Recently, as a lot of players have noticed, RIFT has been lagging on and off. As at the time of this post, no communication has yet been provided by Trion in regards to the recent lag. However, there seems to be some indications of the cause.
Quick History:
- Back in July, the lag/server downtime was due to a Distributed-Denial-Of-Service (‘DDoS‘) attack that affected multiple Massively Multiplayer Online Games (‘MMOs’). NCSoft games (Wildstar, GW2), Glyph games (Rift, Defiance) and others were affected. [r] (Note: The guy who did those attacks confirms he has nothing to do with the latest attacks).
- August 12th, Border Gateway Protocol (‘BGP’) routing tables went over 512,000 routes, causing problems for ISPs who were using routers with older hardware and software that cannot support more than 512,000 routes. [r] Latency and connectivity issues ensued and Trion (as well as numerous other MMOs) took their servers down for network maintenance.
So What’s Happening Now?
Well, right now the most likely reason would be the side effects of a twitter group* sending out DDoS attacks on multiple MMOs.
NCSoft and their titles (WildStar, GW2, Aion/etc) have been getting hit since 21st August:
Hey all, alarms just started firing across both NA and EU Data Centers. The NOC is investigating. #WildStar#OpsLife
— Cougar (@Cougardc) August 21, 2014
EVE Online was also hit on 21st August, bringing down their servers for 12hrs:
Tranquility is currently under a second DDoS attack. We hope to have services up and running again soon. Apologies for the inconvenience! — EVE Online Status (@EVE_status) August 21, 2014
Battle.Net (WoW, Hearthstone, Starcraft, Warcraft) has been having issues since 20th August, with another ‘wave’ on 24th:
We are dealing with a new wave of issues with our servers. We thank you for your patience as we continue to work towards a solution.
— BlizzardCS (@BlizzardCS) August 24, 2014
Other games and networks affected in the past few days include Runescape, League of Legends, Path of Exile and even the Playstation Network (which was hit on 24th August).
*Name of group withheld for obvious reasons.
What About Rift?
Although there’s been no word from Trion and the twitter group sending out the DDoS attacks hasn’t posted anything in regards to Trion/Glyph/Rift; chances are that the current DDoS attacks on other MMOs and their servers are probably having an effect on Trion’s servers as well.
Of course the DDoS attacks might not have affected Trion’s servers, but there has been no communication across Trion’s websites or social media accounts as at the time of this post to confirm or deny the reasons for the latest lag.
Update 08.25.14: Dev Pithos has posted they are aware of the recent lag and are looking to identify the problem. No confirmation on whether this is in any way related to the latest DDoS attacks on MMOs. [r]
Update 08.25.14 5:05PM PDT: Dev Pithos confirms their operations team found an issue and resolved it, but this might not be an improvement for everyone. [r]
What Can I Do About It?
Nothing you can do on your end. Just wait it out. Not really sure what Trion could do either, although I’m guessing some kind of protective measure is likely possible (not very server-savvy here).
Update: RIFT player irkiz explains the difficulty of combating a DDoS attack:
What can be done on the receiving end is filtering out illegal packets and protocols. However, DDOS use legitimate ones (the ones everyone else uses). So, filtering is not an option.
Bandwith is also finite. We can still upgrade the infrastructure and add more bandwith. However, this is easily countered, by increasing the DDOS attacks.
[Source: irkiz]
RiftGrate 
not sure if this is/was about todays events, seem a bunch of the biggest gaming companies are being DDoS at this very moment. playstation, blizzard, valve, league of legends, etc all being attacked atm.
Yea, the same group. Looks like they went ‘overboard’ though – putting ISIS flag on Sony site and diverting Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley’s American Airlines plane due to bomb threat.
Not 100% confirmed its them, but that twitter group is taking responsibility and its too much of a coincidence not to be them or some other people wanting to join in on the current attacks.
Very interesting, and informative as usual. Thanks
Well, my semi-serious but totally not theory of Blizzard orchestrating these attacks can be put to rest. Who knows when they’ll begin thinking that putting an actual bomb on a plane would be hilarious, rather than just threats. Oh wait, that would require them to actually leave their house and potentially get caught. Even if we can’t figure out how to prevent them just yet, I hope it becomes easier to catch these people. It’s really getting out of hand when they begin to personally target a human being.