Juggling Torches (because we are cool!)

2008-06-24 at 13:00:54 | In Guides, World of Warcraft | Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

Ok, I have heard several people moin about how hard it is to get that darn torch juggling game right – and truly so, considering that it took me almost an hour to get the 4 catches right – and the 10 cost me another half hour at deepest midnight!

So, here is the recipe which I managed to cook up:

10% Luck: Well the game does depend a bit upon luck, as does everything in life ;)

30% Solitude: If you got some [insert your most rude swear word right here] that manages to blow up right in the target zone of one of your last throws, you better have a solid steel table (my wood table already shows really nasty bite marks, you know…)

60% Simple Tricks:
Trick Number one: You need to get a bit ahead of the torch (being right where you might think it lands usually does not work, since your FEET need to be at the landing point and you cannot get a real overhead view, it is always slightly tilted.)
Trick Number two: The torches throw shadows… It is much easier to follow shadows on the ground than to follow torches in the air…

Hoping to have saved you a bit of frustration ;)

Latency goes Dooowwwnnn

2008-06-21 at 13:19:33 | In Guides, World of Warcraft | 2 Comments
Tags: , ,

13ms latency

Impressed?

Ok, enough showing off, here is what might help you get your latency down by a two-digit percentage:

A. Vista Autotuning: This will only make sense if you run vista. Really. Actually it will disable a feature that is supposed to improve bandwidth on highly used connections by reducing the amount of control flow. This might reduce your throughput i.e. when copying files on your local network or downloading larger files from the internet.
In an elevated command prompt simply type or copy and paste (pasting in a command prompt works via right click->paste):
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

Disable Vista Autotuning with netsh

B. TCP Ack Frequency: TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) numbers all data packages that exit your computer. To confirm that a package was received, the other side sends a so called ACK package (from acknowledge) to inform the sender, that everything up to a certain number of packages was received.
Example:
Sender: Sends packages 1-5
Receiver: Receives packages 1-2 and sends an ACK for 2, receives 3-4 and sends an ACK for 4.
(5 was lost)
some time later the sender just resends 5, because it never got ACKed.
Now, the receiver in our example used a tcp ack frequency of 2 - he received 4 packages before sending his ACK - actually this is totally acceptable behavior and reduces the amount of useless garbage on your lines.

In the example, the receiver used the same TCP Ack Frequency that Windows uses – a very good compromise for most situations. However, World of Warcraft depends more upon fast answers than a high throughput, so lowering your tcp ack frequency can very probably reduce your latency – for every second package.

TCP ACK Frequency = 1

To do so, you first need to determine your IP address for the given network adapter using ipconfig or a similar tool. If you are unable to definitely determine the ip address of the network adapter used for playing world of warcraft, do not continue!
After this, open a little program called regedit by typing regedit into your vista start search (the text box which is in your start menu) and hitting Ctrl+Shift+Enter to launch it elevated. Browse the folder structure on the left as you would browse your local folders.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces.
In this folder, there are several subfolders which all wear cryptic names, and you will need to identify by browsing into the interfaces and searching for the ip you noted in step one. As soon as you managed to identify the wanted interface, look for a key called “TcpAckFrequency” – if none exists create it by hitting Edit->New->DWORD (32bit) VALUE (this might be called slightly different in your regedit, but it will always contain DWORD) and creating this value.
Now edit it to be “1″.

REVERTING A. Vista Autotuning:In an elevated command prompt simply type or copy and paste (pasting in a command prompt works via right click->paste):
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=enabled

REVERTING B. TCP Ack Frequency: Edit the TcpAckFrequency to “2″ or simply delete it.

Dead Ghosts, Living Ghosts – and something in between

2008-06-17 at 22:29:11 | In World of Warcraft | Leave a Comment
Tags: , , ,

Everybody who plays World of Warcraft sooner or later dies.
Especially if you do any kind of Battleground.
It sounds kinda weird to state it like that, but sadly this is very, very true :D

Usually you get your “Ghost” debuff, swear loudly, sometimes bite into things (You remember that little girl from “A Series of Unfortunate Events”? She played way to much PvP…) and get your ghost to wherever you want to get resurrected – in battlegrounds you usually just wait (for your statistical 15 seconds – and felt 12 minutes) and game on.

If for some reason – like being raidspecced – you got Spirit of Redemption specced – hey, lucky you! Up to 15 seconds (minus lag equals maybe 12 or so of effective use, minus maybe still being counterspelled…) of totally uninterrupted – and uninterruptable – healing.

Bliss.

Oh, of course, you just might get teleported to a graveyard the second your Spirit of Redemption procs….
Although that does not seem to be such big of a deal, it can lead to desastrous consequences:

If this happens (as of yet I had only have it happen to me in alterac valley btw) you will not be considered “dead” – whilst being a Spirit of Redemption (that cannot be hurt or killed…)

And you stay dead.

You might wait for the Spirit of Redemption Buff to wear off – but you will just die and become a dead, dead ghost….

You might wait for the resurrection timer multiple times (remember the statistical 15 seconds? Well, now its up to YOU! Wait however long you want!) but you will stay a very dead piece of ghost…

Ok, Problemsolving 101: Move to a different graveyard!

Problemsolving 102: Notice you cannot move and call a game master.

Problemsolving 103: Realise the game master may be able to resurrect you and teleport you to your starting cave – but he cannot restore your ability to act (“You are not in control of your actions!”, mkay?)… Bite the table and silently cry….

Oh, and in case your GM offers you to take you out of the battleground to end your problems: Don’t throw curses at him, he is only trying to help…

Yeah, one thing at the end: Even if you are alive, get the General’s Warcry and everything…

You are not in control of your actions!

You cannot even use the fucking 40000 honor insignia to remove the fucking “You are not in control of your actions!” annoyance!

*Ehm* sorry for the swearing to our american friends which will probably have a cardiac arrest at the notion of someone saying the “F-Word” where children below 42 might read it…

Update: Since I had more fun in alterac valley, there are a few pictures in the thread I took today (see above) and an addition down here:

It was suggested my latency might be the issue, since nobody else seems to know of the problem – well, to refute that:
13 milliseconds of latency in WoW

Update 2: Well, happened again – but this time I was fast enough for a screeny!
Ghostly Spirit of Redemption incl. Buffs

Also, I had a bit of fun with netmon 3.1 during the time – see the full result on the official forums (german), the short recap:
1 out of 156000 packets was a tcp retransmit…
signal-to-noise ratio seems good (8 db)
Sooo, line does not seem to be the problem!

Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.