I love this post on the forums. This disaster is a "made up and blow up issue that has nothing to do with SC"
Why is it that the same people who will scream that this is the best game ever created and fully playable, then go and use the "Its early Alpha" cover?
Bottom line is that I decided to give this a look since it's been 6-12 months since my last time and since Friday (it's now Monday) the login server has been tossing errors not letting me login.
So can we all agree going forward that this is an early alpha, subject to wipes, and this is no way shape or form is the completed launched game?
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
So can we all agree going forward that this is an early alpha, subject to wipes, and this is no way shape or form is the completed launched game?
I wouldn't even go there.
I mean you can't call yourself a real MMO player if you haven't been through absolute hell on both on game release or major updates release
Doesn't matter if it's an MMO released for years or if an alpha, it still breaks. I've had so many rodeos I've lost count lol, but this is the roughest SC release ever I'd say.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Changing databases is an 'operational' product can be a very major undertaking, far beyond normal updates or changes to data structures. Changing the underlying technology of the databases at this stage begs the question of why this wasn't discovered or anticipated earlier? The only really new innovation in database technology has been blockchain. Has Roberts embraced his inner cryptobro? Did anyone not expect that?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Changing databases is an 'operational' product can be a very major undertaking, far beyond normal updates or changes to data structures. Changing the underlying technology of the databases at this stage begs the question of why this wasn't discovered or anticipated earlier? The only really new innovation in database technology has been blockchain. Has Roberts embraced his inner cryptobro? Did anyone not expect that?
Originally Star Citizen was supposed to have only instanced areas where small groups of people socialize/space battle/fps battle, and a loading screen between each instance.
Then the funding blew up and Chris Roberts decided to make a seamless solar system with thousands of simultaneous players, using their existing game engine and server tech which were built from the ground of to be incapable of that.
They've been trying to update their game engine and server with required capabilities since then.
Changing databases is an 'operational' product can be a very major undertaking, far beyond normal updates or changes to data structures. Changing the underlying technology of the databases at this stage begs the question of why this wasn't discovered or anticipated earlier?
This was a large backend replacement, as far it goes PES has added both the context of named in-game servers, shards here, with their own save state (dropped objects, ships, ship wrecks, etc), so the entire context of how you join the game and the server changes.
So it's pretty much while the old system had already handled stress and releases went far more smoothly, this one is facing the real stress test right now, and several failure points popped up.
The infrastructure that is coming online now is several of the bases of the server mesh, which is in a nutshell what is to allow the game to reach an MMO scale, so there is a lot of an old system being replaced as they managed to do the necessary engine rewrites to support what they want to do.
The infrastructure that is coming online now is several of the bases of the server mesh, which is in a nutshell what is to allow the game to reach an MMO scale, so there is a lot of an old system being replaced as they managed to do the necessary engine rewrites to support what they want to do.
oh, I see. The game was not, until this moment, capable of MMO scale gameplay?
oh, I see. The game was not, until this moment, capable of MMO scale gameplay?
The game in terms of persistence and such, is already the usual MMO, your character, your stuff, reputation, missions, etc, that's the 101 MMO thing shared globally across servers, and regions.
What there isn't, is the MP density scale, so we're talking 100-150 player per server instance of the star system, the server mesh is meant to split a system into multiple areas each with their own simulation game-server, so the total player capacity of the star system goes UP.
oh, I see. The game was not, until this moment, capable of MMO scale gameplay?
The game in terms of persistence and such, is already the usual MMO, your character, your stuff, reputation, missions, etc, that's the 101 MMO thing shared globally across servers, and regions.
What there isn't, is the MP density scale, so we're talking 100-150 player per server instance of the star system, the server mesh is meant to split a system into multiple areas each with their own simulation game-server, so the total player capacity of the star system goes UP.
So, the prior database technology wasn't capable of this? That means they started a project with a tool that was incapable of doing what they intended. Sort of like peeling an apple with a hammer.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
So, the prior database technology wasn't capable of this? That means they started a project with a tool that was incapable of doing what they intended. Sort of like peeling an apple with a hammer
There wasn't such a thing as game-worlds saving their state (at the style of say Ark Survival) before this update, there weren't named servers before this update just instances of the same location spun to respond to demand.
So it's merely a new infrastructure. This is the usual problem of early access or kickstarter type projects, they are pressured to let playes play as early as possible, so due to that nature they have to come up with a lot of placeholders as they work on the tech and upgrades needed to ever hit their design. Most projects, obviously, struggle with this, as they have tech debt and only so much engineering resources to address it, the more ambitious the worse this gets.
SC got this especially worse as they been years and years rewriting parts of engine tech one after one, the stock engine at the time was even 32bit, they had to do 64bit conversion. Not the ideal scenario at all.
oh, I see. The game was not, until this moment, capable of MMO scale gameplay?
The game in terms of persistence and such, is already the usual MMO, your character, your stuff, reputation, missions, etc, that's the 101 MMO thing shared globally across servers, and regions.
What there isn't, is the MP density scale, so we're talking 100-150 player per server instance of the star system, the server mesh is meant to split a system into multiple areas each with their own simulation game-server, so the total player capacity of the star system goes UP.
So, the prior database technology wasn't capable of this? That means they started a project with a tool that was incapable of doing what they intended. Sort of like peeling an apple with a hammer.
But hey, it made great trailers, and it would be easy to get the single player game version SQ42 out. Oh. Even if the original trailers were made by Crytek, and SQ42 hasn't been seen outside of expensive mocaps from the early days of blowing money.
Chris Roberts unbounded is a boondoggle of extraordinay proportion.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Ironically Cryengine is 64 bit as of 5.6's release several years ago now.
EDIT: Not to knock SC with that comment in particular.
Tech development is simply a massive moving target. It's hard to predict all things that are coming around the corner and adapt to it. 64 bit was already creeping into a variety of engines, but things like current mass agent models, baked octree meshes (nanite), and new lighting systems that more cleverly hybridize ray and raster for efficiency and realism...
It took an industry lead to push much of that into broader adoption and implementation. And once it's done, it leaves other companies to be playing catch up that sometimes they are just not capable of with their focus, budget, and technical capacity all aimed elsewhere.
Can be more rough when in the interim of developing systems you see the commercial solution crop up.
Semantically if all was needed was something like the 64 bit conversion, that could have been done a long time ago, but it's far from the only thing on a laundry list of technical goals.
But it does take a ding out of projects to see particular technical objectives and hurdles solved by others in the interim while they're still stuck in the middle of it all none the less. This being added to by new technical features that then push the idea of original goals now being "dated".
Especially if one is just talking from a consumer perspective.
I have a friend who plays this game and the amount of copium he is on is starting to worry me a bit.
Sure this is why 1.7 million individual backers, including 500.000 individual just in 2022 , joined the alpha, for as low as 35$. Because they are masochist /S
Even in its alpha state, Star Citizen does offer experience not available in others space game released. 3.18 is a massive update in all directions, was working fine in PTU . Current bugs will be solved eventually in a matter of days, nothing to write home about.
Ironically Cryengine is 64 bit as of 5.6's release several years ago now.
EDIT: Not to knock SC with that comment in particular.
Tech development is simply a massive moving target. It's hard to predict all things that are coming around the corner and adapt to it. 64 bit was already creeping into a variety of engines, but things like current mass agent models, baked octree meshes (nanite), and new lighting systems that more cleverly hybridize ray and raster for efficiency and realism...
It took an industry lead to push much of that into broader adoption and implementation. And once it's done, it leaves other companies to be playing catch up that sometimes they are just not capable of with their focus, budget, and technical capacity all aimed elsewhere.
Can be more rough when in the interim of developing systems you see the commercial solution crop up.
Semantically if all was needed was something like the 64 bit conversion, that could have been done a long time ago, but it's far from the only thing on a laundry list of technical goals.
But it does take a ding out of projects to see particular technical objectives and hurdles solved by others in the interim while they're still stuck in the middle of it all none the less. This being added to by new technical features that then push the idea of original goals now being "dated".
Especially if one is just talking from a consumer perspective.
Star Citizen is probably getting more advantage than disadvantage from tech development: They have huge troubles trying to make their game engine and server do all the planned stuff. As the development for that stuff overshoots their schedules by more than 5 years, it means they're now able to throw new programming techniques and hardware developed in the meantime at those problems.
Without the ongoing tech development they wouldn't have that option, and their own server and engine development would be even worse behind the schedule than they already are.
Ironically Cryengine is 64 bit as of 5.6's release several years ago now.
EDIT: Not to knock SC with that comment in particular.
Tech development is simply a massive moving target. It's hard to predict all things that are coming around the corner and adapt to it. 64 bit was already creeping into a variety of engines, but things like current mass agent models, baked octree meshes (nanite), and new lighting systems that more cleverly hybridize ray and raster for efficiency and realism...
It took an industry lead to push much of that into broader adoption and implementation. And once it's done, it leaves other companies to be playing catch up that sometimes they are just not capable of with their focus, budget, and technical capacity all aimed elsewhere.
Can be more rough when in the interim of developing systems you see the commercial solution crop up.
Semantically if all was needed was something like the 64 bit conversion, that could have been done a long time ago, but it's far from the only thing on a laundry list of technical goals.
But it does take a ding out of projects to see particular technical objectives and hurdles solved by others in the interim while they're still stuck in the middle of it all none the less. This being added to by new technical features that then push the idea of original goals now being "dated".
Especially if one is just talking from a consumer perspective.
Star Citizen is probably getting more advantage than disadvantage from tech development: They have huge troubles trying to make their game engine and server do all the planned stuff. As the development for that stuff overshoots their schedules by more than 5 years, it means they're now able to throw new programming techniques and hardware developed in the meantime at those problems.
Without the ongoing tech development they wouldn't have that option, and their own server and engine development would be even worse behind the schedule than they already are.
So-so. The problem they're presented with in that scenario is compatibility. Similarly they can't just yoink code from Unreal or other licensed engines, they'd have to both pay for the code and then work to adapt it to their version of Cryengine. They can benefit more directly from open source code based, but it's still on them to adapt the syntax or entire language being used to fit their own project.
This is one of the reasons MMOs in general have classically lagged behind other games in terms of tech driving them. Outside of a few exceptions, the ability to adopt new technology into an established pipeline is limited. So the longer a game takes to develop, the longer it runs into the issue and risk assessment of adapting new tech.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
By the time SC releases the world will have probably moved on to 128 bit architectures, quantum gaming and AI's which play games on our behalf.
Forget buying ships, he who purchases the best AI....wins
Purchases? Don't you mean slavishly follows? AI's will be the celebrities, streamers, the battle bots, the sports personalities of the future. We will chant their songs in the digital terraces and wear our team AI T-shirts with pride.
So-so. The problem they're presented with in that scenario is compatibility. Similarly they can't just yoink code from Unreal or other licensed engines, they'd have to both pay for the code and then work to adapt it to their version of Cryengine. They can benefit more directly from open source code based, but it's still on them to adapt the syntax or entire language being used to fit their own project.
This is one of the reasons MMOs in general have classically lagged behind other games in terms of tech driving them. Outside of a few exceptions, the ability to adopt new technology into an established pipeline is limited. So the longer a game takes to develop, the longer it runs into the issue and risk assessment of adapting new tech.
Ya don't need Unreal or other engine license.
You code your own solution, as many studio with their in-house engines do, especially after one open engine, like Unreal, does something, it's going to be very visible the guts and bolts of what and how of every piece of tech & tools, so other studios do their own versions in a nutshell.
The benefit of a "open source engine" that's continuously developed is more for small projects, once it gets complex it's visible that projects stop merging updates as it will break more and more the more modifications they do to their own copy.
Also, MMO wise, it's still custom development, even those who built their MMOs in CryEngine like Aion, or Unreal, like Tera, that whole netcode and backend infrastructure is replaced by their own solutions. So either way you will have to rewrite.
The main thing engine tech ends up helping on is on upgrading visuals, because the server front of stuff isn't exactly where their development focus is, like engines can do amazing tech demos of complex AI, or high detail destructibility of environments, we won't be seeing that stuff on MMOs anyway when it gets overly expensive for games that have to be server-sided. Then the visual question even if they have the best most current shinies, the MP density question either the density is toned down, or the visuals have to be toned down, MMOs just have to manouver a lot of stuff due to their very nature.
By the time SC releases the world will have probably moved on to 128 bit architectures, quantum gaming and AI's which play games on our behalf.
Forget buying ships, he who purchases the best AI....wins
Maybe Chris figures if he can just string this along for a few more years he can just feed an AI the trailers for the game he sold but never delivered, and ask the AI to complete the game for him.
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
By the time SC releases the world will have probably moved on to 128 bit architectures, quantum gaming and AI's which play games on our behalf.
Forget buying ships, he who purchases the best AI....wins
Maybe Chris figures if he can just string this along for a few more years he can just feed an AI the trailers for the game he sold but never delivered, and ask the AI to complete the game for him.
I can see how that would go down already.
Chris: Can you complete the game for me Skynet?
Skynet AI: What are you nuts? Have you seen how much you make not releasing this? Sell another space ship.
Chris: Oh yeah.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
So-so. The problem they're presented with in that scenario is compatibility. Similarly they can't just yoink code from Unreal or other licensed engines, they'd have to both pay for the code and then work to adapt it to their version of Cryengine. They can benefit more directly from open source code based, but it's still on them to adapt the syntax or entire language being used to fit their own project.
This is one of the reasons MMOs in general have classically lagged behind other games in terms of tech driving them. Outside of a few exceptions, the ability to adopt new technology into an established pipeline is limited. So the longer a game takes to develop, the longer it runs into the issue and risk assessment of adapting new tech.
Ya don't need Unreal or other engine license.
You code your own solution, as many studio with their in-house engines do, especially after one open engine, like Unreal, does something, it's going to be very visible the guts and bolts of what and how of every piece of tech & tools, so other studios do their own versions in a nutshell.
The benefit of a "open source engine" that's continuously developed is more for small projects, once it gets complex it's visible that projects stop merging updates as it will break more and more the more modifications they do to their own copy.
Also, MMO wise, it's still custom development, even those who built their MMOs in CryEngine like Aion, or Unreal, like Tera, that whole netcode and backend infrastructure is replaced by their own solutions. So either way you will have to rewrite.
The main thing engine tech ends up helping on is on upgrading visuals, because the server front of stuff isn't exactly where their development focus is, like engines can do amazing tech demos of complex AI, or high detail destructibility of environments, we won't be seeing that stuff on MMOs anyway when it gets overly expensive for games that have to be server-sided. Then the visual question even if they have the best most current shinies, the MP density question either the density is toned down, or the visuals have to be toned down, MMOs just have to manouver a lot of stuff due to their very nature.
I stated open source code, not open source engine.
Because the moment you're replicating code from a licensed engine, you're opening yourself to a lawsuit. Even just referencing licensed code, there's a difference between replication and learning from it, and they'd have to exactly come up with their own solution.
That takes both time and effort to do, which stretches budget and practicality for most. Especially if they are doing massive overhauls to other parts of a system...as I'd already stated.
Not sure what your response was intended to address or respond to. It seems to be a spinout of misunderstanding the statement.
EDIT: Clarification further being;
You're mostly restating part of what my prior point was that drives MMOs into technical debt and lagging behind others.
It's even a restatement of the comment you quoted. Yes, it's still custom development. As I said they ultimately have to adapt any code they reference to their version of the engine and pipeline. And with any code they develop themselves, that's more man hours.
Most MMO development focuses on netcode and server architecture for this very reason to optimize the budget where it affects the resulting product the most. That still means all those other parts of the engine they don't touch or even pair down, lags behind by contrast.
And while certainly you can argue the main thing engine tech helps is visuals, that doesn't address the scope. Mass AI as I had mentioned (as opposed to complex AI) is actually of very direct benefit to MMOs for example on a mechanical level. That one is a subject of efficiency in processing. There's also the point that visuals are themselves client-sided. Things that affect gameplay mechanics are server-sided, but unless you're using the destruction physics itself for more than spectacle, the destruction mechanically is likely just a sphere being mapped by the server with some potential occlusion. Not much about visuals tends to get client-sided, unless you're turning your game into a fully streamed/cloud gaming experience.
Hence why you still have graphics settings on your gaming client.
Where the cross-section of visuals and networking/game processing hits most is actually the client in that regard. The client unpacking packets and updating the state of the client has to struggle directly against the rendering demands being thrown at it.
What bogs down the amount of players in an MMO isn't the visuals as a result. It's the concurrency of processes being run by the server on agents, players, simulations, etc. Hence my point on the mass AI(as opposed to complex AI) agents stuff earlier.
Which all just goes to reaffirm my point about why developers focus on certain parts of tech and lag behind in others, almost invariably accruing technical debt and struggling against the rate of innovation outside the MMO sphere.
Also side note. SC has already done a variety of visual engine upgrades before they've gotten to pushing out their netcode and server implementation, so not really sure how that was meant to sit with your presented argument. Still not sure what your intended argument was.
Ironically Cryengine is 64 bit as of 5.6's release several years ago now.
EDIT: Not to knock SC with that comment in particular.
Tech development is simply a massive moving target. It's hard to predict all things that are coming around the corner and adapt to it. 64 bit was already creeping into a variety of engines, but things like current mass agent models, baked octree meshes (nanite), and new lighting systems that more cleverly hybridize ray and raster for efficiency and realism...
It took an industry lead to push much of that into broader adoption and implementation. And once it's done, it leaves other companies to be playing catch up that sometimes they are just not capable of with their focus, budget, and technical capacity all aimed elsewhere.
Can be more rough when in the interim of developing systems you see the commercial solution crop up.
Semantically if all was needed was something like the 64 bit conversion, that could have been done a long time ago, but it's far from the only thing on a laundry list of technical goals.
But it does take a ding out of projects to see particular technical objectives and hurdles solved by others in the interim while they're still stuck in the middle of it all none the less. This being added to by new technical features that then push the idea of original goals now being "dated".
Especially if one is just talking from a consumer perspective.
Star Citizen is probably getting more advantage than disadvantage from tech development: They have huge troubles trying to make their game engine and server do all the planned stuff. As the development for that stuff overshoots their schedules by more than 5 years, it means they're now able to throw new programming techniques and hardware developed in the meantime at those problems.
Without the ongoing tech development they wouldn't have that option, and their own server and engine development would be even worse behind the schedule than they already are.
So-so. The problem they're presented with in that scenario is compatibility. Similarly they can't just yoink code from Unreal or other licensed engines, they'd have to both pay for the code and then work to adapt it to their version of Cryengine. They can benefit more directly from open source code based, but it's still on them to adapt the syntax or entire language being used to fit their own project.
This is one of the reasons MMOs in general have classically lagged behind other games in terms of tech driving them. Outside of a few exceptions, the ability to adopt new technology into an established pipeline is limited. So the longer a game takes to develop, the longer it runs into the issue and risk assessment of adapting new tech.
Star Citizen is already at the phase where they've got a lot of devs rewriting their server and client functionality one part at a time because the old one wasn't enough. That kind of rewrites give them a lot of opportunities to use new tech and innovation.
Also more importantly, just imagine what kind of hell the devs would be in if they had to make their servers run on whatever server hardware they had available in 2015.
Comments
Why is it that the same people who will scream that this is the best game ever created and fully playable, then go and use the "Its early Alpha" cover?
Bottom line is that I decided to give this a look since it's been 6-12 months since my last time and since Friday (it's now Monday) the login server has been tossing errors not letting me login.
So can we all agree going forward that this is an early alpha, subject to wipes, and this is no way shape or form is the completed launched game?
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
I mean you can't call yourself a real MMO player if you haven't been through absolute hell on both on game release or major updates release
Doesn't matter if it's an MMO released for years or if an alpha, it still breaks. I've had so many rodeos I've lost count lol, but this is the roughest SC release ever I'd say.
Now, any word lately on the SQ42 release status?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Then the funding blew up and Chris Roberts decided to make a seamless solar system with thousands of simultaneous players, using their existing game engine and server tech which were built from the ground of to be incapable of that.
They've been trying to update their game engine and server with required capabilities since then.
So it's pretty much while the old system had already handled stress and releases went far more smoothly, this one is facing the real stress test right now, and several failure points popped up.
The infrastructure that is coming online now is several of the bases of the server mesh, which is in a nutshell what is to allow the game to reach an MMO scale, so there is a lot of an old system being replaced as they managed to do the necessary engine rewrites to support what they want to do.
What there isn't, is the MP density scale, so we're talking 100-150 player per server instance of the star system, the server mesh is meant to split a system into multiple areas each with their own simulation game-server, so the total player capacity of the star system goes UP.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
So it's merely a new infrastructure. This is the usual problem of early access or kickstarter type projects, they are pressured to let playes play as early as possible, so due to that nature they have to come up with a lot of placeholders as they work on the tech and upgrades needed to ever hit their design. Most projects, obviously, struggle with this, as they have tech debt and only so much engineering resources to address it, the more ambitious the worse this gets.
SC got this especially worse as they been years and years rewriting parts of engine tech one after one, the stock engine at the time was even 32bit, they had to do 64bit conversion. Not the ideal scenario at all.
Chris Roberts unbounded is a boondoggle of extraordinay proportion.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
EDIT: Not to knock SC with that comment in particular.
Tech development is simply a massive moving target. It's hard to predict all things that are coming around the corner and adapt to it. 64 bit was already creeping into a variety of engines, but things like current mass agent models, baked octree meshes (nanite), and new lighting systems that more cleverly hybridize ray and raster for efficiency and realism...
It took an industry lead to push much of that into broader adoption and implementation. And once it's done, it leaves other companies to be playing catch up that sometimes they are just not capable of with their focus, budget, and technical capacity all aimed elsewhere.
Can be more rough when in the interim of developing systems you see the commercial solution crop up.
Semantically if all was needed was something like the 64 bit conversion, that could have been done a long time ago, but it's far from the only thing on a laundry list of technical goals.
But it does take a ding out of projects to see particular technical objectives and hurdles solved by others in the interim while they're still stuck in the middle of it all none the less. This being added to by new technical features that then push the idea of original goals now being "dated".
Especially if one is just talking from a consumer perspective.
Sure this is why 1.7 million individual backers, including 500.000 individual just in 2022 , joined the alpha, for as low as 35$. Because they are masochist /S
Even in its alpha state, Star Citizen does offer experience not available in others space game released. 3.18 is a massive update in all directions, was working fine in PTU . Current bugs will be solved eventually in a matter of days, nothing to write home about.
Though there is a commendable move towards persistence in SC in 3.18, it still pretty much an "experience not available". Twelve years in.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Without the ongoing tech development they wouldn't have that option, and their own server and engine development would be even worse behind the schedule than they already are.
This is one of the reasons MMOs in general have classically lagged behind other games in terms of tech driving them. Outside of a few exceptions, the ability to adopt new technology into an established pipeline is limited. So the longer a game takes to develop, the longer it runs into the issue and risk assessment of adapting new tech.
Forget buying ships, he who purchases the best AI....wins
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You code your own solution, as many studio with their in-house engines do, especially after one open engine, like Unreal, does something, it's going to be very visible the guts and bolts of what and how of every piece of tech & tools, so other studios do their own versions in a nutshell.
The benefit of a "open source engine" that's continuously developed is more for small projects, once it gets complex it's visible that projects stop merging updates as it will break more and more the more modifications they do to their own copy.
Also, MMO wise, it's still custom development, even those who built their MMOs in CryEngine like Aion, or Unreal, like Tera, that whole netcode and backend infrastructure is replaced by their own solutions. So either way you will have to rewrite.
The main thing engine tech ends up helping on is on upgrading visuals, because the server front of stuff isn't exactly where their development focus is, like engines can do amazing tech demos of complex AI, or high detail destructibility of environments, we won't be seeing that stuff on MMOs anyway when it gets overly expensive for games that have to be server-sided. Then the visual question even if they have the best most current shinies, the MP density question either the density is toned down, or the visuals have to be toned down, MMOs just have to manouver a lot of stuff due to their very nature.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Because the moment you're replicating code from a licensed engine, you're opening yourself to a lawsuit. Even just referencing licensed code, there's a difference between replication and learning from it, and they'd have to exactly come up with their own solution.
That takes both time and effort to do, which stretches budget and practicality for most. Especially if they are doing massive overhauls to other parts of a system...as I'd already stated.
Not sure what your response was intended to address or respond to. It seems to be a spinout of misunderstanding the statement.
EDIT: Clarification further being;
You're mostly restating part of what my prior point was that drives MMOs into technical debt and lagging behind others.
It's even a restatement of the comment you quoted. Yes, it's still custom development. As I said they ultimately have to adapt any code they reference to their version of the engine and pipeline. And with any code they develop themselves, that's more man hours.
Most MMO development focuses on netcode and server architecture for this very reason to optimize the budget where it affects the resulting product the most. That still means all those other parts of the engine they don't touch or even pair down, lags behind by contrast.
And while certainly you can argue the main thing engine tech helps is visuals, that doesn't address the scope. Mass AI as I had mentioned (as opposed to complex AI) is actually of very direct benefit to MMOs for example on a mechanical level. That one is a subject of efficiency in processing. There's also the point that visuals are themselves client-sided. Things that affect gameplay mechanics are server-sided, but unless you're using the destruction physics itself for more than spectacle, the destruction mechanically is likely just a sphere being mapped by the server with some potential occlusion. Not much about visuals tends to get client-sided, unless you're turning your game into a fully streamed/cloud gaming experience.
Hence why you still have graphics settings on your gaming client.
Where the cross-section of visuals and networking/game processing hits most is actually the client in that regard. The client unpacking packets and updating the state of the client has to struggle directly against the rendering demands being thrown at it.
What bogs down the amount of players in an MMO isn't the visuals as a result. It's the concurrency of processes being run by the server on agents, players, simulations, etc. Hence my point on the mass AI(as opposed to complex AI) agents stuff earlier.
Which all just goes to reaffirm my point about why developers focus on certain parts of tech and lag behind in others, almost invariably accruing technical debt and struggling against the rate of innovation outside the MMO sphere.
Also side note. SC has already done a variety of visual engine upgrades before they've gotten to pushing out their netcode and server implementation, so not really sure how that was meant to sit with your presented argument. Still not sure what your intended argument was.
Also more importantly, just imagine what kind of hell the devs would be in if they had to make their servers run on whatever server hardware they had available in 2015.