I should be getting a beta sometime today, and I'll report back here about how ping will affect us Aussies playing on US, and how tolerable it is. Stay tuned!

thank you this is very important to me whether this game will be at all enjoyable or not.

More interested in Solo than MP.

@spfun: If you are interested in solo, then you can just connect to the SEA server, which will be in Singapore when the game ships.

@OP: Why do you think you'll have beta soon?

I've been wondering about this too.

@spfun: If you are interested in solo, then you can just connect to the SEA server, which will be in Singapore when the game ships.

@OP: Why do you think you'll have beta soon?

For most Australians internet to Singapore is actually routed through the US so ping to SEA is actually much higher than to US West.

For most Australians internet to Singapore is actually routed through the US so ping to SEA is actually much higher than to US West.

Only if you're with Optus.

Well I'm from NZ & doing a traceroute to the SC2 servers in the USA & Asia, only have about 50ms difference max for around 250-300. To much lag for someone who just wants to solo... I'm just hoping blizzard have done it in a way where latency isn't as much of an issue. That's why i'm really interested in anyones videos or reviews who are based in Aus/NZ.

If its quite laggy even in Solo mode then i may end up waiting for a offline version.

Only if you're with Optus.

I'm not with Optus.

@OP: Why do you think you'll have beta soon?

I'm in the same boat, I'm in the F&F Beta (friend confirmed he's submitted my name at Blizzard), but waiting for my account to get activated. I'll give latency info as well

If its quite laggy even in Solo mode then i may end up waiting for a offline version.

There won't ever be an offline version.

Hey Azzure can you also let us know how the latency works? Like if your actions appear instant but a monster dies after you appear to hit it or if theres skipping etc. Thanks

I'm not with Optus.

Are you with an ISP that uses the Optus network? (TPG, Virgin etc)

I'll be pretty surprised if Diablo III was so twitch based. Diablo 1 and 2 weren't. I'll be surprised if its not much different to WoW, in the sense of not relying on millisecond precision. But time will tell.

The way Diablo 3 is set up, there will be services similar to "WoW tunnels" so all hope is not lost if initial NA ping is shltty.

i quit WoW because a 300-400 ping got to annoying. I can only hope D3 is way better.

Just as an fyi to those who are looking to see what these result turn out to be: Latency has been solid, but not perfect. There has been a couple of large lag spikes, and some noticeable delays between using an ability and its effect.

I cant pretend to know how bad it is normally for those that have these issues. I just wanted to pass along that it isn't 100% even for those of us no more than 20 minutes from Blizz HQ. So if it isn't perfect don't despair as it could much better as we go through beta and get closer to launch.

hope to know what US west server ping is like

There won't ever be an offline version.

PS3 version might be offline though...

i can deal with 300-350 before i get the ****s with it

Haven't had any latency issues thus far, on ADSL in Melbourne.

PS3 version might be offline though...
Yeah, I probably would agree. But don't hold your breath for it. 1-2 years definitely. Plus PS3 players don't steal games, so that's a major incentive for Blizzard.

Until recently I was with Internode .. and they are great for gaming/latency .. esp. Blizzard titles .. due to pricing increases I have swapped to TPG and as yet, haven't had an issue ..

After 7+ hours of Diablo 3 gaming ..

I only had one lag in several hours, lasted about 4 seconds .. I ran over a pile of gold and clicked on an item and it took a few seconds to loot. I wasn't in combat at the time or using an ability .. given the rest of the time was perfect it was either a networking issue or possibly server lag.

Regular latency issues are to be expected. You can check your actual ping in game by mousing over the bar on your UI. It's hard to see, but it's on the right next to the icons for you hero page, quest log, etc.

Had 3 PM's about latency ;) .. post in public people!
I have been checking occasionally .. my latency is between 200-212

There is certainly no feel of latency in the game.

Had 3 PM's about latency ;) .. post in public people!
I have been checking occasionally .. my latency is between 200-212

There is certainly no feel of latency in the game.

One more question, when you say there is no feel of latency, do you mean there is no delay at all when you perform spells, attack etc? In other words, are all your actions instantaneous when you do them or do you swing, and then a tiny delay and then the monster gets hit.

Not including "lag spikes".

Coming from South Africa, this is good news, thanks for easing my mind Ursustas.

PS Go Bokke! :D

when you say there is no feel of latency, do you mean there is no delay at all when you perform spells, attack etc? Not including "lag spikes".
Alot of abilities are not instant, ie. you swing your arm to attack or the lighning bolt arcs across the screen .. but to my 32 year old senses ;) .. there is no latency feel to the game that I can observe. The wizard feels faster than the Barbarian though ;)

Edit: The real test will be when they fix optimus/nvidia issues (optimus nvidia gaming laptops not working yet) and I try the game out on the train on the way to work over wifi (assuming I don't get taken hostage) .. I will make sure to post a review then when there is real latency about the effects on the game/world .. I anticipate for the most part it will be similar to WoW .. though perhaps they will allow the game to delay briefly if they detect a player timeout for a second or two .. *shrugs*

Alot of abilities are not instant, ie. you swing your arm to attack or the lighning bolt arcs across the screen .. but to my 32 year old senses ;) .. there is no latency feel to the game that I can observe. The wizard feels faster than the Barbarian though ;)

Edit: The real test will be when they fix optimus/nvidia issues (optimus nvidia gaming laptops not working yet) and I try the game out on the train on the way to work over wifi (assuming I don't get taken hostage) .. I will make sure to post a review then when there is real latency about the effects on the game/world .. I anticipate for the most part it will be similar to WoW .. though perhaps they will allow the game to delay briefly if they detect a player timeout for a second or two .. *shrugs*

Thanks for the reply!

Alot of abilities are not instant, ie. you swing your arm to attack or the lighning bolt arcs across the screen .. but to my 32 year old senses ;) .. there is no latency feel to the game that I can observe. The wizard feels faster than the Barbarian though ;)

Edit: The real test will be when they fix optimus/nvidia issues (optimus nvidia gaming laptops not working yet) and I try the game out on the train on the way to work over wifi (assuming I don't get taken hostage) .. I will make sure to post a review then when there is real latency about the effects on the game/world .. I anticipate for the most part it will be similar to WoW .. though perhaps they will allow the game to delay briefly if they detect a player timeout for a second or two .. *shrugs*

So.... what train and what time do you normally go to work? :whistling:

Regular latency issues are to be expected. You can check your actual ping in game by mousing over the bar on your UI. It's hard to see, but it's on the right next to the icons for you hero page, quest log, etc.

this ?
http://i51.tinypic.com/2ik6sep.jpg

Yup that's it, you mouse over that it'll tell ya. I had something like a 40ms ping in the way late hours of the night. I'm not aussie, but just trying to convey what i've experienced/learned for comaprisons sake.

it's kind of sad and annoying that we will need to be depend by blizzard server's status to play, we won't be able to play when there will be some maintenance etc... i hate that online only thing... bah...

ursustas mate, I hate to get all technical and ask a million questions but could you tell me in which city you live and how close you are to the nearest telephone exchange?

I'm also with TPG and 200-220 ping sounds really promising. If a wow tunnels esque application is released in the future things will get even better.

Thanks

Wow, this is exactly the thread I was looking for!

I'm not usually overly active in forums (these days, anyway... I used to be!) but just wanted to drop in and say a very hearty thanks from a fellow Aussie for sharing this information. Much appreciated! :)

It is good to hear that the lag isn't overly terrible or noticeable. I really struggled with D2 and found myself playing Single Player 98% of the time as a result. Luckily, some like-minded RL friends and the SPF here still made for a great experience.

Having originally started with D1, playing online since release day (while living in the USA) and then spending countless hours in D2 SP... my heart would be broken if I couldn't continue the epic gaming saga with D3.

how close you are to the nearest telephone exchange?
I'm also with TPG and 200-220 ping sounds really promising.

I am on a Telstra DSLAM .. 200ms away from LA (tracert)

ADSL exchange distance website's give me this:
Line of Sight: 1140 m, Estimated Cable: 1767 m, Estimated Attenuation: 25, Estimated Maximum Speed: 15666

In reality the cable is probably closer to 1140 m as my connection is:
Upstream 1020, Downstream 23012, SNR Margin(Upstream) 7.9, SNR Margin(Downstream) 6.5, Line Attenuation(Upstream) 10.2, Line Attenuation(Downstream) 17.0

I assume the Beta is running on non-battle.net servers at the moment given that it is not integrated with any battle.net features .. when it is transitioned to their battle.net environment the latency may go a little higher, but I wouldn't expect a huge difference.


If a wow tunnels esque application is released in the future things will get even better.
I haven't tested any of this yet since my latency has been pretty close to optimal .. currently I am restrained by the laws of physics.

Incase you are unaware, the main improvement a tunnel service offers for most people is they modify the TCP Ack Frequency .. networking 101 and useful resources here: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=874429&#r5
If you want to improve your latency, you can do this yourself .. try tunneling your traffic through your own linux nat device (even running as a VM) so that when the socket is established it is configured for NODELAY. If you only care about your game and no other network traffic, you can request windows establish all TCP sockets with NODELAY.
How effective this is depends mostly on how the networking of the game is programmed (generally the higher your latency the more this will make a difference). If TCPAckFrequency is an issue in Diablo you will beable to google for a pre-built VM within a few weeks. For all I know Diablo 3 may use UDP (doubt it) .. I haven't had time to look .. or even implement this technology themselves.

The other improvement, is they may tunnel your traffic through the services of a provider with a known, unsaturated tunnel with the lowest latency possible (many ISP's oversell their pipe's) .. this would only benefit if between you and their local server was unsaturated and your normal path to battle.net servers was saturated.

Edit: several edits to fix .. errors

I am on a Telstra DSLAM .. 200ms away from LA (tracert)

ADSL exchange distance website's give me this:
Line of Sight: 1140 m, Estimated Cable: 1767 m, Estimated Attenuation: 25, Estimated Maximum Speed: 15666

In reality the cable is probably closer to 1140 m as my connection is:
Upstream 1020, Downstream 23012, SNR Margin(Upstream) 7.9, SNR Margin(Downstream) 6.5, Line Attenuation(Upstream) 10.2, Line Attenuation(Downstream) 17.0

Cool, thanks.

it's kind of sad and annoying that we will need to be depend by blizzard server's status to play, we won't be able to play when there will be some maintenance etc... i hate that online only thing... bah...

I hear you dude, but if people didn't steal PC games Blizzard would have no reason. Its really our fault.

Incase you are unaware, the main improvement a tunnel service offers for most people is they modify the TCP Ack Frequency .. networking 101 and useful resources here: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=874429&#r5
If you want to improve your latency, you can do this yourself .. try tunneling your traffic through your own linux nat device (even running as a VM) so that when the socket is established it is configured for NODELAY. If you only care about your game and no other network traffic, you can request windows establish all TCP sockets with NODELAY.
How effective this is depends mostly on how the networking of the game is programmed (generally the higher your latency the more this will make a difference). If TCPAckFrequency is an issue in Diablo you will beable to google for a pre-built VM within a few weeks. For all I know Diablo 3 may use UDP (doubt it) .. I haven't had time to look .. or even implement this technology themselves.

The other improvement, is they may tunnel your traffic through the services of a provider with a known, unsaturated tunnel with the lowest latency possible (many ISP's oversell their pipe's) .. this would only benefit if between you and their local server was unsaturated and your normal path to battle.net servers was saturated.

Edit: several edits to fix .. errors

My guess is that tunneling won't be necessary for Diablo 3, like it was for WoW. I think D3 will get a consistent flow of latency, unlike WoW that has issues with ACK frequency delaying packets. I would imagine D3 would be like SC2, where the latency is as good as you're latency to LA.

Latency affects Single Player. :( I get about 400ms to WoW here in NZ. I have a dsl connection about 5km away from exchange. Latency is an immersion killer, nothin like watching your arrows hit a monster then wait for it to do damage... & to have teleporting monsters or monster running on the spot who don't take damage. This game looks amazing but with ANY sort of lag SP is ruined imo.

Does anyone have the IP to the beta? i want to do a traceroute.

On a side note, how many aussies are planning on playing on SEA battle.net? It's around half the latency, and from what I could see in SC2, its 95% fluent english speaking.

On a side note, how many aussies are planning on playing on SEA battle.net? It's around half the latency, and from what I could see in SC2, its 95% fluent english speaking.

Its not for me, its a minor improvement.

So if ursustas is able to get a ping maybe we can compare. Here in orange county, about 20 minutes away from Blizz hq, I have 185 ping. This is the highest I've seen it thus far (it's usually between 35-50), but it might be good to compare peak to peak.

I hope that SEA Area would get a chance to participate in D3 Beta as well. I'm currently living in Bangkok. If I get the chance to play the beta, i'll report back the latency from here.

About time blizzard put a server down under, I'm sick of latency ruining every blizzard game online.

On a side note, how many aussies are planning on playing on SEA battle.net? It's around half the latency, and from what I could see in SC2, its 95% fluent english speaking.Yeah I will be. Not sure about the longevity though.


Its not for me, its a minor improvement.


About time blizzard put a server down under, I'm sick of latency ruining every blizzard game online.I don't get it. You're not going to use the SEA servers but you dont like latency?

On a side note, how many aussies are planning on playing on SEA battle.net? It's around half the latency, and from what I could see in SC2, its 95% fluent english speaking.

Is this true?
My experience tells me otherwise.
Singaporean players in general may be the only exception but still.
I'm asking because you said 'speaking' which aint reading/typing. \

Could work as this game doesnt need vent and stuff or if you have no friends playing on other realms.

Is this true?
My experience tells me otherwise.
Singaporean players in general may be the only exception but still.
I'm asking because you said 'speaking' which aint reading/typing. \

Could work as this game doesnt need vent and stuff or if you have no friends playing on other realms.

Majority of SEA players outside of AU/NZ are from Singapore. Most people from Singapore speak fluent English. I am referring to reading/typing.

If all Australians played on SEA.battle.net, the population would be much bigger than it currently is. At the moment its about 1/18th the size of the US region in SC2.

May have to check it out

I don't get it. You're not going to use the SEA servers but you dont like latency?

I get 220ms to USA & 210ms to SEA... so you were saying? Which one do i pick when they're both the same... :doh:

Yeah, I don't have high hopes for Blizzard giving us servers in the Southern Hemisphere...

They still insist on using realms (separating players) instead of just having a system like HoN (where all players login to central authentication server and you can pick your appropriate server in game... Australia, South Africa, USW, USE, Japan, EU etc.).

I'm in the F&F beta but my account still hasn't been activated. They're supposedly sending them out in waves. Anyone else in the Beta but still waiting on an activation? I was kinda like hoping to play this weekend.....

I get 220ms to USA & 210ms to SEA... so you were saying? Which one do i pick when they're both the same... :doh:

I thought NZ had a decent latency to the US, slightly better than aus? SEA would be pretty bad for NZ due to distance.

On the subject of Blizzard putting servers in Australia, I have that answer. It's way too expensive because Aus network infrastructure is so bad that it causes the price of bandwidth to be astronomical. We're not talking pocket change here, i'm talking 10x more than US and europe.

Blame Telstra/Aus government before you blame Blizzard, Blizzard actually tried. The NBN will solve this issue though, thankfully.

If all Australians played on SEA.battle.net, the population would be much bigger than it currently is. At the moment its about 1/18th the size of the US region in SC2.

We do only have 1/15th the population of the US though.

Blame Telstra/Aus government before you blame Blizzard, Blizzard actually tried. The NBN will solve this issue though, thankfully.

Thanks for all the info you've provided but how much longer before the NBN work is complete?

Also how did you get the title of Chief Diablo 3 Economist? :scratchchin:

I thought NZ had a decent latency to the US, slightly better than aus? SEA would be pretty bad for NZ due to distance.

On the subject of Blizzard putting servers in Australia, I have that answer. It's way too expensive because Aus network infrastructure is so bad that it causes the price of bandwidth to be astronomical. We're not talking pocket change here, i'm talking 10x more than US and europe.

Blame Telstra/Aus government before you blame Blizzard, Blizzard actually tried. The NBN will solve this issue though, thankfully.

Well the fact is both those pings are undesirable considering ingame it always seems to be higher than any traceroute. Its to damn high to play hardcore, to risky. If its ANYTHING like D2, it means no melee classes for me either. Basically just WD & wizard on non hardcore. YAY for options... :nono:

I heard that same excuse when WoW got released, that they tried but because of infrastructure it wasn't financially viable. Sigh @ no changes in 6 years... I don't think it will ever be finacially viable, they know Aussies & NZers will still buy the game.

I don't understand why they didn't have the monster locations clientside for SP? that would fix all my problems. :( No desyncing monsters, no delay on damage etc... Is that possible?

I doubt it. Considering that they built it from the ground up with client / server architecture. I've give zero chance that they'd even be able to make it so monsters are controlled on the client side in any reasonable time.

But up until Nov 2010, D3 still had an offline mode... going by what bashiok said. Why would he say there will be an offline mode quite late in the development only to say its suddenly client/server online only bs...

Yeah I got no answer to that. But there's much more for Blizzard to loose than gain by making an SP offline playable mode... sadly.

On a side note, how many aussies are planning on playing on SEA battle.net? It's around half the latency, and from what I could see in SC2, its 95% fluent english speaking.

I do not plan to play on SEA server, I will play on US west... why? because its home for me from D2, whatever the ping.

Thanks for all the info you've provided but how much longer before the NBN work is complete?

Also how did you get the title of Chief Diablo 3 Economist? :scratchchin:

They don't have a static timeline for the NBN, though they are aiming for 40% completion by the end of 2012-13.

wow, that slow? :(

What speed is this NBN going to be relative to world wide standards? It would suck if the NBN gets out of date within a few years because other countries update their networks and gaming companies adapt to it accordingly lol.

wow, that slow? :(

What speed is this NBN going to be relative to world wide standards? It would suck if the NBN gets out of date within a few years because other countries update their networks and gaming companies adapt to it accordingly lol.

Don't see how the NBN would get 'out of date' per se, its fibre... unless there is new technology out? Fair enough they would need to upgrade the network to keep up with the market.

Speed's..... guess it's how speeds always work, the more money you got the faster you will get =) but 100mb down and 40mb up for around $170 aud or something.

Once completed will have capacity for 1,000mb's. obviously costing more

wow, that slow? :(

What speed is this NBN going to be relative to world wide standards? It would suck if the NBN gets out of date within a few years because other countries update their networks and gaming companies adapt to it accordingly lol.

You have to appreciate what a huge task this is.

They're essentially replacing all the copper wire that makes your phone and internet work with fiber optic cable. Throughout the entire country.

Fiber optic cable transmits signals with light, so it's extremely fast, secure, and has a much higher bandwidth than copper.


Huge infrastructure changes like this do not happen often, so even if new technology does arrive, it would probably take just as long to implement that... you gotta upgrade sometime.

As for world-wide standards, it looks to be competing with the best in the world (Japan), but bear in mind that the speed of your internet is not determined entirely by the type of cable you use.

Yeah a lot of people keep saying that fiber will be superseded in a couple of years. It won't. It can't. Fiber is just the pipe your sending the signals, you can't get better the fiber optics, so the cables will not be upgraded and they should last 50+ years. It is the switches and the communication methods we send the signal through the fiber that can have the massive upgrades.

BTW Latency result

Melbourne, Australia TPG - 200-238 ms. I haven't noticed any banding or delays. Runs very smoothly

spoke too soon...

6625ms.....
7796ms...

When it happened I couldn't log out. Had to hard rest the game.

Been watching streams (US testers) and some of them have connection issues as well at this moment so its not your side. Try testing later.

spoke too soon...

6625ms.....
7796ms...

When it happened I couldn't log out. Had to hard rest the game.

I've had this happen several times in the US as well. Just as an fyi.

BTW Latency result

Melbourne, Australia TPG - 200-238 ms. I haven't noticed any banding or delays. Runs very smoothly

I see you finally got your invite. Grats!

Still waiting on mine....

Yeah sorry dude, I feel your pain. My friend at blizzard put both me and my brothers in at the same time. My bro got activated, but mine is still not active. The sad thing is my brother had already said he didn't really want to play the beta because it would spoil the game when he does play it. Go figure.

It is bloody incredibly btw....

Hey lorderan is there a noticable delay between casting a spell\ability and a monster dying or does it appear ok ?

It is fine if the lag is below 300ms. Above that I see a little, but it is a tiny bit. Even running up to monsters and swinging your sword there is no noticeable delay. So many creatures are dying when your fighting, even if there was slight lag it wouldn't be noticeable.

Cool that's what I wanted to hear :) I guess the netcode is more like League of legends where everything appears instant but with a bit of skipping every now and then, compared to Diablo 2 where it was kinda of half instant half delayed.

spoke too soon...

6625ms.....
7796ms...

When it happened I couldn't log out. Had to hard rest the game.

That high a spike tends to indicate you were dropped .. if you normally run just above 200ms.

It is fine if the lag is below 300ms. Above that I see a little, but it is a tiny bit. Even running up to monsters and swinging your sword there is no noticeable delay. So many creatures are dying when your fighting, even if there was slight lag it wouldn't be noticeable.

When you say no noticeable delay, do you mean its virtually instant? For example you swing your sword at a monster, does the monster take damage when you swing the sword or AFTER the swinging animation finishes?

In D2, you would swing your sword and there would be a slight delay (noticeable) and then the monster would take damage / stumble.

When you say no noticeable delay, do you mean its virtually instant? For example you swing your sword at a monster, does the monster take damage when you swing the sword or AFTER the swinging animation finishes?

In D2, you would swing your sword and there would be a slight delay (noticeable) and then the monster would take damage / stumble.

Well if he is getting ~200ms the delay is going to be a fifth of a second. That is all we can really conclude.

A delay like that would ruin the game for me. Hit a monster and wait for damage, really lame.

Yeah Sp, I would normally agree. But when the fighting doesn't require instantaneous killing why would it matter? I would agree, say in Black Prophecy where your basically dog fighting PvP that it is incredibly important, but in diablo a slight delay isn't a problem. Anyway while playing it isn't noticeable and I've been looking out for it.

A delay like that would ruin the game for me. Hit a monster and wait for damage, really lame.

It would not ruin the game for you, I played Diablo 2 with ping in excess of 300ms for years and it wasn't that noticeable.

It would not ruin the game for you, I played Diablo 2 with ping in excess of 300ms for years and it wasn't that noticeable.
Because mobz were not handle by the server, D3 is working exactly like WoW ( everything is running on Blizzard side ) and beleive me 300ms is 'very' laggy, you can feel it.
D3 is very different from SC2, internet is not only required for login but also for the entire gameplay, there is no solo player in Diablo3.

My PC is fairly high end so any latency I see I would generally attribute to the connection .. however my latency is low enough after a few days highest I have ever seen is 241 .. that I simply cannot tell that there is latency .. it appears instant to my eyes .. with monster health bars turned on it appears they drop as the spell hits, even with something quick like Electrocute.. I think I would be able to normally determine a 241 latency (I could feel it in WoW .. a sense of sluggishness), but I cannot. I played Diablo 3 at Blizzcon 2010 (which I assume had low latency) and it feels the same :)

My guess is that they are doing something tricky to reduce the appearance of latency. IE. feeding the client random numbers in advance to use then validating their use in sequence as thus allowing the client to update the UI based on shadow status .. the server then validates the correct result was received rather than receive a request and return the result .. thus there is no need for the client to wait for a response from the server .. the server will simply disconnect you if it detects tampering otherwise the client assumes it is all good. Only when a monster dies or an item is looted then the client would have to wait for the server to deliver the result ..

Once they fix the Optimus bug I will try it on a laggy wifi point and then be able to provide useful information .. for now, on a good pc, from Melbourne Australia, with a sub 250 latency .. there is no latency.

Yeah I'm worried as to whether they've tested this game with high, consistant latencies. By the sounds of it, the quality of this game is going to rely heavily on the connection.

I expect the quality of the game to be just like SC2, and in SC2 I have no problems at all. I haven't noticed any latency issues that result in things dying way after I kill it. When there are latency issues, the game usually starts to get jerky and unplayable, but that rarely happens.

But all that is with the SEA server. In Diablo 3, I can very easily see the SEA server dying because of an ever declining population of players migrating to the NA servers because they cant sell their stuff.

So I think true replayability with this game for SEA players depends on our connection to the NA servers - which I guess will be about 400ms for me personally.

beta is for north america only you tool.

beta is for north america only you tool.

Beta is worldwide except the only servers up right now is in NA.

Yeah I'm worried as to whether they've tested this game with high, consistant latencies. By the sounds of it, the quality of this game is going to rely heavily on the connection.

I expect the quality of the game to be just like SC2, and in SC2 I have no problems at all. I haven't noticed any latency issues that result in things dying way after I kill it. When there are latency issues, the game usually starts to get jerky and unplayable, but that rarely happens.

But all that is with the SEA server. In Diablo 3, I can very easily see the SEA server dying because of an ever declining population of players migrating to the NA servers because they cant sell their stuff.

So I think true replayability with this game for SEA players depends on our connection to the NA servers - which I guess will be about 400ms for me personally.
Why are you convinced your ping will be so high when every other aussie is reporting < 240 ms. Head up mate.

Playing it right now on the train (using a mobile wifi point) on my way to work ;) .. It's on an Alienware m11xr2 (spec's below) ..

Core i7-640UM (32nm, 2x1.20GHz, Turbo to 2.27GHz, 3MB, 18W)
8GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M with Optimus Technology (72 CUDA Cores, 450/1080/1580 Core/Shader/RAM)
1366x768 res.

There is a known issue with NVIDIA Optimus technology at the moment, so I have forced the game to run off the Integrate graphics an not the High performance GT 335M.

The game is playable .. a world of difference from max settings on my desktop at home .. but even at 500ms battles are smooth enough. Looting is a bit slower ;)

My PC is fairly high end so any latency I see I would generally attribute to the connection .. however my latency is low enough after a few days highest I have ever seen is 241 .. that I simply cannot tell that there is latency .. it appears instant to my eyes .. with monster health bars turned on it appears they drop as the spell hits, even with something quick like Electrocute.. I think I would be able to normally determine a 241 latency (I could feel it in WoW .. a sense of sluggishness), but I cannot. I played Diablo 3 at Blizzcon 2010 (which I assume had low latency) and it feels the same :)

My guess is that they are doing something tricky to reduce the appearance of latency. IE. feeding the client random numbers in advance to use then validating their use in sequence as thus allowing the client to update the UI based on shadow status .. the server then validates the correct result was received rather than receive a request and return the result .. thus there is no need for the client to wait for a response from the server .. the server will simply disconnect you if it detects tampering otherwise the client assumes it is all good. Only when a monster dies or an item is looted then the client would have to wait for the server to deliver the result ..

Once they fix the Optimus bug I will try it on a laggy wifi point and then be able to provide useful information .. for now, on a good pc, from Melbourne Australia, with a sub 250 latency .. there is no latency.

I think I speak for all when I say this news has made every aussie's day :)

Latency is our mortal enemy. Good to see we won't have to deal with it in combat. Delayed combat would be rather lame, the thought of swinging a sword and then having the damage register after the animation is finished is very yucky.

Playing it right now on the train (using a mobile wifi point) on my way to work ;) .. It's on an Alienware m11xr2 (spec's below) ..

Core i7-640UM (32nm, 2x1.20GHz, Turbo to 2.27GHz, 3MB, 18W)
8GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M with Optimus Technology (72 CUDA Cores, 450/1080/1580 Core/Shader/RAM)
1366x768 res.

There is a known issue with NVIDIA Optimus technology at the moment, so I have forced the game to run off the Integrate graphics an not the High performance GT 335M.

The game is playable .. a world of difference from max settings on my desktop at home .. but even at 500ms battles are smooth enough. Looting is a bit slower ;)

I'm sorry mate but i really find this hard to believe... 500ms and next to no combat delay? So you fire a magic missile at a mob and it doesn't take half a second to register damage?

I'm someone who's pretty sensitive to the effects of latency & even a 300ms ping is noticable & annoying to me in games like Path of Exile beta. & i quit WoW due to a 400ms ping.

I'm sorry mate but i really find this hard to believe... 500ms and next to no combat delay? So you fire a magic missile at a mob and it doesn't take half a second to register damage?

I'm someone who's pretty sensitive to the effects of latency & even a 300ms ping is noticable & annoying to me in games like Path of Exile beta. & i quit WoW due to a 400ms ping.

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/latency-no-longer-a-factor-in-d3-combat

And its confirmed!

This was the decision on whether i buy the game or not. If the combat really is done clientside then I'm buying for sure.