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"Arbor Networks is a company that continually monitors the Internet and its usage -- they keep track of Internet outages and site visits on a global scale.  They just recently released a report of when traffic peaks in the evenings around the world, and at least one of their results is about the game we're all playing, none other than World of Warcraft.  In terms of just general consumer traffic online, the numbers tend to peak, according to the report, at around 8-11pm -- the time right before bed when most Americans are done with dinner, and have a little free time to jump online and browse around.  In terms of what they're doing when online, simple web browsing makes up most of that traffic (52%), what's the rest of it?  Gaming, including WoW.More than any other gaming service (they also take a look at Steam), WoW's chart is extremely interesting -- it peaks solidly at 8pm every night, and then falls back down just as sharply around 11pm.  In other words, the biggest audience for WoW (during this time period -- this is over ten days in July of this year) is raiders, who show up on time at 8 and end the raid around 3 hours later.  In other words, if you want to avoid the crowd, show up after 11.  Or even better, raid in the mornings.  Interesting stuff -- certainly Blizzard has much more detailed information on when people log into the game (and where they go when they do), but as an overview of traffic patterns, Arbor's research all makes sense.[via Network World]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/22/world-of-warcraft-in-the-nets-traffic-patterns/>