Being a resident of Australia and an avid XBOXLive fan (playing COD 4 and Halo3), I find lag can often be an issue in games hosted overseas - i.e. anywhere that isn't Australia. But I LOVE lag.
You see, I love lag because it's always fun to appear as the fat autistic kid running around trying to knife the ground, only succeeding in getting partially stuck in the geometry only to become the map spectacle as other players call loved ones to the TV in order to show them the stupid guy who is forever condemned to crawl around the level in a buggy animation so retarded that other players think your hacking. I love being an enemy so bad that my AI appears worse than the most stupid Nazi in Hour of Victory - who can be approached from the front and killed with blindfire from a bolt action sniper rifle. I love being told I'm a bad player because I can't aim, and unloading four clips into a guy standing in front of me, who turned out to have never even joined the game. I love being blown up by invisible grenades, or have some sort of Chuck Norris god mode opponent whose bullets seem to chase me through the level, only to kill my character in the lobby screen, travel out through my plasma screen and lodge in the wall behind me, killing my cat on the way through my living room. I love listening to players with green connection complain about a small drop in framerate as they fill my screen with a rain of napalm death - "awww, I killed their team twice and my points went up so fast it dropped to 12.5 FPS - horrible VHS quality!" - only for me to spawn late again and be forever trapped within the model of a pre spawned enemy player - carried around the map like a second head. I love being called British, or being beaten in verbal fights because any witty statement I make arrives with Christmas. I love always being beaten in melee combat so badly that an enemy player will feel so sorry for me he'll stand still right up in front of my shotgun, only for me to fire and fall to my death through the ground texture. I love watching killcams as I attack a bus or redundant part of a wall before the guy watching (and probably crying with laughter) puts me out of my misery in the most extravagant way possible (a domino effect of stacked tires being shot to set off a claymore attached to takeaway container which results in a car or heavy object falling on me), only for the replay to end up on youtube to the soundtrack of I'm a Barbie Girl. I love playing Halo 3 and having Altair from Assassin's Creed somehow lag through an intergame portal, stabbing me comically in the crotch with his sword. I love joining a completely Australian room, only to have the level one guy "SN1P3RKILLN0VV" with no mic, end up hosting. I love the fact that Australia ranks behind Argentina in country host preference. And I'm not whining - me and my 1:15 kill to death ratio will take on any challenger, be they from the Netherlands, Japan or Kamchatka.
You see, I love lag because it's always fun to appear as the fat autistic kid running around trying to knife the ground, only succeeding in getting partially stuck in the geometry only to become the map spectacle as other players call loved ones to the TV in order to show them the stupid guy who is forever condemned to crawl around the level in a buggy animation so retarded that other players think your hacking. I love being an enemy so bad that my AI appears worse than the most stupid Nazi in Hour of Victory - who can be approached from the front and killed with blindfire from a bolt action sniper rifle. I love being told I'm a bad player because I can't aim, and unloading four clips into a guy standing in front of me, who turned out to have never even joined the game. I love being blown up by invisible grenades, or have some sort of Chuck Norris god mode opponent whose bullets seem to chase me through the level, only to kill my character in the lobby screen, travel out through my plasma screen and lodge in the wall behind me, killing my cat on the way through my living room. I love listening to players with green connection complain about a small drop in framerate as they fill my screen with a rain of napalm death - "awww, I killed their team twice and my points went up so fast it dropped to 12.5 FPS - horrible VHS quality!" - only for me to spawn late again and be forever trapped within the model of a pre spawned enemy player - carried around the map like a second head. I love being called British, or being beaten in verbal fights because any witty statement I make arrives with Christmas. I love always being beaten in melee combat so badly that an enemy player will feel so sorry for me he'll stand still right up in front of my shotgun, only for me to fire and fall to my death through the ground texture. I love watching killcams as I attack a bus or redundant part of a wall before the guy watching (and probably crying with laughter) puts me out of my misery in the most extravagant way possible (a domino effect of stacked tires being shot to set off a claymore attached to takeaway container which results in a car or heavy object falling on me), only for the replay to end up on youtube to the soundtrack of I'm a Barbie Girl. I love playing Halo 3 and having Altair from Assassin's Creed somehow lag through an intergame portal, stabbing me comically in the crotch with his sword. I love joining a completely Australian room, only to have the level one guy "SN1P3RKILLN0VV" with no mic, end up hosting. I love the fact that Australia ranks behind Argentina in country host preference. And I'm not whining - me and my 1:15 kill to death ratio will take on any challenger, be they from the Netherlands, Japan or Kamchatka.