series-of-tubes
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The Daily Grind: Is your bandwidth too slow?
Pando Networks recently released a study measuring internet speeds all across the world. Not surprisingly, South Korea came out at the top of that list with an average download speed of 2,202 KBps. To MMO gamers, our connection is our life. We don't enjoy a hiccup in the tubes, but it gives us a handy excuse when we die in PvP, right? Government restrictions, lack of proper infrastructure, and a general lack of technological understanding and foresight all contribute to the slow speeds that plague the rest of the civilized world. So with this Pando study in mind, we'd like to conduct an informal study of our own among the greatest internet citizens of all time: the Massively readers. What's your internet speed? Is it too slow, too fast (impossible!), or just right for your gaming needs? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
CCP acquires new FCP hardware to fight EVE Online lag
Insomnia can be dealt with in different ways. Some people count sheep. Others pop pills. For those of us whose eyes are prone to glazing over upon hearing computer-related techno-babble, reading a dev blog such as the new network performance-related piece from CCP might be just the thing we need to start nodding off. All kidding aside, though, EVE Online is continually waging a war against lag, and unlike multi-shard MMOs with servers spread across different physical locations, CCP's sci-fi sandbox is beset with numerous technical challenges stemming from its one-server setup. Making matters worse for the IT nerds at the Icelandic development studio is the fact that tons of people like EVE, and those people are constantly setting new concurrent user records and pounding the heck out of Tranquility. CCP Mort's blog entry details the company's newly purchased Flow Control Platform (FCP), which "ties in closely with our Edge routers; it monitors all traffic to and from the game cluster, has a BGP peering relationship with the Edge routers, and monitors the pipes to our providers for bandwidth and errors." The short version is that FCP is CCP's latest offensive in the ongoing lag wars saga, and the company remains committed to perfecting the EVE Online experience going forward.
Allods Online poster contest offers in-game rewards
Everyone knows that the internet was created for two things. One is Lolcats, and the other is... not what your dirty mind was assuming. No, in fact, the second grand purpose for the series of tubes is to allow the mass dissemination of bazillions of those black-bordered (de)motivational posters. To that end, gPotato is conscripting its Allods Online fanbase to add some more to the mix. A new Allods contest requires players of the F2P fantasy title to snap an in-game screenshot (sans the UI, of course) and paste the image into a black box using a graphics editor. Add a bit of humorous white text and you've got yourself an entry that could win you a large incense kit, a chest of costumes, a fashionista's trunk, five stamina elixirs, and five luck elixirs. Entries are due by Friday, March 4th, and you can submit them -- as well as learn more about the contest -- via the official Allods forums.
Fallen Earth loses and promptly recreates fan page
Apparently, it's possible to misplace a fan page. No, really. We were a little dubious about it at first ourselves -- after all, how can you lose part of the worldwide series of tubes -- but if Fallen Earth has managed to do it, then it can be apparently done. The official site has broken word that while attempting to update the game's fan page on Facebook, the page apparently... vanished. Never to be seen again. Which might come as a shock to the many people who are fans of the game on the popular social networking site. Fortunately, the minor hiccup is being taken with a good sense of humor by the staff, as evidenced by the first official post on the recreated fan page. What exactly happened to the original page? No one is certain, although perhaps it'll show up in a few months with a large beard and a drug problem... but hopefully not. In any case, if you're one of the many who has found something to enjoy about Fallen Earth, point yourself toward the newly recreated fan page to reconnect with the game's official Facebook feed.
Obama's FCC transition co-chair is a WoW player
var digg_url = 'http://wow.joystiq.com/2008/11/20/obamas-fcc-transition-co-chair-is-a-wow-player/'; I've had a political dream for a while now that I think all of us WoW players can agree on: someday, I hope, we will have a President in the White House that plays videogames. We're not quite there yet, but we're closer -- apparently, Obama's FCC transition co-chair is a WoW player, and has played in two different endgame guilds, including Joi Ito's famous We Know guild. This is a guy who knows all about the communities that these MMOs create, and just how awesome it is to run through Karazhan, or grind PvP for a Merciless Gladiator weapon... and he's been selected by the incoming President of the United States to run the FCC. That's beautiful.Too many government officials (both Democrat and Republican, this isn't partisan at all) suffer from the "series of tubes" mentality -- they are being asked to regulate and coordinate things that they don't understand at all. But getting guys like Kevin Werbach in there, no matter what your political affiliation, is a great step forward for all of us gamers -- we'll have people behind the regulatory wheel who know how important and wonderful virtual worlds like Azeroth can be.Waltermonkey on Livejournal actually uncovered the guy's Armory profile (and has some great insight), and yes, though I'm sure some of the comments below will be about how you'd never be able to run a transition team AND get to level 80 at the same time, Werbach's been playing recently -- while he's still only level 70, he's actually got the Jenkins title. We've got a Resto Shaman helping run the FCC -- how awesome is that?
How to keep raiding when the power goes out
The thing I love most about summer is the thunder storms. Forget the constant days of 90 degree weather making my apartment bake even when the air conditioning is on, it's those storms rolling in with lightening striking a few hundred feet from me that I love. My guild-mates are going to love that too, especially when I'm raiding with them.We've had our first couple weeks of this in game, and already I've heard "Be right back, Tornado," from some guildies living down in Kansas. Luckily everything was okay and no one got hurt, but the fact still remains – we lost our head Mage for 30 minutes, and that's 30 minutes of our life we can't have back!While a Mage having to take a break in the middle of raids isn't a show stopper, having the main tank (my role) go offline is. I've had the unfortunate situation of having that occur a couple days ago. The computer I was raiding on wasn't plugged into my UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply), so I was disconnected from everything when we lost power for about 30 seconds. However with a bit of tinkering around, I was able to put myself in a situation that lets me stay on even when the power hiccups.
