The Problem of Shards, Servers, and Queues In MMOs 253
An editorial at GamesIndustry takes a look at a couple of problems many MMOs have failed to solve as the genre has evolved over the last decade: log-in queues and a split player base. The most recent example is Aion, which launched in Europe and North America a few weeks ago. Players on some of the game's servers had to deal with lengthy queues until enough people left the starting areas and spread throughout the game. To NCSoft's credit, the queues are mostly gone already, and it wasn't simply launching with too few servers that was the problem (nor was simply launching more servers a perfect solution, as Warhammer proved). In fact, several servers had no queues at all, but many players had set their sights on the more popular ones — a problem facing other MMOs as well. At this point, it becomes a matter of programming — how can the developers for these MMOs build the networking aspect of the game such that more hardware can easily be allocated when it's needed, and also make it easier for people to play together without the restriction of different shards or servers? EVE Online has done well with a single game universe, but it's not clear how far that model can scale upwards.
Computational Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a computational problem that the major game studies are hopelessly under prepared to solve.
Mostly they hire people who get degrees in game design that include very little in the way of computer science. This is actually a fairly difficult problem to solve.
The fundamental design flaw they all have is that servers represent space in the game, it's a flawed assumption about the best model to use.
Re:Champions did it too (Score:4, Insightful)
the complication is its impossible to meet people because they are scattered amongst a hundred shards. Multiply it by the different zones and you never see the same people. Add to it the drop in drop out nature of grouping and the social aspect suffers. Having seperate servers like WoW have their own issues with having friends who play but are not on your server, but at least the people who are on the server you see day in and out.
I'm kinda stalled at 29 because of the group instances, but I don't know people. I don't even know where to go for lfg grouping (ala IF). The built in lfg tool seems to be ignored, to the point that when I tried it, trying to send a message to the people in the list showed noone was online. Maybe they were on an alt, I don't know. You would think the interface would send the message to the currently online character.
I suppose I could join a random supergroup recruiting but I like to actually meet people before joining a group.
Re:Computational Problem (Score:2, Insightful)
The fundamental design flaw they all have is that servers represent space in the game, it's a flawed assumption about the best model to use.
I'll bite, what's the best model to use?
Re:Nature Online (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah - but that system is riddled with bugs. People are always finding exploits. And the development team is unreachable. I mean, sure - there are those who claim to be community managers but I think most of them are con-artists and trolls. I don't think I've ever managed to get in touch with a real GM. I'm not even sure how their ticketing system really works.
So sure - you have one example of a single world instance that's pretty popular. But it has so many flaws. And that is really driving a market for a different implementation. Otherwise, you wouldn't see all this competition trying to come up with alternatives.
Re:Nature Online (Score:1, Insightful)
Isn't it just a single player game with really good AI ?
Re:It's not just technical scale (Score:4, Insightful)
It will only be stifling and uninviting if you force/encourage everyone to go to the same places and dungeons. In EVE there's regularly 50k players online at peak hours, and the central market system has up to 1300 players. The game play is such that you do not feel yourself 'crowded in', while still making it clear that you're one amongst many.
You might think it's a bad thing, yet that's looking at it from the WoW perspective were 'everyone is a hero'. In EVE there are only a few real hero's, yet those that are well known have done something of true significance in the game. It's not just a fake hero feeling from playing a game that was designed to make everyone achieve the same thing.
Re:Computational Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
They're pretty close to equivalent statements, though, since the major studios are such a large percentage of the total job market. If you're getting your grads hired somewhere, that somewhere is likely to be, in large part, Electronic Arts, UbiSoft, Activision/Blizzard, Microsoft Game Studios, etc.
Re:My Take on the issue: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On the other end of the scale (Score:3, Insightful)
most MMOs these days seem to draw a big crowd and lose most of it in the first few months
It's rather that most MMOs these days create a huge hype around themselves that they can't live up to. So people join, find out that it's anything but the hype, and leave.
Re:Champions did it too (Score:3, Insightful)
In fantasy MMOs, locations tend to be a lot more varied, unique, and important. There is only one Ironforge in WoW. The closest that EVE has to unique locations are the trade capitals (Jita 4-4 CNAP) or the high quality / high level mission stations.
WoW, would need at least 10x more landmass (if not 100x) in order to support populations equal to what EVE supports on a single "server". There would need to be dozens of starter zones, and at least 10 different versions and locations for each of the Outland / Northrend zones. Instead of one racial capital city, each race would need to be spread across a dozen or two cities and towns, to keep the players spread out.
Re:Champions did it too (Score:5, Insightful)
The solar maximum is still unknown for EVE as Jita has yet to push it to its limits. Systems on reinforced 'supernodes' can handle 1,500+ players with little to no lag at all. Those same servers have been able to sustain hours of fleet combat involving over two thousand players with acceptable lag (10 seconds to 2-10 minutes on module activation). Normal nodes that haven't been reinforced can handle limited fleet combat of about 700 pilots before lag sets in and 1,000-1,200 with no combat. A normal node will also host a handful of solar systems.
In regards to each solar system being like a continent that is a conceptual divide. WoWs 4 continents are still considered to be a contiguous 'world' as users are all acting towards the common goals of the world and interacting with the same player set. So EVE has 5,300 odd continents in its world compared to 4. Also note that you can 'walk over' the line between two grids by simply pointing your ship in the direction of another grid and flying to it. Like in WoW you also have the option to warp between grids, this would be comparable to flying a gryphon there. Grids are better thought of as a dynamic draw distance of the world around you.
Excluding technical differences like these the defining factor of EVE is that your actions effect over 300,000 players in the only (heh) instance of this 'world'.
Re:Nature Online (Score:4, Insightful)
Screens or it's fake.
Re:Nature Online (Score:1, Insightful)
Zoning is seamless? Recently I tried to zone into the area called USA, and I had to wait almost one hour in some immigration queue!
Re:Computational Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you so much for posting this. As a professional software developer myself, most of these arguments I'm seeing in posts like the GP look very familiar: They are the kind of stuff you hear when somebody unfamiliar with the gritty details of a problem just cannot accept that it is not easy to solve.
It is a pretty good bet that some professional has taken the time to look deeply into every "good idea" that a slashot poster is liable to come up with in 5 minutes of thought. If nobody's doing it, it is probably because there are problems with that approach.
Re:Champions did it too (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, Eve uses what they call a deterministic physics simulation. For example, if you click "orbit" around an object, with known initial conditions and when the command was executed, server, client, and other clients all can predict an object's exact location accurately.
As a result far less info needs to be sent from server to client. Main problem is "load lag", when a particular client's state needs to change rapidly (after a jump, after warping to a new grid) - The server has a bandwidth throttle that means that no matter how fast YOUR connection is, it will take a while to load.
Also, 2-10 minutes for module activation is NOT acceptable lag. EVE routinely has nodes crash during combat with 1000-1500 pilots involved. Hell, only a year or so ago 1000 was pretty much a guaranteed node drop.
Either way, EVE's game design of multiple star systems with systems being split up into areas you need to warp between makes it fundamentally far more scalable than most other MMOs can be.
Re:Champions did it too (Score:3, Insightful)
Those same servers have been able to sustain hours of fleet combat involving over two thousand players with acceptable lag (10 seconds to 2-10 minutes on module activation).
Your definition of acceptable is interesting.