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It was a warm afternoon in the
Stroggos sunlight. I strolled the hallways of The Pits, rocket
launcher cocked, humming a little tune to myself. I strafed
stylishly around a corner to clear anyone hiding there and continued
whistling. I was about third on the list of players on this
particular day, and considering the lag I'd been experiencing, I
didn't think that was half bad.
"LPB lamer," I saw in the upper left of my screen. The insult
obviously wasn't directed at me; with my temperamental 49 Kbps
connection here in Wyoming, I'm sometimes convinced that my packets
still get to the server via the Pony Express. The slur was aimed at
the top player on the server that day, a guy with a ping of about 50
and all the rail slugs he could carry.
I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a little annoyed when someone
with a cable modem or better tags my laggy ass on a routine basis
and makes me feel like a gagged-and-bound duck in a shooting
gallery. But I've never once stopped to point out their obvious
advantage. Why? Because the LPB who frags you today is who you'll be
tomorrow.
This point was driven home to me when I saw the results of the last
PlanetQuake poll. When asked how annoyed they were with the constant
Q3:A updates, the majority of those polled said that it didn't
matter as they were LPBs. Now admittedly, the margin was narrow at
28%, hardly an indication that almost every Quake player is an LPB.
But it reinforced the idea that more and more people are getting
better and better connections to the Internet, and this makes
perfect sense.
Remember when PCs decked out with the latest in graphics
acceleration and processor speed cost nearly as much as your life
savings? How long did it take for the price to come down? Not long.
Nowadays, it's so commonplace to have high-end graphics acceleration
in your PC that game manufacturers, like id Software, are releasing
products that won't run under anything less. Are people complaining?
A few, but for the most part, we just go out and upgrade, because it
really doesn't cost that much anymore.
The same is true of almost any technology, whether it be 3D graphics
cards or Internet connections. Getting something like an ISDN line
installed a year or two ago would have been unheard of unless you
were running a business out of your home. Now it's a possibility for
the average person. For example, the phone service provider for the
Rocky Mountain area offers a 256 Kbps connection for only $30 a
month, the same price it would cost to have a second phone line
installed for your 56.6 modem.
It's this exponential drop-off in cost that makes insulting an LPB
an exercise in futility. Those who hurl the verbal stones at the
connection-advantaged will eventually, if not soon, find themselves
on the other side of the virtual fence. They may sling the mud at
LPBs today, but if someone offered them a cable modem connection
that they could afford, they'd be in the leftmost lane of the
information highway faster than a cop to a doughnut shop.
Of course, there are those of us who will have to wait a lot longer
for a better Internet connection. Practically drooling over that 256
Kbps line, I dialed the number to my phone service provider and
hurriedly explained that it was exactly what I needed.
"No problem, ma'am, I...oh, wait...it says here you live in
Wyoming?" The voice at the other end had the same tone in it that
someone would use to say, "you left your sweaty socks on my dining
room table."
"That's right," I replied, still hopeful.
"I'm sorry, we don't offer that connection in...Wyoming." He had a
hesitation in his voice when searching for the name of the state
that suggested my chances would have been greatly improved by living
someplace else, like Paraguay.
I hung up, despondent, offering up my future first-born to the gods
to get a better connection to the Internet, something that would
allow me to actually aim at my opponent instead of three days
ahead of them. Instead, I realized that I am, for now, doomed to the
life of an HPB, never to get that choice connection speed.
But you go ahead. I'll be right here, strapping my rockets to the
next rider on the Pony Express. |
