So a top player wrote that he wouldn't want to go to an Intel Extreme Masters event after seeing today's action in Kiev. I am not going to blame him since we've made mistakes, though I'd hope we would get a little bit more credit.
(Long post incoming.)
Cologne, Guangzhou and New York City went just fine (as esports events go). We had problems at this event. There's only so much you can do to prepare for an event like this. There will always be issues to solve that are beyond your control. Here's what happened:
The venue in Kiev is a huge PC bang with a built-in stage to host esports matches. It has two synchronous 100Mbit lines which are independent from each other - one for the gaming, one for the streaming. It runs dozens of bigger and smaller tournaments all year round.
We ran a very successful event here last year - the Intel Extreme Masters European Championship. Despite knowing the venue well, we visited it in December again to perform our due dilligence and plan the event anew. Our only worry was whether or not we can set up our streaming and video on time.
I can honestly say that we have covered all the areas which we know to be critical. Sometimes that is simply not good enough.
While the Counter-Strike 1.6 and League of Legends tournaments were running completely fine and without any issues (technical or ping-related), the SC2 tournament was plagued with difficulties:
- Players had lag that affected gameplay and sometimes the result (naniwa and, to a lesser degree, Strelok);
- Naniwa voiced concerns to the referee that he had lag issues (other players also). As it turned out their lag spikes were not at all as bad as naniwa's. One of the players intervened and convinced naniwa that by changing some network settings and shutting off some software the connection would be fixed. Naniwa got talked into playing - as it turned out it was a mistake not to put him on another PC (the reasoning being that all players claimed to have some spikes).
- The situation with naniwa happened later on (naniwa having lag issues that affected the outcome of his game). His instant emotional reaction was to want to discontinue playing, but he came back to finish his games on another PC and won the group. Throughout the entire situation - from the start until after all of his games, he was considerate and understanding and his behaviour was very professional. No bullshit.
- Meanwhile, I spent almost the entire day investigating the root of the problem. I spent a lot of the time on the phone with Blizzard's employees, talking to the local IT masterminds who called the local ISP (100Mbit line for gaming only, remember). I asked for the group play to be halted because that time could have allowed us to find the solution.
- The players have avoided PCs where the bad lag occured and continued play. No players have had anything major since then, except for Grubby where it seemed like a commentator lagging out was the problem (he had no other lags - I don't think it was related to the naniwa issue).
Here is what we did in order to fix this issue: - call Blizzard countless times to make sure it's not a routing issue; - call the local ISP countless times to do the same; - test other PCs in the gaming center to see if the same issues occur (they are the same configuration - some lagged, others did not); - the Arena IT have set up completely fresh Windows PCs with SC2 only on them - those will be the machines used in the remainder of the tournament;
There were no issues whatsoever with League of Legends or Counter-Strike 1.6. At the end of the day it seems like there still might be a minor routing issue (which is not ideal but playable) and the PCs were totally wiped and cleaned up.
To whomever was disappointed with today: I am obviously very sorry that you did not receive the kind of entertainment that we always want to deliver. I can say with all honesty that we did our very best to fix the issues and make sure that the rest of the tournament is flawless.
Please give us some credit and save the pitchforks for after the finals.
I would like to enclose a statement from White Ra who knows the venue very well and participated in last year's Intel Extreme Masters tournament as well (obviously if you're one of the players in Kiev, feel free to chip in with a comment - good or bad, I don't mind):
"Today it was not normal but playable. All of the players have the same conditions. Sometimes there's a lag spike, other times it is all smooth. I experienced one lag issue myself in the game vs. Strelok but the game was decided by then. I have never seen this before in the Arena. I have played a best of 7 show match vs. Dimaga a couple of months ago on stage and we did not have any problems. At last year's Intel Extreme Masters event here there were no such problems either. There was one problem with electricity but that was because it went down in the entire area of Kiev."
This post comes out just as Nightend more or less lost because off lagg during the deciding battle. You could see that he diden't micro his stalkers to target down the broods.
Nice that you wrote this post to adress the issue rather then ignoring it!
Actually we should thank HuK that he doesn't accept the invite. This way we're going to get a GOOD representative from Korea. I still remember him failing in Cologne 2 times.
I think the big problem is that games are decided by lag. You can argue that Naniwa lost his game against Strelok because of lag, Grubby might not have lost against Zenio because of lag and NightEnd might not have lost the last game against Zenio because of lag (Engagement on the west side of Dual side with the blink stalkers under the brood lords)
Especially since I am a fan of Grubby and NightEnd I am sad to see them lose, but under circumstances that could have been better and the games might have been different.
I have a lot of respect for IEM and ESL because they try to get new talent into the mix, but this shit has to be better...
On January 20 2012 06:37 mrtomjones wrote: Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly.
will u shut up. It obviously affected the players and why shoudlnt both players have equal settings?
it sucks when the moment two armies are together you have sp[ikes where you cant mciro shit... its a joke as the mroe time broodlords are alive the motr damage they do with the broodlings andmore broodlings are alive.....
WhiteRA calling it "playable" is just wrong IMO. Any amount of lag is just unacceptable, I really think Blizzard needs to step in and provide some kind of portable LAN functionality or tournament servers, I don't understand how people can take SC2 seriously when thousands and thousands of dollars are riding on games where there is lag, it devalues the competitiveness of the game.
I really feel this is more Blizzard's fault than IEMs...
Props to Carmac for being transparent on the issue.
edit: Sounds like its because the computers are poor, that's a shame, I still think the LAN issues still stand though.
It doesn't matter if its 'playable' a majority of the time, lag spikes deciding the game just destroys the entire integrity of the tournament, good luck getting it fixed for tomorrow/finals but today was undeniably a joke.
You tried hard to fix the issue but some things are just out of your hands, I don't think this post was needed but I appreciate you putting in the time and effort to clear up some comments being made, looking forward to the rest of the tournament and hope things are plain sailing from now on.
well blame blizzard for lack of lan... As long as an event is completly at the mercy of a stable internet connection there will be problems. MLG had it's problems, IPL had them and now IEM becomes just another case in point.
I sharpened my pitchfork good today, tomorrow I might have to start stabbing. (Ooh, SOTG will be on soon, I hope they have brought their pitchforks too, I'll definitely tune in.)
On January 20 2012 06:37 mrtomjones wrote: Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly.
will u shut up. It obviously affected the players and why shoudlnt both players have equal settings?
it sucks when the moment two armies are together you have sp[ikes where you cant mciro shit... its a joke as the mroe time broodlords are alive the motr damage they do with the broodlings andmore broodlings are alive.....
Uhh wow dude. I comment that it is because of bad net and you snap on me? Fun. Someone never going to another IEM event is silly. MLG has had lag issues before. Everyone still goes to those. Every tournament has had troubles of some sort and people still go to GSL and Dreamhack. Perhaps you should chill.
Can't Intel hook you up with some good PC's? There has been lag in like all games where big battles happened. So to me it feels like the PC's are the main problem.
On January 20 2012 06:37 mrtomjones wrote: Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly.
will u shut up. It obviously affected the players and why shoudlnt both players have equal settings?
it sucks when the moment two armies are together you have sp[ikes where you cant mciro shit... its a joke as the mroe time broodlords are alive the motr damage they do with the broodlings andmore broodlings are alive.....
Uhh wow dude. I comment that it is because of bad net and you snap on me? Fun. Someone never going to another IEM event is silly. MLG has had lag issues before. Everyone still goes to those. Every tournament has had troubles of some sort and people still go to GSL and Dreamhack. Perhaps you should chill.
this isnt the first time with IEM? its always liek this always like this. other places Fix it, but odds are well have the same problems tommorrow... I snapped because ur brushing lag of as not a problem and the players should just deal withit and HuK isnt goign to go simply ebcause this isnt the first time. Plus it will be offputting for players and put players off if all their events the is awlays problems.
On January 20 2012 06:42 AysiktiriX wrote: I sharpened my pitchfork good today, tomorrow I might have to start stabbing. (Ooh, SOTG will be on soon, I hope they have brought their pitchforks too, I'll definitely tune in.)
Judge IEM or ESL or the tourney at the end of it! I hope their is ironic in your post.
On January 20 2012 06:44 falafelnr1 wrote: Can't Intel hook you up with some good PC's? There has been lag in like all games where big battles happened. So to me it feels like the PC's are the main problem.
The ESL has computer problems for over 10 years now. so it seems like intel cannot otherwise they already wouldve done it.
On January 20 2012 06:37 mrtomjones wrote: Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly.
will u shut up. It obviously affected the players and why shoudlnt both players have equal settings?
it sucks when the moment two armies are together you have sp[ikes where you cant mciro shit... its a joke as the mroe time broodlords are alive the motr damage they do with the broodlings andmore broodlings are alive.....
Uhh wow dude. I comment that it is because of bad net and you snap on me? Fun. Someone never going to another IEM event is silly. MLG has had lag issues before. Everyone still goes to those. Every tournament has had troubles of some sort and people still go to GSL and Dreamhack. Perhaps you should chill.
this isnt the first time with IEM? its always liek this always like this. other places Fix it, but odds are well have the same problems tommorrow... I snapped because ur brushing lag of as not a problem and the players should just deal withit and HuK isnt goign to go simply ebcause this isnt the first time. Plus it will be offputting for players and put players off if all their events the is awlays problems.
I said that the problem appeard to me to be because of the internet there. I didn't comment on whether I think it is a big deal. However, sometimes situations aren't ideal, and if they are the same for everyone than sometimes you just have to play through it.
It stinks that this happened, but I'm still glad you came forward and explained the situation. I enjoyed the broadcast today despite the issues and have my fingers crossed that the rest of the tournament goes smoothly.
On January 20 2012 06:39 Adebisi wrote: I really feel this is more Blizzard's fault than IEMs...
Agree 100%. Two other games were going on simultaneously without issues, and the venue was clearly way above requirements. Only explanation is another battle.net issue.
EDIT: Talking about blizzard in post 666? What a glorious coincidence!
On January 20 2012 06:37 mrtomjones wrote: Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly.
will u shut up. It obviously affected the players and why shoudlnt both players have equal settings?
it sucks when the moment two armies are together you have sp[ikes where you cant mciro shit... its a joke as the mroe time broodlords are alive the motr damage they do with the broodlings andmore broodlings are alive.....
Uhh wow dude. I comment that it is because of bad net and you snap on me? Fun. Someone never going to another IEM event is silly. MLG has had lag issues before. Everyone still goes to those. Every tournament has had troubles of some sort and people still go to GSL and Dreamhack. Perhaps you should chill.
this isnt the first time with IEM? its always liek this always like this. other places Fix it, but odds are well have the same problems tommorrow... I snapped because ur brushing lag of as not a problem and the players should just deal withit and HuK isnt goign to go simply ebcause this isnt the first time. Plus it will be offputting for players and put players off if all their events the is awlays problems.
I said that the problem appeard to me to be because of the internet there. I didn't comment on whether I think it is a big deal. However, sometimes situations aren't ideal, and if they are the same for everyone than sometimes you just have to play through it.
yeh but Carmac has mentioned above that it hasnt been the same for both players in thecas of naniwa and also probabbly ngihtend in the last game. Nightend must feel a bit bitter after that game, he may of had delay trying to deal with then muta too we dont and probably wont know.,..
Good damage control, IEM. Just fix it for tomorrow and all will be forgotten. The SC2 community has the memory of a goldfish. It does appear to be computer-performance based, as the lag spikes during large engagements. Maybe it has to do with the spectator computers?
On the bright side, NASL suddenly is looking pretty good.
On January 20 2012 06:37 mrtomjones wrote: Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly.
will u shut up. It obviously affected the players and why shoudlnt both players have equal settings?
it sucks when the moment two armies are together you have sp[ikes where you cant mciro shit... its a joke as the mroe time broodlords are alive the motr damage they do with the broodlings andmore broodlings are alive.....
Uhh wow dude. I comment that it is because of bad net and you snap on me? Fun. Someone never going to another IEM event is silly. MLG has had lag issues before. Everyone still goes to those. Every tournament has had troubles of some sort and people still go to GSL and Dreamhack. Perhaps you should chill.
this isnt the first time with IEM? its always liek this always like this. other places Fix it, but odds are well have the same problems tommorrow... I snapped because ur brushing lag of as not a problem and the players should just deal withit and HuK isnt goign to go simply ebcause this isnt the first time. Plus it will be offputting for players and put players off if all their events the is awlays problems.
I said that the problem appeard to me to be because of the internet there. I didn't comment on whether I think it is a big deal. However, sometimes situations aren't ideal, and if they are the same for everyone than sometimes you just have to play through it.
yeh but Carmac has mentioned above that it hasnt been the same for both players in thecas of naniwa and also probabbly ngihtend in the last game. Nightend must feel a bit bitter after that game, he may of had delay trying to deal with then muta too we dont and probably wont know.,..
Whatever. Apparently I'll just go "shutup" because a pissy fan is angry at the unfairness of the world. Either way, they have to deal with it. It sucks. But its happened and there obviously wasn't much that they could have done to fix it. Meh I'm out. GL carmac
from the way Nightend vs Zenio Game3 looked like, i would say the problems was caused by the poorly equiped PCs ESL/IEM are using @ Kiev... shame they cannot handle 200/200 fights... Nightend should be given a rematch imo !
Thanks for this post, really appreciate the transparent communication.
I just have one request: Please give NightenD a regame. He lost because of this issue therefore losing the series and the 2nd spot of the group and dropped out of the tournament. For every other game this would probably have been not that important but this game was the most important for him and in the entire group. It's very likely he would've won this game. Please give him a regame.
Such things CAN happen as faulty electronics are the vehicle of esports, but what I think made the situation unbearable for viewers is the fact that you did not communicate in a professional manner what exactly seems to be the problem and what are the appropriate steps to take thereafter.
Maybe via the casters or on one definitely legit official IEM twitter account.I for example was outraged when I heard nani forfeited because I thought he was right not to play but overreacted in simply dropping out, so one bad thing led to another - after that it was thankfully clarified but so much drama and a massive community shitstorm was already on the way and this could hurt IEM as it die MLG for example at Dallas(They thankfully learned their lesson and are doing fine now).
You and IEM staff are generally doing a good job in providing entertaining content, but as I said, better PR work in such critical situations could do wonders
On January 20 2012 06:42 AysiktiriX wrote: I sharpened my pitchfork good today, tomorrow I might have to start stabbing. (Ooh, SOTG will be on soon, I hope they have brought their pitchforks too, I'll definitely tune in.)
Judge IEM or ESL or the tourney at the end of it! I hope their is ironic in your post.
No, there was no irony actually. I am a very patient and calm person. That's why I decided for an opening day not to say anything even though what we witnessed was... "ugly" is a fitting word, I guess. If there are such issues again tomorrow... I'll bring not only a sharpened pitchfork, but a torch too.
lol guys nightend was still 2-3 bases against what, 4-5 base? nightned still had nearly no money compared to like 5k bank for zenio? i mean zenio played badly, but nightend made mistakes too, and even though he would have won that battle, i still doubt he wins the game.
still, that doesn't excuse the lag, but I feel for IEM, there's only so much you can do.
Blizzard is the biggest culprit, I don't know and still don't know why they refuse LAN support.
Are you going to give NightEnd a regame? Because while I understand all the issues you've been having. There is no excuse for falling back on them for a terrible decision to even consider the end result of that match legitimate.
On January 20 2012 07:02 Flonomenalz wrote: lol guys nightend was still 2-3 bases against what, 4-5 base? nightned still had nearly no money compared to like 5k bank for zenio? i mean zenio played badly, but nightend made mistakes too, and even though he would have won that battle, i still doubt he wins the game.
still, that doesn't excuse the lag, but I feel for IEM, there's only so much you can do.
Blizzard is the biggest culprit, I don't know and still don't know why they refuse LAN support.
Yea but if he won the battle, on best case scenario he could have killed 1 zerg base while securing his 3rd and to some extent 4th base until zerg gets fully reloaded and willing to engage in a new fight.
On January 20 2012 07:02 GenoZStriker wrote: Are you going to give NightEnd a regame? Because while I understand all the issues you've been having. There is no excuse for falling back on them for a terrible decision to even consider the end result of that match legitimate.
I didnt catch the grubby or naniwa series so I can't speak for them, but this ^ is definitely my biggest concern regarding this whole ordeal.
There is no way nightend being eliminated from the tournament for that game is in any way legitimate.
On January 20 2012 07:02 Flonomenalz wrote: lol guys nightend was still 2-3 bases against what, 4-5 base? nightned still had nearly no money compared to like 5k bank for zenio? i mean zenio played badly, but nightend made mistakes too, and even though he would have won that battle, i still doubt he wins the game.
still, that doesn't excuse the lag, but I feel for IEM, there's only so much you can do.
Blizzard is the biggest culprit, I don't know and still don't know why they refuse LAN support.
its honestly about time for blizzard to release lan. they are not going to lose much profit due to pirates since most sc fans have long purchased the game.
plus it will gain huge popularity in asian countries!
On January 20 2012 07:23 HorstSchlemmer wrote: Seems like Nightend is demanding a regame right now for the last map against Zenio because he feels like the massive lag in the big engagement decided the game in Zenios favor.
Well, it looked kind of like that when he focussed the Broodlords and targeted the Lings while it lagged... Zenio needs to agree though and obviously he won't do that...
Seems like you did your best and as someone who often deals with various tech issues, yeah, sometimes shit is just unpredictable and can fuck up even if you put your best foot forward. Hopefully people can be understanding and appreciate the work the IEM team is putting in. And hopefully (but highly unlikely) Blizzard can implement LAN. -_-;;
It comforts me that you write this, so that it may clear out confusion and for the lot of us. I am not giving up on Kiev even if today was shaky you have had many succes full events, godspeed!
I seriously just hope Blizzard pulls their equity-driven ego's out of their asses and realize that without LAN support for any and ALL tournaments, there will never, ever, ever, EVER be a chance to have SC2 televised. EVER.
Good luck with the rest of the tournament, and if anybody from Blizzard is reading: There's a reason I switched to SWTOR and back to Brood War.
Let's wait and see what the next few days bring us. Thank you for addressing the issue, Carmac. Let's not forget that IPL 3 had some horrendous Internet problems, yet they still managed to pull off one of the best LAN tournaments of 2011. There's hope yet.
No such problems would exist if Blizzard included or would include LAN Support. At least they can do the same as with WoW. Just make a server client for tournaments and everyone will be happy.
Today was pretty damn disappointing. At least you have the balls to write a statement to clarify what happened behind the scenes, Carmac. Hopefully tomorrow will be a lot less sad that what was shown today.
i also was one of the people who was mad about the lag when i watched IEM KIEV , but after i cooled down cause in every tournament are problems and the play was good i hope that in the next days you will fix the problems and will not be a decideing factor in the games
Nice from you to react and talk about the problem. Live event can be a bitch to make happend without any problems. I hope people won't be bitching at IEM too hard because they follow blindy players opinion. Everyone is trying to do the best for the community and the game. It's okay to bitch about thing, just don"t be a dick about it.
I just hope Blizzard would release LAN one day.. Man i hate that we're playing a competitive esport with a game from a corrupted designer. Damn you Activision you evil bastard.
It effected way more players than just two. It was a large factor in the Nightend vs Zenio match for example. It seemed as though the internet at the venue was just completely unstable throughout. You say that you made mistakes and you will correct them, and that's nice, but IEM is established and has held many tournaments of this nature before. It's not like this is your first time, and it's just really easy to say oh well, we'll do better next time. All of the games in question should be replayed in my opinion, and if that ends up costing the organizers of the tournament more money, then that's on you.
On January 20 2012 06:39 Adebisi wrote: WhiteRA calling it "playable" is just wrong IMO. Any amount of lag is just unacceptable, I really think Blizzard needs to step in and provide some kind of portable LAN functionality or tournament servers, I don't understand how people can take SC2 seriously when thousands and thousands of dollars are riding on games where there is lag, it devalues the competitiveness of the game.
I really feel this is more Blizzard's fault than IEMs...
Props to Carmac for being transparent on the issue.
I am sure everyone appreciate your statement, and the fact that you can controll everything is very true.
But its just so sad for the professional players, most of them train so hard, and to be able to lose because of lag just hurts, im so glad Nani came back, but I am also afraid that NightEnd went out of the tourney bacuse of this, it was like 5 sec or something when he couldnt micro he's stalkers vrs Broods because of a spike.
Well, the only mistake you had was not switching computers fast enough, but everything else was out of your reach. Its mostly Blizz fault for not having lan, not yours, but you cannot change it, so, i would say, you shouldn't be worried about this that much, everyone has a bad day, lets hope it wont happen now anymore
On January 20 2012 06:39 Adebisi wrote: WhiteRA calling it "playable" is just wrong IMO. Any amount of lag is just unacceptable, I really think Blizzard needs to step in and provide some kind of portable LAN functionality or tournament servers, I don't understand how people can take SC2 seriously when thousands and thousands of dollars are riding on games where there is lag, it devalues the competitiveness of the game.
I really feel this is more Blizzard's fault than IEMs...
Props to Carmac for being transparent on the issue.
Exactly what I wanted to say.
Blizzard - just give us LAN.
Blizzard has to report to activision, thus we'll never get LAN
lan may not solve all issues (such as messed up PCs or a bad router on the local network) but it would help remove a potential point of failure (the Internet connection) and help speed up diagnosis and resolution as they don't have to make calls to blizzard. we definitely need a tournament server running locally for major events...
It's bad, but kudos to you for approaching it like this, nice to know you are doing anything you can.
I feel like you should tackle the problem of many observers in your games though, every time one of them causes lag issues, I let out a sigh. Maybe let them cast a HD stream or email them replays directly after the game finishes?
It is easy to blame any tournament for stuff like this, but the problem is we've seen this happen at almost all tournaments to some degree. You still see it happen sometimes in the GSL. Blizzard needs to address this if it wants SC2 to keep growing.
On January 20 2012 06:42 Substandard wrote: well blame blizzard for lack of lan... As long as an event is completly at the mercy of a stable internet connection there will be problems. MLG had it's problems, IPL had them and now IEM becomes just another case in point.
To add that Blizzard's own events have had network issues occasionally too. They really need to offer special solutions to big tournaments sooner (like, their own local server inside the lan, for example). Their main excuse was that all code is written to interact with a server and it will take a hell of a lot of work to rewrite, but that they could develop local replacement servers.
We are HUMANS,We Made Misakes,but to blame,i dont think this is the reason,peoples are trying to fix,and i am sure they wil fix whatever it is! U guys are doing insane job! if 'progamers are not pleasured' let them organize and make and pop up everything to see, its not that easy !
This is getting depressing... I swear it happens at every tournament. I honestly can't see Starcraft 2 as a legit esports if latency issues keep existing. The game is great, the scene is competitive, however I absolutely cannot enjoy watching high level games because at the back of my mind there's always this apprehension, this fear that latency and lag spikes will pop up and screw the match. Moreso than balance or race distribution (which are relatively insignificant issues), I'm starting to realize that this issue is a real deal breaker to me.
People need to realize the difference between Blizzard not having a LAN-setting, and COMPUTERS not being able to handle StarCraft 2.
These problems weren't caused by neither routing or connection, they were caused by the computers. Hence all bullshit about Blizzard not having a LAN-setting is irrelevant as even if they were playing a LAN-mode - the lag would remain.
Good post by Carmac, but it's sad to see players fly all the way to Kiev to play in a tournament, and lose due to IEM not testing the computers enough / providing good enough computers. Some people were undeniably ROBBED of games because of it. Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client does not have the ability to interact with another client in any way! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
This sounds like some PCs were FPS lagging and not internet lagging, as in the local Frame Rates were stuttering during gameplay. 100Mbits is totally overkill, SC2 uses very little data and bandwidth, all 100 Mbits would have to be in use for their to be lag spikes like that or there was a faulty switch that was dropping packets.
All the lag spikes were during 200 / 200 fights where the CPU is producing calucations for every bit of Ai on the map and the graphics card is producing and calucating the most animations, lighting, collasions etc
"The vehicle of e-sports is technology and sometimes ....."
Also last year at Kiev the event ran pretty smoothly, no other organization comes even close in terms of having the balls to host events in as many different places over the world as IEM does. The problems at the event are not excusable but they arent really making any either as far as I can see. They can only do everything in their power and I'm pretty sure they did.
Another event plagued by internet problems that demonstrates once again how inexcusable it is that Blizzard still has not released a LAN client for tournaments. They have developed and balanced Starcraft 2 as an e-sport, but are unwilling to provide such a basic and necessary feature? Nearly every single event has had lag or disconnects influence match results at some point. Blizzard's intransigence on this issue is really disrespectful to all the players, organizers and fans that have helped make their game successful. I honestly can't believe we're still posting about this over a year since release.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
Mad props for the post. Already a huge fan after IEM NY but after seeing and reading through this, my respect just went up another couple notches. Hopefully the lessons learned from Kiev, NASL, and elsewhere will eventually make these major hiccups nothing more than an unpleasant memory in the near future.
I'm sorry, as much as I love White-Ra, since he is Ukranian and IEM is in Kiev, I don't think his quote is very objective.
I watched every single match today that was casted, and in all of the matches in which there were 200-200 battles we saw considerable amount of lag, especially in Grubby, Naniwa, and NightEnd games. I mean even Grubby who we know to be one of the most optimistic and understanding people had to file an official complaint in his game vs Zenio because of the lag. He said the lag was so bad that he tried to block Zerg's 15hatch with a pylon 3 times and he couldn't because of the lag. This is not some minor issue, this is a possible game changer. In NightEnd vs Zenio, NE blinked under 10+ broodlords with 30+ stalkers, but could not focus fire them due to lag, and lost the battle, losing the game. Another 4 times the games started with slow game speed, had to be restarted. There were seriously long breaks during series and even games. Apollo&TLO and Bitterdam just got tired of having random talks during these breaks.
All in all, IEM Kiev Day1 reminded me of the major fuckups at MLG Dallas. After successful tournaments such as DH or HSC, organizers have to work harder. If they don't perform on par with those events, you get 11k viewers today instead of the usual 40k, and you damage your companies' image.
On January 20 2012 08:14 sd_andeh wrote: People need to realize the difference between Blizzard not having a LAN-setting, and COMPUTERS not being able to handle StarCraft 2.
These problems weren't caused by neither routing or connection, they were caused by the computers. Hence all bullshit about Blizzard not having a LAN-setting is irrelevant as even if they were playing a LAN-mode - the lag would remain.
Good post by Carmac, but it's sad to see players fly all the way to Kiev to play in a tournament, and lose due to IEM not testing the computers enough / providing good enough computers. Some people were undeniably ROBBED of games because of it. Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
To remind you that there was lag on all computers, according to WhiteRa, just on some it was much worse, and on others it was playable - but still "not normal".
Wow, basically half the posts on here talk about blizzard and bnet. THIS WASN'T A BATTLE.NET ISSUE.
The issue was the computers. They simply weren't good enough, and some worse than others due to a so far unexplained reason (as Carmac stated they all have the same specs, yet no reason why some computers lagged worse than others).
Get it to your heads that this was indeed IEM's fault, and not even remotely close to Blizzard's fault. Battle.net was fine. The internetconnection was fine.
We should all appreciate the post by Carmac though and sincerely hope that the problems are fixed tomorrow. Until then, we can just pray.
I'm a lazy TL lurker, when i see a wall of text i ignore it or browse around a bit. I read all of this. Carmac: You cant be perfect. Everyone else: keep in mind that while it might be said that internet setting are the most important thing to take care of there are countless others that are just as important, for every wrong i'm sure this event has tons of right.
@SC2ZergLair Zenio has agreed to a rematch with NightEnD due to lag problems in the final game of their bo3. Really good sportsmanship from @LiquidZenio. 1 minute ago via web
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
Right now you connect to a server cluster that is far away, therefore it lags. If you move the servers next to you computer you have lan. Lan mode is implemented by setting a bnet server next to your computer. The only client side change is changing the IP you connect to from SC2.
On January 20 2012 08:21 obsKura wrote: this was just tweeted:
@SC2ZergLair Zenio has agreed to a rematch with NightEnD due to lag problems in the final game of their bo3. Really good sportsmanship from @LiquidZenio. 1 minute ago via web
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
uhh what ? I dont know much about the techical aspects of it but I dont see why client side servers can be that hard to set up, for major events. Its not like they need to overhaul the existing system (which mind you was garbage to start with and its not like they didnt have good working systems to learn from either, they just had a different vision of how they wanted to run it.
On January 20 2012 08:14 sd_andeh wrote: People need to realize the difference between Blizzard not having a LAN-setting, and COMPUTERS not being able to handle StarCraft 2.
These problems weren't caused by neither routing or connection, they were caused by the computers. Hence all bullshit about Blizzard not having a LAN-setting is irrelevant as even if they were playing a LAN-mode - the lag would remain.
Good post by Carmac, but it's sad to see players fly all the way to Kiev to play in a tournament, and lose due to IEM not testing the computers enough / providing good enough computers. Some people were undeniably ROBBED of games because of it. Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
To remind you that there was lag on all computers, according to WhiteRa, just on some it was much worse, and on others it was playable - but still "not normal".
The sole reason that some computers lagged more than other proves that it wasn't a battle.net issue. Besides, more people would have complained who were playing on the EU server in case it was a battle.net-related issue. Just read twitter what the pros say, especially ThorZain's.
Quoting:
mouzThorZaIN How can they bring computers that cant handle the COMPUTER GAMES they want to play at their COMPUTER game tournament? It doesn't make sense.
On a side-note though, there may have been internetrelated issues as well (judging from what Grubby said etc), but the deciding battles were decided by the computers and not the internet nor the players.
On January 20 2012 08:14 sd_andeh wrote: People need to realize the difference between Blizzard not having a LAN-setting, and COMPUTERS not being able to handle StarCraft 2.
These problems weren't caused by neither routing or connection, they were caused by the computers. Hence all bullshit about Blizzard not having a LAN-setting is irrelevant as even if they were playing a LAN-mode - the lag would remain.
Good post by Carmac, but it's sad to see players fly all the way to Kiev to play in a tournament, and lose due to IEM not testing the computers enough / providing good enough computers. Some people were undeniably ROBBED of games because of it. Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
To remind you that there was lag on all computers, according to WhiteRa, just on some it was much worse, and on others it was playable - but still "not normal".
The sole reason that some computers lagged more than other proves that it wasn't a battle.net issue. Besides, more people would have complained who were playing on the EU server in case it was a battle.net-related issue. Just read twitter what the pros say, especially ThorZain's.
mouzThorZaIN How can they bring computers that cant handle the COMPUTER GAMES they want to play at their COMPUTER game tournament? It doesn't make sense.
Well, it really sounds like the lag and its management was the responsbility of the organizers, it not being a BNET problem and all.
On the bright side, being a pc problem, they should have it completely under control tomorrow (=
Anyways guys, shit happens and you may fault people for not being cool. But you really can't fault people for losing it, especially not when they feel they lost something due to poor chance. Not everyone is as cool as you, and not everyone had as much to lose as he did.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
Right now you connect to a server cluster that is far away, therefore it lags. If you move the servers next to you computer you have lan. Lan mode is implemented by setting a bnet server next to your computer. The only client side change is changing the IP you connect to from SC2.
This is pretty basic stuff >.>
Actually you don't even have to change client-side, you just need a local DNS server that reroutes the normal BNET ip to the local server.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
Right now you connect to a server cluster that is far away, therefore it lags. If you move the servers next to you computer you have lan. Lan mode is implemented by setting a bnet server next to your computer. The only client side change is changing the IP you connect to from SC2.
This is pretty basic stuff >.>
In other words the portable servers that Blizzard is discussing...
The LAN support that people are crying for is asking for public release of (part of) a BNet2.0 client to run in parallel to their client side SC2. This is the standard model for LAN support.
The BNet2.0 code is almost certainly written to take advantage of a parallel computing environment rather than a single, relatively small machine. Changing that alone requires significant development resources. Also, it causes a MASSIVE security risk from reverse engineering the BNet2.0 architecture. Finally, the release of such server functionality would cost Blizzard any degree of control on tournament and ladder structures. And whether you agree to how Blizz runs their ladders and tournament contracts, it's their IP and they have the right to protect it.
It's shitty, but as things currently are this kind of thing happens. I had to, you know, work as well but I didn't hear of any issues outside of the lag. Kind of curious how HuK thinks the connection in Kiev influences the one in Brasil though. It's something to do with pipes I assume? Or is he just going to stop playing altogether?
Keep on trucking Carmac, it's how you deal with it that'll decide the final tally!
On January 20 2012 08:14 sd_andeh wrote: People need to realize the difference between Blizzard not having a LAN-setting, and COMPUTERS not being able to handle StarCraft 2.
These problems weren't caused by neither routing or connection, they were caused by the computers. Hence all bullshit about Blizzard not having a LAN-setting is irrelevant as even if they were playing a LAN-mode - the lag would remain.
Good post by Carmac, but it's sad to see players fly all the way to Kiev to play in a tournament, and lose due to IEM not testing the computers enough / providing good enough computers. Some people were undeniably ROBBED of games because of it. Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
To remind you that there was lag on all computers, according to WhiteRa, just on some it was much worse, and on others it was playable - but still "not normal".
The sole reason that some computers lagged more than other proves that it wasn't a battle.net issue. Besides, more people would have complained who were playing on the EU server in case it was a battle.net-related issue. Just read twitter what the pros say, especially ThorZain's.
mouzThorZaIN How can they bring computers that cant handle the COMPUTER GAMES they want to play at their COMPUTER game tournament? It doesn't make sense.
Some computers can have network issues that others don't, due to settings or software. Connection from there to Bnet isn't the same as any other connection from EU to Bnet. So these two arguments aren't convincing at all.
Of course, I have no idea what the specs of the computers were, so it could be just that the computers were not good enough, but that would be really unusual. Guess we should wait for further clarification about it.
Would be nice for blizzard to make a restricted time-based client that doesn't need internet...based on solid contracts with major organizations. It hurts everyone the decision not to make this...for what?
I congratulate the staff at IEM + the players actually attending it for the professionalism and understanding of the issue, the methods underwent to solve the issues and overall maturity shown towards the community. This should happen more often when issues like these arise.
'Throughout the entire situation - from the start until after all of his games, he was considerate and understanding and his behaviour was very professional.'- Carmac on Naniwa. Was nice to see this as the amount of negative speculation that was flowing around Nani was a bit over-the-top.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client does not have the ability to interact with another client in any way! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
wtf are you talking about man :D the lag is there because the server is "far away" from the client. You can setup a server on your own network and play on it, with like 2 ms. This is done in most games on lans, but blizzard doesn't allow this. I assume because they're afraid people will just stop buying sc2 and play on other servers. Even more so, I'm actually pretty sure some asian or russian hackers have already 'made' their own sc2 lan mode, it's really not a revolutionary thing.
Thanks for the statement Carmac, it was all very confusing and frustrating throughout the delays when nobody knew what was going on and people went wild with flaming and ptichfork-sharpening. Having some intel on what was causing the problems helps (although trolls will keep trolling, of course). Really hope tomorrow will see less problems!
The graphics settings weren't maxed out, when I was watching Bitterdam's commentary. No idea if it was the computers or the casters' preferences, but it was noticeable. I am really happy that Zenio made this huge decision to rematch such a decisive game. NightEnd losing today was really unfortunate and the way they handled Grubby's game was just sad. I hope the best man wins tomorrow in the rematch, but Zenio really gets all my respect points. GLHF tomorrow.
On January 20 2012 08:14 sd_andeh wrote: People need to realize the difference between Blizzard not having a LAN-setting, and COMPUTERS not being able to handle StarCraft 2.
These problems weren't caused by neither routing or connection, they were caused by the computers. Hence all bullshit about Blizzard not having a LAN-setting is irrelevant as even if they were playing a LAN-mode - the lag would remain.
Good post by Carmac, but it's sad to see players fly all the way to Kiev to play in a tournament, and lose due to IEM not testing the computers enough / providing good enough computers. Some people were undeniably ROBBED of games because of it. Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
To remind you that there was lag on all computers, according to WhiteRa, just on some it was much worse, and on others it was playable - but still "not normal".
The sole reason that some computers lagged more than other proves that it wasn't a battle.net issue. Besides, more people would have complained who were playing on the EU server in case it was a battle.net-related issue. Just read twitter what the pros say, especially ThorZain's.
Quoting:
mouzThorZaIN How can they bring computers that cant handle the COMPUTER GAMES they want to play at their COMPUTER game tournament? It doesn't make sense.
Some computers can have network issues that others don't, due to settings or software. Connection from there to Bnet isn't the same as any other connection from EU to Bnet. So these two arguments aren't convincing at all.
Of course, I have no idea what the specs of the computers were, so it could be just that the computers were not good enough, but that would be really unusual. Guess we should wait for further clarification about it.
While it's true what you say, the arguement that the lags happen at 200vs200 fights rules out internetlag. Of course there might have been internetrelated lags as well, as they were lagging even in early game.
As disappointing as a day like this is for everyone, it's really hard for me to blame the organizers. As Carmac said, there are things the tournament could have done better. But even if all those things were done, to what degree would it have improved the experience? Would it have eliminated crippling lag spikes? .
So long as tournaments are held on the internet, there is potential for massive disruptions, which particularly hurt for companies like MLG and ESL which specialize in high-investment short-run events. Today probably constituted a pretty massive loss for ESL, and it's hard to look anywhere other than blizzard (read: Activision) for blame.
It's worth noting that the loss here is not only in ad revenue: all the results of this tournament have lost some credibility as a result of potentially skewed group results. That hurts the players in addition to the organizers.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
Right now you connect to a server cluster that is far away, therefore it lags. If you move the servers next to you computer you have lan. Lan mode is implemented by setting a bnet server next to your computer. The only client side change is changing the IP you connect to from SC2.
This is pretty basic stuff >.>
In other words the portable servers that Blizzard is discussing...
The LAN support that people are crying for is asking for public release of (part of) a BNet2.0 client to run in parallel to their client side SC2. This is the standard model for LAN support.
The BNet2.0 code is almost certainly written to take advantage of a parallel computing environment rather than a single, relatively small machine. Changing that alone requires significant development resources. Also, it causes a MASSIVE security risk from reverse engineering the BNet2.0 architecture. Finally, the release of such server functionality would cost Blizzard any degree of control on tournament and ladder structures. And whether you agree to how Blizz runs their ladders and tournament contracts, it's their IP and they have the right to protect it.
If it really takes advantage of a parallel computing environment, then it should be programmed to add new/more parallels to the environment, which means it's quite simple to have 1 machine only. You just don't add more than 1... It'll be slower than normal with a ton of servers, yeah, but with such little traffic on it, it'll be fast as shit anyway.
Also the whole BNet 2.0 can be faked in the protocol, ie. you have no friends etc. It really isn't a development problem... Except they don't want to put > 0 dollars into something they can get away with putting = 0 into (standard business procedure), also it's probably true that they are worried over security issues.
I'm not talking about running ladders or managing contracts. I'm just saying from a development standpoint it's a choice of money, not technical difficulty.
On January 20 2012 08:14 sd_andeh wrote: People need to realize the difference between Blizzard not having a LAN-setting, and COMPUTERS not being able to handle StarCraft 2.
These problems weren't caused by neither routing or connection, they were caused by the computers. Hence all bullshit about Blizzard not having a LAN-setting is irrelevant as even if they were playing a LAN-mode - the lag would remain.
Good post by Carmac, but it's sad to see players fly all the way to Kiev to play in a tournament, and lose due to IEM not testing the computers enough / providing good enough computers. Some people were undeniably ROBBED of games because of it. Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
To remind you that there was lag on all computers, according to WhiteRa, just on some it was much worse, and on others it was playable - but still "not normal".
The sole reason that some computers lagged more than other proves that it wasn't a battle.net issue. Besides, more people would have complained who were playing on the EU server in case it was a battle.net-related issue. Just read twitter what the pros say, especially ThorZain's.
Quoting:
mouzThorZaIN How can they bring computers that cant handle the COMPUTER GAMES they want to play at their COMPUTER game tournament? It doesn't make sense.
Some computers can have network issues that others don't, due to settings or software. Connection from there to Bnet isn't the same as any other connection from EU to Bnet. So these two arguments aren't convincing at all.
Of course, I have no idea what the specs of the computers were, so it could be just that the computers were not good enough, but that would be really unusual. Guess we should wait for further clarification about it.
While it's true what you say, the arguement that the lags happen at 200vs200 fights rules out internetlag. Of course there might have been internetrelated lags as well, as they were lagging even in early game.
Indeed, that's the most compelling argument about ... insufficient hardware?... (wow, would be strange). But, I think a couple of the most critical moments of lag with complaints from the players were not during maxed out battles, so I'm not sure it's that.
On January 20 2012 08:21 obsKura wrote: this was just tweeted:
@SC2ZergLair Zenio has agreed to a rematch with NightEnD due to lag problems in the final game of their bo3. Really good sportsmanship from @LiquidZenio. 1 minute ago via web
On January 20 2012 08:36 NekoFlandre wrote: Meh, stuff happens. Computers ar enot peferct, and nor can a connection be 100% SUPER PERFECT all the time.
Understand crap happens, it migh effect us and the players? But can it be avoided, sadly no.
This ^
I don't like the fact that players are forced to play under these circumstances though, and games should be postponed or a non-accurate result will occur. People losing games because of it that they would never lose otherwise.
However I guess they're on a tight schedule and the games cannot be postponed as then they wouldn't have time to play all the games they need to play in this tournament. So what does one do? No idea, but having players play in order to decide "who's the best" is impossible with lag, sadly.
On January 20 2012 08:31 Wombat_NI wrote: 'Throughout the entire situation - from the start until after all of his games, he was considerate and understanding and his behaviour was very professional.'- Carmac on Naniwa. Was nice to see this as the amount of negative speculation that was flowing around Nani was a bit over-the-top.
So sad about the whole situation. I understand Naniwa's feelings and I know the organizers cannot control everything. I think I reacted more to what Naniwa said that he will never attend another IEM even if he wins this one. I hope it's not true and he only said it in the heat of the moment. For those who are fast to judge, reflect upon yourself: have you never said anything you did not mean when you were frustrated? Good luck to all the players tomorrow!
Kinda lame if you ask me, lag spikes are going to occur anywhere and at any time, regardless of how awesome the internet connection is. That is just a fact of gaming when there is no longer LAN. Its unfortuante for the pros, but they all stand the same chance of lag, and when it happens to one person in a game, it happens to both.... It sucks that Nightend needed to blink his stalkers at that exact moment, but it could have happend 3 secs earlier when [whoever] needed to move their broods into position. People need to just relax sometimes...
Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
On January 20 2012 08:14 sd_andeh wrote: People need to realize the difference between Blizzard not having a LAN-setting, and COMPUTERS not being able to handle StarCraft 2.
These problems weren't caused by neither routing or connection, they were caused by the computers. Hence all bullshit about Blizzard not having a LAN-setting is irrelevant as even if they were playing a LAN-mode - the lag would remain.
Good post by Carmac, but it's sad to see players fly all the way to Kiev to play in a tournament, and lose due to IEM not testing the computers enough / providing good enough computers. Some people were undeniably ROBBED of games because of it. Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
To remind you that there was lag on all computers, according to WhiteRa, just on some it was much worse, and on others it was playable - but still "not normal".
The sole reason that some computers lagged more than other proves that it wasn't a battle.net issue. Besides, more people would have complained who were playing on the EU server in case it was a battle.net-related issue. Just read twitter what the pros say, especially ThorZain's.
Quoting:
mouzThorZaIN How can they bring computers that cant handle the COMPUTER GAMES they want to play at their COMPUTER game tournament? It doesn't make sense.
Some computers can have network issues that others don't, due to settings or software. Connection from there to Bnet isn't the same as any other connection from EU to Bnet. So these two arguments aren't convincing at all.
Of course, I have no idea what the specs of the computers were, so it could be just that the computers were not good enough, but that would be really unusual. Guess we should wait for further clarification about it.
While it's true what you say, the arguement that the lags happen at 200vs200 fights rules out internetlag. Of course there might have been internetrelated lags as well, as they were lagging even in early game.
Indeed, that's the most compelling argument about ... insufficient hardware?... (wow, would be strange). But, I think a couple of the most critical moments of lag with complaints from the players were not during maxed out battles, so I'm not sure it's that.
Mhm... well I reacted mostly to the NightEnd game vs Zenio where he obviously lost the entire series due to that one huge battle that the computer couldn't handle (this time it was not the internet, and it was the most important situation of the game). But Grubby having to put down a hatch-block-pylon 3 times for it to actually start warping in has probably to do with internetrelated issues. Either way, my point in all this is that you can't blame Blizzard for this, even though I would very much want to have LAN-mode in the game. The fault is sadly at ESL whether Carmac makes a nice post or not. I've always loved Carmac though ever since his old interview of QuakeWorld legend ParadokS (http://videos.quakeworld.nu/video/dhw07-1on1-with-paradoks-ggl-wire/) xD so I very much appreciate his post.
I wasn't watching but after reading twitter and this, I have to come to the conclusion that this isn't really IEM's fault. There haven't been problems at past IEM tournaments, and some problems are just out of a tournament organizer's control. I certainly wish there was LAN support so that tourneys didn't have to rely on the internet connection. However, I find players comments that they won't be attending future IEM events because of this a bit immature and irrational. I guess sometimes people demand perfection where perfection isn't possible, and whoever demands that will always be dissapointed. Props for the post and GL with the rest of the tourney. (BTW most players are handling this with a great deal of professionalism, such as Zenio and Naniwa. It's really only a select few that are voicing serious complaints.) EDIT: I made a somewhat underinformed post, as I don't really know the condition of the computers used. If it was a computer problem and not a connection problem, I can see why people would blame IEM. Not to the point of boycotting their tourneys though.
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
If this really was the COMPUTERS mainly that caused the problems, people have legitimate reason to get upset and criticize cause that is largely AVOIDABLE.
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
Seemed pretty obvious to me, but keep on blaming Blizzard guys, since LAN would solve said issues like np!
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
Seemed pretty obvious to me, but keep on blaming Blizzard guys, since LAN would solve said issues like np!
implying lan wouldnt solve issues we've had before?
your argument is that because at this 1 league they dont have internet lag, lan wouldnt help run present and future leagues?
Funny how people keep on bashing Blizzard for not supporting LAN while the problems obviously seem to be related to the hardware/software setup of the gaming PCs (and partly lagging casters). From a "professional" tournament organizer such as ESL, I would expect that they check such basic things before the event begins.
Still nice to directly post this statement here in the forum though. Maybe some day ESL might eventually learn from their mistakes...
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
yeah - and Blizzard gets all the shit which doesn't make any sense here
RotterdaM already pointed out after one of the lag games that it looked like PC lag for the specific player (too high graphics used on too shitty PC), where it starts lagging in a big 200/200 fight
I wasn't too disappointed with today. I know that Blizzard's lack of LAN has effed over many tournaments, and will continue to do so, and I know you guys were trying hard to fix any problems you faced. Hope things run smoother in bracket play, best of luck!
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
Seemed pretty obvious to me, but keep on blaming Blizzard guys, since LAN would solve said issues like np!
implying lan wouldnt solve issues we've had before?
your argument is that because at this 1 league they dont have internet lag, lan wouldnt help run present and future leagues?
Nope, I am implying that people are always too quick to jump on Blizzard's neck, whilst not having the slightest idea of what's actually going on, and I doubt LAN would help at all in this particular situation.
On January 20 2012 08:50 ClysmiC wrote: I wasn't too disappointed with today. I know that Blizzard's lack of LAN has effed over many tournaments, and will continue to do so, and I know you guys were trying hard to fix any problems you faced. Hope things run smoother in bracket play, best of luck!
Like this dude.
I don't like the fact that Carmarc's letting people do guess work and that he even mentioned Blizzard in the first place, when it's so clear that what happened today was due to the shitty computers being used, in fact he barely suggested that when he said the players avoided especific computers and kept on talking about connections.
On January 20 2012 08:36 JayJay_90 wrote: Probs to Zenio, although in the official statement it doesn't really sound like he had such a big influence on the decision: Link.
Everyone is praising Zenio for his good sportsmanship, but I doubt he wanted a regame. I guess that's why it took two hours to take a decision on this match.
Carmac is awesome. There is only so much you can do when you are dealing with online connections. You should be blaming Blizzard for making it so hard on tournament organizers by not implementing any LAN-alternative.
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
as i said the esl has pc problems for over 10 years now. ask any prof. cs player. they have to switch pc at like every event cause someone crashes in important matches.
On January 20 2012 06:27 Carmac wrote: - The situation with naniwa happened later on (naniwa having lag issues that affected the outcome of his game). His instant emotional reaction was to want to discontinue playing, but he came back to finish his games on another PC and won the group. Throughout the entire situation - from the start until after all of his games, he was considerate and understanding and his behaviour was very professional. No bullshit.
I'm really happy about this part. I also want to add that I like IEM a lot. eSport takes place on an unfortunate platform, and you made the best of a good situation by apologizing. I hope for 3 days of SC2 without problems this weekend.
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
Seemed pretty obvious to me, but keep on blaming Blizzard guys, since LAN would solve said issues like np!
Actually it's not obvious at all, and there could be multiple reasons for similar-looking behavior of the computers. Until Carmac/IEM-representatives state what were their computers this remains open.
Also, this IS again something to blame Blizzard for, because the game is obviously not optimized yet, especially in the pathing algorithm (which I think is the main reason for CPU lag when there are too many units on the map, even not in vision).
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
yeah - and Blizzard gets all the shit which doesn't make any sense here
RotterdaM already pointed out after one of the lag games that it looked like PC lag for the specific player (too high graphics used on too shitty PC), where it starts lagging in a big 200/200 fight
You see if there was LAN mode, Shitty computers transform into supercomputers that can handle anything.
At least do a rematch of the last map between NIghtEnD and Zenio, it only seems fare, that last battle was like robbing the romanian player from the victory. Also i don't get it couldn't you like bring two pc's for SC2, afterall it was 1 game at a time, how hard is to get two good pc's in that venue and put the players to play at those, with the proper inet connection.
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
yeah - and Blizzard gets all the shit which doesn't make any sense here
RotterdaM already pointed out after one of the lag games that it looked like PC lag for the specific player (too high graphics used on too shitty PC), where it starts lagging in a big 200/200 fight
You see if there was LAN mode, Shitty computers transform into supercomputers that can handle anything.
On January 20 2012 07:02 Tumor wrote: Give us lan... or tournament server for the big ones... no problem for blizzard... and we can set up streams with mobile internet shit -.-
I heard that the computers were at fault here. Not the servers
idk, i'm just irritated that what was an instant ban in brood war continues to be condoned in sc2, namely people making LR threads and not updating them properly, i have no idea who went through in group 1 even after clicking on the spoilers
On January 20 2012 08:58 sixfour wrote: idk, i'm just irritated that what was an instant ban in brood war continues to be condoned in sc2, namely people making LR threads and not updating them properly, i have no idea who went through in group 1 even after clicking on the spoilers
I hope IEM picks up like MLG did after Dallas. Major investments in infrastructure, personnel and production. Create a better structure - especially for communication to your viewers.
I enjoyed a game or two but overall was left with a bitter taste after today. Here's hoping for a better tomorrow and better preparation for Brazil and WC.
If Carmac is saying that they were rolling 2x 100mbit connections (one of which was for gaming) then the problem of network lag can probably be excluded providing that the network cards on the computers are not set to something ridiculous like 10mbit/s. Why don't they just say how much fps players are getting in game?
On January 20 2012 08:58 sixfour wrote: idk, i'm just irritated that what was an instant ban in brood war continues to be condoned in sc2, namely people making LR threads and not updating them properly, i have no idea who went through in group 1 even after clicking on the spoilers
I guess Carmac should have some props for speaking. But..
It doesn't cut it. Naniwa already got a lot of bad talk because of this, a lot of players are probably in their hotel room swearing right now.
If there actually is a routing issue from the arena ISP to the Telia bnet servers, why didn't it show before at earlier competitions? Sure, there may have been changes but it isn't very likely that it would change for the worse considering how the Internet is evolving and how well built the EU network is built.
From what people are saying it is pretty damn obvious that the actual PC's being used for playing are sub par. 1.6 is not relevant for this discussion at all since it has LAN support and runs at literally 500 fps on my four year old laptop in a public server with 24 players. I don't know about LoL but I doubt it eats computing power(both cpu and gpu) like SC2 does. A 150+ food fight at a minimum 60fps is actually really demanding. We even saw the lag popup several times today which clearly indicates that the computer(s) were struggling. Sometimes it only showed as spikes, which could be a network issue but again - from what "we heard" there were issues with low fps from time to time.
Let's cross our fingers for the rest of the event I am sharpening my pitchforks though, might come in handy on sunday.
I'm happy NightEnd got his rematch, but what about Grubby? Two exact same situations, one players gets a rematch, but the other one doesn't. Or are you gonna put this on Blizzard too?
Who exactly called that that game should have been a regame... zenio had 2-3 mining bases vs Nightend's 0, even if nightend had won that fight he was never going to win the next one, esp with zenio's spine collection.
On January 20 2012 08:20 sd_andeh wrote: Wow, basically half the posts on here talk about blizzard and bnet. THIS WASN'T A BATTLE.NET ISSUE.
The issue was the computers. They simply weren't good enough, and some worse than others due to a so far unexplained reason (as Carmac stated they all have the same specs, yet no reason why some computers lagged worse than others).
Get it to your heads that this was indeed IEM's fault, and not even remotely close to Blizzard's fault. Battle.net was fine. The internetconnection was fine.
We should all appreciate the post by Carmac though and sincerely hope that the problems are fixed tomorrow. Until then, we can just pray.
Routing problem is quite different from "they weren't good enough". Stop trolling.
The fault is not on them , its blizzard/battle.net fault..
Why not give players a Lan mode ? most people play online anyway , and the game would have much more players.. but no... not like the first starcraft because that way the games would not be on blizzards servers.. =(
GSL had players lagging out and much more tourneys had lag problems , so its not IEM fault.. breaks players concentration and spectator interest.. thanks blizzard for SC2 , FU for not giving LAN mode
On January 20 2012 09:06 InternalSync wrote: I'm happy NightEnd got his rematch, but what about Grubby? Two exact same situations, one players gets a rematch, but the other one doesn't. Or are you gonna put this on Blizzard too?
Good call. IEM has to make some statement about this. What qualifies a game to be replayed? Which players "deserve" re-games? Will you allow NaNiwa to play Strelok again, as well? Or is NightEnd vs Zenio being replayed only because it decided whether or not NightEnd advances?
About what HuK said as well: it seems Zenio didn't even agree to this. Official statements are needed!
On January 20 2012 06:39 Adebisi wrote: WhiteRA calling it "playable" is just wrong IMO. Any amount of lag is just unacceptable, I really think Blizzard needs to step in and provide some kind of portable LAN functionality or tournament servers, I don't understand how people can take SC2 seriously when thousands and thousands of dollars are riding on games where there is lag, it devalues the competitiveness of the game.
I really feel this is more Blizzard's fault than IEMs...
Props to Carmac for being transparent on the issue.
Exactly what I wanted to say.
Blizzard - just give us LAN.
Blizzard has to report to activision, thus we'll never get LAN
I remember someone from Blizzard mentioning on BlizzCon 2011 developing local server to set-up inside LAN so I don't see your point.
The best scenario would be if a bunch of really hard-core hackers would develop such a LAN server. It would probably be illegal but it could potenatially force Blizzard to develop legal one.
I really hope the LAN server would be developed by Heart of the Swarm.
On January 20 2012 06:34 Tommylew wrote: how about nigthend losing a battle where he may of won in the game three???
whata joke...
On January 20 2012 06:33 Skillver wrote: Please apologize to Nightend, he lost the game due to lag!
On January 20 2012 06:41 Vadrigar wrote: Add Nightend to the list. In his last game vs. Zenio it was OBVIOUS PC lag that caused him no to control his stalkers right! He was basically robbed.
I am with you guys in that! I was watching one of the most amazing games simply because of how he was behind all the time, countering mutas at his main all the time while trying to attack a bit Zenio. Then he sniped all of Zenio's infestors and then began owning Zenio's brood lords only to begin lagging like crazy and not be able to control his army! :/
Props to NaNi. Historically, he has had some emotional outburst issues, but he was a total baller and won his group like a champ, no excuses or whining or anything. NaNi, you have won my heart. <3
With the exception of the players, no one really has any right to, nor should they complain. I'm sick of spectators complaining about free live entertainment.
That being said, it's nice to see Naniwa being so understanding, especially after the GSL incident.
It's a shame that this happened but hey it could have been worse. Naniwa still got through so not that much of a problem. Hopefully it'll be better tomorrow. All the other IEMs were fine. GL
Tournament holders have to buy a permit to use it (similar to how they arleady have to do that). PrivateLANserver must be connected to blizzard for it to work (i.e. copyright, cd key issues, ALL SOLVED), but as a server, all the computers in the room will connect to PLS. Even if ping from PLS -> blizzard = huge, ping from PLS->client = LAN (i.e.Lag/ping issues fixed). Therefore ALL PROBLEMS FIXED THERE I DID IT.
On January 20 2012 09:06 InternalSync wrote: I'm happy NightEnd got his rematch, but what about Grubby? Two exact same situations, one players gets a rematch, but the other one doesn't. Or are you gonna put this on Blizzard too?
Good call. IEM has to make some statement about this. What qualifies a game to be replayed? Which players "deserve" re-games? Will you allow NaNiwa to play Strelok again, as well? Or is NightEnd vs Zenio being replayed only because it decided whether or not NightEnd advances?
About what HuK said as well: it seems Zenio didn't even agree to this. Official statements are needed!
You're right, NaNi falls in the same category as Grubby and NightEnd, I thought of this as well, but I didn't mention it because he already passed the group stage. IMO there is no need to do a rematch between Nani and Strelok.
Rules have to be applied to all players equally, but clearly that's not what happened today with IEM. Grubby even asked for a rematch in the first few minutes of the game and didn't get it. Another big problem is that Grubby's case also involves Zenio, so if Grubby were to get a rematch it would be totally unfair to Zenio as well. But hey, that's what you get when your admins don't act on time or you dont have a clear set of rules.
On January 20 2012 09:28 halfies wrote: lets be serious, this is blizzard being greedy fuckers, and not IEM screwing up. if we had LAN then this wouldn't be an issue
On January 20 2012 09:28 halfies wrote: lets be serious, this is blizzard being greedy fuckers, and not IEM screwing up. if we had LAN then this wouldn't be an issue
Can't people even try to do a little homework?
Carmac says that all computers had the same configuration, and that they run SC2 just fine.
On January 20 2012 09:28 halfies wrote: lets be serious, this is blizzard being greedy fuckers, and not IEM screwing up. if we had LAN then this wouldn't be an issue
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
This is wrong because Chinese hackers have already created a pseudo-server which allows them to run SC2 on a LAN. Won't post any links or d/l since that's not allowed here, but go look it up for yourself if you're interested. It has been done. Blizzard just won't make an official version for tournaments.
Guys please, if you don't have any clue don't post. THIS IS NOT ABOUT INTERNET LAG OR BLIZZARD SCREWING UP WITH A LACK OF TOURNAMENT CLIENT OR LAN. The CS 1.5 and the LoL tournament at IEM Kiev had zero issues, nothing. This is an issue related to the hardware/old computers and a newer game (or something similar). Have you ever played SC2 with high graphics on a shitty computer? Try to go into a 200/200 battle - have fun watching the slideshow and frozen images. It seems that this issue here is similar. Maybe it's about not up-to-date graphic drivers or too many spectators in a game or whatever but it's not internet lag.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
This is wrong because Chinese hackers have already created a pseudo-server which allows them to run SC2 on a LAN. Won't post any links or d/l since that's not allowed here, but go look it up for yourself if you're interested. It has been done. Blizzard just won't make an official version for tournaments.
Yup, and yet tournaments can't ever use it, because they'd get in trouble with Blizzard.
Just think about that. Every single lag issue we've had for the past 6 months at offline events didn't need to happen. Blizzard is responsible for it. Oy.
On January 20 2012 09:28 halfies wrote: lets be serious, this is blizzard being greedy fuckers, and not IEM screwing up. if we had LAN then this wouldn't be an issue
On January 20 2012 09:28 halfies wrote: lets be serious, this is blizzard being greedy fuckers, and not IEM screwing up. if we had LAN then this wouldn't be an issue
Just how hard is it to come up with a private lan server for SC2? There's got to be people experienced enough to find out the packets being moved back and forth between battle net and the client and emulate it for localization. They did it for WoW for fucks sake, don't see why it can't be done for SC2. Is there just too little incentive? What's the issue? If you know the technical aspect, speak up please!
On January 20 2012 09:04 ellirc wrote: I guess Carmac should have some props for speaking. But..
It doesn't cut it. Naniwa already got a lot of bad talk because of this, a lot of players are probably in their hotel room swearing right now.
If there actually is a routing issue from the arena ISP to the Telia bnet servers, why didn't it show before at earlier competitions? Sure, there may have been changes but it isn't very likely that it would change for the worse considering how the Internet is evolving and how well built the EU network is built.
From what people are saying it is pretty damn obvious that the actual PC's being used for playing are sub par. 1.6 is not relevant for this discussion at all since it has LAN support and runs at literally 500 fps on my four year old laptop in a public server with 24 players. I don't know about LoL but I doubt it eats computing power(both cpu and gpu) like SC2 does. A 150+ food fight at a minimum 60fps is actually really demanding. We even saw the lag popup several times today which clearly indicates that the computer(s) were struggling. Sometimes it only showed as spikes, which could be a network issue but again - from what "we heard" there were issues with low fps from time to time.
Let's cross our fingers for the rest of the event I am sharpening my pitchforks though, might come in handy on sunday.
Theres no way its the computers not being powerful enough. 1v1 starcraft runs fine on 5+ year old computers, LoL is actually a good comparison since 10 player LoL uses roughly the same amount of power (obviously a pretty general comment but its my experience from playing on my laptop) as 1v1 starcraft.
Good post by Carmac explaining their diligence in trying to fix things. I also saw Huk's tweet and he does have a point about the risk of the time and effort for him of flying to Brazil for IEM -- if network weirdness crops up again, it's a big waste and for people in Korea concentrating on the GSL, every trip makes prepping for GSL harder.
You could make the same case about not wanting to come to MLG either except that the tournament is higher profile and therefore more likely to have even more resources to trouble shoot lag. 2 100mbit lines ought to have been enough for this event in Kiev, but I think MLG's network is probably a little beefier.
I think the main thing is that these issues need to be kept being sent to Blizzard. There are ways to do better and I don't really understand what's stopping them (e.g., things along the lines of the temporary and authenticated lan server suggested above). If I had to guess, I'd guess that the problem is that all Blizzard games authenticate through battle.net, so any change for SC2 runs the risk of impacting their other games (e.g., their cash cow, WoW). I'm sure the SC2 division at Blizzard loves #esports, but Blizzard is a pretty big place.
Before even reading the replies in this thread, my initial reaction is that it's completely Blizzard's fault that anyone is even put in this position in the first place.
The decision to not release LAN is a serious, serious fuckover to every legitimate player and follower.
On January 20 2012 09:28 halfies wrote: lets be serious, this is blizzard being greedy fuckers, and not IEM screwing up. if we had LAN then this wouldn't be an issue
Do you guys really think they have computers that cant even run SC2 properly? My computer is ooooooooold and i can play it just fine. They are sponsored by Intel for gods sake.
On January 20 2012 09:46 EvilTeletubby wrote: Before even reading the replies in this thread, my initial reaction is that it's completely Blizzard's fault that anyone is even put in this position in the first place.
The decision to not release LAN is a serious, serious fuckover to every legitimate player and follower.
Then you read the comments, especially the one made by Thorzain, and realize what you just blindly stated is completely wrong regarding this specific situation, and only help point blame somewhere else rather than getting to the bottom of things and maybe inducing a change in the hardware for the next IEM event. Carmac stated he tested the PC configuration in single player mode only, which in itself is a complete joke.
I understand your position here at TL, but because of that, you certainly shouldnt be throwing out blind assumptions.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
This is wrong because Chinese hackers have already created a pseudo-server which allows them to run SC2 on a LAN. Won't post any links or d/l since that's not allowed here, but go look it up for yourself if you're interested. It has been done. Blizzard just won't make an official version for tournaments.
The chinese hack is a private server setup, not LAN. And this doesn't disprove his post at all, you create a private b.net emulation server and connect the player clients to that
By "single player" I think Carmac means not the campaign, but playing custom vs AI, not through the multiplayer. If there's no glitch in such mode, even in huge battles, but there is in multiplayer*, obviously it's not the computers, but the network. We'll have to wait for them to release more info about the computers' specs. Thorzain only says what he was told by the players there, and they can't really know what the computers' specs are. So let's not be hasty with the conclusions.
*again, note that there was lag in multiplayer even in small battles, which is very suspicious to be from the hardware.
The way the PCs were lagging was very similar to how mine lagged when I played on too high settings. Barking about LAN is barking up the wrong tree tbh. I think Carmac knows this but can't really say because it is intels tournament.
I'm sure the professionals can turn their settings down, possibly need to get new pcs in for the casters for streaming though. If any pro is playing on high settings tomorrow then all I can say is that;s not very professional.
Sympathy for the guys that lost out because of it though.
On January 20 2012 09:46 EvilTeletubby wrote: Before even reading the replies in this thread, my initial reaction is that it's completely Blizzard's fault that anyone is even put in this position in the first place.
The decision to not release LAN is a serious, serious fuckover to every legitimate player and follower.
Seriously, I don't want to say it but its entirely possible that no LAN might kill SC2.
On January 20 2012 10:14 Diamond wrote: Didn't they have observers not at location in the game?
Apparently. And why?
If so then LAN would not have mattered since they would have to get the observers in. There's the restream but ESL seems to prefer to have a ton of observers which is a known way to lag up a game.
The only thing I would change is the high number of observers... isn't it possible that they just restream the english main stream? Might reduce the quality on their stream but it's more important to minimize the risk of lagspikes...
On January 20 2012 10:14 Diamond wrote: Didn't they have observers not at location in the game?
Apparently. And why?
If so then LAN would not have mattered since they would have to get the observers in. There's the restream but ESL seems to prefer to have a ton of observers which is a known way to lag up a game.
But if lan would have been available don't you think they would have had some at the tournament...
You've already got our money, adding LAN now won't hurt your profits!
Or at the very least give people holding tournaments capability to serve dedicated servers sans internet.
I mean honestly. You make people pay to host tourneys and stick your name all over the place. Lagging and Bnet drops are friggen embarrasses you more than anyone else.
Yeah IEM had some turd things happen but lags and drops happen once in a while in GSL too. FRIGGEN GSL! The organization that has been doing this for like a year still have dropped or laggy games.
There has been more lag/drop/technical issues in this short 1 year of SC2 than there has been in BW's whole entire lifespan (thus far).
PLEASE BLIZZ! PLEASE! We won't stop laddering just give us LAN!
On January 20 2012 09:46 EvilTeletubby wrote: Before even reading the replies in this thread, my initial reaction is that it's completely Blizzard's fault that anyone is even put in this position in the first place.
The decision to not release LAN is a serious, serious fuckover to every legitimate player and follower.
Then you read the comments, especially the one made by Thorzain, and realize what you just blindly stated is completely wrong regarding this specific situation, and only help point blame somewhere else rather than getting to the bottom of things and maybe inducing a change in the hardware for the next IEM event. Carmac stated he tested the PC configuration in single player mode only, which in itself is a complete joke.
I understand your position here at TL, but because of that, you certainly shouldnt be throwing out blind assumptions.
Why is it a joke when it's supposed to rule out any local issues? If you test it out in multi-player, you still won't know whether the issue is the computer hardware or a connection issue.
On January 20 2012 07:48 gulati wrote: You have my support Carmac.
I seriously just hope Blizzard pulls their equity-driven ego's out of their asses and realize that without LAN support for any and ALL tournaments, there will never, ever, ever, EVER be a chance to have SC2 televised. EVER.
Good luck with the rest of the tournament, and if anybody from Blizzard is reading: There's a reason I switched to SWTOR and back to Brood War.
NightEnd vs Zenio was totally a pc problem. 200-200 armies and lag starts exactly when stalkers blink under broodlords, no question. Also the visible timeout lasted only a couple of seconds which is in my opinion more of a pc problem, not connection problem.
Even when you try your very best, such things will happen. In the end, lag is a part of esports, whether you like it or not. People should always keep in mind that people who organize such events are always trying their best to make it succesfull event for everyone, but things can go wrong. Accept it.
On January 20 2012 07:48 gulati wrote: You have my support Carmac.
I seriously just hope Blizzard pulls their equity-driven ego's out of their asses and realize that without LAN support for any and ALL tournaments, there will never, ever, ever, EVER be a chance to have SC2 televised. EVER.
Good luck with the rest of the tournament, and if anybody from Blizzard is reading: There's a reason I switched to SWTOR and back to Brood War.
What about LoL? No LAN required...
They aren't on bnet 2.0. I don't want this to seem like a low blow but tbh they are on different infrastructures.
On January 20 2012 07:02 Flonomenalz wrote: lol guys nightend was still 2-3 bases against what, 4-5 base? nightned still had nearly no money compared to like 5k bank for zenio? i mean zenio played badly, but nightend made mistakes too, and even though he would have won that battle, i still doubt he wins the game.
still, that doesn't excuse the lag, but I feel for IEM, there's only so much you can do.
Blizzard is the biggest culprit, I don't know and still don't know why they refuse LAN support.
NO developer is going to be using LAN, look at any AAA title in the last three years, none of them have a DRM free LAN, you simply cannot afford to do it in this day and age, I wish I remember the link but at the Game Developers Conference a developer was giving a seminar on why companies wont be doing LAN unless multiple things change. Honestly DO NOT expect Lan, it will NEVER come, so yes you can "blame" blizzard but nothing is going to change
tl:dr, LAN = less control, expect NO developer to offer it in the near future
why dont blizzard to something like the quake live guys do.
they send some guys over that host the lan mode on their server at the event and take it with them when the tournaments over. it would be a system that would be just fine for larger tournaments or GSL e.g.
I have no idea how it is possible in this day and age for them to be running an event on computers that can't run SC2 at reasonable settings without lag in 1v1...
But credit to carmac for acknowledging the fuck up.
so how come only Zenio and Nightend need a regame? Seems a bit unfair. At least make it a BO5 with score 2-1. Carmac, here's your chance to make things better...
On January 20 2012 07:02 Flonomenalz wrote: lol guys nightend was still 2-3 bases against what, 4-5 base? nightned still had nearly no money compared to like 5k bank for zenio? i mean zenio played badly, but nightend made mistakes too, and even though he would have won that battle, i still doubt he wins the game.
still, that doesn't excuse the lag, but I feel for IEM, there's only so much you can do.
Blizzard is the biggest culprit, I don't know and still don't know why they refuse LAN support.
NO developer is going to be using LAN, look at any AAA title in the last three years, none of them have a DRM free LAN, you simply cannot afford to do it in this day and age, I wish I remember the link but at the Game Developers Conference a developer was giving a seminar on why companies wont be doing LAN unless multiple things change. Honestly DO NOT expect Lan, it will NEVER come, so yes you can "blame" blizzard but nothing is going to change
tl:dr, LAN = less control, expect NO developer to offer it in the near future
That's the thing, they don't need to do regular Lan. They could make a "battlenet in a box" type server with clients that ONLY work on it and nothing else. Then just have 3 or 4 of these available upon request in each region for major lan events (and charge a reasonable fee for setup and to have security for them, a blizzard employee who operates it and ensures no outside party has access to the server) It would basically just be a way to take the internet out of the equation and at the same time ensure Blizzard maintains the level of control they currently have. The bottom line is that Blizzard is hurting their own bottom line by having so many fail-full events due to these kinds of issues. It's got to be really hard for newcomers to take esports seriously when they see this kind of stuff. Starcraft 2's long term growth and demand is directly related to the success it has in esports. I lost count 6 months ago of how many major events have had serious problems due to the necessity of play being done through the internet. The fact that they haven't addressed this issue and setup some kind of closed server for tournament says to me that Blizzard doesn't really care, half as much as they claim to, about E-Sports.
I was a little bit uncertain as to whether it was B.net's fault or if it was the computer's fault for the lag, but could this be fixed were there a LAN option for StarCraft 2? And if so I really wish that Blizzard could release a LAN variant of the game even if it were to be given only to big tournaments (GSL, DreamHack, IEM, MLG, etc.).
Everything that I've read about seems to be a bit ambiguous, but did NightEnD only start complaining about the lag after the game, or did he request the rematch at the time that he was lagging. Also the actual effect of the lag needs to be taken into account, as I believe it was Kennigit who tweeted that Zenio was on 5 base vs 2 base and was floating something like ~2000 minerals. At that point I find it hard to believe that lag had much of a factor into NightEnD's play.
I think something like that--that is if you're going to give rematches--should be handled like a challenge in a tennis match, where the player must immediately make the request as soon as the "game-changing" lag occurs. Then the game should be paused, have the tournament evaluate the situation, discover the validity of the situation, and either resume the game or offer the rematch.
Everything surrounding this seems really convoluted, but I'm happy to see Carmac standing by his guns and trying to help clarify the situation. Thank you very much.
I'm with the verdict that the problems are because of crappy computers, it's funny that they're trying to blame it on lack of LAN when the hardware can't even handle 1v1 200 supply armies.
EDIT: Wait, they're complaining about lag with tons of observers that aren't there at the tournament? What a joke
On January 20 2012 07:02 Flonomenalz wrote: lol guys nightend was still 2-3 bases against what, 4-5 base? nightned still had nearly no money compared to like 5k bank for zenio? i mean zenio played badly, but nightend made mistakes too, and even though he would have won that battle, i still doubt he wins the game.
still, that doesn't excuse the lag, but I feel for IEM, there's only so much you can do.
Blizzard is the biggest culprit, I don't know and still don't know why they refuse LAN support.
NO developer is going to be using LAN, look at any AAA title in the last three years, none of them have a DRM free LAN, you simply cannot afford to do it in this day and age, I wish I remember the link but at the Game Developers Conference a developer was giving a seminar on why companies wont be doing LAN unless multiple things change. Honestly DO NOT expect Lan, it will NEVER come, so yes you can "blame" blizzard but nothing is going to change
tl:dr, LAN = less control, expect NO developer to offer it in the near future
Valve titles always have had and still have LAN. You just need to get through steam login, and you are done.
I can clearly tell that a lot of you posting are between the ages of 12 and 14. Little to nothing can be done about network lag, so why flame the tournament for something that's out of their control? For those of you that say it's PC lag ... where you there? did you play on the computers? You must have some real insight to tell it's pc lag by watching the stream, especially when the players themselves are saying it was network lag ..... If your going to flame something a) at least have an educated argument to back up your statements, and b) have a clue about what your talking about.
On January 20 2012 12:45 ProBot wrote: I can clearly tell that a lot of you posting are between the ages of 12 and 14. Little to nothing can be done about network lag, so why flame the tournament for something that's out of their control? For those of you that say it's PC lag ... where you there? did you play on the computers? You must have some real insight to tell it's pc lag by watching the stream, especially when the players themselves are saying it was network lag ..... If your going to flame something a) at least have an educated argument to back up your statements, and b) have a clue about what your talking about.
K Thx
Go and read what Huk Thorzain and Rotterdam as well as many of the players who were at the event said. Network problems happened as well and thats to be expected, but evidently the systems werent equipped or, more likely, maintained well enough to service a tournament.
It's great that you guys are working so hard to fix it. I don't care how many others believe that they need to rail on the tournament for situations like this when you guys don't needed the added stress from us on top of all these issues. I'm sure that organizing anything of this magnitude causes huge issues that need to be dealt with on the spot, and I have full faith in you guys to do your best to fix it - that's all anyone can ask.
The result for the players is, of course, some bad lag and such, but in the end there's not much to do. Through the year and a half that Starcraft 2 has been played on a highly competitive level, it's fairly obvious that Blizzard needs to get more involved. I don't see how they feel they need to have such a hands-off approach to this. I'm sure that if Blizzard gave us LAN, then started hosting tournaments themselves, they would find that they could make enough revenue to support continued Starcraft 2 updates in the future, etc.
I was watching last night and sure, didn't go 100% smoothly, but these big tournaments never do; even the GSL has it's own technical problems (however rare they may be). IEM are doing a great job and putting on an awesome tournament. Keep it up guys!
On January 20 2012 12:58 ProBot wrote: The same huk and thorzain that aren't even at the tournament?
Can I just say that I find it ironic that you think that you are just as informed, if not more so, than two of the most well-connected and famous members of the SC2 scene?
Regardless of the reason behind the problems at IEM, the fact of the matter remains that it is an issue that has to be resolved between Blizzard, IEM, and the players. It is quite pointless if overzealous members of TL insist on spouting rants about the inefficiencies and shortcomings of any of the involved parties. At this point, just wait for tomorrow, when more information will be provided for the public, and when IEM will (hopefully) resolve this problem.
On January 20 2012 12:45 ProBot wrote: I can clearly tell that a lot of you posting are between the ages of 12 and 14. Little to nothing can be done about network lag, so why flame the tournament for something that's out of their control? For those of you that say it's PC lag ... where you there? did you play on the computers? You must have some real insight to tell it's pc lag by watching the stream, especially when the players themselves are saying it was network lag ..... If your going to flame something a) at least have an educated argument to back up your statements, and b) have a clue about what your talking about.
K Thx
Go and read what Huk Thorzain and Rotterdam as well as many of the players who were at the event said. Network problems happened as well and thats to be expected, but evidently the systems werent equipped or, more likely, maintained well enough to service a tournament.
Educated huh? Take a look at your paragraph of nonsense you just wrote and rethink about educated :D
This sucks for iem but hopefully they improve. You lose you learn right? And NaNi for toughing it through the most frustrating (especially at tourny) lag issues.
On January 20 2012 08:15 Apollo324 wrote: Blizzard isn't just hiding a button that says "RELEASE LAN". Not that simple, sorry.
The way BNet 2.0 is built, all of your games, all interactions between the players, the record of where each unit is, EVERYTHING is mediated on the server side. Your SC2 client DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HOST A GAME! To provide LAN support, Blizzard would have to implement all of the server functionality on a client side program. The development time and cost would be huge. It's not going to happen.
Blizzard has said this much publicly. However, they have also said that they are working on a way of providing portable servers to major tournaments. Hypothetically, a year from now, MLG, DH, GSL will have their own BNet servers that can be run locally, removing these problems. Again, this will take time, but it's supposedly in the works.
Really sucks to see major tournaments suffering from technical issues, and I can't imagine being a progamer and suffering from random lag spikes wrecking my games, but I don't think people can casually throw this at Blizzard's feet.
My $0.02
This is so wrong it's physically painful to read.
Explain please? This is based on interviews with BNet 2.0 engineers and Browder.
This is wrong because Chinese hackers have already created a pseudo-server which allows them to run SC2 on a LAN. Won't post any links or d/l since that's not allowed here, but go look it up for yourself if you're interested. It has been done. Blizzard just won't make an official version for tournaments.
The chinese hack is a private server setup, not LAN. And this doesn't disprove his post at all, you create a private b.net emulation server and connect the player clients to that
Yes and then you connect to that server which happens to be nearby, instead of connecting to god knows how far away with all the bullshit that might happen enroute because something bad happened one day somewhere.
Not exactly LAN, but a nice improvement as far as major tourneys go.
On January 20 2012 12:45 ProBot wrote: I can clearly tell that a lot of you posting are between the ages of 12 and 14. Little to nothing can be done about network lag, so why flame the tournament for something that's out of their control? For those of you that say it's PC lag ... where you there? did you play on the computers? You must have some real insight to tell it's pc lag by watching the stream, especially when the players themselves are saying it was network lag ..... If your going to flame something a) at least have an educated argument to back up your statements, and b) have a clue about what your talking about.
K Thx
Go and read what Huk Thorzain and Rotterdam as well as many of the players who were at the event said. Network problems happened as well and thats to be expected, but evidently the systems werent equipped or, more likely, maintained well enough to service a tournament.
What type of maintenance should have been done to which parts of the system? I'm a Huk fan, but honestly he probably doesn't know enough about networking a massive lan event to make such judgements.
Blizzard often says it's too difficult to add LAN because of the structure of bnet2.0. I wonder if people would actually be willing to accept a 6+ month delay of hots to fit in some form of LAN. Then again, Blizzard often says they never give release dates to ensure a product is ready, but would they even take the money hit by delaying the release?
On January 20 2012 14:28 leveller wrote: tyrant lol, adding lan or not only has to do with pirating/money, not engineering.
LeVeLlEr LoL, aDdInG lAn Or NoT oNlY hAs To Do WiTh EnGiNeErInG, nOt PiRaTiNg?mOnEy lolololol
Have you read anything? Blizzard themselves have stated its an engineering issue. Who cares whether it is or isn't? Stick it to blizzard that the player base will make sacrifices to see a LAN feature, even if they have to rework battle.net and delay hots. Then they either have to retreat to the piracy excuse, or simply have no excuse at all. It puts the players in a much more powerful position vs blizzard's stance on LAN.
On January 20 2012 15:27 vasculaR wrote: isn't it funny that.. it COULD very well be PC problem and people still want to bash blizzard for no LAN.
Why not ? any excuse should be taken for blaming Blizzard for not having a LAN mode.
Also thank you for atleast posting about it, it's annoying as a viewer but must be more so for players and even you as an organiser. I watched NASL season 1 ... I can take it !
as Carmac already stated...the PCs were in good shape...Internet etc also. Sometimes you cant avoid lag spikes cause too many different factors are involved. I think they are doing an amazing job at IEM.
I think we all need to be a little bit more patient. This stuff can happen... i know MLG etc have always been perfect (joking)
I dont think that Blizzard will add an LAN MOdus...why? Because they simply dont need it. Hundreds of small tournaments/cups are running daily without any lag issue. Listening to maybe 1% of the customers ( <- yep maybe 1% are pro gamers) just seems wrong.
Keep up the good work Carmac! You are one of my favorites
On January 20 2012 14:28 leveller wrote: tyrant lol, adding lan or not only has to do with pirating/money, not engineering.
LeVeLlEr LoL, aDdInG lAn Or NoT oNlY hAs To Do WiTh EnGiNeErInG, nOt PiRaTiNg?mOnEy lolololol
Have you read anything? Blizzard themselves have stated its an engineering issue. Who cares whether it is or isn't? Stick it to blizzard that the player base will make sacrifices to see a LAN feature, even if they have to rework battle.net and delay hots. Then they either have to retreat to the piracy excuse, or simply have no excuse at all. It puts the players in a much more powerful position vs blizzard's stance on LAN.
It has to be a piracy or money issue. Unless they are terrible programmers, there is no way they can't add 'if' checks of a SP variable for the entire interface and mock it so LAN works with it, to give a (rather bad) example.
I mean, think about WC3. It had an internet profile that was less super-integrated than today but still, essentially the same design problems to tackle programming wise. When you select LAN play, nothing was loaded and you started broadcasting on LAN if you hosted a server, so tournaments don't even have to setup servers unless Blizzard wants to avoid piracy. They could use the black box approach, and quite frankly probably earn a shit ton of money that way. More likely? I think so. Unless they're giving us a surprise with HotS, but I'm not holding out at this point.
On that note, most of the posts from Apollo324 are completely inaccurate.
Moving the server-side code to client side should be absolutely trivial. Essentially you just ship the server code with the client, it's that simple.
The reverse engineering concerns aren't very relevant to security unless their security depends on being hidden, which would be a bad security practice (excluding actual data such as passwords, obviously those need to be stripped away if there are any in the server code, but that would, again, be awful programming).
As for the distributed architecture, this is a non-concern. Since their architecture (hopefully) is scalable, the code must be written to work with a range of one to an infinity of machines (sorta).
As for the actual games, it seems like the PCs they were using were the concern, not any kind of lag issues. It is unfortunate that it happened this way, it's unacceptable for a big tournament organization hosting eSports to not have computers that have vastly superior amounts of power than required to play the top game from that tournament in enough quantity, with spares.
EDIT: I wrote my post with knowledge up to the fact that the PCs were bad, so excuse me if this changed while I was writing this brick.
Cologne, Guangzhou and New York City went just fine (as esports events go). We had problems at this event. There's only so much you can do to prepare for an event like this. There will always be issues to solve that are beyond your control. Here's what happened:
Actually, in Guangzhou I had the same fps drop to 10 in both my games vs Jim... I didn't complain much because I thought I had lost the games anyway, and I assumed it was just an isolated incidence --- But since it's happening the exact same way here in Kiev it makes me wonder whether there's something wrong with the computers you are using?
On January 20 2012 12:45 ProBot wrote: I can clearly tell that a lot of you posting are between the ages of 12 and 14. Little to nothing can be done about network lag, so why flame the tournament for something that's out of their control? For those of you that say it's PC lag ... where you there? did you play on the computers? You must have some real insight to tell it's pc lag by watching the stream, especially when the players themselves are saying it was network lag ..... If your going to flame something a) at least have an educated argument to back up your statements, and b) have a clue about what your talking about.
K Thx
Go and read what Huk Thorzain and Rotterdam as well as many of the players who were at the event said. Network problems happened as well and thats to be expected, but evidently the systems werent equipped or, more likely, maintained well enough to service a tournament.
HuK & ThorZaiN were not there......... But there were indeed people there who said these things
On January 20 2012 14:28 leveller wrote: tyrant lol, adding lan or not only has to do with pirating/money, not engineering.
LeVeLlEr LoL, aDdInG lAn Or NoT oNlY hAs To Do WiTh EnGiNeErInG, nOt PiRaTiNg?mOnEy lolololol
Have you read anything? Blizzard themselves have stated its an engineering issue. Who cares whether it is or isn't? Stick it to blizzard that the player base will make sacrifices to see a LAN feature, even if they have to rework battle.net and delay hots. Then they either have to retreat to the piracy excuse, or simply have no excuse at all. It puts the players in a much more powerful position vs blizzard's stance on LAN.
It has to be a piracy or money issue. Unless they are terrible programmers, there is no way they can't add 'if' checks of a SP variable for the entire interface and mock it so LAN works with it, to give a (rather bad) example.
I mean, think about WC3. It had an internet profile that was less super-integrated than today but still, essentially the same design problems to tackle programming wise. When you select LAN play, nothing was loaded and you started broadcasting on LAN if you hosted a server, so tournaments don't even have to setup servers unless Blizzard wants to avoid piracy. They could use the black box approach, and quite frankly probably earn a shit ton of money that way. More likely? I think so. Unless they're giving us a surprise with HotS, but I'm not holding out at this point.
On that note, most of the posts from Apollo324 are completely inaccurate.
Moving the server-side code to client side should be absolutely trivial. Essentially you just ship the server code with the client, it's that simple.
The reverse engineering concerns aren't very relevant to security unless their security depends on being hidden, which would be a bad security practice (excluding actual data such as passwords, obviously those need to be stripped away if there are any in the server code, but that would, again, be awful programming).
As for the distributed architecture, this is a non-concern. Since their architecture (hopefully) is scalable, the code must be written to work with a range of one to an infinity of machines (sorta).
As for the actual games, it seems like the PCs they were using were the concern, not any kind of lag issues. It is unfortunate that it happened this way, it's unacceptable for a big tournament organization hosting eSports to not have computers that have vastly superior amounts of power than required to play the top game from that tournament in enough quantity, with spares.
EDIT: I wrote my post with knowledge up to the fact that the PCs were bad, so excuse me if this changed while I was writing this brick.
Point went over your head. Doesn't really matter whether they can or can't implement LAN; it wasn't the intention of my post.
i remember i used to complain a lot about conditions at esl tournaments during wc3 times just to be called a "whiner" or "crybaby", feels kinda weird to be reading about this now.
On January 20 2012 16:36 ToD wrote: i remember i used to complain a lot about conditions at esl tournaments during wc3 times just to be called a "whiner" or "crybaby", feels kinda weird to be reading about this now.
I understand that some players want to stand up for themselves in order to try to ensure the best experience possible for themselves and everyone else watching. At the same time I think most of those players really need to chill out. Especially when they're literally complaining about "maybe not coming in the future" about almost every event that's not MLG or GSL. Especially when it really just makes them look whiney, and is particularly confusing when they then stand up for the tournament and say things like, "before in the past it's been fine, but this one's so bad i don't know if i'll go to future ones" Especially on...day one?
Again, I think it's great that players are standing up for themselves. I just think it would be even more great if they made sure it was for actual legitimate things, not overboard and premature, and they did it in a way that didn't make them seem like they're really just constantly yelping for attention or whining about minor things all of the time.
And, I think it'd be great if players came together to say things instead of just going out on thier own, because really, it would help filter out some of the things that just come across as stupid and premature, AND it actually gives them some sort of power when they're saying things together. Realistically one player whining on twitter or on the forums or reddit doesn't actually mean anything, and really shouldnt.
I think more of the blame or ill feelings should go towards blizzard. It seems to me they are not allowing lans simply because they want the money more(meaning people have to buy more copies of the game). I might be wrong on this but I believe its the first RTS where they want you to pay for each name change. I mean at least just throw in something for clans. Something like that could probably be implemented in a weeks time for a company their size. The fee is not small either by no means. You could almost buy a new game for the price they want/are going to charge.
Then the setup of multiple servers for regions. Where you have to buy a different copy of the game for each region. What happen to when you could just select which server you wanted to play on. Blizzard is a billion dollar company do they really need to squeeze every nickle and dime out.
I think we as a community should give these organizations/events more credit. They are doing the best they can with what they got. Granted not saying all of them there have been some bad events very poorly executed.
I say thanks to Carmac and the other organizations who put forth 100% effort into trying to put on a great tournament and attempting to fix the issues that come up at hand. Sure if they didn't try their best to fix the issues then fault them, but all anyone can ask for is someone doing the best they can with what they are given.
I think Carmac has done a great job and this is only the beginning of 2012. Problems are bound to arise and nothing runs perfectly. What these guys have been doing for the community should be cherished and as a pro-gamer it is frustrating and stressful to be robbed of playing at your best due to lag, but these tournaments run on a schedule and the organizers have to do the best they can to just make the most out of it and prepare for the next one. It is easy to point fingers but these guys have the sole goal of entertaining you.
On January 20 2012 15:27 vasculaR wrote: isn't it funny that.. it COULD very well be PC problem and people still want to bash blizzard for no LAN.
Had blizzard incorporated LAN by now, even if only for tournaments, we would at least know for certain there was a problem with the computers. As of now, as you so delicately emphasize with that "COULD", we have no way of knowing. Fixing this by trial and error or similar methods would be so much easier if we had LAN, not to mention the fact that every tournament - and I mean every tournament - would greatly benefit from it. - And that's not to mention the players, who could play with a response time so low you couldn't match it, no matter how good internet connection you had.
Even if it was pc problems which it very well could have been. If blizzard implemented lan all the resources that these organizations are having to devote towards the net issues would then be redirected to the computers, players, and event overall. Lan causes absolutely no problems but fixes so many. @ above poster it already has offline mode would it really be that hard implementing custom games to it? I'm no programmer so if there is one correct me please if i'm wrong.
I honestly don't care about the lag spikes. It is like breaking an oar in a rowing race, shit happens sometimes and there is no point in bitching about it. But if you do feel compelled to bitch, blame blizzards greed.
On January 20 2012 17:05 niteReloaded wrote: If all this shitstorm was directed at Blizzard, we would solve all future lag issues with one swipe!
WE WANT LAN!
2bad the game is build around battlenet 2.0 and making lan mode would require to recode most of the game we wont get lan. stop asking for it
Obviously you have no idea about software development. I'm sure Blizzard would be able to implement a LAN mode within a reasonable amount of time, if the wanted to.
So, pretty please to Blizzard - give us LAN mode, even if only in a special build available to tournaments.
Instead of giving away i7 cpus at every event, maybe they should put them in their own computers?
Just kidding, I'm sure the rest of the event will run just fine and I can't even express the amount of respect I have for Zenio for agreeing to a regame with Nightend!
I kind of feel this only adresses half the problem, Grubby complained about recieving no help at all from the admins during the pause, if I understood that correctly, and not so much about the lag. Apparantly not only the lag was messed up, but also the communication to players during that period.
Not much can be done about that now, but this should definatly be seen as a learning moment for the admins at the tourney as well.
On January 20 2012 17:05 niteReloaded wrote: If all this shitstorm was directed at Blizzard, we would solve all future lag issues with one swipe!
WE WANT LAN!
2bad the game is build around battlenet 2.0 and making lan mode would require to recode most of the game we wont get lan. stop asking for it
Obviously you have no idea about software development. I'm sure Blizzard would be able to implement a LAN mode within a reasonable amount of time, if the wanted to.
So, pretty please to Blizzard - give us LAN mode, even if only in a special build available to tournaments.
actually i do... thats why i know they wont do it. so please dont judge people you don't know.
On January 20 2012 17:05 niteReloaded wrote: If all this shitstorm was directed at Blizzard, we would solve all future lag issues with one swipe!
WE WANT LAN!
2bad the game is build around battlenet 2.0 and making lan mode would require to recode most of the game we wont get lan. stop asking for it
Obviously you have no idea about software development. I'm sure Blizzard would be able to implement a LAN mode within a reasonable amount of time, if the wanted to.
So, pretty please to Blizzard - give us LAN mode, even if only in a special build available to tournaments.
actually i do... thats why i know they wont do it. so please dont judge people you don't know.
you don't know if you think it would require to recode most of the game. That wouldn't be true even for a whole game, let alone for tournaments where they'd need only small server connected with PCs in LAN. They won't do it because they are afraid that someone will steal server files and then make cracked servers. That's the only reason why they don't do it.
Wow, credit to Zenio if he's agreed to a rematch. I felt really bad for him, being stuck in the middle of an ambiguous situation (i.e. lag is likely to have affected the outcome, but no way of telling for sure). Hopefully things will improve today...
You've got to hand it to Garmac handling this really professionaly and making sure that the issue was fixed before playing any games further, which is fairplay all the way. I was watching Apollo's stream during the event and I saw the game White-Ra vs Strelok and at the last minutes of the game Strelok started experiencing huge lag, but as said it was in the last minutes of the set so it was already a win for White-Ra.
Good show from ESL to trying their best, I raise my hat to you sirs who take all the shit from people yet keep a smile on your faces.
On January 20 2012 18:11 scruffeh wrote: Wow, credit to Zenio if he's agreed to a rematch. I felt really bad for him, being stuck in the middle of an ambiguous situation (i.e. lag is likely to have affected the outcome, but no way of telling for sure). Hopefully things will improve today...
Rematch is agreed (or admin forced?). Zenio can choose if they replay only third map or whole Bo3.
I can totally understand technical problems but i felt frustrated watching the stream, and the casters were as well. Not to mention i bough a year pass for HD. Hopefully everything will run fine from now on, especially on finals day.
On January 20 2012 15:41 Liquid`Jinro wrote: Actually, in Guangzhou I had the same fps drop to 10 in both my games vs Jim... I didn't complain much because I thought I had lost the games anyway, and I assumed it was just an isolated incidence --- But since it's happening the exact same way here in Kiev it makes me wonder whether there's something wrong with the computers you are using?
On January 20 2012 15:40 Geisterkarle wrote: I will get some red script down there but:
LAN Mode needed!!
Stop already with this WE need lan , NOOOOOOOO we dont need a lan in sc2. Lags problems etc in sc2 happends in 5-10 games from 200-300 or even more played!!.
You watch 200-400 games without lag ... and when i happend in some random games , community cry wy wanna lan , its just stupid.
On January 20 2012 17:05 niteReloaded wrote: If all this shitstorm was directed at Blizzard, we would solve all future lag issues with one swipe!
WE WANT LAN!
2bad the game is build around battlenet 2.0 and making lan mode would require to recode most of the game we wont get lan. stop asking for it
Obviously you have no idea about software development. I'm sure Blizzard would be able to implement a LAN mode within a reasonable amount of time, if the wanted to.
So, pretty please to Blizzard - give us LAN mode, even if only in a special build available to tournaments.
actually i do... thats why i know they wont do it. so please dont judge people you don't know.
you don't know if you think it would require to recode most of the game. That wouldn't be true even for a whole game, let alone for tournaments where they'd need only small server connected with PCs in LAN. They won't do it because they are afraid that someone will steal server files and then make cracked servers. That's the only reason why they don't do it.
Chinese already have managed to get Lan working on SC2. I can't say about the quality of the implementation however. I can imagine it's not as simple as it sounds and having Lan would make some things change. Unless Blizzard has the built in 125ms delay also in Lan mode there will be a difference in responsiveness and I can imagine that would effect pro-players quite a bit.
On January 20 2012 15:40 Geisterkarle wrote: I will get some red script down there but:
LAN Mode needed!!
Stop already with this WE need lan , NOOOOOOOO we dont need a lan in sc2. Lags problems etc in sc2 happends in 5-10 games from 200-300 or even more played!!.
You watch 200-400 games without lag ... and when i happend in some random games , community cry wy wanna lan , its just stupid.
we should be pleased that it only happens in 5 to 10 games from 200-300 games? remember, some progamers rely on the game as a living. lag is like your car constantly gives out white smoke right in front of your engine, it goes away but constantly reappearing. Now imagine this happening in a race.
maybe you don't need lan but surely quite a lot of people want and some would even need lan
I dont like all that haters, man. Omg, its E-fucking-amazing-sports relax, and enjoy. It's still growing, this happens and will happen again. And these ppl true love Starcraft II, and want to do things right, think carefully before blaming anyone. Lately I'm missing some maturity from the community.
mmhh .. i played the last few days on eu battlenet, where also the IEM kiev takes place, and i also had some lag from time to time, but playing LoL or BF 3 if have always nice ping, like 21 or so and no lag ever happens... so think what you want, but it´s most likely not only the IEM tech teams fault.
I'd like to know who initiated the rematch, was it NightEnd or the admins? Great sportsmanship from Zenio, as much as I wanted NightEnd to win, I didn't think it was possible, even if he won the battle. But that's just my opinion, it would need a replay analysis I guess.
Shit, people throwing accusations out left and right against Blizzard, IEM and what not. It's unbelievable that all these self-proclaimed experts sit here and talk trash about big companies who try their best without really being able to understand or know the full story.
Now I'm not there, but I have been greatly involved in the matter. From what I know and from what I've seen this is a PC issue, not internet.
Even if 10k people say its the PCs .. a simple LAN mode would turn a bad PC on a Supercomputer , sorry..
I have a Laptop with 4 years that can handle Starcraft2 on Low with 200/200 armys , even if the PCs at this event were bad , explain me the lag i see at KSL , GSL , HSC ...
Sc2 is a fail in Korea because it has no Lan and spawn installation! Blizzard killed the sport because they tried to have the monopoly of it. Who is going to watch SC2 if they never played or had contact with the game?
Sorry for steaming but this is like selling a Ferrari with 100 Mph top speed.
While the Counter-Strike 1.6 and League of Legends tournaments were running completely fine and without any issues (technical or ping-related), the SC2 tournament was plagued with difficulties: - Players had lag that affected gameplay and sometimes the result (naniwa and, to a lesser degree, Strelok);
- Naniwa voiced concerns to the referee that he had lag issues (other players also). As it turned out their lag spikes were not at all as bad as naniwa's. One of the players intervened and convinced naniwa that by changing some network settings and shutting off some software the connection would be fixed. Naniwa got talked into playing - as it turned out it was a mistake not to put him on another PC (the reasoning being that all players claimed to have some spikes).
- Meanwhile, I spent almost the entire day investigating the root of the problem. I spent a lot of the time on the phone with Blizzard's employees, talking to the local IT masterminds who called the local ISP (100Mbit line for gaming only, remember). I asked for the group play to be halted because that time could have allowed us to find the solution.
Here is what we did in order to fix this issue: - call Blizzard countless times to make sure it's not a routing issue; - call the local ISP countless times to do the same; - test other PCs in the gaming center to see if the same issues occur (they are the same configuration - some lagged, others did not);
your post is just a political damage control post that is trying to reroute ( indirectly) the blame on Blizz( its so easy to start LAN drama)....and it actually succeded until
On January 20 2012 08:42 Thorzain wrote: Everyone i spoke to that are at the event (4-5 players) were telling me that the computers were the issue, that they were crap. Not that the connection was faulty.
Basically the players are complaing about comps ... Thorzain knows it and you don't ? Moreover...you keep saying that comps are fine since you could play single player on it ???? This is ridiculous ... you'll have 1 less viewer for the rest of tournament.
i dont get why people rage at people who say they wont goto another event.
I want to goto some of these events buts dont because of the cost of travelling balanced against blizzards insaciable greed with regards to their platform strategy.
There is only 1 place to lay blame for these tournaments ... it is BLIZZARD. People can run networks and admin them perfectly fine... what they cant control is everything outside of their building.
Well, to whoever is admining the IEM twitter: you can't post on your official medium that naniwa has forfeited the tournament, and then 5 mins later re-post on the same medium that it wasn't official.
Btw Carmac, how do you mean you performed due dilligence? Do you intend to buy the venue to perform such a task, or you simply have no idea what due dilligence is? (It sounds fancy so why not use it)
On January 20 2012 08:34 delchuu wrote: I dont get it anyways why no Lan Support anymore :O
holy fuckin shit... i have been reading through the discussion, which discusses the "no lan support issue". you should have done the same thing instead of posting one dumb sentence after reading the op.. really sad
On January 20 2012 20:47 tapk69 wrote: Even if 10k people say its the PCs .. a simple LAN mode would turn a bad PC on a Supercomputer , sorry..
I have a Laptop with 4 years that can handle Starcraft2 on Low with 200/200 armys , even if the PCs at this event were bad , explain me the lag i see at KSL , GSL , HSC ...
Sc2 is a fail in Korea because it has no Lan and spawn installation! Blizzard killed the sport because they tried to have the monopoly of it. Who is going to watch SC2 if they never played or had contact with the game?
Sorry for steaming but this is like selling a Ferrari with 100 Mph top speed.
LAN doesn't turn a bad PC into a supercomputer in any way. LAN reduces latency and connection problems, that's it.
If a PC is shit it will be shit regardless if it's connected to a gigabit LAN or a 1 Mbit DSL line. Stop posting about stuff you know nothing about.
While the Counter-Strike 1.6 and League of Legends tournaments were running completely fine and without any issues (technical or ping-related), the SC2 tournament was plagued with difficulties: - Players had lag that affected gameplay and sometimes the result (naniwa and, to a lesser degree, Strelok);
- Naniwa voiced concerns to the referee that he had lag issues (other players also). As it turned out their lag spikes were not at all as bad as naniwa's. One of the players intervened and convinced naniwa that by changing some network settings and shutting off some software the connection would be fixed. Naniwa got talked into playing - as it turned out it was a mistake not to put him on another PC (the reasoning being that all players claimed to have some spikes).
- Meanwhile, I spent almost the entire day investigating the root of the problem. I spent a lot of the time on the phone with Blizzard's employees, talking to the local IT masterminds who called the local ISP (100Mbit line for gaming only, remember). I asked for the group play to be halted because that time could have allowed us to find the solution.
Here is what we did in order to fix this issue: - call Blizzard countless times to make sure it's not a routing issue; - call the local ISP countless times to do the same; - test other PCs in the gaming center to see if the same issues occur (they are the same configuration - some lagged, others did not);
your post is just a political damage control post that is trying to reroute ( indirectly) the blame on Blizz( its so easy to start LAN drama)
Frankly I think you're being rather unfair here. All he did was explain the measures that they took in order to resolve the problem. Specifically they tried to find out if it was a routing problem and then tried out some other PCs.
He even states this:
- the Arena IT have set up completely fresh Windows PCs with SC2 only on them - those will be the machines used in the remainder of the tournament;
As one of the things done to resolve the problem. He finishes by saying there might be a minor routing problem remaining but the computers were completely wiped and reinstalled for the rest of the competition. Considering they did that rather than just saying "routing problem" and doing nothing about the computers I think tells the tale quite clearly.
That said, I watched a little of this yesterday and saw the Nightend game. Yeah...not good...
Why did they remove Lan? They remove lan so people don't pirate the game (lol yeah right). So instead of punishing the rule breaker, legitament customer have to suffer.
On January 20 2012 21:21 .vid wrote: Well, to whoever is admining the IEM twitter: you can't post on your official medium that naniwa has forfeited the tournament, and then 5 mins later re-post on the same medium that it wasn't official.
Btw Carmac, how do you mean you performed due dilligence? Do you intend to buy the venue to perform such a task, or you simply have no idea what due dilligence is? (It sounds fancy so why not use it)
He doesn't have to buy the venue to perform due diligence (do you know what due diligence is, despite not knowing how to write it?). Holding the IEM at this venue is an investment. Performing due diligence on the venue, before investing in it, seems smart to me.
On January 20 2012 15:40 Geisterkarle wrote: I will get some red script down there but:
LAN Mode needed!!
Stop already with this WE need lan , NOOOOOOOO we dont need a lan in sc2. Lags problems etc in sc2 happends in 5-10 games from 200-300 or even more played!!.
You watch 200-400 games without lag ... and when i happend in some random games , community cry wy wanna lan , its just stupid.
we should be pleased that it only happens in 5 to 10 games from 200-300 games? remember, some progamers rely on the game as a living. lag is like your car constantly gives out white smoke right in front of your engine, it goes away but constantly reappearing. Now imagine this happening in a race.
maybe you don't need lan but surely quite a lot of people want and some would even need lan
Not pleased ... but many ppl overreact to this .. its just random lags , its not happed all the time. Please name tournament that has lag issues ?? You cant because its happend in some random situations Yes that what happedn to NightEnd was terrible , he lost game because of lag..but it WAS FIRST time in sc2 history ( and im play/watching sc2 from beta) when lag decide of wining a game in tournament.
Cross region play EU/ NA NA/KR etc is NOT THE SAME THING. And yes lan is good option , but it is NOT MUST HAVE option , imo sc2 isdoing good without lan. They can make BN 2.0 very good platform , but give them some time , im sometimes pissed off of lags etc , but it is really that bad ? no..
the only stupidly good solution is lan. Cheez people stop ignoring this fact... No lan makes people angry, produces unproffesional gaming experience, and watching experience, also bad mood.
There is nothing else to discuss except to talk about lan mode. I will be told as if im a troll but all talks about something ELSE is trolling. im so sad blizzard has such power
well everyone on the internet should know that these problems in 90% of the cases are problem that cannot be foreseen and are not fault of the organizers. Everyone that complains are basically hurt fanboys that didn't get their cookies. But since you see people complain about lag everywhere, even if its their own line, i think there is nothing to wonder about.
On January 20 2012 08:02 zeru wrote: And this is why people shouldnt flame players when they have no clue about the situation like today. Majority of the LR posters flaming and trashing naniwa and making fun of everyone defending him. Not the first time where r/starcraft's community reaction to a situation was infinitely more classy than TL's LR thread, which is quite disappointing.
Lag shouldnt happen more at events though, not this often. Sure, insert usual LAN whine here. But its 2012, there is good enough internet and venues should have it. It's silly that MLG/IEM/NASL have these problems. Take can host a more stable tournament in his appartment for christ sake. We can try to complain to blizzard all we want, we're not gonna get LAN anyway most likely.
I feel bad for nightend and hope you force match replay else it's preeeetty silly. Was hoping for a replay for naniwa too, but it didnt matter in the end.
Oh well, hope things go smoother tomorrow.
Naniwa acted like a kid on stream, beeing defiant and impulsive. Not a professional reaction whatsoever.
If he calmed down later and was constructive and nice, good.
Next time, maybe hiring some real network technician could be cool? Someone that could monitor the venue and would know exactly what is happening right off the bat?
"There is issue between the router of the venue and the ISP" -> ISP is having some problem, nothing much you can do. You could just post-pone the event in that case, calling the ISP and telling them that you know that something is happening and asking them when i will be fixed.
"There is some issue between the computers and the router" -> Some router/switches/cables issues.
"Actually no connectivity issues on the network" -> Computers related issues.
And seriously, it's not that hard. There is like 20 free and open source monitoring softwares on the net. Set a Ubuntu computer in the venue, directly on the main switch. Download nagios and set it up, add the switches, the router, the computers. Monitor the the bandwith and do some ping test between computers, switches and the router at all time and set an alert to send your IT an email when something is going wrong...
This way, if there is lag/connectivity issues/packet loss, you will know EXACTLY what is happening instantly and what to/how to fix it.
Not that hard. Any Network Technician could do that, seriously. You can't just not monitor anything for a tournament like that.
Telling Naniwa that he should close some programs and that it should fix the connections... like what the fuck?
I dont understand why people are discussing this still!! Didnt thorzain directly say that its about the PCs not being able to run SC2 smoothly with 200/200 armies. Now some with suggest lowering the settings! but you got to understand that pros have their own gfx settings which they are comfortable with and have practiced with... All tournaments need to offer good PCs to its players which will handle 200/200 armies for all gfx settings to be honest. So sorry I don't buy in the routing error thing. The lag seemed like more of a bad PC thing than anything else
On January 20 2012 17:05 niteReloaded wrote: If all this shitstorm was directed at Blizzard, we would solve all future lag issues with one swipe!
WE WANT LAN!
2bad the game is build around battlenet 2.0 and making lan mode would require to recode most of the game we wont get lan. stop asking for it
Obviously you have no idea about software development. I'm sure Blizzard would be able to implement a LAN mode within a reasonable amount of time, if the wanted to.
So, pretty please to Blizzard - give us LAN mode, even if only in a special build available to tournaments.
actually i do... thats why i know they wont do it. so please dont judge people you don't know.
you don't know if you think it would require to recode most of the game. That wouldn't be true even for a whole game, let alone for tournaments where they'd need only small server connected with PCs in LAN. They won't do it because they are afraid that someone will steal server files and then make cracked servers. That's the only reason why they don't do it.
Chinese already have managed to get Lan working on SC2. I can't say about the quality of the implementation however. I can imagine it's not as simple as it sounds and having Lan would make some things change. Unless Blizzard has the built in 125ms delay also in Lan mode there will be a difference in responsiveness and I can imagine that would effect pro-players quite a bit.
That is kinda wrong actually. They didn't get LAN working at all, what they did was make a server that fakes the blizzard server so your data doesn't need to transfer over the whole world. Is it an improvement? yes. Is it LAN? No. Didn't Blizzard said something about a tournament server during the TL interview with browder?
Oh and we got some confirmation here from a couple people that it might NOT be the lan issue people love to jump on.
This all boils down to the fact that Blizzard is refusing to offer LAN mode for their tourney's. For all the money that is dumped into tournaments I think this is inexcusable. I don't blame the organizers for lag spikes especially if they've done their due diligence before hand. The organizers cannot be held responsible for something that is beyond their control. If there is blame being tossed around the finger should be pointed squarely at Blizzard. There really is no excuse to not offer LAN mode at least to tournaments.
Ironic that I'm reading/posting on this thread and TLO lags the Hasu vs Pomi match.
Good post to clear things up. I also feel its nice that its nice that he explained the Naniwa situation that could have turned bad. Since Naniwa won the group and Carnac has said he was professional I think its a non-issue. The problem is whether the other problems lost their positions due to lag or not. Nice with some transparency from IEM, even if it really doesnt solve anything but polish their and Naniwas reputation.
Carmac showing extreme professionalism. Very impressed by the organisation. These situations are always hard to manage but they're staying level headed.
It seems like games used to have some kind of multiplayer feature that would allow players in close proximity to connect directly to eachother, providing a 0-latency/delay gameplay environment that produced the best games possible and made live events more exciting than online ones... but yeah this is good too ^^
This is really unfortunate, not only for the tournament but for eSports. I think this tournament is further proof that Blizzard needs to get LAN support into SC2. It would really help to avoid these sort of issues in future tournaments.
Sounds like Carmac and co. set up the venue pretty well in advance. I don't blame them for what happened. I mean, if the venue has hosted many other events, some of similar size, they expect that it will hold up for this particular event. I suppose in a perfect world they would have a backup internet line, but yeah. I feel that internet issues during tournaments should really just be blamed on Blizzard for not having LAN support.
Glad that Naniwa didn't lose his temper, and kept going and won his group. Hope to see more good games.
Sounds like they did their best to ensure no more problems for the rest of the tournament as well. New computers set up with only SC2, getting assurances from the internets that its not a connection problem, yeah.
On January 20 2012 23:09 Xalorian wrote: Next time, maybe hiring some real network technician could be cool? Someone that could monitor the venue and would know exactly what is happening right off the bat?
"There is issue between the router of the venue and the ISP" -> ISP is having some problem, nothing much you can do. You could just post-pone the event in that case, calling the ISP and telling them that you know that something is happening and asking them when i will be fixed.
"There is some issue between the computers and the router" -> Some router/switches/cables issues.
"Actually no connectivity issues on the network" -> Computers related issues.
And seriously, it's not that hard. There is like 20 free and open source monitoring softwares on the net. Set a Ubuntu computer in the venue, directly on the main switch. Download nagios and set it up, add the switches, the router, the computers. Monitor the the bandwith and do some ping test between computers, switches and the router at all time and set an alert to send your IT an email when something is going wrong...
This way, if there is lag/connectivity issues/packet loss, you will know EXACTLY what is happening instantly and what to/how to fix it.
Not that hard. Any Network Technician could do that, seriously. You can't just not monitor anything for a tournament like that.
Telling Naniwa that he should close some programs and that it should fix the connections... like what the fuck?
Arena has a full staff of IT and network people, from what i could gather from the post even using the clean wipe computers people got lagged out, therefore it's not the comps (refering to nightend) which means it's on the net end, yet the net supposedly has two different 100mbit lines which shows that it's not the venue. Therefore something must be f'd up in kiev, this is not IEM's fault. They chose a location that has a history of good service, has had multiple sc2 events, and has more claimed speed then any current MLG.
also, the programs might have been something tied to the net (like steam for example) or could have been monitoring software or limiting software installed by the Arena.
It's been said many times over but for SC2 to truly succeed in esports these kinds of technical issues cannot happen. The simplest fix is LAN support from Blizz, they'll gain more money and fans as a whole by implementing LAN support and taking some hits in the piracy dept than to get super anal about piracy and copyrighting and lose fans/players/sponsors due to ongoing and well-documented technical issues. Just my 2 cents. The second thing that needs to happen is some patience from fans and players. It seems that the IEM people did their due diligence in preparing a good site for the event but technical issues always happen, especially with so many connections and bandwidth demands due to large WORLDWIDE streaming demands. Give them a break, everyone deserves a second chance and as has been discussed in the OP, countless other IEM events have gone on without a hitch. Stop killing esports and chill out =P
On January 20 2012 23:09 Xalorian wrote: Next time, maybe hiring some real network technician could be cool? Someone that could monitor the venue and would know exactly what is happening right off the bat?
"There is issue between the router of the venue and the ISP" -> ISP is having some problem, nothing much you can do. You could just post-pone the event in that case, calling the ISP and telling them that you know that something is happening and asking them when i will be fixed.
"There is some issue between the computers and the router" -> Some router/switches/cables issues.
"Actually no connectivity issues on the network" -> Computers related issues.
And seriously, it's not that hard. There is like 20 free and open source monitoring softwares on the net. Set a Ubuntu computer in the venue, directly on the main switch. Download nagios and set it up, add the switches, the router, the computers. Monitor the the bandwith and do some ping test between computers, switches and the router at all time and set an alert to send your IT an email when something is going wrong...
This way, if there is lag/connectivity issues/packet loss, you will know EXACTLY what is happening instantly and what to/how to fix it.
Not that hard. Any Network Technician could do that, seriously. You can't just not monitor anything for a tournament like that.
Telling Naniwa that he should close some programs and that it should fix the connections... like what the fuck?
I really hope you are not serious about it. Do you really think the ESL crew and the guys that run the Arena are network amateurs? ... Seriously. Get your shit together please.
So if i'm understanding this correctly, they simply made it into a bo5 for nightend/zenio with zenio starting up 2-1?
How does that fix the problem at all? The entire point was that the result of game 3 was not legitimate. If they had replayed the third game, nightend won today. If they had restarted the series, it would've been 1-1 after the games today.
The 'solution' was not a solution at all, if i'm understanding correctly. If you consider the third game illegitimate due to lag, zenio has not beaten nightend. The score is 2-2, with nightend winning the third game of the series.
On January 21 2012 04:44 BluemoonSC wrote: i'm glad they gave nightend a chance to take on zenio in a best of 5 to make up for their error. i thought he might have redeemed the series, but it turns out our liquid player was too much for him and the result stood.
sdlkfhskjghsdkljsdg. NO. They went 1-1 today. The only reasons the series ended is because they still counted the lagged game in the score.
i'm glad they gave nightend a chance to take on zenio in a best of 5 to make up for their error. i thought he might have redeemed the series, but it turns out our liquid player was too much for him and the result stood.
Carmac states that players were using certain computers that would lag less than others. Logically then, its not a network problem. Also thank you Carmac for the explanation, I am a fan.
Cologne, Guangzhou and New York City went just fine (as esports events go). We had problems at this event. There's only so much you can do to prepare for an event like this. There will always be issues to solve that are beyond your control. Here's what happened:
Actually, in Guangzhou I had the same fps drop to 10 in both my games vs Jim... I didn't complain much because I thought I had lost the games anyway, and I assumed it was just an isolated incidence --- But since it's happening the exact same way here in Kiev it makes me wonder whether there's something wrong with the computers you are using?
Jinro, I think I just became a fan of yours for how you addressed this lag business as someone who experienced it himself. You spoke up (as you should) but did not turn me off with useless, immature whining and bashing. I hope to see you in more tournaments.
You can blame Blizzard for the lack of LAN all you want, and they'll continue to not give a fuck, because you're all going to buy the expansions anyway.
They might release a LAN patch like a year or two after LotV, with SC3, the next big step in e-sports evolution, well under development already.
On January 21 2012 04:11 SiguR wrote: So if i'm understanding this correctly, they simply made it into a bo5 for nightend/zenio with zenio starting up 2-1?
How does that fix the problem at all? The entire point was that the result of game 3 was not legitimate. If they had replayed the third game, nightend won today. If they had restarted the series, it would've been 1-1 after the games today.
The 'solution' was not a solution at all, if i'm understanding correctly. If you consider the third game illegitimate due to lag, zenio has not beaten nightend. The score is 2-2, with nightend winning the third game of the series.
On January 21 2012 04:44 BluemoonSC wrote: i'm glad they gave nightend a chance to take on zenio in a best of 5 to make up for their error. i thought he might have redeemed the series, but it turns out our liquid player was too much for him and the result stood.
sdlkfhskjghsdkljsdg. NO. They went 1-1 today. The only reasons the series ended is because they still counted the lagged game in the score.
Yeah it was the wrong decision by admins. Regame or don't regame, not some weird shit like give one player a huge advantage to give an illusion of a legitimate regame, pointless.
From a viewer's POV, there were not only lag issues, but also the contrast on the stream is bad and the volume of the microphones changes randomly it seems. Also switching from one game to another in the middle of big fights or the production team that keeps the camera on the casters when they've asked 4 times to switch the screen to the game because it had already started and stuff like that... That's just really bad and could have been resolved easily. All the previous IEM's were amazing but this one... well let's just say I'm not gonna watch the rest of it. Even the format made no sence at all... The group with HerO, Feast, Dimaga and qxc ended up in a 3-way tie, but since Feast won vs HerO, he moved on? I'm obviously happy that Feast went through because he's Belgian but it's just not a fair system.
On January 20 2012 23:09 Xalorian wrote: Next time, maybe hiring some real network technician could be cool? Someone that could monitor the venue and would know exactly what is happening right off the bat?
"There is issue between the router of the venue and the ISP" -> ISP is having some problem, nothing much you can do. You could just post-pone the event in that case, calling the ISP and telling them that you know that something is happening and asking them when i will be fixed.
"There is some issue between the computers and the router" -> Some router/switches/cables issues.
"Actually no connectivity issues on the network" -> Computers related issues.
And seriously, it's not that hard. There is like 20 free and open source monitoring softwares on the net. Set a Ubuntu computer in the venue, directly on the main switch. Download nagios and set it up, add the switches, the router, the computers. Monitor the the bandwith and do some ping test between computers, switches and the router at all time and set an alert to send your IT an email when something is going wrong...
This way, if there is lag/connectivity issues/packet loss, you will know EXACTLY what is happening instantly and what to/how to fix it.
Not that hard. Any Network Technician could do that, seriously. You can't just not monitor anything for a tournament like that.
Telling Naniwa that he should close some programs and that it should fix the connections... like what the fuck?
I really hope you are not serious about it. Do you really think the ESL crew and the guys that run the Arena are network amateurs? ... Seriously. Get your shit together please.
Judging from how bad their website is they definitely have some holes in their tech staff. Now, that does not mean their network people have problems as well, but I don't think it is a good sign as to the general competency of their staff.
Edit: That last statement comes off as overly harsh, I am not saying because their website is god awful the rest of their business is as well, it just indicates that they do have serious issues in some places and you can't just say that because they have been doing something for a long time that they are doing it well.
For someone who works on these kind of problems for a living, I'm both appreciative and disappointed with the response. From the information provided, it seems to me as though a root cause was never identified. This is troubling, because there are all the normal claims of contacting the so-called responsible parties, without any information on what the feedback received was.
When you contacted the ISP, and I assume you'd be calling a NOC/Network Operations Center if you're a customer of two 100mbit lines, what did they say? I have a few questions.
Did you actually have one of your technicians replace the IADs, or have a field technician investigate the internal wiring? Were there any line tests performed? What kind of bandwidth was the tournament using, and what kind of connection were they using? I've never heard of a 100mbit wireline connection. That's an increment typically reserved for data center bandwidth. Was there deep packet inspection performed, and what did the results yield if so?
It's quite clear it's a network issue, and I fully understand that those can be completely beyond one's control. When a major provider like Level 3 goes down in the US, it's a very big deal. I was expecting that IEM had been able to find the root cause so that it can be avoided in the future. I hope Carmac or someone can shed some light on this, so that we don't have to take it on faith that this can or will be avoided in the future.
If these aren't questions that you can get answers to easily, I sincerely question the aptitude of your staff and would encourage that you hire experienced systems and network engineers for such an event. If I'm setting the bar unnecessarily high, let me know.
Really not too surprised with the responses. If we want an ESPORT we need to treat it as such, really can't be more frustrated with Blizzard for not implementing LAN. Honestly at this point I think they would profit from a better ESPORT more than a few sales..
No Joke, Starcraft II needs LAN, Bnet 2.0 is still not good enough and Blizzard knows this, atleast make some sort of mechanism where you have to login to your account to "Unlock" Lan Mode, this is just getting silly, I hope they realise soon...
On January 21 2012 08:18 vitruvia wrote: burn the witch, but why can't our godly R1CH create a Lan server support like god did with this pitiful earth? :D?
I know you mean well but I don't think we want to see R1CH get sued.
Despite some issues with lag (which can only be blamed on Blizzard, not the hosts of this tournament. Games which are not LAN-based can expect issues like this sometimes.) we were treated to quite a few nice games. I hope the rest of the tournament will be as enjoyable to watch as todays games.
Also, thank you Carmac for your dedication to the community, we appreciate the work you and your staff do.
funny how only IEM has major lag issues EVERY event. yea mlg sometimes, but besides dallas, it was not even close to the IEM lag we saw the last days.
for all not german people. the ESL also hosts the german pro series and just a few weeks ago, a stage match between darkforce and rine had to be delayed a lot cause of lag. as far as I know, it's been the pcs, not the internet. It's just something happening again and again and that is why IEM has so few viewers in comparison to good tourneys ( even online cups sometimes )
Most people dont know about internet issues in LAN Tournament as an organizer does, I run lan tours of SC2 and is a hell of problems the internet topic ALWAYS, you can be somewhat prepared but aparently the Internet connections have their own will and works well when they want, even if you make all the modifications to "solve" the problems. Hope it gets better from here. IEM is a world class tournament.
On January 21 2012 12:19 Jacopana wrote: Most people dont know about internet issues in LAN Tournament as an organizer does, I run lan tours of SC2 and is a hell of problems the internet topic ALWAYS, you can be somewhat prepared but aparently the Internet connections have their own will and works well when they want, even if you make all the modifications to "solve" the problems. Hope it gets better from here. IEM is a world class tournament.
It may suck for the organizers, but at this point people expect the same level of quality they are getting from MLG and GSL. I'm not saying IEM is a bad tournament, but they are certainly not at that level right now.
On January 21 2012 14:53 EchoZ wrote: Err can someone tell me what happened?
There were heavy lag issues. It was so bad that some lags (maybe) changed the outcome of some games. Also, the production staff was not listening to the feedback of the community AT ALL. People have been complaining about the sound quality and the image quality (contrast being bad) for the past few days and still nothing happend. Even when they're supposed to jump in the game, they just keep the camera on the casters who were asking them to switch the camera to the games.
On January 21 2012 08:30 zyce wrote: What kind of bandwidth was the tournament using, and what kind of connection were they using? I've never heard of a 100mbit wireline connection. That's an increment typically reserved for data center bandwidth.
Either I'm completely misreading this part of your post or you have no idea what you're talking about. I have a 30mbit line myself and that's one of the cheaper options. If I wanted to I could get a 50mbit line for some euros more. 100mbit isn't really all that much anymore.
And btw... Why is Carmac saying they're using 2x100MB lines, one for the players and one for the stream? It's the UPLOAD that is important for streaming. And you def don't need 100MB up to stream at even 1080p. They don't need more than like 5MB up per stream. Since there are 2 streams, an upload speed of 10MB/s would be more than enough. Paying too much for stuff they don't need if you ask me. It's like saying "I paid a fortune for this, so it must be good" Well no, price != quality. They could've gotten a second connection for the players on an other technology/other provider and use a load balancer to avoid having those kind of problems. If it would still lag with 2 different connections, it's either Blizzard's fault, or you internal network/wiring.
This community is way too naive. Don't trust people who think they know something about networks, but hire professionals instead. You know, the ones who actually studied network management...
EDIT: This isn't a personal assault to Carmac! I really appreciate you tried to explain to the community what happend but it just seems like the problems weren't handled the way they should have. (And sorry if I made some mistakes, my english isn't 100% perfect... yet)
On January 21 2012 08:30 zyce wrote: What kind of bandwidth was the tournament using, and what kind of connection were they using? I've never heard of a 100mbit wireline connection. That's an increment typically reserved for data center bandwidth.
Welcome to Europe. 100Mbit is actually standard in many countries here, Sweden for one. Has been for many years too.
On January 21 2012 18:34 Tabashi wrote: And btw... Why is Carmac saying they're using 2x100MB lines, one for the players and one for the stream? It's the UPLOAD that is important for streaming. And you def don't need 100MB up to stream at even 1080p. They don't need more than like 5MB up per stream. Since there are 2 streams, an upload speed of 10MB/s would be more than enough. Paying too much for stuff they don't need if you ask me. It's like saying "I paid a fortune for this, so it must be good" Well no, price != quality.
Uhh yeah... theres 3 different games being played, they all have multiple streams too remember? And theres a different stream for alot of languages, so alot more than just 2 streams buddy. so uhh... yeah. they probs DO need one just for all the streams.
On January 21 2012 18:34 Tabashi wrote: And btw... Why is Carmac saying they're using 2x100MB lines, one for the players and one for the stream? It's the UPLOAD that is important for streaming. And you def don't need 100MB up to stream at even 1080p. They don't need more than like 5MB up per stream. Since there are 2 streams, an upload speed of 10MB/s would be more than enough. Paying too much for stuff they don't need if you ask me. It's like saying "I paid a fortune for this, so it must be good" Well no, price != quality.
Uhh yeah... theres 3 different games being played, they all have multiple streams too remember? And theres a different stream for alot of languages, so alot more than just 2 streams buddy. so uhh... yeah. they probs DO need one just for all the streams.
I clearly explained why they DON'T need 100MB only for streaming. Even if I was wrong on the number of streams, that doesn't change the fact they're just throwing with money.
VERY simple maths:
Question: How many streams could you host on a 100MB connection knowing that you need 5MB per stream?
Answer: They could host 20 streams on that connection.
Is that necessary? No, because not all the streams are hosted at the Arena in Kiev. In fact, most of them aren't hosted from there out. So it's a waste of money.
I kept it on an elementary school level because I know the internet is full of kids (and idiots).
On January 21 2012 18:34 Tabashi wrote: And btw... Why is Carmac saying they're using 2x100MB lines, one for the players and one for the stream? It's the UPLOAD that is important for streaming. And you def don't need 100MB up to stream at even 1080p. They don't need more than like 5MB up per stream. Since there are 2 streams, an upload speed of 10MB/s would be more than enough. Paying too much for stuff they don't need if you ask me. It's like saying "I paid a fortune for this, so it must be good" Well no, price != quality.
Uhh yeah... theres 3 different games being played, they all have multiple streams too remember? And theres a different stream for alot of languages, so alot more than just 2 streams buddy. so uhh... yeah. they probs DO need one just for all the streams.
I clearly explained why they DON'T need 100MB only for streaming. Even if I was wrong on the number of streams, that doesn't change the fact they're just throwing with money.
VERY simple maths:
Question: How many streams could you host on a 100MB connection knowing that you need 5MB per stream?
Answer: They could host 20 streams on that connection.
Is that necessary? No, because not all the streams are hosted at the Arena in Kiev. In fact, most of them aren't hosted from there out. So it's a waste of money.
I kept it on an elementary school level because I know the internet is full of kids (and idiots).
The 100 mbit streaming line belongs to the arena and not IEM. I don't really know why you're even trying to prove why It isn't needed, its good for the arena cause they wouldn't have to upgrade it if more streams were needed.
I dont know why is everyone is so obsessed with LAN mode, mostly lags are due to provider issues (which are not uncommon in certain countries). SC2 does not need a LAN mode in my eyes. what would it change? and even then problems can occur because some switches are overloaded, because on events like these a shitload of computers are operating on the same network.
On January 21 2012 21:49 arkedos wrote: I dont know why is everyone is so obsessed with LAN mode, mostly lags are due to provider issues (which are not uncommon in certain countries). SC2 does not need a LAN mode in my eyes. what would it change? and even then problems can occur because some switches are overloaded, because on events like these a shitload of computers are operating on the same network.
In all fairness, LAN is useful in the sense that it minimizes the number of sources that problem could arise from. Currently, the players have to connect to B.Net, and as developed as B.Net is, there is a possibility of troubles occurring with the connection to B.Net. Instead, by having LAN, it removes the connection to B.net as a potential problem, thus making it that much easier to isolate the problem should a problem arise. Also, generally, LAN tends to be less laggy because there are only a few people on an isolated network instead of millions on a large network.
On January 21 2012 21:49 arkedos wrote: I dont know why is everyone is so obsessed with LAN mode, mostly lags are due to provider issues (which are not uncommon in certain countries). SC2 does not need a LAN mode in my eyes. what would it change? and even then problems can occur because some switches are overloaded, because on events like these a shitload of computers are operating on the same network.
Do you not agree with bridges or pedestrian crossings or parachutes as well? You know, things that bypass problems that may occur?
On January 21 2012 21:49 arkedos wrote: I dont know why is everyone is so obsessed with LAN mode, mostly lags are due to provider issues (which are not uncommon in certain countries). SC2 does not need a LAN mode in my eyes. what would it change? and even then problems can occur because some switches are overloaded, because on events like these a shitload of computers are operating on the same network.
When SC2 first came out I didnt think it would be that big of a deal either. Maybe that there would be one tournament in a year that would have some internet issues. But no, I think there have been more tournaments with internet issues than without.
I like the they do their business, it's very professional and they want to have the best of the best conditions, but there will always be minor issues to a certain degree that is unforeseeable and while its fair to criticize someone for that, just keep in mind what they do for everyone and what they do to make it a great tournament.
On January 21 2012 21:49 arkedos wrote: I dont know why is everyone is so obsessed with LAN mode, mostly lags are due to provider issues (which are not uncommon in certain countries). SC2 does not need a LAN mode in my eyes. what would it change? and even then problems can occur because some switches are overloaded, because on events like these a shitload of computers are operating on the same network.
In all fairness, LAN is useful in the sense that it minimizes the number of sources that problem could arise from. Currently, the players have to connect to B.Net, and as developed as B.Net is, there is a possibility of troubles occurring with the connection to B.Net. Instead, by having LAN, it removes the connection to B.net as a potential problem, thus making it that much easier to isolate the problem should a problem arise. Also, generally, LAN tends to be less laggy because there are only a few people on an isolated network instead of millions on a large network.
The other issue with LAN play is that it means the tournament isn't shut down due to internet problems. Matches can be played and then cast from replays later so you don't end up with the tournament falling way behind schedule. I have no idea what's been going on at IEM Kiev since I've not been following it, but it's happened at a few other tournaments, most notably IPL. Since there wasn't a LAN mode, you had spectators at the venue, players all there and ready to go, and no matches to play. (Of course, we got the Boxer v HuK BW showmatch out of the deal.)
On January 20 2012 06:39 Adebisi wrote: WhiteRA calling it "playable" is just wrong IMO. Any amount of lag is just unacceptable, I really think Blizzard needs to step in and provide some kind of portable LAN functionality or tournament servers, I don't understand how people can take SC2 seriously when thousands and thousands of dollars are riding on games where there is lag, it devalues the competitiveness of the game.
I really feel this is more Blizzard's fault than IEMs...
Props to Carmac for being transparent on the issue.
edit: Sounds like its because the computers are poor, that's a shame, I still think the LAN issues still stand though.
I completely agree with you Simon :D
Blizzard doesn't seem to care about tournament play, when I saw Naniwa's Pov I saw lots and lots of chat windows... that must annoying as hell.
Too many observers? The last game of MMA vs. Beast (OMG, spoilers!) was pretty damning...two observers lagged out, and when the game ended, you had 6 or 7 observers in the game.
I think you should have a dedicated observer, and have multi-language cast from that observer stream with localized overlays.
So im wondering after watching the interview with Nightend. Is it true that a decision was made for a straight up regame first, and then the decision was changed into giving Zenio 2-1 making it extended bo5 ? Would really like a clear answer on that
If you listen to Nightend's interview, he says it was 100% computer issues, not BNET or the network... Furthermore, the IEM admins just let TL basically tell them how to handle the Nightend vs. Zenio situation, not exactly an unbiased third party (though this is in the words of Nightend, not an unbiased party himself obviously). Both are clear examples of incompetence going on at the event...
I actually think this is an amazing post by Carmac letting us know a bit more about it and of course these things happen so please don't give to much anger/ hate guys!!!
On January 23 2012 01:55 StanleyElite wrote: I actually think this is an amazing post by Carmac letting us know a bit more about it and of course these things happen so please don't give to much anger/ hate guys!!!
On January 21 2012 18:34 Tabashi wrote: And btw... Why is Carmac saying they're using 2x100MB lines, one for the players and one for the stream? It's the UPLOAD that is important for streaming. And you def don't need 100MB up to stream at even 1080p. They don't need more than like 5MB up per stream. Since there are 2 streams, an upload speed of 10MB/s would be more than enough. Paying too much for stuff they don't need if you ask me. It's like saying "I paid a fortune for this, so it must be good" Well no, price != quality.
Uhh yeah... theres 3 different games being played, they all have multiple streams too remember? And theres a different stream for alot of languages, so alot more than just 2 streams buddy. so uhh... yeah. they probs DO need one just for all the streams.
I clearly explained why they DON'T need 100MB only for streaming. Even if I was wrong on the number of streams, that doesn't change the fact they're just throwing with money.
VERY simple maths:
Question: How many streams could you host on a 100MB connection knowing that you need 5MB per stream?
Answer: They could host 20 streams on that connection.
Is that necessary? No, because not all the streams are hosted at the Arena in Kiev. In fact, most of them aren't hosted from there out. So it's a waste of money.
I kept it on an elementary school level because I know the internet is full of kids (and idiots).
This post is so much selfownage, I cant even explain all points to you xD ...better keep on doing elementary School maths cause its obvious that you have no clue of anything else out there. Srsly, why are you posting this? And thx Carmac for the explains, but announces like this shouldnt be commented too much, cause most of the People doesnt know what they are talking about when they see a number and say "Oh my god they are sooo dumb, they dont need that connection!"...oh yeah, a real Brainer there...
What people must understand is that shit happens. Can't believe how whiny the SC2 players have started to become the past few months. IEM did the best they could in order to resolve the issue. What more can you ask of them? It's the same in any sport.
Yes, I can understand that people get frustrated when a lot of money is on the line but Naniwa got his rematches and everyone was playing with a little bit of lag. It was all fair and square and I'm sure IEM will try even harder next time to prevent things like this from happening. I just think people are so unappreciative of all the hard work the people behind events like these actually put down in order to make sure an event runs as smooth as humanly possible. Creds to IEM and Carmac.
On January 21 2012 08:30 zyce wrote: What kind of bandwidth was the tournament using, and what kind of connection were they using? I've never heard of a 100mbit wireline connection. That's an increment typically reserved for data center bandwidth.
Either I'm completely misreading this part of your post or you have no idea what you're talking about. I have a 30mbit line myself and that's one of the cheaper options. If I wanted to I could get a 50mbit line for some euros more. 100mbit isn't really all that much anymore.
50/100mbit speeds are usually only offered to end-users. For an arena like the one where IEM was located, we would likely be providing that bandwidth over two dedicated OC-3s which aree 155.52Mbit/s.
Overall, the tournament quality seemed plain awful. Where was the shot of the crowds? Was it that abysmal of a tournout that it wasn't worth showing? Absolutely no excitement, and it felt like an online tournament. And hearing the commentators say "seems like the crowd is pretty excited" doesn't make up for it.
it must be kept in mind that this was held in the Ukraine; personally I still think that Ukraine is still more of a CS1.6 nation than a SC2 one, despite the number of high level SC2 players. Furthermore, the event was hosted in English, and it doesn't seem as though most Ukrainians can understand English that well - The Ukrainian 1.6 team, for example, needed a translator during interviews.
I love IEM and the whole ESL peoples. The only thing I can really recommend is to remove gold bases from the map pool and enforce cross spawn Antiga Shipyard. Both of these things are warping and not fun. Just watched MMA vs Feast on metalopolis and despite playing Terran I wanted to vomit blood. Also seeing TargA have to play on not cross Antiga is really shitty for the poor guy.
On January 23 2012 18:38 iaguz wrote: I love IEM and the whole ESL peoples. The only thing I can really recommend is to remove gold bases from the map pool and enforce cross spawn Antiga Shipyard. Both of these things are warping and not fun. Just watched MMA vs Feast on metalopolis and despite playing Terran I wanted to vomit blood. Also seeing TargA have to play on not cross Antiga is really shitty for the poor guy.
Carmac something you should look into is the LAN cables themselves. I´ve been on countless lans, and on Crossfire Intel Challenge 7 I got a computer that lagged a lot when playing the game. After a long day of finding out what was going on (and me playing with huges lag) one tech guy finally figured it out, the lan cable was faulty. It was fine with running the game and an X amount of other things, it pinged fine/just like other computers, until i used TeamSpeak while playing the game, then I had huges lags. He switched out the lan cable and everything was fixed. The problem you had sounds a lot like what happened on CiC7, and this is something people don´t even consider, because when pinging from the computer to X, you get the same resaults as everyone else, and it only seemed to happen with certain games on the machines/programs, not others.
On January 23 2012 18:38 iaguz wrote: I love IEM and the whole ESL peoples. The only thing I can really recommend is to remove gold bases from the map pool and enforce cross spawn Antiga Shipyard. Both of these things are warping and not fun. Just watched MMA vs Feast on metalopolis and despite playing Terran I wanted to vomit blood. Also seeing TargA have to play on not cross Antiga is really shitty for the poor guy.
Exactly, until they change their map pool I will probably continue to watch mainly LoL with the occasional SC2 match that I really care about. Ive just found it too frustrating watching matches where the map pool defines the opening advantage.
Does it define who wins? No. Does it give advantages to one player/race over the other? Yes. This a major problem for me and it seems IEM continues to ignore the fact despite so many other tournies recognizing this issue. I just don't understand it.
On January 23 2012 18:38 iaguz wrote: Also seeing TargA have to play on not cross Antiga is really shitty for the poor guy.
Well TargA on the other hand abused the gold base vs Hasuobs. So he is not a that poor guy
I agree, the current map pool is in my opinion a joke and the esl admins knows it.. Hopefully they will change it soon, all though I assume Sao Paulo will have the same map pool.
shit happens, carmac - ofc its bad if players loose due lag but I think your statement showed that this stuff is out of your hands - thx for this awesome event anyway
I would like to enclose a statement from White Ra who knows the venue very well and participated in last year's Intel Extreme Masters tournament as well (obviously if you're one of the players in Kiev, feel free to chip in with a comment - good or bad, I don't mind):
"Today it was not normal but playable.
I'm surprised no one has brought this up, but remember this is WHITE RA saying this, heck, he was doing special tactics when you couldn't be on a phone and the internet at the same time. If SC2 played with 1000 latency units, White Ra would just get nostalgic about his childhood
No one is to blame, crap like this happens in every sport. May it be bad ground with holes for football, or even bad weather for formula1 races (not to mention the occasional engine-implosion every now and then). They all have to deal with it - but in esports, thats enough reason for drama?
God, you people, really. Relax a little, its not like someone insulted your mother and raped your sister while doing it - its just laggy. Yeah, someone lost a game because of it (but then again, it lags for both sides), which is unfortunate. Nothing more, unfortunate. Shit happens in every sport.
Great tournament! Sure there was some pretty major delays on the first day, and some minor lag throughout. But all in all it was excellent. Especially the 3rd place match, that shit just blew my mind.
On January 24 2012 00:57 Bobster wrote: The only one at fault with these kinds of things is Blizzard.
I do hope we'll see a LAN option in the future - you can not make it to the mainstream if such issues are looming over your head.
It got said numerous times it was the computers themselves by the people that were at the actual event. What is Blizzard supposed to do? Give every tournament the perfect PC's?
After reading some of the posts about the upload of the arena I can tell many are under the impression that IEM streams only one game. Please don't forget that ESPORTS (eSports, esports, w/e) is way more than one game. This tournament alone had League of Legends and Counter-Strike 1.6 AND StarCraft II streams running in multiple languages all simultaneously.
Sure that still probably doesn't allocate for the 100MB but I'm pretty sure in the future it will be needed as more and more games join the various competitions. Also the Kiev Cybersports Arena isn't an ESL venue, they host their own events and god knows how much streaming they need.
You can't really blame the venue when the connection appeared to be perfectly fine for other games. Sometimes shit happens and obviously the host is RESPONSIBLE for doing their best to remedy the situation, but you can't really BLAME them if the connection decided to suddenly go to shit.
I agree that Blizzard should be blamed for lack of LAN. I think at the very least, they should have a special release of SC2 with LAN enabled for tournament use only.
On January 25 2012 07:18 Mystgun wrote: You can't really blame the venue when the connection appeared to be perfectly fine for other games. Sometimes shit happens and obviously the host is RESPONSIBLE for doing their best to remedy the situation, but you can't really BLAME them if the connection decided to suddenly go to shit.
I agree that Blizzard should be blamed for lack of LAN. I think at the very least, they should have a special release of SC2 with LAN enabled for tournament use only.
Agreed. If their worry about LAN is piracy, it can be a hybrid mode that needs internet to authenticate and then runs on the LAN. The client would just ping the server occasionally to ensure the account is authenticated, but route traffic through the LAN.
EPT
I personally enjoyed the tournament so far, no complains here.
