IP joining for CB games

[PUNiSHER™]

I don't know about anyone else, but the GameRanger lag issue has gotten so bad lately, has the *DBL considered making all CB's played on IP hosts the rest of the season and thru the Final's?  There are some clans that don't like IP joining and seem to prefer the laggy gameranger voice games over IP joining, which is the reason I'm asking this.  I know there is a beta version of GameRanger going around thats supposed to be better but it's really not and nothing can match the lag free games you get when IP joining.  Theres a signifcant difference in how smooth the CB's are when IP joining compared to Gameranger.  Use an outside voice application if you must, I know voice is an issue with IP games but thats why we agree with the clans we face that noone will use voice for the CB.  Lag free CB's without voice is the way to go, I'd like to see how other clans play without the luxury of using voice, without dead people telling you enemy locations "dead body sensors", playing Ghost Recon the way it was meant to be played.  I'm only posting this as a temporary solution until GameRanger is completely fixed and back to being its old self.

[Macuber]

Very true Punisher.. but heck.. thats what we spent $50.00 for Premium.

[PUNiSHER™]

Yep thats why I'm posting this as a temporary solution like the *DBL did earlier in the season, because right now we're paying $50 for lag, with IP joining people can still use their seperate voice applications if they wish to.

[Hunter]

I don't trust Ip joining.
It would be too easy for some one to join on a PC
and we all know what that can bring.

[Clay]

a mac can bring same things i guess....

[BFG]

just how bad is it and has Scott said anything about the status of the problem??

[Cell]

How bad is it?  Unplayable.   I have a dual 2.3ghz G5 Powermac......2.5 ghz RAM, ATI Radeon 9800Pro 256MB Graphics card....8mb down 1.5 mb up net connection....i consitently get 60+ fps in GhR...and a wicked case of warp...including servers with pings under 100.  It is disgraceful.  I didn't have half the warp on my dual 800 g4.  I have been playing this game for about 4 years now, and if at any time when I first started playing, the warp/lag was this bad, I would have never have gotten so into the game.

As far as ip joining for cb's, I would vote for a yes.....we did one with *NRG the other night.  It went fine(actually they slapped us up like a red-headed step child (Dark) ), but there were no lag issues to speak of.  If you gys are worried about no voice com....try out Teamspeex, nf or KDX. ts.macgamenet.com for Teamspeex. 

You know who you could trust....it would be an honor system between the clans.  But I would go either way on this.

As far as a solution, I know that Evill is working on the solution.  We tried out a few tests on ferret's server. It was much better, but after a while it starts up again.  Don't quote me on this, but if I am not mistaken, I think someone mentioned something about packet loss.  So as we speak he is trying to figure out the cure.

This is a definite issue that maybe all the clanleaders need to discuss, since we are nearing the end of our spring tourney.  This issue will just become worse as more is at stake towards the end.

If it were up to me GR is the way to go..totally prefer the personality of it instead of the distant non-personal feel of ip joining, but until GR issues are resolved my preferred method will be by ip...

[PUNiSHER™]

If people are worried about PC people joining the games you can always request a random cheat test sometime during the CB.  I don't see how anyone could possibly prefer the laggy Gameranger the way it is right now vs. IP joining.

[*DAMN Hazard]

As far as I know as long as both clans agree it's alright... so technicly you can do it whatever way you want  just take screenshots to avoid the bs.

[Cell]

PLus we can give the server pw to the players involved in the cb

[<82ndAB>Tigah]

As I understand it, the issue with the Ghost Recon lag has a lot to do with bandwidth distribution. I could be wrong, but so far that’s what we’ve been testing i.e joiners/leavers, voice traffic, number of players etc. So theoretically, we have to treat this as being totally separate to how we treated our servers prior to 4.5. You need to take certain factors into consideration when hosting I think.

Try the following when your lag is bad :

 
1. Avoid netfone and other such applications.

2. Rduce the number of players you have if lag is bad.

3. Make sure your room descriptions are clear, so players who don’t have the necessary mods don’t keep trying to join (even though we know some players take a little longer to figure such things out anyway lol)

4. Keep voice traffic to a minimum, especially when a map is trying to load.

5. Change kit restrictions whenever necessary

6. As hard as it may be for some – Avoid “spamming”

7. Avoid using the MM1 (players have noticed this having an impact on the server)

8. Remind players not to join/leave unnecessarily.

9. Also take into consideration the number of high pingers in your server. (perhaps do some of the above restrictions to combat this)

10. Depending on lag, avoid having spawns

11. Avoid observers

This is all I can think of for now and I know there’s a lot to take into consideration here, but you can’t treat your servers as you did prior to 4.5. This is an unfortunate situation, which I assure you Evill is working on as hard as possible to fix. Unfortunately, due to the large number of complaints and issues arising from this update, the new fixed update won’t be released until it is FINISHED, so rushing Evill and pushing him to release it as soon as possible won’t help matters.

As far as clan battles are concerned, we had a discussion in the admin section and decided if both clans agree then we can allow clan battles via ip joining. You obviously take the responsibility of trusting the other clan when you agree on this.

So far the clan battles my clan and myself have played we’ve not incurred a lot of lag problems. Just remember you can refuse a host and perhaps look at finding a dedicated host. Of course that takes a lot of time to setup, so make up your minds as quick as possible and move on to a new host if necessary. Think ahead – if split hosting then test both servers before the cb. The auto-timer was mandatory to avoid cb’s dragging out too long for the scheduled cb’s but no one seems to be following this. Keep it in mind that if your cb is running out of time, then put that 5 min auto-timer on.

[WeedWacker]

I'm with you on this Punisher.  Voice is much more useful while alive then dead...I use it to pass info without getting chat killed.

A note on Evill and Gameranger:  WHY CAN'T HE ROLL BACK GAMERANGER TO THE LAST KNOWN WORKING VERSION WHILE HE TROUBLESHOOTS THE NEXT VERSION?  WHY MUST WE SUFFER?  DOES HE REMEMBER WE PAID HIM FOR GAMERANGER?

[<82ndAB>Tigah]

A note on Evill and Gameranger:  WHY CAN'T HE ROLL BACK GAMERANGER TO THE LAST KNOWN WORKING VERSION WHILE HE TROUBLESHOOTS THE NEXT VERSION?  WHY MUST WE SUFFER?  DOES HE REMEMBER WE PAID HIM FOR GAMERANGER?

Actually, premium features is what you pay for. Playing a game on gameranger is totally free.

[WeedWacker]

A note on Evill and Gameranger:  WHY CAN'T HE ROLL BACK GAMERANGER TO THE LAST KNOWN WORKING VERSION WHILE HE TROUBLESHOOTS THE NEXT VERSION?  WHY MUST WE SUFFER?  DOES HE REMEMBER WE PAID HIM FOR GAMERANGER?

Actually, premium features is what you pay for. Playing a game on gameranger is totally free.

Isn't that like saying "you bought the airline ticket to get from point A to point B, you never paid for your safety."  Us paying for Gameranger gives us the inherent right to demand a workable product.

Evill-lover 

[Croosch]

A note on Evill and Gameranger:  WHY CAN'T HE ROLL BACK GAMERANGER TO THE LAST KNOWN WORKING VERSION WHILE HE TROUBLESHOOTS THE NEXT VERSION?  WHY MUST WE SUFFER?  DOES HE REMEMBER WE PAID HIM FOR GAMERANGER?

Actually, premium features is what you pay for. Playing a game on gameranger is totally free.

You know that all of us (as in *DAMN members) bought premium because of the game... so in part, we are paying for the gameplay.

The issue has been a lot worse than I initially thought, I can't play on Cell's server at all now when it has 8 people in it when he hosts on GameRanger... but he can host 36 normally and it runs pretty good.  So even if we follow your 11 tips, it won't make much difference at all.  I'm just hoping every clan is as cool as *nRg when it comes to agreeing to an ip host.

[cO.twist]

these lag issues have nothing to do with the use of nf, or any of the listed things you put tigah...those have always been issues, and the game has still been playable.  This lag issue is new, and it makes the game completely unplayable.  This isnt the same as the regular gay lag that comes with Ghost Recon.

as for IP cb's.....IP should definitely be considered, temporarily while they work on fixing the gameranger bugs.  Once it's fixed, go back to gameranger. 

[<82ndAB>Tigah]

these lag issues have nothing to do with the use of nf, or any of the listed things you put tigah...those have always been issues, and the game has still been playable.  This lag issue is new, and it makes the game completely unplayable.  This isnt the same as the regular gay lag that comes with Ghost Recon.

as for IP cb's.....IP should definitely be considered, temporarily while they work on fixing the gameranger bugs.  Once it's fixed, go back to gameranger. 

That was before, this is now. My list was merely SUGGESTIONS to help ease these lag issues, I never said they were the cause. The new lag issues are bandwidth related, meaning everything that sucks up bandwidth on a server, does so even worse now. Whether we like it or not, we are stuck with this until the new version is released. So you can carry on and not change the way you handle a server or you can take some of my suggestions into consideration when you experience unplayable lag.

[cO.twist]

That was before, this is now. My list was merely SUGGESTIONS to help ease these lag issues, I never said they were the cause. The new lag issues are bandwidth related, meaning everything that sucks up bandwidth on a server, does so even worse now. Whether we like it or not, we are stuck with this until the new version is released. So you can carry on and not change the way you handle a server or you can take some of my suggestions into consideration when you experience unplayable lag.

OR....you could do what we are suggesting (ip joining), and have next to no lag at all.  Even less lag than gameranger was before, when it was just 'standard lag'

[*DAMN Hazard]

Twist, you can ip join. The ability to ip join was never restricted as long as both sides agree. We aren't the ones you should be trying to convince we support whatever helps the BL run smoothly. Some people feel safer  playing through gameranger others don't. Ask your opponent to ip host out of GR, if they say ya great, if not suck it up and play it through GR.

So go ahead and IP join no one is stopping you, as long as both clans agree

[PUNiSHER™]

There should be a set rule that each clan can choose its own method of hosting for CB's.  So if clans agree on a split host for a CB, the clan that wants to use GameRanger for their hosting can use that while the clan that wants to use IP joining can use that when its their turn to host. 

It's ridiculous to force us to play on LagRanger just because the opposing clan prefers it, half the kills in the CB will probably be the result of lag.