Gaming and Networks
Leauge of Legends is an online real-time strategy PC game in which players team up as a five-man or a three-man team and square off against an enemy team of the same size to destroy each others “base” first. Attracting the most users for gaming since July of 2012, League of Legends has been the number one game, having users worldwide and thus having different servers in which have been categorized by regions, such as the North America server, Korea server, etc. Recently, the North America server had their move from Seattle to Chicago, and the effects have been quite larger than a simple movement of the headquarters, and it is closely related to the principles of strong and weak ties between the server and the users.
The server headquarter is basically like a central node, that forms edges with the users, the other nodes around the HQ. The strength of the ties are shown by “pings,” or more formally latency, which is the network delay in between the users and the server, and is measured in milliseconds. For example, if the ping for a game is at 300, that means it takes the server 300 milliseconds after the user makes a command to execute the command and display it on the user screen. When the ping is low, the user and the server are connected by a strong tie and if the ping is high, the user and the server are connected by a weak tie. Pings are affected by various factors, such as the specifications of the computer that runs the game, the number of users currently using the server, and any bugs to the system. But the most basic and underlying factor is the distance between the server and the user. Since the move, the users in the west coast, who usually experienced 30-45 ping (virtually nothing) thus having strong ties with the server now experience a ping significantly higher, basically doubling their ping and making the edges between them and the server a weak tie. Conversely, east coast users, like myself got a reduction in ping in half, making the edges between users and the server a strong tie instead. Although the other specifications for the pings may change the strength of the ties, this general shift affected the whole regional network, changing the game for many.
http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/help-support/2uTrAyy8-na-server-roadmap-update-chicago-server-move-complete