MMPORG options for those living in the stinking 3rd world countries

[Gorky]

First some background,
My MMPORG experience started with AC in 2000, which I continued playing for 2 years. I then tried and got hooked on EQ's atmosphere and crafting (dont ask) and got a barbarian shaman to 50 before getting burnt out. I am an explorer/crafter type and prefer swords and sorcery settings.

I am currently in India and while I have a DSL connection, its capped at 128Kbps and has a latency of 280+ to any servers outside India (due to the ISPs gateway being in singapore). I was wondering which of the recent releases would be playable with this setup and have some sort of online purchase/download option which accepts international CCs?

Any ideas/suggestions would be welcome.

[Evangolis]

I can't think anything will do well with that sort of latency, although your bandwidth should be fine with just about everything.  I would think you'd have better luck with Asian games, as I would expect their latency to a Singapore gateway to be much more reasonable.  On the other hand, there are Australians playing on US/EU servers, so who knows.

[Samwise]

Puzzle Pirates, maybe?  Avatar movement isn't that important in it, and the puzzles are done client side.

[Strazos]

It really depends on what languages you are proficient in.

I'm thinking Asian WoW or LineageII (UGH) servers would do well enough.

You could also break down and get Ragnarok Online. It's like Anime crossed with Fantasy.

[pants]

Don't listen to the Americans, they know nothing of high pings :)

I'm in Australia, and have regularly been playing US-based mmorpgs.  Raw pings are normally in the 200-300 range (ie pinging the website), add in WoW's crappy servers and my pings are normally 500.  Game is still fine.  These things are designed not to be overly twitch dependant, and it does fine.  Any of the mmorpgs should be fine.  Remember, they are designed for dialup to use

128kbps is fine too - they dont suck a lot of bandwidth.

[Strazos]

Don't try to PvP with a ping that high...

I still think ping even half that high would be detrimental. I've seen weird effects with better ping.

[Big Gulp]

Wait for Dawn to come out.  I hear their crack staff has found a solution to the latency problem.

[Gorky]

so umm... I'll just sit here chewing on broken glass and scrubbing my eyes with steel wool while waiting for Dawn (tm) to come out with its negative ping code...

Btw, Teh Hate (tm) must have really grown strong here to recommend Ragnorak to someone!@#$@$@!!@@#@

er... and anyone still have one of those 14 day free trial keys for CoH lying unused?

[Tale]

I agree with Pants. Every PvE MMORPG on the market is very playable with pings under 500ms and bandwidth under 128Kbps. Most will even play fine on a 56K dial-up modem. Packet loss is your enemy, not latency. If your connection is dropping packets like crazy, you can't tell what's going on and your actions appear to have no effect, but with high latency and no packet loss it's just a few milliseconds of extra time between pressing a key and seeing the result.

I'm in Sydney, Australia. There is 150-200ms of Pacific Ocean between me and the nearest US MMORPGs in California. I've been a MMORPG player since 1999, in one of the top two Aussie MMORPG guilds. On 1.5Mbps DSL my best ping to WoW is 230ms and that's pretty normal for our guild (in EQ we were one of the power guilds on the Tribunal server, raiding every night with no real problems). Most of us played the first year or two of EQ on 56K dial-up with pings of 400ms or higher. The European players had a similar experience until MMORPGs started opening servers in Europe, and it didn't bother them either. Unfortunately the Australasian region doesn't have the population to support servers, so we are now MMORPG latency geeks.

PvP is more twitch-like and ping-dependent, especially on who gets the first blow. But my guild is doing well on Blackrock (PvP server) in WoW and the extra 150-200ms isn't really that much in a game based on long refresh timers and weapon delays. PvP knowledge can beat low ping any day in a MMORPG.

[Calantus]

Don't try to PvP with a ping that high...

I still think ping even half that high would be detrimental. I've seen weird effects with better ping.

300ms is a good ping for me. If the lag bar in WoW ever turns green I savor the moment because it will be gone in a minute or so. That said... either people really really suck in an order of magnitude incomprehensible to myself, or the latency doesn't make too much of a difference. That said, if my ping in CS ever hit 80 (is normally 20) I'd quit the server til it got better. MMORPGS just don't have the same requirements IMO.

[schild]

300ms is a good ping for me.

300ms ping is unplayable to me. It's awful and should not be tolerated with a monthly fee. I get a 16ms ping to f13. 23-60 when I'm in UT2k4. That's on a router with 4 other people. If Blizzard or anyone for that matter can't do better than that, it's just shameful.

[Big Gulp]

er... and anyone still have one of those 14 day free trial keys for CoH lying unused?

Check your private messages.

[Big Gulp]

I agree with Pants. Every PvE MMORPG on the market is very playable with pings under 500ms and bandwidth under 128Kbps.

Or it could be that Aussies, with their natural state being shitfaced drunkeness, can't notice the difference.   

[Gorky]

er... and anyone still have one of those 14 day free trial keys for CoH lying unused?

Check your private messages.

Thanks, will let everyone know how bad it really is as soon as I can log in

[Tale]

300ms ping is unplayable to me. It's awful and should not be tolerated with a monthly fee. I get a 16ms ping to f13. 23-60 when I'm in UT2k4. That's on a router with 4 other people. If Blizzard or anyone for that matter can't do better than that, it's just shameful.

Why do you blame Blizzard, when high latency is probably a function of distance from the servers (geographical or network distance), and/or Internet conditions between the user and the server? If the latency was Blizzard's fault, it would be common to everyone using the same part of Blizzard's network. If my pings are under 350ms to one of WoW's worst-performing servers (Blackrock) from Australia, then anyone in the US who has that kind of ping probably has network issues outside Blizzard's sphere of control.

To f13, I get a 227ms ping because I'm in Australia. That's a good ping to a US site. Try pinging whirlpool.net.au, a popular Aussie forum site with lots of bandwidth - I get 30ms to that, you'd get 200+.

Or it could be that Aussies, with their natural state being shitfaced drunkeness, can't notice the difference.

How did you manage to type that while shooting Injuns, drinking moonshine and yelling "howdy pardner" in the Wild West all day? 

[schild]

300ms ping is unplayable to me. It's awful and should not be tolerated with a monthly fee. I get a 16ms ping to f13. 23-60 when I'm in UT2k4. That's on a router with 4 other people. If Blizzard or anyone for that matter can't do better than that, it's just shameful.

Why do you blame Blizzard, when high latency is probably a function of distance from the servers (geographical or network distance), and/or Internet conditions between the user and the server? If the latency was Blizzard's fault, it would be common to everyone using the same part of Blizzard's network. If my pings are under 350ms to one of WoW's worst-performing servers (Blackrock) from Australia, then anyone in the US who has that kind of ping probably has network issues outside Blizzard's sphere of control.

Because I got a higher ping to Earthen Ring than I do to f13. One is a state or 2 away, the other one is 2,000 miles away. The closer one had near quadruple the ping. It's easy to blame Blizzard when it actually is their fault.

[Gorky]

ok, 800mb client download, 380mb patch download and 10 hours later, I managed to login to CoH. Created and levelled a Tech-lightning-Blaster to almost level 4 and found that...

300ms aint nothin' in CoH. No lag, no rubberbanding, no slow interface response. Everything is as smooth as silk. And god I love the combat mechanics,makes you feel like a hero right from level 1!

Best part is my CC was accepted for subscription, even tho they refused to let me buy the game online, go figure.

But being an explorer/crafter type, I dont know how long an MMPORG based solely on combat will keep me interested.

[AOFanboi]

But being an explorer/crafter type, I dont know how long an MMPORG based solely on combat will keep me interested.

The explorer in you can look for badges and historical plaques. However, quite a few of the plaques are hard to spot (on walls), and some of the badges are awarded for visiting obscure locations (few rcognizable landmarks, often just a particular spot in a backyard or on a rooftop). Maybe you can consider it some challenge.

[Big Gulp]

How did you manage to type that while shooting Injuns, drinking moonshine and yelling "howdy pardner" in the Wild West all day? 

It wasn't easy.  And I was also eating twelve Big Macs to keep my big ass sufficiently Americanized while driving around in a 4 mile per gallon SUV land behemoth.

[schmoo]

But being an explorer/crafter type, I dont know how long an MMPORG based solely on combat will keep me interested.

You can:

Make a zillion alts and experiment with different powersets.

Play with the difficulty 'slider' and see how well you can solo missions at the highest setting.

Spend 6 hours at a whack doing taskforce missions with 3-7 teammates with weak bladders who insist on eating Cheetos while playing.

Copy a character to the Test server and 'test' Issue 4 in a few days (PvP arenas, lots of new costume choices).

Enter a costume contest.

Go to the Paragon Dance Party place and, well, dance.

Complain loudly about the huge number of kills it takes to level from 27 to 28 (or any other pair of consecutive numbers over 20).

And play the ever popular "omfg!!11 u nerfed {insert archetype here}!!1111" game on the official game boards.