Heres a packed dump from my linux box sitting between my windows pc and the internet, all noise chars removed ;) see http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Master_Server_Query_Protocol for some background
1) coop lobby search with 'sv_search_max_ping 1' 05:50:42.814583 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 84 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_1010\noplayers\1\white\1 05:50:43.547733 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 96 207.159.120.207:27033.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_1010\noplayers\1\white\1 05:50:44.276754 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 96 207.159.120.214:27030.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_1010\noplayers\1\white\1 ... 05:51:10.125037 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 84 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_1010\noplayers\1\white\1 ... 05:51:14.071252 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 94 68.177.111.11:27020.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_1010\noplayers\1\white\1 ~30 seconds total, no server found, all queries were with \white\1 2) coop lobby search with 'sv_search_key Yf1pLy' (random) 06:03:42.973778 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 90 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_Yf1pLy1010\noplayers\1\white\1 06:03:48.797462 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 90 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_Yf1pLy1010\noplayers\1\white\1 06:03:51.799299 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 90 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_Yf1pLy1010\noplayers\1\white\1 06:03:54.801879 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 90 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_Yf1pLy1010\noplayers\1\white\1 06:04:00.168811 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 82 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_Yf1pLy1010\noplayers\1 06:04:05.438499 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 82 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_Yf1pLy1010\noplayers\1 06:04:10.734159 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 82 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_Yf1pLy1010\noplayers\1 06:04:16.034802 IP ... > 72.165.61.189.27011: UDP, length 82 0.0.0.0:0.\gamedir\left4dead\gametype\coop,sv_search_key_Yf1pLy1010\noplayers\1 ~15 sec looked for whitelisted servers then for all others 3) what servers are whitelisted? (query \gamedir\left4dead\white\1) 68.177.101.x: 575 servers, valve, united states 68.177.111.x: 1202 servers, valve, united states 207.159.120.x: 1200 servers, valve, united states 79.141.174.x: 120 servers, whois says germany So what we see here there is a white list of servers that will be searched first, a good thing you may think, people joining valve hosted vanilla servers ... - there are only 120 servers atm for europe and none for other major regions, people will be thrown into high ping valve servers or will find no servers at all as seen in 1) if higher than the default 150 ping max - sv_search_key searches look for whitelisted servers first too, thats +15 seconds to search time and 15 seconds less to find the server _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
