Updated

Hello Friends!

This is going out to the Xbox360 gamer community especially from, let's say 16+ years old.

Why did I choose this topic title?
Actually this is about Lag and Lack of Support with Xbox360 games in general.

Many (it says many, not all) Xbox360 gamers are uninformed and not even interested about the mechanics of online gaming at this point, and only by taking the time and educating ourselves about such technicalities can we bring a positive change to the console online gaming experience. What people don't know about, they cannot claim or demand. That's the whole point of this post. We are too used to that we only have to press the power button and everything will work on it's own. Right? Wrong!


First Of All
I'm a Xbox360 gamer myself, not by choice, but more due to lack of funds.
I did however come to fall in love with the whole XBL community thing. You can really meet and play with people from all walks of life and so many nations at the click of a button. But every platform has it's pros and cons.

Playing games like Ghost Recon alot, this is how it starts...

"He's Lag Switchin', He's Cheating!"
That's what many Xbox360 players shout, when a guy flips back and forth across the map and seems to swallow bullets like a wall.
Well, that may be the case sometimes, but did you guys actually know that in the majority of cases the reasons for lag are...

The Lobby System / Matchmaking
With these common methods of setting up a console online game a player either decides to host a game by himself, with his own connection, or get's chosen by the game to be the host, hopefully because he/she has the best connection of players available.
And that's where the trouble begins. A guy in Australia or New Zealand can have the fastest connection in the country, can use a wirded router even, he will most likely lag on my end, when I'm playing on another continent. I always had this problem playing with Australians, since I'm in Europe (no offense Aussies, it's not your fault).

Even without a >>> Dedicated Server <<< (commonly used for PC gaming) hosting the game, the problem could easily be worked around at least, and partly it's been done before in other console games:

- Lobby System (like in Ghost Recon A.W.)
- >>> Real Time Ping <<<, (mostly displayed in bars) of all players in the lobby before a game is set to start
- The Ability to Kick people with a Bad Ping out right away

Alternatively/in Addition (although it reduces the number of players available):

- A Country Filter, or IMO better yet a Continent Filter which let's you only find matches with people from your area due to the matchmaking process (Rainbow Six Vegas, in this game you are even able to let your own Xbox360 console and your connection to function as a "server" as a community service, only of course if you wouldn't play at all during that time. It's based on the same principals like >>> File Sharing <<<)


People seem to be more interested in customizing their player model these days than actual game performance. If I'm wrong, why is it then that we have almost no game online that isn't laggy as hell?

If I'm wrong, why is this threat way down the list after even one single day?
>>> C2 Xbox360: Lobby System, Dedicated Server, Matchmaking??? <<<



Here's what YOU can do
Where ever possible, prefer a wired over a wireless router to prevent transmission lows.

>>> Open Your Router Ports <<< so you can really find all games, lobbies, etc. and have a stable party- and private chat.
He won't tell You. They think most console gamers would be overwhelmed by such a simple task as this.


In a Lobby System Online Game: Host a game with the set number of players according to your connection. I see many people hosting lobbies with 16 players max. with no capacity whatsoever. What it comes down to is that people get a connection loss and get kicked out. Reducing the lobby to 14 or even 12 players helps a lot.

Go to >>> PingTest.Net <<< and >>> SpeedTest.Net <<< to check on your online capacities. Note that within your continent or country the Ping results of course always will be way better than to another continent, which should prove the fact that people playing together on different continents will most likely get lag, at least with the common methods of console online gamemaking. A country and continent filter would definitely help.

Get involved in the discussion in forums like this and demand specific changes in the way online games take place.



What does THIS have to do with CRYSIS 2 ???
I played the beta up to rank 10, and although I got a negative overall ratio, somehow I couldn't stop playing it. I actually played with the thought of buying this game on release. But, sadly I couldn't find any information about the way the online game will be set up in the full game (Lobby, Lobby with Continent Filter, Matchmaking, Dedicated Server, etc.) After so many countless laggy games I can only wonder, how this big of an issue just seems to almost be a non-issue.

Gears of War 3 is supposed to run on a dedicated server on Xbox360, what is it that EA and CRYTEK are doing to improve their online game?


In closing, as I don't exclude myself from the community, the topic title includes the small but important word "We". And We the community have to educate one another to then be able to demand specific things. Just complaining about the lag won't help any one. Some people on the other hand never have anything constructive to say and are only intelligent enough to bash on folks. Bring it!



I thank everybody for being part of the discussion and bringing their own opinions to the table in a intelligent, non-personal and constructive way!

P3AC3 OUT!


What good is the BEST game in the world, when you get ZERO support for it !?

You are such an idiot. Just because you are uninformed and not even interested in the mechanics of online gaming does not mean the rest of us are.

Sure, there are tons of morons on the 360 and PS3, but do NOT go and label all of us like that. There countless morons on the PC too.

You are such an idiot. Just because you are uninformed and not even interested in the mechanics of online gaming does not mean the rest of us are.

Sure, there are tons of morons on the 360 and PS3, but do NOT go and label all of us like that. There countless morons on the PC too.

If it wasn't for the "Idiot", I would have taken the time to give you a more detailed reply

I should not be matched up with Americans ect if i'm from the UK playing at peak UK time. The match making in the demo is horrible, i get thrown in to a room with red/yellow pings. People take enough bullets without lag.

not all of us do that you idiot, i cant go wired, i don't trow the lag switch around. you just stupid.

excelent post bro! very well written and inteligent- seirously.

and its obvious what he means by calling console players the problem, is that hes directing his message to the stupid little twirps on XBL that ruin games for people, the kids who know nothing about how to set up their connection to make gameplay fair.

you dudes need to chill out and not be so defensive over your consoles. hes just trying to help you guys get better connections in-game

Can't go wired for many reasons.

1- Don't want anyone breaking their necks with a long ass cable around

2- Don't want the dogs to chew the cable.

excelent post bro! very well written and inteligent- seirously.

and its obvious what he means by calling console players the problem, is that hes directing his message to the stupid little twirps on XBL that ruin games for people, the kids who know nothing about how to set up their connection to make gameplay fair.

you dudes need to chill out and not be so defensive over your consoles. hes just trying to help you guys get better connections in-game
Im not defending the console i mean the xbox could use update like blueray and ****. but how i read it he is calling out all of XBL saying there all the problem he never had a disclaimer of it i mean if your making a point of something you at lest have to say who your targeting!

He's making the point that if more people expressed their annoyance, they may do something about it.

They won't of course, as we all know the 360 is a 2005 PC that's been stripped of it's soul and locked down tight (Bill gates even admitted as such).

Interesting that you see "warping". In Crysis 1, if the server got no reply from you, it would just guess where you where by your last known data. Guess were back to the old way of doing things, like in Quake 3. Now I can lag warp and never get hit! Hahahahahaha!

I've never heard anyone, nor have any of my friends on the same Xbox heard anyone accuse anyone of "Lag Switching".


Dedicated servers can be expensive, but the majority of the latency issues can be solved with search preferences.
Sadly, very, very thew games have these.
I don't understand why I should be forced to play on American hosts in what seems to be over 90% of matches when a simple custom search fixes the problem.
- Instant booting abilities seem a bit extreme.


"We, the console community", are made up of a lot of kids. Kids don't know anything about this stuff, and you can't really blame them -
They got their parents to set it up for them so they can spend their day absorbing every racist comment, every new swear word, every ridiculous attitude like a sponge and spitting it back out.
There really isn't much that can be done in terms of educating these kids and everyone else about this stuff.
You can't tell a kid to get a better connection - he wont know how, and he'll just reply with something like "get a better mother".
And practically, it just doesn't work out trying to teach them how.


The only three games I've seen with actual non-latency-based performance issues are Black Ops, Gears of War 2, and of course, the Crysis 2 demo.
And only one of them has player-model customization, and a minimal amount at that.

Great post though.

Can't go wired for many reasons.

1- Don't want anyone breaking their necks with a long ass cable around

2- Don't want the dogs to chew the cable.

Wow. If you have that problem you shouldn't even be gaming. PERIOD.

Can't go wired for many reasons.

1- Don't want anyone breaking their necks with a long ass cable around

2- Don't want the dogs to chew the cable.

Wow. If you have that problem you shouldn't even be gaming. PERIOD.
why? gamers cant have pets?

wow! i'm surprised at the amount of hate from some posters. the original poster said console gamers deserve better and should demand it. he gave tips to make improvements and here people get defensive and bash on him. sure gives console players a bad reputation.

wow! i'm surprised at the amount of hate from some posters. the original poster said console gamers deserve better and should demand it. he gave tips to make improvements and here people get defensive and bash on him. sure gives console players a bad reputation.
From what iv seen a lot of people are just reading the topic

You are such an idiot. Just because you are uninformed and not even interested in the mechanics of online gaming does not mean the rest of us are.

Sure, there are tons of morons on the 360 and PS3, but do NOT go and label all of us like that. There countless morons on the PC too.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This, I wholeheartedly support and agree with, apart from the idiot thing, totally uncalled for, if you cant be polite, then thats as bad, just a thought.

Some people know what it takes and whats happening, and even why, but that applies to all platforms, technology is easy stuff to many.

equally there are many people who simply have no idea about the mechanics involved, more over, some have one intention in life, and thats simply OWN that Noob, by any means,

some people even cause probs without even knowing it, and they come from all walks of life, at all skillset levels on all platforms, in a variety of age groups, etc!

I have noticed recently a fast growing number of younger people comming to PC as a preference,

OH NO wait,
Its me I GOT OLDER << now thats called paying attention to detail, lol

peace and luv people

Guss

wow! i'm surprised at the amount of hate from some posters. the original poster said console gamers deserve better and should demand it. he gave tips to make improvements and here people get defensive and bash on him. sure gives console players a bad reputation.
From what iv seen a lot of people are just reading the topic
Yeah, it seems people come in here, see the long post, and decide to skip most of it before typing their response.

Btw, nice post, it would be nice if there weren't so many incompetent players playing on consoles...PC is usually better, because there aren't so many annoying kids that play on them.

Most people can't do a wired connection; my brother and a few friends have their consoles in a room that is very far away from the modem/router, so the cord would have to be long and in the way all the time.

Better matchmaking would definitely help out. Having the connection stay within your own country would definitely be best, but even 3,000 miles away usually isn't that bad of ping. I don't trust pingtest.net, because when there are tons of little packets being sent, especially to a single host, there might be more lag due to the host connection getting overloaded; almost like having a crappy onboard NIC for hosting when a good server NIC would be better.

Little kids should be able to handle this...I remember knowing about this when I was 8(only 10 years ago).

Hate to tell you, but routers are a huge problem with gaming. There's your lag.

You are such an idiot. Just because you are uninformed and not even interested in the mechanics of online gaming does not mean the rest of us are.

Sure, there are tons of morons on the 360 and PS3, but do NOT go and label all of us like that. There countless morons on the PC too.


he is right! im a cable technician and it takes longer for you to connect to hong kong than the city closest to you. therefore causing lag (from distance traveled. common sense). and the degredation of the components of the connection ( such as age of wiring, craftsmanship, balance of the system you use, the age, what docsis age, your nearest server, how big is the server, etc.) so this not only complies to console users, but also to pc gamers as well. trust me, ive had many pc gamers complain of slow speed. talk about hostile people!

Can't go wired for many reasons.

1- Don't want anyone breaking their necks with a long ass cable around

2- Don't want the dogs to chew the cable.

Wow. If you have that problem you shouldn't even be gaming. PERIOD.


um. that is his preference, mr gump. dont judge people by how they do things. i bet you wipe your ass differently than me so you shouldnt even use the toilet. get my point?

I agree completely with the TC. Coming from someone who grew up as an avid PC gamer. Games like Quake, TFC etc, I know what the capabilities of online gaming are and it's just not fair for console gamers. If anything, I'd say the XBL experience is just casual due to no server support that's dedicated. Where players are free to lease servers and have their own server for anything really. If you must, at least let players host their own games if it's P2P. Not this, join lobby, quick game, games starts and everyones pings range from 50ms to 300ms. Connections from all over and the game giving host to some average connection because it's compensating for the wide range of connections.

Tl;dr. We don't care.

Tl;dr. We don't care.

then do everyone a favor and don't post. cuz i'm betting that most people don't care that you don't care.

Tl;dr. We don't care.

then do everyone a favor and don't post. cuz i'm betting that most people don't care that you don't care.
But, if you don't care that I care.. THEN THAT MUST MEAN- *head explodes*

The topics name is a bit misleading/troll like. Maybe you can change it to "prevent connection lag" or something.

In The Netherlands we got decent internet every where and i use a router and it all works fine for me.

You can acces your router and change your settings to 'open' and acces more games/hosts.
Changing it to open will let you join all your friends lobby`s.

Search for "changing your DMZ or NAT type"