I'm so confused...

There actually is a question here...

Anyway, I found that tellnet is slow and evil. I thought it was just Carrion fields, but the same thing happened with another mud, so I got a mud client. This client, "Mudmagic" has made playing my other favorite mud much more enjoyable. I came back to playing Carrion fields to test out how the client played it, but Carrion fields is still as slow as I remember it, maybe even slower. Why is this?

I started having problems with carrion fields again, so I redid the trace root. Now, instead of getting stars on just the 2nd in the list, I got one star in the 4th, one in the 5th, and two in the 6th. But what also was odd was that the times by the end were much faster than the last time I did one.

Okay, just now was about the 6th time that my internet has frozen from trying to enter the Carrion Fields Forums. Does this happen to anyone else, or does Carrion Fields only hate me?

The forums were down earlier. If you can get to www.carrionfields.com but not to forums.carrionfields.com, it just means the forums are down. The two sites are hosted on separate servers, even though it all looks like one site.

There are basically 5 reasons why CF would run slow.

Either A) You have a very, very low end machine or a high end machine that is clogged with virii and spyware. This is possible, albeit, unlikely. It takes VERY little power to run telnet/mud clients extremely fast. I mean, we're talking about a technology that ran fast in the late 80's, let alone now.

B) CF could be running slow. This isn't the case, most of us can connect and play without any noticable delays.

C) You have a very very slow connection. This is likewise unlikely, since even dial-up should play CF relatively quickly. Unless you're on dial-up from like, Austrailia/Europe/Asia, you should be able to play CF just fine. Broadband is overkill for telnet.

D) There is latency in a server between yourself and CF. This is most likely. There's really nothing you can do about this besides changing to a new ISP.

E) Your network is misconfigured. This could also happen, but is probably not likely unless you're at work or have multi-router/multi-switch setup at home.

My recommendation is to try it from someone else's house who has a different ISP, using your computer, and see if that helps. If that's the case, its D. If it still runs slow, its probably A, in which case you should have a tech-savvy friend reinstall Windows and clean off the junk.

It might be D, but it seems slow at all my friends houses as well as my parents and sister's computers. Can't be C; my house has a really good internet connection. A is out as well, all the computers in my house except for my own are very fast. Carrion fields runs best on my moms or my sisters computer, the fastest. On my own (a little laptop with too many things installed) it's much slower, but it keeps the same speed throughout the game. On the other computers, it's really fast, but slows way down if I move to fast or follow someone moving fast or fight. E's out; I'm sure we don't have anything like that. None of those seem the case. The only one that might be likely is D. Next time I visit reletives in another state, I'll test out Carrion fields and see if it's any faster.

Where are you located?

Where is the CF server? (actually I'm really curious on this one)

Where is the "other mud" you're talking about's server?

A general rule of thumb is farther distance = slower ping times. Which equates to more of a pain for you.

Like many things in life, unfortunately (or fortunately) this is one of those things you don't always have control over.

My only advice is cut out variables you can. Find a tight low-memory intensive mud client. The simpler the better. ZMud seems pretty snappy. As opposed to a java-based client (like I use!) which tend to be pretty kludgy. Sorry, don't know much about Mudmagic. Google search might help you out finding this.

For kicks, if you're running windows, go to the DOS prompt and type "ping carrionfields.org 9999" and "ping othermud xxx" and compare the times. the lower the number, the faster your connection with said mud is. This should give you a good idea of what your dealing with in terms of general network speeds.

As Aarn suggested, maybe try posting the traceroute to each server and see if anyone knows if that can tell you anything- I sure wouldn't.

I don't want to be spreading misinfo here, I believe also that using local echo "on" for telnet actually will slow you down per the nature of things. But what kind of freak plays a MUD with no local echo?

Meaning, when lots of text goes by, it all gets saved to your screen and will tend to slow everything down. You should be able to set this on your client to only retain a few pages, or whatever works for you.

If the symptom is you keep getting slower and slower the longer you stay on, then this is most likely your issue.

For instance, I have an option on my client to "clear scrollback buffer", which makes things go oh so snappy when it starts to get slow.

>Meaning, when lots of text goes by, it all gets saved to your
>screen and will tend to slow everything down. You should be
>able to set this on your client to only retain a few pages, or
>whatever works for you.
>
>If the symptom is you keep getting slower and slower the
>longer you stay on, then this is most likely your issue.
>
>For instance, I have an option on my client to "clear
>scrollback buffer", which makes things go oh so snappy when it
>starts to get slow.
>
It doesn't seem to get slower as it goes on, it's slow from the start and stays the same speed, only really slowing down if I move too fast or start to fight.

The ping thing didn't help much, since I don't know what it was doing. Here's what it says:

"Pinging 0.0.39.15 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statis for 0.0.39.15:
Packets: 4, Received: 0, Lost: 4"

When I did the same to the other mud, it did exactly the same, but said 0.0.15.160 instead. I have no clue what that means...

no port. Try that.

Same with the other mud.

Results for CF

Minimum=67 ms, Maximum=91 ms, Average=73 ms

Results for other mud

Minimum=105 ms, Maximum=107 ms, Average=106 ms

The CF server is in Texas, hosted by ev1.net. You can see that if you do a traceroute (tracert on most machines). Tracert actually shows you the intermediate ping times for each machine between you and the machine you're trying to ping. You can see where the source of the lag is - it used to be sprintlink back in the day.

I did as you said, but I have no clue what the results mean.

1. 10 ms < 1 ms < 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2. * * * Request timed out.
3. 8 ms 9ms 9ms 68.86.99.145
4. 8 ms 9 ms 9ms 68.86.96.34
5. 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms 68.86.96.34
6. 12 ms 11 ms 14 ms 68.86.96.38
7. 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms 12.117.180.85
8. 32 ms 13 ms 13 ms 12.122.81.6
9. 14 ms 15 ms 12 ms 12.123.44.177
10. 14 ms 13 ms 34 ms bpr1-so-5-0-0.seattleswitchdesign.savvis.net (19.205.32.250)
11. 14 ms 16 ms 15 ms giving up on most of this bit... Seattle
12. 41 ms 39 ms 38 ms Denver
13. 53 ms 55 ms 53 ms Dallas
14. 54 ms 53 ms 59 ms Dallas
15. 52 ms 59 ms 53 ms Dallas
16. 58 ms 63 ms 59 ms Houston
17. 63 ms 67 ms 64 ms 208.172.129.2
18. 67 ms 63 ms 65 ms ivhou-207-218-223-66.ev1.net
19. 67 ms 68 ms 65 ms ev1.net

The times for most of the hops don't look all that bad to me, but that request timed out... that you might be concerned about. Someone with more knowledge then I will need to answer, but isn't the second hop usually an internal location for your ISP? I think you might need to have a chat with them about it.

Thats a network setting you can set your network not to answer TCP/IP ping requests so that may not be a issue

>Thats a network setting you can set your network not to
>answer TCP/IP ping requests so that may not be a issue


What does that mean?

It checks how fast your connection is to each hop on your route to the cf server. The lower the better, and anything below 250 ms is perfectly fine.

The reason you time out on #2 is that your modem ignores the ping requests on purpose.

I don't know how new you are to muds, but on carrionfields and most other muds, some commands lag you, i.e. your next command will not go through for a certain amount of time. For example if you wheel kick something, it'll be roughly 5 seconds until your next command goes through. Are you sure that isn't the issue? I'm asking because you said that it mostly happened in combat.

You could also try downloading ytin at http://ytin.sourceforge.net
It's a very basic mud client that should run smoothly on pretty much any computer.

>It checks how fast your connection is to each hop on your
>route to the cf server. The lower the better, and anything
>below 250 ms is perfectly fine.
>
>The reason you time out on #2 is that your modem ignores the
>ping requests on purpose.
>
>I don't know how new you are to muds, but on carrionfields and
>most other muds, some commands lag you, i.e. your next command
>will not go through for a certain amount of time. For example
>if you wheel kick something, it'll be roughly 5 seconds until
>your next command goes through. Are you sure that isn't the
>issue? I'm asking because you said that it mostly happened in
>combat.
>
>You could also try downloading ytin at
>http://ytin.sourceforge.net
>It's a very basic mud client that should run smoothly on
>pretty much any computer.

On the other mud, I have a skill I use in fights. I can type in this skill about 4 times in a fight and I won't have any lag or very little. With or without the lag, I still can use this move once per combat round, even if I type them all really fast before the fight really starts. With Carrionfields, I can type in three wheel kicks and it will pause. It will then pause before and after each wheel kick. It also pauses during autosaves or changes in the setting that occur during a fight. Anyway, if I type in these three wheel kicks and, lets say I'm following someone, the monster is killed by my first one. The person I'm following might start wandering around. Randomly, my second wheel kick will go off (though it won't do anything). The person I'm following then might try to kill something. In this new battle, my final wheel kick takes effect. This only seems to happen when I follow someone, especially when they move around really fast.When I'm by myself, I can't believe how fast they can move, since it takes a second or two for the new text to come up.

Wheel kick lags you two combat rounds. And movement lag can delay your commands for a good deal when you are following someone.

Normally in CF, it would look like this:

kill mob

***round***

***round***

(Now, you choose to spam wheel kick, normal writing repsents your commands, ***you wheel kick him*** is your wheel kick going through.)

wheel
**you wheel kick him***

wheel
wheel

***round***

***round***

***you wheel kick him***

***round***

***mob trips you, you are lagged for two rounds. Note that this does not stack with your wheel kick lag.***

***round, during which the mobs kicks your ass pretty badly. You decide to flee***
flee

***round***

***you wheel kick him***

***round, which you barely survive. You now wish that you hadn't spammed wheel kick.***

***round, during which you are killed by the first blow.***

***But you are not fighting anyone.(Your flee goes through, while you are ghost at the pit.)***


Now, let's think what would happen normally in the situation you described:

wheel
wheel
wheel
***Your wheel kick goes through, killing goblin. You are lagged for the duration of two combat rounds. The fact that combat ended does not change this.***

***you follow groupmate east. Groupmate moves fast all the time, not giving your commands much time to go through.***

***you follow groupmate east***

***you follow groupmate east***

***You aren't fighting anyone. Your second wheel kick went through. One pulse of lag for using a command(lags you similarly as inventory command).***

***Groupmate attacks goblin and you autoassist***

***round, during which you autoassist***

***Your third wheel kick goes through.***

***round***

***round***

***If you typed a command after that third wheel kick, it goes through at this point.***


Does it look like this?

Yeah, pretty much. But the same thing happened with spells when I tried an invoker character. All the commands go through really slow. As I said, I can spam the command on the other Mud I visit and there's no problem, it goes through with every round (unless I do more than 4, then it slows down a bit). But if I wait for each wheel kick, then it takes too long for each one to go through. They are closer together when I do them all at the start of a fight. But I do see your point about getting trapped and killed because of my own kick. I'll try not doing them so close together. But still, this doesn't explain why changes in setting (the moon changing, monsters entering/leaving the area, ect) slows me down, as well as walking to fast.

What you are experiencing isn't the game running slow, that's how the lag system in CF works. Certain things are one round of lag, others are two, others are three or four, etc. Additionally, some people can do things to you which will slow you down, like bashing, tripping, pincering, certain assassin kicks, etc.

So, lets say you're a mage and you blind a mob in combat. For one whole round after, (one snippet of combat text) you won't be able to do anything else. Lets say someone on the other hand trips you, you will not be able to do anything for two full combat rounds and after which, you'll be able to get in exactly one command before they can trip you again, assuming they don't have cheapshot.

The newbie guide explains this a bit better than I can, you can get it from the Help section of this website.

I know, I've had the command lag thing explained several times. I just don't understand why it slows down when I move. It's worse now; it was taking me 5 seconds between all commands, including walking, just a few minutes ago. It was so slow I feared I was going to be attacked and killed and not know it for several minutes, so I just logged out.

The movement lag depends on the terrain. If you are moving down a road, there will be very little lag. If, on the other hand, you are moving through the mountains, the lag will be a lot more noticeable. It shouldn't be anything like 5 seconds though. It shouldn't be higher than a half a second. The next time you see 5-second lags while moving, try running tracert again and see if the numbers have increased significantly.

Okay. I was running into those long lags in Galadon, which sort of worried me. Next time that happens, I'll check.

Also, quick question about lag because I thought this would happen to me. If I notice that Carrion Fields is really slow one day and and so I stop for a second and save and then quit and then someone in my PK range comes over and attacks me and almost kills me when the quit I typed before the attack finally goes through, could I be punished for logging out when attacked? I thought of this question when it almost happened to me. I found CF was too slow, so I quit and then someone in my PK range came over to where I was. Luckily, they just walked past. But that quit I typed took a really long time to go through, though quits on all muds I've played seem rather slow...

You won't be able to quit when you are fighting and for a while after that. The "quit" command won't lag you - you'll just see a message that you can't quit now. You also can't quit in an "unsafe" area. You can quit in most of the cities and in most of your guilds.

The save is what lagged you, not quit. I wonder if you're reflexively saving a lot when you play, which would explain your perception that CF is laggy.

From the SAVE helpfile:
SAVE saves your character and the objects you are carrying. The game
saves your character about every 5 minutes regardless (autosave), and
also (invisibly) after significant events like dying or gaining a level.
Saving your character manually will work, but you will incur a slight
lag which is intended to discourage excessive saving, as this can produce
lag for other people.

Certain objects, such as keys and potions, may not be saved.

QUIT automatically does a SAVE, so you can safely leave the game with
just one command. You may not quit for about 90 seconds after fighting.

Yanoreth

Oh. I knew about the autosaves, but I didn't know it saved when I quit.

But my question was if I quit and it's slow (it always takes 10-30 seconds to quit, even if I don't save) and someone attacks me AFTER I typed quit and I leave, could I get punished for cheating?

Nope, because you can't quit (successfully) while fighting or having very recently fought.

I would say you have a internal network issue,
Or! You've got a crap load of Spyware, my advice is to stop dowloading porn... and turn off Kazaa like programs.
Get some anti-spyware I can't think of anything off hand as I usually don't have any issues with it...
But your ping is fine, as everyone else said try a slimmer faster client, and ditch any overhead programs

1A) Remember that every command you input has an inherent delay to it. That delay can be short (walking down a road), or long (performing a complex combat maneuver, like the Wheel Kick example given), but it's always there. (This prevents, among other things, you winning fights just by somehow typing 'wheelkick' 40 times per round.)

1B) Also, some commands issued by other players can temporarily delay your input. For example, if someone successfully bashes you (see 'help bash'), your next command will be delayed slightly while you regain your balance. This would generally only show up in combat.

2) If your computer is a little older, it's possible a client can be set up in a way which strains it and slows things down. If you've added any long lists of substitutions, triggers, or other client-side functions which require repeatedly parsing all incoming text, you might see a degradation in performance during "busy" moments like quick movement or combat. If you aren't sure, maybe uninstall and reinstall the client so you know it's not bogged down with extra stuff.

3) Going by the traceroute, I agree with the other posters that it doesn't look like a network problem at all.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>I would say you have a internal network issue,
>Or! You've got a crap load of Spyware, my advice is to stop
>dowloading porn... and turn off Kazaa like programs.
>Get some anti-spyware I can't think of anything off hand as I
>usually don't have any issues with it...
>But your ping is fine, as everyone else said try a slimmer
>faster client, and ditch any overhead programs

How did you know about that?! Just kidding, I don't download porn or anything to this computer. Well, except for the mud client and a DVD ripper and the occational AMV. Other than that, nothing. And this computer is rather fast; there's no spyware on it that I know of. What's Kazaa?

There are two things I can assure you of:

1. Carrion Fields doesn't run slowly

2. Mudmagic works on CF just fine

So, given those two things, it's got to be something local on your system. Unfortunately I don't use Mudmagic with any regularity at all, so I can't really help you troubleshoot it. Maybe one of our other players can? Either that or get ahold of the Mudmagic people.

My other thought is a router problem between you and CF, and nothing to do with Mudmagic itself. Maybe if you posted a tracert from you to CF here, someone with a bit more know-how then I could give you some ideas. Have you tried downloading another client, like wintin? Does zmud still do free trials? One of those might be good.

Hope that helps!

Aarn?

It could be something to do with the way the Mud is interfacing with the client. But really have no clue as to what to tell you. Generally I have never had speed problems even when I was using dialup back in the old days. I use MudMaster, very easy to use and seems nice and fast.

Try playing with the settings of your client...or even trying a different client.

Corrlaan followers are NICE. With a capital NICE!

Well, it's okay unless I try to do lots of stuff at once. If I move to fast or get in a fight, it gets really slow. Sometimes, I'll try to wheel kick at the start of one battle, and it won't take effect until I've followed someone to a new area and started a new fight!

You may be lagging yourself with commands and not realizing it, but it mostly sounds like there's something going on with your particular system.