too many bugs; the network is not the issue; console games should be released 99% bug-free; not surprised, not every console gamer plays with a keyboard and don't want to bother with the infamous /reloadui, et al
It's hard to care when consoles are inferior for PC games, MMORPGs are PC games, and anybody serious about MMORPGs should be playing on a PC.
Have a nice day!
It would seem like they have plenty to keep them busy just dealing with issues in the PC version, and since console gamess tend to need to be more solid at release, a lot of the delay is probably about solidifying what they have before locking it down for consoles.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
I have no idea how ZOS's "megaserver" is integrated with the internet or how they handle load-balancing and phasing. But I don't find it massively far-fetched to imagine that integrating an extra layer to serve consoles might just introduce some tricky situations.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that the console layer is fairly inflexible ("our way or the highway"). Unless you have an intimate understanding of ESO's particular system design and unique complexities, it may be a bit cavalier to dismiss their reasons out of hand.
It's always more fun to imagine deep and dark conspiracies behind seemingly straight-forward problems. But perhaps the truth is no more sinister than someone at ZOS thinking: "It can't be that hard, can it ?" during their console integration planning phase, only to find out that it was much harder than estimated during implementation.
"Someone at Zenimax thinking it can't be that hard can it!" - maybe. Scary thought but maybe. Even if the requirement is totally inflexible however it was totally inflexible last year ... and the year before .... and should have been tested months ago. As I say I agree with DMKano 6 months just seems to long.
I think that one sentence pretty much sums up the entire Design Philosophy for ESO.
So a delay of "about 6 months" to tackle "network issues" that .......they totally failed to anticipate. That is a long time - on top of however long they allowed initially.
They've not even committed to "later this year" either. Although I'm sure Zenimax would want to release before Christmas; possibly even before Thanksgiving in the US (back end of Nov). Not to mention a host of other titles that are planned for the back end of the year - which will compete for purchasers, shelf space, and reviewers time. Will be interesting to see how Dragon Age fares (Oct 7 launch, delayed from last year).
Could be an expensive delay potentially- and certainly makes a mockery of it coming "unfinished" on PC. Did those who called the PC launch simply a paid beta for the console launch get it right?
I am not buying the network integration issue line.
Sure MS Xbox network requires installing internet facing Xbox proxy servers, PS network integration is WAY simpler, there are no special servers to config like MS Xbox network requires - but even the worst case scenario doesn't take 6 months.
Maybe they failed to cert with both Sony and MS - but a cert failure delays you by a month or two worst case scenario.
There's bigger issues behind the scenes that they are not willing to discuss with the public.
I have no idea how ZOS's "megaserver" is integrated with the internet or how they handle load-balancing and phasing. But I don't find it massively far-fetched to imagine that integrating an extra layer to serve consoles might just introduce some tricky situations.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that the console layer is fairly inflexible ("our way or the highway"). Unless you have an intimate understanding of ESO's particular system design and unique complexities, it may be a bit cavalier to dismiss their reasons out of hand.
It's always more fun to imagine deep and dark conspiracies behind seemingly straight-forward problems. But perhaps the truth is no more sinister than someone at ZOS thinking: "It can't be that hard, can it ?" during their console integration planning phase, only to find out that it was much harder than estimated during implementation.
I can tell you in some detail the requirements to get an online game working via Xbox live - I know a guy at EA that manages the xbox live deployments, and have talked to him extensively about XLSP configs. Is it tricky - yes, but it doesn't take 6 months.
Here's a very basic diagram that shows the XLSP secure gateway setup - the XLSP server is REQUIRED for a game to work on Xbox live. So when you play CoD or any online Xbox game - you're going through Microsoft's XLSP servers.
XLSP secure gateway is a Microsoft server that Zenimax has to setup in their datacenter - it sits on the edge of the network and can proxy several thousand players. The more players connect the more XLSP gateways are required. Large games like CoD have MANY XLSP servers (can't get into specifics for obvious reasons).
These XLSP gateways register to Xbox live network - this allows Xbox Live to "list" a game as available and playable via Xbox live.
So when an end user logs into Xbox live - their credentials are checked to see if they have access to a product, once that check is pased - xbox live network talks to the XLSP gateway to obtain a server list and allow the Xbox console to connect directly.
So only the initial connection is done through Xbox Live.
After that the client's Xbox console talks directly to the XLSP server in Zenimax' datacenter, your console is not going through MS Xbox live network anymore.
Again - 6 months .... just no.
Again keep in mind the above only pertains to Xbox live - PS4 and PC/Mac do not have such requirements.
To me this sounds more like any problems with integrating the networks might increase costs a bit, and perhaps add a few weeks work on meshing them, but that would have been a known factor included in the original 'plan' for the game, so i don't think its something thats just 'come up' suddenly to force a push back on the games launch. More likely the issue is related to the game itself, and not of the bug bashing variety, again, unless there are some as yet unannounced game breaking bugs present, it shouldn't take a projected '6 months' to fix/address them, and this is only an initial estimate, does anyone else think that this won't drag into 2015?
Issues of the magnitude this seems to suggest are present, can only mean, afaik, that there is a major problem with either the game engine or the server technology, and given that GW2 is currently moving over to using Megaservers, i am not sure that, that is the problem, although it wouldn't entirely surprise me if it was a contributing factor given the sheer amount of phasing present in the game, and the corollary issues due to said phasing, which i have not heard they even began to address on the PC, which takes me to what i think the real culprit is for the reason for the delayed launch, and one which may prevent the game ever launching on console, and that is the game engine itself. I have no doubt now that the PC version was launched too soon, but, what if the problems affecting the mega server and exacerbating the phasing issues is the inability of the game engine to cope with anything above a certain volume of players, and this also ties in to Zenimax's so far, reluctance to publish sales figures for the PC, because i don't think they were all that high, but assuming they had 1 million players spread between the 2 mega servers, say 500k in each, and that the issues players encountered in game were not so much bug related, although there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the coding for a significant number of quests was in fact a bit questionable, but those things are very fixable once identified, and usually are. But an issue with errors occurring due to stress on the game engine itself, and if that is the case, then the problem is not so easily fixed, hence the projected 6 months(+?) delay. Of course this becomes even more of a factor if, as seems likely, they had significantly less than 1 million players to contend with, in which case the ability of the game engine to handle millions at some point in the future would be extremely doubtful, and i think thats the real reason it has been pushed back, and why it may never make it to console.
On the other hand the delay may just be due to them needing to add a significant amount of PvE content to the game before it launches on console... but i doubt it
Alot of people will get upset & maybe jump on something else which is never good for a company trying to score preorders/sales yet making sure next gen console players have a decent title to sub to in the long run is definitely a plus. Especially since console players tend to shy away from monthly fees beyond Xbox Live & now PS Plus.
The down side too is if the ESO console version releases during holiday 2014 we may not see the next single player incarnation discussed/released until much further down the road than anticipated. Bummer.
I pre-order the collector's edition at game stop but now since it isn't being released in June and people say December......I don't want to wait that long.
So with the offer of transferring characters and what not I want to start playing PC buuuuuuut there is no collector's edition for PC anymore.
I already brought up the question with them and am waiting for an answer and was just wondering if anyone had a idea about this situation?
So a delay of "about 6 months" to tackle "network issues" that .......they totally failed to anticipate. That is a long time - on top of however long they allowed initially.
They've not even committed to "later this year" either. Although I'm sure Zenimax would want to release before Christmas; possibly even before Thanksgiving in the US (back end of Nov). Not to mention a host of other titles that are planned for the back end of the year - which will compete for purchasers, shelf space, and reviewers time. Will be interesting to see how Dragon Age fares (Oct 7 launch, delayed from last year).
Could be an expensive delay potentially- and certainly makes a mockery of it coming "unfinished" on PC. Did those who called the PC launch simply a paid beta for the console launch get it right?
I am not buying the network integration issue line.
Sure MS Xbox network requires installing internet facing Xbox proxy servers, PS network integration is WAY simpler, there are no special servers to config like MS Xbox network requires - but even the worst case scenario doesn't take 6 months.
Maybe they failed to cert with both Sony and MS - but a cert failure delays you by a month or two worst case scenario.
There's bigger issues behind the scenes that they are not willing to discuss with the public.
I have no idea how ZOS's "megaserver" is integrated with the internet or how they handle load-balancing and phasing. But I don't find it massively far-fetched to imagine that integrating an extra layer to serve consoles might just introduce some tricky situations.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that the console layer is fairly inflexible ("our way or the highway"). Unless you have an intimate understanding of ESO's particular system design and unique complexities, it may be a bit cavalier to dismiss their reasons out of hand.
It's always more fun to imagine deep and dark conspiracies behind seemingly straight-forward problems. But perhaps the truth is no more sinister than someone at ZOS thinking: "It can't be that hard, can it ?" during their console integration planning phase, only to find out that it was much harder than estimated during implementation.
I can tell you in some detail the requirements to get an online game working via Xbox live - I know a guy at EA that manages the xbox live deployments, and have talked to him extensively about XLSP configs. Is it tricky - yes, but it doesn't take 6 months.
Here's a very basic diagram that shows the XLSP secure gateway setup - the XLSP server is REQUIRED for a game to work on Xbox live. So when you play CoD or any online Xbox game - you're going through Microsoft's XLSP servers.
XLSP secure gateway is a Microsoft server that Zenimax has to setup in their datacenter - it sits on the edge of the network and can proxy several thousand players. The more players connect the more XLSP gateways are required. Large games like CoD have MANY XLSP servers (can't get into specifics for obvious reasons).
These XLSP gateways register to Xbox live network - this allows Xbox Live to "list" a game as available and playable via Xbox live.
So when an end user logs into Xbox live - their credentials are checked to see if they have access to a product, once that check is pased - xbox live network talks to the XLSP gateway to obtain a server list and allow the Xbox console to connect directly.
So only the initial connection is done through Xbox Live.
After that the client's Xbox console talks directly to the XLSP server in Zenimax' datacenter, your console is not going through MS Xbox live network anymore.
Again - 6 months .... just no.
Again keep in mind the above only pertains to Xbox live - PS4 and PC/Mac do not have such requirements.
To me this sounds more like any problems with integrating the networks might increase costs a bit, and perhaps add a few weeks work on meshing them, but that would have been a known factor included in the original 'plan' for the game, so i don't think its something thats just 'come up' suddenly to force a push back on the games launch. More likely the issue is related to the game itself, and not of the bug bashing variety, again, unless there are some as yet unannounced game breaking bugs present, it shouldn't take a projected '6 months' to fix/address them, and this is only an initial estimate, does anyone else think that this won't drag into 2015?
Issues of the magnitude this seems to suggest are present, can only mean, afaik, that there is a major problem with either the game engine or the server technology, and given that GW2 is currently moving over to using Megaservers, i am not sure that, that is the problem, although it wouldn't entirely surprise me if it was a contributing factor given the sheer amount of phasing present in the game, and the corollary issues due to said phasing, which i have not heard they even began to address on the PC, which takes me to what i think the real culprit is for the reason for the delayed launch, and one which may prevent the game ever launching on console, and that is the game engine itself. I have no doubt now that the PC version was launched too soon, but, what if the problems affecting the mega server and exacerbating the phasing issues is the inability of the game engine to cope with anything above a certain volume of players, and this also ties in to Zenimax's so far, reluctance to publish sales figures for the PC, because i don't think they were all that high, but assuming they had 1 million players spread between the 2 mega servers, say 500k in each, and that the issues players encountered in game were not so much bug related, although there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the coding for a significant number of quests was in fact a bit questionable, but those things are very fixable once identified, and usually are. But an issue with errors occurring due to stress on the game engine itself, and if that is the case, then the problem is not so easily fixed, hence the projected 6 months(+?) delay. Of course this becomes even more of a factor if, as seems likely, they had significantly less than 1 million players to contend with, in which case the ability of the game engine to handle millions at some point in the future would be extremely doubtful, and i think thats the real reason it has been pushed back, and why it may never make it to console.
On the other hand the delay may just be due to them needing to add a significant amount of PvE content to the game before it launches on console... but i doubt it
Phry once again I think you are spot on! I hope that this is not the case but the inability to fix basic things and push content makes me think otherwise.
Comments
Actually I'm shocked... why go full on cash grab just to pull back less than two months before your biggest payout? Doesn't add up.
It's hard to care when consoles are inferior for PC games, MMORPGs are PC games, and anybody serious about MMORPGs should be playing on a PC.
Have a nice day!
It would seem like they have plenty to keep them busy just dealing with issues in the PC version, and since console gamess tend to need to be more solid at release, a lot of the delay is probably about solidifying what they have before locking it down for consoles.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
I think that one sentence pretty much sums up the entire Design Philosophy for ESO.
Its official.
http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2014/05/08/eso-on-consoles--update?ref=home
It won't release this June
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
To me this sounds more like any problems with integrating the networks might increase costs a bit, and perhaps add a few weeks work on meshing them, but that would have been a known factor included in the original 'plan' for the game, so i don't think its something thats just 'come up' suddenly to force a push back on the games launch. More likely the issue is related to the game itself, and not of the bug bashing variety, again, unless there are some as yet unannounced game breaking bugs present, it shouldn't take a projected '6 months' to fix/address them, and this is only an initial estimate, does anyone else think that this won't drag into 2015?
Issues of the magnitude this seems to suggest are present, can only mean, afaik, that there is a major problem with either the game engine or the server technology, and given that GW2 is currently moving over to using Megaservers, i am not sure that, that is the problem, although it wouldn't entirely surprise me if it was a contributing factor given the sheer amount of phasing present in the game, and the corollary issues due to said phasing, which i have not heard they even began to address on the PC, which takes me to what i think the real culprit is for the reason for the delayed launch, and one which may prevent the game ever launching on console, and that is the game engine itself. I have no doubt now that the PC version was launched too soon, but, what if the problems affecting the mega server and exacerbating the phasing issues is the inability of the game engine to cope with anything above a certain volume of players, and this also ties in to Zenimax's so far, reluctance to publish sales figures for the PC, because i don't think they were all that high, but assuming they had 1 million players spread between the 2 mega servers, say 500k in each, and that the issues players encountered in game were not so much bug related, although there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the coding for a significant number of quests was in fact a bit questionable, but those things are very fixable once identified, and usually are. But an issue with errors occurring due to stress on the game engine itself, and if that is the case, then the problem is not so easily fixed, hence the projected 6 months(+?) delay. Of course this becomes even more of a factor if, as seems likely, they had significantly less than 1 million players to contend with, in which case the ability of the game engine to handle millions at some point in the future would be extremely doubtful, and i think thats the real reason it has been pushed back, and why it may never make it to console.
On the other hand the delay may just be due to them needing to add a significant amount of PvE content to the game before it launches on console... but i doubt it
Alot of people will get upset & maybe jump on something else which is never good for a company trying to score preorders/sales yet making sure next gen console players have a decent title to sub to in the long run is definitely a plus. Especially since console players tend to shy away from monthly fees beyond Xbox Live & now PS Plus.
The down side too is if the ESO console version releases during holiday 2014 we may not see the next single player incarnation discussed/released until much further down the road than anticipated. Bummer.
Soooooo I have a question.....
I pre-order the collector's edition at game stop but now since it isn't being released in June and people say December......I don't want to wait that long.
So with the offer of transferring characters and what not I want to start playing PC buuuuuuut there is no collector's edition for PC anymore.
I already brought up the question with them and am waiting for an answer and was just wondering if anyone had a idea about this situation?
Phry once again I think you are spot on! I hope that this is not the case but the inability to fix basic things and push content makes me think otherwise.
Z.