Help! What download limit does a MMORPGr need?

PaleScene

We're looking to finally get moving and switch broadband, having sat tight since Orange was Freeserve. We've overpaid horribly for ages, for which I hang my head in shame, but it's the speed the rest of the world wants to move at which is finally forcing some action because our 512mb feels like dial-up lately.

So the good news is - any speed increase is going to be good, since we're about 4x slower than anyone is offering anyway, and virtually every package out there is a better price... but the bad news is I'm just confused by the limits and packages and so not going any further forward. All the guides and advisory stuff I've found couch things in terms of downloads of music/tv as an example and that's not very relevant. I tend to surf about and occasionally use i-player or youtube but otherwise am probably a quite vanilla user. My oh however is a keen and prolific user of both Eve and World of Warcraft, bother Multiplayer Massive Online Role-Playing games which I imagine must suck-up something on the limits?

Any advice would be most gratefully received

Kelticfox

MMORPG dont use a lot of bandwidth...... a modern misconception that I've heard a lot of.

What your other half needs is a low latency (or ping as its more commonly known).

Your ping shouldn't really change much from ISP to ISP and there a number of very easy ways to check.

What you need to check out is the Download Limits on your package as games such as WoW & EVE patch quite a lot and this can seriously cut into your DL Limit.

Also a note to point out that WoW uses torrent traffic to distribute its patches and this is Traffic Managed (Bit like Limited but not entirely) on pretty much all ISP's

If you want any more infor drop me a PM and I'll point you in the general direction you should go.

PaleScene

Thanks for your reply Kelticfox - I'm going to get oh to read it as I understood not much

Kelticfox

PaleScene wrote: »

Thanks for your reply Kelticfox - I'm going to get oh to read it as I understood not much

Well to explain it simply:

Games dont download much. What games need is the data to go back and forward fast.

You latency (or ping) is basically you computer going "Are you there" and the server saying "Yep, I'm here". Your computer records how fast it travels and gives you the figure in milliseconds.

For instance:
====================================================
C:\Documents and Settings\Jay>ping https://www.moneysavingexpert.com

Pinging https://www.moneysavingexpert.com [213.129.82.52] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 213.129.82.52: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=51
Reply from 213.129.82.52: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=51
Reply from 213.129.82.52: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=51
Reply from 213.129.82.52: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=51

Ping statistics for 213.129.82.52:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 39ms, Maximum = 41ms, Average = 39ms

C:\Documents and Settings\Jay>
====================================================

I told my computer to ping (record how fast) the data between my computer and the MoneySavingExpert website. It then goes "Are you there" and 39 milliseconds later it gets the reply "Yep, I'm here"

39ms is a good speed to have for a ping (slightly lower then UK average). I also happen to know where MoneySavingExpert have their hosting (as I've spoken to their Tech guys before when they had a problem :P )

On MMORPG its all about how fast your data gets to the server and how fast the server talks back (hence ping).

If your Other Half wants to run some tests then drop me a PM and I'll give you my mobile number to walk him through it.....