Behind the Curtain: Looking to the future : World of Warcraft General Discussions

Behind the Curtain: Looking to the future
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion, Behind the Curtain
I was reading an article on the BBC News Technology pages the other day, and it piqued my curiosity.

The availability of super-fast broadband is about the only thing that's likely to entice me to move back to my home town.

But how much bandwidth do you need to kill ten more foozles?

Ofcom , the organisation which - among other responsibilities - monitors ISP in the UK, recently reported that the average home broadband speed here is 3.6Mbps. A quick Google search suggests that speeds in the US are similar.

Broadband speeds are climbing, there's no doubt about that, but upload speeds still lag behind download speeds. I imagine that this is one reason preventing developers from getting really experimental with interactivity in MMOs. If your players' bandwidth is being taken up just shunting the basic game data back and forth, why bother eating up the rest of it with something that might just end up being window dressing?

Continue reading Behind the Curtain: Looking to the future

Behind the Curtain: Looking to the future originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments


Author: Craig Withers
Category: bandwidthbehind-the-curtainbroadbandbroadband-speedfeaturedgame-mechanicslord-of-the-rings-onlinelotroworld-of-warcraftwow
Publish Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:00:00 EST
Read more...