WoW Moviewatch: The moat of Lagforge
by Elizabeth Harper 
Apr 5th 2007 at 11:38AM
If you've never played alliance side, you probably won't understand where this video is coming from, but I'll try to explain. Along the outer ring of Ironforge, near the city's entrance is a deep pit. (Fortunately, Blizzard was merciful enough to provide a grating at the bottom, instead of having the pit end in the pool of molten lava below.) I'm sure such a pit, with bridges across it in places, is a key point of the city's defenses, but when running through the center of a heavily populated Ironforge (imagine the pre-BC crowds that would congregate here) having a giant pit separating the bank and mailbox from the auction house is just incredibly inconvenient for the casual shopper, who would often find him or herself lagged straight to the bottom of the pit. Sigh!
Previously on Moviewatch...
Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Twinny Apr 5th 2007 11:53AM
FFS movie creator, buy a new pc.
Theres no way that is the servers problem, her computer is visibly locking up with the amount happening in IF, i mean even the mage quarters her pc is laggy.
"Dear blizz, my pc is shite and i end up in the mote because i have the bare minimum specs for this game, perhaps you could change the layout of the city of ironforge on every realm so i dont have to open my change purse and buy a half decent pc.
KKTHNXBI
Dracula Jones Apr 5th 2007 12:12PM
That's a RAM problem right there.
Djinni Apr 5th 2007 12:29PM
Maybe the moat inconveniences people...Fine by me, I'm in favor of inconvenience for flashy things. The mountain range between Gadgetzan and Un'Goro Crater gets in my way, but it's pretty, so it can stay. The moat is cool too. Couple of suggestions for you, Mr Video Maker:
1) Upgrade your PC...Just because you have a 10-year-old car or child and it's just running right along doesn't mean that your PC works the same way.
2) Run along the "outer" circle. You will possibly run into a wall or mailbox for a few seconds during lag, but you will never fall into the pit if you never aim at it. I figured that out in far less than the 4.5 minutes of the video.
3) More overhead BAD. Maybe a video capture program isn't exactly helping matters on your obviously overtaxed PC. Start looking at the video options and turn the 'make it pretty' options down a smidge.
Kompost Apr 5th 2007 12:30PM
Good lord... I'm getting stressed out just watching that. I used to be like that when I ran at 512MB RAM. Wasn't long until I upgraded to 2GBs, and all is right with the world.
Guernia Apr 5th 2007 12:36PM
I remember way back when I started WoW my PC had a WHOPPING 512MB of RAM. My lag wasn't quite that bad, but I dropped into the pit on occasion - a minor inconvenience really, since it wasn't time after time after time as the obviously contrived example in the video above shows (get off the epic mount, learn to steer with the mouse not the keyboard, attempt to halt your forward movement once the lag starts kicking in...)
#3 has good advice. And #2 hits the nail on the head: with 3Gig, this doesn't happen anymore. I still have lag loading textured from the HDD, meaning for a time I get invisible people, but there's no lag at all, it's a storage bandwidth issue. Maybe I'll RAID up some cheap WD SATA drives for my next upgrade...
Strongmark on Arthas Apr 5th 2007 12:40PM
Totally RAM... I have the bear minimum, except for my ram, mine is pumped up, and other than graphical slowdowns here and there, I have no problems in the city. My fiance, her computer blows mine outta the water, has a great vid card, better processor, better harddrive, but she ended up with less RAM then me. One thing to mention as well, her graphics are ten times better than mine, but she lags so bad in the cities, makes it a real pain for her to goto the cities. Take a wild guess what happens with her? Same thing this person is experiences, lag problems like crazy. Amazingly enough though, she has only ever fallen once into the mote, and that was a long time ago. We will be looking to invest in some more RAM to correct the issue.
Toolio Apr 5th 2007 12:55PM
It's like that for me if I opt to play on my notebook, but that's a rare occasion, as my kiester is permanently adhered to my Naugahyde computer chair.
But even still, if I am lagging (stay away from BGs and capital cities) I know to stop moving until the spike is over.
Todd Apr 5th 2007 12:55PM
Eww, fog of war. I haven't seen that in ages, and I've forgotten how awful that can look (bluish tint).
Arikul Apr 5th 2007 1:00PM
512MB of RAM huh? Fancy. I remember when I started playing WoW back in the day, with my 800 Mhz, 384MB RAM hunk-o-junk. I avoided Ironforge like the plaguelands... when I absolutely HAD to go there I had to walk through the entrance with my back to the Bank/AH area because to look directly at it would lock up my computer. My friend and I used to joke about it: "Look Away!"
dirty Apr 5th 2007 1:29PM
LMAO! that was damn funny. I made an alli char (i hate saying toon, D2 FTW!) once and was in ironforge for prolly 10 min, couldnt take it anymore, joined the horde and vowed to never return. That place is worse than Lagrimar, and that's saying something.
Dracula Jones Apr 5th 2007 1:40PM
@dirty: That proves it! Horde has inferior hardware!
Lori Apr 5th 2007 2:23PM
I had that problem. I first started playing WoW in Nov 2005 on a year old PC with 512MB of RAM and it played just fine (it is well above specc in all other respects). But over the next 3 or so months, things went downhill to the point where I was going to quit the game. I sent email to Blizz about my problems (also had lots of DCs) and the response said nothing about adding RAM. I told a friend about the lag and quiting and he said to add more memory. I got a GB of memory and the problem went away.
With TBC, the problem has returned but it is much less severe. I sent another email off to Blizz explaining the whole story and ask for a no BS reply: will more memory solve this problem? I mean, they HAVE TO KNOW how the game plays with a particularly specced PC. Well, the reply was the same canned response as the first one.
My point being that the guy might be unaware that WoW can be unplayable with a min specced PC, as I was. And Blizz should be more forthcoming about the situation.
@5 I have invisible ppl for a while, as well. But I don't know about "storage bandwidth" or HDD. There are no min speccs for the human, like must have Masters in Engineering.
dirty Apr 5th 2007 3:21PM
Even with...still pwnd alli all day =P
and no probs now that i upgraded my pc...still wouldnt be caught dead as alli. You know you dont HAVE to have a naked elf dance on ever mailbox?
Guernia Apr 5th 2007 4:52PM
@12, HDD is an abbreviation for hard disk. Storage bandwidth is the physical speed limit when transfering files or data from the hard disk to RAM. Increasing your storage bandwidth increases the effective speed you can load data, so less time you have to wait while player models and textured load from the hard disk.
-T- Apr 5th 2007 5:57PM
yes by all means if it dosent work the first time lets try it again and again and again!! theres more than one way to the bank you know ever consider going in through the forge and down one of the tunels on either side of the bank?? also as has been said the makers computer sucks
Frogs Apr 7th 2007 11:59PM
It was (and still is to a lesser extent) like that on my computer, minus the falling into the pit, but with more framerate lag. And now Shattrath is like that too- when I fly on my epic mount from the Aldor inn to the Alliance portals, it takes probably 2-3 minutes where it would have taken 20-30 seconds without lag. Sigh...
Atraira Apr 8th 2007 8:29AM
Heya! This is my video, and yes, I have an old computer. Got plenty of RAM, a nice video card, but the 867mhz processor can't keep up with either! However, this video is really old; back in Lagforge's prime, EVERYONE but those with the top of the line most decked out rigs had problems like this. Blizz has since fixed it for the most part, and now with BC, Shatt is the new lag town and there's no moat to fall into!