Connection Time

In Live Update 42, one of the UI enhancements is a connection status window, toggleable vie the F11 key.

This is welcome, but I have to wonder why was this so long in coming? Everquest had this from the beginning, and WoW has had this from the beginning? Was this just another of the design mistakes that the original EQ2 team made? And it hasn't been until now that someone got around to fixing it.

The EQ2 team has my admiration for the sheer volume of stuff that they are able to push out the door, and have it work reasonably well. They have definitely got their act together on that score. A window like this takes very little, if any art resources, but it does take programmer resources. Though, it doesn't seem very complicated.

Anyway, it's really handy to have it. Of course, we've all learned to get along without it. My favorite way to figure out if I'm in a lagspike is to just /say something. If it comes up in my chat window, no lagspike.

My favorite lag-o-meter was the one they had that showed recent connection history. It had a bar that was solid when you had a good ping, and open when you didn't, and it scrolled to the right slowly. When a certain percentage of it was open, it turned yellow, and then red. When things were working well, though perhaps with little breaks, the bar was green. UI genius. Here's hoping the new one works that well.

Update: I found this screenshot of the connection window. It looks like it will be very handy!