Final Fantasy XI

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From: Phil!Gregory
Subject: Final Fantasy XI
Date: 03:21 on 22 Apr 2004
Yes, Final Fantasy XI is a game.  But it's software, too.  And right now I
hates it.

Sony did a system upgrade today, which means that all the client programs
have to download updated data files.  (In my case, they're downloaded to a
hard drive on a PS2.)  Not surprisingly, the servers are a little busy
serving out the updates.  But let's look at how the system fails.

The first indication of a problem is an error message that says roughly,
"There was a problem connecting.  Perhaps the server is busy or the
network isn't working.  Make sure the Ethernet cable is connected
properly."  I know from tcpdump that the PS2 is communicating quite well
with the server--the local network is *not* a problem.  Don't give me a
message implying that it is when you know better than that.

Then, the upgrade.  After hitting retry a few times, I get a slot and it
grabs the checksums for the current files.  It then takes about seven
minutes to check that all the local files are okay.  Once that's done, it
tries to connect to the server again.  If it fails at this point (very
likely), it starts again from the beginning--file verification and all.
*Very* annoying.

The software should be smart enough to pick up where it left off.  About
the only argument I can think of for this problem is that it enforces a
delay in retries and probably lightens the server load a bit.  But that
could have been done more effectively via any number of processes--look at
the verious solutions used by P@P software.  A download queue or torrent
would have been a lot nicer to deal with.

-- 
...computer contrarian of the first order... / http://aperiodic.net/phil/
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