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

[Byron Ellacott]

Robert "kebernet" Cooper wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 16:52:54 -0500, Michael Hartman

>> 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.

The problem is twofold.  First, it's highly unethical, if not
outright theft, that Blizzard uses end user bandwidth to run their
business.  The ToS does not include anything about this; it is never
explicitly agreed to.  This alone should be reason enough to be up
in arms over the downloader.

Second, BitTorrent is highly unsuited to patch downloads.  Peer to
peer networks are zero sum -- a voluntary network relies on a
sufficiently high percent of users being willing to upload
substantially more than they download, ie, to share the data.  The
involuntary Blizzard peer to peer network relies on unattended
downloads and bad upload/download ratios to counter the users who
get a fast download and then close the downloader.

It is unconscionable to ask end users to continue donating network
resources to Blizzard after they have completed their own download.

>  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?

The 2kb/sec Michael referred to is the speed you can download if you
"opt out" of the file sharing, either by not allowing public access
to the required ports, or clicking the "opt out" checkbox, or having
your ISP restrict the well known port numbers for bittorrent that
Blizzard's downloader uses.

Home broadband solutions are frequently asymmetrical.  ADSL
obviously is; my cable connection is uncapped down, 128kb up.
Blizzard's downloader suffers from a further technical problem in
that it does not allow for any upstream throttling, and many people
find their upstream link congested, which of course interferes with
ack transmissions and kills their download rate[0].

A 4kB cap for all users would be a great deal fairer, and more
clearly show the root problem: Blizzard is either unable or
unwilling to provide the support infrastructure needed for MMO
patches at their current subscription fee.

>   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.

The adoption of BitTorrent in the Linux community has one major
difference: it was adopted by willing users to help support each
other. Thus, there is a percent of users donating their upstream
bandwidth to other users.  In the World of Warcraft case, this
percent is close to zero: how long after you downloaded 100% did you
leave the Blizzard 'down'loader running, and what was your ratio of
data uploaded to downloaded?

Anecdotally, you got a good transfer rate and a good speed ratio,
but your usage will be atypical.  Close to the patch launch, there
will be many clients uploading.  As time moves on, there will be
fewer and fewer clients uploading as downloads complete and the
'down'loader is closed, which means if you started at patch+12hours,
you would see a different story.

Alas, it seems that the downloader feedback thread on the official
forums has been lost.  I suggest that next time there is a World of
Warcraft patch, you browse the General forum and read the downloader
feedback thread that will likely be created.

--
bje

[0] Tech savvy users can throttle the outgoing traffic using third
party programs, but one should not need to install a traffic shaper
to download a patch at a reasonable speed -- and limiting your
outbound traffic will limit your inbound traffic too, with the way
BitTorrent works.
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