Intermittent EnemyJuly 2nd, 2008 by Leslie
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One of the most horrible, frustrating and agonizing enemies of gamers these days isn’t a boss.
It isn’t pixelated, doesn’t have HP, has no corporeal form, and it is invincible. It strikes without warning, especially just at the moment you engage in combat, and the result of its onslaught is usually death.
It speaks to gamers in the harshest tongue, more hideous than that of Mordor. It says, “You have been disconnected.”
The overlords of the Tempest Keep saw an inconsistent lot of 20 concurrently online and fully functioning usurpers several weekends ago. The challengers had much going against them outside the realm of Dreanor – perpetually under par Internet service and lag spikes.
They managed to do what needed to be done, however, with the disconnected cavalry arriving just in time when their connections had restored themselves. “Just in time” refers to 20% of each boss mob’s health points, for your reference.
The official GDG LinkDead Award goes to: Paladin #2, for his smashing 12 unique renditions of “Elf faceplants wall”. Yes, 12.
If I were him I’d have had my entire modem/router combo splayed about the floor, cords in a jumble, while I sit fuming and listening to the ever-enraging hold music Time Warner forces their customers to endure.
A primarily PC gamer’s bane in the past, this phenomenon has reached its icy grasp out to the many console gamers who are now connected to the Internet for their gameplay. I can laugh a little at that - now you feel my pain.
There’s nothing quite like your main tank dropping the wire while distracting the only enemy you have not yet downed in the game from devouring your entire raid. Nothing like being close to the win in that PvP battle and watching as everything freezes into place.
And then there’s nothing like being greeted by your now rather unforgiving teammates once your ISP-forced incarceration is terminated.
Sure, some situations can be funny.
In my first several years of online gaming as a child, back when I was into such frivolous and ridiculous things my character disconnected during her wedding. Mid-vow. Oh, my poor e-husband-to-be. I am only sharing embarrassing stories of youth because I love all of you precious, precious GDG readers, I do hope you know.
But I digress.
Most of the time the humor isn’t there, and you just want to stomp on bunnies. A whole darn lot.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Just about every single time I get a good killstreak going on COD4, my wireless decides to fail. Anytime I do anything useful, it fails. I connect to XBL via the ethernet port on my laptop and it is extremely unreliable. It really does make me want to cry.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Ironically, City Of Heroes just went down….all of its servers just lagged and crashed, and I’m reading this while waiting to reconnect. >_> Seriously, talk about irony. This would be funny if my team wasn’t on the last mission of a raid right now.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Brittany - That’s terrible! Wireless is horrible to deal with sometimes. I’ve been sick in bed all day and just when my show on Joost got good, the wireless went out. It was stellar, forealz.
Jacob - That really is ironic. It made me laugh a lot, but I am sorry about your servers - hopefully your team can complete the mission without anymore issues!
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:56 am
This is kind of why I’m scared of playing anything online seriously. As much as getting disconnected isn’t my fault (aside from when I accidentally kick a wire or something), it makes me feel so guilty when I lag out or something. But I must say, I personally love ending games as a host in COD4 when I’m really laggy only because all the 14 year-olds start screaming OH YOU PUSSY I WAS GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!!!
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 am
Playing hardcore TA in Phantasy Star Online, and getting a party member DC just when you were set to get a new time record is THE most frustrating game experience I have ever endured, bar none. Once kicked from the party, you couldn’t rejoin. Sickener.
Ahhh, I could have been a 3 hour Fonewearl, but had to make do with a sub 3 hour 30 time instead. Bleh.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I got D/C today in Team Fortress 2 when i was like 20 sec away from reuturning the intelligence to win a game that was at least 2 hours long. I threw some stuff, like my mouse.
I have the worst online gaming setup with my wireless. Its fast, but the connection isnt stable. I cannot tell you how many pyros have killed me because I was making out with the wall for 10 sec
July 4th, 2008 at 4:29 am
AHH WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR STEAM WHY ARENT WE PLAYING TOGETHER!
July 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Ah man, I used to have the WORST connection at university… I would play WoW, and end up d/c and running around the world when nothing else was moving. SO frustrating. Usually right when you were about to complete some quest too.
I wish people would figure out a way to make wireless more stable!
July 4th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Vlad - PSO was definitely mean regarding that!
Demo - That’s sad
You’re just a lovely sitting duck in that situation.
Keira - I can’t play WoW at all at my university. There’s actually been posts on the Blizz techncial forums about UC. Totally infuriating!
July 5th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I used to play WoW during class, I have no idea why your wireless sucked! *point and laugh?*
July 5th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Oh shut up!
UC’s entire network, wireless or otherwise, has issues for WoW. I even put the client on my work machine just to try it out (YES, I was on lunch break).
I could play Hellgate, RO, DOMO, etc. In essence, all the ones I didn’t actually feel like playing at the time. I suspect UCit just doesn’t want the dormers sucking resources playing WoW all day instead of studying. Hah!
July 5th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
OMG i got a new one.
So about 20 seconds ago I was owning as Sniper, and somehow my foot under my desk hit the on/off switch to my power strip, which my router is on.:(
“You have been D/C”
At least my computer wasn’t plugged into that one. I’m thinking about getting my 50 foot CAT 5 and seeing if I can just lead it all the way directly to our other router, I despise wireless.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Demo - That’s pretty bad! You’re definitely lucky it wasn’t your PC power cable. My boyfriend’s dog used to pull the plug on the router constantly. Eventually it shorted the thing out and we needed to buy a new one. :\