There's a quite interesting post by Gordon in response to mine on pdx plaza. Why is it interesting? It seems that pdx (well, at least Gordon himself) decided to deny any responsibility concerning lag/net code issues by putting the blame on us. Kind of reminded me Moo, when he wrote that he has never met a speedhacker in-game.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?785317-EXPERIMENTAL-100-Player-Server-Live-For-Testing/page2
Second, LAG, what is that to you? Is it your PC that is lagging, is it the server instance, is it the server hardware, is it the other players internet connection, is it your internet connection, etc... You get the picture, it just isn't that simple and based on your heavy frame loss on Towton I'd speculate your PC is the cause of some of the lag you experience. I've played on the experimental server with about 70 people and had almost zero lag. Yes there were high pingers that behaved odd, but there weren't that many.
Keep in mind my post warns those with computers that run on the lower end of the system specs.
Remember, this server was an experiment. What I'd like to do in the future is have special event large player count servers for short events to drive more players back into the game and catch new ones who need that extra "that sounds cool" motivator.
Also, I have little to no frame drops on Towton, but realize it stresses out lower end rigs.
Well to be fair to Gordon what he was saying is that there are multiple possible reasons for lag. I expect he is well aware that the vast majority of the support issues when players complain they cannot start/run the game are because:
Their pc doesn't meet the minimum specs
They are using a laptop that is for some reason using the integrated GPU
There are also widely reported problems that turn out to be really strange routing issues
For example
this thread by rigsby showed his connection from Germany to a UK server went via the US I think we determined that many players from the east of Frankfurt were being routed into Frankfurt and then out to Londi=on or the US and then back to the Frankfurt server. Strangely this sort of routing seems to be a problem only fo rmultiiplay hosted servers.
Having said that I think I remember that very recently Gordon got an incredibly high end pc, and he should be aware that he cannot expect the majority (or even any) of his customers to have anything like that. Also when the devs play on their test server (in Amsterdam) they never experience any lag at all, which makes me wonder whether a lot of it isnt Multiplay related. While Skitrel the customer relations chap is totally awesome and helpful it seems clear that many of the support/tech people at MP do not have much of a handle on what they are doing. There was definately at least one time when they had the resources needed for each server set much too low.
So I think its a bit harsh to say Gordon was blaming the players, he was just pointing out that it is not clear cut.