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[Column] Warhammer 40.000: Eternal Crusade: Pikko Server Technology
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Developed in 2011 by MuchDifferent, a software development company based in Uppsala, Sweden, Pikko technology was used in early 2012 to break the world record for concurrent user in a FPS battle. Pikko Server is written in Erlang, a programming language built specifically to enable parallel computing, allowing very efficient use of multicore processors. It turns any single-core game server into a cluster of cell servers, called masts.
Read more of Terry O'Brien's Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade: Pikko Server Technology.
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Comments
The developers have come at this at the wrong angle. What makes Warhammer 40K amazing is the feeling of a living, breathing universe where the unexpected happens.
Instead, they are making a huge FPS. However, this market has already been cornered by Call of Duty etc.
The developers should have started by making the universe itself, e.g. - solar systems and pockets of life. Proceedurally generated space hulks, hidden necron crypts, gene stealer colonies masquerading as human settlements etc.
Combat should have been an additional layer to make things interesting.
I suspect that this game won't be deep enough and will lack immersion.
1000 player vs 1000 player combat sounds cool, but if you play Eve Online you reaslise that it's an impersonal, laggy experience.
Warhammer 40K was an opportunity to do something really different - perhaps make a new genre of game. The opportunity has been lost, I fear.
Its a Third Person Shooter. Not an FPS. Also storyline immersion will probably not be that great, despite Graham Mc'Niell's involvement.
As for the solar systems...? Really? This isn't a space farer MMO! In fact even the developers are no longer calling it an MMORPG.
Pretty much also disagree with depth. They aim to achieve that through progression mechanism and tactical options.
So far Devs are aiming at a total of 1000 players, not 1k vs 1k. It may be even less then that after optimization.
To be fair, now that GW is licensing their IP to pretty much anyone this has probably been the best license deal so far.
I agree 100% but to do what would make it amazing a great deal of money and time would be needed. And investors want instant returns. That usually happens with Shooters for better or worse.
The mmo genre is at a evolutionary crawl right now. There are a lot of kickstarter projects trying new things, but they look like they where made in 90s....
(Retired)- Anarchy Online/Ultima Online/DAoC/Horizonsz/EQ2/SWG/AC1&2/L2/SoR/WoW/TMO/Requiem/Atlantica Online/Manibogi/Rift+(SL)/Lol/Hon/SWTOR/Wakfu/Champions Online/GW/Lotr/CO/TcoS/Tabula Rasa/Meridian 59/Vanguard/Shadowbane/Fury/SotW/Dreamlords/HGL/RoM/DDO/FFXI/Aoc/Eve/Warhammer Online/Gw2/TSW/Tera/Defiance/STO/AoW/DE/Firefall/Darkfall/Neverwinter/PS2/ESO/FF14/Archeage/Gw2
Pikko is really good.. glad they decided to use this will mean that they can get a lot more people fighting togeather.
I wonder if we'll ever get a Warhammer 40k game that focuses on the setting. I really think they're going about it wrong with all these action-oriented warhammer games. Warhammer 40k at its heart is a STRATEGY game. ACTUAL WH40k players spend hours upon hours setting a table up while min-maxing the best (or most fun and "fluffy", if you're not "that guy") units to use in a situation, not doing twitch gaming focused on eye-hand coordination.
The vast majority of Wh40k players from what I've seen on forums seem to be in it mostly for the setting, often times saying the game itself is kinda a mess, even. Why there thus hasn't been a WH40k game based on the setting and instead always so... action-based is beyond me. Admittingly they might just be worried that Fantasy Flight Games already has the setting aspect cornered but IMHO it's still a dissappointment.
That said, it looks like a lot of love is going into this game and there hasn't been a good big budget WH40k game in a while, so I hope it does well, regardless.
If anyone else wants to read more check this out from their website forums
http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/threads/about-pikko-server-technology.1783/
Lots of good tidbits there, my fav is when Patrick Balthazar entertained the theory that the player count is pretty much limited by the servers that allocate to a given battle...therefore the 1000 player count could be exceeded as they scale the network.
Warhammer 40k is a setting/a universe. Its not a "strategy game at heart" as you put it. It doesnt define what it is. It can be in any style it sees fit as long as you FEEL like your in a warhammer 40k universe.
Dear Crusader,
First we have decided on a No Marketing Firewall between Devs and Fan hence why, right now, I take the time to answer you.
We are NOT making an FPS.... VERY far from it.
We are making a Massive Perssistant combat RPG. That means NO instances on the WHOLE planete (the smalles continent is 64 square KM) where Mele combat is as important as range.
Eternal Crusade is a Skill Base Game. Which means that your fighting skills are more important than your stats.
All the exemple you are mentionning is our main focus hence why our writer is one of the best from Black Library: Graham McNeil
He wrote our first Short Story here: http://www.eternalcrusade.com/phase_4_space_marine
but there is many more coming.
Last, like I said, the combat are twitch combats so the PIKKO teck allows us to have FULL skill base combats, with vehicules, NO lag...... with over 1000 players trying to take a forteress.
We have FULL friendly fire so players have to THINK about what is the best strategy to use.
That bring me to the last point: Player Driven Game... It means we have 3 players level of Hirachy in the game. Squad Leader (10 players) StrikeForce Commander (10 Squad) and the War Consil (5 StrikeForce commander elected to drive the WHOLE faction for a specific campaign)
That means YOU drive the war effort with all the specific commander leadership tools INGAME.
Please come in our forum at www.eternalcrusade.com and tell us what you want there. We dont fake our transparency with our fans... we DO it. Already many features of the game was brough/design by some of our hardcore fans.
You have access to EVERY member of my team there.
Regards
Behaviour
Miguel Caron
Studio Head, Online Games and
Executive Producer for:
Warhammer 40 000 Eternal Crusade
Chris Roberts, Star Citizen
Twitter: @miguelcaron
bhvr.com
Studio Head of Behaviour Entertainment on WAR40K: Eternal Crusade
well dudes, you ain't gonna argue with the executive producer personally addressing the forum concerns himself
gotta be givin the respect
i love the above post from the devs, finally MMO with friendly fire (sounds FFA PvP but its not) !
also i prefer this pikko shit much more than the megasmartsexy servers ESO and GW2 introduced . Anyway their announcements are becoming interesting .
Imo, there is no point in large scale warfare.
It sounds great on paper but it does not really work, even if you get over pain in the arse of implementation it represents.
Larger the engagement, less personal involvement and impact of the individual. As poster above said, the experience becomes very impersonal.
However, even with Pikko tech, your main bottleneck/problem remains - the client. Client, client HW HW and rendering is what will limit you much more than any other botleneck as they are way more difficult to optimize because you have little control over client and sacrifying visuals, environment and physics isn't very smart move.
However, I understand that the tech can be great asset even for small and mid size engagements, performance is always welcomed, I just hope they will focus more on that size of content rather than fancy but impractical large scale warfare.
I like the large scale battles in Planetside 2 and when you are running with a good squad it can be very person as your squad can be donig very important things in the battle.. sure its harder to be part of a big battle as an individual because its hard to influance things by yourself but then again a mmo game is all about playing with other people.
Its good to see the devs actually coming on here and posting in the forums... infact that has got me a lot more interested in the game ashe has outlined a few things I did not realise.
I will not be going over to the game site and registering on the forums to check it out more.
Darkfall Online had 2000+ in FPS battles back in '09.
This kind of technology is old news.
For that matter, DFO had, and still has, friendly fire. Not that I bother to play anymore, for other reasons.
On reflection, I now realise that Warhammer 40K Eternal Crusade is a 3rd person version of Planetside 2.
I still think the devs have approached this from the wrong angle - they should have created the universe first.
There is no point in doing a Warhammer 40K game if you are not going to include Space Marines, Chaos Marines, Tyranids, Gene Stealers, Necrons, Orks, war barges, space hulks, Imperial Guards + Commisars, and include civilian populations.
You also NEED to have the Emperor.
Eternal Crusade is a 41st Millenium Combat Simulator, designed to recreate what it feels like to fight on the battlefields of the far future. It's not meant to recreate the 40K universe, except for one small piece, a planet-sized piece, being fought over by various factions. If that's not the game you are looking for, so be it, you will need to keep looking.
Other armies will come along later, but you have to start somewhere, so Space Marines, Chaos Marines, Orks and Eldar is as good a place to start as any, with Tyranids as the wold card.
What do you mean by you NEED to have the Emperor? Like, as a unit travelling around and visiting people? I mean they HAVE the EMperor, sitting on his Golden THrone on Terra, far, far away from Arkona. Where else would he be?
T
That would be awesome but the scope of such a project would be a bit too large for any reasonable project and budget. What they are doing is a good start to hopefully get to that point given enough support from its customers.
The universe will start with the planets they have announced and every quarter year or so there will be new campaigns and planets, thats not even considering if they do a true expansion with new races, weapons, locations, progressions etc.
What has me pretty pumped is procedural generation being used for quick territory creation, procedurally generated PVE, Pikko servers for massive world battles, the monetization (in theory) and how open the company is being with us as fans.
they are real open, not fake open, some people don't understand pre-alpha video, wip screenshot, the dev are showing us on what they are working and how they are working, not some prepared screenshot and polished marketing video.
If someone have some doubt about the game can directly ask to the dev (when they have time now they are working hard for the founder package) the dev can be found on their official forum profile, twitter and other social network.
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