Traffic management list for games

[#1]

Could a member of staff in the know look into this, please?
In reference to this thread, I decided to open a ticket, number 70692536, and give the details of my game, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, in order to get it added to the list. As you will see from the ticket I provided the information that the thread asks for. The ticket was replied to and, contrary to the information in the thread, a Wireshark capture was asked for. I wish the thread would make mention of that. Anyway:
I'm not sure that my game is going to be added as it should be. The last reply I received ends:

Quote

Looking at the capture I am unable to see any traffic from the IP addresses you've listed above. Though I can see traffic from a few IP addresses into port 7917 that is being flagged as titanium by the traffic management and therefore being prioritised correctly.

I'm so annoyed by that. The thread asks for the IP addresses and ports that the game uses, so that they may be added to the list. Those I provided ARE the ones used by the game. Ubisoft advises the ports, and I have noted from the logs of many games the IP addresses of the game servers. Why do you need to see them in the capture before you will add them and the game to the list?
Indeed, the problems I've detailed before on this forum most often show a problem in connecting to one of those IP addresses, 216.240.146.139, and it is that very address which invariably shows up in the router logs when I have problems with the game - so often I already know they're going to show up in the logs. Moreover, when the game is launched, every single time the anti-cheat system, punkbuster, loads it listens on port 12000. Yes, there were many connections on port 7917, other players connecting to me. That doesn't constitute the whole game, ports and addresses as already known. I don't know why the person couldn't see any of them in the capture. Besides which, just because communication on a single port is flagged as titanium and 'therefore being prioritised correctly' doesn't mean the whole game is. I might be connected to a full house of players, who incidentally don't all connect on port 7917, but if the connection to ubisoft is lost (perhaps because of improper prioritisation), there's no game. The whole point of my opening the ticket was because the whole game is not on the list in the thread referenced. Neither does one port = several IP addresses requested.
So, ramble, ramble, ramble: Why can not the known ports and addresses as requested in the thread be added for the game to your list?

[#2]

Time enough to edit the thread to which I referred, but not time enough to answer my questions or explain. Is it really that difficult or awkward?

[#3]

Apologies, I thought Kelly had replied. Back in the past when I wrote that post (about 6 years ago) we did most of the identification of games from the ports and IP addresses of the games servers. At the time it was very sophisticated but lacked finesse. It would identify games fine but then you started getting games that ran on different ports and especially with things like Team Speak you had Team Speak servers that could run on any port all over the place. With our suppliers we created more indepth ways of detecting traffic and with the latest updated to our traffic management platform we hardly detect anything using the port and IP addresses because today with people running their own servers and game platforms the port is no longer the key indicator it used to be.
The Wireshark is therefore the more valuable thing in identifying a particular game or application as it gives us the details of the traffic we need (like the port, IP, protocol) but also gives us the flow of traffic for us to match a rule against as well as being able to see what we currently identify the game as.
We don't list every game that is identified in the list because lots of games look exactly the same as another game. Playstation and Xbox games in particular are very similar as are some PC games (especially within the same family or studio). General rule is that if you run the wireshark and the traffic isn't in titanium it's not detected as gaming, if it is titanium then we've detected it. If the game has multiple flows (then you should see them in the Wireshark) and if some aren't in titanium then the wireshark will help us to fix it.

[#4]

That was a better explanation that I'd have managed.

[#5]

Thank you for that information. I am still left not knowing what the situation is regarding my game, however. The guy who looked at the capture said none of the ports/IP addresses I detailed showed in the capture (except 7917, of course). Something is not right because the game ALWAYS contacts at least one of the IP addresses I provided, invariably there are problems with the 216. etc IP address, and it certainly ALWAYS listens on port 12000. It HAS to do these thing or it just won't function. Judging by the response I received on the ticket the impression I get from it is 'the communications we noted on port 7917 are marked as titanium so the game is properly prioritised, end of discussion'. That is not adequate, to my mind.
Firstly, the whole game cannot be defined as 'properly prioritised' based on noted traffic on one port out of several, and secondly, all I can think is that for some unknown reason essential communications are apparently not shown in the capture, or the capture hasn't been correctly reviewed.

[#6]

I've just ordered a copy from Amazon will get it all checked out to see whether it's detected properly as soon as it arrives.

[#7]

OK. Thanks Dave.

[#8]

Nine days. Any news?

[#9]

The game arrived here on Friday, unfortunately Dave's not been in the office. He's going to do what's needed to check over the next couple of days, sorry for the delay.

[#10]

OK, thanks Chris.

[#11]

Been trying to play the game the last few days and not having much luck. Are people still playing the game? I've read a couple of forums where people are saying there aren't many players online. Do you know if there's a good time to play? I've only tried in the daytime so far, do you think I'd have more luck in the evening or weekend?

[#12]

And as soon as I post I get to start a game typical
Anyway, Wireshark shows all the traffic in that first game is being detected correctly but I'll try a couple more as could just be I was lucky the first time.

[#13]

Don't believe what a few people say online. There are loads of players on every day/night. I have logged at least 700 players in the last 6-8 months and that doesn't represent all of the players I've played with because not all connections get logged. New faces are constantly appearing - especially of late. There are variations in time, of course and it's probably evenings that are busier. There's often a rush of kiddies shortly after school kicks out and around tea time. You hit more Americans much later on. In between you'll likely hit a number of the German players (who are often frighteningly good at the game). In between it's a mixed bag from all over.
I was checking my logs last night and I'm noting that Punkbuster is resolving the evenbalance servers to completely different IP address than those I originally reported. You will note these if you look yourself. In XP they are to be found:
C:(or otherwise)\Documents and Settings\*YOUR ACCOUNT\Application Data\Ubisoft\Assassin's Creed Brotherhood\pb\svlogs
EDIT: Forgot to say - Weekends are quiet in comparison to week days, I find.
EDIT2: Also forgot to say - could you do a good run when you've discerned a good peak time for you, and when you notice that games just aren't connecting (stuck at 1, 2, 3 or whatever of 6 and still waiting) or you get chucked out of a game with a disconnected from Host or from the Network message, check your router log for any firewall errors. I'd be interested if you see repeated instances of those with the 216 etc. IP address.

[#14]

Left it a bit and the games seemed to be more frequent and I got some good captures including a flow of traffic to one of the 216 IPs which wasn't being detected as gaming. On my connection it wasn't causing any problems not being identified (it was around 5pm, the line's 15+Mbps and the only thing on it was the game) but I've now seen something that isn't being detected. I've sent it over to our suppliers to take a look at and they should hopefully be able to get a signature for it for our traffic management system pretty quickly.
Most of the traffic is being detected as gaming, not as Assassins Creed but another game from Ubisoft, games often look the same as others so that's not uncommon but this flow which looked to be a major flow back to the central servers wasn't being detected so in the middle of a bunch of gaming and other traffic could potentially be a reason for gaming issues. I'll let you know once they've had chance to fully analyse the Wireshark I sent over.

[#15]

Wonderful. Thanks very much for that, Dave. I'm so glad you spotted something, and especially to do with the IP address I always have a problem with. Here's hoping they can get it sorted and that it really helps things with the game (I'm hopeful - fingers crossed).
I hope you've got into the game and press on. Lots of good fun to be had.