Here is the current situation with the 'lag'.

There is no server wide lag. The server is running fine. Commands are going out fine. What players are experiencing is on the client side. From the server I can view all connections and I can see most connections running fine with individual players getting clogged up from time to time. This indicates a backlog of commands being processed on individual clients.

There are several possible reasons for this:

- Bad connectivity to the server. Our server host did report some connectivity issues with specific hubs this week. However, with players having consistent decent ping, then spikes of 'lag' I doubt this is the issue.

- Anti virus interference. This has happened before unfortunately. Some anti-virus programs don't recognize the Xsyon executable file, causing all hard drive operations (initial loading, zone crossing) to be scanned and slowed down. Over time after a patch, it seems that anti-virus programs begin to recognize the executable until I do a new patch. I don't know if this is the cause in this case but it could be contributing to the problem.

- Slow processing of incoming commands, in particular loading buildings and trees and possibly creature positions. This is the most likely cause.

The strange thing is that this should not be slower with this patch. With the initial patch attempted on May 12th there were changes to the command processing and loading functions. On the Test Server these performed better than the past functions in extensive timed tests. However, as on the Main Servers players reported 'lag' that wasn't there before I reverted these functions to the past functions. So the processing and loading functions on the Main Servers right now are the same that were running since August 2016.

This processing does need to be improved. With more and more building parts in game, loading is more intensive. I have several strategies for improving this processing and I am going to be focused on resolving this next.