Goblin Squad Member
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Copied from DM Fiat post:
Linked at DM Fiat interview with Ryan
2:17 – Ryan Dancey (RD) discusses the possibility of expanding the game world beyond the River Kingdoms.
4:37 – Both individually created hexes and hex templates will be used to create setting.
14:43 – RD elaborates on the class system and why Archetypes are more flexible than traditional Classes.
10:33 – Settlements are like guilds, but with physical locations in game. Player characters will have the ability to run different parts of a settlement, controlling it’s look and composition.
18:44 – In the future, players will be able to create their own adventure module style PVE content that they can supply or sell to other players for a profit.
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One question though. Is there a tech limit to the number of players able to log in to one server at the same time?
I remember the queues in WOW.
When you consider 1) Modern Server Architecture, and 2) The limited size of the TOTAL player population at peak player density, I doubt they will need to invest in more than 1-2 backup systems (Such as for future beta testing) as they shouldn't have any technical reasons to run more than one continuous world.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One question though. Is there a tech limit to the number of players able to log in to one server at the same time?
I remember the queues in WOW.
EvE can support over 55000 online at one time, without queues. I'm not sure what the record is in one system, but it is over 2000 for certain.
While Eve certainly has had 2000 odd users at once in a single system an avatar based mmo on a planet is unlikely to be able to handle more than a percentage of that number.
The sheer workload of representing 2000 ships in space which mostly show up as points to each other is a lot less than having to represent a couple of hundred characters to each other. The limitation is in fact probably not at the server end so much but at the client end. I have a decent computer but put a few hundred characters together in any current mmo and I notice the slow down. I suspect my system probably falls in the top quartile of those owned by mmo players so some will really struggle.
In addition eve has the ability to shift into time dilation mode whereby they slow down time for the affected system. This can be got away with in a spaceship game. If all our avatars suddenly go into slow motion Keanu style matrix movements then I think people might notice a lot more.
The key to success for pfo I think, if they stick to one server and I hope they will, is to find a way of spreading people out a bit so that there aren't an overload of characters in one place too often. How they do this though I am not sure
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Goblin Squad Member
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Good points Zen: As with EVE they can add resources when players congregate. But I agree, I am not sure how overall they'll work it out and what the top numbers will be. Immediately I'd hazard guessing, I think Settlements will be their own instance allowing high population density. Makes sense? Question of how seamless they can make it etc. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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In large-scale battles, as may be the norm in open declared wars, the combatants are said to be in formations, which should permit reasonably numerous players to be represented by a single representation of them on the server whether they are represented in the client as individuals or as an abstract representation as a 'tile'.
I do not know, really, whether they are thinking that 1) a company of players might be represented by a single unit tile on a tactical map, reminiscent of the old Avalon-Hill military simulation board games, or 2)individual player characters are represented moving and fighting within formation is intended.
If the military simulation board game representation is to be the case then I should think there will be significant advantages in adjudicating outcomes and representing the resolution of the battle but, I believe, a significant reduction in individual player involvement if the battle is so abstract.
If the second model is the case, then the load on the client to represent the conduct of battle does not seem like it would help anything client-side, but might reduce significantly the load on the server except where the formation bears an 'out of formation' flag which should then have to track each individual (and apply to them a reduction in the formation buff, if there is one).
If the individual player fully controls their character in the formation, yet fails to remain in formation, then I don't see the advantage server-side or client side to formation combat.
By the looks of things CU is going to blow any limitations prior to now out of the water. They recently featured a video showing 10K characters in a confined area with no performance degradation. That vid didn't include spells and such so realistic numbers will likely be lower, but its an impressive display of what's possible.
I know they are using Unity, but I've no idea what other combination of software they might be using to achieve those numbers. Their Minecraft like building system is just amazing btw..
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Goblin Squad Member
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ZenPagan (BTW, if you are one, +10!), without knowing the architecture of the server GW will be using, and what, if any, cloud system they are using per Being's post, I don't think we can say what the top number will be in terms of avatars possible for PfO to support at any given time. A high-end blade server system could have many i7 (just as an example) CPU's running at the same time, and RAM would be rather large (my own Alienware PC runs 18 megs of RAM {scalable up to 32 megs}, and it isn't a server). As Being points out, with Cloud computing, server capacity can be infinite, or damn near to it. When WoW came out, servers weren't all that advanced by today's standards, and cloud computing was pretty much unknown outside some major colleges and universities (and likely NASA).
I agree, though, that in this case, using EvE as a comparative example to PfO doesn't work given the apples to oranges nature of the two games in terms of graphics. Avatars with complex animations are not the same as pretty much static ship models that only need simple animations to represent the firing of weapons and some minor aesthetics like rotating scanner dishes.
Given the nature of business I doubt we will ever learn the exact nature of the server's make up, but I expect that it will be a powerhouse using all available options.
@Gloreindl
I wasn't suggesting numbers would be necessarily low, merely that they would probably be less than Eve could manage. Eve is run on some pretty significant hardware itself.
However I still think the point remains that the number will be limited in my view more by client pc's than the server architecture.
To give an example when my son played Wow on his old laptop during Wotlk he would often slow down to about 5 fps on the busy server he played on. Since saved up my pennies and got him a new laptop :)
The fact remains though that the average spec of machine for the mmo player is a lot less than the power house you are running. For instance of my real life circle of mmo playing friends I am the only one who has a pc which is less than a year old or regularly upgrades parts of the his system.
All mmo companies unfortunately have a trade off they need to make over the system level they aim at. I haven't seen Goblinworks estimate if indeed they have published one.
Formation play may be the way they get round this to a certain extent depending on how it is implemented
What exactly is CU do you have a link please. The two letters are not much use for a google search unfortunately as I get pages full of credit unions :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Gloreindl
I wasn't suggesting numbers would be necessarily low, merely that they would probably be less than Eve could manage. Eve is run on some pretty significant hardware itself.
However I still think the point remains that the number will be limited in my view more by client pc's than the server architecture.
To give an example when my son played Wow on his old laptop during Wotlk he would often slow down to about 5 fps on the busy server he played on. Since saved up my pennies and got him a new laptop :)
The fact remains though that the average spec of machine for the mmo player is a lot less than the power house you are running. For instance of my real life circle of mmo playing friends I am the only one who has a pc which is less than a year old or regularly upgrades parts of the his system.
All mmo companies unfortunately have a trade off they need to make over the system level they aim at. I haven't seen Goblinworks estimate if indeed they have published one.
Formation play may be the way they get round this to a certain extent depending on how it is implemented
Fair points all. BTW, I am looking for a new gaming laptop. Which one did you get your son? I am looking at the new Alienware M14 upgraded to an i7 chip (my current one is rather long in the tooth, but the desktop is fairly new and was very high-end when I got it).
Also, when I was co-partner in a text-based MMO years ago, I bought the server, and it was the most powerful PC offered at the time, and that was for a non-graphic intensive game (www.eaxiaonline.com). While I left the company years ago, that server kept pace with a growing number of old-school MUD style players. I can see GW buying high-end equipment for PfO as it is current graphics intensive. WoW was never that graphic intensive, as they were designed to be cartoonish, thus saving on polygons. GW and specifically Ryan seem to have learned lessons from history within the MMO universe, so I am hoping that server issues are one of the things they intend to nip in the bud at the get-go.
I guess we'll simply have to wait for later EE to see how much of a stress test we can put on the server to know how well it will do with something like large numbers of simultaneous players. It will be interesting from both a player perspective and just for edification.
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I got him an alienware with an i7 and ssd the 17 inch screen
as to camelot unchained
Found the video and I would point out a couple of things which relate to number of players
1) it is 1000 characters not 10000
2) The landscape is not complex
3) The characters are all clones of each other which means that all the textures can stay in fast video ram,they mention this in the video itself
4)This isnt running necessarily on an average mmo players pc
5) These arent players firing off lots of different abilities and actions and moving in lots of different directions
Is it impressive? Yes
Do I think they will be able to field that many individual characters when the game goes live without lag? No for the reasons above
I am sure though that mmo's will continue to push the upper bounds of number of characters on screen at once
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan effectively reminded us here to upgrade our video cards as we get closer to play.