BBC Blog Network

User Profile

edmundmc

Listed below are comments made by edmundmc between Saturday, 18th October 2008 and Saturday, 18th October 2008.

«Newer
Older»

The cost of Warcraft 1:45pm on 18 Oct 2008
"I've just read a technical paper by Austrian scientists called "Traffic Analysis and Modeling for World of Warcraft" (pdf link), and I'm none the wiser, though I think what they're saying is those gamers use a lot of bandwidth. "

Well you are partly wrong here. Warcraft can be run on a dial-up connection for all activities except patching. It uses very little bandwidth for regular play. Next time, try to find a source you understand, rather than quote something you clearly did not read.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/technology.html

The above faq states a 56k connection as the minimum required to play the game.

A patch of this kind happens around every 18 months, its basically a complete new version of the software. Similar to the large Windows service pack your computer may decide without asking you.

To be honest, if you are to complain about this sort of bandwidth usage, then you would not be able to download rich media content from Itunes etc. As the web develops and better media quality becomes available, bandwidth usage is obviously going to rise.

Software especially games, that are delivered online is a big growth area, so expect it to rise even more over the next few years.

This is just the purchasing though. Properly programmed, an online game should use very little bandwith during actual play. This is a good read on the actual mechanics of the game World of Warcraft:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/world-of-warcraft.htm

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

edmundmc