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Why would you use a VPN?
The Starcraft: Remastered matchmaking algorithm heavily weights geographical location as a factor. This means at higher MMR outside of Korea, you have to endure long queue times (5 min+), small amounts of points won per game (2-6), lower quality games, and often a relatively poor connection. A VPN puts you within the matchmaking pool of the selected node (generally Korea), matching you primarily with Koreans and alleviating nearly all of these issues, especially during prime Korean hours. You get very short (10-30 second) queue times, and generally even games.
A good VPN also improves the connection to players close to the selected node, allegedly through higher priority routing. Americans that regularly face Koreans without a VPN generally report improving from around 10-12 turn rate to 16-20 turn rate with Mudfish. For Europeans, the turn rate is generally lower but the improvement is still very noticeable.
How much does it cost?
Mudfish has a credit system, meaning you only pay for the traffic you use. Mudfish only routes traffic from the selected game, meaning your other programs remain unaffected and you only use your data credits on Starcraft, resulting in a very low cost; much lower than subscription-based VPNs. You would be very hard pressed to ever need more than $5-10 worth of credits for Starcraft. Mudfish also gives you a few games worth of credits for free when you activate your account, letting you try it before you commit to spending extra money on credits.
Personally, after trying various VPNs such as Private Internet Access, VyperVPN, Express VPN etc, I found mudfish to provide by far the best connection and lowest cost.
How do I get it to work?
1. Sign up, activate your account, and download the mudfish client from https://mudfish.net/
2. Launch the Mudfish client as administrator, this should open up the Mudfish dashboard in your default browser. From there, go to "Item" -> "Equip Item", hit ctrl-F, search for Starcraft: Remastered and select it. There should now be a button towards the bottom left that says "Equip this item".
In your dashboard you should now see Starcraft: Remastered under "My Items". Make sure the item is activated, an activated item should have a blue box with a white ring next to the name, like so
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/t2Jn7s8.png)
3. On the main Mudfish dashboard, go to "Setup" -> "Nodes". Under the country code section, select KR. You should now see a bunch of KR nodes within the node list, like so:
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/z8i5c8R.png)
Hit "Save" at the bottom and head back towards the main dashboard.
There should be a blue bar towards the top detailing your configuration status, it should be at 100%.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/AdDReE8.png)
4. (Optional) For some people, Mudfish requires you to open some ports to function properly. The default Mudfish port is UDP 10008, however, you can change it to any of the ports detailed here if UDP 10008 does not work (I use UDP 10006): http://mudfish.net/docs/en/vpn/references/connection_protocols.html
To change the default port first go to setup -> account -> edit profile and turn on expert mode.
Afterwards go to setup -> program -> connection protocol and select your port.
5. Before you launch Starcraft change the region to Asia on the Bnet launcher, like so:
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/mkV4EBh.png)
This is important, If you do not change the region, Mudfish will not work.
6. You can now launch the game. If you set up everything correctly, while the game is running you should see fluctuations in the "realtime traffic" window on the Mudfish dashboard:
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/OFfHUt6.png)
If you see this, the VPN is most likely working correctly and you are good to go, with a much better ladder experience awaiting, happy laddering  .
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blizzard's doing something wrong if a VPN is faster than without
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i think its cool and i believe you that it works, maybe i will eventually try it. i just dont get how it works? does anyone actually know how these VPN work and why it gives a better connection? does it give you an equal connection to what you already have and just tricks the matchmaker into believing you're from korea?
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I don't really think the VPN is necessary anymore for EVERYONE, I get no lag vs Koreans myself.
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On August 06 2018 10:04 castleeMg wrote:
i think its cool and i believe you that it works, maybe i will eventually try it. i just dont get how it works? does anyone actually know how these VPN work and why it gives a better connection? does it give you an equal connection to what you already have and just tricks the matchmaker into believing you're from korea?
I'm not really sure why it works either. Something to do with VPN connections having higher priority than normal p2p connections or something so the routing is better. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can explain what's going on.
But It definitely gives you a better connection to Korea. I live in southern California, which is basically as good as it gets in terms of usa->kr connection, and without VPN I get 12-14 turn rate vs Koreans, whereas with Mudfish I get a consistently smooth 20 turn rate. So the better connection combined with a higher population player base (Koreans) results in a much more pleasant ladder experience.
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United States42 Posts
On August 06 2018 10:25 GGzerG wrote:
I don't really think the VPN is necessary anymore for EVERYONE, I get no lag vs Koreans myself.
This. I get no lag vs koreans and I get matched with Koreans fairly frequently.
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I really don't think that everyone getting so hype about VPN's through the matchmaking system even understands how VPN's or Networking really works, so what happens when you hit People in EU / NA, you lag worse?
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On August 06 2018 12:12 Rea-Rea wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2018 10:25 GGzerG wrote:
I don't really think the VPN is necessary anymore for EVERYONE, I get no lag vs Koreans myself. This. I get no lag vs koreans and I get matched with Koreans fairly frequently.
You consistently get a smooth 20 turn rate vs Koreans? If so, you guys seem to very much be the exceptions. Everyone else I know, even on the west coast, gets around 12-14 turn rate at best without a VPN.
The lag concern is secondary though, the primary concern is the long queue times and uneven games. Waiting for 5 minutes only to play someone significantly below your skill level for 2-6 points for a significant portion of your games is not fun for anyone involved. I agree with your general sentiment is though, a VPN isn't necessary for most players. At lower MMRs the player-base is much larger, giving you a much better ladder experience.
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On August 06 2018 12:14 GGzerG wrote:
I really don't think that everyone getting so hype about VPN's through the matchmaking system even understands how VPN's or Networking really works, so what happens when you hit People in EU / NA, you lag worse?
With a VPN you basically never hit anyone in EU/NA, the Korean player base dwarfs the global player base.
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I get TR 20+ vs Koreans every game almost, I live in South Carolina, 100/10 MBPS DL / UP, play on KR Server(I know it doesn't matter), and never use VPN, I don't think it's necessary.]
EDIT : Oh shit, the real benefit to this is the time for Que and getting more points for wins / less points for loses really for me, I guess other people lag vs Koreans but the MMR difference and player pool difference is what may make me more interested, but I still seem to play a lot of Koreans on Ladder, so i'm kind of confused still.
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On August 06 2018 12:23 GGzerG wrote:
I get TR 20+ vs Koreans every game almost, I live in South Carolina, 100/10 MBPS DL / UP, play on KR Server(I know it doesn't matter), and never use VPN, I don't think it's necessary.
Well consider yourself very lucky, out of 10+ people I've talked to about this recently, this is the first I've heard of such a good experience. I have a wired 1gbps connection in San Diego and I'm not so fortunate. You can also watch any of the other NA streamers (aegyo, jaeyun, sero, nyoken etc) stream their ladder games and you will see that when they don't use a VPN, their connection to Koreans suffers greatly.
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On August 06 2018 12:23 GGzerG wrote:
I get TR 20+ vs Koreans every game almost, I live in South Carolina, 100/10 MBPS DL / UP, play on KR Server(I know it doesn't matter), and never use VPN, I don't think it's necessary.
How do you know they are Koreans though
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On August 06 2018 12:26 Shinokuki wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2018 12:23 GGzerG wrote:
I get TR 20+ vs Koreans every game almost, I live in South Carolina, 100/10 MBPS DL / UP, play on KR Server(I know it doesn't matter), and never use VPN, I don't think it's necessary. How do you know they are Koreans though
I'm playing vs people on KR server in private games as well, pretty much the same thing I think...
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United States42 Posts
West coast, consistent 20+ TR against Koreans. When I get matched with peruvians, the TR is garbage.
On August 06 2018 12:26 Shinokuki wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2018 12:23 GGzerG wrote:
I get TR 20+ vs Koreans every game almost, I live in South Carolina, 100/10 MBPS DL / UP, play on KR Server(I know it doesn't matter), and never use VPN, I don't think it's necessary. How do you know they are Koreans though
Their usernames give it away, when they start chatting in Korean, or they type in korean at the end of the game before they leave. When I play in custom games with koreans, it's pretty much the same thing. Solid TR.
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France1735 Posts
On August 06 2018 12:20 Lumire wrote:
With a VPN you basically never hit anyone in EU/NA, the Korean player base dwarfs the global player base.
That's problematic, the foreign player base is already small enough...
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Strange, it doesnt works for me. Everythin seems fine, i got 100%, i pick Asia, and i am getting europeans ...
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It's weird. I used to need mudfish to play vs Koreans but now adays (post 1.22 patch), my ladder experience has been 99% Koreans, or at least people playing on the Korean server.
Anyone else have this experience as well? Did they do something to change the geographical location priority with patch 1.22?
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Blizzard should be giving a subscription for free to all non-korean 2k+ mmr players. I'm sure they can bulk-buy data cheaply from Mudfish, and that'd fix ladder nicely
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Hey @ Lumire I just purchased mudfish VPN and followed your guidelines and I am still getting 1 red ping on each game on korea server and being banned trying to play 3;3 Hunt. Does this not effect my ping I thought that was the soul purpose?
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WCS
