Author Topic: Glad I found this website! (Read 3603 times)

Ansbach · « **on:** January 18, 2008, 11:11:18 PM »

Hello everyone,

I'm exicted that I found this place - looks like a fantastic gaming resource!

A brief bit about myself: Probably like a few others around here, I started with AD&D back in the early 80s and have been playing roleplaying games off and on ever since. I have always been a GM - I can count the times I've just been a player on one hand. I definitely have the "creator" personality - I've spent a lot of time building adventures and campaign worlds that I've never even ran - just did it for the fun of creation. Honestly, I think I like creating adventures even more than running them.

Recently I've moved to a rather remote location, so I've started tabletop-roleplaying online with Fantasy Grounds - that program has really got me excited about playing again! I've just started on a new quasi-historical campaign world, so I started looking around for online resources and found my way here.

My only slight concern is this website seems to run really slow - hopefully I caught it on a bad night or something.

Just wanted to say "hi" and I'm sure I'll be a regular!

Murometz · « **Reply #1 on:** January 19, 2008, 12:46:31 AM »

Welcome Ansbach!

A throw-back from way back. Another grizzled vet is aces in my book! Your background and tastes are not dissimilar to my own, well, except for the Fantasy Grounds. Never heard of them until just now.

Dive right into the deep end, and post some of your worlds and ideas on the main site!

I think you'll find plenty of fun stuff here for all your quasi-historical needs. Resources galore!

Again, welcome.

As to site slowness, Hmm, I'm not sure. Site seems to be functioning quite rapidly for me lately.

Ancient Gamer · « **Reply #2 on:** January 21, 2008, 04:18:13 PM »

Welcome Ansbach! Glad you found our little haven.

The site is rather heavy, both on framework and graphics, so if you are in some backwater (like I am) I wouldn't be surprised if it was really slow.

Good news is that you can change your settings to be low graphics, speeding the site up.

If you want I can help you out in that regard, if not, well here is the how to:

Go to www.strolen.com
click your username in the upper right corner
click "Edit Preferences" after your username in the upper left corner, below the graphics
Choose "minimalist" design, not Kate's designs.

Strolen · « **Reply #3 on:** January 21, 2008, 04:49:07 PM »

We are glad you found us too!

It seems many are in the same boat, moving and leaving your gaming group. This site is an offspring of moving away from a gaming group and the need to continue to do *something*. The creative mind MUST be channeled else it will turn to evil.

Ansbach · « **Reply #4 on:** January 21, 2008, 05:32:13 PM »

Well, I've been browsing around and do really like the site, but the speed is almost a killer for me. I have no idea what the problem is. Just to give you an idea, the home page takes about 15 seconds to load, the Forum page takes about 50 seconds, then the Greetings Traveler link takes about 15 seconds to load. I timed several other pages, and they all take around 15-18 seconds to load with the exception of the forum. Changing graphics to lite didn't impact anything.

I'm just a bit confused and slightly disheartened - I have a cable modem and most pages on the Internet load in around 5 seconds or less. I have no idea why this site would be so slow for me compared to 99% of the rest of the internet.

I did a tracert (traces the route from my computer to the website and reports back the response time for each "hop" along the way) to this and several other comparable websites and the results all look very similar, so it's not the link itself...

Dozus · « **Reply #5 on:** January 21, 2008, 08:53:22 PM »

Rejoice, my friend! You have been blessed by Mathom himself! He will be available for worship shortly. Your supplication is important to us; all prayers will be answered in the order they were received.

Understanding you are under Mathom's Divine Delay, I shall offer you a low-bandwidth feast:

_....----"""----.._
.-' o o o o '-.
/ o o o o \
/ o o o o o \
_| o o o o o o |
/ `''-----.................-----''` \
\________________________/
\~`-.-~`._.~-~.-~.__.~`-`/
\ /
`-.__________________.-'

ASCII burgers! Hot off the circuit board.

Strolen · « **Reply #6 on:** January 21, 2008, 09:36:12 PM »

PM me the traceroute if you would.

Where are you located? The server isn't the issue I would wager. http://www.myriadnetwork.com/datacenter/network.php

If you look on the bottom of the page there are "Page created in" script that will tell you how long it takes to generate the page but I don't think that will be an issue either. Most will be in <1 second. What kind of speeds do you get? http://www.speedtest.net/

It bothers me much that you are having such trouble reaching the site!

CaptainPenguin · « **Reply #7 on:** January 22, 2008, 03:09:13 AM »

Hello, Ansbach! Sometimes, as a GM who really really enjoys the "creation" aspect of my work, I feel like I'm in the minority. But I still enjoy it, dammit!

dark_dragon · « **Reply #8 on:** January 22, 2008, 03:39:40 AM »

Hey Ansbach! Welcome to the citadel!

Shame about the technical issues. Hope Mathom takes pity on you. (or rather forgets about you.)

Ancient Gamer · « **Reply #9 on:** January 22, 2008, 05:44:56 AM »

Quote from: Strolen on January 21, 2008, 09:36:12 PM

PM me the traceroute if you would.

Where are you located? The server isn't the issue I would wager. http://www.myriadnetwork.com/datacenter/network.php

If you look on the bottom of the page there are "Page created in" script that will tell you how long it takes to generate the page but I don't think that will be an issue either. Most will be in <1 second. What kind of speeds do you get? http://www.speedtest.net/

It bothers me much that you are having such trouble reaching the site!

While my load times are just about 10% of what Ansbach reports, I still have issues with this server. It is as he says, it is Strolen's itself, not the route.

Just an observation from a long time user.

Ansbach: The site is worth the wait.

Strolen · « **Reply #10 on:** January 22, 2008, 06:54:12 AM »

So you think it is the server? Rarely do I have to wait more than a few seconds, even for the largest codex so I need that explained a little bit more.

I pinged strolen and google and this site beat google in the 5 tests I ran from my computer. I would still want to see the trace to compare it to what I go through just to see and knowing that the script run times are similiar to what I get would help too.

Ancient Gamer · « **Reply #11 on:** January 22, 2008, 07:33:12 AM »

Well, actually this trace worked rather well for you, Strolen:

Quote

1 9 ms 9 ms 8 ms broadnetgw.hands.no [89.191.8.129]
2 9 ms 8 ms 11 ms ulv-ro-002-g0-1.broadbone.net [217.144.250.188]

3 12 ms 8 ms 8 ms ulv-ro-007-g0-1.broadbone.net [217.144.250.155]

4 8 ms 8 ms 10 ms Vlan159.msfc1.OS1-Oslo.teleglobe.net [80.231.90.
49]
5 11 ms 57 ms 9 ms if-4-0.core2.OS1-Oslo.teleglobe.net [80.231.90.3
]
6 46 ms 44 ms 45 ms if-12-2.icore1.AD1-Amsterdam.teleglobe.net [80.2
31.80.33]
7 * * * Forespørsel avbrutt.
8 * * 243 ms ge-6-16.car1.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.68.110.225
]
9 191 ms 515 ms 45 ms ae-32-52.ebr2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.68.120.62
]
10 157 ms 163 ms * ae-2.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.132.133]
11 133 ms 180 ms 1386 ms ae-4.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.132.109]
12 141 ms 200 ms 178 ms ae-71-71.csw2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.134.70]

13 * * * Forespørsel avbrutt.
14 4246 ms 165 ms 165 ms ae-3.ebr4.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.93]
15 999 ms 197 ms 181 ms ae-84-84.csw3.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
86]
16 2792 ms 217 ms 210 ms ae-34-89.car4.Washington1.Level3.net [4.68.17.13
4]
17 1216 ms 160 ms 204 ms GIGABIT-1-6.COLO2.ASH1.PTPTECH.NET [209.9.224.13
7]
18 * * * Forespørsel avbrutt.
19 1504 ms 339 ms 213 ms eq.ash.v6.myriadnetwork.com [209.9.235.253]
20 256 ms 170 ms 259 ms strolen.com [209.9.235.61]

Strolen · « **Reply #12 on:** January 22, 2008, 12:11:14 PM »

myriadnetwork was a little high but others are as well. Not sure why it zips through washington thrice, d**n CIA, FBI, and homeland security sniffing my packets.

I did "something" so let me know if you notice a difference.

The other thought I have is gzip, but I don't want to remove that.

Ancient Gamer · « **Reply #13 on:** January 22, 2008, 05:47:54 PM »

Ansbach: You've been techn'd!

Every once in a while we surprise our new users with detailed discussions and technical screendumps!

No, no need to thank us.

The pleasure is all ours

Ansbach · « **Reply #14 on:** January 22, 2008, 09:57:14 PM »

Quote from: Strolen on January 21, 2008, 09:36:12 PM

PM me the traceroute if you would.

Where are you located? The server isn't the issue I would wager. http://www.myriadnetwork.com/datacenter/network.php

If you look on the bottom of the page there are "Page created in" script that will tell you how long it takes to generate the page but I don't think that will be an issue either. Most will be in <1 second. What kind of speeds do you get? http://www.speedtest.net/

It bothers me much that you are having such trouble reaching the site!

Strolen, I sent you a PM with my tracert, but 14 hops with nothing over 100ms. Ping is fine too.

* http://www.myriadnetwork.com/datacenter/network.php comes up in about two seconds.
* Page created for this one is 0.141 seconds
* Speedtest is 1448 down/249 up

I just bought myself a new mega-computer for Christmas and installed Vista - could it be a Vista issue?
Or maybe a cache/security problem?

I tried the website with Firefox and no difference. I will try with my other (older) computer later.

I'll do some troubleshooting and see if I can figure anything out.

Dozus · « **Reply #15 on:** January 22, 2008, 10:07:55 PM »

If you'd like, maybe someone could print you the entire website and mail it to you. They could send updates once a week. Who's up for the job?

Strolen · « **Reply #16 on:** January 22, 2008, 10:22:25 PM »

I had a nice response and I clicked refresh instead of new tab. Darnit.

Thanks for helping troubleshoot everything. All your pings and traces look outstanding actually so I 100% agree that your connection is not an issue.

Vista eh...I have not heard good things about that yet.

Found a couple links that may be worth a gander:
http://itsvista.com/2007/02/itsvista-tip-37-why-certain-web-sites-are-slow-in-vista/

Most of the sites reference that so maybe it will do something. I will read that later when I have more time to see if my site is compliant...although I have no idea how I would affect that, more of a server issue it seems to me and I just upgraded to apache 2.0.

Thanks for your patience and that would be awesome of one of the tweaks mentioned in the article fixed it!

Ansbach · « **Reply #17 on:** January 23, 2008, 12:17:43 AM »

Well, it's not a Vista problem or a computer problem. I plugged in my old XP computer and am on it now - same problem.

I've also tried disabling firewalls, anti-virus, phishing and making strolen a trusted site. That leaves my router or I am SOL. I know my router does not have UPnP support, but I don't think that would have anything to do with it. I rent my router from my ISP though, so I'll see if they will send me an updated model.

Otherwise I may be stuck with a newsletter from Dozus.

Ancient Gamer · « **Reply #18 on:** January 23, 2008, 07:48:40 AM »

Network: Traceroute ok.
Browser: Tried several - Internet Explorer and Firefox
OS: Tried both Vista and XP
Computers: Tried several
Router: Hired from ISP. Only one router tried. Does it have some sort of filter installed I wonder? Network pings and computer swaps does make it a suspect.
Tested connection from local friend's computer: Unknown
3rd party software interfering: Unknown (again, try on a friend's computer)

Apart from that, do you run any local proxies or something? If you screen network traffic in any way, perhaps through 3rd party software you are unaware of, that might be causing your problems. Got any obscure favourite programs you always install on your computer? Check them out.

Also: Scan your computer for viruses and trojans.

Strolen · « **Reply #19 on:** January 23, 2008, 09:36:54 AM »

I found a tool that gives me a glimpse of what you have been dealing with.

http://www.gomez.com/info_center/instant-test.php

I had a couple 10s responses including a 6s response time from when the DNS was resolved to the first actual download. That was London. From China I had a 25s response.

See how quickly these resolve for you....

kate.strolen.com
www.afsa658.org
http://www.murometz.com/

AG, how is your site response?

Those are all on the same server so if they are going faster then we can further isolate it. I am starting to wonder...

Ansbach · « **Reply #20 on:** January 23, 2008, 10:55:18 AM »

I am in Denver, CO, btw.

Quote from: Strolen on January 23, 2008, 09:36:54 AM

See how quickly these resolve for you....

kate.strolen.com
www.afsa658.org
http://www.murometz.com/

All three loaded almost instantly. Love the squirrel drinking the Guiness!

I appreciate the help with this. If it is a combo issue with me and the site I think it is well worth your time - who knows how many people just left because it was too slow? I came close to never registering or posting, but I've been looking for a site like this for a long time.

I might be the only one in the world this in affecting, or maybe your site membership will triple once you get it fixed!

Ancient Gamer · « **Reply #21 on:** January 23, 2008, 11:31:47 AM »

This is a software issue, I am positive.

Ask yourself these two questions:
1. What kind of firewall do I have on my router?
2. What kind of firewall do I have on my computer?

I've been suspecting some filtering software for long and after asking my friend google I am positive.

Strolen · « **Reply #22 on:** February 03, 2008, 12:11:25 PM »

Wondering if there were any performance increases.

Did quite a few tweaks over the past week trying to configure the server to run a little faster.