I too have a serious zoning problem that makes this really great service unusable. When using my home DSL, I'm lucky to enter a zone once and if I do, it will most certainly freeze within a few zone changes.
I'm convinced after extensive testing of different computers with firewalls disabled, and once on another network, that either my ISP (AT&T DSL) is causing the problem, or my modem/router/firewall has some filters that it won't let me disable.
Can someone please give me some information on what ports/protocols or whatever might be involved so I can <ugh> discuss this with The Behemoth AT&T?
I'd be happy to entertain trying something new that makes sense based on the symptoms and all the stuff I've already tried, summarized below.
Thanks in advance for your help. I reeeeeally want to play on Project 1999 pretty badly.
Lou
Here's the summary:
SYMPTOMS: My client will eventually freeze while crossing any zone, often when I first try to enter the world, but if I successfully enter that first zone, it will usually freeze during the 1st, 2nd or 3rd zoning attempt. It apparently loads the local zone files but continues to display the Kobold screen and plays the music, no longer accessing the drive. Once or twice it zoned after 10 or so minutes. I seldom wait that long, but I have let it go for over an hour several times without success. Since I know that the char always makes it across the zone, I assume it's hanging because it is waiting to accumulate server data packets on the new zone environment that are just not coming, or are arriving at a verrrrry slow pace.
SERVERS: All three that I have tried have shown this problem. Project 1999, EZ Server, The Hidden Forest. The ping time has varied from 80ms to 200ms and the only difference there was lag when playing. This makes sense since zoning should not be a very interactive process.
PLATFORM: Five different computers spanning three different intel and two different AMD CPU's from 1.2GHz single core to 2.6GHz Quad core, 4 computers are XP and one is Win7. I get the exact same zoning problem in every case.
TROUBLESHOOTING: This happens on all 3 servers I've tried and with my router and Windows firewalls completely by-passed. Windows firewall was simply disabled and the computer was put in the router's DMZ and all of the attack filters that I had access to were disabled.
The only thng that fixes the problem is if I use the network at my workplace, during lunch, of course
.
It's possible that my router/firewall has some filtering that I cannot disable, but I doubt it, so naturally, I'm convinced that my ISP (ATT&T Wisconsin) is causing this somehow.