Slashdot Mirror
The Problem of Shards, Servers, and Queues In MMOs
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.
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.
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.
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.
Too few players and there's no sense of a living, persistent world; too many players and that world is stifling and uninviting.
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.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Close, though a little inaccurate.
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'.
I ate your fish.
Screens or it's fake.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon