Forum post of the day: Dialing it in
by Amanda Dean 
Aug 4th 2008 at 6:00AM
I've been what you might call and internet junkie for about 15 years. I remember the old days of 2400 baud dialup. Highlighs of that era include bulletin boards, IRC, and elm for email. At this point I could not imagine life without high speed internet. Data transfer for WoW during playtime is minimal, but I had no idea that some people use dialup for WoW. Kaikais of Azgalor asked the general forums today how far one could go on dialup.
He says that he's reached level 70 and is now faced with the challenge of gearing up his characters. His concern is being able to seriously raid or PvP with such a connection. Some mentioned that they have either experienced dialup themselves or have had raid members that relied this type of internet connection. Many reported lag and limitations with Ventrilo, most seem to be getting along alright on an old school connection.
Some are of the opinion that broadband is a must, although a high speed internet connection is not available in all areas. Noctu of Skull crusher pointed out that a dialup connection does have its advantages. Other players are also forced to deal with lag which can sometimes make them hard to hit.
I can only imagine how painful updates would be on a dial up connection. In light of this post, I imagine we must have some dialup readers at WoW insider. Is a high speed connection required for your teammates?
Filed under: Blizzard, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nick S Aug 4th 2008 7:01AM
arena play on dialup would be... limited.
Kevin Aug 4th 2008 7:07AM
i've used dial-up for about a year. till my mom got broadband. let me tell you..IT SUCKED. i couldn't do any pvp, go into any major city, and had to wait 2-3 seconds after clicking an instant spell for it to cast. imo, broadband is a must for playing wow.
Mask Aug 4th 2008 7:11AM
Thats so weird because Everquest played fine on dialup. I was even able to raid in EQ without too much trouble (72+ person raids at that). Now I know WoW is a much newer game, and has higher processor and video card requirements, but I cant imagine the bandwidth usage to be so much different.
MightyIdle Aug 4th 2008 8:50AM
I have a guild friend who plays on dial-up. At times it can be pretty bad. The fact they are a healer makes it hard to plan any runs around her.
On an unrelated note, will I ever be able to spend a single day within the WoW community without hearing about EQ?
Aggrajag Aug 4th 2008 7:15AM
2400 baud? Luxury! My first modem was asyncronous 300/75 baud.
We used to have to lick road clean wi' tongue (c) Monty Python.
vlad Aug 4th 2008 10:46PM
rad, i had that on my trs-80
@everyone else..
what?? get some broadband you sillies :)
i got my first broadband connection in 1997 and never looked back. just did a speed test at speakeasy and got 20029kbps :) (2432 up)
thats 357 *56.6k* modems (43 up)
do it! youll love it
Zarfay Aug 4th 2008 7:19AM
I have a data allowance (Australian internet is VERY limited) and when it is exceeded I go down to dial up speed. However this is barley a problem (I can has REAL aussie servers?) compared to my constant internet connections which started mysteriously a few months ago and to top that off my computer has recently started to randomly shut down so I have only ever done Kara twice and I have been 70 for 4 months (plus I haven't done any 5 man instance in 3 months either)
So as you can see dial up is absolutely nothing in comparison the constant problems I have. Learn to appreciate what you have before whining about dial up connections.
P.S I'm a healer >
Larry-Steve Aug 4th 2008 7:26AM
It COMPLETELY depends on where you live. In larger cities (in my exp in the US) I could get some major lag during prime time with 'high-speed' cable. We swiched to DSL living downtown and I had no issues with lag, thought transfer rates were lower.
I have some family that lives in the suburbs and it seems you don't really feel the big prime time lag with cable.
I've found wireless sucks, regardless of what comes out of the router, goest into the modem, and goes into the wall. Hardlines help a TON, at least with main stream rounters. (If you have a $500 wireless router, don't reply; you're in a different category).
It also depends on your lines, be them ethernet, cable, the phone wires (can't remember their name) or what have you. Old ones won't work as well as newer ones. If you have your cables going through an area of high moisture, the cables can become saturated. You won't notice watching TV; you will notice while gaming.
Zephyr Aug 4th 2008 2:44PM
I have to disagree with you, when you say wireless sux ;) Im ISP in Czech Republic and i dont have any problem with connection. Must is good signal, without that youll have problems with every rain or storm unless you use 5Ghz frequency. My latency never goes over 100ms average is 60. And answer to this article is : HIGH SPEED is needed :) I remember times of dial up and it really sux now i have 10/10Mbit 1:1 and im glad for it.
pblt Aug 4th 2008 7:41AM
Ahh..Dial-up. I live in the boonies, no broadband available. I have 2 connections to WoW from my secluded area: Dial-up and a Satellite connection. My wife prefers dialup as she sits at anywhere from 500-1000 ping. My line never seems to stay connected so I use satellite where I average 1500-2000 ping, and pray on raid nights that the weather is good. She is a raid healer and one of our top ones I am the Main Tank for our weekly kara clears, We really dont have issues, even in 25-mans like Gruuls we are fine, it is not as great as broadband of course. I used broadband for many years before moving to my house in the sticks. But you learn a key piece: Anticipation. I need to try to best guess whats going to happen 2 seconds ahead of time all the time. So far things work well. Its not a perfect system but I get by. In Arena we still do good. Our 3v3 stays around 1450-1500 and we average about 50 matches a week for fun. Although in Arena vs PVE the anticipation factor is swayed it is actually still there, when you have to think 2 seconds ahead you start to watch closer and realize what people will do 80% of the time. Time is always against you but the game is still playable. -Shok of Duskwood
Soatari Aug 4th 2008 6:15PM
I'm in the exact same boat. I play on satellite and a good 90% of the time I'm sitting at 1400-1500 ms latency. I still function just fine in raiding and pve, and only have a little frustration in pvp. The trick is to get accustomed to always having that 1.5 second latency and think ahead of the now.
My guild is starting progression in Hyjal, with the first two bosses down. I've been raiding as a resto shaman since kara with 1500ms latency, and I have been complimented as being one of the best healers they've raided with.
Socordia Aug 4th 2008 8:18AM
We had a warlock raid MC with us over 56k dialup. Worked fine, some d/c sometimes, but usually ok.
And hey, that were 40 people generating traffic, now it's only 10-25.
PeeWee Aug 4th 2008 8:21AM
Ah, 33€ a month for a no-capped 100/100 Mbps connection.
You gotta love Sweden.
Well, I also remember running a BBS having a 400 MB HDD lying in a Tupperware box, connected to an Amiga. Dial-up is teh shit. "screeeeeeech biong bleeeeeep blep whiiiii krtrrrrrrr"
hpavc Aug 4th 2008 8:48AM
i know people that raid dialup, limit the EVENT_ notifications for sure.
William Aug 4th 2008 9:20AM
Typo in the first sentence? LOL
Menalaous Aug 4th 2008 9:29AM
Gotta love sweden? Gotta love Canada too then. I live out in the BumF*** no where in northern BC and have high speed. Hell I can drive around town in a car and never loose internet connection or strong signals at that.
(on a quick side note) Mean while my dad just got back from 2 weeks in Washington and Oregon camping and couldnt find wireless anywheres. Not even locked ones in the cities (not bashing the states, lots of american friends)
While I've never played WoW on dial-up I know people who have, as well as Eve, FFXI (anyone remember that one) and a few others. Hell I even used to play Rainbox Six, Ghost Recon, and America's Army on dial up though. Just have to watch your times and not try and down load a thousand background items at the same time. (would hate dial up with add-ons going :()
Brad Aug 4th 2008 9:39AM
I'm on dial up right now. Usually we get to play on broadband, however my wife downloads a lot of music and tv episodes and we go over our download limit, getting shaped to dialup speeds.
I'm 300kms from a major town, though only a few kms from an exchange and have a ping of 250 - 300, same as when I'm on broadband.
You can play fine, though for vent or ingame voice I need to use a high speed connection, else it just comes through as a half second spurt f voice every ten seconds or so.
Australia needs to get it's shit together and get some decent internet connections. I'm moving to Sweden after reading PeeWee's post. He has a 75 times the speed of my broadband, no limit and a third the price...
ThorinII Aug 4th 2008 10:33AM
Had a hunter in a BRD pug this past weekend that kept getting DC'd because his dialup connection was acting up. After several DC's it finally stabalized and he was able to finish with us, but he even said if it happened again he'd leave so we could get someone else. Of course, that's when it started workng. HMMMMM... :-)
juicyjuice Aug 4th 2008 10:35AM
Ive played on dialup pretty much my entire wow career. It works perfectly fine for gameplay. The only problem i have is being on vent while logged in. Vent just sucks up all the bandwith my tiny little 56k connection can handle, and even though wow takes very little bandwith it just cant run with vent connected.
The ingame voice chat is a whole different story though. It works perfectly fine as it runs through your wow connection as opposed to alongside it. I cant understand why people still use vent to be honest, voice chat is there for a reason, but noone uses it.
Sadly, the one area where dialup really hurts is in the difficulty in getting to know other players and guildmates especially. I cant tell you how many times ive been logged in for a while and suddenly noticed how quiet it was in gchat, so i say something and everyones like "man, weve been on vent for hours, log on"! Its really kept me from honestly getting to know any players more than superficially, and ive been playing this game for almost 3 years :( I guess the good side is that its kept me from getting too sucked into the game, and encourages me to get out for some actual human contact. Then again, as you can guess, a lack of broadband in the area is pretty strongly correlated with a lack of other basic amenities in the area as well, so its never too long before Im back home logging in. Rinse, & repeat.
I think the real story here is what a terrible job the communication companies are doing at providing data services to the public. Its such a small percentage of the population that actually does have access to high speed services, its much less than you might think. I can literally walk down to the end of my road and plug into a high speed cable connection 1 mile from my house, but because the population density down my street is too low,the phone company wont lay high speed land lines down the road.
Thander Aug 4th 2008 1:25PM
The problem is communications companies don't make a profit in those areas, and the government is not interested in subsidizing those companies to get them to do it.