[MUD-Dev] Making the Customer Pay for Patch Bandwidth

[Robert "kebernet" Cooper]

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 16:52:54 -0500, Michael Hartman
<michael at thresholdrpg.com> wrote:
> Corey Cauble wrote:

>> I really hope that this is not the future of online game patching
>> or distribution. This is what we pay $15 a month for IMO, not so
>> they can use my bandwidth for free (particularly if we are
>> limited in usage like Mr. Rozak here.)

> It is unconscionable that if I want to be able to download the
> patch at better than 2 kb/second I have to share my own bandwidth
> to upload the patch to other people.

I really don't see the probem here.

 1. That 2kb/sec is about what your 56k user has anyway, so they
 aren't really making demands on people that don't have the
 bandwidth to spare. What if they put a 4kB QoS cap on the
 downloads? Would that be better?

  2. Patches are a burst bandwidth activity and paying for high
  volume burst activity is expensive. BitTorrent has the advantage
  of making high volume burst activity much more efficient. (See:
  widescale adoption in the Linux community) I get much better
  download speed on "Patch Day" from Blizzard than I have gotten
  from any other MMO out there. "Burning" 30kB upstream bandwidth so
  I can get an 80kB downstream at path+0hour is much better in my
  mind that getting 5-10k downstream that I typically saw from SOE
  or FunCom, and it is certainly more affordable than raising
  subscription fees.

--
:Robert "kebernet" Cooper
::kebernet at gmail.com
>>There are roads which must not be followed,
>>armies which must be not attacked,
>>towns which must not be besieged,
>>positions which must not be contested,
>>commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.
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