On 12/5/2012 1:56 PM, Kyle Sanderson wrote:
Like I initially said, since 2010 GeoIP has been used to determine the players Region and (semi-)correctly return results accordingly based on location. This is instead of returning results by the closest network (octet).
My understanding was that it estimated the distance from the client to each server IP, and used this to determine which servers to ping first. This works independent of regions.
The only thing I've been suggesting is kill off sv_region and move the legacy system over to GeoIP. GeoIP is fairly accurate now, I don't think anyone needs to be manually reporting their region in 2012 (nearing 2013). Doing so would end this abuse, and would have *everyones* server being correctly added to the proper region. I don't really see a down side, besides slightly increased logic on the two masters, and cheaters not being able to cheat ;)
This is a debate that has come up with other networks. A few downsides to a purely automated system include that GeoIP lookups are not always accurate when it comes to server IPs (the nature of the data sources mean it is much more accurate with client IPs), that they don't handle border cases well (should Chicago be considered east coast, or west coast? ... the server admin should be able to decide), and that sometimes further servers perform better and are justified in overriding the setting (many servers in NYC perform better for BR players than BR servers, for instance, and as a result some BR-based server admins buy servers in NYC and want them shown as S. America).
I wasn't looking to start a debate about whether sv_region should be kept or its design fundamentally changed. I just meant to point out that the current system has clear bugs (however you look at it).
-John _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds
