My theory on all this server crap - please read and comment!

[Orcus]

The last two days playing pso online have been a complete disaster. Lag is terrible, disconnections are not only frequent, but almost inevitable. I am a former d2 player, and blizzard once had a problem similar to these symptons and the problem was that hackers had sabotaged the servers. For this reason and the ones I note below, I believe that someone has, or has been trying, to hack the sega servers.

Besided the incredible lag and disconnections that I forementioned, five (5) very weird events lead me to this conclusion:

1. In the lobby, my guy started running around all by himself. I was not touching the controller and he was still running. I was able to make him fall down on purpose, but once he got up he started running again. It lasted for about 2-3 minutes. It was quite amusing actually.

2. I went into a game yesterday, and my character started talking by himself. He started saying things like WTF, and DIE, and then a bunch of blank messages. Once again very weird and quite amusing.

3. I was in another game, and someone joined. After waiting through the lag of nearly 5 minutes for the person to register as having joined the game, my screen all of a sudden flipped upside down. I was standing on the sky, and the forest was below me. I could not move from my spot, but I could move within the spot and access my menu. I was also able to talk to ppl and they were able to talk to me. It lasted for about 5 minutes before I decided to pull the phone cord out and disconnect myself before my dc reset and I lost some valuable stuff.

4. My equipped weapon kept changing on me. I had spread needle equipped, and next thing I know I was using my stag cutlery which was in my inventory. And then after a few minutes it switched back ? very weird

5. I called sega to find out wtf was going on, and they were very unimformative, almost secretive about it, as if they were attempting to prohibit information from leaking out to the press.

I have heard some people experience similar episodes of the running around the lobby, but has anyone else experienced any of the other wierd episodes on my list?

Before I get flamed, I should mention that my character is totally legit level 90 Humar, and every item on me and in my bank is legit. Also another note - before anyone asks - No i was not stoned or drunk, this really happened. lol

I welcome any comments, and or other theories. Thanks for listening

[Nynaeve]

On 2001-03-22 11:02, Orcus wrote:

3. I was in another game, and someone joined. After waiting through the lag of nearly 5 minutes for the person to register as having joined the game, my screen all of a sudden flipped upside down. I was standing on the sky, and the forest was below me. I could not move from my spot, but I could move within the spot and access my menu. I was also able to talk to ppl and they were able to talk to me. It lasted for about 5 minutes before I decided to pull the phone cord out and disconnect myself before my dc reset and I lost some valuable stuff.


Phew! I thought I was the only one this happened to! Last night I experienced this very same thing - I was on Forest Hard with another player, someone joined, next thing I knew I got thrown to another part of the Forest, my view switched to a first person mode, it looked like I was lying on the ground - the other player was calling for me to come back, I could type to him, I could set a pipe (I didnt' see it but he did when he came looking for me), I could talk to him and see him, access my Start screen menu, track him on the Area Map - he came looking for me, found the pipe I had just set, basically virtually stood on top of me, but did not see me or my stuff or anything. I quit the game which saved my char. normally, came back on and rejoined him - and didn't lose anything. Interesting..... http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/icon_smile.gif

[TwiNCannoN]

Jesus, this game has some FRIGGED UP bugs. I mean, even the BSOD.. even though it has become famous, just stand back and look at it. The screen just turns BLACK, for no apparrent reason. w.. why? why not like, famous windows-blue? or just lock up then and there? Or disconnect you? how it is an UNSOLVABLE PROBLEM so sayeth sega?

/boggle

[Aberu]

dang man you had lotsa bad luck, i dont know exactly if this is a hacker but it may be possible the only thing is is that it would be way harder to hack into a dreamcast game than it would a computer game (as far as the servers go) and for your person walking around by themselves, that is a loading error, if you noticed it only happens after someone has jus joined the lobby. it happened to me a few times so i noticed that... i have experienced long load time for other characters in teams, dang i i have experienced most of those but the ones that seem like pranks (as in moving your character an all) are probaby one of these two things. loading errors or sega workers having fun in the hubs (server workstations). they can do a lot in the hubs. well good luck on figurin out wut this is and tell me when you do find out!

[ReikenFeralsbane]

heh..maybe sega's fukin with us or something..havin some fun...
anywho the only nutty thing that happend to me was someone was talking using my chat bubble, only lasted a min.but still...it's my chat bubble for christ sake...
http://reikenf.tripod.com/reiken03.jpg

[Arsenal]

I had the running around thing happen to me the other day. I went into the lobby and the went into a game and he was just romping like a baby deer around the shop. I initally thought that it the contoller thing that happens with the N64 and the DC, so I restarted and came back on and all was fine. It was weird..and the lag has been terrible.. I couldn't even get on for about 2 hours yesterday. It would get stuck on the screen where you first come into the lobby and after about 10 minutes, I got tired and cut it off and played offline, which I must say, with a level 15 HUmar in the mines on normal is not that easy by yourself. Well..that is my spill, clean it up http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/icon_smile.gif

[ReikenFeralsbane]

heh..maybe sega's fukin with us or something..havin some fun...
anywho the only nutty thing that happend to me was someone was talking using my chat bubble, only lasted a min.but still...it's my chat bubble for christ sake...
http://reikenf.tripod.com/reiken03.jpg

[Spasm]

I have every reason to believe PSO servers are at LEAST being attacked. Anyone with a broadband adapter can resolve the IPs of the servers, and proceed to flood them with DOS attacks. Who knows what they could do with port sniffers. Probably alter packets en-route to foul up your game in the ways you described.

The good news is, all of these attacks are prosacutable as a criminal offense, so as soon as the catch em, someone's going to jail.

[TwiNCannoN]

Holy god Reiken, you just double posted and the posts were FIVE minutes between each other.. that HAS to be a record.

[Samuel-Vimes]

Let?s see, the past two days I?ve experience:

Frequent Disconnection
Extremely long loading time.
Chracter running around by his or herself.

[Neojin]

LMAO Twin...yes but is that a record you want? hehe

[beany]

yea, same here last night. at one point i was just coming into a game and all i could see was the triangle thing in the hunters guild.
I started thinkin oh chit...BSOD. So i found a old FAQ and searched for what to do. I slowly unplugged and waited,(head in hands!) and finally got a disconnect and save to vmu.
I reloaded)offline and checked my stuff, still there. damn....i hope they fix it.

[Rei]

I got the same problems too.
One time when I was in mine, the screen suddenly became "Hollywood flash back style" in first person view( which the screen moves very fast from rooms to rooms). Then I was at the beginning of mine 1. I asked mysely, "Am I dying??"

[OtakuDC]

This shit is CRAZY! I mean come on Sega, when will all of this stop? Even before it took ten minutes and various disconnects to join a game, there were countless BSOD crashes as well as a rampant spree of deletions and corruptions.

I mean, i love PSO and all but its seriously becoming a reeealy big hassle to play.

And now even when I come to the forums to rant about lag THEY take ten minutes to load as well...lol..oh well.. Alll i'm saying is that Sega BETTER fix this..I need my PSO!

[_Joe_]

Last nite there were intervals of 30min lag with 3 or 4 people. I could still move and pick shit up but others didn't talk or move. Last nite my guy started talking on his own too. Saying stuff like WHERE and HI and then just plain jibberish like AL:KJFLDKS. Also I've experienced what Rei has where the camera just flys through walls then stops on you in a complety different room. This happened about a week ago which leads me to believe that thats just a bug unlike these other supernatural events.

[Badguy]

Runnin' around uncontrolled.
Long loading time.
Disconnected.
All that happened to me on the servers,too.
So I've joined the exodus to the japanese servers.
You know sega takes better care of the japanese ones anyway.
I haven't encountered any problems since.


Alcatraz. Lv68 Indigo HUcast
Slade. Lv 21 Brown RAmar

[Spasm]

Instead of waiting for your connection to time out on it's own, you can just pull out your controller chord, and plug it back in. At that point, it will say, "Game over! The line has been disconnected. Please press start." Then it saves your game!

I used this technique 4 times last night, didn't lose a thing. And I didn't have to wait 15+ minutes to be disconnected.

My vmu was even in slot 2, with another char in slot 1.

[SERGE07]

All those things have happened to me and
all my friends as well.
This is a big widespread problem now.
I can`t handle another night of getting
frozen while entering a game.
Sega lets get on this.

[Gilder]

Let's look at it this way (this is also Sega's way, might I add). There are a lot of registered users for PSO. The problem is, the amount each server can hold is significantly less. If a lot of people try joining a server, it lags it up.

[RyoGeo]

Don't know if I was a victim of this or not, but just a couple of hours ago, I was shafted. I was playing a V-Hard game with a VERY trusting player (gave me his Lv 200 mag to see if I could feed it and get it to change and I had JUST met him) and after playing thru' about 2/3's of Forest 1...MY DC JUST SPONTANEOUSLY RESET ITSELF! We were getting some nasty lag just prior, but I have seen and lived through that before.

I lost ALL my money (about 300k), my +20 Double Saber (that I found on my OWN and had grinded from +7 to) that I loved because I could refill my TP, AND a secondary mag that I had been feeding to try and get a different type (just for fun). Also lost a set of +40% Native, Bind guns. DAMMIT!

It could have been a lot worse (my S-Beats didn't disappear, nor my level 120 Bana), but geez. ALL of my weapons have been found by ME and that Double Saber was actually the first real rare that I had found (Dragon Slayer doesn't count since that one is actually kind of easy to get). And the guns...THOSE WERE MY GOOD FOREST GUNS!

This makes me afraid to even go back online again. What will I loose next time. It seems that the attacks, or whatever you want to call them are hitting everybody else too. Someone had mentioned that the Jp servers were safer. Is that true?

Anyway, if anybody sees a cute, tall, purple Humewearl with a pony tail, named RyoGeo drop some change in her beggars cup 'cuz she is FLAT broke and without one of her favorite weapons.

[OtakuDC]

Come on Glider....lets feel sorry for sega....poor guys...they just can't handle it....

Thats bullshit! Sega is offering not only a product with PSO but a service as well. If they cant meet the demand then stop selling it. Even though I doubt thats the reason. Do you think a million people all decided to buy PSO two nights ago..come on! Also, there is a reason each block has 10 lobbies. Have you ever seen anything other than one, and in extreme cases, two lobbies full? It seems to me that they can handle people in every lobby.

Since the beggining Sega has been screwing our playing experience with BSOD and other frequent problems. For god's sake learn how to run a server before you release an online game.

We excused all this craziness before simply because we enjoyed the game too much but by now its BARELY PLAYABLE! I don't think we should "understand" Sega's situation one bit.

[Gilder]

Damnit, I'm Gilder, not Glider. Hasn't anyone around here played Skies of Arcadia? I know a lot of people on PSO have, whenever I join a game, they say, "C'mon... dance for me."

Anyway, enough ranting about my name. You should feel sorry for Sega. They had no idea PSO would be this popular, and considering how much they've been through (losing money-wise), they're doing a good job. They're always adding more servers to play on, as well.

Also, to the guy who lost his DC to a spontaneous reset, I feel for you. It happened to me too, but I just started playing with my level 100 character.

And for those who don't believe the rush of people is the cause, look at it this way. Take 200,000 people, and try to fit them in a room where only a fraction of that can fit. Said room will be uncomfortable, and something is going to happen.

[Glider]

Lol.
Notice:
Me: Glider
Him:Gilder

No relation.

[lugus]

Maybe all the weird thing's with the server are some sort of side-effect when they try to add something to the server.Like that PSO Tournament maybe US Players will be able to compete.

[Lucidservant]

Energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared.

[Chan]

Well, I can't even join games sometimes.

[Sheogorath]

As I said in my rant, it doesnt make sense that a US server with 300 members is lagged all to heck, yet a japanese server with 1,000 users is super-smooth and totally stable.

I used to blame it on all the DSL and Cable users conencting their DC with Net Zero or Free Juno, but I think I figured out what it is:

The anti-cheat mechanisms they put up last wekk...I have been getting FSODs ever since, and even if I do manage to join a game (1 out of 100 chance) I get hit by a huge lag spike and get get BSODs, FSODs, or if im lucky, simply disconnected.

So the cheaters, in a very non-direct way, have screwed us again. Then again, this is just a theory, so take it at face value. I' not a sega rep, so I don't know whats causing these problems, though I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that its the Anti-cheat mechanisms doing this on the US servers...because those Japanese and European servers are insanely fast and stable.

[Nokturne]

I read it has something to do with California's mass power shortage that has showed up this past week... and since the US PSO servers are all in Cali, i'd say thats a most likely answer.

But i DO know its not cuz of cheaters -rolls eyes- the ol' "blame it on the cheaters" rears its ugly head again i see http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/icon_wink.gif

And if you've noticed, many other DC games are actin crappy online too, therefore its not just some pso conspiracy, lol.

Or maybe i'm drinkin chlorox



<font size=1>[ This message was edited by: Nokturne on 2001-03-23 01:13 ]</font>

<font size=1>[ This message was edited by: Nokturne on 2001-03-23 01:16 ]</font>

[AdamW]

Hmm, I too have been expereincing these problems as of late. I wish I was drunk or high. Then it might be fun.

[gokhuu]

man i thought i was the only one! my character was talking to himself and when ppl joined the game...they thought i was a retard.... it kept saying "?". just freaked me out. luckily i hear the jp servers are very nice. gunna hang there till sega fixes this wierd craap. oh yeah, one guy joined my game, he took the teleporteer to ruins vhard...he got zapped to 2 red doors...like 99999999miles ahead of me. we barely started ruins right there and man he was far away...

[RawRebel]

Hey,today I was playing and my character was talking but I didnt type anything.It also was happening to peo[le i was playing with.

[DarkWolf]

Lets see... some of the crud happening to me and Akillies...

1) Walking around in the lobby or a game uncontrolled (possessed)
2) Other people in the room's words coming from our characters
3) Other people in other ships words doing the same thing
4) Teleportation across the lobby
5) Getting stuck in walls in games by being "possessed"
6) BSOD-likely situations occur more often
7) Going into inventory screen without pressing a button
http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/icon_cool.gif My own shortcuts being used without pressing a button, and other peoples shortcuts coming from my character
9) LAG!

I'd say that's about it... :/ 5 meseta says it -is- hackers...