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BYOC issues last year!
So last year me and my three boys did BYOC and where so disappointed. The problem we encountered was internet speeds of around 128k to 500k. YES, you read that right, KILOBITS!. So this year we are discussing PAX again and my concern is what guarantee are we going to get that this isn't going to happen again this year!?! why should I drive 300 miles will all my PC gear in tow and three kids to boot only to see this happen again. What is PAX-East going todo to prevent this from happening again this year? are we going to get enough bandwidth to actually play games and interact with friends online?
retsam on
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Friday of last year was bad...there were a lot of problems, but by the end of Friday and certainly Saturday morning, so far as I know, the main issues had been worked out. I can say that the Friday issues were definitely on my personal radar, so I paid pretty close attention to the situation on Saturday and Sunday. One of the things I did was to regularly walk around BYOC regularly to get a sense of what was happening, and I saw a lot of people playing on the Internet seemingly having a good time. I can't eliminate the possibility that there was some technical issue you had that others hadn't, but I also have to wonder if the discrepancy here may be expectations.
We believe each BYOC participant should have functional Web access and be able to play games. If you can functionally browse the Web and if you can play games with a ~100ms ping, we're okay with that. If you need a 30ms ping, you're probably going to have a bad time and there's probably not much we're going to be able to do for you. That's not me saying there's anything unreasonable about expecting a 30ms ping, it's just not something we're able to deliver for PAX East. Likewise, if your web browser is running at 300kb/s, we're okay with that. If you need a big download, let us know, we may be able to help, but we care a lot more about people playing games than we do downloading files, and traffic is prioritized as such. We CERTAINLY don't care about speedtests, so if you're the type of person who immediately runs a speedtest as soon as you sit down at a lan party, you're probably going to be disappointed.
As always, for anyone who does take part in BYOC for PAX East 2018, please don't hesitate to reach out to the Enforcers if you have problems. Running a LAN event like this is very tricky and there are a thousand things that can go wrong...please be patient with them, but still make sure they are aware of any issues you encounter.
I have been to BYOC for the last 5 years.
Never have I had such a horrible BYOC experience. Friday was bad. We expect Fridays to have issues. However, the issues persisted until the end. The "LAN" excuse is unreasonable in these days. More and more of the popular games are lacking LAN-Only modes. People want to play Overwatch, League of Legends, Team Fortress and other Internet-Only games. It has never been an issue in the past. Either there was major equipment configuration issues, or someone decided to cut BYOC's bandwidth budget. I'm leaning toward the latter.
IMO: It's no coincidence that last years massively disappointing BYOC was under new management.
If you want to cut down on non-gaming traffic, your better off targeting specific sites. Twitch, Youtube, Facebook. Any of the Live Streaming websites consume far more bandwidth. If a BYOC attendee wants to utilize those services, have them jump onto the Convention Center WiFi (which was loads better than the BYOC's internet last year).
WAN-less LAN, won't work. Figure it out, please don't make lame excuses.
Again, I heard it was better the previous years. Hope to hear more about either Intel taking back hosting duties or other internet issues addressed. Would love to have a place to chill and relax while also getting to show off my build.