What is LAN latency?

Back to the future

Choices

A Korean perspective

A Brave New World

Here’s the truth. Like never before, international online play is a huge and growing part of StarCraft 2’s competitive scene. TSL, NASL, IPL and more are raising the profile of the game to new heights. However, Wings of Liberty has a problem that Brood War does not: the lag monster. There is no LAN latency fix (and no LAN at all) to help. There is only the monster, quietly eating up actions and games before our very eyes.The rise of StarCraft 2 as a global phenomenon has meant more and more international competitions in which the various regions of the world can test their mettle against one another. The TSL and NASL are just two among dozens and dozens of tournaments where the Koreans, Europeans and North Americans do battle on a regular basis.This brave new future sits in stark contrast to our Brood War past, a peer-to-peer game with LAN latency, where the highest competitive levels of the Korean scene existed largely as a separate entity from the Western scenes.On Battle.net, Brood War has a built-in latency of approximately 200ms. This imposed latency (for instance, a delay between a right click move and your unit actually moving) is for keeping the game synced.Consider that StarCraft was released in 1998. This imposed latency is based on the supposition that most of the players are using 56k. This has not been the case for years. Programmers realized that LAN latency is much better for professional StarCraft because there is no technical reason to have input latency. LAN latency (as seen on iCCup) injects some code that skips the imposed latency. The result is an all around better game for players and viewers alike.There is no analogous tool for StarCraft 2, a game that dropped Brood War’s peer to peer approach so Blizzard could more effectively combat piracy. StarCraft 2 games play out at the mercy of the the hosting Battle.net server, a little nefarious Skynet with a taste for chaos.Today, online events are getting more and more attention and money. There’s tens of thousands of viewers regularly tuning in for these events, numbers that would have been a dream not too long ago.With the rise of the online competitions, various questions ought to be asked. What does an online competition mean? How seriously can we take it? What are the differences between online and off? How can we accurately gauge the results?More to the point: how does lag affect international online play?“The lag makes me play a lot worse,” said Mousesport’s Morrow, “and it affects me mentally. If I lose a game, I might get a little upset and demotivated because I feel like I lost in an unfair fashion where I didn’t get to perform at 100%. If I win it, it doesn’t give me full satisfaction because I know my opponent can’t play his full game.”As more and more players are competing across realms, the controversy has bubbled to the surface. The EG Master’s Cup Series attracted over a thousand posts at Team Liquid before the topic was closed.Team Liquid declined an invitation, citing EG’s refusal to accommodate TL’s team (which includes players from the KR, EU and NA servers) by varying the servers with each game. When EG refused, Team Liquid decided that it would not stand to play in subpar conditions again and instead sat the tournament out.What followed was largely an organizational debate but the issue of latency lingered just below the surface all the time.During inter-server games, choices must be made: who gets the ‘home’ game and the latency advantage that comes with it? Who must play ‘away’ and deal with the significant disadvantage in micro? Determining seeding is a tricky issue. If games will alternate servers, can the tournament secure enough accounts on all servers to provide for their players? Because of the latency, organizing big tournaments can become a byzantine affair.Depending on location, format and participants, each tournament has to find a way to deal with the issue of latency in their own way. In the end, the best an international online tournament can do is aim to spread the problem around equally.“Lag always irritates players and influences micro,” said Duckload’s White_Ra. “It's very hard to control units during a fast push if you don't have a big army. For example, a Terran Marauder push or Zerg attacking you with mass Zergling. You need perfect force fields but they’re always late, never perfect.”Team Liquid’s Jinro has said that the best way to counteract the lag is to simply work hard to get used to it. A few months ago, he wrote that international lag was “a little annoying but mostly not game deciding.” More recently, he was a vocal face of Team Liquid as they declined EG’s invitation and to play in what they considered subpar conditions.Paulo “CatZ” Vizcarra, Root Gaming’s leader and a top Western Zerg, chimed in about lag.“I don't enjoy playing on other servers,” wrote the Peruvian Zerg. “Perhaps on Europe the lag is hardly noticeable, but on the Korean server, the lag is insane. Yes, I love micro-intensive units like the infestor, but its REALLY hard to get good fungals off with delay. While people can still go for macro games, it hurts micro a bunch. That's why I stopped playing on the Korean server.”Root’s resident top Terran Andrew “Drewbie” Moysey echoed that sentiment.“Lag can be really annoying in cross-server play,” said the Canadian. “Multitasking and dropping in multiple locations becomes a lot harder, and dealing with units like banelings in TvZ or spreading your units against colossi or storms becomes a lot harder, it definitely hurts. Not only does it change the way you play, it changes your mindset about playing on certain servers.”“Sometimes I change up build orders and try to change small detailed timings to abuse the lag,” said Morrow. “For example, I can be more greedy versus a 2rax because I know he can’t micro so well with his marines. Or I can run into lings versus sentries more to encourage force fields more than normal because I know it’s very difficult for Protoss to force field micro with extra latency. But I play a lot worse than normal for sure. In ZvZ, people and me have to play a lot more coin flips because ling, baneling micro is random.”As usual, taking things to their dramatic and bombastic end was Idra.“Playing cross server destroys game quality and makes for meaningless results,” wrote EG’s Greg “Idra” Fields. “Liquid tries to downplay the effects of latency to make their tournament seem more legitimate, but how many people really think all the players from Korea deserved to lose as early as they did to the people they did in TSL? There isn’t a fair way to have Asian and Western players compete online right now.”MC, the two time GSL champion from oGs, says that the lag changes his game.“It’s true that I can’t play a very aggressive style,” said MC, “because the lag makes it very hard to control.”The lag issue has been brought up when discussing the lack of online success of top Korean players. Is lag to blame for their losses?“At the moment, there is no big gap between the skill of Koreans and the rest of the world,” said MC. “However, I think the Koreans are still the best and the lag makes it really hard to control the units well. I think it’s the truth that some losses are because of lag but despite that, I don’t think the foreign players are bad at all.”When asked if it was fair to blame Korean online losses on Battle.net’s lag, Morrow immediately said yes.“I think that’s very accurate,” said the Swedish Zerg. “Pro gamers get affected by lag in many different negative ways and if you’re a lot better of a player and playing under high lag, it’s very easy to start playing overly safe to compensate for bad micro. For example, if a really good Zerg plays versus a 2rax Terran who doesn’t have as much lag or skill, the Zerg player will overcompensate lings and fall behind in a macro game and might lose because of that. Mechanics get a lot worse for the best players and it doesn’t affect players as much if they already have bad mechanics.”What can we make from these inter-server matches? Should we take them with a grain of salt?“I can’t take all credit away from the winners on NA versus Koreans when they play on NA,” said Morrow, “but I don’t take the results very seriously.”Tournaments are wrestling with the problem every day. Root’s CatZ spoke about one possible solution.“I wouldn't mind it one bit if tournaments were divided by areas,” wrote CatZ. “I wouldn't mind if there was North American, European and Korean servers [doing their own thing], and then other BIG tournaments like WCG to have everyone sort of see how they measured up. I believe that creates more excitement and would allow for the North American and European Esports to develop to a level similar to Korea's, a new industry if you will. However, this [lag issue] will happen for a while, and there will be drama for a while.”It’s difficult to imagine and tough to even suggest international tournaments permanently eschewing exotic big name players simply because the lag hurts games. The ratings are too attractive for the tournament organizers, the teams, the players and the scene itself. Indeed, it will be up to each individual tournament to do their best to deal with the hand they’ve been dealt.“I would actually like to play and measure myself up against the best players as often as possible to become the best player that I can be,” said Root’s Drewbie, “so if Blizzard or someone could do something about it, that'd actually be really nice. I think LAN is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed, but I certainly hope that lag gets fixed somehow. I mean it wasn't really a big issue in Brood War, so im sure there are many solutions to this, lets hope they start caring a bit more about the community's needs and do something.”The issue is cost versus reward. Blizzard, worried about pirates, require the player to bind their copy of StarCraft to Battle.net and to stay logged in. Would investing money to alter the game or create an alternate competitive version for use by accredited organizations be worth the money? How much is the competitive community worth to Blizzard?I’ll leave the call to petitions and protests for another time. It’s clear that Blizzard ought to address the community’s concerns but it is not clear how we can push them to do it. They know the problem exists, that much is sure. How can we convince them that a fix would be in their best interest?What can be addressed is this: online competition is undeniably great for StarCraft 2. The constant stream of tournaments is doing huge things in raising the profile of competitive StarCraft, providing a growing audience with all the gaming they can handle.In the end, though, it is the offline events that matter. It is the MLGs, IEMs, DreamHacks and GSLs that provide the true test of skill, mostly unfettered by Blizzard’s unwieldy security apparatus. When we’re truly measuring players and giving the game a critical eye, I’ll take a MLG (if I can stream it) over a TSL any day (hey, quiet down with the jokes about production quality!).Don’t get me wrong! I’ll take my unending meal of online tournaments happily, reveling in the growth of e-sports all the while. However, if you don't mind, I'll be having this meal with a few grains of salt.