Bad server lag also doesn't occur often(I remember two days during which it occurred this year). The only reason I mentioned it was that one of these server lag days was not too long ago(This week or was it last sunday evening?).

Yeah. It's very rare that we experience any server lag-- text games aren't very resource intensive. The machine the game is on frequently has two copies of the game going (the one you're playing, and some coder or Area Guy doing a test of some kind), and no one seems to notice those moments. (During the rare moment of actual lag, the newbie channel inevitably lights up.)

The rare thing that can cause lag (one of which was a week ago or so, but a handful of times per year is probably accurate) is if we need to write a lot of data to disk. We were doing some major housecleaning at that time, and all the moving/copying/etc. involved really slowed us down. Nonetheless, all of these things are necessary to keep things running smoothly, and protect the integrity of our records (character files, areas, etc.).

valguarnera@carrionfields.com