Improving My Home Technology

About a year ago, I could tell that there were some things that needed to change at home. For starters, I felt really strangely about all the windows on my property, and I knew that I wanted to change them. I began going through and working to make things better, and it was really interesting to invest in technologies that were so beneficial. It made it easy to make sure that my doors were closed and that my windows were locked, and I was grateful for the new technology. This blog is all about home technologies that could help your family.

What Does Internet Mean For Gamers?

Technology Blog

The internet has changed gaming in big ways, allowing both game player communities and independent gaming collaboration to spread across the globe. Unfortunately, gamers use the internet in ways that aren't always supported by local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) without a little prodding and explanation. To understand what your needs are and why they're different from the norm, here are a few internet use details for different levels of gaming:

Lobby Games, Limited Multiplayer, And Fighting Games

There are a few different ways to play games on the internet. Some games are multiplayer online, meaning that you have a small number of people connected together to compete or cooperate. There's no set number for what multiplayer versus "massively" multiplayer means, but multiplayer games tend to have 4-10 players before the system becomes unstable.

If you've played games such as Halo, Left 4 Dead, Borderlands, or CounterStrike, you're playing a limited multiplayer game. These games usually connect everyone to a central server, and small matches of specific players are started on demand.

Players are connected to a lobby, which usually has a chat interface, a list of ongoing matches, and some information about the game. The lobby can only test if your internet is working or not; the actual match is where your internet performance is tested.

An older version of multiplayer involves connecting all other players to a specific player's computer or console. This is being phased out in lieu of hosting game servers at the company's expense since the costs are usually low; many servers with short matches can be run on already existing equipment instead of buying and supporting separate servers, so the only danger comes from the company running out of business.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games

The contentious face of online gaming is the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) industry. As mentioned before, there's no set number for what "massively' means; it's mostly a spur of the moment term used by developers in the early MMO games, who were equal parts business engineers and fun-loving gamers for the most part.

Thousands of players can be connected to single servers, although it's more likely that hundreds are online at any given time. This means that the servers hosting MMOs are usually a major feat of engineering in their own right, and are responsible for quite a few innovations and technical discussions that other, more mainstream businesses benefit from today.

Websites may have a lot of users, but MMOs bring a new kind of traffic where a lot of interactions and accurate results have to come from fairly complex human actions. If you're playing a game such as World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Rift, Everquest, or Wurm, you're dealing with a persistent world where players may be online all the time in the game world, and some tricky network techniques are necessary.

This means that your internet doesn't need to be fast, but accurate. There is a minimum speed for everything, but every mainstream MMO can be enjoyed to their fullest potential with the average internet speeds in the US in order to attract the most customers--as long as your internet isn't being slowed down elsewhere.

You will need more than speed tests, but the games are your tools. Is your internet fast, but still causing your Mage to take 10 seconds to cast an instant spell? Are soldiers running in place one second, then standing over your defeated body the next? Contact an internet service provider like Valley TeleCom Group to discuss performance issues, and make sure that they know you can feel the performance in-game.

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25 September 2017