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DOOM 3 will use P2P System?
Ant writes "From Page 6 of FiringSquad's QuakeCon 2002 Postmortem article: John Carmack said something at the end of the Q&A about how the multiplayer will be only four players?
Tim: After 2 hours of talking up at the podium, sometimes you leave a few details out. Doom 3 multiplayer will be fully scalable. It will be a peer to peer system. We haven't started working on it yet. Tell everyone not to panic - it will be fine. John just forgot to mention it'll be scalable past four players. It's hard to give a hard number because we haven't started working on it yet. Right now we're focused on making Doom 3 a kickass, over the top single player game."
This proves my suspicions that "gamers" are pirates and perverts. trolling is so much easier than being clever.
Not to bash eye candy, but doesn't anyone have a better idea for gaming than FP shooters?
What could Wil Wright or Al Lowe or Sid Meier do with a badass graphics engine behind them?
We already know what Carmack can do.
I have been pwned because my
"So we can distribute DOOM III ISO image in DOOM III P2P network!!!"
"Taking a cue from the RIAA, the gaming industry will attempt to place fake opponents onto the networks. These oppenents (bots) will appear normal, but will repeat themselfs after about 30 seconds."
p2p gaming.....wow.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
P2P is a fad and I predict that sometime after the beta they'll have things set up in a more traditional client/server fashion... though they likely won't call it that.
But what I found much more interesting was this quote:
"Absolutely, but Linux version basically means an NVIDIA version - that's the only safe bet for working video under Linux in Doom 3."
Gah!!! I hope ATI and Matrox see that and consider it a challenge. It's really discouraging that the only quasi-respected video drivers for Linux are proprietary.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
"If this looks like Cairo, my lag must be awful."
Server monitor: a map showing the people running around in your server.
Or does P2P mean that everyone sends their status to all 30,000 other people in the game?
P2P architecture has existed way before any P2P file exchange system.
Previous iD's games used a client-server architecture. Now, they changed it to use a Peer to Peer 'protocol' and architecture.
What does it mean? Since it won't use a client-server protocol, you won't be able to join a game that has already started(that was stated at QuakeCon). The game is 'hosted' on each player's computer that exchange data about the current state of the game. There is no central server that handles all the load. Each player communicate in peer to exchange the information, hence the name.
Peer to peer architecture is what is used in most Real-Time Strategy(RTS) games like Starcraft, Warcraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empire, etc.
So, there's absolutely no relation to P2P file exchange like kazaa and such, just he architecture that has been used extensively before.
Now... the question is: why? Also, won't that allow hackers to create better hacks? Usually, games go from P2P to Client-Server because of security concerns, even if Client-Server is usually 'slower'. They rarely go the other way around. But that's another completely different topic.
I'm very interested to see how they will tackle the security part. In general, you cannot trust the client. Ever. Introducing a P2P network will enable one hacked client to wreak havoc on other clients. Some redundancy might be introduced to prevent cheating, but that would increase bandwidth, neh?
Are FPS's perhaps already trusting the client anyway? Is a cheat-proof multiplayer FPS a myth?
OK.
Someone asks about the multiplayer Doom 3. They haven't worked on it yet. In the middle of a live Q&A session, Tim is assuring everyone the game will be multiplayer. He starts throwing out words even though he doesn't know the exact way it will work, because, hey, they haven't done multiplayer yet.
Tim blurts "It will be a peer to peer system." That's the entire discussion of that in the whole article. There is nothing else.
By "peer to peer" system he simply meant "yes, you will be able to hook up your computers and play together" and nothing else. Why does this deserve a front page article? It doesn't. It was obviously something he said while in a live situation and he wasn't sure of the details.
The poster of this article looks sillier than the stock market and Alan Greenspan. What's even more disturbing is that Taco fell for it too. Someone needs to send over good strong pot of coffee.
It's days like these when the trolls start to make sense.
...
Why is there a question mark after the title of this? It's been stated by id, that DOOM 3 will use a peer-to-peer network architecture. There's nothing uncertain about that.
This has been known for around about an entire week now... it's been stated multiple times.
Also, to clarify, when they say "peer-to-peer", they don't mean a network of users like Kazaa or file sharing applications, they mean that it is client-to-client as opposed to client-to-server.
The best way of thinking about DOOM 3's multiplayer is as being the same as the original DOOM's multiplayer. 4 players, and no such thing as a "server".
The only actual uncertainty is the 4 player limit. It was initially mentioned, but now Willits has said that it is scalable beyond that... This is unclear as we don't know if he means that the game can go beyond that, but the network code is ideal for 4 players, or means that the game will have a hard limit of 4 players, but mods and games based on the engine will be able to scale beyond 4 players.
Also, it is known for definate that once a game has started, additional players cannot join. This limitation is due mainly to DOOM 3's physics engine. Basically, there is so much physics data that would need to be synchronised, that if a player had to "catch up" with the physics data, it would probably be a lot of data to send, and since it's constantly changing data, it is likely that as the player recieves the data, it becomes invalid.
It will be interesting to see how other games deal with the problem of physics data. As physics engines in games become increasingly complex, it will become harder for programmers to cope with players joining a game that has already started. Perhaps if all games employed "rounds" (like Counter-Strike), then player's wouldn't have to wait long until the game restarts and they can start playing. This already has to happen when a player joins a Counter-Strike game that's already in play.
"Right now we're focused on making Doom 3 a kickass, over the top single player game."
What was the last FPS that made it's claim to fame in single player mode only? Probably the original Doom. I don't know about you lot, but I like playing FPS because they let me pit my wits against other people.
crazy dynamite monkey
Because you can't really do a good storyline if all people are doing is shooting their mates.
Because only a subset of the gamer community is interested in multiplayer. Many more don't want to have to go online to play.
Because, in the end, multiplayer limits what you can do, even in a FPS.
By peer-to-peer they meant clients only. No servers. It's not the same breed of peer-to-peer as you see in file sharing applications.
Think of a "peer" as a "client". Client-to-client. It just means that there are no dedicated servers, one player connects to another player when they want to play a game. Just like in Quake 3 when you are not all joining a dedicated server.
This is what I've always loved about Descent! For those of you who're not familiar with it, Descent was P2P, not requiring any one machine to be a server. Somehow the load was shared amongst all the clients. It was never a problem if one machine in particular crashed or disconnected - the game continued between the rest.
Granted, I think it was made to work on a LAN only, but if ID could pull this sort of feat off with Doom 3, I'd be all for it!
I'm guessing that this would eliminate the need for one person to have tons of bandwidth and a good machine dedicated to be a server. This should allow virtually *anybody* to start a game (even those on dialup, maybe?)
As someone who's cable is limited to 128k up, I'm very excited about this development!
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
An article all about this that makes one wonder why this story was posted at all.
They are making it like Warcraft / most RTS games where you all "gather" in a waiting room, then start the server. Big deal....
DOOM3 is a SINGLE PLAYER game... anything they say about MP is probably invalid as it's leaving thier mouths... id knows damn well that there will be MP gaming in DOOM 3, but they aren't thinking about it now.
Besides, if you want multiplayer gaming with the DOOM 3 engine, one could always play Quake 4, which is in the works as well.
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
What was the last FPS that made it's claim to fame in single player mode only? Probably the original Doom.
You're joking, right? Goldeneye 007, Half-Life, Deux Ex, Thief, System Shock, Rainbow 6, Jedi Knight, Medal of Honor: Frontline, No One Lives Forever, MDK, Outlaws, Hitman, Shogo.
I like playing FPS because they let me pit my wits against other people.
You can play most games online, from Backgammon to Chess to every RTS made nowadays.
HL was the last game I remember being an FPS with a decent storyline. Sure, nobody really went into great detail about the plot when they were discussing it on the smoke deck- they always talked about the weapons, character interaction, facial movements, enemy and ally AI... Halflife had a LOT of really nifty things that kicked ass for single player- things that just didn't apply to the multiplayer aspect.
I fiddled with UT and Q3 when they came available, but HalfLife spanked the pants off of them both- if anything of that caliber single-player ever comes around, I'll probably check it out. Until then, I'm sticking with RPGs. I like FPS, but I fucking HATE multiplayer.... it's great to see iD focusing on the one thing that makes a game great- the single-player experience.
A game that can warez itself!
(Yes, I know what peer networking really means in the context of the article, but it wasn't funny that way.)
Last time I checked, that was a singleplayer game that they threw a few LAN maps into at the last minute.... the rest is history.
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
Probably hard marketing facts:
At the height of the Quake-online frenzy, Doomworld ran a poll asking how many people played in each mode: single, deathmatch, coop. Turns out solo players outnumbered DMers by 4 to 1, and coop players by 20 to 1. (Sample size was several thousand, so statistically significant.)
DOOM (primarily a solo game) outsold all versions of Quake (primarily a multiplayer game) *combined* by at least 3 to 1. And that's even tho DOOM came out when home computers were still a relative novelty, and priced out of many people's reach. By the time Quake came along, most households already had a computer (and PCs cost a lot less too). So -- Quake didn't sell as well even tho more people had PCs by then. Obviously, something went wrong with the spectrum of Quake's market appeal, and consensus is the lack of really good solo play.
I'd hazard a guess that DOOM3 won't really be playable over the net unless you have broadband. Which would artificially limit its market to the small subset of net users who actually have broadband (the last figure I saw was under 20%). Which would be stupid, from a sales standpoint.
In short, the single player market is a helluva lot larger than the multiplayer market. And idSoftware is really in the game *engine* business, which multiplies that market by a factor of however many companies they license their code to.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
What is so incredibly amazing about DOOM 3 is the 3D engine , not so much the game itself. Even if the gameplay sucks, it doesn't matter. It's all about the 3D engine that John Carmack is creating. It's like no other before it. Not only does it raise the bar for other game engine developers, it will also be licensed out just as the Quake engine has been. John knows what he's doing -- if he thinks P2P is best for DOOM 3, then he's obviously the most qualified person to make that decision right now. I think they decided to make a single player game for a number of reasons; the original DOOM was single player oriented, and they've also been focusing on multiplayer for so many years that it must be refreshing to take a break and work on a single player game for a change.
:) This "scary" type of gameplay isn't for everyone, but a lot of people do enjoy it and I'm one of them. Oh, you want something else? A multiplayer game? A roleplaying game? A strategy game? Wait for other game developers to catch up or license the DOOM 3 engine. It's just a matter of time. The important thing is that there is now a new level for the other guys to catch up to, and that fact alone will benefit everyone. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of the same old recycled 3D engines, it's great to see something new! :)
:)
Personally I can't wait to play it because I'm also a Resident Evil fan. I remember playing the very first publicly released version of DOOM when it came out.. I had nightmares from playing it so much.
I think they are limiting it to 4 players because the game is so resource intensive. Anything above 4 players would be a strain on the system. This is also probably one of the reasons they don't have a lot of monsters on the screen at the same time. In my opinion for this particular type of gameplay, dozens of "A.I. dumb" monsters on the screen isn't very exciting. I personally prefer sacrificing quantity over quality. But what is so incredible about DOOM 3 is the wonderful 3D engine John has created! Shadows and lighting are the most important things to me in a game, and from what I've seen of the screenshots and videos, DOOM 3 does it beautifully.
In all there were 5 or 6 patches to Diablo2.
Doom had _way_ more patches. Don't know about quake.
And, patches or not, Blizzard's client-server architecture is the right way to go.
Look at Battlenet. It has a lot of the characterics of a peer to peer system. If you host a Starcraft game where only one person has the map, first it downloads from that one person to one more person, then from those two people to two more people, then from those four people to the other four people (if it's an 8-player game)--in other words, from peer to peer. And there is no one specific set host--Battlenet itself assigns the host based on who has the best bandwidth and processor power...and if that person gets dropped, someone else's machine takes over.
Peer to peer doesn't automatically equate to Napster. It just means people send stuff to each other instead of to and from one master server. Geez, Slashdot stories are like playing buzzword bingo these days.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
This isnt better, its just easier to write.
The original doom used a peer to peer networking system too. In a peer to peer game, every player has their own copy of the game running on their machine. The multiple games are kept "in sync" by exchanging data about inputs (which keys are pressed, mouse movements etc). As long as the games all have the same exact inputs they should stay in sync.
Most modern games (Quake and above) have adopted a client-server system. In client-server systems, there is only one copy of the game running, on the server. The clients send their inputs to this server, and the server sends information about the changing state of the game world to the clients. This has the advantage of being more flexible: you can do things like in-game joining (join a game while it is running) and it is not possible for the game to go out of sync (in peer to peer if things differ slightly they go out of sync).
id have obviously decided to do this because it is the easiest solution. They want there to be some kind of Multiplayer available but they dont want to spend too much time on it. P2P multiplayer systems in general are easier to write. They have already stated they will be concentrating on Single Player for Doom 3.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
Actually, if they do it right it should be possible for there to be little to no cheating at all. The only possible cheats would probably be client side things like seeing through walls, aimbots etc. which still affect client server architecture anyway. Any attempt to modify the game (if it is designed right) would throw the whole game out of sync.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
I don't know how'll they'll secure this baby. Maybe they've just given.
RTSs have been using p2p like systems for awhile.
In Total Annihilation each client transmits its own game data to other clients, other clients trusts its correct. That means one client can suddenly pull 100 units out of its ass and the others will be none the wiser. The advantages of this method is less data is transmitted and less system resources are used auditing the other clients.
In Starcraft you can't just pull 100 carriers out of your ass but since everything has to be synced there's more overhead and things like maphack are possible.
Security wise, starcraft has the better model but that would mean, instead of just a central server keeping track of game sync (like it does now), every client has to assume the role of server and do the auditing. In other words, why bother?
Anyone know some other way this could be done?
--
# I have no brain
"I'd hazard a guess that DOOM3 won't really be playable over the net unless you have broadband."
Actually it should have no problem playing over the same connections as previous versions. The significant improvement in graphics doesn't change the amount of data that needs to be sent.
If I shoot a rocket all I need to send everyone else is the velocity, angle and starting position of the rocket which can be done in less than 20 bytes. If it hits a wall, all the clients will know about it and destroy the wall (or anything else that's destructable) without any further information being sent.
The only data being sent on a regular basis is still position, velocity and angle like every other FPS multiplayer game.
If you can play Quake III on-line you'll be able to play Doom3 on-line.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Fortunately, id has network software engineers like you to explain to them how to design game engines.
You think they're stupid? There are plenty of ways to deal with this...do things like have several computers maintain duplicate state (though no computer stores all state), then compute hashes based on known game state and exchange them periodically (and that's off the top of my head).
Now, with that system you may be able to cheat if there are multiple players in collusion and have complete control over the binaries (sounds good in theory...may not be that nasty in practice) -- if half the people are working together, you may just be screwed.
I rather suspect that id is going to do something new and interesting with distributed program design, and that Carmack really doesn't need lots of video gamers telling him what to do.
May we never see th
I'd like to see a good cooperative mode, a la Bungie's Marathon and Halo.
May we never see th
I remember when quakeworld came out the guys at Id were fantasizing about huge levels with portals to other servers that you could just jump through and continue playing on another server. The worlds would have hundreds of people and the game would run fine. Well as we've seen the # of players will go down because there's too much detail in each player model. So will we ever see huge FPS games with tons of players? Quake 3 came the closest with 32-64 players... with a P2P system this is all but impossible. Not many people will have the bandiwth to support that many players. A client-server connection made the only issue you had to worry about to be that of your ping time between you and the server. With a P2P style game, you'll have to worry about the ping between you and each player as well as your total upstream and downstream bandwith.
Doesn't this seem like a step back for internet gaming??
Who gives a shit about single player? Really, they had it right with quake 3, nobody plays single player anymore, at least not repeatedly
I'm quite excited about the focus on single player, for one. I found myself playing a lot more half-life than I ever did quake 3, despite quake 3 being the technologically superior game. Why? Because running around killing bots is boring, and you can only play online if you have a fast connection (I live in the boonies...), and have hours to waste. I mean, I consider myself fairly good at these type of game, but I can in no way compete with a teenager that has all the time on his hands to play constantly. And running around killing over and over can get boring too... there needs to be some point, or some goal, IMO. If you're working towards something, and moving forward in the game, it gives me more reason to go back and play again... to see "what happens next".
When Doom came out, I remember it was the shit. I used to play all three ways... single player, deathmatch, coop. And it was enjoyable each way. Since it was pretty much the first of its type that had that sort of "deathmatch" available, I think deathmatch caught on really quick, and so they started focussing on that more in the later games. But it seems like the other parts of the game weren't stresed. I'm glad to see that iD is going back to the development model they used on Doom, because Doom proved that a game could be good at many different types of play, and do it all well.
I really hope they bring back cooperative mode too, that's one thing I've sorely missed since the doom series. The problem with deathmatch is that if you've only got 2 or 3 friends handy, there usually ends up being one person that gets better than the other(s). So after a while, it gets predictable.
So anyway....
Place sig here.
My God, you are a dumbass.
Cable companies use two policies to block P2P use. The first is closing ports (which doesn't work very well). The second is by charging outrageous prices for high-bandwidth users (remember that once the infrastructure is in place, the biggest costs are tech support and not bandwidth.) Business Week outlines the practice.
P2P sucks up more bandwidth than simple client server interaction. It has to. It needs a more complicated control architecture. If you go back and check previous slashdot articles on the subject, you will find hundreds of posts saying that anyone who needs that much bandwidth "must be a pirate."
And use your account next time you want to attack someone. A lot of karma won't get your cock sucked any more than usual.
It's actually the FireGL driver. Some people discovered it works (though slowly) with the 8500 so ATI has decided they're going to call it an official 8500 driver.
It *could* be possible, now that the xbox version is official, that the 4 player multiplayer game comes from 4 player splitscreen on the XBox (now idea if it has the balls to run it, though). Just an idea (although a vague one).
But even so, Quake proved more of a multiplayer type game. It just wasn't suited for sustained interest as a solo jaunt.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Actually, DOOM had at least as much competition *relative to the number of PCs available to play it on*. Plus DOOM was probably warez'd a lot more than Quake, simply because DOOM would still fit on a handful of floppies. (Quake having predated ubiquitous CDRWs and being of the 28.8 modem era, was too inconvenient to avoid actually buying.)
One of the independent marketing groups (Gartner or the like, I forget) put forth these numbers: copies of DOOM sold: 6 million; copies warez'd: estimated 18 million. Copies of Quake sold: 800,000; no estimate on warez'd copies.
At a wild-assed guess, the percentage of homes with a PC capable of playing DOOM in its day was probably around 1 in 10. By Quake's day, probably around 1 in 4. When you take that into consideration, it probably swings the balance even further toward DOOM.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Reading the posts above, it's pretty clear to me that 90% of posters don't have a clue what they're talking about.
Now, I've been a fan of Id since Commander Keen, I've bought *all* their games (Dangerous Dave - yay! =]) and liked/loved them. One thing I do remember though, is that they used to say they just made games they thought were cool and they liked to play, if other people liked them then even better. I also seem to remember hearing somewhere that multiplayer in Doom was a quick hack that they did because they thought it would be fun, and didn't expect other people to use it.
I noticed that with Quake 2 and 3 they seemed to listen to what gamers wanted, which is why I'd say that I don't like those games that much.
I'm glad to hear that with Doom 3 they're back to doing what they think is cool and great. It's looking great and I reckon it's going to be a great game to play - I know that I'm holding out on upgrading my computer until it comes out =]
P2P multiplayer is much easier to write than Client Server: you simply exchange the status of the input devices. A Client Server system by contrast is a much bigger task - one that would probably take several months to complete. He cant neccesarily use the Quake netcode as from what I have seen of it, it is very integrated into the game itself.
In this situation, The Right Thing would probably be to use a simpler, albeit less powerful and flexible system rather than hacking something together from old code, which would likely lead to an awful mess.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
I am not disputing that they are a huge problem. The point of the original post was that using a P2P system would make the game more open to cheating. I am just showing that this is incorrect. Client side are a problem regardless of if you are using a Client Server or P2P architecture.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
First off, Doom ][ outsold the original Doom by a fair amount. And the actual numbers for Doom ][ are something in the neighborhood of 1.8 million copies (Myst has sold more than 5 million copies and the Sims more than 6). As the first link states, lots of people got the Doom demo, but since you had to mail order Doom when it first came out sales were not that high.
Secondly, at the time Doom came out (1993) there were quite a few machines that could run it. Even measly 386 DX's could and it ran quite well on my 486 DX 33. By the time Doom ][ came out a year later with the same engine and only slightly more cpu intensive maps, virtually everyone could play it.
Quake on the other hand had mediocre single player compared to Doom, graphics that were technically superior and cool but looked like crap till people had 3d cards with 16 bit color and high res, and required a Pentium 100 or better to run well at a time when Pentium systems were significantly more expensive than 486's.
Also, much like how the first Doom episode was easily distributed via BBS's and floppy disks, the first episode of Quake was sold on CD for $5 and was also downloadable off the Internet, so some people may never have bought anything more.
The last thing is that Doom had numerous 3rd party addons, map packs, editors, Final Doom and everything else that further drove the Doom craze. Everybody and their brother was playing Doom, getting extra Doom levels, etc. Quake sold less copies, mapping was more difficult, etc. so there were fewer people creating maps and there was only the one official addon pack. Frankly, Quake single player wasn't that fun compared to Doom. Quake 2's single player focus still didn't help, it's got a horrible single player aspect.
You cannot trust code running in an untrustworthy environment. Period.
You don't *need* to do so. The system I just gave as an example does not trust unknown code on any one computer -- faulty information *cannot* be propogated throughout the system.
If you have ten people, any six of whom can trust each other, this system would reduce the maximum load on any system from calculating the full world to calculating half as many things going on -- each piece of information is calculated by five different people, and hashes exchanged. You *cannot* slip something by in an environment like that. Any conspiracy would involve at most four people, and the system checks against five different values.
Take SETI@Home. Their solution to the problem -- they want to build a trustworthy system as a whole, but cannot trust individual nodes -- is to have nodes compute blocks, and then have randomly chosen other nodes recompute those blocks.
Actually, to some degree a well-made distributed id gaming system would be more secure -- you can't have someone set up a bogus server (or just break into the server) and immediately have godlike ability to cheat.
May we never see th
Exactly -- multiplayer, especially DM, soon becomes much the same old thing -- the appeal seems to be the sustained adrenaline high. Solo has far more variation. As to realism, that's mostly in the player's head, not in the game itself. A super-realistic environment with boring gameplay will not cut it. For my rant on the topic, see http://home.earthlink.net/~rividh/asylum/zdoomr.ht m (beware of /.-added spaces in URL).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?