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The UK is once again becoming the second class citizen of the gaming world. Arguably, Sony and now Microsoft have changed the old practices of the 16-bit days so that now, usually, we get titles quickly and with quality conversions. However, we are quickly being shoved back into the days of 16-bit hell where we’re merely an afterthought, but now for a very different reason.
Internet gaming may or may not be the future of entertainment but I, along with many other UK gamers, want in on the act. I have enjoyed many hours with PC online titles with my puny 56k connection, most notably Half Life/Counter Strike and Asheron’s Call have willed away many an hour. These two titles are polar opposites of how you’d interact with your international gaming companions. In Half Life you are out to kill, the only enemies you’ll meet are real people just like you. Some will be beginners learning the game and easy kills for your more experienced player. Others will have spent 18 hours a day in game and will have honed their skills to such a level that by the time you see them death is inevitable. This human aspect makes things exiting, there are no CPU players walking on wires, every participant in this world has a real human brain and will be prone to the same (flawed) thought patterns. You never know what’s around the next corner, you never know if someone has taken up a “camping” spot and is waiting for you to run out in the open so they can sniper you dead. Computer AI can get as advanced as you like, but it’ll never recreate the tactics and mistakes of the real player.
Then we switch to Asheron’s Call at the other end of the spectrum. Here it is total co-operation gaming, the only “bad guys” are CPU controlled. You can team up with other players to take on stronger foe, you can ask for advice, trade objects, pledge allegiance to a stronger player or just sit and have a chat. There’s a large element of camaraderie, heartily encouraged by the game which provides in-game instant messaging facilities much like MSN or ICQ. Add to this the huge world that the game occupies and you have one of the very few games which really does leave the player free to do as he wishes. Seriously, until you’ve played something like this you can never say Vice City gives the player total freedom.
These titles, along with many others, represent internet gaming in its infancy. Really, on-line capabilities are more of a whole new platform than a genre. It is a means to allow all sorts of games to go in a new direction, and so far we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg. The thing I’m worried about is that in the UK we’ll again be left behind both because of the games companies themselves, and our 3rd world telecommunications infrastructure.
First off, BT – slap yourselves on the back of the wrist. ADSL at 512kbps is not “broadband”. It cannot offer fully streaming video (approx 2Mbps needed for that) as you’re over the top adverts claim. It is not available to anything like the number of people you claim, mostly because you cannot offer the service to people with fibre optic cabling installed in their street and/or house. That immediately wipes out pretty much every house built in the last five years; despite the fact fibre optic cabling is vastly superior to the copper cables demanded for your ADSL service.
Broadband in Sweden means a 6-12Mbps connection, at roughly a twelfth (or twenty fourth) of that BT claims of “high-speed access” are laughable. NTL have also put a major hurdle in the way of people wanting to use a cable connection for on-line gaming. A 1GB per month cap on their service not only calls the “always on” nature of their product into question, but cause major problems for gamers as the Xbox draws on a huge downstream due to lazy net code so you’ll reach your monthly cap very quickly. Estimates vary between 24 to 34 hours of gaming – that’s per month (so under an hour a day) and before you do any web surfing or e-mailing etc.
We are a first world country with 3rd world telecommunications, there’s something to be proud of. We sold off the phone networks to a profit making organisation who take each exchange on an individual level. The fact they’ll rake the money in on busy London exchanges has no bearing on the fact that rural exchanges will struggle to break even. If the upgrade won’t make cash then it won’t happen. Oh, and if you do live out in the sticks its likely the equipment that handles the usual call service in your exchange will be old and outdated. You’ll also have to cover the cost of upgrading this equipment if you want ADSL, despite the fact BT will have to repair and/or upgrade it at some point anyway to provide you with a phone service.
“Oh well then”, you say, “that’s not the game’s company’s fault”. No, but it is their fault that they insist on broadband to play on-line.
An elegant net code can easily run a sophisticated on-line game at 56k. There is absolutely no problem in this, it has been proved already. As graphics get prettier and games physics more complex the amount of bandwidth needed doesn’t change in any significant way. Remember, everyone is playing the same game which generates the game world itself, the only thing that needs to be transmitted are the interactions that are within the scope of the player. Think of the complex movements on an American football field - 30 players and a ball all moving around at high speed. The movement of each of these 31 objects needs to be tracked, with 16 of them actually going each way (i.e. you transmit your 15 players, download the other person’s 15 and then the ball is somewhere in the middle). This sounds complicated, but I’ve played it almost totally lag free on a 56k modem. NLF2K2 on the Dreamcast to be precise, and that was using a US consoles with US servers from the UK. Imagine the difference if there had have been UK servers - zero lag. MMORPGs have been running fine at 56k for years, as have strategy and FPS games. The 56k gaming scene was healthy and totally practical, but those days seem to be gone.
As the world slowly takes up broadband (with us starting way behind and running slower), so to does the internet in general. Already I’ve noticed that there are some sites that I simply can’t use at all as they are made seemingly only for use with broadband services, despite the fact that some simple text information was all I needed. People like both new toys and are lazy. They put in pointless animations and intros without thinking about the slower net users or simply not bothering to optimise their code as much as they used to. This seems to have leaked over into the on-line gaming world.
Microsoft actually boasts that their on-line output for the Xbox is only available to broadband users, despite the fact this wipes out a huge chunk of the people who bought their console. Hell, I’d like the new Splinter Cell missions, I paid just as much for my game as the next guy, but because I happen to live in an area with no broadband capabilities I can’t even make the choice whether I want to bother with the download or not. I also can’t play any of their games online for the same reason. This isn’t because 56k gaming is impossible; it is just because they don’t want the bother of optimising net code and running efficient servers. Sure, I couldn’t use gimmicks like the voice communicator, but I don’t really care about that, I just want to carry on playing games online like I have for the past three or four years over my “slow” connection.
PC gaming seems to be edging this way too. Star Wars Galaxies must be one of the most hotly anticipated games, and great! The spec sheet reads that it’ll work with 56k connections… or will it? Minimum specs are obviously never ideal, in fact they are usually set at the level which will manage to run the game and no more, represented in the fact that most MMORPGs have only required a 33.6k connection. There’s also the fact that one 56k connection isn’t the same as another 56k connection. It alters depending on your modem hardware and software, your ISP and the quality of the line to your house. Sorry to go on about how rubbish BT are, but you know why getting a second line became so cheap when the internet took off? Suddenly people needed a second access point with a separate number; this was subtly different from the traditional business purchasers of additional lines who needed the whole package. So what did BT do? Every house has two “lines” – it’s a co-axle cable. Usually both these lines carry data, but BT would split them apart so instead of one adequate line you have two inferior ones. This leads to slower access and is one of the main causes for the variation in “56k” connections.
Its not like the games companies are really that fussed about this, goodness, like I’ve said, there would be absolutely no problem in any game in development at the moment running over a 56k connection provided the suitable steps were taken. Problem is the code optimisation and server deployment takes time and a little more money. Why bother when internationally most people who are likely to use an online gaming service have access to broadband? The fact that a few miss out is irrelevant as a little more money would have to be spent to catch these people and Microsoft couldn’t charge everyone for the microphone headset, regardless of whether they want it, as it wouldn’t work over a 56k connection if you wanted to play a game at the same time. So, the majority of people in the UK will lose out because of our incompetent telecommunications infrastructure and the lazy developers. We’ll continue to subsidise the development of net code in games despite the fact no effort has been taken to allow it to work on anything other than broadband. We’ll miss out on this exciting area of gaming not because it isn’t possible or profitable to provide the service to us, but because, for some reason, we’ve been labelled as second class citizens not worthy of taking part.
Internet gaming may or may not be the future of entertainment but I, along with many other UK gamers, want in on the act. I have enjoyed many hours with PC online titles with my puny 56k connection, most notably Half Life/Counter Strike and Asheron’s Call have willed away many an hour. These two titles are polar opposites of how you’d interact with your international gaming companions. In Half Life you are out to kill, the only enemies you’ll meet are real people just like you. Some will be beginners learning the game and easy kills for your more experienced player. Others will have spent 18 hours a day in game and will have honed their skills to such a level that by the time you see them death is inevitable. This human aspect makes things exiting, there are no CPU players walking on wires, every participant in this world has a real human brain and will be prone to the same (flawed) thought patterns. You never know what’s around the next corner, you never know if someone has taken up a “camping” spot and is waiting for you to run out in the open so they can sniper you dead. Computer AI can get as advanced as you like, but it’ll never recreate the tactics and mistakes of the real player.
Then we switch to Asheron’s Call at the other end of the spectrum. Here it is total co-operation gaming, the only “bad guys” are CPU controlled. You can team up with other players to take on stronger foe, you can ask for advice, trade objects, pledge allegiance to a stronger player or just sit and have a chat. There’s a large element of camaraderie, heartily encouraged by the game which provides in-game instant messaging facilities much like MSN or ICQ. Add to this the huge world that the game occupies and you have one of the very few games which really does leave the player free to do as he wishes. Seriously, until you’ve played something like this you can never say Vice City gives the player total freedom.
These titles, along with many others, represent internet gaming in its infancy. Really, on-line capabilities are more of a whole new platform than a genre. It is a means to allow all sorts of games to go in a new direction, and so far we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg. The thing I’m worried about is that in the UK we’ll again be left behind both because of the games companies themselves, and our 3rd world telecommunications infrastructure.
First off, BT – slap yourselves on the back of the wrist. ADSL at 512kbps is not “broadband”. It cannot offer fully streaming video (approx 2Mbps needed for that) as you’re over the top adverts claim. It is not available to anything like the number of people you claim, mostly because you cannot offer the service to people with fibre optic cabling installed in their street and/or house. That immediately wipes out pretty much every house built in the last five years; despite the fact fibre optic cabling is vastly superior to the copper cables demanded for your ADSL service.
Broadband in Sweden means a 6-12Mbps connection, at roughly a twelfth (or twenty fourth) of that BT claims of “high-speed access” are laughable. NTL have also put a major hurdle in the way of people wanting to use a cable connection for on-line gaming. A 1GB per month cap on their service not only calls the “always on” nature of their product into question, but cause major problems for gamers as the Xbox draws on a huge downstream due to lazy net code so you’ll reach your monthly cap very quickly. Estimates vary between 24 to 34 hours of gaming – that’s per month (so under an hour a day) and before you do any web surfing or e-mailing etc.
We are a first world country with 3rd world telecommunications, there’s something to be proud of. We sold off the phone networks to a profit making organisation who take each exchange on an individual level. The fact they’ll rake the money in on busy London exchanges has no bearing on the fact that rural exchanges will struggle to break even. If the upgrade won’t make cash then it won’t happen. Oh, and if you do live out in the sticks its likely the equipment that handles the usual call service in your exchange will be old and outdated. You’ll also have to cover the cost of upgrading this equipment if you want ADSL, despite the fact BT will have to repair and/or upgrade it at some point anyway to provide you with a phone service.
“Oh well then”, you say, “that’s not the game’s company’s fault”. No, but it is their fault that they insist on broadband to play on-line.
An elegant net code can easily run a sophisticated on-line game at 56k. There is absolutely no problem in this, it has been proved already. As graphics get prettier and games physics more complex the amount of bandwidth needed doesn’t change in any significant way. Remember, everyone is playing the same game which generates the game world itself, the only thing that needs to be transmitted are the interactions that are within the scope of the player. Think of the complex movements on an American football field - 30 players and a ball all moving around at high speed. The movement of each of these 31 objects needs to be tracked, with 16 of them actually going each way (i.e. you transmit your 15 players, download the other person’s 15 and then the ball is somewhere in the middle). This sounds complicated, but I’ve played it almost totally lag free on a 56k modem. NLF2K2 on the Dreamcast to be precise, and that was using a US consoles with US servers from the UK. Imagine the difference if there had have been UK servers - zero lag. MMORPGs have been running fine at 56k for years, as have strategy and FPS games. The 56k gaming scene was healthy and totally practical, but those days seem to be gone.
As the world slowly takes up broadband (with us starting way behind and running slower), so to does the internet in general. Already I’ve noticed that there are some sites that I simply can’t use at all as they are made seemingly only for use with broadband services, despite the fact that some simple text information was all I needed. People like both new toys and are lazy. They put in pointless animations and intros without thinking about the slower net users or simply not bothering to optimise their code as much as they used to. This seems to have leaked over into the on-line gaming world.
Microsoft actually boasts that their on-line output for the Xbox is only available to broadband users, despite the fact this wipes out a huge chunk of the people who bought their console. Hell, I’d like the new Splinter Cell missions, I paid just as much for my game as the next guy, but because I happen to live in an area with no broadband capabilities I can’t even make the choice whether I want to bother with the download or not. I also can’t play any of their games online for the same reason. This isn’t because 56k gaming is impossible; it is just because they don’t want the bother of optimising net code and running efficient servers. Sure, I couldn’t use gimmicks like the voice communicator, but I don’t really care about that, I just want to carry on playing games online like I have for the past three or four years over my “slow” connection.
PC gaming seems to be edging this way too. Star Wars Galaxies must be one of the most hotly anticipated games, and great! The spec sheet reads that it’ll work with 56k connections… or will it? Minimum specs are obviously never ideal, in fact they are usually set at the level which will manage to run the game and no more, represented in the fact that most MMORPGs have only required a 33.6k connection. There’s also the fact that one 56k connection isn’t the same as another 56k connection. It alters depending on your modem hardware and software, your ISP and the quality of the line to your house. Sorry to go on about how rubbish BT are, but you know why getting a second line became so cheap when the internet took off? Suddenly people needed a second access point with a separate number; this was subtly different from the traditional business purchasers of additional lines who needed the whole package. So what did BT do? Every house has two “lines” – it’s a co-axle cable. Usually both these lines carry data, but BT would split them apart so instead of one adequate line you have two inferior ones. This leads to slower access and is one of the main causes for the variation in “56k” connections.
Its not like the games companies are really that fussed about this, goodness, like I’ve said, there would be absolutely no problem in any game in development at the moment running over a 56k connection provided the suitable steps were taken. Problem is the code optimisation and server deployment takes time and a little more money. Why bother when internationally most people who are likely to use an online gaming service have access to broadband? The fact that a few miss out is irrelevant as a little more money would have to be spent to catch these people and Microsoft couldn’t charge everyone for the microphone headset, regardless of whether they want it, as it wouldn’t work over a 56k connection if you wanted to play a game at the same time. So, the majority of people in the UK will lose out because of our incompetent telecommunications infrastructure and the lazy developers. We’ll continue to subsidise the development of net code in games despite the fact no effort has been taken to allow it to work on anything other than broadband. We’ll miss out on this exciting area of gaming not because it isn’t possible or profitable to provide the service to us, but because, for some reason, we’ve been labelled as second class citizens not worthy of taking part.
More fuel for the fire:
http://special.reserve.co.uk/news/story.php?id=2480
PS2 broadband only for Europe :/ Despite the fact you can use a 56k connection in the States, Europe is denied this luxury. Meaning titles like FFXI will be have very little impact in the UK, but who cares? Sony will be raking it in the Japan and the States, so why worry about Europe? The second largest videogames market in the world...
Wish I had have posted this is Chat, seems no one reads Prime anymore!
http://special.reserve.co.uk/news/story.php?id=2480
PS2 broadband only for Europe :/ Despite the fact you can use a 56k connection in the States, Europe is denied this luxury. Meaning titles like FFXI will be have very little impact in the UK, but who cares? Sony will be raking it in the Japan and the States, so why worry about Europe? The second largest videogames market in the world...
Wish I had have posted this is Chat, seems no one reads Prime anymore!
It does begger belief in the phone company's actions really. How I'd like to chat to the boss of BT and find out what they're really thinking.
The UK is once again becoming the second class citizen of the gaming world. Arguably, Sony and now Microsoft have changed the old practices of the 16-bit days so that now, usually, we get titles quickly and with quality conversions. However, we are quickly being shoved back into the days of 16-bit hell where we’re merely an afterthought, but now for a very different reason.
Internet gaming may or may not be the future of entertainment but I, along with many other UK gamers, want in on the act. I have enjoyed many hours with PC online titles with my puny 56k connection, most notably Half Life/Counter Strike and Asheron’s Call have willed away many an hour. These two titles are polar opposites of how you’d interact with your international gaming companions. In Half Life you are out to kill, the only enemies you’ll meet are real people just like you. Some will be beginners learning the game and easy kills for your more experienced player. Others will have spent 18 hours a day in game and will have honed their skills to such a level that by the time you see them death is inevitable. This human aspect makes things exiting, there are no CPU players walking on wires, every participant in this world has a real human brain and will be prone to the same (flawed) thought patterns. You never know what’s around the next corner, you never know if someone has taken up a “camping” spot and is waiting for you to run out in the open so they can sniper you dead. Computer AI can get as advanced as you like, but it’ll never recreate the tactics and mistakes of the real player.
Then we switch to Asheron’s Call at the other end of the spectrum. Here it is total co-operation gaming, the only “bad guys” are CPU controlled. You can team up with other players to take on stronger foe, you can ask for advice, trade objects, pledge allegiance to a stronger player or just sit and have a chat. There’s a large element of camaraderie, heartily encouraged by the game which provides in-game instant messaging facilities much like MSN or ICQ. Add to this the huge world that the game occupies and you have one of the very few games which really does leave the player free to do as he wishes. Seriously, until you’ve played something like this you can never say Vice City gives the player total freedom.
These titles, along with many others, represent internet gaming in its infancy. Really, on-line capabilities are more of a whole new platform than a genre. It is a means to allow all sorts of games to go in a new direction, and so far we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg. The thing I’m worried about is that in the UK we’ll again be left behind both because of the games companies themselves, and our 3rd world telecommunications infrastructure.
First off, BT – slap yourselves on the back of the wrist. ADSL at 512kbps is not “broadband”. It cannot offer fully streaming video (approx 2Mbps needed for that) as you’re over the top adverts claim. It is not available to anything like the number of people you claim, mostly because you cannot offer the service to people with fibre optic cabling installed in their street and/or house. That immediately wipes out pretty much every house built in the last five years; despite the fact fibre optic cabling is vastly superior to the copper cables demanded for your ADSL service.
Broadband in Sweden means a 6-12Mbps connection, at roughly a twelfth (or twenty fourth) of that BT claims of “high-speed access” are laughable. NTL have also put a major hurdle in the way of people wanting to use a cable connection for on-line gaming. A 1GB per month cap on their service not only calls the “always on” nature of their product into question, but cause major problems for gamers as the Xbox draws on a huge downstream due to lazy net code so you’ll reach your monthly cap very quickly. Estimates vary between 24 to 34 hours of gaming – that’s per month (so under an hour a day) and before you do any web surfing or e-mailing etc.
We are a first world country with 3rd world telecommunications, there’s something to be proud of. We sold off the phone networks to a profit making organisation who take each exchange on an individual level. The fact they’ll rake the money in on busy London exchanges has no bearing on the fact that rural exchanges will struggle to break even. If the upgrade won’t make cash then it won’t happen. Oh, and if you do live out in the sticks its likely the equipment that handles the usual call service in your exchange will be old and outdated. You’ll also have to cover the cost of upgrading this equipment if you want ADSL, despite the fact BT will have to repair and/or upgrade it at some point anyway to provide you with a phone service.
“Oh well then”, you say, “that’s not the game’s company’s fault”. No, but it is their fault that they insist on broadband to play on-line.
An elegant net code can easily run a sophisticated on-line game at 56k. There is absolutely no problem in this, it has been proved already. As graphics get prettier and games physics more complex the amount of bandwidth needed doesn’t change in any significant way. Remember, everyone is playing the same game which generates the game world itself, the only thing that needs to be transmitted are the interactions that are within the scope of the player. Think of the complex movements on an American football field - 30 players and a ball all moving around at high speed. The movement of each of these 31 objects needs to be tracked, with 16 of them actually going each way (i.e. you transmit your 15 players, download the other person’s 15 and then the ball is somewhere in the middle). This sounds complicated, but I’ve played it almost totally lag free on a 56k modem. NLF2K2 on the Dreamcast to be precise, and that was using a US consoles with US servers from the UK. Imagine the difference if there had have been UK servers - zero lag. MMORPGs have been running fine at 56k for years, as have strategy and FPS games. The 56k gaming scene was healthy and totally practical, but those days seem to be gone.
As the world slowly takes up broadband (with us starting way behind and running slower), so to does the internet in general. Already I’ve noticed that there are some sites that I simply can’t use at all as they are made seemingly only for use with broadband services, despite the fact that some simple text information was all I needed. People like both new toys and are lazy. They put in pointless animations and intros without thinking about the slower net users or simply not bothering to optimise their code as much as they used to. This seems to have leaked over into the on-line gaming world.
Microsoft actually boasts that their on-line output for the Xbox is only available to broadband users, despite the fact this wipes out a huge chunk of the people who bought their console. Hell, I’d like the new Splinter Cell missions, I paid just as much for my game as the next guy, but because I happen to live in an area with no broadband capabilities I can’t even make the choice whether I want to bother with the download or not. I also can’t play any of their games online for the same reason. This isn’t because 56k gaming is impossible; it is just because they don’t want the bother of optimising net code and running efficient servers. Sure, I couldn’t use gimmicks like the voice communicator, but I don’t really care about that, I just want to carry on playing games online like I have for the past three or four years over my “slow” connection.
PC gaming seems to be edging this way too. Star Wars Galaxies must be one of the most hotly anticipated games, and great! The spec sheet reads that it’ll work with 56k connections… or will it? Minimum specs are obviously never ideal, in fact they are usually set at the level which will manage to run the game and no more, represented in the fact that most MMORPGs have only required a 33.6k connection. There’s also the fact that one 56k connection isn’t the same as another 56k connection. It alters depending on your modem hardware and software, your ISP and the quality of the line to your house. Sorry to go on about how rubbish BT are, but you know why getting a second line became so cheap when the internet took off? Suddenly people needed a second access point with a separate number; this was subtly different from the traditional business purchasers of additional lines who needed the whole package. So what did BT do? Every house has two “lines” – it’s a co-axle cable. Usually both these lines carry data, but BT would split them apart so instead of one adequate line you have two inferior ones. This leads to slower access and is one of the main causes for the variation in “56k” connections.
Its not like the games companies are really that fussed about this, goodness, like I’ve said, there would be absolutely no problem in any game in development at the moment running over a 56k connection provided the suitable steps were taken. Problem is the code optimisation and server deployment takes time and a little more money. Why bother when internationally most people who are likely to use an online gaming service have access to broadband? The fact that a few miss out is irrelevant as a little more money would have to be spent to catch these people and Microsoft couldn’t charge everyone for the microphone headset, regardless of whether they want it, as it wouldn’t work over a 56k connection if you wanted to play a game at the same time. So, the majority of people in the UK will lose out because of our incompetent telecommunications infrastructure and the lazy developers. We’ll continue to subsidise the development of net code in games despite the fact no effort has been taken to allow it to work on anything other than broadband. We’ll miss out on this exciting area of gaming not because it isn’t possible or profitable to provide the service to us, but because, for some reason, we’ve been labelled as second class citizens not worthy of taking part.
Internet gaming may or may not be the future of entertainment but I, along with many other UK gamers, want in on the act. I have enjoyed many hours with PC online titles with my puny 56k connection, most notably Half Life/Counter Strike and Asheron’s Call have willed away many an hour. These two titles are polar opposites of how you’d interact with your international gaming companions. In Half Life you are out to kill, the only enemies you’ll meet are real people just like you. Some will be beginners learning the game and easy kills for your more experienced player. Others will have spent 18 hours a day in game and will have honed their skills to such a level that by the time you see them death is inevitable. This human aspect makes things exiting, there are no CPU players walking on wires, every participant in this world has a real human brain and will be prone to the same (flawed) thought patterns. You never know what’s around the next corner, you never know if someone has taken up a “camping” spot and is waiting for you to run out in the open so they can sniper you dead. Computer AI can get as advanced as you like, but it’ll never recreate the tactics and mistakes of the real player.
Then we switch to Asheron’s Call at the other end of the spectrum. Here it is total co-operation gaming, the only “bad guys” are CPU controlled. You can team up with other players to take on stronger foe, you can ask for advice, trade objects, pledge allegiance to a stronger player or just sit and have a chat. There’s a large element of camaraderie, heartily encouraged by the game which provides in-game instant messaging facilities much like MSN or ICQ. Add to this the huge world that the game occupies and you have one of the very few games which really does leave the player free to do as he wishes. Seriously, until you’ve played something like this you can never say Vice City gives the player total freedom.
These titles, along with many others, represent internet gaming in its infancy. Really, on-line capabilities are more of a whole new platform than a genre. It is a means to allow all sorts of games to go in a new direction, and so far we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg. The thing I’m worried about is that in the UK we’ll again be left behind both because of the games companies themselves, and our 3rd world telecommunications infrastructure.
First off, BT – slap yourselves on the back of the wrist. ADSL at 512kbps is not “broadband”. It cannot offer fully streaming video (approx 2Mbps needed for that) as you’re over the top adverts claim. It is not available to anything like the number of people you claim, mostly because you cannot offer the service to people with fibre optic cabling installed in their street and/or house. That immediately wipes out pretty much every house built in the last five years; despite the fact fibre optic cabling is vastly superior to the copper cables demanded for your ADSL service.
Broadband in Sweden means a 6-12Mbps connection, at roughly a twelfth (or twenty fourth) of that BT claims of “high-speed access” are laughable. NTL have also put a major hurdle in the way of people wanting to use a cable connection for on-line gaming. A 1GB per month cap on their service not only calls the “always on” nature of their product into question, but cause major problems for gamers as the Xbox draws on a huge downstream due to lazy net code so you’ll reach your monthly cap very quickly. Estimates vary between 24 to 34 hours of gaming – that’s per month (so under an hour a day) and before you do any web surfing or e-mailing etc.
We are a first world country with 3rd world telecommunications, there’s something to be proud of. We sold off the phone networks to a profit making organisation who take each exchange on an individual level. The fact they’ll rake the money in on busy London exchanges has no bearing on the fact that rural exchanges will struggle to break even. If the upgrade won’t make cash then it won’t happen. Oh, and if you do live out in the sticks its likely the equipment that handles the usual call service in your exchange will be old and outdated. You’ll also have to cover the cost of upgrading this equipment if you want ADSL, despite the fact BT will have to repair and/or upgrade it at some point anyway to provide you with a phone service.
“Oh well then”, you say, “that’s not the game’s company’s fault”. No, but it is their fault that they insist on broadband to play on-line.
An elegant net code can easily run a sophisticated on-line game at 56k. There is absolutely no problem in this, it has been proved already. As graphics get prettier and games physics more complex the amount of bandwidth needed doesn’t change in any significant way. Remember, everyone is playing the same game which generates the game world itself, the only thing that needs to be transmitted are the interactions that are within the scope of the player. Think of the complex movements on an American football field - 30 players and a ball all moving around at high speed. The movement of each of these 31 objects needs to be tracked, with 16 of them actually going each way (i.e. you transmit your 15 players, download the other person’s 15 and then the ball is somewhere in the middle). This sounds complicated, but I’ve played it almost totally lag free on a 56k modem. NLF2K2 on the Dreamcast to be precise, and that was using a US consoles with US servers from the UK. Imagine the difference if there had have been UK servers - zero lag. MMORPGs have been running fine at 56k for years, as have strategy and FPS games. The 56k gaming scene was healthy and totally practical, but those days seem to be gone.
As the world slowly takes up broadband (with us starting way behind and running slower), so to does the internet in general. Already I’ve noticed that there are some sites that I simply can’t use at all as they are made seemingly only for use with broadband services, despite the fact that some simple text information was all I needed. People like both new toys and are lazy. They put in pointless animations and intros without thinking about the slower net users or simply not bothering to optimise their code as much as they used to. This seems to have leaked over into the on-line gaming world.
Microsoft actually boasts that their on-line output for the Xbox is only available to broadband users, despite the fact this wipes out a huge chunk of the people who bought their console. Hell, I’d like the new Splinter Cell missions, I paid just as much for my game as the next guy, but because I happen to live in an area with no broadband capabilities I can’t even make the choice whether I want to bother with the download or not. I also can’t play any of their games online for the same reason. This isn’t because 56k gaming is impossible; it is just because they don’t want the bother of optimising net code and running efficient servers. Sure, I couldn’t use gimmicks like the voice communicator, but I don’t really care about that, I just want to carry on playing games online like I have for the past three or four years over my “slow” connection.
PC gaming seems to be edging this way too. Star Wars Galaxies must be one of the most hotly anticipated games, and great! The spec sheet reads that it’ll work with 56k connections… or will it? Minimum specs are obviously never ideal, in fact they are usually set at the level which will manage to run the game and no more, represented in the fact that most MMORPGs have only required a 33.6k connection. There’s also the fact that one 56k connection isn’t the same as another 56k connection. It alters depending on your modem hardware and software, your ISP and the quality of the line to your house. Sorry to go on about how rubbish BT are, but you know why getting a second line became so cheap when the internet took off? Suddenly people needed a second access point with a separate number; this was subtly different from the traditional business purchasers of additional lines who needed the whole package. So what did BT do? Every house has two “lines” – it’s a co-axle cable. Usually both these lines carry data, but BT would split them apart so instead of one adequate line you have two inferior ones. This leads to slower access and is one of the main causes for the variation in “56k” connections.
Its not like the games companies are really that fussed about this, goodness, like I’ve said, there would be absolutely no problem in any game in development at the moment running over a 56k connection provided the suitable steps were taken. Problem is the code optimisation and server deployment takes time and a little more money. Why bother when internationally most people who are likely to use an online gaming service have access to broadband? The fact that a few miss out is irrelevant as a little more money would have to be spent to catch these people and Microsoft couldn’t charge everyone for the microphone headset, regardless of whether they want it, as it wouldn’t work over a 56k connection if you wanted to play a game at the same time. So, the majority of people in the UK will lose out because of our incompetent telecommunications infrastructure and the lazy developers. We’ll continue to subsidise the development of net code in games despite the fact no effort has been taken to allow it to work on anything other than broadband. We’ll miss out on this exciting area of gaming not because it isn’t possible or profitable to provide the service to us, but because, for some reason, we’ve been labelled as second class citizens not worthy of taking part.