I have been a member here for 15 years. The site has changed in that time in many ways.
Dividing activity into three categiries, we have mayhem (flaming and trolling), harmless chaos (e.g., pretty much everything Delete ever posted), and constructive conversation.
Mayhem is way down, which is good. Harmless chaos is down, and whether that is good or bad is debatable. Constructive conversation is up, and that is good. Overall I think the site has made some improvements.
I been away for a while. I keep hearing about this Delete poster. Whats some stuff they talked about and why they get banned?
He didn't get banned. He's just taking a self imposed break.
It's also amusing you don't know who he is when he routinely started about 10 threads a week either in the Pantheon forum or The Pub.
His ideas were often out there... as in way out there.
10 threads would have been a slow week! Haha not to mention he would usually contradict himself between threads and sometimes even in the same thread. Still wonder if the profile was a couple different people.
A few years ago he admitted using a "random thread generator" website and just copy+pasting onto these forums as a way to stimulate conversation and get some attention. It's why he often seemed self-conflicted: it's because he did actually disagree with his original posts, because they weren't really his.
The last couple of years he stopped doing that, now it's all about poor grammer and spelling, but that could have been due to the brain tumour he announced not that long ago.
Those are two different people. The style of the former, his spelling, grammar and English totally differed. He had a spolight poster award which he would often brag about and at some point he was caught copy pasting stuff and then he admitted to it. I doubt he would have admitted to it if he hadn't been caught so flagrantly. However when he did post genuinely while trying to justify the thread his posts were far more coherent and he didn't make the consistent spelling mistakes the latter does and has done throughout his history on these boards.
Yeah. I thought that was a different poster also. Do you remember te name?
I cannot remember the poster's name but I do recall the lock, stock and barrel lifting of content from Reddit and other sites. What was worse was there wasn't any shame even when he was discovered doing it.
That was TheScavenger.
Yes that was it and like @Iselin said the name fits.
I have been a member here for 15 years. The site has changed in that time in many ways.
Dividing activity into three categiries, we have mayhem (flaming and trolling), harmless chaos (e.g., pretty much everything Delete ever posted), and constructive conversation.
Mayhem is way down, which is good. Harmless chaos is down, and whether that is good or bad is debatable. Constructive conversation is up, and that is good. Overall I think the site has made some improvements.
I been away for a while. I keep hearing about this Delete poster. Whats some stuff they talked about and why they get banned?
He didn't get banned. He's just taking a self imposed break.
It's also amusing you don't know who he is when he routinely started about 10 threads a week either in the Pantheon forum or The Pub.
His ideas were often out there... as in way out there.
10 threads would have been a slow week! Haha not to mention he would usually contradict himself between threads and sometimes even in the same thread. Still wonder if the profile was a couple different people.
A few years ago he admitted using a "random thread generator" website and just copy+pasting onto these forums as a way to stimulate conversation and get some attention. It's why he often seemed self-conflicted: it's because he did actually disagree with his original posts, because they weren't really his.
The last couple of years he stopped doing that, now it's all about poor grammer and spelling, but that could have been due to the brain tumour he announced not that long ago.
Those are two different people. The style of the former, his spelling, grammar and English totally differed. He had a spolight poster award which he would often brag about and at some point he was caught copy pasting stuff and then he admitted to it. I doubt he would have admitted to it if he hadn't been caught so flagrantly. However when he did post genuinely while trying to justify the thread his posts were far more coherent and he didn't make the consistent spelling mistakes the latter does and has done throughout his history on these boards.
Those are 2 different people. Kopo was the "Spotlight" poster. TheScavenger was the reddit copy/paster.
That is it Kopo, he was the Spotlight poster and who claimed he hadn't bought a single game since WoW. Thescavenger is the plagiarist.
Kopo would periodically start a thread about how much money he has saved since WoW. Cannot say I miss these people even if they provided us with entertainment.
I have been a member here for 15 years. The site has changed in that time in many ways.
Dividing activity into three categiries, we have mayhem (flaming and trolling), harmless chaos (e.g., pretty much everything Delete ever posted), and constructive conversation.
Mayhem is way down, which is good. Harmless chaos is down, and whether that is good or bad is debatable. Constructive conversation is up, and that is good. Overall I think the site has made some improvements.
I been away for a while. I keep hearing about this Delete poster. Whats some stuff they talked about and why they get banned?
He didn't get banned. He's just taking a self imposed break.
It's also amusing you don't know who he is when he routinely started about 10 threads a week either in the Pantheon forum or The Pub.
His ideas were often out there... as in way out there.
I've been reading your posts (and a few others) since my own self-imposed hiatus and skipping most of the cruft. I've visited once or twice a week using the incognito browser mode. It's always nice to read a well articulated and thoughtful post to an article. It's like mining for rare crafting materials.
Anway, Blueturtle mentioned your PM so I thought I'd log back in, say hi, and join the living and the undead. lol
Obviously you have time on your hands because you changed your avatar before posting...again.
Wow, you're incredibly observant. I know you're just being a bit cheeky, but here's the reason I made the change: While technically not the same file, it's the same Atlas avatar, just visually upgraded. The previous avatar was taken from an image someone else created that I screen-snipped off the internet. This image I created in Inkscape and Krita. I felt better about using my own art than borrowing the work of another without their permission.
This is MMORPG,com, I have recently been stealing from that great artist David Bowie to wind up Lahnmir so we do it all the time.
Now all you need to do is get into a real humdinger of an argument with someone to know you are really back.
I have been a member here for 15 years. The site has changed in that time in many ways.
Dividing activity into three categiries, we have mayhem (flaming and trolling), harmless chaos (e.g., pretty much everything Delete ever posted), and constructive conversation.
Mayhem is way down, which is good. Harmless chaos is down, and whether that is good or bad is debatable. Constructive conversation is up, and that is good. Overall I think the site has made some improvements.
I been away for a while. I keep hearing about this Delete poster. Whats some stuff they talked about and why they get banned?
He didn't get banned. He's just taking a self imposed break.
It's also amusing you don't know who he is when he routinely started about 10 threads a week either in the Pantheon forum or The Pub.
His ideas were often out there... as in way out there.
I've been reading your posts (and a few others) since my own self-imposed hiatus and skipping most of the cruft. I've visited once or twice a week using the incognito browser mode. It's always nice to read a well articulated and thoughtful post to an article. It's like mining for rare crafting materials.
Anway, Blueturtle mentioned your PM so I thought I'd log back in, say hi, and join the living and the undead. lol
Obviously you have time on your hands because you changed your avatar before posting...again.
Wow, you're incredibly observant. I know you're just being a bit cheeky, but here's the reason I made the change: While technically not the same file, it's the same Atlas avatar, just visually upgraded. The previous avatar was taken from an image someone else created that I screen-snipped off the internet. This image I created in Inkscape and Krita. I felt better about using my own art than borrowing the work of another without their permission.
@Scot is very observant and he gets miffed when you change your avatar because he recognizes posters by their avatars. Come to think of it I do too. I noticed you changed yours too @Torval and I love the new vibrant colours.
I was once a Spotlight Poster. I still have a mmorpg.com fez and an autographed pic of @MikeB to prove it.
wut lol
Me, too!
hehehehehehe
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I have been a member here for 15 years. The site has changed in that time in many ways.
Dividing activity into three categiries, we have mayhem (flaming and trolling), harmless chaos (e.g., pretty much everything Delete ever posted), and constructive conversation.
Mayhem is way down, which is good. Harmless chaos is down, and whether that is good or bad is debatable. Constructive conversation is up, and that is good. Overall I think the site has made some improvements.
I been away for a while. I keep hearing about this Delete poster. Whats some stuff they talked about and why they get banned?
He didn't get banned. He's just taking a self imposed break.
It's also amusing you don't know who he is when he routinely started about 10 threads a week either in the Pantheon forum or The Pub.
His ideas were often out there... as in way out there.
I've been reading your posts (and a few others) since my own self-imposed hiatus and skipping most of the cruft. I've visited once or twice a week using the incognito browser mode. It's always nice to read a well articulated and thoughtful post to an article. It's like mining for rare crafting materials.
Anway, Blueturtle mentioned your PM so I thought I'd log back in, say hi, and join the living and the undead. lol
Obviously you have time on your hands because you changed your avatar before posting...again.
Wow, you're incredibly observant. I know you're just being a bit cheeky, but here's the reason I made the change: While technically not the same file, it's the same Atlas avatar, just visually upgraded. The previous avatar was taken from an image someone else created that I screen-snipped off the internet. This image I created in Inkscape and Krita. I felt better about using my own art than borrowing the work of another without their permission.
@Scot is very observant and he gets miffed when you change your avatar because he recognizes posters by their avatars. Come to think of it I do too. I noticed you changed yours too @Torval and I love the new vibrant colours.
I also recognize posters by their avatars. So people shouldn't change their avatars.
Thank you in advance.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
So it looks like Forum activity has died down greatly over the last few years since the site update.
Whats some things we can do to spice things up again here?
A time machine is needed to bring us back to 10 years ago.
I think this is just the natural order of things, sites decline over time- don't expect things to remain the same over a long time when it comes to a dying genre
Its never one thing - the mmorpg genre has majority dried up in the last several years, Bill and Suzy have left this site, the ads have gotten stupid here (have you see this site without ad block - there are pop up videos and streams on every page reload), many good forum posters have moved on, globally masses have gotten rocked out of their "everything is fine routine" in 2020 spurred on by the pandemic etc...
So yep - imo - just like trying to recapture that elusive first mmorpg experience, you can't recapture the glory days of mmorpg.com
What if 10 years from now we look back at 2020 as being a great year? Things can always get much worse
Nah, I'd rather go further back. You know, to when people actually knew what an MMO even was. Not this "16 players is an MMO" bullshit. People used to know it was about having a massive quantity of players in a single shared reality, a virtual world for all of us to join in. Now people argue Destiny, PSO2, Warframe, PoE, World of Tanks and others are MMO's when they clearly aren't.
10 years ago is just rewinding to another shitty time with more arguments.
But hey, how would you know, you weren't around back then!
As someone earlier mentioned, we should try and spice it up by creating threads with topics to discuss. I created two threads in the hopes of engaging in discussions.
This is my main to go site, when I'm outside waiting for time to pass. I enjoy reading what others have to say on the genre, but it has indeed died down. If someone has things they always wondered why are/n't in mmos, do try and create threads. Who knows, perhaps there will be more traffic and reason to check this site.
So it looks like Forum activity has died down greatly over the last few years since the site update.
Whats some things we can do to spice things up again here?
A time machine is needed to bring us back to 10 years ago.
I think this is just the natural order of things, sites decline over time- don't expect things to remain the same over a long time when it comes to a dying genre
Its never one thing - the mmorpg genre has majority dried up in the last several years, Bill and Suzy have left this site, the ads have gotten stupid here (have you see this site without ad block - there are pop up videos and streams on every page reload), many good forum posters have moved on, globally masses have gotten rocked out of their "everything is fine routine" in 2020 spurred on by the pandemic etc...
So yep - imo - just like trying to recapture that elusive first mmorpg experience, you can't recapture the glory days of mmorpg.com
What if 10 years from now we look back at 2020 as being a great year? Things can always get much worse
Nah, I'd rather go further back. You know, to when people actually knew what an MMO even was. Not this "16 players is an MMO" bullshit. People used to know it was about having a massive quantity of players in a single shared reality, a virtual world for all of us to join in. Now people argue Destiny, PSO2, Warframe, PoE, World of Tanks and others are MMO's when they clearly aren't.
10 years ago is just rewinding to another shitty time with more arguments.
But hey, how would you know, you weren't around back then!
So it looks like Forum activity has died down greatly over the last few years since the site update.
Whats some things we can do to spice things up again here?
A time machine is needed to bring us back to 10 years ago.
I think this is just the natural order of things, sites decline over time- don't expect things to remain the same over a long time when it comes to a dying genre
Its never one thing - the mmorpg genre has majority dried up in the last several years, Bill and Suzy have left this site, the ads have gotten stupid here (have you see this site without ad block - there are pop up videos and streams on every page reload), many good forum posters have moved on, globally masses have gotten rocked out of their "everything is fine routine" in 2020 spurred on by the pandemic etc...
So yep - imo - just like trying to recapture that elusive first mmorpg experience, you can't recapture the glory days of mmorpg.com
What if 10 years from now we look back at 2020 as being a great year? Things can always get much worse
Nah, I'd rather go further back. You know, to when people actually knew what an MMO even was. Not this "16 players is an MMO" bullshit. People used to know it was about having a massive quantity of players in a single shared reality, a virtual world for all of us to join in. Now people argue Destiny, PSO2, Warframe, PoE, World of Tanks and others are MMO's when they clearly aren't.
10 years ago is just rewinding to another shitty time with more arguments.
But hey, how would you know, you weren't around back then!
nah that started back in the Guild Wars 1 days.
The developers called it a cooperative RPG, they never referred to the game as an MMORPG. They knew better.
So it looks like Forum activity has died down greatly over the last few years since the site update.
Whats some things we can do to spice things up again here?
A time machine is needed to bring us back to 10 years ago.
I think this is just the natural order of things, sites decline over time- don't expect things to remain the same over a long time when it comes to a dying genre
Its never one thing - the mmorpg genre has majority dried up in the last several years, Bill and Suzy have left this site, the ads have gotten stupid here (have you see this site without ad block - there are pop up videos and streams on every page reload), many good forum posters have moved on, globally masses have gotten rocked out of their "everything is fine routine" in 2020 spurred on by the pandemic etc...
So yep - imo - just like trying to recapture that elusive first mmorpg experience, you can't recapture the glory days of mmorpg.com
What if 10 years from now we look back at 2020 as being a great year? Things can always get much worse
Nah, I'd rather go further back. You know, to when people actually knew what an MMO even was. Not this "16 players is an MMO" bullshit. People used to know it was about having a massive quantity of players in a single shared reality, a virtual world for all of us to join in. Now people argue Destiny, PSO2, Warframe, PoE, World of Tanks and others are MMO's when they clearly aren't.
10 years ago is just rewinding to another shitty time with more arguments.
But hey, how would you know, you weren't around back then!
nah that started back in the Guild Wars 1 days.
The developers called it a cooperative RPG, they never referred to the game as an MMORPG. They knew better.
Yes, it is a specific type of forum dweller (here and elsewhere) who started pretending GW1 was what the developers never said it was.
If GW1 is a MMORPG, then Diablo is a MMORPG too... and all games that have only a few common lobbies and the whole world instanced for small groups too.
This said, the signification of "Massive" evolved with the technology. When 25 years ago you had massive lag with more than X players around in Ultima Online, nowadays to get the same lag you will need 100x that amount of players around. But "Massive" has never been about 4, 8 or 16 people in a fully instanced world.
It's not ever going to improve with demands on
high end graphics until maybe terabit bandwidth and quantum computing is achievable.
The amount of information to interact between players per frame is becoming the
bottleneck of game development. If the server is in a 30 frame per second broadcast,
the load on the server cluster is maxing out trying to send all the morphing, positional
data and effects to all the connections. Lowering the frame rate causes a rubber
banding effect since the client tries to project the missing frame. With most
of the framing taking place on the client the server is relieved of the load
such as in multiplayer only mode where lower number of connections don’t place
strain on the server and the data is just passed through as a proxy of point to
point. Older games don’t suffer because the lower graphics and higher available
bandwidth make them better playable games.
Website forum use has declined with the rise of sites like Reddit.
Lack of new games/information - the genre has seen a steep decline in production of MMOs in the last several years...some even proclaiming the genre dead
So what does that leave us to talk about? A game that's been out for 16 years and its latest expansion? Or that Star Wars MMO from 9 years ago that has seem to lost it's steam? Or the next MMO closure?
Honestly, the industry has for the most part moved on. Aside from Amazon's upcoming MMO, I don't see anything triple A coming out in the foreseeable future....except maybe expansions for existing MMOs.
It's not ever going to improve with demands on
high end graphics until maybe terabit bandwidth and quantum computing is achievable.
The amount of information to interact between players per frame is becoming the
bottleneck of game development. If the server is in a 30 frame per second broadcast,
the load on the server cluster is maxing out trying to send all the morphing, positional
data and effects to all the connections. Lowering the frame rate causes a rubber
banding effect since the client tries to project the missing frame. With most
of the framing taking place on the client the server is relieved of the load
such as in multiplayer only mode where lower number of connections don’t place
strain on the server and the data is just passed through as a proxy of point to
point. Older games don’t suffer because the lower graphics and higher available
bandwidth make them better playable games.
Except that the quality of graphics have little to do with the amount of information transferred between the client and the server. Graphics are rendered client side. The bottleneck is the same it has always been. The bandwidth required to send the information about all the surrounding "living objects" (players, NPCs, interactive items, etc...) to every single connected client. and when you have 100 players close to each other, that's a lot of information to spread out.
Whilst graphics have no effect on the amount of network traffic and bandwidth required, surely they still have an effect on the ability to have loads of players?
I mean, if I've got 500 players in a PvP zone, my graphics card is still going to have to work a lot harder than if there was only 50 players.
Not that I think this should be a big issue. I'm more than happy to take a graphics hit if it would mean I could have 1000s of players getting stuck in to the same bit of content. It just means, from a devs point of view, they will have a harder time selling the product on the strengths of its graphics because they can't compete with the latest single player games. I also think you can achieve great looking games even if you can't have crazy high poly counts.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
It's not ever going to improve with demands on
high end graphics until maybe terabit bandwidth and quantum computing is achievable.
The amount of information to interact between players per frame is becoming the
bottleneck of game development. If the server is in a 30 frame per second broadcast,
the load on the server cluster is maxing out trying to send all the morphing, positional
data and effects to all the connections. Lowering the frame rate causes a rubber
banding effect since the client tries to project the missing frame. With most
of the framing taking place on the client the server is relieved of the load
such as in multiplayer only mode where lower number of connections don’t place
strain on the server and the data is just passed through as a proxy of point to
point. Older games don’t suffer because the lower graphics and higher available
bandwidth make them better playable games.
Except that the quality of graphics have little to do with the amount of information transferred between the client and the server. Graphics are rendered client side. The bottleneck is the same it has always been. The bandwidth required to send the information about all the surrounding "living objects" (players, NPCs, interactive items, etc...) to every single connected client. and when you have 100 players close to each other, that's a lot of information to spread out.
Whilst graphics have no effect on the amount of network traffic and bandwidth required, surely they still have an effect on the ability to have loads of players?
I mean, if I've got 500 players in a PvP zone, my graphics card is still going to have to work a lot harder than if there was only 50 players.
Not that I think this should be a big issue. I'm more than happy to take a graphics hit if it would mean I could have 1000s of players getting stuck in to the same bit of content. It just means, from a devs point of view, they will have a harder time selling the product on the strengths of its graphics because they can't compete with the latest single player games. I also think you can achieve great looking games even if you can't have crazy high poly counts.
You still misunderstand the problem. Long before your graphic card, the bandwidth will be your problem. The graphic card side of the problem is solvable by dynamically reducing graphic quality. The bandwidth problem didn't change since UO.
I think I see what you're saying: the graphics problem is solvable, by reducing graphics quality, but the bandwidth problem isn't, because you can't reduce the amount of data that needs to be sent?
If that is the case, then surely actual, genuine increased bandwidth in internet connections should have helped right? Also, don't we have better compression algorithms to reduce the amount of data that needs to sent?
Or, is the problem the amount of people the data needs to be sent to?
It was my understanding that if you needed to send data to multiple IPs, you don't need to send it out separately for each recipient, you just send it out once and then it duplicates when it hits a router that needs to send it to different places?
E.G.
Server is based in US
It needs to send data to 100 players in UK
It sends out one copy of data to UK via the backbone.
When it hits the UK, data is duplicated by first router, sending copies to London and Manchester.
When it hits the city routers, it is then duplicated multiple times to send that data to individual homes.
I will freely admit, my knowledge of networking is pretty limited. I've got a reasonable history as a software engineer, but it's all been pretty high-level programming, never really dived into server admin or detailed networking stuff.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
It's not ever going to improve with demands on
high end graphics until maybe terabit bandwidth and quantum computing is achievable.
The amount of information to interact between players per frame is becoming the
bottleneck of game development. If the server is in a 30 frame per second broadcast,
the load on the server cluster is maxing out trying to send all the morphing, positional
data and effects to all the connections. Lowering the frame rate causes a rubber
banding effect since the client tries to project the missing frame. With most
of the framing taking place on the client the server is relieved of the load
such as in multiplayer only mode where lower number of connections don’t place
strain on the server and the data is just passed through as a proxy of point to
point. Older games don’t suffer because the lower graphics and higher available
bandwidth make them better playable games.
Except that the quality of graphics have little to do with the amount of information transferred between the client and the server. Graphics are rendered client side. The bottleneck is the same it has always been. The bandwidth required to send the information about all the surrounding "living objects" (players, NPCs, interactive items, etc...) to every single connected client. and when you have 100 players close to each other, that's a lot of information to spread out.
Whilst graphics have no effect on the amount of network traffic and bandwidth required, surely they still have an effect on the ability to have loads of players?
I mean, if I've got 500 players in a PvP zone, my graphics card is still going to have to work a lot harder than if there was only 50 players.
Not that I think this should be a big issue. I'm more than happy to take a graphics hit if it would mean I could have 1000s of players getting stuck in to the same bit of content. It just means, from a devs point of view, they will have a harder time selling the product on the strengths of its graphics because they can't compete with the latest single player games. I also think you can achieve great looking games even if you can't have crazy high poly counts.
You still misunderstand the problem. Long before your graphic card, the bandwidth will be your problem. The graphic card side of the problem is solvable by dynamically reducing graphic quality. The bandwidth problem didn't change since UO.
I think I see what you're saying: the graphics problem is solvable, by reducing graphics quality, but the bandwidth problem isn't, because you can't reduce the amount of data that needs to be sent?
If that is the case, then surely actual, genuine increased bandwidth in internet connections should have helped right? Also, don't we have better compression algorithms to reduce the amount of data that needs to sent?
Or, is the problem the amount of people the data needs to be sent to?
It was my understanding that if you needed to send data to multiple IPs, you don't need to send it out separately for each recipient, you just send it out once and then it duplicates when it hits a router that needs to send it to different places?
E.G.
Server is based in US
It needs to send data to 100 players in UK
It sends out one copy of data to UK via the backbone.
When it hits the UK, data is duplicated by first router, sending copies to London and Manchester.
When it hits the city routers, it is then duplicated multiple times to send that data to individual homes.
I will freely admit, my knowledge of networking is pretty limited. I've got a reasonable history as a software engineer, but it's all been pretty high-level programming, never really dived into server admin or detailed networking stuff.
I believe what Jean-Luc is saying (he'll correct me if I'm mistaken) is that bottleneck happens before getting to your PC, in the cable lines. Once in your PC, the graphics render on the client side.
(This is my conjecture, not facts)
Network technology really hasn't advanced since ARPANET first laid the lines. The "speed" has increased, but the hardware (lines) are made the same. A T1 line is still a T1. DS0's are still made the same. You can only push so much water through a garden hose
I hope I'm not too far off and confused the topic more
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Except that the quality of graphics have little to do with the amount of information transferred between the client and the server. Graphics are rendered client side. The bottleneck is the same it has always been. The bandwidth required to send the information about all the surrounding "living objects" (players, NPCs, interactive items, etc...) to every single connected client. and when you have 100 players close to each other, that's a lot of information to spread out.
I guess the is a misunderstanding about what I was saying as example now days the number of animations per player has gone from all of 16 back in 2000 to now up to over 300 and in some games 8 to 10K so that alone requires more information to be sent out. Then you have the morphing data that needs to be sent out, some as much as 180 different objects of vertex changes and LOD changes due to distance. Top that off with additional effects which are still dynamic. The packets get rather large. Static objects don't change but the dynamic data get overloaded even for a high end network. Hell my internet is faster than my DVD drive. Put a hundred players in an area on a massive battle and the internet connection starts to lag. Add in the lower end video card it becomes a challenge. Solution is yeah $3000 dollar video card with a $3000 CPU with 100 gigabit internet connection. Not many can afford the luxury so SP or MP better solution and target to sell to.
I guess the is a misunderstanding about what I was saying as example now days the number of animations per player has gone from all of 16 back in 2000 to now up to over 300 and in some games 8 to 10K so that alone requires more information to be sent out. Then you have the morphing data that needs to be sent out, some as much as 180 different objects of vertex changes and LOD changes due to distance. Top that off with additional effects which are still dynamic. The packets get rather large. Static objects don't change but the dynamic data get overloaded even for a high end network.
Exactly this. It's wrong to think that graphics don't matter in the context of data packet transfer and that it's all up to the client-side processing power.
How detailed and articulated every character's model is impacts greatly the amount of data that needs to be updated and transferred in real time.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I guess the is a misunderstanding about what I was saying as example now days the number of animations per player has gone from all of 16 back in 2000 to now up to over 300 and in some games 8 to 10K so that alone requires more information to be sent out. Then you have the morphing data that needs to be sent out, some as much as 180 different objects of vertex changes and LOD changes due to distance. Top that off with additional effects which are still dynamic. The packets get rather large. Static objects don't change but the dynamic data get overloaded even for a high end network.
Exactly this. It's wrong to think that graphics don't matter in the context of data packet transfer and that it's all up to the client-side processing power.
How detailed and articulated every character's model is impacts greatly the amount of data that needs to be updated and transferred in real time.
Not true either. The character animations aren't calculated server side.
If that is the case, then surely actual, genuine increased bandwidth in internet connections should have helped right? Also, don't we have better compression algorithms to reduce the amount of data that needs to sent?
Those things for sure helped, that's why instead of having lag with 10+ people in range in 1995, you have lag with 100+ nowadays (arbitrary numbers). This is the network lag. Client side, if you have fiber or even good quality DSL, the bandwidth will basically never be a problem for you. Even with a good PC and high end graphic card, you will probably have graphic lag requiring to reduce graphic quality before you even have network lag (unless your little brother starts to download porn torrents while you play... ).
Server side though, if you have too many connections on the same cluster (aka same zone, same instance), not only the processing power but also the output bandwidth will introduce server lag. If you have 1000 players on the same cluster, even if they aren't all in range of each other, the server still has to manage all of them and send information about every unit in range of every other unit.
That's pretty much why so many games resort to layering nowadays. Two layers being on two different server clusters, it reduces the risk of server lag greatly.
If as you say character animations are not calculated server side how is the server suppose to output what the client inputted to tell that PC did this action to all the other clients?
You're right on the server side. It is the combination of getting large packets out and doing all the calculations server side. As an example of non-zoned server cluster the actions of all dynamic objects still has to be calculated weather someone is there or not. However as AOI is changed the number of packets increases due to the dynamic objects. Client side is limited to draw calls.
When I was working on the BigWorlds Indie the server started to lag behind once the number of dynamic objects got beyond the cores capability (was a small test of client connections where it started at around 18 PC's and 2000 NPC's on 10 updates a second) of course this was a dual core 2.8 so not exactly the best testbed.
Multiverse didn't fair much better and looking at the logs of both showed they had been dropping frames. I put MV on a cloud with a number of VM's and it was an improvement but still a limitation.
Compiled and installed Ryzom it has a total cluster size limitation on 13 machines at around 1500 CCU. Past that the cluster starts to drop frames.
It would take 1,000,000 divided by 10 to 20 cores to server up a million on a single world but a zone based limited instance takes a lot less horsepower since it can be sent to a separate VM's at different physical locations. Cloud based systems could handle very large populations of players and NPC's but the requirement for 10 frames a second is 10 to 20 PC to 1 core.
edit: changed CPU to cores for clarity.
So a server with 6 cores could handle 64 PC as a limitation and has to have a database server, web server, login server on top of that.
I guess the is a misunderstanding about what I was saying as example now days the number of animations per player has gone from all of 16 back in 2000 to now up to over 300 and in some games 8 to 10K so that alone requires more information to be sent out. Then you have the morphing data that needs to be sent out, some as much as 180 different objects of vertex changes and LOD changes due to distance. Top that off with additional effects which are still dynamic. The packets get rather large. Static objects don't change but the dynamic data get overloaded even for a high end network.
Exactly this. It's wrong to think that graphics don't matter in the context of data packet transfer and that it's all up to the client-side processing power.
How detailed and articulated every character's model is impacts greatly the amount of data that needs to be updated and transferred in real time.
Not true either. The character animations aren't calculated server side.
If that is the case, then surely actual, genuine increased bandwidth in internet connections should have helped right? Also, don't we have better compression algorithms to reduce the amount of data that needs to sent?
Those things for sure helped, that's why instead of having lag with 10+ people in range in 1995, you have lag with 100+ nowadays (arbitrary numbers). This is the network lag. Client side, if you have fiber or even good quality DSL, the bandwidth will basically never be a problem for you. Even with a good PC and high end graphic card, you will probably have graphic lag requiring to reduce graphic quality before you even have network lag (unless your little brother starts to download porn torrents while you play... ).
Server side though, if you have too many connections on the same cluster (aka same zone, same instance), not only the processing power but also the output bandwidth will introduce server lag. If you have 1000 players on the same cluster, even if they aren't all in range of each other, the server still has to manage all of them and send information about every unit in range of every other unit.
That's pretty much why so many games resort to layering nowadays. Two layers being on two different server clusters, it reduces the risk of server lag greatly.
If as you say character animations are not calculated server side how is the server suppose to output what the client inputted to tell that PC did this action to all the other clients?
I think there's a misunderstanding in terms used here
The server won't tell everyone else "this character lifted his right arm, and is now lifting is middle finger", but will tell, most likely coded into one or two bytes, that "this character has done rude emote number X". It's the client who will convert that number into the corresponding animation on everybody's screen.
LOL. True
But then lets look at a cluster of servers that can have many different actions going on like 100 NPC's fighting PC's and all streaming data to the client through different routes as in 100 players lifting their arms and extending the finger which can overload the client with incoming data which is similar to a DOS attack. Really a cluster can have up to 100 connections processing different actions or it can try to instance them or each action can be sequential. It still has to be processed on the client to be seen. Most times the nearest image get the process but the distant ones are locked out to keep overload from happening.
Anyway,
Go back and read what I said in Chronicles of Elyria Forums about
they don’t know shit about making an insanely large world and the cost of the
equipment and requirements of streaming or paging clients. I knew at get go
that was a failure of mass proportions because no engineer was actually
discussing the issues when asked the questions. It was not just cost of
development but the real implementation of the idea itself in cost too.
Just to be clear, the only reason I bother coming around
here anymore is just to see if anyone has broken through with something innovative
and realistic beyond the same old game play with different pixels and no micro
transactions. I rather spend my time doing mods and making movies because at
least it is within realistic realm of possibility rather than try to put
millions into a lost cause. Good luck
Comments
Kopo would periodically start a thread about how much money he has saved since WoW. Cannot say I miss these people even if they provided us with entertainment.
Now all you need to do is get into a real humdinger of an argument with someone to know you are really back.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
wut lol
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Thank you in advance.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
10 years ago is just rewinding to another shitty time with more arguments.
But hey, how would you know, you weren't around back then!
This is my main to go site, when I'm outside waiting for time to pass. I enjoy reading what others have to say on the genre, but it has indeed died down. If someone has things they always wondered why are/n't in mmos, do try and create threads. Who knows, perhaps there will be more traffic and reason to check this site.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
- Website forum use has declined with the rise of sites like Reddit.
- Lack of new games/information - the genre has seen a steep decline in production of MMOs in the last several years...some even proclaiming the genre dead
So what does that leave us to talk about? A game that's been out for 16 years and its latest expansion? Or that Star Wars MMO from 9 years ago that has seem to lost it's steam? Or the next MMO closure?Honestly, the industry has for the most part moved on. Aside from Amazon's upcoming MMO, I don't see anything triple A coming out in the foreseeable future....except maybe expansions for existing MMOs.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Put a hundred players in an area on a massive battle and the internet connection starts to lag. Add in the lower end video card it becomes a challenge. Solution is yeah $3000 dollar video card with a $3000 CPU with 100 gigabit internet connection. Not many can afford the luxury so SP or MP better solution and target to sell to.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
How detailed and articulated every character's model is impacts greatly the amount of data that needs to be updated and transferred in real time.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
You're right on the server side. It is the combination of getting large packets out and doing all the calculations server side. As an example of non-zoned server cluster the actions of all dynamic objects still has to be calculated weather someone is there or not. However as AOI is changed the number of packets increases due to the dynamic objects. Client side is limited to draw calls.
When I was working on the BigWorlds Indie the server started to lag behind once the number of dynamic objects got beyond the cores capability (was a small test of client connections where it started at around 18 PC's and 2000 NPC's on 10 updates a second) of course this was a dual core 2.8 so not exactly the best testbed.
Multiverse didn't fair much better and looking at the logs of both showed they had been dropping frames. I put MV on a cloud with a number of VM's and it was an improvement but still a limitation.
Compiled and installed Ryzom it has a total cluster size limitation on 13 machines at around 1500 CCU. Past that the cluster starts to drop frames.
It would take 1,000,000 divided by 10 to 20 cores to server up a million on a single world but a zone based limited instance takes a lot less horsepower since it can be sent to a separate VM's at different physical locations. Cloud based systems could handle very large populations of players and NPC's but the requirement for 10 frames a second is 10 to 20 PC to 1 core.
edit: changed CPU to cores for clarity.
So a server with 6 cores could handle 64 PC as a limitation and has to have a database server, web server, login server on top of that.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
But then lets look at a cluster of servers that can have many different actions going on like 100 NPC's fighting PC's and all streaming data to the client through different routes as in 100 players lifting their arms and extending the finger which can overload the client with incoming data which is similar to a DOS attack. Really a cluster can have up to 100 connections processing different actions or it can try to instance them or each action can be sequential. It still has to be processed on the client to be seen. Most times the nearest image get the process but the distant ones are locked out to keep overload from happening.
Anyway,
Go back and read what I said in Chronicles of Elyria Forums about they don’t know shit about making an insanely large world and the cost of the equipment and requirements of streaming or paging clients. I knew at get go that was a failure of mass proportions because no engineer was actually discussing the issues when asked the questions. It was not just cost of development but the real implementation of the idea itself in cost too.
Just to be clear, the only reason I bother coming around here anymore is just to see if anyone has broken through with something innovative and realistic beyond the same old game play with different pixels and no micro transactions. I rather spend my time doing mods and making movies because at least it is within realistic realm of possibility rather than try to put millions into a lost cause. Good luck
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Update: Nevermind its back now