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[capnjosh]

Over the past few days we've rolled out some fancy new latency-based DNS routing along with a whole new set of Storm services.  This should result in some faster account syncing times, especially for users in Europe.
 
We now have Storm services machines in 2 geographic locations and you should be routed to those that have the fastest connection for you at that time.  So, if you're Europe, you should be communicating with the Storm services in Ashburn, Virginia, rather than those in Oregon.  If you're in Tokyo, you should be routed to the Storm machines in Oregon.  If Oregon fell off into the ocean, within about 65 seconds all traffic will be routed to Ashburn.  Whew.
 
Right now, we're sending about 50% of all traffic to the latency-based DNS system.  Over the next few days we will be shifting more and more traffic that way, so until it's entirely shifted over you may still be routed to Oregon on occasion.
 
I'm personally excited because this allows for much better scaling as well as performance increases.  It also means Hawken should be more fault-tolerant.  So let us know if anything stands out to you.
 
We've pulled out that Dallas server that has seemed to only result in performance complaints.  We've controlled for enough variables that we are down to the peering used in that specific data center.  Starting earlier today, we moved all private servers off that host (dallas or dallas1).  Now, the main host in Dallas is that Dallas3 host.  So, give us a holler if you have any strong opinions on the topic.
 
The MMR expansion time has been reduced to 30 seconds, as you may or may not already know.  Given the MatchMaker change a few weeks ago, this should simply result in players more quickly getting into the highest-available-MMR match.
 
We've been working with some concept artists to get some fresh interpretations of the Hawken art style.  We're pretty amazed at the level of talent out there, and we're excited to work with them. 

The next few weeks will see some pretty intense behind-the-scenes activity.  We've got some important testing and code integrations to do, and we're working toward some exciting announcements over the next few months.

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