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Table of Contents

1. What is 'PING'?
2. Why am I lagging so bad, when others are not?
3. When playing in #trivia or #jumble, why do I see my answer before anyone else's but someone else gets the points?
4. Do I have to register my nickname? Can I still play even if I'm not registered?
5. If I don't identify to NickServ fast enough, it takes my nickname away and makes me a 'Guest12345' name. How can I stop this from happening?

1. What is 'Ping'?
   
   Ping refers to how long it takes for a signal to go from you, to a destination and back again. Particularly in reference to IRC chat, Ping can be an indication of how good of a connection you have to whatever server/room you're chatting on.

   Consider a ship's sonar device. It sends a soundwave into the water (PING) and then waits for that soundwave to bounce off of an object and return to the device (PONG). The length of time it takes for that signal to return, gives the 'distance' of the object.

   Most often referenced in IRC games (such as SpeedFusion's #trivia and #jumble) PING gives an indication of how fast your 'answers' reach the game bot. How it works on the internet is that you would type in the PING request, your system sends a small packet of data to the destination. The destination machine receives it, and sends it back. Your system then computes the time it took for the data packet to return, and reports the 'PING' in the form of 'seconds'.

   (note: Webtv does not handle ping requests properly. It's in the chat capability of webtv software, it's not a problem with the destination server)
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2. Why am I lagging so bad, when others are not?
   
   Lag time on the internet (particularly IRC chat) can be affected by many things. Most often, lag is caused by heavy internet traffic thru the machines you happen to be connected thru online at the moment. It can be affected by machines that go down from bad weater, power outages, human error, simple mechanical error, phone outages, and just simply too much traffic going thru any given machine at one time.

   When you connect to a chat server (or web page) you aren't really connecting *directly* to that server or web site. Your 'route' or signal path, may go thru more than a dozen machines before reaching the destination you seek. (see this image for an illustration of a 'trace route' to better visualize how these connections may be made) That image is of a connection from Texas to California. From one computer to another, the signal goes thru 10 'hops' or machines before reaching it's destination. If *any* of those machines are experiencing slowness, then lag might be a problem until the situation clears.
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3. When playing in #trivia or #jumble, why do I see my answer before anyone else's but someone else gets the points?
   
   That's the difference between 'local input' and remote or received input. When you type an answer and hit [enter], it generally displays immediately, because it's 'local input'. How fast you see your answer displayed doesn't indicate how fast the game bot receives your answer. If you're lagging, it may be several seconds before the game bot receives that answer, and if someone else's answer reaches the bot first, then that answer will be credited.

   The bot doesn't 'ignore' people, nor does the bot play favorites ... it simply credits the first correct response that it receives. You might try disconnecting and reconnecting to see if you get a better connection which may give you a faster response time. Most often tho, this will resolve itself as internet traffic and lag times wax and wane.
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4. Do I have to register my nickname? Can I still play even if I'm not registered?
   
   No, it not required that you register your nickname with SpeedFusion to play or to chat, but is it highly recommended that you do so.

   If you regularly play in the game rooms, your 'continued' score/s are based on your nickname. If you don't register your nickname, and someone else comes along and registers that exact nickname at a later time, you will no longer be able to play under that name, and all of your score/s will go to the person that registered it. If you wish to protect your score, then you should register your nickname and be certain to identify to NickServ at least once every 21 days.
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5. If I don't identify to NickServ fast enough, it takes my nickname away and makes me a 'Guest12345' name. How can I stop this from happening?

   First off, the 'kill' (where you become a 'guest' after one minute) is a security function. If someone were to try to use your registered nickname for 'unsavory' purposes, if they did not identify to NickServ with the correct password within one minute, they would 'lose' the nickname.

   If, however, you are not concerned with anyone using your nickname - then there is a way to prevent that. Once you have logged onto Speedfusion, and have indentified to NickServ, type in the following: /msg NickServ set kill off. You will receive a message stating that protection is now 'off'. You should still identify to NickServ when accessing the server (to prevent your nickname from being dropped by NickServ) but if you don't do so within the 60 second time, it will no longer guest you.

   If at some point, you find you need to restore the protection to your nickname, after identifying to NickServ, type in the following: /msg NickServ set kill on. You will receive a message stating that protection is now 'on'.