Can we get the game moved to Amazon Servers in Oregon instead of Virginia.. (For NA)?

[Vegeta.2563]

1. The network routing for a lot of people to get to the Virginia servers is worse for everyone besides people on East Coast and in EU.
2. Moving them to the West Coast, people in Australia wouldn't have as many connection issues and wouldn't desync as often as they are now.
3. Asia regions would have better ping as a result.
4. Yes ping for East Coast folks would be a bit higher, but it's way more manageable than trying to play on Australia when the servers are in Virginia.

About the EU folks, they have EU servers for a reason and would have better ping playing on servers closer to their location.

After GW2 migrated to East Coast (Virginia), the OCX population as a whole in this game has dropped a lot. Moving the game to a more centralized location for everyone involved would help improve ping issues, and make most people happier.

Your thoughts :grey_question:

[phokus.8934]

They did their analysis and the vast majority of players reside near the east coast.

[Ashantara.8731]

I would prefer to see them move off all Amazon servers worldwide. Aren't there other providers that are better suited and provide a better server performance?

[Pifil.5193]

@Ashantara.8731 said:I would prefer to see them move off all Amazon servers worldwide. Aren't there other providers that are better suited and provide a better server performance?

I doubt it. The amazon servers are very powerful and they provide an excellent service, otherwise ArenaNet wouldn't have chosen them.

What do you think is wrong with them?

[Vegeta.2563]

@Pifil.5193 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:I would prefer to see them move

off

all Amazon servers worldwide. Aren't there other providers that are better suited and provide a better server performance?

I doubt it. The amazon servers are very powerful and they provide an excellent service, otherwise ArenaNet wouldn't have chosen them.

What do you think is wrong with them?

The problem is Amazon servers are essentially virtual machines. This is why no actual specs are provided for them, and that the CPU power needed to handle such ping and skill lag issues getting worse and worse, just isn't strong enough. Hopefully once alliances comes out (whenever that is)... they will have figured out the performance issue on this.

However there still remains that one main problem. Desync issues when engaging on a large group of people without having everyone randomly just run in a straight line past you as you realize you are close to disconnecting (aka desynced).

[Daddicus.6128]

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@Pifil.5193 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:I would prefer to see them move

off

all Amazon servers worldwide. Aren't there other providers that are better suited and provide a better server performance?

I doubt it. The amazon servers are very powerful and they provide an excellent service, otherwise ArenaNet wouldn't have chosen them.

What do you think is wrong with them?

The problem is Amazon servers are essentially virtual machines. This is why no actual specs are provided for them, and that the CPU power needed to handle such ping and skill lag issues getting worse and worse, just isn't strong enough. Hopefully once alliances comes out (whenever that is)... they will have figured out the performance issue on this.

However there still remains that one main problem. Desync issues when engaging on a large group of people without having everyone randomly just run in a straight line past you as you realize you are close to disconnecting (aka desynced).

Nearly all servers nowadays are virtual machines.

[kharmin.7683]

@Daddicus.6128 said:

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@Pifil.5193 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:I would prefer to see them move

off

all Amazon servers worldwide. Aren't there other providers that are better suited and provide a better server performance?

I doubt it. The amazon servers are very powerful and they provide an excellent service, otherwise ArenaNet wouldn't have chosen them.

What do you think is wrong with them?

The problem is Amazon servers are essentially virtual machines. This is why no actual specs are provided for them, and that the CPU power needed to handle such ping and skill lag issues getting worse and worse, just isn't strong enough. Hopefully once alliances comes out (whenever that is)... they will have figured out the performance issue on this.

However there still remains that one main problem. Desync issues when engaging on a large group of people without having everyone randomly just run in a straight line past you as you realize you are close to disconnecting (aka desynced).

Nearly all servers nowadays are virtual machines.

Also, if there are ping issues as you describe, then Anet could pay for additional server resources. Since it appears that they haven't, then I suggest it might be because their reporting and statistics don't agree with what you are observing. Maybe the issue lies with your home network or ISP?

[Vilin.8056]

They should move the server to Australia, time to let these Elite PvPs feel what does it feel like to be ripped apart in 300 ping THEN getting trash talked at!

[Khisanth.2948]

Before they moved off their own hardware they did perform tests to see which would have the most benefit to the most people.

No need to guess what the results showed.

Should they redo the test again? Is there any reason to believe that there has been a major shift in the player population?

@"Ashantara.8731" said:I would prefer to see them move off all Amazon servers worldwide. Aren't there other providers that are better suited and provide a better server performance?

Please explain how other providers magically has better server performance. Also keep in mind that Amazon offers a fairly wide range of choices for the specs of their servers. https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/There is a price to pay for more power servers of course ... https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

Are there other providers that might offer better performance for the price? Maybe but that will depend on the specific workload required for the GW2 servers and only ANet knows the details of that part(although people in similar fields could probably make reasonable guesses).

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@Pifil.5193 said:

@"Ashantara.8731" said:I would prefer to see them move

off

all Amazon servers worldwide. Aren't there other providers that are better suited and provide a better server performance?

I doubt it. The amazon servers are very powerful and they provide an excellent service, otherwise ArenaNet wouldn't have chosen them.

What do you think is wrong with them?

The problem is Amazon servers are essentially virtual machines. This is why no actual specs are provided for them, and that the CPU power needed to handle such ping and skill lag issues getting worse and worse, just isn't strong enough. Hopefully once alliances comes out (whenever that is)... they will have figured out the performance issue on this.

However there still remains that one main problem. Desync issues when engaging on a large group of people without having everyone randomly just run in a straight line past you as you realize you are close to disconnecting (aka desynced).

Specs are listed on the product page ... https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/ CPU, memory, storage, network

Dedicated hardware is also an option if you are willing to pay the price ... https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/dedicated-hosts/IBM Cloud also has similar offerings. IBM Cloud seems to have more choices for data center locations. No idea if all server types are available for all locations.I didn't look but Microsoft's Azure probably has that too since not having it means giving up on a certain market segment.

Both the AWS and IBM Cloud sites also has configurator/calculators for you to play around with to see the sort of prices involved per server.

[phokus.8934]

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@Pifil.5193 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:I would prefer to see them move

off

all Amazon servers worldwide. Aren't there other providers that are better suited and provide a better server performance?

I doubt it. The amazon servers are very powerful and they provide an excellent service, otherwise ArenaNet wouldn't have chosen them.

What do you think is wrong with them?

The problem is Amazon servers are essentially virtual machines. This is why no actual specs are provided for them, and that the CPU power needed to handle such ping and skill lag issues getting worse and worse, just isn't strong enough. Hopefully once alliances comes out (whenever that is)... they will have figured out the performance issue on this.

However there still remains that one main problem. Desync issues when engaging on a large group of people without having everyone randomly just run in a straight line past you as you realize you are close to disconnecting (aka desynced).That is not even remotely the problem. The AWS servers can be scaled automatically which I’d bet ANet utilizes. The real limiting factor is that GW2 is on an old game engine which has been discussed before with an ANet server programmer on Reddit.

[Vegeta.2563]

@"phokus.8934" said:That is not even remotely the problem. The AWS servers can be scaled automatically which I’d bet ANet utilizes. The real limiting factor is that GW2 is on an old game engine which has been discussed before with an ANet server programmer on Reddit.

The old game engine only factors in fps issues, not network. The problem is.. is that the servers the game are hosted on aren't strong enough to handle the amount of skills being used at one time in a single map when the population is high enough to hide miniatures.

Also the game engine problem is the actual game itself you install locally on your own PC, not something the servers have physically installed, but since you like reddit so much. Found the quote. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cuikws/this_is_the_sort_of_thing_the_wvw_community_has/exvqaqx/

Quote with graph: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cuikws/this_is_the_sort_of_thing_the_wvw_community_has/exvuufi/

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@"phokus.8934" said:That is not even remotely the problem. The AWS servers can be scaled automatically which I’d bet ANet utilizes. The real limiting factor is that GW2 is on an old game engine which has been discussed before with an ANet server programmer on Reddit.

The old game engine only factors in fps issues, not network. The problem is.. is that the servers the game are hosted on aren't strong enough to handle the amount of skills being used at one time in a single map when the population is high enough to hide miniatures.

Also the game engine problem is the actual game itself you install locally on your own PC, not something the servers have physically installed, but since you like reddit so much. Found the quote.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cuikws/this_is_the_sort_of_thing_the_wvw_community_has/exvqaqx/

Quote with graph:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cuikws/this_is_the_sort_of_thing_the_wvw_community_has/exvuufi/

The server software is still based upon the game engine. The "engine" is a set of protocols, APIs that implement those protocols and a source tree, including both client and server sources. Its just that to end-users only the client is distributed.

I don't know why people think the server wouldn't have alot of the same limitations as the client. The servers ArenaNet pays Amazon for to host GW2 are very powerful, and are known to run much more intense games than GW2, its just that the GW2 server software was designed many years ago and the developers have said at one point its bascially spaghetti code from all the changes.

Don't quote me on that though, its a fuzzy memory from back when the original devs used to communicate regularly on Reddit. Keep in mind most of the current devs haven't even been around for more than a few years.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Hannelore.8153 said:

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@"phokus.8934" said:That is not even remotely the problem. The AWS servers can be scaled automatically which I’d bet ANet utilizes. The real limiting factor is that GW2 is on an old game engine which has been discussed before with an ANet server programmer on Reddit.

The old game engine only factors in fps issues, not network. The problem is.. is that the servers the game are hosted on aren't strong enough to handle the amount of skills being used at one time in a single map when the population is high enough to hide miniatures.

Also the game engine problem is the actual game itself you install locally on your own PC, not something the servers have physically installed, but since you like reddit so much. Found the quote.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cuikws/this_is_the_sort_of_thing_the_wvw_community_has/exvqaqx/

Quote with graph:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cuikws/this_is_the_sort_of_thing_the_wvw_community_has/exvuufi/

The server software is still based upon the game engine. The "engine" is a set of protocols, APIs that implement those protocols and a source tree, including both client and server sources. Its just that to end-users only the client is distributed.

I don't know why people think the server wouldn't have alot of the same limitations as the client. The servers ArenaNet pays Amazon for to host GW2 are very powerful, and are known to run much more intense games than GW2, its just that the GW2 server software was designed many years ago and the developers have said at one point its bascially spaghetti code from all the changes.

Don't quote me on that though, its a fuzzy memory from back when the original devs used to communicate regularly on Reddit. Keep in mind most of the current devs haven't even been around for more than a few years.

That reminds me ... one of the devs have also mentioned that the AWS servers are more powerful than what they were using before. So yet another thing OP is wrong about.

[Zaklex.6308]

@Vegeta.2563 said:

1. The network routing for a lot of people to get to the Virginia servers is worse for everyone besides people on East Coast and in EU.
2. Moving them to the West Coast, people in Australia wouldn't have as many connection issues and wouldn't desync as often as they are now.
3. Asia regions would have better ping as a result.
4. Yes ping for East Coast folks would be a bit higher, but it's way more manageable than trying to play on Australia when the servers are in Virginia.

About the EU folks, they have EU servers for a reason and would have better ping playing on servers closer to their location.

After GW2 migrated to East Coast (Virginia), the OCX population as a whole in this game has dropped a lot. Moving the game to a more centralized location for everyone involved would help improve ping issues, and make most people happier.

Your thoughts :grey_question:

Be grateful they moved the servers to Virginia from New York(when they first chose AWS). Also, since when did they close down the German datay center for EU players? Are you saying they no longer use the Germany data center for the EU players? I'd like to know why they ever left the NCSoft data centers that GW1 was on, at least there were 3 of those for the U.S., one for EU and one for Asia...unless NCSoft itself closed them down.

[Moira Shalaar.5620]

the other thing that no one seems to have mentioned yet is that with the current circumstances AWS is seeing a much higher degree of traffic than usual, not just from Guild Wars 2, but from MANY of their different services they host including other games, video streaming services, and who knows what all else. I have one other subscription to a service for work that also uses AWS and have seen a similar lag in working there. For that matter just general network congestion is up for the very same reason. So those things that generally operated fine under earlier conditions are quite likely being more taxed under these. Yes, that can make for some frustrating experiences in guild wars, but nothing that should be unexpected and is unlikely to be easily resolved by flipping a switch for a higher tier of service from Amazon.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Vegeta.2563 said:

1. The network routing for a lot of people to get to the Virginia servers is worse for everyone besides people on East Coast and in EU.
2. Moving them to the West Coast, people in Australia wouldn't have as many connection issues and wouldn't desync as often as they are now.
3. Asia regions would have better ping as a result.
4. Yes ping for East Coast folks would be a bit higher, but it's way more manageable than trying to play on Australia when the servers are in Virginia.

About the EU folks, they have EU servers for a reason and would have better ping playing on servers closer to their location.

After GW2 migrated to East Coast (Virginia), the OCX population as a whole in this game has dropped a lot. Moving the game to a more centralized location for everyone involved would help improve ping issues, and make most people happier.

Your thoughts :grey_question:

Be grateful they moved the servers to Virginia from New York(when they first chose AWS). Also, since when did they close down the German datay center for EU players? Are you saying they no longer use the Germany data center for the EU players? I'd like to know why they ever left the NCSoft data centers that GW1 was on, at least there were 3 of those for the U.S., one for EU and one for Asia...unless NCSoft itself closed them down.

Did Amazon ever have a region in New York? They only have Ohio and N. Virginia right now and there is no search results for them closing a New York region which implies there has never been one.

For EU it is in Frankfurt both before and after moving to AWS.

[Vegeta.2563]

@Khisanth.2948 said:Did Amazon ever have a region in New York? They only have Ohio and N. Virginia right now and there is no search results for them closing a New York region which implies there has never been one.

For EU it is in Frankfurt both before and after moving to AWS.

I was implying EU players playing on NA servers. You know.. that time of day that comes after SEA.. before early NA.