Here is an explanation of the numbers, terms and content of the results you get when you initiate a LAGTEST or TRACEROUTE:
Every location on the internet, whether it be your home computer, or the website of the BBC, or Google's search engine, or the desk of the American President: each distinct location has a four number code (each number can be 0-255, so from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255). The number is unique to that "node" and nowhere/nothing else. There is no rhyme or reason to these numeric codes - but fortunately there exist centralised computers holding long lists of these numbers and where they are, what name they refer to (e..g.. www..google..com) etc. These central computers are called Domain Name Servers or DNS and the unique "node" number codes are called Internet Presence Addresses or an IP Address. Most likely even your home computer will have been allocated a name to correspond with its IP address, though it may be something convoluted, referring to your internet provider, customer number, town, country, etc, e..g.. cust124a..houston..tx..netcom.com (123.87.219.15).
When you run a LAGTEST/PING or TRACEROUTE you will see these IP addreses and sometimes the domain names corresponding to the IP address (which can give you an indication, from the words used, where it is and which ISP [Internet Service Provider] it belongs to). For your information the Avalon DC-mainserver is called midas..avalon-rpg..com and its IP address is 208.43.107.156 connected to the global internet via gateway..avalon-rpg.com with IP address 208.43.90.169. It is from 208.43.90.169 that all lagtest pings and traceroute testing originates.
You will notice, in the results of a LAGTEST ping, a list of the successful tests ending in summary statistics telling you, amongst other things: % packet loss and an average ping time in ms (microseconds). What we've included below is a list of various destination points all around the world and the sort of figures we'd consider low lag, average, laggy and disasterous. It should give you something to work with, if you're selecting an ISP or berating your ISP for poor service. Feel free to quote any of the info you get from Avalon's LAGTEST or TRACEROUTE if necessary.
NORTH AMERICA [under 5% packet loss and under 70ms is OK]
Chicago, IL
Los Angeles, CA
Houston, TX
New York, NY
Vancouver, British Columbia
Toronto, Ontario
Calgary, Alberta
Anchorage, Alaska
Seattle, Washington
Miami, Florida
Las Vegas, Nevada
EUROPE [under 5% packet loss and under 90ms is OK]
London, UK
Paris, France
Berlin, Germany
Zurich, Switzerland
Rome, Italy
Stockholm, Sweden
Moscow, Russia
Bratislava, Slovakia
Amsterdam, Holland
Limassol, Cyprus
REST OF THE WORLD [under 10% packet loss and under 120ms is OK]
Sydney, Australia
Adelaide, Australia
Auckland, New Zealand
Tokyo, Japan
Seoul, South Korea
New Delhi, India
Shanghai, China
Cape Town, South Africa
Johannesburg, South Afria
Cairo, Eygpt
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mexico City, Mexico
Tel Aviv, Israel
Istanbul, Turkey
The microsecond criteria for TRACEROUTE becomes the same as LAGTEST above insofar as what is fast and what is slow - the closer you get to the destination, the more "hops" from gateway..avalon-rpg..com, the more similar the resultant microseconds will be to the final LAGTEST averages. This is easily explained: the ping takes less 'ms' to reach a node close to the Avalon gateway than it does the final destination (i..e. your computer). There are less places for things to go wrong, for packets to get misdirected or lost, etc.
NOTE: not all ISPs give out comprehensible names for their IP addresses and many block things like pings or traceroutes so as to ruin these tests. This may happen in your case. There isn't much we can do about it but gather what info we're able. LAGTEST pings are often blocked where TRACEROUTE can at least give you info for most of the nodes between you and Avalon - since it only fails to report when it reaches the block; all preceding nodes are tested.
See HELP LAG for info on lag and the various lag/packet timing commands and HELP HUBS to discover more about Avalon's network of alternate "login" points, as a first line of attack against lag due to bad routing of your normal, direct connection.
