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Gamers in Hawaii Can't Compete... Because of Latency (theoutline.com)

Sometimes it's very important to know that the servers of the web services you're using are situated somewhere in your neighbourhood. And it's not just because of privacy concerns. The Outline has a story this week in which it talks about gamers in Hawaii who're increasingly finding it difficult to compete in global tournaments because the games' servers are almost every time placed overseas. From the article: [...] The game's server is in Chicago. That means if you live in the Midwest, your computer can communicate with it almost instantaneously. If you're in L.A., it can take roughly 60 milliseconds. But if you're in Hawaii, it can take 120 milliseconds, with some players reporting as long as 200 milliseconds. And at the highest echelons of competitive video gaming, milliseconds matter. [...] In League and other eSports games, playing on a high ping is a big disadvantage. The goal of the game is to set up defenses to protect your base while pushing forward to capture the enemy's base, and there are typically lightning bolts and fireballs and slime-spitting dragons shooting across the screen. Playing on a high ping means players may not see all of the action that happens in a game. Latency can really screw things up for a young eSports scene, said Zack Johnson, who runs gg Circuit, a global tournament provider for gaming centers like PC Gamerz. Players on the mainland sometimes say they don't want to compete against Hawaii players, he said, because the high ping throws things off.

2 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. You don't get out much by s.petry · · Score: -1, Troll

    Those same kinds of people are in all of the big cities. SF, LA, Chicago, Detroit, NYC, all full to the brim with ridiculous amounts of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, defecating and peeing everywhere, accosting people at random, often committing open crimes like shoplifting.

    Democrat run cities seem to be the worst, you can check the stats on that one.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  2. Re: So move to Chicago. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    That is called 'affirmative action'. It involves artificially crippling the capable in order to try and make things 'fair' for the incapable. It never works, because it doesn't do anything to improve the abilities of the incapable. They still end up being worse off than even the artificially-crippled capable are. So more attempts are made to additionally cripple thr capable. Eventually the capable get fed up and leave. After all, they're capable. They can succeed better elsewhere. All that'sâ left are the incapable, and the situation remains dire.