List Server Organizer

[Triumph of the Soul]

Just throwing an idea out there. What if BZFlag adopted a way of organizing the list server according to region (U.S. East, U.S. West, Europe, Asia, etc.)? This concept has been applied in some cases on Battle.net, and probably for other games as well. If the first thing people saw on the "Find Server" list was a list of regions, they would choose their region and play on servers close to them. This would reduce lag to a certain extent. Everyone would still be able to go to any server they like. But the lag problems would be best if people played within their region.

Please excuse me if this idea has been discussed before. I did some searching and found nothing along these lines of conversation. I would appreciate some feedback.

--A Distraction

[GMMan]

I don't know... The region thing might just be an overkill. I it doesn't really seem to matter where the server is. You usually just play. I know that there are no servers in my region (Sask., CAN). I recommend that instead of listing the regions, list servers according to popularity and then region.

[strayer]

The idea is good, even if it requires that the list server can assign a location to a given IP address (or that server owners have to specify the server's location...). If the region information should be sent with the normal server list (which would make it incompatible with the current one) or in a different way is another question.
The main problem is the needed revision of the server list in the BZFlag client. This would help to implement some other suggestions discussed in this forum too. But "someone" has to have a good idea how to organize a new (better) server list and "someone" must be able and willing to code it then.

As I wrote before...the idea is good, no question... :o)

[bzflaginator]

There is already a thread on this. Please search before you start a new one .

Silly to organize by region. Not many people base their likings on that and more on style of play. Not to mention no one seems to want to code that into the game so have fun

[Triumph of the Soul]

There is already a thread on this. Please search before you start a new one .

I did some searching and found nothing along these lines of conversation.

If this alone does not satisfy you, then you could infer that maybe I felt that this topic is considerably distinguishable from the "Testing server lag directly in Server list" topic, (And correct me if I'm mistaken) which is what I believe you were referring to when you commented here.

Silly to organize by region. Not many people base their likings on that and more on style of play.

This style of organization would not be based on peoples' likes and dislikes. It would be based on what is practical, and what could benifit the community as a whole. It is true that most people don't care about region when choosing a server, but this would just be another layer added to the way the list is organized. People could still play wherever they want, but they could make educated decisions about how to save themselves, and others a little bit of trouble.

And this idea isn't as radical as testing servers for lag. Instead of keeping constant tabs on servers, servers would register for their location and that would be it. The B.net seems to be benifiting from a system like this.

As for writing the code, that's not exactly my problem since I am not experienced with it. I would hope that somebody with a little knowledge would take an initiative and make some improvements. Those improvements start here with ideas like this one.

--A Distraction

[bzflaginator]

Well I can see where you are coming from, but you have to understand that the most populous servers are the ones that get the most mixed crowd and in splitting the servers by region, you will be losing thirds and halves of servers to others and people enjoy hopping on a server without hassle and dont mind the ping most of the time. This is also why the kick for lag is issued. But if you feel that this is a good idea so be it. We all have our own views on things..

[CannonBallGuy]

Other games order servers by ping. It's certainly practical...

[A Vicious Muffin]

As in another thread a few posts down, why would we need to know where the server is if we have good lag? That is why we should have lagtimes in the server list, not locations.

[Triumph of the Soul]

Not all people have high speed connections and good lag. People with high speed connections may be able to play anywhere, but wouldn't you want people with lesser connections to play in their region so they don't disturb the quality of your game? And wouldn't pinging servers at regular intervals create stress for the server? Registering a server according to region would eliminate the need to keep constant tabs on servers. In a way, by looking at the region you play in, you are keeping track of lag at servers and avoiding any nasty lag problems that would occur by joining a laggy server. I guess in a way, the two proposals are similar, except that by registering location, you don't have to constantly ping the server.

--A Distraction

[A Meteorite]

And wouldn't pinging servers at regular intervals create stress for the server?

Far from it.

[bzflaginator]

FYI:
It is not called lag. It is ping rate and there is no such thing as "good lag". Lag was a word created to mock bad ping.

[DTRemenak]

If you don't know what you're talking about, you really shouldn't try to be pedantic.

"Lag" in general means a slowness or retardation (e.g. "lag time" was used in the '50s to describe the time between dependent tasks; "jet lag" is another example from the same era). You're right that there's no such thing as "good lag" (seriously; would you say "good slowness"?).

When referring to network applications, "lag" is an input-to-destination time, while "latency" is a send-to-receive time (subtle difference having to do with what exactly is being measured; for bzflag it makes a bigger difference than usual, because we run network ops synchronously with frame drawing, so your lag may be much higher than your network latency if you have low framerates and low net latency). Lag is also dependent on the data being sent; an overloaded connection will have the same (theoretical) latency as always, but lag will increase, as your packets wait in queues.

"Ping" is a tool that was created to measure network latency (icmp responses are generally sent by the kernel, which reduces the potential for the lag/latency delta to influence ping). Of course, nowadays most people use "ping" to refer to more than just the original icmp latency measuring tool.

Furthermore, the "ping rate" is irrelevant (hint: a "rate" is measured in units per second), what someone using ping really wants to know is the average "ping time", which should give you some indication of network latency.

[Lord Flasheart]

I'll try and find some time after Christmas to take a look at putting together a Windows client that can organise the server list according to various criteria (including ping time). However, my coding talents might need some dusting off!

[bzflaginator]

Thank god we have you Lord Flasheart .
And DTRemenak...there is no need to be cruel about it. I was just trying to shed some light for those who do not understand that lag is merely a term to mock ones terrible ping.