GW tech e-mail on server malfunction(pls read)

Hi there, I have been in contact with many of the techs over at GW. There is a server problem and I have been given permission to post part of my e-mail to that so that others may be aware of the problem occurring, so pls pass this along to everyone having lag, error issues! Keep in mind the first section is at the bottom and reads upwards.

Subject
LAG issues

Discussion Thread
Response (Trollis) 05/10/2006 01:53 PM
Chalene,

Yeah sure that's fine. The main thing we would like to stress is that our network team currently has an open ticket with Alter.net and they are working together to clear up the problem. There currently is not an ETR on a resolution, but it is a high priority situation for them. We will try our best to make the community aware that the issue is resolved once we receive word that it is.

I will keep the ticket with you open as well so I can notify you immediately when it is resolved.

Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team
Customer (Chalene ) 05/10/2006 11:42 AM
Ok Trollis sounds good to me....If you don't mind, I could post that last part of the message about the lineage 2 prob in the forum on Guild Wars Guru for all to see. Let me know ok, I have put up a couple posts about the issue at hand so others that are commenting on errors and lag are able to be aware of it.
Response (Trollis) 05/10/2006 11:02 AM
Chalene,

I totally apologize for the misspelling of your name and am glad that you spelled mine correctly=) Unfortunately since Guild Wars does not have some sort of official message board, it is hard to get word like this out to the public, and honestly you are one of the very few who have brought it to our attention. This issue has been ongoing for about a month or so and was first reported to us by Lineage II customers but not for Guild Wars. The official post we made about this is at http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat....&Number=571731
Yeah, it is not your computer, but unfortunately all we can do right now is wait it out until Alter.net clears up the problem. I will hold on to this email until I hear word of either an estimated time of repair or of a resolution and will send you an update as soon as I hear of it. Thank you for your patience.


Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team
Customer (Chalene ) 05/10/2006 10:11 AM
Well, first off Trollis THANK YOU!!! I was so frusterated with "tweeking" my own machine LOL!! (Secondly..my name is Chalene..not Charlene{eew})
On a more serious note, you guys really need to inform your devoted public about this. There are so many ppl that are majorly frusterated with is problem. Seriously, alot of us are adults with patience and if we are told that the problem is being worked on, we will patiently wait by while you guys do your best to fix the problem. Please inform all in your GW screen so that ppl are aware that the problem IS being addressed. And thanks again for your loyal suppport. I have never had to wait long for
a responce from you guys. Great job Take care...I await with patience on your packet loss issue. Good Luck team!
Response (Trollis) 05/10/2006 09:47 AM
Charlene,

It does appear Alter.net is where the packetloss begins to occur. We have known of this issue for a while now and it has been escalated to Network Engineering. Network Engineering is currently in contact with Alter.net and working with them to find a resolution to the packetloss issue. Unfortunately at this time there is nothing you or I can do to speed up the resolution but hopefully Alter.net will resolve it as soon as possible. I appreciate your patience.

Thanks,

Thanks Phantoma for putting this up for us all to read.

I posted this on another thread, but wanted to link to it from here. It describes who Alter.Net is to some extent and why they matter to everyone.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...4&postcount=41

Ack.. Alter.net. That explains a bit.

Thanks Kryshnysh post it everywhere, we all need to know. I wasnt' sure I was allowed to say it was Verison becasue of it being a big company, but your post defiantely explains a bit about it to ppl as well.

Does anyone know if this applies to us chaps over in Europe as well, or is it someone else over here? I'd like to be able to actually connect to the game some time soon.......

Ok here is the deal, the game Guild Wars is based out of Seattle, that means.,....even if you are on a Euro server..you still have to connect to the game....in Seattle, so...yes....it applies to all providers using the malfunctioning router along it's path, at some point somewhere along the way.
Hope that clears up a bit.

does this mean..........sob.............that i cant find some way still to blame Anet for this?

is it really..........horrible thing...............not their fault after all?.......sob....sob

Thanks Phantoma and kryshnysh for the good info.

Sorry Anet for blaming you (this time ).

This is exactly what GW needs though - an "official" message board or something - one central place where we can find the truth, so that we aren't forced to rely on rumor/gossip or our own imaginations..

hahahha

yeah life just sucks when your flogging horse up and runs off!

In addition to what Phantoma said about the fact that at least part of the GW connection has to be between various GW servers... although not sure how much that matters in this case.

Alter.Net/UUNet being Tier One means that a good bit of the european service either runs on them or one of the other Tier Ones. So just because its a US company, doesn't mean you can be unaffected in Europe (or elsewhere in the world). It depends on exactly what the issue is for Alter.Net/UUNet...

So yes, it could probably effect just about anyone, but without more info it would be hard to say if it does effect everyone.

Wow, he talked to actual Tech Reps and not a cut and paste message. Good Job.

ah...yup hehe and ...he is a SHE
honest

Well she is in a guild with a name containing the word helpdesk....

Hehe.

Wonder what they meant by "no means of letting the people know", they could post up on their own website, or *gasp* on the "news" box on the side of the login screen (it even says 'Announcements'!), it has had stuff about network problems before as well.

Or maybe if they had a section devoted to network updates/news...... like, say... http://www.guildwars.com/support/networknews/ (<-- which doesn't say anything atm)

This would certainly seem to me to be a large enough issue to warrant some message from Anet... either in-game or on their site. Oh well.

That is a good point, although as I see it, with everything, one hand doesn't neccissarily wash the other. There is always the problem of communitcation issues. It is possible that the techs are only allowed to help individuals and that in order to inform the public, they may have to contact the "public relations" if they have one, and have that person do some stuff up on a website. In other words, we help oursleves out as much as possible

And yeah, "Grenths Helpdesk" may be a small guild, but that is what we do...we help each other, buddies, friends of buddies and we even help new ppl just geting the game. Such as going to Asclon City and holleriing "Who just got the game and is enjoying it!" then giving them a few K to get them started and answering any questions they may have. After all, this game is defiantly more fun when you are able to share your knowledge with others and not make them feel inferior, and have a close knit group of friends that make you feel like you matter, instead of making you feel like a "PUG" or "Noob".

So on that note, have fun, enjoy the game, and respect each other

I can see why they might not want to post it on their own website... although no idea what they actually did with Lineage II. "Alter.Net is the problem. Yes, Verizon Suxors. Everybody complain to them." Suddenly, guildwars.com and Guild Wars itself is innaccessible to 20% of those who play the game and the fix gets even closer in coming. Is Alter.Net/UUNet/Verizon that evil? Doubt it, but its generally a bad idea to upset those you are forced to work with for your own survival. And in this case, I might take a few more upset customers than upsetting the company that controls the way you make a living.

Also, not sure if this is the reason, but wondering if it could be...

Three weeks ago (I knew Alter.Net was an issue before this, as I had run my own diagnostics and noticed that issue about a month ago) we tried doing THK from the international district as an alliance (yes, pre-Factions release). We had four guilds, three of whom were European, one of whom was American, and got lots of Err7s. Of the 24 people who went, at least 5-6 err7ed, and at least 3 could not stop err7ing every time we entered the mission. I believe every single err7 occurred in a group containing Americans from the midwest and Europeans.

Since a connection between said groups would likely run through Alter.Net on at least one end for at least some of the people, I am wondering if the problem was that we had a specific server (or rather set of servers) that we were using based on geographical location of all of our members, and the routes of connection for those who had the specific problem went through Alter.Net and encountered the "issues" we are sometimes seeing with them.

I'm not sure on this, its all a hypothesis, would like it if someone who knows a bit more about internet routing, etc. could weigh in if this was possible, likely, or whatnot. I know enough to be "dangerous" but not really enough to do much, but always trying to understand and learn.

Yeah I know what you mean, my buddies are in US and they tell me that they only lag really bad when they play with me. Two of my buddies live right in Seattle(where GW is based). SO they wouldn't have these issues. I know that from what I have seen of my tests, that after it leaves Canada, it does route at some point to ALTER.NET and then I have problems. Keep in mind..this is not ALL the time, but it is appearant. Also, just so you are aware, that last bit of the e-mail I posted was started up well before PFE. I was having problems almost 2 months ago, when I notice a significant amount of start and stop lag so bad that I would have a good 3-5 seconds between frames.
That was my initial complaint to them "lag" from the tests, and only currently I might add was I informed of the routing issue problem. I have a feeling my e-mail was so long and so active that it got taken to a higher level. I had dealt with many of the techs. I do know that at the time of my lag issue e-mail to them, that is about the time ppl in Lineage 2 were developing problems as well.
Also, I did want to mention, I have never had to wait long for a responce from the tech team. They are great at getting back to me within hours of my report to them. Through this issue I have never had to wait more then a day for a responce. So I think they are doing a great job considering all the tech reports that they have to go through on a daily basis. They do have over a million players on the game now. Keep up the great work guys!!

Here's what a support person put in the Lineage II forums about the lag issues they're having with that game.

Our Networking team has been working with Savvis and Alternet in the hopes to resolve this issue. We received an e-mail back from these providers today stating that the latency seen on their routes is within their Service Level Agreement (SLA) limits. As such, they are unwilling to continue investigating this issue. Since this issue is occurring outside of NCsoft’s peering agreements with them, there is unfortunately little more that we can do. If you have any further questions about this issue, I suggest contacting your ISP and either one of these providers. I regret that this was the outcome and I hope that you’ll understand we have done everything within our power to resolve this issue.

I hope this is not the fate shared by GW.....

Gahhh I hope not as well. Me and my partner have just spent the last two hours getting stuck in walls, gates, my ele was running round in circles backwards (!?!?!!) and all skills were constantly firing in the bar but not on screen.

I just recieved this message as well from Trollis the gentleman I was in contact with in our GW tech support


Discussion Thread
Response (Trollis) 05/11/2006 04:01 PM
Chalene,

I appreciate your patience while we investigated this matter. Please be aware that our Networking team had been working with Savvis and Alternet in the hopes to resolve this issue. These providers informed us that the latency seen on their routes is within their Service Level Agreement (SLA) limits. As such, they are unwilling to continue investigating this issue. Since this issue is occurring outside of NCsoft’s peering agreements with them, there is unfortunately little more that we can do. If you have any further questions about this issue, I suggest contacting your ISP and either one of these providers. I regret that we are unable to assist you further and hope that this issue will eventually be resolved.

Regards,


That just sucks. So we suffer with an under par routing issue....wonderful.

so this Lag and err=7 will be a continuing trend?

yup sounds like it, so in responce to what Trollis sent me, I sent him this post back :


I hope so too, because playing a game is fun, but getting lagged out, or disconnected due to packet loss that isn't supposed to happen is going to frusterate ppl and eventually you will start to see a decline in play as the enevitable will happen. You will lose ppl to other games that promise better conductivity and fun. I am very dissappointed that these providers are only interested in the base minimum to keep a router working. You would think that they would be more interested in keeping ppl happy, but I guess if the cash is flowing, what ppl need just isn;t in it for them. Sad. I will continue to play the game, but if this occurs more and gets worse...well, I think I will be looking for something new. As it is, in the evenings on the weekends when it is busiest is when I usually have a greater increase in lag, and disconections and being a monk, I lose out if I can't heal in time due to lag, for that matter, so do the ppl playing with me as they lay on the floor because they relied on me to heal them up in time, and I can't. Nor can I play in a FOW mission or UW, I have YET in my year of play to make it through a weekend night trying to "clear" UW or FOW...and that just isn't fair.
Hopefully something will be resolved "eventually" before you have more ppl lose total interest in the game over the disconnections and lag, because that is happening. Ppl will only put up with so much frusteration before going elseware for their enertainment purposes. As it is, it would be pointless for me to purchase any other games that are addons of GW if I can't enjoy the game to it's full extent.
Again Thanks Trollis for the update. I am sure you as well as I and others are very dissappointed. Take care man, you and your team have done the best you are able to.
Phant

Doesn't sound very promising. We hadn't had too much trouble until the last few days, but it's hardly worth playing at all at the moment. Not too clever when you consider between us we've paid almost a hundred pounds buying two copies of Prophecies (6 weeks back) and the CE of Factions..

We've really enjoyed it so far as well.

Well that sucks.

Tonight i have 8 Err=7 crashes. The game is starting to be unlpayable. I just dont understand why its only NCsoft games affected though, i can play WoW throughout the evening with no problems, same with counterstrike, both of those i play on US servers too

{edit make that 10 times tonight. Getting out of hand now }

Wow seems to be having problems as well..

I'd be playing now if I could get more than 10 metres without getting thrown back twenty every time I move. Might as well go and do something constructive! Like sleep...

Thats just an article about realm Queues. In WoW once the server hits a certain pop, you have to queue up to log in.

PS im over 15 Err=7's tonight. Im lucky to get through a 2 minute random 4v4 without disconnecting on my team

Looks like the tech forum here is starting to show a few posts about this problem, shouldn't this be a STICKY?

6 error=007 for me tonight, I gave up!

It all has to do with alter.net router in LA, avarage 50% packet loss.

I have been disconnected 5 times now tonight.
I have every other program temp disabled other than Window Op Sys.
Still not working.
Sad.

I haven't been getting any err=7 disconnects but the lag is annoying. I ghost when I click on an area to walk to, when I attack an enemy, etc etc. The henchies look like they just warp around following me lol. If Alter.net/UUNet isn't gonna fix this then I think the only other alternative for Anet is to take their bandwidth business elsewhere. Alter.net/UUnet is not the only bandwidth provider out there. They could look into maybe Sprint or AT&T for example. Oh well, just my 2 cents worth.

LOL ok its out of hand now. I just tried to log in and keep getting an Error=040. When I did log in and loaded I couldn't go anywhere out of town, kept warping me back in. Reattempting connection to server (Code=13). Oh well maybe I shouldn't have posted my other message.

yeah it is gonna get worse. Just keep in mind that Lineage 2 players are going through this as well, and from what I see in the post possibly WOW so...time will tell if things get done!
We could do what Trollis said, and contact ALTER.NET ..if loads of ppl did, then maybe they will address the situation.

Sounds like we're gonna have to fight this battle ourselves. Anyone have any ideas who we can go to directly at alter.net???

What is Alter.Net / UUNet and how do they affect the guild wars servers ?

EDIT

Thanks i'll have to read up on that at wikipedia

OK, someone get us an email or phone number for someone special at alter.net/uunet and post exactly what we should say to them. Then we can all call in and complain.

It would be no use since we are not direct customers. If NC Soft is a direct customer then they could complain in our stead. So complaining to Anet/NC Soft should light a fire under someone to pass the frustration on.

Savvis again, oh great

Anarchy Online was unplayable for month or two thanks to Savvis