Archived from groups: alt.games.wolfenstein (
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<Steve@NOSPAM.com> wrote:
>Are there any here that play Enemy Territory over a modem connection? I am
>curious to hear their experiences.
I've played ET for 6 months on 56K, then 6 months on ADSL, so I hope I
can give you the perspective you're looking for.
With a modem you're more limited in terms of servers (even some of the
ones with a good ping don't work too well), and playing with more than
perhaps 20 other people is pointless (it gets too jerky). Having said
that, you can still have a lot of fun and play a useful part in the
team. After a bit of practice (which I would have needed anyway had I
started with broadband) I could always finish in the top 1/3rd in
terms of XP (I don't play for XP, I play to win the map for my team,
but it's a handy reference), and sometimes finish top overall - and
fairly regularly top medic or engineer, my preferred classes.
You *will* be at a disadvantage when it comes to 1 on 1 SMG fights,
and will lose most of them. Ping really counts there. So you don't
play that way. There is easily enough variety in the game to have fun,
get satisfaction and play for the team without an awesome ping or 1337
twitching skillz. Play medic and support the guys doing most of the
shooting, or field ops and lay down artillery and keep everyone
supplied with ammo, or engineer and lay mines and use rifle
grenades... But don't use the panzerfaust till you consider yourself a
good player - with power comes responsibility!
I had loads of fun playing ET over a modem and I got pretty good at
it, despite the occasional frustrations (OK, at least one shouting at
the screen having died within 0.5s of seeing my opponent incident
every time I played!). I got good enough that I got a couple of
invitations to join clans.
Going from a modem to broadband (512kbps ADSL) did make a big
difference though. Instead of the dozen servers I could get
consistently good pings to I suddenly had 100 to choose from. The
people I was shooting at stopped jumping 3m at a time and started to
move smoothly, which made shooting them a whole lot easier, so I could
play every role in the game well. With a modem you can be damn good at
60% of the game, and hold your own at the rest. 60% of an awesome game
was enough to keep me playing a few times every week.
You will never be the best player if you're playing over a modem, but
you can be better than most and have a lot of fun doing it. I'm not an
awesome player. I'm good, but even now I have the ping to match most
of the other players I'm still far from the best, so don't think I'm
some kind of freak whose experiences playing over a modem are
particularly exceptional.
Tim
--
Love is a travelator.
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