I’ve never used a Tunnel for playing WOW. It was one of the things I have held out on – I thought it was kind of silly to have to need to have to use a tunnel just to play a game right.
However recent developments, and an ongoing thought process was that at this I think this is as good as I am ever going to get, made me remember there was one thing I hadn’t tried, and that was playing using a tunnel.
So I tried Lowerping. I paid for a month – only $7.95 AU I picked a paid service because I hear more complaints from people using free tunnels that it makes their lag worse.
I was curious as to how it much of a difference it made. I know going from 3g internet to adsl made a massive difference. Yes I used to raid in BC on Satellite broadband.
So I had been looking forward to loot night to test it because it’s the one night we get to clear untill LK – it’s the best test under a raid situation with lots of fights ect.
I had made sure I has tested it before raid, and had been running round in BG’s with it . However in ICC I started getting massive lag in the middle of trash – I had made it to Marrows room before my screen froze for several min Had to muck around with relogging in so much they had to go without me, and Marrow died with me stuck outside. I changed servers – relogged, restarted ect
I made it up the ramp. Through some of Lady’s trash and about 1 min into the fight I got Dc’d again, changed lowerping server again, untill finally Loot boat and I seem to have found a nice comfy one, and got through Rot, and fester without spikes , and there is no logs from last weeks fight so I can’t compare in detail, butI had recount running, and I don’t think there was significant difference in my performance. I was more curious as to dot uptime/mf ticks because I think I should see even a slight change.
It’s nice to have a pretty green lag icon – I’ve gone from 400-500 depending on a zone, to 212-250 – It feels smoother, if that makes sence.It’s made tanking a little easier on my Warrior too. So I think it has made a difference to my playing, and game experience, and at this point going back to higher lag is just not acceptable so at this point I will continue the service. It just took a little bit of fiddling round to find a better server to connect through.
However the main motivation around getting it was performance, I believe I picked up a little, I still did the usually things, dps’d add’s ect. I got called out when I didn’t use mass dispel on Bloodqueen because an officer knew what I was not doing because I blogged about it, and that started a whole drama of its own – where basically I had to defend the existence of my blog. Which given I had been open about it from the start was upsetting.
I kn0w a week or so may not be an empirical test, but it’s enough. I think I have reached my peak for now. Peak in skill / ability / patience / care factor – and I am not seeing the numbers other people are expecting to see. but I need a break. I’m not happy – I think I have tried everything reasonably possible, and I should be seeing at least 1k -1.5 k more I guess, and I don’t want to run the risk of another post upsetting people – and I want to attempt some semblance of life outside 4 day raiding committment again.
So where to now?
I need to find a oceanic server to park my main on to level to 85 ( Non Pvp) realistically I probably could level to 85 in Pvp gear since the initial cata content will not require a tier 10 4 set bonus to fight, but I think I would get frustrated rather easily trying to level and quest on a highly populated Pvp realm, and if there are no reasons left to stay here then – Aventure Ahoy.
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Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog 
you can come and join me on Dath’Remar, however I am in NZ so probably on earlier than what you would be
Dath used to be my home, still have a few people I know that are still playing – hearing that the merge between the top alliance and horde guild has put a dampner on other progression guilds though, and I think I may have burned a bridge by leaving a raiding guild after our guild blow up last year ( and the reason I am on BR) – that I had been in for less then a week to follow peeps to BR…
Arozcaldo on Alliance Caelestraz would love you. Raiding once per week. We also have 3 bloggers already. http://foo-wow.blogspot.com
Come join the Horde on Frostmourne.
Big communities and lots of places to raid. Plenty Alliance side too.
but but Pvp….. and leveling while pvp can’t be exciting – and shall take twice as long 🙂
So does this mean you are done with raiding?
I will probably re-activate when Cataclysm is released. Some people are still left on Dath’Remar. Many are too set in their ways to give up the pwning life. But there are others around; we can probably figure something out. I imagine the game will be a lot more fun if you give up the nonsense of Hard Modes and Achievement Hunting.
I think done for now for pre cata – but I wouldn’t mind ‘casual’ * oh the horror I thought you reactivated already.. did you stop again? I like working towards something – hardmodes became the mark of progression rather the normal boss kills – that seems to be how it’s evolved, and I don’t mind that.
I tried to play again with the self-acknowledged “casual” people, but the time commitment was no different and the rewards were no better. I decided to step out after that.
I’m not against hard modes in principle, but they are very dependent on getting everyone to play together, and to perform well. There are too many reasons why that’s not a sustainable model. They either result in enormous time sinks while waiting for the stragglers to catch up, or in arguments and breakups.
I’d rather just set the bar low, run a few raids until you finish it on regular, and then stop, unsubscribe, and wait for the next patch content.
Hard modes are more fun, and they have a place among the competitive, but to me they aren’t worth the time sacrifice.
If you change your mind come 4.0, I will probably be around.
I’m pretty un-motivated now I’m back; aside from leveling a horde-side rogue to do the new troll quest chain (it sounds better than the disappointing gnome one), there’s not really anything to hold my attention.
Still no plans for Cata; indeed, I haven’t even decided if I want to stay on Dath (I still love my dwarves, although I may be deleting and re-rolling a couple of them), build up a group of horde characters on another server (mostly goblins I suspect, if I take that route), or start over on a new server entirely.
Guilds are a catch-22 for me; I just don’t like investing time in a group of strangers, even though I’m well aware that without that investment they remain strangers and I stay unguilded (and complain about it). Still, I’d like to be part of a small, preferably sane, guild again so I guess I’ll just have to bite the bullet at some stage; it’s just hard to motivate myself with Cata still coming “Soon™”.
If you give up on Lowerping, I’ve found Reducethelag halves my latency, and the Help folk seem to work around the clock and put up with my complete PC noobness with courtesy and good humour.
Saurfang is Oceanic, has a low pop, is PVE, and is quite friendly. Just not terribly progressed. You could do a lot worse.