Rift

[snazzy]

Does anyone know why with game RIFT is having probelms with Virgin Media? There's a whole forum section with people having issues getting on line with the game, and every single one of them is a VM customer.

I am online now, but it took 40 mins and many many attempts to conect.

[Kymmy]

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?54267-%28UK%29-Huge-Latency-during-peak-times-Virgin-Media

[Martyn]

i never had a problem during beta, although i cancelled my pre order as turns out the game is no different to all the others - boring

[Chrysalis]

VM expecting rift to contact them is wrong.

The solution is to stop treating unidentified traffic as p2p, which is what they should be doing anyway when they claim only p2p and nttp is shaped.

another traffic shaping fail.

[Ignitionnet]

The standard policy is to give low priority to unidentified traffic. This is standard throughout DPI deployments and nothing exceptional or specific to VM.

[Scary]

i never had a problem either with the Beta didnt play the full version because it got boring fast

[Milambar]

Very boring, very fast.

Its the same as any other MMORPG, with different graphics and different quests.

That said, its probably being bitten by VM's application filters as unidentified traffic (which is ONLY supposed to affect p2p and newsgroups)

[Chrysalis]

The standard policy is to give low priority to unidentified traffic. This is standard throughout DPI deployments and nothing exceptional or specific to VM.

Which is one reason I dont like them.

[Peter_]

Virginmedia are under no obligation to ensure that a 3rd party games server works on their network that is the vendors problem, harsh maybe but true as it would cost the company money, now if Rift were to offer to pay them to look into it then maybe the IT Department would be able to sort out the issue.

The used to be an issue with WOW Telia servers and again it was down to Telia to fix the problem not Virginmedia which you can see in this link.

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Fibre-optic-broadband-cable/Virgin-Media-gt-Telia-latency-jump-WoW/td-p/30076

[Chrysalis]

VM have a responsibility to make sure services work for their customers that is within their control.

Masque that is a terrible response to be frank, the issue is VM's own equipment and not only that they are currently selling services illegally as they claim gaming is not shaped.

End of the day you can sit there all you like saying not VM problem, but VM will change tune when customers leave because of it. I think the difference here tho is WoW was a lot more high scale of customers, so VM treated it more seriously.

So rift should pay VM to fix their shaping? Think again.

[Peter_]

VM have a responsibility to make sure services work for their customers that is within their control.

Masque that is a terrible response to be frank, the issue is VM's own equipment and not only that they are currently selling services illegally as they claim gaming is not shaped.

End of the day you can sit there all you like saying not VM problem, but VM will change tune when customers leave because of it. I think the difference here tho is WoW was a lot more high scale of customers, so VM treated it more seriously.

So rift should pay VM to fix their shaping? Think again.
So Virginmedia are going to fix gaming issues, I think that you will find as it is 3rd party issues then no ISP will try to fix another companies issue.

[Ignitionnet]

Virginmedia are under no obligation to ensure that a 3rd party games server works on their network that is the vendors problem, harsh maybe but true as it would cost the company money, now if Rift were to offer to pay them to look into it then maybe the IT Department would be able to sort out the issue.

The used to be an issue with WOW Telia servers and again it was down to Telia to fix the problem not Virginmedia which you can see in this link.

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Fibre-optic-broadband-cable/Virgin-Media-gt-Telia-latency-jump-WoW/td-p/30076

Actually that issue was, and always is, due to VM's traffic engineering and their having too much traffic using that interconnect. It was resolved when VM staff modified their routing to shift some traffic off the link but never mind.

---------- Post added at 08:48 ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 ----------

So Virginmedia are going to fix gaming issues, I think that you will find as it is 3rd party issues then no ISP will try to fix another companies issue.

Oddly VM didn't seem to think that when they accidentally shaped WoW traffic and adjusted their policies to compensate while they waited for their vendor to supply an up to date application signature to ensure WoW traffic was properly identified.

Does seem a bit odd given it was apparently Blizzard's issue that VM applied the workaround then applied the fix.

You're also wrong about ISPs and 3rd party issues. ISPs often modify their own routing in order to avoid problem spots and keep their customers happy as to many of their customers the buck stops with them, end of discussion.

Interesting how zealous staff seem to have gotten on this forum over time when facing criticism of their employer.

EDIT: Just FYI VM have already acknowledged the fault was on their network and applied a fix yesterday.

http://community.virginmedia.com/virgin/board/message?board.id=Gaming&message.id=1534#M1534

A few moments checking out the official forums rather than feeling besmirched at criticism of the beloved employer would have pulled this up, it's linked from the thread on the Rift forum above.

[Peter_]

Oddly VM didn't seem to think that when they accidentally shaped WoW traffic and adjusted their policies to compensate while they waited for their vendor to supply an up to date application signature to ensure WoW traffic was properly identified.

Does seem a bit odd given it was apparently Blizzard's issue that VM applied the workaround then applied the fix.

You're also wrong about ISPs and 3rd party issues. ISPs often modify their own routing in order to avoid problem spots and keep their customers happy as to many of their customers the buck stops with them, end of discussion.

Interesting how zealous staff seem to have gotten on this forum over time when facing criticism of their employer.

EDIT: Just FYI VM have already acknowledged the fault was on their network and applied a fix yesterday.

http://community.virginmedia.com/virgin/board/message?board.id=Gaming&message.id=1534#M1534

A few moments checking out the official forums rather than feeling besmirched at criticism of the beloved employer would have pulled this up, it's linked from the thread on the Rift forum above.
They maybe should have let the staff know then as we would not have any idea about a fix unless we checked out the community forum which we should not have to do as we have other systems in place to advise of such issues.

[pip08456]

Looks like the systems in place are suffering VM syndrome.-Ain't working as they should!

[Ignitionnet]

They maybe should have let the staff know then as we would not have any idea about a fix unless we checked out the community forum which we should not have to do as we have other systems in place to advise of such issues.

They didn't acknowledge the issue until yesterday it was still under investigation and had previously been escalated to VM's DPI guy according to the post in question.

Maybe staff shouldn't make so many assumptions when confronted with such issues. If stuff works for other ISPs but not VM customers it's probably VM's fault.

[Chrysalis]

So Virginmedia are going to fix gaming issues, I think that you will find as it is 3rd party issues then no ISP will try to fix another companies issue.

Its a virginmedia issue they are throttling gaming traffic. Its so basic. Yet you dont understand it.

[Peter_]

Its a virginmedia issue they are throttling gaming traffic. Its so basic. Yet you dont understand it.
Do you really think that they will be in a rush to fix it though, as the has been issues with the WOW Telia servers for years and that is a much bigger game than Rift.

[Chrysalis]

Do you really think that they will be in a rush to fix it though, as the has been issues with the WOW Telia servers for years and that is a much bigger game than Rift.

according as ignition said yes they are already working on it.

We not talking about routing issues either, we are talking about VM's traffic shaping equipment treating the traffic as p2p and throttling it. So this is nothing to do with telia or any other transit provider.

[Ignitionnet]

Do you really think that they will be in a rush to fix it though, as the has been issues with the WOW Telia servers for years and that is a much bigger game than Rift.

Says rather a lot for them if they're quite happy to balls up the service for a large group of customers for years.

As it is that issue is intermittent though it gets fixed on and off. The solution is of course to just upgrade the transit and peering capacity however instead of that VM tried shaping which hasn't really worked for the Telia interconnect :)

[Stuart]

It's probably not the same thing, but Be was having problems accessing Rift and OpenDNS amongst other things last night. Fixed now though (OpenDNS is certainly working, don't play Rift so I won't comment on that).

http://www.beusergroup.co.uk/

[Peter_]

Says rather a lot for them if they're quite happy to balls up the service for a large group of customers for years.

As it is that issue is intermittent though it gets fixed on and off. The solution is of course to just upgrade the transit and peering capacity however instead of that VM tried shaping which hasn't really worked for the Telia interconnect :)
You know more than most where their priorities lie as we can see from the ongoing issue with Telia and WOW.