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Inside Dark Age of Camelot's Lair

Posted by simoniker on from the plenty-of-air-conditioning dept.

HardcoreGamer writes "PC Magazine takes a look inside Mythic's PC MMORPG, Dark Age of Camelot. Camelot, it turns out, is in Fairfax, Virginia where the company keeps 120 dual-processor Pentium servers running Linux for its 225,000 players. An additional 30 servers handle customer support. Mythic claims that it can handle up to 20,000 simultaneous players per server but limits them to 4,000 per server for a better customer experience." Also mentioned is the fact that Mythic's next MMORPG, Imperator Online, "takes place in an outer space being colonized by the Roman Empire."

12 comments

  1. romans in space! by Mr.Coffee · · Score: 2, Funny

    well, a) this sounds like a mel brooks movie, but b) i can just think of nero fiddling while romulus burns...

    --
    Cogito Eggo Sum, I think therefore I'm a waffle
  2. Imperator by Synic · · Score: 1

    Mythic's next game Imperator was announced last *YEAR*... heh... they are just starting to put some development sketches and stuff on the official site for it...

  3. hardly undiscussed by jimmcq · · Score: 3, Informative

    Also mentioned is the (hitherto undiscussed?) fact that Mythic's next MMORPG "takes place in an outer space being colonized by the Roman Empire."

    Imperator was announced a year ago, so I'd hardly classify it as undiscussed.

    1. Re:hardly undiscussed by simoniker · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the heads up, guys, hadn't heard of it, and it wasn't mentioned on the Mythic games page on their site, but on closer inspection, I found the press release on their site - I must have missed the announcement last year.

    2. Re:hardly undiscussed by Repton · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's a lot of stuff on Imerator here.

      --
      Repton.
      They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
  4. Post [AS SUBMITTED] by HardcoreGamer · · Score: 4, Informative
    I'm not taking the rap for that "undiscusssed" comment! ;) Here is my original post:

    PC Magazine takes a look inside the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot. Camelot, it turns out, is in Fairfax, Virginia where Mythic keeps 120 dual-processor Pentium servers running Linux for its 225,000 players. Each group of six servers runs what Mythic calls a gamespace. An additional 30 servers handle customer support (character data, stats ,etc). Mythic claims that it can handle up to 20,000 simultaneous players per server but limits them to 4,000 per server for a better customer experience. The software is written so that most of the code runs on the servers, including artificial intelligence, combat calculations, and character data, resulting in a mere 10 Kbps data stream that lets dial-up modem customers join in the fun.

  5. Medical simulation? by edbarrett · · Score: 2, Funny
    "takes place in an outer space being colonized by the Roman Empire."

    An outer space being, colonized by the Roman Empire?

    I can hardly wait for Imperator Online: The Colon

  6. How are they clustered? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The article is really skimpy on the details - mentioning that clusters of 6 servers run each game space.

    But how? Beowulf clusters? 6x individual servers that each talk closely to each other?

    Meh.

  7. 20000 players? by Chokma · · Score: 1

    The european servers have a history of crashing whith 3500 players.

    Note that this happened only if a lot of people entered the same zone, ie only if your realm was doing something important like raiding another realm or hunting the big dragon. A zone crash would mean the enemies castle doors being reset and hours lost, mostly preventing you from completing your objectives as many players would give up in frustration.

    Thinking about it, what kind of machine could handle 20k users in realtime without terrible lag?

    1. Re:20000 players? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The american servers routinely crash when more than 3500 people are online. The zones crash when a couple hundred people enter a zone also. The claims from mythic that the servers can support "400-player engagements" is completely false.

      I also can't beleive they have servers dedicated to the Appeals process. An average appeal will sit in queue for 24+ hours before it gets addressed, if it even does.

      Not blaming PCMag for any of this info, Mythic has a history of lying.

  8. I was hoping for pictures! by Radius9 · · Score: 1

    When it said take a look, I was hoping for cool server room pictures, but no.....

  9. ObMP by mrphrtq · · Score: 2, Funny

    Camelot, it turns out, is in Fairfax, Virginia

    It's only a model.

    --

    "Life has improved immeasurably since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously." - Hunter S. Thompson