A few months back, I posted an article called Can Mounted Combat Lag Be Fixed? in which I took what I know about Internet traffic flows and tried to make a guess as to the likelihood of this critical gameplay mechanic improving in the near future. Using the diagram below, I postulated that if the problem existed in the client code, or at the server, then the lag issues did indeed have a chance of being fixed. If, however, the problem existed in Internet latency (all of that stuff in the middle that the ISP controls), then my confidence that the lag could ever be fixed was extremely low.
I did add this little stipulation near the end:
Maybe I’m wrong, and perhaps the servers and application code account for more of the issue than I’m giving them credit for.
Interestingly, in a recent forum thread that I completely missed (since I don’t frequent the forums), it does seem that the application code and client have quite a bit to do with the issue! I point to Sapience’s phrase:
Ping times, unless you have truly insane pings (300+) have nothing to do with it it turns out (yes we were just as surprised as you are)
What this essentially means, is that all that “stuff in the middle” of my diagram isn’t the problem. That’s great news! That means that the problem exists somewhere that Turbine has control over! In fact, throughout the forum thread they mention both the client application and user computers as contributing to the lag issue. That is indeed reason for optimism, since in one case, Turbine can issue code fixes that will improve the problem, and in the other, the problem will take care of itself over time as players upgrade their systems throughout the natural course of replacing obsolete compute equipment.
In this case, “we know where the problem isn’t” is almost as exciting as knowing where it is!
Update:
After re-reading my article (we do that sometimes), I have a question for myself. Wait a second, self, if the lag problem exists somewhere on the client side of things, then why wasn’t it caught in QA testing? You don’t need a full production server load to replicate an issue that occurs on a single client!
Well, self, I’m sure that’s a question that Turbine has been asking themselves internally ever since Riders of Rohan launched.
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Braxwolf can be found on Twitter at @Braxwolf
or on Windfola, measuring his ping times.
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And after U11.3 is it any better?
Notes: Lag and Mounted combat
Players who have previously reported issues with lag and ‘rubber banding’ while using a Warsteed or during Mounted Combat should see these issues improve.
Fixed a bug that was causing some previous performance improvements not to have their full effect.
I’m not there yet so can’t really comment…
I’ve been questing in Wildermore, and after the update, MC is smoother for me. (Right-clicking crafting resources and /follow are sometimes buggy though; a blue name posted that they’re looking into it.) Not used to having my warsteed promptly respond to commands! 🙂
Personally I don’t believe MC will ever be completely smooth. The reason for this I think is that the core game engine simply isn’t up to the task of rendering us moving across the landscape so quickly, especially given the much higher quality textures in Rohan and Wildermore.
This ties in to my belief that Turbine has started to hit the limits of what they can achieve with this game, technologically speaking. Any more will require a complete rewrite of the engine(very unlikely) or a new edition of LOTRO(2.0 if you will, and a rather more likely scenario).
I’m not sure WB has much interest in placing the required resources behind another MMO. Big companies want to see immediate benfit to the time they invest in something, and there are better/quicker/easier ways to do that in the video game market. How many other MMO’s does WB have? Zero. I think WB acquired Turbine because of the IP, and they tolerate the MMO aspect. Just my opinion.
In the Rider’s of Rohan BETA, even when there were hundreds of players together in single spots doing mounted combat, the lag was not really detected. While there was some lag, it was nothing like the crazy lag of mounted combat on the servers today.
I noticed right away after the update some major hitching, but it seems to have gone away now. Hopefully things will get better and better over time 🙂