Viewing Thread:
"The 56K - The Endangered Species"

Whenever i try to settle down to a nice game of Operation Flashpoint these days, I can't. It takes 10 minutes for Gamespy to find me a selection of servers with remotely playable pings (always in the 300-400ms range), and they never seem to be running my favorite maps. But even if I try to join one of these 'playable' games, I get kicked! Why? Because some snotty 10-year old kid on a T3 dosen't want 'no lam3r ona 56K' to risk lagging his game. For every 10 servers I try and join, I get around 1 to 2 games out of it. Somehow, not being able to afford the luxury of a broadband internet connection has become a crime amungst the gaming world.

And its not just games like Operation Flashpoint with obscenely bad netcodes either. Quake3 powered games have a built-in function that prevents someone with a ping above 100 from even joing a server! The ironic thing is, people on dialups have LESS choice about what server they can get a good connection too, and yet this is becoming even more limited. I've spent endless nights sitting in front of my monitor, taring my hair out yelling 'FFS! ALL I WANT TO DO IS FRAG SOME NAZIS! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!?!?!' This is victimisation, this is all down to a few peoples selfish greed over getting those precious few more micro-seconds off their ping that the rest of us have to suffer, and it has to stop.

Broadbanders, next time you play spare a thought for those less fortunate then you, and remember the people you came from before you stand on them all. You could also say 'how dare they use Doom III technology! That won't even run on my 486! what the Hell was wrong with a good ol' top down scrolling shooter?'. Broadband is driving the industry forward and making gaming more enjoyable for everyone with it. If you don't have the technology, there's tons of other options - play single-player, play older games online, get a console - but just don't expect the industry to slow up for you. Broadband is from £14.99 a month in a suitable area, get it while it's hot.

I can't get NTL (although all other ISP's like Pipex etc seem to be fine). I can get ADSL, but it's expensive! The incensing thing is that my friend, who lives about thirty seconds away just around the corner on the next street, has a 1Mb upload/download on a free trial. The bagger! Up the road there are people with mega ADSL connections. Apparently there isn't much 'demand' for it in our area, so looks like I'm doomed to use my 56k for a while more. On the games side of things, I'm with Freeserve AnyTime and over the last 6 months it has become steadily faster and playing online isn't too bad anymore (if I'm playing Tactical Ops or Soldier of Fortune 2, that is). I can only put this down to an increase in people using broadband in other areas and not hogging all the Freeserve bandwidth, which is better than nothing I guess.

I am sure some scientist will discover cable/ADSL makes you more prone to cancer or something stupid like that. Ah, the wonders of science. :P

Thanks for reading,
Shaun.

Whenever i try to settle down to a nice game of Operation Flashpoint these days, I can't. It takes 10 minutes for Gamespy to find me a selection of servers with remotely playable pings (always in the 300-400ms range), and they never seem to be running my favorite maps. But even if I try to join one of these 'playable' games, I get kicked! Why? Because some snotty 10-year old kid on a T3 dosen't want 'no lam3r ona 56K' to risk lagging his game. For every 10 servers I try and join, I get around 1 to 2 games out of it. Somehow, not being able to afford the luxury of a broadband internet connection has become a crime amungst the gaming world.

And its not just games like Operation Flashpoint with obscenely bad netcodes either. Quake3 powered games have a built-in function that prevents someone with a ping above 100 from even joing a server! The ironic thing is, people on dialups have LESS choice about what server they can get a good connection too, and yet this is becoming even more limited. I've spent endless nights sitting in front of my monitor, taring my hair out yelling 'FFS! ALL I WANT TO DO IS FRAG SOME NAZIS! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!?!?!' This is victimisation, this is all down to a few peoples selfish greed over getting those precious few more micro-seconds off their ping that the rest of us have to suffer, and it has to stop.

Broadbanders, next time you play spare a thought for those less fortunate then you, and remember the people you came from before you stand on them all. You could also say 'how dare they use Doom III technology! That won't even run on my 486! what the Hell was wrong with a good ol' top down scrolling shooter?'. Broadband is driving the industry forward and making gaming more enjoyable for everyone with it. If you don't have the technology, there's tons of other options - play single-player, play older games online, get a console - but just don't expect the industry to slow up for you. Broadband is from £14.99 a month in a suitable area, get it while it's hot.

I can't get NTL (although all other ISP's like Pipex etc seem to be fine). I can get ADSL, but it's expensive! The incensing thing is that my friend, who lives about thirty seconds away just around the corner on the next street, has a 1Mb upload/download on a free trial. The bagger! Up the road there are people with mega ADSL connections. Apparently there isn't much 'demand' for it in our area, so looks like I'm doomed to use my 56k for a while more. On the games side of things, I'm with Freeserve AnyTime and over the last 6 months it has become steadily faster and playing online isn't too bad anymore (if I'm playing Tactical Ops or Soldier of Fortune 2, that is). I can only put this down to an increase in people using broadband in other areas and not hogging all the Freeserve bandwidth, which is better than nothing I guess.

I am sure some scientist will discover cable/ADSL makes you more prone to cancer or something stupid like that. Ah, the wonders of science. :P

Thanks for reading,
Shaun.