Using PingPlotter to troubleshoot World of Warcraft

Question

I'm having lag in World of Warcraft. How do I find my server, and how do I trace to it?

Solution

PingPlotter can trace to World of Warcraft servers! Here are some tips and links on how to make that work.

Finding your server's IP address

First, you'll need your server's IP address. There are several ways of getting this information:

• Use netstat. Steps 1-4 here will walk you through discovering your IP address
• Look for your server by realm/location. Here is a great resource for that.

Setting up PingPlotter to trace

Once you have your server's IP, then you can try tracing to it - although Blizzard/WoW blocks ICMP at their border, so you'll need to use PingPlotter's TCP packet type to get all the way in.

Switch to using the TCP packet type (http://www.nessoft.com/kb/51), which *is* allowed through the WoW firewalls (since that's what 'language' the WoW servers talk). Change your configuration (or set up a new named configuration, if you're using PingPlotter Pro) to use the packet type 'TCP Packets', and then change the TCP Port to 3724 (that's the WoW login port). Once you've done that, you should be able to see the whole path to the target server.

Please be 'courteous' to your WoW server. Try to use a reasonable trace interval (once every 10 seconds or so), as you are using some bandwidth and resources by tracing to it.

Finding the problem

Once you're tracing, you can use standard PingPlotter techniques for troubleshooting. Here are some good resources:

• How to pinpoint the problem.
• VoIP Troubleshooting with PingPlotter. Gaming and VoIP have many similarities in their latency requirements. This is a great article with some scenarios to look for.

If you have any additional resources we should include here, or additional tips, please let us know!