I keep a close eye on the game sites because serious gamers tend to be
very serious about the quality of their network connections, and aren't
shy about expressing their opinions. I've found them a usefull early warning
of network problems. For the same reason I watch the on-line stock trading
sites.
However, I should have kept quiet about Everquest's network status page.
Gamers hold some strong views. I was flooded with comments about Microsoft's
Game Zone problems over the weekend. They had some network problems with
their new Asheron's multi-player game. From what I could tell Microsoft's
www.zone.com site was inaccessiable for part of Sunday Night.
After my post about Everquest, several gamers asked what I knew about
Microsofts's problems. The simple answer is not much. It didn't appear
to be a general Internet problem, but specific to Microsoft's site. Yes,
Randy, I did ask Microsoft's customer service and NOC. I got back answers
either they didn't see a problem, or they saw a problem but their customer
service people couldn't find out from their their technical staff what was
happening either. Microsoft's Game Zone does have some status pages, but
as far as I could tell, unlike Everquest, Microsoft doesn't actually update
their status when there is a problem.
Yes, Randy, I did ask Microsoft's customer service and NOC. I got back
answers either they didn't see a problem, or they saw a problem but their
customer service people couldn't find out from their their technical staff
what was happening either. Microsoft's Game Zone does have some status
pages, but as far as I could tell, unlike Everquest, Microsoft doesn't
actually update their status when there is a problem.
they did update their status. there was no problem. just ask them.
this syndrome is called telephantitis <tm>, as it is most commonly found
infecting telephants, as has been much discussed here.
randy
So who's gonna write up the RFC proposing to replace all network monitoring
systems by forcing all of the technical staff to play games? 
-- Tim
It's don't a joke, the whole idea was realized a few times in the past. I myself
saw an operators playing games at some ansient computers; if this game slowed
down or if it was faded by the operating system, it means operators MUST do
something; while they had nothing to do, they could play (and the game itself
tested the system because it was one of the running tasks). If I remember
right, it was oin the SYBER mainfraim.
-
Alex R.
Stuff OpenView - What's the world's most popular piece of networking
benchmarking and monitoring software?
Doom!
Bah, Quake3 runs on linux..
-- Tim
Noone plays xpilot any more? 
-Dan
I'm no gamer, but I've found that being a news junkie can get you the
same headsup, and carries the added advantage of checking out multiple
pieces of the net in the process. Gotta take the /. effect into account,
though.
-ls-