Hardware & Technical Sudden & Unexpected Internet loss

[SnowGhost]

So the DDF has gone live and the first topic raises a question on what to do when network loss happens.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but it leads to a more general question which i've never seen asked.

So, here it is.

How often do YOU suffer an unexpected loss of internet access in a week. That is, 7 days. Don't just put in a number that you think is right, really think about it.
1. This doesn't include 'I can't play games at work'
2. It doens't include 'I can't play because my wife/husband/room mate/etc is filling the pipe with torrent'
3. It doesn't include 'I used out quota up on pictures and now it's slow'

Also, doesn't include your Mobile device, unless you use that tethered for access on your PC.

It's a question because we need to know what to do when you lose your Internet access. But what if it's just not a problem?

Personally, my home Internet access hasn't failed in the past year, that I know of. But when it did it was down for 4 days.

 

[lv426]

I voted that I lost internet connectivity once in the last week, but given this was a result of a violent storm, here in 'Down Under'-land (otherwise known as 'Oz') & it wasn't really a surprise, given that it was a power failure & I doubt I'd have been playing online at the time anyway.
Apart from that, I can't remember the last time I lost connection, but I appreciate it is a concern for some folks .....

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Genuine internet loss is rare.

Real life getting in the way is common. If the doorbell rings (or the phone, or a child cries or, or, or the list is endless), I do not want to turn around and find the character I have been building for months has had his ship blown to smithereens by some pirate who was not even on the scanner, and I loose a pile of value in fees of various types. Elite by its very nature is a game where checkpoint cannot sensibly happen all the time: if you only checkpoint when you dock, you may have 30 minutes or an hour to worry about. How many of us will ever feel comfortable that we will be able to sit there for 30 minutes without an interruption of any type?

But we need to make sure that any system designed to minimise problems when real life gets in the way. So, in particular, we cannot llow a pretend doorbell ring to stop you being frazzled by the bunch of pirates bearing down on you. I believe we need some sort of system where you can effectively do a pause (how we articulate this in game terms - a jump into hyperspace, a cloaking device, or whatever, hardly matters now), but where you must spend some time setting the pause up. So a period of time when the ship is under some sort of unsophisticated AI control, where those pirates bearing down on you have plenty of time to finish you off, but if you go into pause with a clear scanner, you expect to get there. Then, at least, we should be able to support most, but not all, real life interruptions.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

I would presume this is to try and gauge the amount of accidental disconnects vs deliberately DC'ing to prevent death, in that case i think the important question is not if your connection fails regularly its how quickly do you get it back.

someone Dc'ing deliberately to gain advantage is going to be back right away, while someone cut off by an isp outage will usually be offline for a few hours.

if someone disconnects and is back on right away there should be a penalty in my view, but if you don't get back online for a few hours it should be treated as a genuine disconnect - this will give people with responsibility the ability to drop the game at a seconds notice without worry of loosing out.

saying that set a max monthly cap on disconnects of this type to avoid it being used as an exploit and treat people who disconnect at every sign of combat as cheats who get a penalty for doing so.

 

[SnowGhost]

I would presume this is to try and gauge the amount of accidental disconnects vs deliberately DC'ing to prevent death, in that case i think the important question is not if your connection fails regularly its how quickly do you get it back.

Exactly.

And it's also aimed at involuntary disconnections.

If you're doorbell goes off, well, it's your choice to either
a) get up and go answer it and suffer in game consequences
b) stay in game and suffer IRL consequences (peeved neighbours, for instance)

I'm not sure the game should have to cope with all the possible IRL complications. The player just has to manage their life better.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

I'm not sure the game should have to cope with all the possible IRL complications. The player just has to manage their life better.

try telling that to a forty year old with 2 screaming kids and a misses who suddenly insists you have to go down the shop this second to get some milk.

RL does get in the way and considering the age range of most of the DDF i wouldn't repeat that comment there unless your fond of getting 200 replies that all start 'No Way!'

 

[lv426]

The player just has to manage their life better.

Love it - it sounds soooo easy

Seriously though, there are going to be times when you 'need' to step away for a brief period of time & I don't see a problem with devising some form of rudimentary auto-pilot as a pseudo real-time pause button, with the proviso that if you're in a combat scenario, if you're away for more than a few seconds, there's a good chance you're gonna be toast.
After all, it's not like we're actually there, in space, it is just a game & RL continues, despite all our attempts to prevent it (there, I've said it, let the backlash begin !)

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

no backlash from me, a workable method of pausing will avoid the need for this:

 

[lv426]

Who would want to do such a thing ....., oops, my bad, missed out the "n't"

 

[Slawkenbergius]

I voted three, times, as I quite often lose connection to the interwebs when browsing, and have to reset my router. Can anyone tell me why that is? It goes down household-wide, not just for me - the broadband light on my BT Homehub starts flashing.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

I voted three, times, as I quite often lose connection to the interwebs when browsing, and have to reset my router. Can anyone tell me why that is? It goes down household-wide, not just for me - the broadband light on my BT Homehub starts flashing.

I think the answer lies in your question 'my BT Homehub'

on cable here and hardly ever have any problems

 

[Slawkenbergius]

I think the answer lies in your question 'my BT Homehub'

on cable here and hardly ever have any problems

Are you suggesting that the actual router is a problem, or just the phone-line? Sadly no cable, or fibre here yet - just 3Mbps ADSL. Unless going back to using the old Netgear router I've got in a cupboard somewhere would help, my options are limited to putting up with it.

 

[Mysturji]

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the weird beard, Virgin Media blows chunks.
It doesn't so much drop as slow down to a crawl, and occasionally hangs. This usually only lasts a few minutes, but it happens a lot.
As I've never played online games before (I already spend WAY too much time on the computer!), this hasn't been a big problem, but if I'm going to get shot to bits or otherwise penalised because my ISP sucks, I want a recount!

 

[Mazhurg]

a misses who suddenly insists you have to go down the shop this second to get some milk.

I can commiserate with this... - Note that when it's your turn, you wait :S

 

[SnowGhost]

I voted three, times, as I quite often lose connection to the interwebs when browsing, and have to reset my router. Can anyone tell me why that is? It goes down household-wide, not just for me - the broadband light on my BT Homehub starts flashing.

Poor quality equipment. Possibly it's over heating. Also running bit torrent through it can cause problems with poor equipment.

Personally I run a m0n0wall firewall and use my ISP supplied router solely as a modem. It's a VERY reliable setup.

 

[SnowGhost]

try telling that to a forty year old with 2 screaming kids and a misses who suddenly insists you have to go down the shop this second to get some milk.

RL does get in the way and considering the age range of most of the DDF i wouldn't repeat that comment there unless your fond of getting 200 replies that all start 'No Way!'

well, how does
I'm 41 years old
with a 21 month old little boy
and a severly depressed wife sound.

And as a house hold we use 3 liters of milk a day. I buy the milk in advance.

I very much meet the 'normal' of the DDF.

 

[Slawkenbergius]

Poor quality equipment. Possibly it's over heating. Also running bit torrent through it can cause problems with poor equipment.

I'll switch out routers and see how that changes things. I never got into online gaming seriously, so up to now it hasn't really bothered me. It's always been a good excuse to go downstairs for some coffee.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

I think the real life issue has kind of high-jacked the thread, starting a brainstorming thread in the general discussions forum about the issue

 

[SnowGhost]

I think the real life issue has kind of high-jacked the thread, starting a brainstorming thread in the general discussions forum about the issue

It has.

Lets see if we can drag it back to what it's about. How good/bad your internet connections is.

 

[Baragoon]

I live in a small country town where there is no real choice of carrier, and therefore they don't give two s***s about the service they provide because you can't take your business elsewhere. My net drops of randomly a few times a day. If I'm lucky, I might go 48 hours without being un-synced.

Yes Telstra, I am talking about you, you F*****G A******S! F**K YOU AND YOUR S****Y F*****G CALL CENTRE IN F*****G C***Y LAND

OK, rant over... I'm good now...