I play for free

so I have no room to complain

nor any specific reason to.

If you dont want lag spikes play an offline game. There will always be lag and connection issues due to cpu specs, ISP connection, and of course server issues, but its a part of playing online games.

Completely agree. I have a $400 spending limit for a reason. At the very least a "We're working on it" would be appreciated.

div3
That spending limit is completely normal. See the Billing FAQ for more info.

I don't really get it... like DarthLOL said, every game lags eventually. Whether you experience it or not, it will happen. Cause enough explosions in a Grand Theft Auto game and you'll quickly notice this. And that's for an offline game.

Online games are always worse about everything. Not only do you have to deal with things that may cause natural lag in your computer but now you have to deal with the internet which can be the server, but it can also be you. Triggered ever more the more effects that are used, I played Mario Kart DS over wifi and people who used snaking ended up teleporting around a lot of the stages (official name Straight Stretch Mini Boosting I think). I've gotten lag playing online in the first Halo (the one for the PC). Both of those games are from "major" publishers with a budget much bigger than this game yet they still have lag.

I'm not saying there's any reason to love lag, you should never love it, but its reasonably expected. As far as personal experience with lag in this game? In a three to four hour session I will experience at least one period of bad lag lasting about 2 to 5 minutes, at most three periods. So for 2-3 hours and 45-58 minutes I have no problems... I like those odds.

You just have to hope when its your time to lag, it doesn't happen during something like a boss battle, if it does, well you've gotta suck it up and go. It's pointless to revive into lag (waiting usually helps).

Really if anything, I wish the tendency to crash the computer if I allow Firefox and this game to run at the same time wouldn't run, but that's apparently related to memory leakage and since the obvious solution is to simply not run them both, it's not that big of a deal for me.

P.S. Non paying player here~ still I used examples of paid games I do play, the point is lag still exists.

<--lag caused this-->

WELL I believe as a paying consumer of a service, You deserve jack for lag

Deal with it, Thats how MMOs are I can understand you complaining or demanding them to fix the issue, or release a statement that they're indeed working on it.But you come out as a leech when you start demanding free stuff for inevitable problems.

I will say however, I wish we had a Community Manager or something that would keep us updated on this type of things.

Jeburk;

First thing:

These are the terms of service we all agreed to in order to play. Under those terms of service, the idea of demanding a refund is... weird. As a tack to take, it's frankly nowhere on the chart. For that matter, Three Rings has the right to unilaterally change those terms at any time, without notice; we agreed to that, too.

Second thing:

Now, just because I think your tone is out of place doesn't mean you don't have a point. Yes, Three Rings should fix their lag. Yes, they should communicate to their paying customers about known issues which harm service, and about what is being done to solve them. So. Did you write to them and ask about it? Have you filed a report, gotten emailed back, and continued that conversation?

...

I've sent in a couple quick reports during my time here. In both cases, a GM (Posiedon, both times) answered me quickly, courteously, and helpfully. Did you give that a try, yet?

ok wth is false supposed to mean?

you cant play online multiplayer games with out lag

Non the less, a "20% energy used for resurrections" refund for paying customers would be a nice thing and I'm sure a lot of players would get less frustrated with future lag issues after such a gesture, even if it was a one time thing. After all, someone HAS to pay for the servers and everything. Nonpaying players might be able to soothe themselves with thoughts like: "well, it's free" but lag makes no difference between people who pay for the resources that should help minimize lag and people that don't, so it might be a good idea to "compensate" paying customers that help keeping it "free".

I think you're missing the big picture here. What paying customers are purchasing is the energy. What they are paying for actually is the whole game, work hours, infrastructure and the resources you use when you play for free.

You could say, the energy is compensation for voluntarily paying for the "free service". Loosing some of that compensation due to issues your "investment" should help prevent (of those issues, lag might be the most obvious one) is frustrating and does not motivate further investments. If you spend money on something, you have to feel you're getting enough out of it, or you will stop putting in more.

Simplified:
unhappy paying customers = less money = worse game infrastructure = more lag & bugs / less new content for everyone, hooray!
lag/bug "refund" = happier customers = more money = better game infrastructure = less lag & bugs / more new content for everyone

Of course some more information / communications (like: "lag is an issue because [...] and currently we are trying to [...]") might just work even better than an "energy refund", but what I've seen so far just looks like "lack of interest" to the unschooled eye so maybe there's just not the resources for that kind of "blog" available at the moment.

To be real honest here, paying for CE does not mean paying for things related to lag. CE can be used for purchasing crowns, alchemy, diving down into the clockworks, opening doors, and reviving. Four of those things lag doesn't have any influence over (and yes this includes diving into the clockworks because paying 10 energy to descend a level is not really affected by lag nor is opening a door).

A payment for CE is just a payment for CE, they don't tell you what to do with it.

Lag can be caused by several things. Too much activity on the screen (see the previous GTA reference), too many people in a confined map (Varanas City in Runes of Magic is NOTORIOUS for this, we're talking lag spikes that can crash your game), living too far from the servers (ask somebody in Australia how much lag they get), you having a sucky internet connection, your computer not being able to keep up, the servers hiccuping, or Snooki getting online at all makes the entire internet lag (ego sucks up all the bandwidth like a sponge in water).

Does lag suck? Of course it sucks, there's nothing more frustrating then dying from lag when no enemies are around because you walked your butt into a thing of spikes and stood there. Are you due "compensation" for the lag? I don't think so. I'm also a paying customer, although that's the only time you'll hear me bring it up, as are probably a good half of the people responding to this topic and we all know lag happens (I should get that printed up on a shirt and sell it at video game conventions...). Lag can, and often does, happen in a lot of games, especially MMOs. You suck it up and go back to playing. If its happening a lot at a certain time/day (the beginning/end of events are bad for that) then shut down and play at another time.

All that being said, it would be nice if OOO dropped us a thing saying "Hey, we're sorry for the lag. We didn't expect (whatever) and are working on it." but really that's all the compensation anybody is due.

~Gwen

Oh, and " "20% energy used for resurrections" refund for paying customers" would probably be near impossible. I highly doubt the number of times you die is stored anywhere and if they took people's word for it well... i dyed 500 times in Tier 3, i can has refund? meow

Listen, you pay for the CE. You aren't paying anything else or anything more. Lag is probably based on your ISP and computer specs. At rare times, it's the server.

Get a better processor and/or video card.

Honestly, the only times I have lagged was because my computer wasn't keeping up. My ISP is great, but my computer is merely OK. The other computer in my house is a much better computer (2 years newer, screaming fast graphics processing, etc.) and that computer doesn't lag when I do. If I shut down all other programs before playing SK (especially my browser!), I'm less likely to lag. If I turn the graphics quality from high to medium, I'm less likely to lag. If I play on a wired instead of wifi connection, I'm less likely to lag.

To the people who say that every person in their party lags at the same time: Were you in a busy room (arena, danger room) and was someone (or multiple someones) dropping bombs or using other charge attacks? The graphics demands for such a scenario are quite high. If none of you has a high-end graphics processor and you're not running appropriately low quality graphics for the processors you have (my 2-year-old GeForce 9600 GS seems to like "medium"), you can quickly overwhelm all of your computers at the same time without it being the fault of OOO's servers. This is a 3D game with fairly intense graphics processing requirements. If you lag frequently, the first thing you should do is turn down your graphics quality setting for this game.

When playing on a wired connection with no extraneous software running and graphics set to medium, I can drop blast bomb after blast bomb while a party member drops fire bomb after fire bomb and I've never experienced any noticeable lag at all. This doesn't mean that OOO's servers aren't occasionally the source of lag, but it means that other sources - sources you, not they, can control - are far more likely to be the cause if your lag is frequent.

I take back what I said about deaths not being stored, thank you kettelfish, I did not know about that page. I still stand by the last statement I made though. Even though there is a clear account of CE spent on revives it does not indicate if the death was due to lag or you just not playing well.

~Gwen

I believe there is a memory issue leak with the client, at least that's the prevailing rumor going around.

I am also a paying customer for Spiral knights and minus a few hiccups when my FPS drop down very low when there's a million things happening on my screen, I have suffered from very little lag, for me it's incredibly manageable. They have done a much better job with lag management then Blizzard has ever done with World of Warcraft.

It's possibly your internet connection. I have one of the highest possible connections you can get in town and pay about $70.00 a month and have suffered from very, VERY little lag.

I believe as a paying consumer of a service, I deserve compensation for lag

Im sorry bud, but those are words of self-entitlement.Yes you realized you made yourself look like a tool and prettied it up afterwards but it doesn't change anything, If it where "costumer curtsey" thats something the Staff does on their own will.

There was already threads complaining about "lag Issues" the only purpose this thread fills is for demanding compensation and there really isn't a way to demand unwarranted compensation without looking like a tool.

Here I was, getting ready to quote your topic line and slam you with it, and here comes Sasano19 (good job btw), beating me to it! As saddening as that is, Jeburk did make it easy, doing a double take like that.

Kuehnau has a point, if you start screaming and wailing loudly and at them, you will with most probability receive a refund, simply to shut you up. I mean you don't deserve, like those ill-mannered bogans (just an example, no offence intended, I don't want you suing me for defamation after all) at the shops kick and scream about how they've been cheated and they deserve a discount, I mean, they don't deserve it, but they'll get it because it's easier to just give the baby a dummy than hold the line. Still, in no way makes them right or put them in a position of moral superiority.

You are REQUESTING courtesy, requesting freebies in essence, unfortunately for you courteous gifts are just that, non-mandatory promotional tools, if they wish to give you a freebie, they will give it you of their own volition, not because you demand it.

This is not the same as complaining, complaining is an extremely mild form of blackmail prefaced with justifiable circumstances, you threatened to no longer use their services (and generally threaten to tell your friends, etc.) if the issue you are complaining about is fixed and you are compensated (monetarily, apology, etc.). To paraphrase your wise words "be careful about confusing the two".

"Something similar happened awhile ago with Atari's Sanctum of Slime for the PC, it was advertised to have online, co-op gameplay and then it didn't have it" -Kuehnau

Different circumstances, completely and totally different. Atari was wrong, they FALSELY advertised their product and customers had EVERY right under the sun to complain about features that they PAID for and did not receive. Show me where it says Three Rings will or is obliged to provide a lag free experience (aka break the universe and the laws of physics) and I'll retract all my statements.

God consumerism is growing out of control, where people are expecting special treatment and a solution an impossible to fix problem (given current technology) the internet and services provided using it, are not 100% stable. I wonder what stupid slogan companies will come up next (beyond, "the customer is always right" ugh). Oh yeah Kuehnau's last post completely debunks your rebuttal Jeburk.

In case you have not grasped my point yet; I disagree with your demanding and self-entitled driven attitude, you have changed positions over time in this thread, you begun by DEMANDING (title) and complaining, but claiming to accept a courteous reward as a consolation prize, so which is it? Do you demand compensation? Or expect a consolation prize (apology)? Because you can't have and do both. That is my basic point.

I have read your both, multiple times attempting to understand it from every angle, but I can only see what I'm presented with a paradoxical statement demanding compensation whilst simultaneously requesting a good-will gesture. I also poured over my last post, I can find where it supports you, it disagrees with the oxymoronic nature of you demanding a good-will gesture, which would cause it to cease being a good-will gesture and turn it into a bribe/compensation to silence a complaint. And it only remains that way because of your attitude and title. If those were non-existent, and you were not complaining then it COULD support you, but you are in the frame of mind that you DESERVE something, as such invalidates what you think is my support.

If you re-write your original post and topic sentence to what you actually mean and pick a side, what you would like to see/suggestions vs. what you think you deserve, rather than play both sides, this could potentially be a somewhat productive conversation, regardless of the point that lag is generally unfixable in some circumstances.

Maybe it is you who read the entirety of posts? Maybe it was your failure to comprehend what I wrote? Maybe you should stick to watching UFC.