As of late 2019 How has MMO tech come along to providing a MMORPG Full Voxel based game

MMOExposed · September 2019

Technical side of things I know little about.
How far has the tech used to make MMOs and the servers the handle them, come along, to allow Fully Voxel MMORPG in the same level of detail of 7 Days To Die, but with the ability to host as many players in the same area as a MMO like World of Warcraft or GW2 minimum?

Of course smaller multiplayer games like 7 Days and Minecraft can do stuff like this. But in MMOs usually masses of players can play in the world simultaneously if they choose to do so. Can a modern day Voxel based MMORPG handle something like that?

if not, how far off you think we are to getting to that point?

Azaron_Nightblade · September 2019

I don't think it can be done on an MMO.
And if it could... LOL, it would be such a HUGE mess.

Wizardry · September 2019

The ability to handle many players all depends on polycount,simple as that and how strong each person's machine is.If there are a lot of really nice effects going off,a lot of complicated AI,a lot of animations,then yeah it is going to be tough. Voxels are cheap anyhow,i don't want voxels,i want graphics more like Atlas.I can build anywhere inside of Atlas,see really nice creatures,scenery,water and not have to get into voxels.How many players could i see in one spot,well obviously with better graphics and better creature AI and depending on total item count,player count and bandwidth needed it would be different for each person. Voxel gaming is NOT the right way to go,it works for cheap applications like a Minecraft game or a 7 days to die game but is not an idea i want to see in my games.

Imo Voxels is a nice idea that lasted about 2 years and imo is already outdated and should be left behind for good.

Vermillion_Raventhal · September 2019

I think there would have to be some limitations. Players don't limit themselves. The world would be a big hole.

I think focus should be on having dynamic NPCs and content vs. letting players manipulate the ground and world.

MMOExposed · September 2019

DMKano said:

MMOExposed said:

Technical side of things I know little about.
How far has the tech used to make MMOs and the servers the handle them, come along, to allow Fully Voxel MMORPG in the same level of detail of 7 Days To Die, but with the ability to host as many players in the same area as a MMO like World of Warcraft or GW2 minimum?

Of course smaller multiplayer games like 7 Days and Minecraft can do stuff like this. But in MMOs usually masses of players can play in the world simultaneously if they choose to do so. Can a modern day Voxel based MMORPG handle something like that?

if not, how far off you think we are to getting to that point?

The issue is the voxel update stream overhead - Trove devs talked about this.

In traditional mmos where the terrain doesnt change - the server and each client exchange player movement, player actions such as attacks etc

In voxel game in addition to the above - server and client have to constantly update voxel changes to the world as well - so if one player builds or destroys terrain all the player in the vicinity need to see that change in as real time as possible.

So the way this is accomplished is to have a constant stream of voxel update data between server and each client.

The problem is how many clients can server update in the vicinity before you start to get lag - that number is about 50 clients.

So this us why Trove limits 50 players per world instance.

Other voxel based games have the same voxel stream overhead issues and similarly the limit is usually around 50 players as well if you want to maintain ok performance

So if a mmorpg would limit players in instances that are 50 players or less like Trove - its doable.

P.S. Trove is a dead game that hasn't received a major update in over 6 months - so don't mistake that I am in any way shape or form promoting Trove - it's dead Jim

So how do some MMOs and Multi-player games get around this issue if they want to allow players to build Keeps, Forts and Castles in the game world while not being overlaggy? That's what I would like to get to. A MMO that's big with lots of PvE but also ability to build and design your own House, Fort, City, Town, etc.
Ark/7DtD/Rust building but with MMO numbers.

AAAMEOW · September 2019

I dont' know what Voxel is. Baase on what DMKano says, Voxel need to update environmental data more often. Other games dont' have the problem either because data isn't load as often or are preloaded.

cameltosis · September 2019

Isn't this almost exactly what Camelot Unchained is attempting to do?

500+ players on screen in a massive world, using voxel-tech to design and build structures in the real world that can all be knocked down by siege towers?

I'm assuming they're getting round the overhead issue by limiting the voxel tech to just the buildings and not the whole environment.

Quizzical · September 2019

MMOExposed said:

DMKano said:

MMOExposed said:

Technical side of things I know little about.
How far has the tech used to make MMOs and the servers the handle them, come along, to allow Fully Voxel MMORPG in the same level of detail of 7 Days To Die, but with the ability to host as many players in the same area as a MMO like World of Warcraft or GW2 minimum?

Of course smaller multiplayer games like 7 Days and Minecraft can do stuff like this. But in MMOs usually masses of players can play in the world simultaneously if they choose to do so. Can a modern day Voxel based MMORPG handle something like that?

if not, how far off you think we are to getting to that point?

The issue is the voxel update stream overhead - Trove devs talked about this.

In traditional mmos where the terrain doesnt change - the server and each client exchange player movement, player actions such as attacks etc

In voxel game in addition to the above - server and client have to constantly update voxel changes to the world as well - so if one player builds or destroys terrain all the player in the vicinity need to see that change in as real time as possible.

So the way this is accomplished is to have a constant stream of voxel update data between server and each client.

The problem is how many clients can server update in the vicinity before you start to get lag - that number is about 50 clients.

So this us why Trove limits 50 players per world instance.

Other voxel based games have the same voxel stream overhead issues and similarly the limit is usually around 50 players as well if you want to maintain ok performance

So if a mmorpg would limit players in instances that are 50 players or less like Trove - its doable.

P.S. Trove is a dead game that hasn't received a major update in over 6 months - so don't mistake that I am in any way shape or form promoting Trove - it's dead Jim

So how do some MMOs and Multi-player games get around this issue if they want to allow players to build Keeps, Forts and Castles in the game world while not being overlaggy? That's what I would like to get to. A MMO that's big with lots of PvE but also ability to build and design your own House, Fort, City, Town, etc.
Ark/7DtD/Rust building but with MMO numbers.

It's all a question of how much data needs to get transmitted and how often. You could build a full scale MMORPG with a ton of players using voxels just fine if it's a completely static world that the players can't change at all. If there are a handful of fixed houses or forts or whatever that players can drop in a variety of places and all that the game has to tell the players is that building design number 7 has been placed at these particular coordinates, that's easy to do.

If you want a highly customizable, fully destructible world, so that it often takes quite a few KB of data to transmit how one player has changed something from how it was 5 minutes ago, that gets much harder. In a single player game, whatever you changed doesn't have to be sent over the Internet to everyone else in the game.

Kyleran · September 2019

I wonder how Dual Universe, which is a voxel based MMO will handle the challenges folks have been describing? Perhaps being a space themed game will make their job easier, though they do have planetary gameplay.

Ridelynn · September 2019

Are Voxels still a thing?

anemo · September 2019

Boundless handled it on release rush, much slower now. Large dynamically loaded cities that strongly rewarded clusters of players. So towns/portal hubs would have 10 to 30 people constantly server hoping. (There were times where I’d portaled through a dozen servers in 5 mins).

though it also had some ungraceful tech hiccups as well. They needed to lower server maxes quite a bit to account for the excessive clustering.

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worlds adrift also streamed terrain. A mix of a spline system, and dynamic editing for terrain. And Lots of placed static objects.

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As of late 2019 How has MMO tech come along to providing a MMORPG Full Voxel based game

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As of late 2019 How has MMO tech come along to providing a MMORPG Full Voxel based game

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV