Internet and the Future

[UKSpartan]

I have played BF2 and one of the things I learnt from that was the sway to people not allowing pings above 140 in rooms.
As graphics improve and game intensity (bearing in mind people have less time to play and when they do they want the best from their connection and graphics) increases I can see some of the faster games becoming more localized as to those playing them. Already you see Europe only etc lobbies so unless a major improvement in the net occurs as a whole.
I run a 24 meg connection but recieve about 12 from its locality from substation, so what does the future hold for those with far less money to spend as games like Crysis call for constant updates in machine spec to run at peak perfomance

[kalniel]

I think better games can be made with higher tolerance to latency.

Supreme Commander for example is an amazing game online, with loads going on, however it is completely oblivious to pings of anything lower than 500ms. Bandwidth is a far more important factor and I think things will be heading in this direction. SC also uses a peer to peer multiplayer model, which is quite neat.

[UKSpartan]

But online shooters demand the most from a ping and its unlikely that with top graphics running that you will be able to compete

[kalniel]

I think that's only if they continue to use a traditional server-client model. That isn't the only model for online shooters, and it's quite possible to engineer latency resistance into even fast paced shooters online.

The rest of the population prefers bandwidth to low latency from their internet connection, so that's the way nearly all providers are heading. Online shooters are not so popular that they can dictate market conditions for service providers, so it's them that'll have to adjust to the new trend, and they will (and are doing) :)

[UKSpartan]

Sounds very good and technical, but I feel that its not a quick cure and technical specs for alot of games are out pacing the spending capacity of the average player.
I am lucky that I have upgraded but in another year what I own will probably just be capable of running the normal game so do the manufacturers engineer a game which will appeal to more people across the average machine spec (thus increasing game sales) or a higher spec game which will appeal to only a smaller audience but these sales will be augumented by their shares/involvement in hardware contracts as people upgrade.
The computer world is a very devious area streching far beyond the a games sale or server rental.

[kalniel]

Ah, now we're onto the discussion of why games developers write games that try to take advantage of the best hardware out there, rather than the worst. That's nothing to do with internet capability and is a whole different kettle of fish ;)