I've been contemplating on whether or not I should buy Guild Wars. Every time I go buy a new game, I always happen to see Guild Wars staring at me, and I'm tempted to buy it, BUT one thing keeps preventing me from actually owning it - do you really HAVE to participate in the online aspects of the game? (I would assume since it is an MMORPG.) I know I can play without having to pay for a(n expensive) subscription, but my reason is I simply CAN'T play online because I'm still on frackin' DIAL-UP!

I certainly feel your pain, although I am not on dial-up, I am on satellite. I have the speed to play online, but only during a certain time of day, in perfect weather. And if I connected a game, it would take about 5 minutes to exceed the "fair access" policy and then my speed would drop to HALF that of dial-up for 24 hours! Every time I see that little redheaded wench on that commercial, I want to shove that dish... wait, oh yeah your question, I asked the same thing about Guild Wars and I was told that it was strictly online. I did not look into the issue further, I just took the word of the person who responded to me.

Strictly online!

you might want to do a bit of research before you rule it out completely, though, as it may well not need very much bandwidth. Many games don't. for example, I have played EVE Online, with premium graphics content, at a speed with a cap of 1.5kb/s (long story- suffice to say some ISPs do not like online games), and it never actually reached that. Sure, it was very slow, but it was playable. And now I regularly play it at a speed of aout 38kb/s, and it runs perfectly, with no problems at all.

So, you may well be able to play fine on dialup, but i would recommend looking into the requirements first to make sure.

I haven't been able to play a decent RPG since PSO on GCN (not the best RPG, but decent), and the only one that (so far) has been able to meet my expectations is Oblivion, but I've been craving something else that isn't TES.

BTW, what the hell is a "fair access" policy? My ISP doesn't have such a policy (regarding dial-up that is, as it's unlimited for $23.95CDN/mo).

EDIT: I'd like to retract that last statement about PSO being the last decent RPG I played - that actually was Tales of Symphonia (also for GCN), and it was (by far) better than any RPG released during the life of the GCN.

Supposedly there is a limited amount of bandwidth available over satellite, so "fair access" ensures that everybody in a given area gets equal amount of internet speed and online time since that is what they pay to have. In my case, it is complete bullsh*t because I know for a fact that there is no one else with satty internet for at least 40 miles in any direction. So who the hell am I "sharing" with? This is not in any of the advertisements or the documentation that accompanies the service, in fact they will not even tell you about if you ask directly, unless you threaten to sue for false advertising and report them to the BBB like I did.
Your ISP does not have this policy because it is impossible to download that amount of content in a 24 hour time period. When I say it like that, it makes it sound like I have to download a lot to go over my limit right? Put it this way: Say I want to use that awesome new mod, but I have to update my game first. First, I have to figure out when my connection is running fastest today, which is usually retarded late at night (which is why so many of my posts are between midnight and 5am). Then when I finally download and update my game, 7 out 10 times, I will have to wait until tomorrow to download the mod because doing both the same night puts me over limit and my connection speed drops down to between 1.5 and 2kb and stays that way for 24 hours. Yeah, f**k me sideways with a garden shovel.

That's stupid - I've never heard of such despicable bigotry before I know sat internet is a compromise between dial-up and DSL, but to have such fackered bandwidth restrictions (especially since YOU'RE the sole user in your area) is completely absurd Your ISP should realize that it's YOU who keeps them in business buy paying for bandwidth that YOU rightfully own (well not own, but it's you who uses it, not them ). And it's not you who should plucked sideways with the garden shovel, it's your ISP that needs to curb-stomped and skinned like the gutless turd minions they are

Well put rob_b


Woogie,

It ain't right, don't they have any compitition.

I have heard of dialup DSL but don't know anything about it.

I've been on DSL since the beginning of time. (before there was cable)

Wish I could lay down the fiber optic for you. Fix you up right.

(BTW, I think you have one of the coolest sigs on the web)

They do have competition, but they are no better. There is another satty company with much better business practices, but they are way more expensive. Here's one of my famous comparisons for you: Would you rather be skinned alive and set aflame before before you bleed to death or set aflame and skinned alive before you burn to death? Whichever company you choose, you'll just wish there was a third option to get shot.

Thanks about my sig, Stormraven.

Well, I guess it's to be expected in the good ol' U.S. of A. - at least in Canada we have laws that prevent companies from getting overly greedy (not that I'm saying companies aren't gonna take advantage of their customers, they still do since we still end up having a battle and a half in court , which btw isn't any better than the courts stateside.)

Things like this happen the world over. I live in Wales, and am paying for 8 meg broadband, but the highest I've ever seen it go is 2.1 megs, and that was just once. Usually it's around 1.5. On top of that, my ISP has decided online games are evil, and so blocks them during peak hours. Completely. And their definition of peak hours seems to be about 14:00-01:00, to make matters worse. It's reached the point where I'm having to pay even more to another company, http-tunnel, to use their special software designed to work around stuff like that (for those of you who don't know, it encrypts the data and sends it to their own server via port 80, the http port, and then their servers send it on to wherever the data's trying to get to).

And you know what? They were voted Britain's most popular ISP too... this is the point where I die laughing...

I expect most members of this forum have a similar story to tell about their own ISPs as well- if someone can show me an ISP that actually does what they promise, I'll eat my hat.

3Mbs for me... never got passed 500kbs
General idea: divide the speed they promised by 6-7 (10 in the worst cases) and you'll have a basic idea of the real speed you'll get