I'm moving to a rural area this summer and will only be able to use satellite to connect to the Internet. I know the pings are really high with such connections even though you can get decent down and up speeds. As such there is no doubt that shooters are out of the question online. However, I am wondering if you can get away with playing other kinds of games online even though you have a poor ping. The games I am wondering about specifically include:

World of Warcraft (I just play casually solo. I don't raid and would probably rarely group. I realize pvp wouldn't work)

Age of Empires Online (I am guessing pvp would be out but maybe i could enjoy the sp?)

Guild Wars (The first game and its expansions. Again here I'd just be playing solo casually and assume pvp would be out unfortunately.)

Anyone here use satellite to connect to the Internet and have experience trying to play these games or games like them?

I had one of those connections for a while. TF2 worked well enough most of the times, although a 110 ping while not unplayable or bad, isn't optimal either.

Guild Wars and WoW should be fine considering you solo. I played GW on 56k while waiting for my broadband to become active when it was first released. Just make sure you update the games before disconnecting everything before the move.

RPG's actually should be fine as they dont require a low ping for solo. Its the shooters that could cause you issues with higher pings.

You can't compare the latency by bandwidth size. For example, 64kbit cable connection might beat 20mbit adsl (like 15ms versus 25ms)

There are some other ISP-related things that can add to your latency, but nothing adds more latency than a slow connection. Dialup is borderline playable for an MMO, at best. I never got a latency on my old dialup connection that was better than about 400 in the early days of WoW, for instance. There's just too much data for it to handle all at once, thus the lag.

However, in the case of WoW, even a 400ms ping isn't going to cripple you unless you're in a raid or doing pvp. I was even able to play moderately well with an 800ms ping several times back in the day, which is almost a full (agonizing) second worth of lag. If you're just doing quests and stuff you shouldn't have to worry about the latency too much. I'd assume the same goes for other MMOs as well, though WoW is the only one I've ever played on dialup.

I did some calling around this afternoon and learned I may be able to get wireless broadband with unlimited data access for less money! They advertise this as suitable for online gaming, mentioning X-Box Live and PSN, etc. So it looks like I might wind up being in pretty good shape after all. Apparently this service is run via cell phone towers to provide an Internet connection. Sounds good to me!

Those services usually have a bandwith cap. I don't know how much bandwith online games actually take. But if they advertise with online gaming, you should be golden.