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Q: the game is not going to be able to handle 1000 plus players on the battlefield
Caspien: We've never said that it would. In addition to which, a distributed OS like SpatialOS doesn't solve that problem. Whether we used SpatialOS or our own spatial partitioning system it's important to understand the differences between horizontal and vertical scale-out.
Horizontal scale-out is the ability to support a bigger world. With a bigger world you can also support more players. So long as they're spread out. As soon as players start to cluster in one location you're talking about vertical scale-out, which is a bigger problem to solve as you're fighting physics.
As players gather in the world, the load on the individual servers as well as your clients at home increases. We can procedurally sub-divide the server around that location in order to lessen the load, but at some point, there's so many processes running on individual servers that the network traffic and latency actually starts causing the simulation to perform more poorly. That's why it's easier to get 100,000 players in a single world than 1,000 players in a single neighborhood.
And - even if we could subdivide the servers enough to solve the back-end problem - could your PC process the client-side load of updating and rendering 1,000 players on-screen?
In the end, there's a lot of work to do to optimize CoE, but the hardest optimization problems aren't solved through horizontal scale-out or even sub-dividing the world into smaller and smaller chunks. It's solved through understanding of the game mechanics and experience optimizing client engine code like UE4 - something we have experience with.
Uhoh... As discussed in the other thread. The starting continent will be around 18,432km^2
There's a thread that shows this to be the size of Madison Wisconsin and suburbs (down to Rockford Il). Better hope these kingdoms remain friendly and don't try and team up for a war... or I guess they can just take turns in teams (team size to be determined at future date).
I wonder what mechanism they will try to use to manage that so too many people don't enter the same "zone"...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
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Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
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Comments
"I'm not going to dislike your post. But I do wonder what benefit there is to coming to a game's website and posting your negative feedback about a decision that's already been made. While people may commiserate their concern, all that really does is stir up concern again for an issue that's already been laid to bed.
You're clearly not going to change our minds with your post, so I don't entirely understand what the purpose of the post was. And if you suspect to be down-voted going in? Why waste the time on the post in the first place? A downvote means people feel you're not contributing to the community.
In any case, I'm closing this thread. Your questions/concerns have been addressed, and there's no reason for people to further come to our defense. We made a decision we're happy with, and continue to feel it was the best long-term decision for us and for the players."
(https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/23833/i-dont-think-the-servers-are-going-to-be-good-enough?page=3#post266534)
I went from being a supporter of CoE, to a skeptic that it would ever launch, to now I"m not so sure if it should ever come out. Statements like this from the owner.....
In the end, there's a lot of work to do to optimize CoE, but the hardest optimization problems aren't solved through horizontal scale-out or even sub-dividing the world into smaller and smaller chunks. It's solved through understanding of the game mechanics and experience optimizing client engine code like UE4 - something we have experience with.
(https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/23833/i-dont-think-the-servers-are-going-to-be-good-enough?page=3#post266534)
...are pretty laughable from the company that has had to push their anticipated release to the right by over a year, has had to do layoffs, is struggling to find financial support of a publisher (after flip-flopping on the position of even getting a publisher) and finally sending out supporters of the game to try and shut down any negative reviews on the game.
“So what I was discussing on Discord the other day was for you guys, the community, to shut down such behavior. We can’t be everywhere at once, nor does it look good for us to try and discourage such behavior. But we can encourage you guys to shut down such behavior. Remind people that it’s perfectly fine to be skeptical.. but to try and spread the skepticism is bad.”
(http://massivelyop.com/2017/12/22/chronicles-of-elyria-allegedly-struggles-to-find-a-publisher-enables-store-gifting-and-battles-harbingers/)
There are games already out there that have several hundred people engaged in combat at one time (Archeage, Revelation Online). I think it would have been less damaging if CoE had said "We are aiming at a cap of XXX players in simultaneous combat"
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There are games already out there that have several hundred people engaged in combat at one time (Archeage, Revelation Online). I think it would have been less damaging if CoE had said "We are aiming at a cap of XXX players in simultaneous combat"
Let me try to explain.
CoE is a territory control PvP game where 6 kingdoms exist on a single continent, under those Kings are Duchys (ruled by Dukes), Counties (by Counts), Cities, Towns, and Villages (with Mayors). Conflict between Kingdoms is supposed to be one reason that Kings will lose their Titles and lands.
The sample continent is 18,432km^2. The average Kingdom is going to be around 3,000km^2 (simply the total land divided by 6).
Now we take the 100,000 target population per server and divide it by 18,432 to get ~5.43 people per km^2
We take the 5.43 and multiply it by the size of a kingdom (3000) and get 16,290 per kingdom. When two Kingdoms are at war we double that number to 32,580 characters.
What percentage of people can actually participate in the battles of this "war"? Well let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say they can support 300 player battles. That means that less than 1 percent of characters could actually be supported in such a "battle".
Yes, there are people who just want to farm and craft.. undoubtedly! But don't you think that significantly more than a fraction of a percent of the citizens of a kingdom at war would want to go fight in a major battle?
So again... I refer back to The Way Forward thread where it is suggested that they lower their sights and start with some target of say 10,000 to start. Build the game around that and then feel free to expand and grow once you are stable and can do it incrementally.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Trust me, if I made a post like that it would have been much better researched.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
You get out of here with that crazy logic stuff.
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(actually it just did 5 mins ago, which is why im here :P) . I just spent some time crashtesting CU, and it broke before the 1k mark, repeatedly so
If they can hold 500 player combats I doubt there will be more fighting in one area at the same time. Thats quite massive as well
The BIGGESt question isnt the battles, the bigger question is what will happen in big citys, if 1k players are gathering up doing their things. A more likely scenario. Will there be lag? Stuttering? If they manage to heap up lets say 30k players on one server, it would be reasonable to imagine the capital city having 1k at peak hours. What about the OPC's. How much lag will they create in the biggest citys?
Edit; I actually clicked the link and read Caspians reply and the whole discussion :P Now apart from the last section, where he gets butthurt, its not unreasonable what he says. I think it applys to most MMOrpgs doesnt it? Enlighten me if Im wrong But with the current technology not many games (that I am aware of) can support this (apart from EVE online, Im being told).
I do see why it will raise concern (as I mentioned above), but its more a general MMOrpg concern isnt it?
What so it's going to be like Elite Dangerous where you go participate in combat/war CG's but you hardly are able to get in the same instance as your friends/buddies/factions?
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
When making comparisons to other games though... how many of those have 100,000 Online 0layers or player characters still online in OPC mode?
Darkfall was much small scale... nowhere near 100,000 characters online at the same time yet massive battles were impossible. As a matter of fact, one old Hyperion tactic was just to have everyone login to crash the server. Those big alliances were hundreds or low thousands of members.
Imagine kingdoms with 32000 players having a major battle. Or as you said... just congregating in a city.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
You CANNOT make a game like this,it will NOT and never be as good as a game that already has the money and the well laid out design.You can't just wing it and just hope for money or hope for a certain team size or just hope,we do all the hope and dreaming in our sleep,sometimes happy dreams,sometimes a nightmare but when we wake up it is back to reality.
The proper way to make these KS'r games is to aim for a budget that can RELEASE a playable game.Then if people are satisfied with the effort done on a limited budget,then you can expand and ask for more money or perhaps even ask if a sub fee is acceptable.
This goes the same for SC,another developer doing it WRONG and will end up wasting tons more money than was needed and the game even on an enormous budget will be a subpar game.You have to do it right from day 1 or expect lots of disgruntled gamer's,people.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Now they MIGHT solve it the way GW2 did, where your "portion" of the terrain narrows in the more toons in your vicinity. Then youll typically have small armies of miners and farmers (OPC's) suddenly materialize in front of you magically. I think this is what we will see happening, as having the server run smooth to facilitate the OPC scripts is most likely more important than having a long distance view. If the OPC scripts starts to stutter and break, they will have many unhappy customers, while if your line of sight is low/short in certain boundries, will more likely be tolerated (Imagine they toss in smog as an effect where theres lots of players :P just mindtravelling. Id do that if I were them. Make sure the scripts run fine so my company gets income from them and throw in some cheap effects to explain why you cant see then 400 farmerbots right in front of your nose). Coming to think about it, I remember the brief period I played BDO exactly that happening in front of the banks/those big slug dudes who took my gold
Not trying to derail the topic, just a thought.
To clarify for everyone there's never been an engine made in where 1000 player battles are a possibility without issues.
As for CU they are very close to 1k, in fact I've personally been in tests with over 1200 at about 35 fps. Today's crashes were caused by testers dropping as many items on the ground as they could. The first one caused by someone dropping all armor and 400 siege scorpions at the same time. As of now the performance is quite good with 100v100v100 in the scenario.
I do think SC is a different animal purely based on fandom and the amount of money they are willing to throw at it. However I agree they are doing it wrong, and they should have come out with something a bit more achievable first, then went for the big show after.
I'm hoping that's going to be the case for CU, but I know that's probably being wildly optimistic. At least they are on the right track though.
CoE really needs to bring the scope of their project down to Earth and get it out of the clouds. If they had millions of disposable income it might be a bit different, but they don't. So at this point they have to figure out what they truly want this game to be, and try and head in that direction with whatever funds they still have. Here's hoping they don't let their egos kill this project.
When I see things like this though, "Remind people that it’s perfectly fine to be skeptical.. but to try and spread the skepticism is bad.” it doesn't make me feel like they are willing to drop that ego.
It's okay to be skeptical but you shouldn't voice your concerns because then others will be skeptical before they have a chance to give Walsh their money? Is that the sound logic here? Because it seems like the only reason to say something like that.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/