion.

[Tobril]

I really have no idea what firewater is talking about.

I don't have lag, ever.

Now occasionally I see people piking shroud and some other raids, as I'm the only one in THE ENTIRE PARTY swinging, but I just chalk that up to laziness on the part of everyone else.

:D

[Jasam01]

On DA reducing lag. I don't buy it outright. What I have seen of the Devs methodolgy in other areas of development, prevents me from having the raw faith to belive a blanket statement.

It's not going to reduce Zerging at all. People are still going to do the quest as fast as possable. This isn't ever going to change, so I'm presuming the decrease comes from trying to make them kill more mobs to reduce the AI load.

IF it slows them down, but they still refrain from killing anything, you have lots of AI thats active for LONGER then a non DA run due to slowing people down.
If it forces a few kills, is that enough to offset the longer time spent near the end of the quest with the large number of still active AIs? A non DA group could well finish faster and the whole instance is back to nothing.

I'm not going to to deny that if it causes people to kill more mobs, it should reduce the overal load, but is it that simple?

Is the cerver load it releaving even that sugnificant in the scheme of things? Seems to me most of the issues are from graphic performance and issues with large numbers of attack effects. I certainly can't say I have EVER has lag for no reason due to server strain in general, so these seem restricted to the instance they are running on anyway.



But there are more IMPORTANT issues with it.

Like removing perfectly valid methods of completing quests.

I remember my first attempt at that quest where you have to steal the from kobolds without killing 6 or so of them.
I figure 'Plan B - RUN' would of got me through a part where it turned nasty.
DA triggers, not chance at all, in what would of been an otherwise clearable run.

Not to mention that time in the Waterworks were one dude went off and Red the whole dungeon and suddenly all hell breaks lose with a nice DA to make it worse ¬.¬.

[hydra_ex]

Your post makes no sense with respect to what I said in this thread. It's as if you are talking about things I never said. Very weird stuff here.

You can say, "I believe" and "the way I see it" all you want, it does not prevent you from being wrong. Get over it.

You said why you wanted it to not be there. I pointed out that the things you want to do have a negative impact on server performance for everyone. Your beliefs don't change those facts. Your opinions about how you want to play don't change those facts.

Of course your opinion is wrong. The devs have the performance stats that say agroing lots of mobs, or zerging past lots of mobs has a negative impact on everyone else on the server. Wanting to do it anyway is wrong no matter how much you care to hold dear the opinion that it's how you want to play.

I truly find it mind boggling the way you can just keep on ignoring that point and instead keep up the self entitlement act about how your opinion is somehow a sacred thing to be respected just because it's an opinion.

Analyze what I said initially, since my second post was simply an explanation and clarification of my opinion, and not any form of advice for how to deal with it.

Initially, Tarrant said that that DA was "good." "Good" implies good for everybody, don't you think? If not, then we interpreted what he said differently, and we're arguing because of a gross misunderstanding. If you think that it does, read on.

Would you agree that I don't like DA? Of course you would. Therefore, would you say that for me and my playstyle, analyzed in a vacuum* (given the limitations I stated in my 2nd post, ie the degree to which DA works) DA is "bad?" Probably.

That it all I am trying to say. For me it is "bad." My second post might have come off a little more blunt and seemed more selfish and absolute, but as I will state again, it was merely an explanation of my opinion for why I thought it was "bad" because you seemed to imply, to me, that you wanted a validation of it. Now you can agree or disagree with my validation, which may lead me to change my opinion, but right now, you're calling me selfish and my opinion wrong. If you would stop the arbitrary and incorrect name calling and tell me what you found wrong with my reasons (besides the fact that instituting it would ruin other's experience), then do it, as I would actually like to hear your oppositions and discuss them with you. Perhaps you are right, after all, to be honest, as, in retrospect I'm starting to think you are right and that my validation is wrong.

So, if you wish to have a discussion about why DA is or is not "bad" for me, and me alone, then tell me. If you call that selfish, then I don't know what to think, since I'm obviously trying to discuss a non-reality based situation, an abstract which will most likely never be pertinent to the real game. I will repeat: I do not wish for my suggestion to be carried out. I never did. You were right in saying that it would be selfish, and I completely agree. I merely wanted to clarify why it hinders my playstyle, and why I think I would prefer it, for me alone, playing in a perfect world -- a vacuum, if DA were removed, which, as first you, and then I, have stated, it is a stupid idea which should never actually be considered (well, unless they find a "real" fix to the problem, since DA is nothing more than a [reasonably successful] workaround, as I'm sure you'll agree).

*Yes, I know you can't analyze it in a vacuum. But lets just take a hypothetical scenario where we could. That's all I'm saying.

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

On DA reducing lag. I don't buy it outright. What I have seen of the Devs methodolgy in other areas of development, prevents me from having the raw faith to belive a blanket statement.

It's not going to reduce Zerging at all. People are still going to do the quest as fast as possable. This isn't ever going to change, so I'm presuming the decrease comes from trying to make them kill more mobs to reduce the AI load.

IF it slows them down, but they still refrain from killing anything, you have lots of AI thats active for LONGER then a non DA run due to slowing people down.
If it forces a few kills, is that enough to offset the longer time spent near the end of the quest with the large number of still active AIs? A non DA group could well finish faster and the whole instance is back to nothing.

I'm not going to to deny that if it causes people to kill more mobs, it should reduce the overal load, but is it that simple?

Is the cerver load it releaving even that sugnificant in the scheme of things? Seems to me most of the issues are from graphic performance and issues with large numbers of attack effects. I certainly can't say I have EVER has lag for no reason due to server strain in general, so these seem restricted to the instance they are running on anyway.



But there are more IMPORTANT issues with it.

Like removing perfectly valid methods of completing quests.

I remember my first attempt at that quest where you have to steal the from kobolds without killing 6 or so of them.
I figure 'Plan B - RUN' would of got me through a part where it turned nasty.
DA triggers, not chance at all, in what would of been an otherwise clearable run.

Not to mention that time in the Waterworks were one dude went off and Red the whole dungeon and suddenly all hell breaks lose with a nice DA to make it worse ¬.¬.

If you were not playing before your join date you probably don't know.. they turned off DA for a few weeks a few months ago. Sever performance took a nose dive. They turned it back on and server performance improved. It's as simple as that to know that it helps.

Graphic performance issues is a client issue and is based on your pc's power vs settings, and has nothing to do with the server. DA is not meant to address that issue.

Saying you don't experience lag doesn't mean other people don't. I often mention that I pretty much never see any lag, but certainly don't ever mean to say that the lag other people describe, does not exist.

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

Analyze what I said initially, since my second post was simply an explanation and clarification of my opinion, and not any form of advice for how to deal with it.

Initially, Tarrant said that that DA was "good." "Good" implies good for everybody, don't you think? If not, then we interpreted what he said differently, and we're arguing because of a gross misunderstanding. If you think that it does, read on.

Would you agree that I don't like DA? Of course you would. Therefore, would you say that for me and my playstyle, analyzed in a vacuum* (given the limitations I stated in my 2nd post, ie the degree to which DA works) DA is "bad?" Probably.

That it all I am trying to say. For me it is "bad." My second post might have come off a little more blunt and seemed more selfish and absolute, but as I will state again, it was merely an explanation of my opinion for why I thought it was "bad" because you seemed to imply, to me, that you wanted a validation of it. Now you can agree or disagree with my validation, which may lead me to change my opinion, but right now, you're calling me selfish and my opinion wrong. If you would stop the arbitrary and incorrect name calling and tell me what you found wrong with my reasons (besides the fact that instituting it would ruin other's experience), then do it, as I would actually like to hear your oppositions and discuss them with you. Perhaps you are right, after all, to be honest, as, in retrospect I'm starting to think you are right and that my validation is wrong.

So, if you wish to have a discussion about why DA is or is not "bad" for me, and me alone, then tell me. If you call that selfish, then I don't know what to think, since I'm obviously trying to discuss a non-reality based situation, an abstract which will most likely never be pertinent to the real game. I will repeat: I do not wish for my suggestion to be carried out. I never did. You were right in saying that it would be selfish, and I completely agree. I merely wanted to clarify why it hinders my playstyle, and why I think I would prefer it, for me alone, playing in a perfect world -- a vacuum, if DA were removed, which, as first you, and then I, have stated, it is a stupid idea which should never actually be considered (well, unless they find a "real" fix to the problem, since DA is nothing more than a [reasonably successful] workaround, as I'm sure you'll agree).

*Yes, I know you can't analyze it in a vacuum. But lets just take a hypothetical scenario where we could. That's all I'm saying.

Ok, I can agree with that.

[hydra_ex]

Ok, I can agree with that.

Thanks, looks like we just had a misunderstanding :)

[Burradin]

Even in ToD? Or the very end of VoD? Or epic DQ?

I don't lag in these with any consistency. Rare occasions. I use hirelings for stuff and never seen any lag from them. Only place I lag with regularity is Shroud. Every where else, is fine except maybe one spike somewhere during the night. One other place I will always lag, even if no one is around is going from the inn to the teleport person in Necropolis. Same spot every time.

But As the person you were asking, I have a pretty good gaming machine.

[hydra_ex]

I don't lag in these with any consistency. Rare occasions. I use hirelings for stuff and never seen any lag from them. Only place I lag with regularity is Shroud. Every where else, is fine except maybe one spike somewhere during the night. One other place I will always lag, even if no one is around is going from the inn to the teleport person in Necropolis. Same spot every time.

But As the person you were asking, I have a pretty good gaming machine.

The machine isn't the problem. I've played on my brother's machine, and I get lag in the same spots. He reports lag in the same spots.

I'm using a laptop.

He's using a custom-built gaming computer.

Its in the connection, and these places seem to be constant with almost everyone. Maybe your groups are all THF? ;)

[jcTharin]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.

i have an idea. and this is in all seriousness.

turn Dungeon Alert off for a weekend.

if the lag gets worse then it will be proof that DA helps lag. you will have proof and it will make us all shut up about it.

then we will just complain about how you should have designed it differently or something.

i hate DA just as much as the next guy. but if i see this of if you were to show us the data that you say proves it then i will have no choice but to admit that Dungeon Alert is a necessary evil.

edit: ugh, i sound like an idiot. this is what i get for posting before reading the whole thread.

[hydra_ex]

i have an idea. and this is in all seriousness.

turn Dungeon Alert off for a weekend.

if the lag gets worse then it will be proof that DA helps lag. you will have proof and it will make us all shut up about it.

then we will just complain about how you should have designed it differently or something.

i hate DA just as much as the next guy. but if i see this of if you were to show us the data that you say proves it then i will have no choice but to admit that Dungeon Alert is a necessary evil.

Or perhaps even just show us your data? I mean, if you have it, what harm is there in showing it? Its not like it will do much harm to you... unless of course you're making it up, which I doubt (although wouldn't put it past you guys -- you especially, Foxboy!). :p

[IronClan]

Or perhaps even just show us your data? I mean, if you have it, what harm is there in showing it? Its not like it will do much harm to you... unless of course you're making it up, which I doubt (although wouldn't put it past you guys -- you especially, Foxboy!). :p

never mind I miss read the last sentence...

I can't think of any plausible non tin foil hat reason why they would lie, a few got tossed around in the last DA/Zerg thread... The simple fact is it makes sense that successfully lowering the amount of zerging would lower the number of ai's and to reiterate they;'ve said it's not JUST about lag.. It's ALSO the negative perception of zerging they want to lower by discouraging it to begin with.

[Zippo]

Or perhaps even just show us your data? I mean, if you have it, what harm is there in showing it? Its not like it will do much harm to you... unless of course you're making it up, which I doubt (although wouldn't put it past you guys -- you especially, Foxboy!). :p

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/4/6/128835519363430927.jpg

[IronClan]

i have an idea. and this is in all seriousness.

turn Dungeon Alert off for a weekend..

They did that already :)

[Dark_Helmet]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.

So was the mass exodus of users: less users, less lag. You were winning! That proves that less players is better for the game, right?

Meh, I heard the same thing from a manager once: If we didn't have all these users, the network would be fine. The issue was the network drivers were ****, but the solution was not having as many people on the network.

DA is addressing a symptom and is not the cure. It isn't in the spirit of the rules no matter how you twisted it.

That is fact.

Speaking of which, Dungeon Scaling contributes to lag as more people are running in smaller groups or soloing; Therefore, there are more instances full of monsters being calculated. Why don't you get rid of dungeon scaling? Heck, soloing is contributing the most: If you have 102 players soloing, you have 102 instances. If you have 102 players in full groups, that would be 17 instances. Why not force people to have a group of 6 to enter a dungeon... You can then say how great force grouping is, it combats lag and that is a fact!

So, the ultimate solution is to make a dungeon with just a single monster?

All the new players could just do the above for free and be just as happy as when they are playing with dungeon alert - since they have no idea how D&D should work.


Face the facts: The engine is broke in the car, so quit blaming the passengers who want to go at previously advertised speeds.

[Fafnir]

Fair post, Dark

[Greydeath]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.

Or perhaps we second guess you because you have lied to us before, which makes it amusing that you assume we should now trust you all of a sudden.

Or perhaps the Devs tell us something that is categorically untrue and we can document otherwise and prove it, but they still cling to their posted belief.

Or perhaps a Dev posts something that is mathematically wrong and then cannot understand why it is so.

Or perhaps we just grow tired of the same old song and dance/smoke and mirrors routine that is well past getting old.

Finally, perhaps it is because there are a lot more people doing a lot more testing than you ever do, and their results say otherwise.

[Greydeath]

So was the mass exodus of users: less users, less lag. You were winning! That proves that less players is better for the game, right?

Meh, I heard the same thing from a manager once: If we didn't have all these users, the network would be fine. The issue was the network drivers were ****, but the solution was not having as many people on the network.

DA is addressing a symptom and is not the cure. It isn't in the spirit of the rules no matter how you twisted it.

That is fact.

Speaking of which, Dungeon Scaling contributes to lag as more people are running in smaller groups or soloing; Therefore, there are more instances full of monsters being calculated. Why don't you get rid of dungeon scaling? Heck, soloing is contributing the most: If you have 102 players soloing, you have 102 instances. If you have 102 players in full groups, that would be 17 instances. Why not force people to have a group of 6 to enter a dungeon... You can then say how great force grouping is, it combats lag and that is a fact!

So, the ultimate solution is to make a dungeon with just a single monster?

All the new players could just do the above for free and be just as happy as when they are playing with dungeon alert - since they have no idea how D&D should work.


Face the facts: The engine is broke in the car, so quit blaming the passengers who want to go at previously advertised speeds.
QFT
Absolutely awesome. Mod pwnage at its best!
+1

[Jasam01]

If you were not playing before your join date you probably don't know.. they turned off DA for a few weeks a few months ago. Sever performance took a nose dive. They turned it back on and server performance improved. It's as simple as that to know that it helps.

Graphic performance issues is a client issue and is based on your pc's power vs settings, and has nothing to do with the server. DA is not meant to address that issue.

Saying you don't experience lag doesn't mean other people don't. I often mention that I pretty much never see any lag, but certainly don't ever mean to say that the lag other people describe, does not exist.

I have heard of it, though very mixed opions on what the resutls mean. I wish I had been on at the time ^^'.

I think you misunderstand what I said in terms with grpahical performace. What I was saying is that most of the complaints seem to be about grahical performance (Which people mistake for lag) and 'DPS lag'm neither of which are 'The whole server is running slow as a snail because he server can't deal with all the zerging' lag.

Said final one is the issue DA is ment to fix, and I can't say while playing I have run into the issues that it is aparently preventing. As such I can conclude that is is impossable to be sure it's working from thought expermiment, the reports on 'tests' by the admins are not beliveable, and the players are the usual missmash of opinions on the itme it was off....

So it all comes down to getting on my neves in quests and resulting in failures that would otherwise not have happoned. Which is of more concern to me then trying to work out if the devs decided that DA was good because they got a better framerate on their shiny new computer and declared it the ultimate test (of ultimate destiny) and thus created a conspircy to hide the fact that most of posters on the forum are actualy one little old monkey in their basement or not.

[Hendrik]

Dungeon Alert helps lag. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Our data proves this, and your ability to continue to enjoy the game despite the enormous increase in player population we've seen since DDO Unlimited launched should be an indicator as well. No, it hasn't completely fixed the lag problem, but I can assure you Dungeon Alert does far more good than harm.

There will always be players that second-guess what we say, even with no evidence other than their own assumptions, but for those of you that are unsure, take my word for it. Dungeon Alert is a good thing.


QFT!

To bad many will never believe the facts you have at your disposal.

Keep up the good work and let loose U5!

:cool:

[Grond]

To bad many will never believe the facts you have at your disposal.



Well, there are people who still think the earth is flat... :D

[ieatogres]

Lag is a killer in this game. Vanguard has such a bad release and bad reputation but (now) performs much better than DDO. DDO is saved by its great combat system and character flexibility.



I think the client side system requirements of the game have slightly increased since launch. I, on rare occasion, experience server side lag. This is usually the type of lag that causes massive out of sync conditions for a several seconds. Again, this is a rare occasion. It has happened in groups and when soloing, so I don't think this lag is related to DPS. I would say most peoples lag problems are most likely due to client side lag. Someone here stated that 2 gigs of memory was minimum, I would say you should have a minimum 4 gigs for good performance in DDO. Windows XP might get away with 2 gigs, but Vista users I think would become memory bound at 2 gig.
I do see some occasional, what I call hitching, on the client side also. This is when I am getting a smooth 60 fps and then it drops way down for just a few frames (fraction of a second) and then goes right back to 60 fps. This usually seems to be when DDO is accessing file data. This seems to happen more since the initial release.

[Nagantor]

What a fun thread to read, lots of people stating facts with obviously very little knowledge about the technologies involved and of course those zerging defenders. Stuff like more numbers causing more server traffic (look up on package sizes) or all that client related stuff. Of course, much real lag could be reduced by simply optimizing the client further so it takes less CPU/GPU power for some stuff. On the other hand, I don't know how much effort was already put into this, might be that the low hanging fruits are all picked. But in general computer games tend to waste a lot of ressources as this saves developer time. (And no, I don't refer to optimizing for the max, that has its own set of problems for sure.)

I'm one of those bad guys causing lag by playing solo. Actually it's because I want to enjoy quests, take my time, solve all the optionals and finding a group which wants to play that slow as well will be hard. Most people with a like mind won't look out for groups (like me). But is that bad? Well, that depends not on the merit for your playstyle or mine. It depends on what is most usefull to the company. Without F2P and solo mode I wouldn't have played at all and not put in any money. If actions stopping zerging remove a few high volume players and pull in a lot of others who pay more... guess which group wins the management decision on wheter to activate such measures or not.

As some said before, wheter a particular playstyle is getting support doesn't depend on wheter people have fun it or wheter the given rules allow it. In the end it depends on what the company believes to bring in the most money. If that means obstacles on something you personally like, tough luck. There's no guarantee given that something which worked before will work in future AFAIK. If the game changes in way that spoil my fun, I'll simply spend my time with something different and had a nice time with it until then.

[Drfirewater79]

Face the facts: The engine is broke in the car, so quit blaming the passengers who want to go at previously advertised speeds.

Thank you dark ... you said it in a way i could never have ... polite and to the point with no flame out.

[Cyr]

QFT!

To bad many will never believe the facts you have at your disposal.

Keep up the good work and let loose U5!

:cool:

Your right Hen. I don't believe blanket statements, ever.

If it reduced server load by 10% with a flawed testing procedure it can be argued rather easily that the gains are actually less then those measured and are not worth the costs. After years of dealing with Turbine and seeing what bugs make it into game I have a very low confidence level that they had good test setup for this. Particularly since it is clearly an easy way out for them where they don't have to stream line the underlying code or get better hardware.

[Eladiun]

Well, there are people who still think the earth is flat... :D


...and that evolution is a myth.

[Drfirewater79]

If you were not playing before your join date you probably don't know.. they turned off DA for a few weeks a few months ago. Sever performance took a nose dive. They turned it back on and server performance improved. It's as simple as that to know that it helps.

Graphic performance issues is a client issue and is based on your pc's power vs settings, and has nothing to do with the server. DA is not meant to address that issue.

Saying you don't experience lag doesn't mean other people don't. I often mention that I pretty much never see any lag, but certainly don't ever mean to say that the lag other people describe, does not exist.

I have a pretty nice rig ... not at home to give spec's but i play with dx 10 I play resident evil 5 on PC with highest resolution and highest graphic settings with no problems .. i play left 4 dead 2 on highest settings ... both games have higher graphic requirement then DDO

I play on high settings on DDO and only thing i have above high is object draw and that is cause i hate the effects after death in DDO on highest settings graphically.

but i still see people standing still while i wack away at harry in shroud ...

its not a graphic problem with my computer ... so why under your reasoning am i experiencing lag?

client side isnt the issue its server side in my case ... server load is high ... then do something about it ... I gave my options ...

make VIP what its suppost to be VERY IMPORTANT ... that way when a VIP wants on you start kicking the freeloaders ... NOT SAYING KICK F2P while in mission or while being productive but if someone hasnt gone in a mission/adventure area in two hours BOOT ... its the advantage of paying to play ...

this would lower server load from people running around humping people at the bank and not running missions and actually playing the game ...want to waste server capabilities ... pay for it ...


I also agree that soloing is causing alot of the problems ... with the large amount of players unable to run high end content with there lvl 20 characters alot of vets are 1 and 2 manning epic and aramath cause its less of a headache then running with a group of lvl 20's that dont know where to buy heal scrolls and are healing with wands.

at lvl 20 if i want wand healing i will do it myself and just not bring a freaking cleric.

[Drfirewater79]

Well, there are people who still think the earth is flat... :D

I think Hendrik's point is that unless we the people have the facts ... no one is gonna believe the people who say they do.

[Elphvyra]

I hope you didn't forget to save that data, because I certainly would love to see a comparison of some kind regarding Dungeon Alert, even if its some silly graph you made in Microsoft Paint...


Why? You still wouln't believe it. My personal belief on the main cause(s) of lag are people's ISPs and their machines. I'm one of the people who rarely get lag. So if it was mostly Turbine's fault, I'd expect to get the same lag as everyone else.... ;)

[Zippo]

Well, there are people who still think the earth is flat... :D

http://gstene.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/flat_earth.jpg



:D:D:D:D

[Eleia]

I started playing again about two months after the f2p mod. went live. Since this time I've had the worst lag ever, and I've even resorted to just soloing due to it. I agree with the op, however I have felt for quite a while now, that we need the original amount of servers this game use to have.

It made since back in the day to merge the servers; there just were not that many of us playing, and it helped a lot. However, during prime time (on my server at least) we are up to 4 to 5 instances of the market. I've seen up to 2 to 3 instances of the lobster. IMO, this is the main cause of most of our lag.

I have no idea how possible it is for turbine to open up more servers, as I've never played a game that has had to merge, then has gotten such an increase of players. However, nothing will change the fact that we need those servers back. There's just too many people playing now to not look into this.

[Drfirewater79]

What a fun thread to read, lots of people stating facts with obviously very little knowledge about the technologies involved and of course those zerging defenders. Stuff like more numbers causing more server traffic (look up on package sizes) or all that client related stuff. Of course, much real lag could be reduced by simply optimizing the client further so it takes less CPU/GPU power for some stuff. On the other hand, I don't know how much effort was already put into this, might be that the low hanging fruits are all picked. But in general computer games tend to waste a lot of ressources as this saves developer time. (And no, I don't refer to optimizing for the max, that has its own set of problems for sure.)

I'm one of those bad guys causing lag by playing solo. Actually it's because I want to enjoy quests, take my time, solve all the optionals and finding a group which wants to play that slow as well will be hard. Most people with a like mind won't look out for groups (like me). But is that bad? Well, that depends not on the merit for your playstyle or mine. It depends on what is most usefull to the company. Without F2P and solo mode I wouldn't have played at all and not put in any money. If actions stopping zerging remove a few high volume players and pull in a lot of others who pay more... guess which group wins the management decision on wheter to activate such measures or not.

As some said before, wheter a particular playstyle is getting support doesn't depend on wheter people have fun it or wheter the given rules allow it. In the end it depends on what the company believes to bring in the most money. If that means obstacles on something you personally like, tough luck. There's no guarantee given that something which worked before will work in future AFAIK. If the game changes in way that spoil my fun, I'll simply spend my time with something different and had a nice time with it until then.

I think you dont know much about zergin and as a new player I dont blame you for wanting to take it slow ... but if you think someone who takes it slow spends more then a zerger your nuts buddy ..

zergers use twice the resources ... so a zerging caster will run out of mana twice as fast as a "Slow n Go" player (SnG).

A SnG will be able to use his mana just in time to shrine .. a zerger runs out of mana alot faster in most cases .... so they are more likely to buy mana pots and healing items from store ... a zerger is always trying to optimize there characters potential so they can zerg with more ease ... so they are more likely to purchase TR tokens and lessers cause every time they pick up a +3 or 4 tome they are out of sync with the even numbered address ( only get bonuses for stats at even numbers).

there are not only vip zergers there are Premium zergers too .. .this is a fast paced game with fast paced combat real time real fast ...

I respect people for wanting to go slow .. .but dont say its cause you want to enjoy everything ... cause zergers enjoy everything too .. i get all the optionals when its worth the time (for instance in deleras) and when i can run the mission twice in the time of the optionals for 5 times the exp (like stormcleave) i do that instead.

you havent been playing this game for 4 years yet .. but if the game is around long enough for you to be at that stage my bet is you wont be soloing much you wont be SnGing it either ... after you have run water works 120 times on 12 different characters you will not want to waste three hours doing it ... especially when you know you can do the whole chain in 30 mins if your being lazy.

you know there used to be a saying on these forums ...

"you pay to play the game your way and i will pay to play it my way"

was said all the time ...

don't hate on others for being able to do what you cannot ... don't hate on others for not wanting to waste there time especially at low levels ...

oh and good luck soloing TOD or Shroud or Titan or for that matter any raid other then reaver raid ... if you want to get invited to raids and get the high end loot ... you got to learn to pick up the pace ...

its not the pace set by the players ... its the pace set by the game itself ...

you want slow play wow .. .that game is SLOW .. the biggest seller for DDO is real time combat ... well real time isnt slow .... look at the world around you everything is about going faster doing more in less time and achieving your goals in as short a time as possible ... that is life ... and that is DDO ...

Not saying that people shouldnt take there time ... shoot everyone has there own learning curve but to blame people who dont want to sit still and wait for the mob to come to them are the issue ... that is silly beyond understanding.

[Drfirewater79]

I started playing again about two months after the f2p mod. went live. Since this time I've had the worst lag ever, and I've even resorted to just soloing due to it. I agree with the op, however I have felt for quite a while now, that we need the original amount of servers this game use to have.

It made since back in the day to merge the servers; there just were not that many of us playing, and it helped a lot. However, during prime time (on my server at least) we are up to 4 to 5 instances of the market. I've seen up to 2 to 3 instances of the lobster. IMO, this is the main cause of most of our lag.

I have no idea how possible it is for turbine to open up more servers, as I've never played a game that has had to merge, then has gotten such an increase of players. However, nothing will change the fact that we need those servers back. There's just too many people playing now to not look into this.

I agree they need to go back to 10-2 servers

only problem with that is they didnt do it at launch...

so unless they offer a free server transfer for one month for any characters who want to switch servers it wont help much for servers like sarlona which are already bogged down.

I think turbine needs to suck it up ... open another 5 servers allow character transfers for free for a limited time to help fill the servers ...

if that happens you will see very quickly that some servers fill with specific play types ... Adar re opens it may become the zerging server ... Limbo server opens it may become the solo server ... Baerhwh server opens it maybe riddled with f2p

but if you give people an option and allow them to switch for free you will see the servers balance out ... alot of people are not happy with there servers I am sure but dont want to start all over again or lose there guilds or friends ... if it was free a full guild could switch to orien or cannith and only thing that would change for those people is the pugs they join rather then the guild raids and high end content they ran on there home server.


problem is paying for server transfer is not gonna happen in many cases ...

new server allowing people to transfer to it ... is not gonna happen cause turbine fears the tweek i guess?

just like how a response that tells us how turbine plans to address the lag in the game is never gonna happen :P

[SquelchHU]

QFT!

To bad many will never believe the facts you have at your disposal.

Keep up the good work and let loose U5!

:cool:

Like 'Pale Master is awesome and a very viable addition to wizards'?

...Too soon?

I've been staying out of this for the most part. But...


I think you dont know much about zergin and as a new player I dont blame you for wanting to take it slow ... but if you think someone who takes it slow spends more then a zerger your nuts buddy ..

zergers use twice the resources ... so a zerging caster will run out of mana twice as fast as a "Slow n Go" player (SnG).

A SnG will be able to use his mana just in time to shrine .. a zerger runs out of mana alot faster in most cases .... so they are more likely to buy mana pots and healing items from store ... a zerger is always trying to optimize there characters potential so they can zerg with more ease ... so they are more likely to purchase TR tokens and lessers cause every time they pick up a +3 or 4 tome they are out of sync with the even numbered address ( only get bonuses for stats at even numbers).

What the hell are you smoking? Zergers use LESS mana than a slow player. Why? Because using one AoE spell to kill 20 mobs is 20 times more efficient than zapping them one at a time. Further, due to limited mana and the quests mechanics casters pretty much are REQUIRED to zerg in order to use their mana efficiently, because if they screw around killing one mob at a time they'll have an empty blue bar after the first 10% of the quest and /pike the rest, or spread it out a bit more which means the same amount of /piking, but not all at once.

Deliberately getting a green, or a yellow skull and throwing out a firewall, or a wail however makes that blue bar go a very long way.

Not to mention buffs have a timer. This means a slow player is recasting them more often. Guess what? That's using more mana.

Now you might be right about the hearts and whatever, but you are utterly and completely wrong about the mana.

[Krag]

QFT!

To bad many will never believe the facts you have at your disposal.

Keep up the good work and let loose U5!

:cool:

We have had too many of those facts: WI flag does not exist. (http://asheron.wikia.com/wiki/Wi_Flag)

[IronClan]

LOL knew that was coming... Notice how many "facts" "those" were... er no... fact that was... one fact... singular not "too many" plural or "facts" plural or "those" plural but That, one, singular...

WAI flag is an example (one) of a developer not BELIEVING a very odd and unusual bug, and not being able to find it when they did investigate because it was so odd... They also openly admitted it when they DID find it... which blows the idea that they were lying about something or too "proud" to admit mistakes out of the water.

DA is a case of people who don't like it refusing to accept reality because reality doesn't agree with their objections and insisting that Turbine is openly and repeatedly lying about DA because they're big meanies...

If they had a REMOTELY plausible motivation for Turbine to lie about DA then they might have something to hang a kook hat on... But they don't even have that much...

[Failedlegend]

@OP You are 90% wrong the majority of lag is YOUR fault I had lag b4 too than I upgraded my PC now I rarely get lag even in Raids...sometimes there are lag spikes but its rare...even than half the time its someones connections fault.

[Cyr]

@OP You are 100% wrong the majority of lag is YOUR fault I had lag b4 too than I upgraded my PC now I rarely get lag even in Raids

Actually this does nothing to prove your point. It is inneficient game code that results in client side lag. This is still a Turbine problem to fix. Easy way to understand this is to realize that with a computer with 1/4 memory, 1/2 the cpu speed, and a junk video card/to a decent one the game had less client side lag for me 2 years ago then it does today.

Alhaz1970, Turbine has plenty of potential strong motives to lie about DA. If testing was done incorrectly then the developer who was in charge of the testing has a vested interest in keeping this underwraps. If the coding for this hated change was revealed to be a not as effective as first pitched then the developers in charge of the project would have a strong vested interest in keeping this underwraps. Another important one is DA is meant to address lag...if this proved to be very difficult to do and there was no potential to get hardware to deal with this then it would be easy to parade this out and say "See we are doing something about it" regardless of it's actual effects on lag. My thought has always been that a decision was made that it was too much work to actually stream line the pathing code so this gimmick was constructed instead. Testing was done in a biased manner and even then the test results did not give a huge reduction in resource use. Hence we get a statement that hey it works, but no real data or test procedures to tell us how incredibly effective this tool is. You know the stuff that would actually stop people from constantly complaining about it.

[Eladiun]

I agree they need to go back to 10-2 servers

only problem with that is they didnt do it at launch...


NO, NO, NO, NO... keep your ridiculous ideas to yourself. Keep server population high so you can actually fill raids and parties without standing around for 2 hours waiting. Half the reason I left the first time was that it was **** near impossible to get a party the servers were so empty.

The answer has been presented several times buy a good computer or drop the settings down to nil on your junk PC, draw distance, details, and etc. On a quad core with 4GB of RAM and GForce 8800 640 I get minimal lag and it's not exactly the newest kid on the market other than the board and chip (plus it could use another 4GB).

Also try a Game Speed Accelerator to shutdown all the **** you don't need running while playing...

http://games.softpedia.com/get/Tools/Game-Speed-Accelerator.shtml

[IronClan]

Actually this does nothing to prove your point. It is inneficient game code that results in client side lag. This is still a Turbine problem to fix. Easy way to understand this is to realize that with a computer with 1/4 memory, 1/2 the cpu speed, and a junk video card/to a decent one the game had less client side lag for me 2 years ago then it does today.

Alhaz1970, Turbine has plenty of potential strong motives to lie about DA. If testing was done incorrectly then the developer who was in charge of the testing has a vested interest in keeping this underwraps. If the coding for this hated change was revealed to be a not as effective as first pitched then the developers in charge of the project would have a strong vested interest in keeping this underwraps. Another important one is DA is meant to address lag...if this proved to be very difficult to do and there was no potential to get hardware to deal with this then it would be easy to parade this out and say "See we are doing something about it" regardless of it's actual effects on lag. My thought has always been that a decision was made that it was too much work to actually stream line the pathing code so this gimmick was constructed instead. Testing was done in a biased manner and even then the test results did not give a huge reduction in resource use. Hence we get a statement that hey it works, but no real data or test procedures to tell us how incredibly effective this tool is. You know the stuff that would actually stop people from constantly complaining about it.

IMO Cyr using anecdotal evidence in your first paragraph immediately before you try and accuse turbine of "testing incorrectly" does not improve your case... All you have is suppositions, assumptions that they are incompetent and presumptions that you are competent to judge what they are not... The last part about them not wanting to optimize... well...

Let me ask you this Cyr if you took the entire AI code module and re-wrote it entirely in assembly how much of a speed increase (expressed as a percentage) would you expect to see (an approximate range would be fine)

[Zippo]

@OP You are 100% wrong the majority of lag is YOUR fault I had lag b4 too than I upgraded my PC now I rarely get lag even in Raids

I'm not saying he's right but I think there may be a bit more to it then that. I have noticed running with certain guild mates it is laggier then others. One guild mate in particular who consistently has connection issues, when I run with him I see more. Leads me to think that the rate at which others are sending and receiving information on their end is also part of the problem. So if he is running with others that have less then nominal connections or under par pc this could be part of the issue.

[Magusrex777]

I don’t lag at all, well not true. I have had a few very infrequent and minor lag issues. I would say I experience lag here less than LOTRO and WoW, the last 2 game I played. I play on High/Ultra High 1920x1280 with DX 10 and shadows. This was a nearly top of the line Computer/Vid card in Dec 2008 but no longer.

I ran a huge guild on WoW and many people used to complain about terrible lag in large raids while others had relatively no lag. They would often have better comps than the people who had no lag . I am no super techie, can anyone explain why this could be? I am not talking about people with known poor or distant connections(We had some people playing from Taiwan and New Zealand.

I have not run a lot of raids in DDO yet but the ones I have, I have not had anyone complaining about lag but I see the complaints here on the forums all the time, usually accompanied by a veiled or direct attacks on DA, I wonder why that is?

[Eladiun]

I ran a huge guild on WoW and many people used to complain about terrible lag in large raids while others had relatively no lag. They would often have better comps than the people who had no lag . I am no super techie, can anyone explain why this could be? I am not talking about people with known poor or distant connections(We had some people playing from Taiwan and New Zealand.


Viruses and malware, lots of programs and services running in the background, old drivers, poor performance tuning, cheap/inefficient router, other users in the household downloading massive amounts of pron, etc, etc, etc...

[Cyr]

IMO Cyr using anecdotal evidence in your first paragraph immediately before you try and accuse turbine of "testing incorrectly" does not improve your case... All you have is suppositions, assumptions that they are incompetent and presumptions that you are competent to judge what they are not... The last part about them not wanting to optimize... well...

Let me ask you this Cyr if you took the entire AI code module and re-wrote it entirely in assembly how much of a speed increase (expressed as a percentage) would you expect to see (an approximate range would be fine)

Ah, ancedotal evidence. At least it is evidence. Turbine has yet to post any when it comes to DA only assertions that it helps. I'm not accusing them of screwing up their testing, I'm saying it's possible based upon their track record and their silence when the only way to silence their critics on DA is to simply share their test data showing remarkable reduction in resource use and the procedure they used to collect this data.

As you very well know Turbine code is a black box to us (as is any proprietary code). Commenting upon percentages is useless. I can simply state that their other code which does very simple things have had serious resource use issues (often on the client side). I listed more then a few of these in various posts if you care to see some examples of this.

I'm an electrical engineer. We do some optimization of code. I'm doing some today in fact. I've cut loop time by 20% today (the criteria for optimization is run time). We try and make our code fairly efficient to start with. It's not number one on our list, but it certainly is important for validation of a new version. So yeah, if code which was designed to be efficient can have ~20% gain then it's likely that Turbine's code probably has some room for improvement. Is it 20%, 50%, or 100s of %? When it comes to something like master's touch it most certainly is 1000+%.

[Drfirewater79]

NO, NO, NO, NO... keep your ridiculous ideas to yourself. Keep server population high so you can actually fill raids and parties without standing around for 2 hours waiting. Half the reason I left the first time was that it was **** near impossible to get a party the servers were so empty.

The answer has been presented several times buy a good computer or drop the settings down to nil on your junk PC, draw distance, details, and etc. On a quad core with 4GB of RAM and GForce 8800 640 I get minimal lag and it's not exactly the newest kid on the market other than the board and chip (plus it could use another 4GB).

Also try a Game Speed Accelerator to shutdown all the **** you don't need running while playing...

http://games.softpedia.com/get/Tools/Game-Speed-Accelerator.shtml

Keep your nonsensical ideas off my threads...

i have a freaking awesome quad core comp with 8 gigs of ram and a great graphics card ... the problem isnt me buddy ... its the 11 others that arent moving on my screen that isnt my problem i use a cable modem and have never had any issues with DDO before DA personally .... I dont run anything that doesnt need to be on while i game i have been playing MMO's for quite some time and know all the stupidity that happens in many cases ... I am not many cases ....

again i rarely get lag but when i do its massive ... like in shroud and at times in other raids .... and i seem to only get lag outside of raids during peak hours on DDO .. .when there are the most people on (6-10 weekdays are bad but 4-8 weekends are the worst by far) funny how those times are also the only times i log on and at times find i am on server que.

explain to me please how my computer being as good as it is (paid almost 2k for it when all said and done just last nov) is the cause of my lag ???

come off it dude ... wake up and smell the lag ... I am not the only one who says it ... the truth is all around you

[Cyr]

I have not run a lot of raids in DDO yet but the ones I have, I have not had anyone complaining about lag but I see the complaints here on the forums all the time, usually accompanied by a veiled or direct attacks on DA, I wonder why that is?

Mag I will give you a few pointers here.
A) Run the shroud more.
B) Run ToD more.
C) If you have good dps in either of the above simply ask in voice has anyone been getting lag in the quest? If it takes you more then one round to drop harry in part 4 it's not good dps.
D) Cast master touch.
E) Die with master's touch on.
F) Raids are the main offenders for lag. This has to do with the number of parties running them and the number of active mobs/players in them. It is telling when you say you have not run many yet since the end game content is where most lag is an issue.
G) Log on and play at a certain time of day. Thankfully I don't play during that time, but I hear complaints about it alot from friends who do.
H) Server side lag is not as common as most think. It is generally client side lag or local network lag issues. This can still lead to shared lag experiences of course because the same client side code is running for two players in the same group.
I) The main lag complaints have been about 'loot weekend rubber banding' and 'dps lag'. The first was a serious server side lag issue where the servers basically ground to a virtual standstill when too many players logged on at once. The second is often seen in shroud/ToD and is sometimes referred to as frame skipping. When you have a great dps party it is not uncommon for the only person to be swinging on your screen is your own toon. Heck, last ToD I ran there was a full 20 second lag from when the part 2 boss has died text came up to when he died on my screen.
J) Anytime you see someone throw mass buffs and they don't land someone is lagging out really bad.

[Drfirewater79]

I don’t lag at all, well not true. I have had a few very infrequent and minor lag issues. I would say I experience lag here less than LOTRO and WoW, the last 2 game I played. I play on High/Ultra High 1920x1280 with DX 10 and shadows. This was a nearly top of the line Computer/Vid card in Dec 2008 but no longer.

I ran a huge guild on WoW and many people used to complain about terrible lag in large raids while others had relatively no lag. They would often have better comps than the people who had no lag . I am no super techie, can anyone explain why this could be? I am not talking about people with known poor or distant connections(We had some people playing from Taiwan and New Zealand.

I have not run a lot of raids in DDO yet but the ones I have, I have not had anyone complaining about lag but I see the complaints here on the forums all the time, usually accompanied by a veiled or direct attacks on DA, I wonder why that is?

prolly cause you dont play shroud often enough.

[Eladiun]

again i rarely get lag but when i do its massive ... like in shroud and at times in other raids .... and i seem to only get lag outside of raids during peak hours on DDO .. .when there are the most people on (6-10 weekdays are bad but 4-8 weekends are the worst by far) funny how those times are also the only times i log on and at times find i am on server que.

explain to me please how my computer being as good as it is (paid almost 2k for it when all said and done just last nov) is the cause of my lag ???

come off it dude ... wake up and smell the lag ... I am not the only one who says it ... the truth is all around you ... fanboi's always love blaming everyone but the source.

Lovely name calling... You rarely get lag but you cry like the sky is falling, Chickenlittle anyone. DA isn't the problem, server populations are good... You are just using lag as a stalking horse because you don't like DA. It's transparent and working against any valid points you may have. Other have clearly pointed out that they have empirical evidence DA helps lag. You call them liars or ignore them. You continue to look foolish...

[Drfirewater79]

Mag I will give you a few pointers here.
A) Run the shroud more.
B) Run ToD more.
C) If you have good dps in either of the above simply ask in voice has anyone been getting lag in the quest? If it takes you more then one round to drop harry in part 4 it's not good dps.
D) Cast master touch.
E) Die with master's touch on.
F) Raids are the main offenders for lag. This has to do with the number of parties running them and the number of active mobs/players in them. It is telling when you say you have not run many yet since the end game content is where most lag is an issue.
G) Log on and play at a certain time of day. Thankfully I don't play during that time, but I hear complaints about it alot from friends who do.
H) Server side lag is not as common as most think. It is generally client side lag or local network lag issues. This can still lead to shared lag experiences of course because the same client side code is running for two players in the same group.
I) The main lag complaints have been about 'loot weekend rubber banding' and 'dps lag'. The first was a serious server side lag issue where the servers basically ground to a virtual standstill when too many players logged on at once. The second is often seen in shroud/ToD and is sometimes referred to as frame skipping. When you have a great dps party it is not uncommon for the only person to be swinging on your screen is your own toon. Heck, last ToD I ran there was a full 20 second lag from when the part 2 boss has died text came up to when he died on my screen.
J) Anytime you see someone throw mass buffs and they don't land someone is lagging out really bad.

yup i have experienced most of those lag points myself not all but most ...

is it possible that others having bad computer and network settings could cause lag for me? ... some how i don't understand if everyone see's only themselves hitting and the damage is being recorded (because when we stop lagging is usually how we know harry is dead) then no one is really lagging it just means the information is not being sent fast enough to be actively displayed on the screen of each of the 12 players ... right? I have to admit this is one thing that has always stumped me.

[IronClan]

As you very well know Turbine code is a black box to us (as is any proprietary code). Commenting upon percentages is useless.

Ah hanh so can you not see the irony in your answer here and the fact that you make baseless claims that it's inefficient and needs optimization to begin with?

On one hand it's unknowable if someone asks you to be more specific but it's (appearently) not a black box when you want to make baseless assumptions about it?

[Drfirewater79]

Lovely name calling... You rarely get lag but you cry like the sky is falling, Chickenlittle anyone. DA isn't the problem, server populations are good... You are just using lag as a stalking horse because you don't like DA. It's transparent and working against any valid points you may have. Other have clearly pointed out that they have empirical evidence DA helps lag. You call them liars or ignore them. You continue to look foolish...

You like nothing more then to spout off about things you dont understand ... and you love to try to **** me off ...

why dont you read the ****ing OP again .... I made many complaints about things i think cause lag... notice however the only one any one seems willing to comment on and that means tarrant too ... is DA ... .

its my personal hate yes .... i think it stupid ... i think there are better ways to achieve the same goal and i have mentioned them in other threads no need to go on about it again ....

when i say hirelings are the problem increased solo play and so on and so forth ... all you hear is DA ...

its people like you that should really refrain from talking to anyone who cares about the game .... cause you focus on the negative and refuse to try to bring people together around facts ...

I HATE DA ...... yes i have said it time and time again ... I mentioned why i believe DA is not solving the issue .. .and tarrant said it is with no explanation as to why it is ....

so you can fanboi all you want and you can talk **** about me all you want ... but before you do ... .COME UP WITH SOME OTHER VALID REASON AND FIXES YOURSELF THEN SMARTASS

... in stead of going out of your way picking fights with me on every post you can ... why not come up with some solutions or facts since your so full of them ...

unfortunately the things you call facts are brown and smell funny ... explains why your full of them i guess.

[Tarrant]

Ah, fighting, personal attacks, and cursing. Thread lockdown commencing.