Possible Solution to Server Merger and Game Pop. Discussion

[Xoosch]

IT can be done..

 

 

Eve Online, created in 2003 but is still going strong had an impressive battle event back in 2013.     +3000 player ships  vs 1 capital ship.   3000 Players in the same battle ( no instance like NA has)   Surely with the hardware etc we have today, it should not be a problem?

Rght it can be done, even without instances. Just like EvE Online. And yeeeees technicaly the systems in EvE are instances.... i know... but it's not the same.

[Babble]

Rght it can be done, even without instances. Just like EvE Online. And yeeeees technicaly the systems in EvE are instances.... i know... but it's not the same.

No it is the same.   Thats exactly what im proposing.

[BlindProphet]

IT can be done..

 

 

Eve Online, created in 2003 but is still going strong had an impressive battle event back in 2013.     +3000 player ships  vs 1 capital ship.   3000 Players in the same battle ( no instance like NA has)   Surely with the hardware etc we have today, it should not be a problem?

 

Ummm....Yes and those large battles are typically scheduled with the devs ahead of time so they can specifically spin up hardware for that sector, and even then the game lags incredibly badly...And when there's popup events like burning Jita theres huge performance issues, sectors have crashed, and so on and so forth.

 

Add onto that Eve sections off each sector into its own instance so while you may have 20,000 people online most of them are off in comparitively low pop instances.

[Babble]

Original post updated to include Mirror's idea.

[Nathaniel]

Yes, let's reduce this game to point and click, stop tracing your shots, remove the damage model completely, remove all the server-calculated waves and then we can press 3k players into an instance.

 

Sorry for the sarcasm, EVE is a good example in many regards, but surely it must be clear that it is NOT possible to have here what you've seen on the video.

[Fashbinder]

 ( we have all noticed ping is a non issue)

 

 

Not the case at all. Australia to EU is madness.

[mirror452]

Yes, let's reduce this game to point and click, stop tracing your shots, remove the damage model completely, remove all the server-calculated waves and then we can press 3k players into an instance.

 

Sorry for the sarcasm, EVE is a good example in many regards, but surely it must be clear that it is NOT possible to have here what you've seen on the video.

 

Who said anything about that? Please read before you comment, and try to understand what you read.

Combat would work exactly the same way as always.

Edited February 10, 2016 by mirror452

[Babble]

Who said anything about that? Please read before you comment, and try to understand what you read.

Combat would work exactly the same way as always.

Ty Mirror.

 

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading the majority of these responses.

[Kingbuns]

Plenty of MMOs do this, even Star Citizen is going to be doing this with seamless server lines. 

The server lines would need to be quite different than what you've marked out because you'd likely have certain ports that have way more people congregating at.

 

The obvious benefit is way more people playing in one game world and you being able to play with people from around the world.  The downside to this is you'd be playing with people who have much larger pings.  There's probably also a pretty sizeable amount of resources the devs would need to put in to make this happen.

[Jack Feathersword]

Really it comes down to the underlying technologies used. The database design and stack might be a limit, it might be a giant write once do or it might be multiple. The data might not handle being moved from node to node or passing player position from shard to shard.

I like the idea but without the specs of the back-end we have no way to know of it would work.

Is there any unity 4 reference doco for architecture?

[Babble]

Really it comes down to the underlying technologies used. The database design and stack might be a limit, it might be a giant write once do or it might be multiple. The data might not handle being moved from node to node or passing player position from shard to shard.

I like the idea but without the specs of the back-end we have no way to know of it would work.

Is there any unity 4 reference doco for architecture?

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/index.html

 

Glancing over it myself when time permits.

[Grim DeGrim]

I like the idea.

How many times I've said to myself: if only I had the French players in my time zone from that server.

And: that server is underpop and is destined to be a ghostland; we'll lose those players first.

----

Perhaps the specifics of the proposal need adjustment (though that's not my opinion), but if you step back and think about the benefits of unifying server populations, it makes sense for longevity of the game.

Concerns raised can be addressed and minimized.

[Babble]

----

Perhaps the specifics of the proposal need adjustment (though that's not my opinion), but if you step back and think about the benefits of unifying server populations, it makes sense for longevity of the game.

Concerns raised can be addressed and minimized.

Exactly

[Tindahbawx]

The problem with sharding the OW is that you could be starting a fight near a shard border, completely unaware that the enemy has a 25 man fleet literally sitting one load screen away awaiting the call on TS/Mumble to switch shards and join the battle.

[Babble]

The problem with sharding the OW is that you could be starting a fight near a shard border, completely unaware that the enemy has a 25 man fleet literally sitting one load screen away awaiting the call on TS/Mumble to switch shards and join the battle.

No.  this would not be possible given the proposed solution.    All of the shard processing and hand off is done behind the scenes.  Being loaded on a shard and a transitional shard simultaneously negates the issue you raised.    There are no loading screens.

 

 

 

Please reread this section :

 

Updated server setup implementing Mirror542's great idea which can be seen is his comment below

 

https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing

 

 

 

The updated Concept requires 6-8 servers depending on decision to enable individual shards for battles or ports.

 

4 of the shards boundaries are displayed in green above.

2 of the shards are transitional boundaries. 

 

If sailing West from the far left edge of the map you are on Shard one.

       - every single player in visible distance to you is also on shard one.

       - As you approach transitional shard A you become loaded onto that shard as well as shard one.

                   - All of this is done behind the scenes with no interruption in gameplay.

                   - You would be able to see all players in your visible distance located on both shard A and Shard 1

 

       - As you cross the border between shard 1 and shard 2 (north of cuba in this example) your ship is loaded into shard 2 and removed from shard one. 

                  - All of this is done behind the scenes with no interruption in gameplay.

                  - You would now be able to see all players in your visible distance located on both shard A and Shard 2 (or 3 depending on which side of cuba you are on)

 

       - If you continue to sail west along the northern coast of cuba you would eventually be removed from Shard A and reside solely on Shard 2.

 

      - If we continue our example you would be loaded onto Shard B as well as Shard 2

                 - Again all of this is done behind the scenes and presents no change to gameplay.

                 - You would now be able to see all players in your visible distance located on both shard 2 and Shard B

 

      -And so on to shard B and 4 and then solely 4.

[Duque]

wat

 

Do you even know what a 'server' is?? The point of having multiple servers is so all of the data is not in one massive repository.  You can't just jump from server to server, that would mean every server has all of the information...

 

Nice thought, but technically kinda silly.

I believe that you must answer your own question.

Besides, EVE online has a one unique server and play without problems shards of 35000 players at a time.

Divide players between servers are very bad for the future of the game.

 

All of us we know that in a future, a server merge will be a must. Do it now for the wealth of this marvellous game. One PVE and one PVP server its enough, overall when your name and experience are saved in both.

[Babble]

For ease of understanding I edited the original post to strike out things that are no longer relevant to the proposal.

[Jackalope]

I'm so tired of hearing this. Everyone I play with is perfectly happy on PVP 2. We have ausies with us who would have ridiculous pings on pvp 1. We don't want to play on a European sever. Please leave us alone.

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

I think the game is actually far from empty, sailing around french antillas there will always be a lot of ships everywhere, and even when i was in Louisiana, there was some french captain and a lot of bots.

 

You are right when you say it's too bad our community is divided between servers without any interaction.

 

To me the ideal would be: each server for a different sea (one carribean, one baltic/english channel, one mediterranean, one coast of india) All linked together.

 

 I understand it would be a huge amount of work for the mappers but it can change everything about this game.

 

We can imagine american players mainly concentrated in the carribeans, australian and asian players in the indian ocean, russian and nordic in the baltic, turcs/europeans in mediterranea, British and pirates everywhere and French, Spanish & Dutch having to defend their possessions all around the world.

But everyone being able to travel all around the world as conqueror, corsair, trader or explorer keeping his ship/rank/cargo as he travel from a server to another.

 

The gameplay would be so much better, and a minor nation in carribean could fall back to his homeland in europe if being ganked.  Assembling an offensive fleet would require more work and coordination, clans could fight to control strategic locations. Placing privateers on another server to intercept your ennemies traders coming from india will be usefull and the game will be more strategic, and less a crazy port conquest game.