Digital Downloading Age - Parts of the World not Connected

[Chippy]

Hi folks,

 

So I've yet to play POE.  I've been busy building a house since it;s release and need to put aside some quality time for it.  Just looked at the total gigabites of download (seems about 10gb).  Now I know some asshat at microsoft said that unless you live on a submarine, everyone should have broadband in this day and age;- well I don't, and I live in a posh area.

 

So just wondering if the days are gone where you buy the DVD, and then download the patch... I did a quick search for the white march 1/2 and it seems Amazon sell the digital code for steam.

 

10 Gigs is gonna take me appox as long as ... however long it's been since tha game was released.  My average speed is 20kbs/sec.  I actually get estimated download times in excess of weeks and months before most just give up and go blank.

 

Just thought I'd put this out there.  I'd reply to anyone if they respond (with mockery I expect) but Ican't be bothered to wait for the forum to load.

[Tigranes]

The days are indeed pretty much gone, for POE and for many other games, sadly. You might try and download it when you're somewhere with speedy access.

[Silent Winter]

Sometimes a local library has a better connection (not sure if they have DL limits though).

I wonder if someone like gog support would put the installer on a disc/usb (since they're cheap enough) and mail it for a fee.  (If not, they should probably consider it - there's not a lot of people perhaps who'd want such a service, but still quite a few).

(Alternatively - get a mate with a good DL speed to do it for you).

[globalCooldown]

Wow, that's rough. Out of curiosity, what city/county/general area do you live in?

[mychal26]

Maybe try satellite internet, or create a mobile hotspot if you have 4G connection on your phone. 20 kb/s is insanely slow, around dial-up speeds ... used to have that in the early 90s. Nowadays, in the U.S., I download at around 3 MB/s, so about 150 times faster (ouch). There are many places that can go quite a bit faster, up to 10 MB/s in cities.

[demeisen]

It is unfortunate for those without fast connections, but yeah, most games these days are digitally distributed through the likes of GOG or Steam.  Is there any chance you could physically travel to a friend's place and borrow a faster connection for a bit? I'm not sure how Steam would work in that regard, but if you get it from GOG you can download the installer as a "plain old file", drop it on a USB stick or laptop's disk or whatever is easiest, and then install it when you get back home.  No connection is ever needed after the initial download.

[wanderon]

Took me about 8 hours yesterday to dl 3.01 patch and windows installer for GOG (about 7G) - I have cable modem but bottom level ($14.99 a month) with dl speeds between 200-500k/s. 

[Chippy]

Wow, that's rough. Out of curiosity, what city/county/general area do you live in?

 

It's a village-y place by Epping Forest in England, I had the British Telecom guy come out (don't use them they're crap - messed up everything) and he said the supply is almost 6km from the cabinet, he's only heard of most being 3-4km or so.  I expect it's down to the privately owned land and farmers unwilling to lose the square area required for mainetnance of underground services, or masts and towers - so the telephone supply cables just spannnnnn these huge distances.  Have heard the council might makes some changes, but they might prioritize actual street lights first - people never believe me when I say it can get almost pitch black at 4pm during the winter.

 

I wouldn't relly be able to use a friend - I'm still firmly in the closet about being a gamer, I'd be better of telling my mates I've got 8-10gb of pornography to download.  They should start a support group for people in my situation.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Chippy

[Rosveen]

You have barely functioning internet and no street lights and you call that place a posh area? 

[demeisen]

I wouldn't relly be able to use a friend - I'm still firmly in the closet about being a gamer, I'd be better of telling my mates I've got 8-10gb of pornography to download.

 

Must be quite a different local culture...  where I live there's little stigma around gaming like there was in the 1970-80's.  You find all types from children to grandmothers, hardcore athletes to basement dwelling ah-the-light-it-burns-us types, dirt poor to millionaires.  It seems roughly on par with saying, "I like movies".

 

Anyway, some rural communities here in the states get a community project together to set up point to point wireless to under-networked areas.  Normally 802.11 is short range because it's omni-directional, but if you get a highly directional antenna, a low power link can get you 8 to 10 km per hop.  They split the bandwidth among local houses.  It's not as good as fiber or coax say, and isn't a short term fix for you to d/l PoE... but it beats the hell out of smoke signals or RFC 1149 style IP over carrier pigeon.

[hollowcrown]

 

Wow, that's rough. Out of curiosity, what city/county/general area do you live in?

 

It's a village-y place by Epping Forest in England, I had the British Telecom guy come out (don't use them they're crap - messed up everything) and he said the supply is almost 6km from the cabinet, he's only heard of most being 3-4km or so.  I expect it's down to the privately owned land and farmers unwilling to lose the square area required for mainetnance of underground services, or masts and towers - so the telephone supply cables just spannnnnn these huge distances.  Have heard the council might makes some changes, but they might prioritize actual street lights first - people never believe me when I say it can get almost pitch black at 4pm during the winter.

 

I wouldn't relly be able to use a friend - I'm still firmly in the closet about being a gamer, I'd be better of telling my mates I've got 8-10gb of pornography to download.  They should start a support group for people in my situation.

 

 

That's weird giving the proximity to Epping to London. Pretty spooky place to be at night though, have driven through there a few times. 

 

Honestly though you're gonna have to come out to your friends - gaming seems a pretty normal thing for most people to do even in chavvy Essex.