CUEmu - Thread Posts

DarthVaul

Mon May 02, 2005 6:04 am

Aside from everything else in the CU, there is the small issue of patch size. 400 Megs or so, I believe. Breaking that down into time required for a continuous download:

On a 2Mbps line: 1,600 seconds minimum (about 20 minutes)

On a 1Mbps line: 3,200 seconds minimum (about 40 minutes or so)

512k? 6,400 seconds minimum, about 1hr and 50 minutes

Ona typical 56k connection (about 40kbps): 80,000 seconds. 22 hours and 15 minutes. The Launchpad seems to think 37 hours, but it's frequently been wrong before.

Add to it the charming habit my ISP has of disconnecting unmetered dialup every two hours along with Launchpad's tendency to drop however much of a file it has downloaded if the connection so much as flickers and you can probably double that in practical terms. Then bear in mind that I can get maybe 6 hours a day dowloading time, if I forgo all other Net activity (and accept having sleep interrupted every two hours to restart the connection). In practice, let's say around 4 hours a night (you try waking up at 4 in the morning to reset a connection).

This patch effectively boots non-broadband users like myself from the game. No apology. No warning. Not even a "guys-you-might-want-to-borrow-someone-else's-connection-for-this" hint. A nice little moneyspinner for SOE would have been to burn the patch to CD and mail it out to those who didn't mind paying about 5 quid for the privilege (and to cover P&P). I'd imagine even some broadband users would pay up to avoid going through that download again if they needed a reinstall. Apparently this didn't occur to anyone at SOE.

But then I shouldn't be surprised, should I? After all, those of us stuck on 56k thanks to the telecoms companies (roll on Wednesday, that's when my exchange finally gets its ADSL upgrade...allegedly) are the untermensch of the Net. Still, in two weeks I'll be back in the game with a shiny new phat pipe.

I just hope the structures and vendors are still standing when I get to them.

Flatfingers

Mon May 02, 2005 11:49 am

#2

DarthVaul, I'm stuck in the same boat you are.

Due to my incredibly shortsighted decision not to live in Austin or San Diego, the best I can get where I liveis 28.8 kbps.

Which translates into 36 hours of download time required.

Which is bloody impossible because the patch_15_00_blah.tre file is so huge that ittakes over 9 hours to download, by which time either my ISP has disconnected me or my wife is threatening to disconnect some other part of me because she can't check her email.

Did the patch_15_00.tre file really have to be oneenormous file?

Constructive suggestion:Can this file besplit up into smaller filesso that modem users who get disconnected don't have to retry a nine-hour download again? In other words, could you please set the maximum size of any file to be downloaded to, say, 50 MB? That would go a long way to retaining dialup customers.

As it is, the twodouble XP weeks will be over by the time I get the whole CU patch loaded... if I don't decide first that SWG clearly doesn't care for my type and gofind someone who won't slap me around while taking my entertainment dollar.

--Flatfingers

Flatfingers

Mon May 02, 2005 11:50 am

#3

[Bah -- new forum software stalled on my first attempt to submit the above message. Duplicate edited.]

Message Edited by Flatfingers on 05-02-2005 01:53 PM

RogueFettt

Mon May 02, 2005 5:15 pm

#4

DarthVaul and flatfingers,

Check your PMs

Message Edited by RogueFettt on 05-02-2005 05:21 PM

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Thread: CU, aka Goodbye-56k-week?