Did a slight edit to #2 today. I have been playing some Red Orchestra 2 recently, and I can see that Unreal Engine performs awesomely with 64 players in an instance. I take back any blame for the FAILED issue on Unreal engine. It must be either the SV implementation or the EPIC ATLAS code.
As I've said before... let's think logically about this one. Do you think that a company whose sole business is to release game engines, tools, and world tools is at fault for poor performance, or a company whose collective programming experience doesn't even equal that of shipping a "Hello World" application?
SV has no experience whatsoever in programming *AT ALL*, and you expect them to jump into an IDE and SDK that takes even experienced developers some time to wield well? Give me a break.
Did a slight edit to #2 today. I have been playing some Red Orchestra 2 recently, and I can see that Unreal Engine performs awesomely with 64 players in an instance. I take back any blame for the FAILED issue on Unreal engine. It must be either the SV implementation or the EPIC ATLAS code.
As I've said before... let's think logically about this one. Do you think that a company whose sole business is to release game engines, tools, and world tools is at fault for poor performance, or a company whose collective programming experience doesn't even equal that of shipping a "Hello World" application?
SV has no experience whatsoever in programming *AT ALL*, and you expect them to jump into an IDE and SDK that takes even experienced developers some time to wield well? Give me a break.
This was actually a really beautiful post, thanks HerculesSAS.
M
"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death!" - Sun Tzu, the Art of War
SV has no experience whatsoever in programming *AT ALL*, and you expect them to jump into an IDE and SDK that takes even experienced developers some time to wield well? Give me a break.
Who said I expect anything of them? You're inferring things that weren't stated. The network solution is written by EPIC games, and it's obviously flawed even though it is written by a "professional" gaming company. Not all the blame is on Starvault (just most of it), while I'm obviously not making excuses for them (I started the thread) it is clear that issues like faulty node crossing are EPIC issues in the network architecture, and not completely Starvaults fault.
SV has no experience whatsoever in programming *AT ALL*, and you expect them to jump into an IDE and SDK that takes even experienced developers some time to wield well? Give me a break.
Who said I expect anything of them? You're inferring things that weren't stated. The network solution is written by EPIC games, and it's obviously flawed even though it is written by a "professional" gaming company. Not all the blame is on Starvault (just most of it), while I'm obviously not making excuses for them (I started the thread) it is clear that issues like faulty node crossing are EPIC issues in the network architecture, and not completely Starvaults fault.
No, Epic provides an API and here's a big hint -- their test demo with their EPIC solution is INSTANCED. To create seamless worlds as SV wants to, they have to use the API and design their own code to get it to work. I will not disagree that the EPIC solution isn't a great one, it's basically a version 1.0 product and with that comes significant lack of features. The problem is that SV is trying to go beyond what the EPIC solution does and surprise surprise, it doesn't work. If you are going to extend the functionality of an API like many game developers do with their engines, then you have to have the EXPERIENCE to do it. You can't have people with zero software development experience try to pull this off. The code as we know already, is basically un-updatable, because since none of the developers are even close to experienced, there isn't object oriented code that can be abstracted, updated, and patched out to users. Instead, they have layered code that if you break one piece, a WHOLE bunch of shit doesn't work. That's exactly why every patch makes the game more and more unplayable, and brings back old bugs that continually were "kinda fixed" before. And the more they add to the game, the more layering that happens, and the more that can potentially break update after update.
And anybody who would look at buying this game would conduct what they call a "code review", in which they would get experienced developers to look at the code to see what the work effort is to take over the project. And I can bet you money, unless the guy is another Henrik with a rich daddy, they will run screaming in the opposite direction 5 minutes into the code review. At one point, maybe the art assets were worth something, but with the way new tools are coming out, to build a world like SV has will take less time and effort than prior artists had to deal with. Just ask John Carmack and his "supertextures" in the new Rage (ID Tech 5) engine. It's not being licensed, but this is the way most game engines are going to go.
No, Epic provides an API and here's a big hint -- their test demo with their EPIC solution is INSTANCED. To create seamless worlds as SV wants to, they have to use the API and design their own code to get it to work.
This is the network design from ATLAS, so it's a little more than just an API - GUI's and servers imply some pre-written components and not just an API, IMO.
But yea, those 'cluster nodes' pictured are probably meant to be instanced and not seamless. SV probably should have taken that into account when purchasing the engine and made an instanced MMO (and Mortal could have still been a cool game if instanced).
No, Epic provides an API and here's a big hint -- their test demo with their EPIC solution is INSTANCED. To create seamless worlds as SV wants to, they have to use the API and design their own code to get it to work.
This is the network design from ATLAS, so it's a little more than just an API - GUI's and servers imply some pre-written components and not just an API, IMO.
But yea, those 'cluster nodes' pictured are probably meant to be instanced and not seamless. SV probably should have taken that into account when purchasing the engine and made an instanced MMO (and Mortal could have still been a cool game if instanced).
Those are administrative GUIs, not ingame GUIs. They are meant to control the flow of information from each major part of the API in a format that is easily viewable and actionable. That's what they build out as a support tool, and it can be enhanced by developers as well. Servers are "pre-written" of course, but to actually IMPLEMENT them you have to use API calls ingame. Let's say their chat server only public and private chat, for example. You have to invoke those methods to build a chatbox when you build your game. So when a user hits enter on his chat window, then the API call goes out to the chat server and invokes it into the game world.
Then the admin GUI shows that 5 users are chatting, and probably a log of the chat. So that'd be the GUI piece, and everything else relies on developer implementation and extension as well. And since we all know that SV couldn't even write a patching program properly and had to outsource it to a PLAYER, we know that they aren't extending the Epic solution at all to fit their needs. They are trying to get the engine to do more than what it is designed for out of the box, without making any code modifications either. Their "lead programmer" only can do UnrealScript, and so this is the reason why you have a buggy piece of crap game.
Initial testing of today's patch shows invisible weapons is fixed, original post updated. 1 down, 8 more to go to lose the 'paid beta' state. Hopefully some more test feedback comes in, and this very old bug is laid to rest permanently. This was a big game breaker so good job SV, for once.
I'll try to ignore that they made all but one breed of horse completely worthless due to the terrain movement changes for horses.
It should be considered unplayable because the games staff intervenes in players interactions by showing favor to certain players over others ie returning their lost goods and giving them free items and gold as opposed to making them work for them. People rage about Diablo 3 having a player to player cash shop but fail to mention the fact Mortal Onlines staff hands items and gold for free to whoever they favor.
It should be considered unplayable because the games staff intervenes in players interactions by showing favor to certain players over others ie returning their lost goods and giving them free items and gold as opposed to making them work for them. People rage about Diablo 3 having a player to player cash shop but fail to mention the fact Mortal Onlines staff hands items and gold for free to whoever they favor.
I assume you refer to the Russian videos... meh.
Gold and gear is easy to get in Mortal, so a few gold or items given out is not going to impact the economy whatsoever, even though I disagree with it as do you. If it saves a new player from quitting the game, then no biggie. There are many cases where lootbags are unlootable (falls through terrain, or underwater) so then I think return of the items is justified.
Massive gold duping in the tens of thousands at several stages of the game is what hurt the economy, not GM activity. SV's inability to analyze their own database and see that 10,000s of gold and oghmium magically sprung into peoples inventories overnight is another major issue.
ps. Latest patch fixed a major exploit in the alchemy system. Allowed players to get max lore in the most difficult metals in the game. Don't think too many people knew about it though.
Comments
As I've said before... let's think logically about this one. Do you think that a company whose sole business is to release game engines, tools, and world tools is at fault for poor performance, or a company whose collective programming experience doesn't even equal that of shipping a "Hello World" application?
SV has no experience whatsoever in programming *AT ALL*, and you expect them to jump into an IDE and SDK that takes even experienced developers some time to wield well? Give me a break.
This was actually a really beautiful post, thanks HerculesSAS.
M
"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death!"
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War
Support the Indie Developers - Kickstarter
Who said I expect anything of them? You're inferring things that weren't stated. The network solution is written by EPIC games, and it's obviously flawed even though it is written by a "professional" gaming company. Not all the blame is on Starvault (just most of it), while I'm obviously not making excuses for them (I started the thread) it is clear that issues like faulty node crossing are EPIC issues in the network architecture, and not completely Starvaults fault.
No, Epic provides an API and here's a big hint -- their test demo with their EPIC solution is INSTANCED. To create seamless worlds as SV wants to, they have to use the API and design their own code to get it to work. I will not disagree that the EPIC solution isn't a great one, it's basically a version 1.0 product and with that comes significant lack of features. The problem is that SV is trying to go beyond what the EPIC solution does and surprise surprise, it doesn't work. If you are going to extend the functionality of an API like many game developers do with their engines, then you have to have the EXPERIENCE to do it. You can't have people with zero software development experience try to pull this off. The code as we know already, is basically un-updatable, because since none of the developers are even close to experienced, there isn't object oriented code that can be abstracted, updated, and patched out to users. Instead, they have layered code that if you break one piece, a WHOLE bunch of shit doesn't work. That's exactly why every patch makes the game more and more unplayable, and brings back old bugs that continually were "kinda fixed" before. And the more they add to the game, the more layering that happens, and the more that can potentially break update after update.
And anybody who would look at buying this game would conduct what they call a "code review", in which they would get experienced developers to look at the code to see what the work effort is to take over the project. And I can bet you money, unless the guy is another Henrik with a rich daddy, they will run screaming in the opposite direction 5 minutes into the code review. At one point, maybe the art assets were worth something, but with the way new tools are coming out, to build a world like SV has will take less time and effort than prior artists had to deal with. Just ask John Carmack and his "supertextures" in the new Rage (ID Tech 5) engine. It's not being licensed, but this is the way most game engines are going to go.
http://www.epicgameschina.com/tech/tech-atlas_features.html
This is the network design from ATLAS, so it's a little more than just an API - GUI's and servers imply some pre-written components and not just an API, IMO.
But yea, those 'cluster nodes' pictured are probably meant to be instanced and not seamless. SV probably should have taken that into account when purchasing the engine and made an instanced MMO (and Mortal could have still been a cool game if instanced).
Those are administrative GUIs, not ingame GUIs. They are meant to control the flow of information from each major part of the API in a format that is easily viewable and actionable. That's what they build out as a support tool, and it can be enhanced by developers as well. Servers are "pre-written" of course, but to actually IMPLEMENT them you have to use API calls ingame. Let's say their chat server only public and private chat, for example. You have to invoke those methods to build a chatbox when you build your game. So when a user hits enter on his chat window, then the API call goes out to the chat server and invokes it into the game world.
Then the admin GUI shows that 5 users are chatting, and probably a log of the chat. So that'd be the GUI piece, and everything else relies on developer implementation and extension as well. And since we all know that SV couldn't even write a patching program properly and had to outsource it to a PLAYER, we know that they aren't extending the Epic solution at all to fit their needs. They are trying to get the engine to do more than what it is designed for out of the box, without making any code modifications either. Their "lead programmer" only can do UnrealScript, and so this is the reason why you have a buggy piece of crap game.
Initial testing of today's patch shows invisible weapons is fixed, original post updated. 1 down, 8 more to go to lose the 'paid beta' state. Hopefully some more test feedback comes in, and this very old bug is laid to rest permanently. This was a big game breaker so good job SV, for once.
I'll try to ignore that they made all but one breed of horse completely worthless due to the terrain movement changes for horses.
It should be considered unplayable because the games staff intervenes in players interactions by showing favor to certain players over others ie returning their lost goods and giving them free items and gold as opposed to making them work for them. People rage about Diablo 3 having a player to player cash shop but fail to mention the fact Mortal Onlines staff hands items and gold for free to whoever they favor.
I assume you refer to the Russian videos... meh.
Gold and gear is easy to get in Mortal, so a few gold or items given out is not going to impact the economy whatsoever, even though I disagree with it as do you. If it saves a new player from quitting the game, then no biggie. There are many cases where lootbags are unlootable (falls through terrain, or underwater) so then I think return of the items is justified.
Massive gold duping in the tens of thousands at several stages of the game is what hurt the economy, not GM activity. SV's inability to analyze their own database and see that 10,000s of gold and oghmium magically sprung into peoples inventories overnight is another major issue.
ps. Latest patch fixed a major exploit in the alchemy system. Allowed players to get max lore in the most difficult metals in the game. Don't think too many people knew about it though.