Australian WoW servers...

[redarrow]

I'm so jealous of the aussies now they're getting their own WoW servers..

But it got me thinking, as they've been asking for them pretty much as long as SA and if at this stage of WoW Blizzard is actually doing that, then maybe, maybe in another 5 years we can have some real SA servers.. probably not I know, but I can wish.

 

[SYNERGY]

I'm so jealous of the aussies now they're getting their own WoW servers..

But it got me thinking, as they've been asking for them pretty much as long as SA and if at this stage of WoW Blizzard is actually doing that, then maybe, maybe in another 5 years we can have some real SA servers.. probably not I know, but I can wish.

I doubt it Our player base is too small. Maybe in 10 years if WoW still exists...

 

[Pitbull]

But with a ping of sub 300 why do you need a local realm? We're just as competitive I can't be arsed to have a South African server

 

[genetic]

I doubt it Our player base is too small. Maybe in 10 years if WoW still exists...

There's a pretty big player base in SA.

 

[Crowley]

But with a ping of sub 300 why do you need a local realm? We're just as competitive I can't be arsed to have a South African server

Agreed. One of the things that makes WoW great is the interaction with people from around the world.

 

[redarrow]

But with a ping of sub 300 why do you need a local realm? We're just as competitive I can't be arsed to have a South African server

200ms is certainly playable won't deny that, but it's no where near as responsive as 20ms feels.

Agreed. One of the things that makes WoW great is the interaction with people from around the world.

Well it wouldn't need to exclude playing with Europeans.. The Aussie realms for example will remain on the American battlegroups so they still be able to play with them cross realm.
Would just be nice to have a much more responsive experience outside of that.

 

[Yster21]

200ms is certainly playable won't deny that, but it's no where near as responsive as 20ms feels

Maybe my reaction time just sucks, but when I visited my brother in the UK and played some WoW on his PC, I seriously could not feel the difference between 20ms and 200ms.

To give you an idea of just how quick 200ms is, try this.

 

[redarrow]

Maybe my reaction time just sucks, but when I visited my brother in the UK and played some WoW on his PC, I seriously could not feel the difference between 20ms and 200ms.

To give you an idea of just how quick 200ms is, try this.

At face value 200ms is really fast I totally agree, on that test thingy my best was 160ms though my average was only 198. But in a multiplayer game there's more to it than that, or at least there is in PvP (which is what I mostly do) if you have 200ms and the other guy also has 200ms then there's an effective 400ms between you. Ontop of that the game engine and server obviously aren't instant. I've not been lucky enough to play WoW official from within Europe, but I did play a bit on a locally hosted private/emu realm where I had sub 20ms, and to me the difference felt very noticeable.

Ever used a life saving cooldown like Guardian Spirit, had it go on CD yet your target still dies? Has happened to me loads of times, it's not just network lag, Blizzard themselves have said it's partially server engine lag. Though they recently mentioned this should be massively improved in WoD..

 

[SYNERGY]

At face value 200ms is really fast I totally agree, on that test thingy my best was 160ms though my average was only 198. But in a multiplayer game there's more to it than that, or at least there is in PvP (which is what I mostly do) if you have 200ms and the other guy also has 200ms then there's an effective 400ms between you. Ontop of that the game engine and server obviously aren't instant. I've not been lucky enough to play WoW official from within Europe, but I did play a bit on a locally hosted private/emu realm where I had sub 20ms, and to me the difference felt very noticeable.

Ever used a life saving cooldown like Guardian Spirit, had it go on CD yet your target still dies? Has happened to me loads of times, it's not just network lag, Blizzard themselves have said it's partially server engine lag. Though they recently mentioned this should be massively improved in WoD..

Already improved currently in patch 6.02.

Commands were usually processed in batches every 400ms. Now its done as soon as its received...

 

[aelar]

Maybe my reaction time just sucks, but when I visited my brother in the UK and played some WoW on his PC, I seriously could not feel the difference between 20ms and 200ms.

To give you an idea of just how quick 200ms is, try this.

Fair point regarding the human response time not being able to exceed the connection speed but that is completely irrelevent? Considering that connection speed and human response time is combined making a total of 400ms on average which is almost half a second. where as people from overseas have only 0.2 second window to respond where as we have 0.2 seconds ontop of our current 0.2 connection delay? i may be wrong, but thats just me.

Also latency does play a major part in DPS, currently i do fall just below our current hunters as a result of the delay. Despite spell break downs being almost identical the only difference is they get 2 or 3 more abilities off than i do. Which in certain aspects of the game matter. Thats the main reason i give myself all the personal responsibility jobs in our raids.

Also, in CM's those 0.4 seconds really show when your busy pulling an entire room and need to land your CD's in the perfect time. Its not fun, but i wont say its not doable.

 

[Yster21]

I would agree that in PVP, you are at a huge disadvantage if the time you have to react to another person's actions is very small. For instance, having to counter a 1sec cast-time ability. I avoid PVP like the plague, though. The same is true for moving out of the "bad stuff" in PVE, such a frozen orbs in D3 on high GRs, where more than one tick equals death.

On PVE DPS I would have to disagree to quite an extent, especially knowing how Blizzard has changed the communication mechanics between server and client a couple of years ago. In the past, the client would block you from being able to spam, for instance, the fireball button in an attempt to send a packet to request the next cast of the spell before the spell has finished casting on the client side. People got around this by creating a macro for each ability with a /stopcasting command, and making use of an Add-on called Quartz which showed your latency as a percentage on your cast bar. When your cast timer enters the section of the cast bar that indicates your latency, you can cancel the current cast, and the cancellation packet would not arrive in-time at the server to cancel it, thus allowing the cast to go through, while you have already started casting a new fireball.

Blizzard removed the client-side blocking of additional ability-use requests, and now you can spam your fireball button to your heart's content, and the server will verify whether the cast is to be allowed or not. Making use of Quartz, you can to a very large extent negate your latency issues, assuming your latency is very stable. From my experience, I have had no issues keeping up with EU-based players when it came to DPS, assuming similar gear. What it came down to more was class balance, gear and my personal ability.

It also seems Blizzard did some bad things in the way they implemented message handling between server and client, and only eventually corrected it after a couple of years (such as the 400ms batch processing of incoming heals).

Unfortunately the latency will always be a problem when trying to be a top tier player, as those precious 150ms will make a huge difference to the end results. But! In 95% of all cases, it shouldn't be as huge a problem as we think, especially just plain PVE DPS.

P.S. I have no idea what "CMs" are

 

[Yster21]

Double post

 

[freeek]

I wouldn't play on a SA only server, too few people. If they did something like have a realm that is connected to other euro realms then that would be cool.

 

[aelar]

Unfortunately the latency will always be a problem when trying to be a top tier player, as those precious 150ms will make a huge difference to the end results. But! In 95% of all cases, it shouldn't be as huge a problem as we think, especially just plain PVE DPS.

P.S. I have no idea what "CMs" are

My DPS in raids does take a small hit from it thus making me have to give myself all the ... utility jobs? to compensate, enrage timers an all. but now those are not a problem, most of SoO Mythic is a joke at the moment. Siegecrafter 38 seconds? ye, its stupid.

CM's are challenge modes. not the hardest content in the game, but you certainly need to min max your gear and use every GCD you can perfectly.. which obviously with delay, is a problem.

 

[w1z4rd]

But with a ping of sub 300 why do you need a local realm? We're just as competitive I can't be arsed to have a South African server

Thats class dependent. Its hard to be a really good rogue or mage with 250ms of latency. Stuff like healing or tanking is easy though. Though this is more pvp specific. You can get good dps rotations with a mage in pve.

 

[Henry.de.kock]

Latency does play a big role in WoW PvP and PvE. If you raid heroic (now mythic) during progression every milisecond helps, some abilities is pre-casted by classes (hunters - glaivetoss) since it does not start auto attack once the cast is started, and thus saves a global for when the fight is ongoing, dispells is crucial and you dont want anything ticking for too long and the faster the dispell the less healing required, interrupts aswell. So there is allot depending on latency, yea 200ms is not that bad, but still it is a delay.

Just my 2cents

 

[Pitbull]

Latency does play a big role in WoW PvP and PvE. If you raid heroic (now mythic) during progression every milisecond helps, some abilities is pre-casted by classes (hunters - glaivetoss) since it does not start auto attack once the cast is started, and thus saves a global for when the fight is ongoing, dispells is crucial and you dont want anything ticking for too long and the faster the dispell the less healing required, interrupts aswell. So there is allot depending on latency, yea 200ms is not that bad, but still it is a delay.

Just my 2cents

This was fixed a long time ago. One can pre-cast your next spell as the cooldown is quicker than the actual cast. Not by much also a split of a second. This was implemented a very long time ago. Think it is/was called spell queue or something, back in 2010 already if I'm not mistaken.

 

[aelar]

This was fixed a long time ago. One can pre-cast your next spell as the cooldown is quicker than the actual cast. Not by much also a split of a second. This was implemented a very long time ago. Think it is/was called spell queue or something, back in 2010 already if I'm not mistaken.

Although true there is spell queing, the fact is latency players a fair amount in DPS, over a 10 minute fight, your spell usage compared to someone with a lower latency will be less. only by a small margin, but its still less. which overall is noticable.

For example on a 38 second fight (Lol siegecrafter mythic) its retarded and the duration over which your latency adds up is minor giving you higher overall damage and less lost to latency as where a 10 minute fight.