Does one players lag affect another?

[higgy]

I always thought that connection issues for one player were that players problem alone. If someone is frozen, shuddering around or just not reacting as quickly because their ping is greater than say 200, then I always considered that to be a problem for that player only. This year, however, I've played several games where players are arguing and kicking each other because they're lagging.

 

Is it a real problem or are idiots just blaming others for their own connection issues (or server lag)?

 

If it is real then why did this never occur before? I've been playing online for years and this issue only seems to have flared up recently. I played Elite Force, for instance, regularly for almost 2 years and not once did I encounter this problem (or any accusations of it).

 

The only explanations I can think of (other than people are being idiots), are:

 

[a] that maybe the lack of "good" servers is the problem. In the UK, we used to have NGUK and Barrysworld providing very good, stable servers. NGUK died and BW became a pay service, so now there just seems to be user/clan servers that are free to access.

 

it's an issue for broadband users. I can't think why, but maybe they are affected by the lagging 56K'ers. The only reason I suggest this, is because the problem appears to have occured with the onset of broadband connections.

 

[c] games have become more complex and require greater levels of information to be passed between the players and the server. I thought this could be the case when I first encountered the problem on C&C:Renegade, but correct me if I'm wrong, Jedi Outcast uses the same engine as Elite Force, where I personally never experienced this "issue".

 

Anyone got any opinions on this or is there an "official" line?