I really hate to be the one to break it to everyone, but Bronco here is 10000% correct. More correct than the inverse of Orian’s Eye drop rates.
I too engage with Cloud Infrastructure on a daily basis. I used to design Data Centers for a living. Bandwidth is the #1 non-development cost for a video game. And while some mitigation can be made through code (( If no HUD input > 5 mins, reduce client to ping only packeting once every 5s )) when 30 thousand clients are in that state it still creates a large amount of traffic.
Outgoing Bandwidth is hideously expensive. Look at your home internet: it’s asynchronous, with usually 10x the download bandwidth as upload. Why? Because it is the upload Bandwidth that is at a premium, something that you take for granted and the Cloud Data Centers can’t.
I absolutely thought 10min AFK timers were silly, especially when they were being triggered while you were configuring your build or a loot filter. That being said, the recent change with 0.9.1c to double them is a stopgap until they can code the AFK timer system to read actions other than character movement (some have been, but more are needed – frankly, any keyboard, mouse, or controller input should reset the timer).
No matter how consumer-friendly EHG is, there are business realities they have to face and minimizing server bandwidth costs is a HUGE one.
Not quite, back when I worked for a telco (& this was a good 10 odd years ago), we didn’t have separate upload/download rates for billing, it was purely how much data moved, not caring about which direction.
The reason why home bb is massively skewed towards download speeds is because most of the time people want to download stuff, streaming video & the like. Things are probably different now given the move towards working from home where you’ll be more likely to be uploading large files & doing video calls.
What i don’t understand is how you can say that Bronco’s right that
Where he says that LE when idling is unlikely to be consuming server and network resources but you then say:
Dont need to guess… The Devs mentioned transitioning (with the MP patch) to a separate chat solution with far more features a while back. I figure they just havent gotten a handle on the integration yet - which is typical really. New toys take a while to play nice.
Even when idling there will be network traffic, and that traffic will be distributed to the appropriate server to process and then returned to the client. So, even idling clients will be utilizing some Game Server CPU time (Packet processing) AND some Network Resources (Router and Switch directional traffic on the LAN/WAN) AND some Internet Bandwidth (Sending and receiving Packets).
For example, the AFK Timer probably works off a “keep alive” packet (which may be integrated into another packet and is not necessarily on its own) that the game server uses to ensure the client is still connected. Essentially this is a game “ping”.
Here are the basic steps:
– The packet containing the keep alive information is generated on your PC by your Game Client;
– The packet is routed through your Local Area Network (LAN) and sent to the game server via the upload bandwidth on your internet connection;
– The packet is received at the data center running the Game Servers;
– The packet is routed there to the appropriate server;
– The packet is processed by the Game Server;
– The Game Server generates the return packet;
– The return packet is routed through the data center network;
– The return packet is sent it back to you via the data center’s upload bandwidth;
– The return packet is received with your download bandwidth;
– The return packet is routed to your PC;
– The return packet is processed by your PC.
((Note for those in the business: YES, I have DRASTICALLY simplified this for the sake of this discussion))
When I said “minimizing server bandwidth” I was smooshing all three parts of the process into one phrase which was perhaps not the best. Sorry about the confusion.
Totally agree, not only doesn’t register some actions like inventory management to delay AFK management, 10m-15m are too short. I would go into 30m-30m, is safe and sound.
Improved AFK detection: interacting with the UI, pressing buttons, etc. will prevent you being flagged as AFK. The time before being kicked has also been increased to 20 minutes.
Which is still a little on the short side in my opinion but much better than the 10 min they had it set to, especially with some of the other changes they made to it which includes most activities you will be doing if you’re not AFK. That means that it “most” likely won’t kick you anymore if you are actively doing something.
