How EVE Online Dealt With a 3,000-Player Battle

Space MMORPG EVE Online is best known for its amazing stories, and on Sunday it added a new epic tale. The leader of a huge coalition, preparing for a moderately sized assault, mis-clicked and accidentally warped himself into enemy territory without his support fleet, endangering his massive ship worth an estimated $3,500. Realizing the danger, he called upon every ally he could, and the enemy fleet rallied in turn, leading to an incredible 3,000-player battle. What's also impressive is that the EVE servers stayed up for the whole fight, when most MMOs struggle with even a few hundred players at the same time. The Penny Arcade report spoke with CCP Games for some information on how they managed that: "It’s hard to wrap your head around, but they sometimes move the in-game space itself. 'We move other solar systems on the node away from the fight. This disconnects anyone in those systems temporarily, but spares them from the ongoing symptoms of being on an overloaded server,' Veritas explained. 'It helps the fight system a little bit as well, especially if a reinforcement fleet is traveling through those other systems. This was done for the fight over the weekend, but is rare.' ... They do have a built-in mechanism for dealing with massive battles, however: They slow down time itself. ... Once server load reaches a certain point, the game automatically slows down time by certain increments to deal with the strain. Time was running at 10% speed during this 3,000-person battle, which is the maximum amount of time dilation possible."

Comments

3000 players you say?

[alen]

How many were divorced the next day?

Re:3000 players you say?

[icebike]

Yeah, that was my thought too.

How many came out of the computer room sweating on their run to the fridge, uncommunicative, distracted, and wild eyed. Then crawled into bed late to a cold shoulder and a turned back.

Then having to go to work/school the next day and not be able to explain it to anyone because, nobody would understand, and all the raised eyebrows, and looking askance, and rolling of eyes between workmates.

Private little daydreams must be problematic when shared with 3000 other basement dwellers.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Synerg1y]

None, you'd have to land a wife... to begin with. In the case of EVE players, they should shoot for a female that talks to them that isn't their mom for starters.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then crawled into bed late to a cold shoulder and a turned back.

They wish.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Virtucon]

In Texas it's 90 days unless adultery is involved, then there has to be a trial.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Chris Mattern]

Slow? Yes. Boring? Not hardly. Watching the supercap you spent months acquiring getting torn apart piece by piece is, I would wager, anything but boring. Not pleasant. But not boring. And, looking on the other side, realizing that you've delivering a serious blow to Goonfleet, one of the most powerful--and hated--coalitions in Eve, had to have been much more pleasant. And also not boring.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Synerg1y]

RTFA namely about time dilation.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Ardyvee]

EVE takes so much time and the people involved there are part of the group that takes it "seriously" (not really, but they do care about the game), so chances are their significant other understands it -- or at least tolerates it.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Jarik C-Bol]

I still contend that EVE is simply a massive social experiment to see if you can get people to pay for the privilege of working a second full time job managing spreadsheets.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

You see, this is the ultimate problem with MMORPGs. Like any game you work hard at it, and you are immersed - it's a little suspension of reality for you. Drawing on all manner of skills you can progress a long way, only to end up achieving something worth absolutely nothing to anyone except the people who play the game.
I suppose it is a little like playing sport, except the richness of human interaction there is irreplaceable and fitness has huge physiological benefits.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's quite fashionable right now to give weight to interviewees who run large guilds and other similar activities in MMOs. Just like your high school diploma, your behavior in an MMO can demonstrate quite a few things about you as a potential worker.

Re:3000 players you say?

[I Mean, What]

It's true. There is a large population of female gamers in EVE too. Relatively speaking, of course.

Re:3000 players you say?

[cheekyjohnson]

except the richness of human interaction there is irreplaceable

The only problem is that sports are, to me, incredibly boring. I couldn't care less about any "richness of human interaction" when all you're doing is throwing/hitting balls around on a field.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you get kicked in the face in real life over and over again it isn't easy to pick yourself up and try again. You wont notice anything bad happened with the person. They are just very unproductive, have no hobby, are not very social anymore. Give these people a game to escape reality and you all of a sudden see them do creative things, be enthusiastic, work all night tirelessly. The feeling of doing something right is just priceless when society convinced you you shouldn't even try.

Re:3000 players you say?

[murdocj]

And yet you care about people siting in chairs typing on keyboards. Odd.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

They replaced lag with TiDi (Time Dilation) which just makes things go slow motion but everything is executed in order.

Re:3000 players you say?

[cheekyjohnson]

Why is that odd? I have my own interests. If you think there is something odd about that, I can only assume you're a robot.

Re:3000 players you say?

[conspirator57]

EVE IS REAL!

EVE is the other woman. I swear she's *cough* i mean IT'S just a game...

Re:3000 players you say?

[conspirator57]

and with this many divorces in flight... time dilation might make it 10 years.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

Man I had such a flashback....New Year's Eve, 2002. My dating partner at the time was out of town, so I hunkered down to do some UO - a game I had put about four years into by that time.

My little excursion out for the evening as a Tamer turned into an epic battle for both my and my irreplaceable pets - a Nightmare (fire breathing horse) and my Dragon. This was before pet summoning etc....you could spend hours finding the perfect beastie to tame, then spend hours more honing their skills. By hours, I mean weeks, months, etc. Once they died, they died.

And mine did. After about a two hour struggle (went down a bad tunnel into a spawn of Balrons then got flanked by another set) both pets went down. I ported out...confused, sad, befuddled as to what happened, distraught...those little pixels were under my watchful eye for two frigging years, and now they were gone. Gone!

A way to say even though I have never logged into Eve, I know what that feeling is like. Emotional? Yep. Boring, nope.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Dahamma]

Yeah, but R that in TFA in a good or bad way?

Seems to me "time dilation" is basically just trying to put a silly sci fi spin on "the servers just slowed down to 1/10 of real time to keep up". Not sure how that's such an amazing feat (in fact, some players on reddit said it was taking a minute for the server to respond to their commands, though that wasn't a big deal because it taking 3-4 minutes between firing weapons...)

Re:3000 players you say?

[The Dancing Panda]

Not liking sports is one thing, but not caring about human interaction is decidedly more robotic.

Re:3000 players you say?

[cheekyjohnson]

Actually, I said... "when all you're doing is throwing/hitting balls around on a field." That's not fun to me at all, so I couldn't care less about any human interaction that comes with it.

Re:3000 players you say?

[julesh]

It's an improvement on the old situation because events were timed in real time even with bad server lag, so if you have a 30-second cooldown on some ability or other, but a 5 minute lag, you only get to use it one tenth as many times as you're supposed to, which breaks the game design and is really infuriating to play. Now they slow the cooldowns down along with the lag in responding to commands so you can still keep doing stuff as much as the designers intended you to be able to. Kind of like the difference between the whole game slowing down and just dropping frames to compensate for lag in an FPS -- dropping frames is the easiest design solution, but if it happens too much it'll just get you killed. Slowing the entire game down lets you carry on playing even when the lag's really bad.

Re:3000 players you say?

[afidel]

Yep, former coworker who happened to be a female DBA was bigtime into EVE for a while, she even played with her 16 year old daughter who was 600 miles away at the time living with her ex.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

You both have a right to judge, it's just a waste of everyone's time, including yours, since nobody gives a shit what you think.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

Why would a sport involve a ball or a field? That you can't find anything worthwhile in meeting people is a shame. I like multiplayer gaming but I get more from being around people.

Re:3000 players you say?

[AmiMoJo]

Do pass-times have to be about achieving something tangible? If you are happy and it doesn't harm anyone else I don't see a problem with it.

Re:3000 players you say?

[cheekyjohnson]

Why would a sport involve a ball or a field?

Not always, but many of the more popular ones do. Then again, it depends on what you were talking about.

Re:3000 players you say?

[drinkypoo]

How many were divorced the next day?

Eve players you say? How many had a significant other to begin with?

Re:3000 players you say?

[drinkypoo]

Do pass-times have to be about achieving something tangible? If you are happy and it doesn't harm anyone else I don't see a problem with it.

If it doesn't improve you in some way, there is something wrong with it. If you're not learning and improving as a person throughout your life, you might as well die. It would be better for everyone else. With that said, I reject the notion that people can't get anything positive out of video games.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

I was talking about sports in general, not just football. Being around people gives me something that I just don't get from multiplayer online gaming, and as I have a tendency to want to do well in games I avoid MMORPGs as they are way too much of a time sink. And all that time I could be doing something more positive for myself that makes me feel better about my life.
Games for me are an escape, and an awesomely fun escape, but just that. At some point it is good to improve reality and sports (by way of comparison) can help there, not just with physiological improvements but with team sports there is the interaction with others too. We are social creatures and nothing replaces actually being with people. I wasn't think purely of going out jogging in freezing weather. And I definitely was not thinking of some crappy sport full of meatheads. Of which I am sure we can all think of a few examples.
I haven't mentioned any other pasttimes as I was just making one comparison. I didn't want to get drawn further than that.

Re:3000 players you say?

[invid]

My wife and I used to play Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft together. Everquest 2 was her favorite because she got an apartment that she could decorate and she got to wear whatever clothes she wanted over her armor. She also mastered the market and for awhile was one of the richest people on the server. We started playing EVE online last week. She spent about 2 hours designing her avatar, but afterwards lost interest when she saw that it revolved around designing, building, and flying spacecraft. I'm finding that computer games are starting to split by gender. I'm gravitating toward Minecraft, first person shooters, and EVE, while my wife is gravitating toward apps she can play on her iPad like Farmville and Tapped Out. Are computer games revealing deep psychological differences between the sexes?

Re:3000 players you say?

[cheekyjohnson]

We are social creatures and nothing replaces actually being with people.

I have my own preferences, though. And the level of social interaction that people prefer varies from person to person.

I don't know what you mean by "actually being with people," though. If you mean physically being with other people, then I can think of a lot of things that could replace that for me.

Re:3000 players you say?

[halltk1983]

So improving hand-eye coordination, understanding the machinations of a large and viable economy, taking part in a team and working on tactics of the team dynamic don't improve people? Because the first and the third are shared by sports, and the 2nd is a strong mental whetstone. I'd go so far as to say that I've gotten a lot more out of my social interactions in MMOs than I do from anywhere else, since it helped me to learn to accept constructive criticism as a vector of advice instead of an attack on my personality. I'd wager that MMOs have helped a lot of people in a social aspect.

Re:3000 players you say?

[invid]

I read the official stats was 5% female.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Lashat]

Ahhh...UO!

Magic Stealth Lumberjack Fletcher Archer here.

also

Super Stealth Sneak Pickpocket

And many many others.

I was on the other end of a story like that. In early BETA. I was simply walking around the edge of Britian when someone running from the wild into town was killed by a guard (bug). I spent the rest of that server cycle wearing the shiny full plate I looted from his body. Acting like I earned it. Well I did sorta.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Cederic]

We are social creatures and nothing replaces actually being with people

Running a large corporation on Eve is an inherently social activity. It requires stunning levels of diplomacy, understanding of social structures, command capability and organisation skills (your own or the leverage of others').

Which is why a high ranking US diplomat played Eve, and why people that can run large guilds are attractive to employers.

Re:3000 players you say?

[CodeHxr]

This. My wife and I both play Minecraft. As does my daughter. :)

Re:3000 players you say?

[drinkypoo]

So improving hand-eye coordination, understanding the machinations of a large and viable economy, taking part in a team and working on tactics of the team dynamic don't improve people?

It would be even better if it improved reading comprehension skills to the extent that you were capable of reading and understanding my closing.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Mr. Freeman]

It's like saying: My old computer is the best computer ever! How can it keep up with today's graphics-intensive games? It scales down to 5 FPS which allows it to keep running!! It's a marvel of technology.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

The Sun is unlikely to explode. More likely it will become a red giant and then a white dwarf. It is not seemingly big enough to go supernova. Hope this is not too definite for you.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

Putting aside the straw man you just built there (where did I say in that post it left you friendless?), those friendships are less immersive than those built through direct contact. You may disagree but this is why meet-ups happen.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

Yeah every sport has that. Even swimming, which is mainly a cage fight in a swimming pool.

Actually, a cage fight in a swimming pool might make a good televised event. ;-)

Re:3000 players you say?

[xclr8r]

You are coming at this from a capitalist perspective.. That you need to have something tangible in order for it to be of any value. This is about the story, the interaction, the preparation, the communal or militaristic teamwork. There are Native American tribes with less than 500 people who value sacred ceremonies, dance rituals and burn up the items used in the dance afterwords. There are no tangible assets, it's about the moment, and do you think any member of the tribe cares if the ceremony is worth anything to outsiders of the community? As long as outsiders don't interfere with it or misrepresent it... the answer is no.

Now Eve Online regularly has 40k-60k accounts online daily. Lets say it's 15k real people. That's quite a bit bigger population than the Native American tribe I just mentioned. I would assume that the Eve players enjoy it and do not really care who outside their community thinks thinks that the time could be spent on something else. I'm not saying that an MMO is on par with a tribes beliefs. I'm refuting the statement that one should cease and desist because no one outside a given community thinks it is worthwhile.

I suppose it is a little like playing sport, except the richness of human interaction there is irreplaceable and fitness has huge physiological benefits.

I've played other MMOs and Eve's community is pretty tight knit. I've seen/heard lots of interaction during slow prep times, meet ups, even players helping each other after disasters (Sandy/Katrina/getting kicked out of house by father), assisting people on how not to get screwed by their employer, networking, helping others' on coding, assistance with the legal avenues for an immigration status for someone not born in the U.S. but grew up here since the age of 3.. the list goes on and on. The interaction for Eve is just as deep or even deeper than a sports buddy.

I don't dispute the physiological and psychological benefits of exercise. However, one of the things that sets eve apart is that your "xp bar" is filled by real time passed (not logged in time) and modified a little by implants. This affords one the ability to take a couple weeks off the game and not feel "left behind." This feels like freedom compared to other MMOs that have xp grinds and eve lets one to have a life outside the game.

Re:3000 players you say?

[xclr8r]

afterwards not afterwords*

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

That's a shame, as being with other people is without doubt richer than any form of online socialising, in terms of the subtlety of interaction and ease of communication. If you work very hard at making yourself understood via a computer and spend little time talking to people and having engrossing conversation then sure it will be easy to be physically on your own. But is because you are never experiencing the richness I am talking about, and that is a shame.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

That doesn't address the point that nothing replaces face to face contact. Running a guild is utterly irrelevant, unless you are saying it is a more social activity than, say, being captain of a sports club.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

Yeah but you can find better ways to enjoy it as you go.

Re:3000 players you say?

[madprof]

You have not read the post properly. Read it again but try to understand what I am saying.
Nowhere did I say you should stop playing EVE. It says so much that there are so many defensive straw man arguments being attacked in response to what I said.
I am happy to make a comparison with sport as that is an equally futile pursuit (if feeding the starving and stopping war were your sorts of aim) except it has richer human contact and aforementioned fitness benefits.

Re:3000 players you say?

[Cederic]

The long lasting guilds do have face to face contact. Usually they include multiple groups of people that know each other outside of the guild, and a strong online community invariably ends up meeting face to face.

I've travelled to various countries and met with people I game with, and had more than a few come and visit me. I tend to be in guilds with several friends and make new friends online. This doesn't supplant my social life (just got in from dancing, where I danced and chatted with around 20 women - may not sound like a lot but that's only around 12 minutes each and it's mostly one-to-one), it adds to it - I'm now back home and chatting to a friend online.

Running a guild has all of that social interaction, but also a requires a strong and useful set of skills that are very pertinent to working in a large and complex organisation. I've yet to meet a good guild leader that wasn't intelligent, socially competent and emotionally aware.

Re:3000 players you say?

[cheekyjohnson]

That's a shame, as being with other people is without doubt richer than any form of online socialising

That sounds subjective.

But is because you are never experiencing the richness I am talking about, and that is a shame.

If you don't like what I like, it's because you haven't tried hard enough to do so, not because you actually like different things than me.

Re:3000 players you say?

[vivian]

That feeling is the knowledge that you have just burnt hours of your life that you will never get back - that feeling is trying to tell you to do something worthwhile.

I got that feeling not after a sudden in-game loss in WoW - but rather after many many hours grinding for materials to make some rather insignificant upgrade to my gear. I just woke up one day and decided I'd rather be improving myself by learning new real world skills like playing the piano, kitesurfing and spending more time keeping my technical skills up to date.
I definitely don't regret letting that go..

Its the pain of feeling a year of your life sucked away. Hopefully you have learnt from it before the machine gets cranked to 50...

Re:3000 players you say?

[xclr8r]

You're correct I did misread the latter half of your post. Thanks.

Re:Since when?

[broggyr]

So, how many ships did YOU lose?

Relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Time was running at 10% speed during this 3,000-person battle, which is the maximum amount of time dilation possible.

So relativity is just the universe's way of saying the local server is currently way too crowded with rest mass?

Re:Relativity

[girlintraining]

So relativity is just the universe's way of saying the local server is currently way too crowded with rest mass?

Not exactly. The servers might have stayed up but the health of the cluster was poor. I was logged in at the time, and was getting live reports from people on grid for the battle. There were a lot of disconnects across the entire eve universe; And this amplified the losses to the individual players. Many petitions were filed for damages due to getting "DC'd" and being unable to reconnect.

The cluster architecture for Eve is actually quite amazing, and the underlying logic exceptionally sophisticated. But the main failure point, which has been mitigated but not eliminated with the time dilation feature, has always been the database. Every action in the game generates dozens of database updates. When you have 3,000 people frobbing the gun buttons and the heal me buttons, things get ugly fast. Time dilation is a way of creating a queuing system so that the actions are accepted to the server, and then serially updated into the master database. The server tries to compress and reduce the amount of updates to this, doing a lot of calculations and updates, but ultimately, this link is of finite size.

The other bottleneck is that because of the caching and buffering mentioned above between each server and the central database, is that a server can't swap its resources to another server. If that server is managing, say, 40 (in game) systems, and one of them goes all nuclear, the other 39 also suffer from lag and such because those other 39 can't be offloaded to another server -- that state information stays on the server because of the buffering and caching issues mentioned earlier. It's a syncronization nightmare -- there's no way to cleanly break the flow of data and redirect it, and if any of those database updates get lost, it can mean real money lost to the players.

And real money was lost in Eve, not just because of player actions, but also cluster architecture. Those big ships don't just disappear when their pilot disconnects: They stay on the field, taking hits. And without a pilot, a lot of defensive actions (like warping away) aren't available anymore. I know at least 1 of those titans was lost because of a disconnected pilot. You can blame the ISP for that, but it was happening across the board, to all Eve players.

This behavior of the eve servers is well-known to regular players. Some alliances (large groups of players) even intentionally try to provoke such server failures, knowing it'll lead to losses like what's described in the article. Far from this being a success story... it's an example only of avoiding a worst-case scenario. The servers saying up means exactly dick if the servers aren't processing the requests in a timely fashion. Ask anyone on Wall St., why there's so many data centers ringed around it; Latency. It costs a fortune to host servers there, but those extra milliseconds matter.

As it turns out, MMOs have similar architectural features to our largest financial institutions. This one, more than most.

Re:Relativity

[Pino Grigio]

You were there? Which two alliances were involved and which systems was it in? I haven't been in-game for six months or so. Not been reading up on events.

Re:Relativity

[Anubis IV]

The other bottleneck is that because of the caching and buffering mentioned above between each server and the central database, is that a server can't swap its resources to another server. If that server is managing, say, 40 (in game) systems, and one of them goes all nuclear, the other 39 also suffer from lag and such because those other 39 can't be offloaded to another server -- that state information stays on the server because of the buffering and caching issues mentioned earlier. It's a syncronization nightmare -- there's no way to cleanly break the flow of data and redirect it, and if any of those database updates get lost, it can mean real money lost to the players.

Doesn't the quote from CCP in the summary directly contradict this paragraph of what you said? As it their quote says, they can move systems physically away in order to move them to different servers. The result is that the players in those 39 other systems get disconnected temporarily, but then they are moved to other servers where they are able to play more easily, thus leaving a bigger chunk of the computational pie on the first server for the one system that's going nuclear.

Granted, I don't play the game and it sounds like you do, but if what you're saying is true, I'd be curious how it's reconciled with the official statement above.

Re:Relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

But the main failure point, which has been mitigated but not eliminated with the time dilation feature, has always been the database

Oh please, get your facts straight. They use MSSQL, a database you can scale well past anything you ever need for some messily little game. The problem has *never* been the database. The problem has *always* been python and usage of single thread to run the node (ie. single star system). Python cannot run code on more than ONE (1) CPU core at a time thanks to GIL (Global Interpreter Lock). So it doesn't matter what you have, it will always be a bottleneck until CCP either migrates away from python, or python becomes SMP friendly (like Java, or native code, for example).

Yes, this problem has existed ever since they created EVE. 10+ years of single threaded code.

Before time dialation in eve, modules got stuck on for some, for others not, because node queues overflowed and node started just dropping events "randomly". Now they add TD to limit queue growth - that's all. The solution to slow time eve so they only process less requests per second on their single core is not exactly novel - it is a common sense augmentation. Other games dating back to 1980s had time dilation/acceleration too, though it was mostly used for player convenience than overloaded network node. Heck, someone suggested TD as a solution on Eve's own forums years before they actually implemented it as their very original and unique solution.

Re:Relativity

[Charliemopps]

The problem is, to move the players, they have to be disconnected first. Once moved they can reconnect. Unfortunately, an easy way to get out of fights would be just to pull your Ethernet cable, so when a disconnect happens they just log YOU out and not your ship. So, if you get disconnected you're still getting hammered by your opponents. BUT... if they drop the entire solar system (i.e. Zone) you are in, then your opponents get dropped at the same time. So the system is basically filled with ghost ships until it comes back up. Problem solved right? No... everyone knows how this works and as soon as the System (zone) drops, those that understand how it works are hammering the re-connect button. Whomever can connect fastest is going to pull into a zone filled with defenseless ships ready to go. The tactic they talk about in the article is when some Corps (guilds) try to intentionally crash a system by getting as many people to zerg and unprepared system as possible. They just pile in more and more junk ships or noobs or whatever into some unsuspecting system and try to crash it. Then they reconnect before anyone knows what's happening and take out their target.

He's right that their architectures are similar to financial institutions, but where they differ is in the quality of their hardware and staff. While I'm sure Eve's people are great, they are nothing compared to the dudes working on wallstreet or the hardware involved in trading. 3000 people on the same server is a joke compared to what they're dealing with.

Re:Relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

CFC (goons + pets) V PL, N3 (nulli, NCdot ) BL Test + others i think close to 250 alliances were on killmails. (which inlcude people going for a look and shooting at things to get on a titan killmail.

Re:Relativity

[cryptizard]

None of that made any sense.

Re:Relativity

[TheLink]

To prevent stupidity like that they should just place the ships in some "special hyperspace" where each ship is by itself (can't be affected or affect others) and let the players warp/jump out when they finally reconnect. If you really want some sort of "in-game" pseudo science explanation you could say that when too many ships with warp and jump engines enter an area a mysterious phenomenon can happen where all ships are sent to some weird hyperspace zone, then the pilots have to get their ships to warp or jump out of it.

I'm also not impressed by the handling of 3000 players when you have to have a time dilation of 10% (AND kick out other players). Because other games have managed at least 300 players in PvP without significant "time dilation" (e.g. Aion, GW2). Just because those games can't or don't try to handle 10 times more players by "slowing time" to one tenth the normal speed doesn't make Eve great. "time dilation" is more marketing/PR spin and kludge than an actual technical feature.

The more I learn about Eve the less I'm impressed by it as a game. I'm not even sure it's impressive from a technical POV, I suspect many other systems in the world handle more transactions per second (which is what it boils down to).

Re:Relativity

[afidel]

Yeah, EVE was one of the first large test cases for SSD backed database servers I read about and the numbers they talked about amazed me because it far exceeded all the business processes for my S&P 500 company.

Re:Relativity

[EinarTh]

I'm a EVE server dev and this analysis is not quite right. The DB is indeed a central point of failure, but it's rarely a performance bottleneck nowadays. The part about migrating resources is half-wrong, as yes, we can't (yet) move solarsystems around machines without disconnecting the players in it, but unless there's a fight going on in a to be moved system, we still do it to free cpu for the system where a fight is indeed going on. See more here http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=74227 .

Re:Relativity

[sg_oneill]

That is actually what happens when you disconnect and reconnect, you get blasted away to a "safe spot" (and then disappear). When you reconnect, you return to the safe-spot and your shit starts an auto-warp back to where you where before. Which in this case might be the middle of an absurd 3000 man punch-up.

Re:Relativity

[TheLink]

Strange since the other poster said: "Whomever can connect fastest is going to pull into a zone filled with defenseless ships ready to go." . But anyway the method you mentioned just causes the problem again doesn't it? If you're going to forcibly disconnect players because of server load you should let the returning players choose where they want to warp/jump their ships to subject to gameplay considerations- for example if they don't actually have enough fuel or tech to jump/warp to their chosen destination the jump fails and when the load finally goes down below a threshold they get sent back where they were warped from, but if after X minutes and the load still doesn't go down below a threshold they get sent somewhere less loaded nearby (this prevents players from imprisoning ships with insufficient fuel/tech/working equipment in hyperspace).

Re:Relativity

[xSquaredAdmin]

That's not quite accurate. If you've shot at someone/been shot at in the past 15 minutes then your ship will go to a safe spot but won't disappear for a while (15min?). For that duration your ship will be in space and can be scanned down and destroyed by someone with the appropriate tools.

Re:Relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Really curious where you have seen from CCP where the database is the real bottleneck in their perforamce issues in large-fleet battles.

CCP Veritas has talked at length at FanFests and the like, especially when rolling out TiDi, and I don't think I have ever heard him say that the database is the real issue. It's a contributing factor in all things, but most of the issues have been problems with the node requests getting flooded, and from there the node is not able to process them all in the order they are received.

This led to the horrid problems of black-screens on logins etc. TiDi has mitigated this to a great extent, but not 100% as we have seen. It's interesting to note that a fight half this size happened in lowsec in Feb,2011 (pre-TiDi) and it was a complete disaster from a playability standpoint.

This fight might not have been perfect, but it was worlds away better from the 2011 fight, and with twice the players involved.....

$3600 ship

[Chris Mattern]

According to the Eve message boards, it was a Leviathan-class Titan. $3600 may be a bit on the high side, but it was worth thousands, definitely.

Incidentlally, estimated losses for the entire battle (which included *three* titans lost before it was all over, all on the side the guy who misjumped) is over 700 billion ISK. That's about *$25,000*, kiddies.

Re:$3600 ship

[Darby]

which included *three* titans lost before it was all over, all on the side the guy who misjumped

Let me guess, he jumped into the battle screaming "LEEROY JENKINS!!!"

Re:$3600 ship

[Russ1642]

I'm a bit new to this kind of thing so humor me please. You're saying a guy had $25,000 locked up in virtual stuff and lost it in this battle?

Re:$3600 ship

[Janek Kozicki]

Why he simply didn't jump back to escape from this territory?
If he couldn't jump back, why he simply didn't use his escape pod to escape, sacrificing only one titan, instead of three?

Re:$3600 ship

[amicusNYCL]

You're saying a guy had $25,000 locked up in virtual stuff and lost it in this battle?

Not one guy, that number is the total for everyone.

Re:$3600 ship

[Marful]

The fact that you can lose that much money in a GAME is why EVE sucks.

It's not a game, it's a job.

Re:$3600 ship

[Chris Mattern]

From the accounts I read, his battlecry was more likely "OhGodWhatDidIJustDo? HEEEEELP!"

Accidentally appearing in the middle of enemy controlled territory means he most likely was immediately pinned by several well-equipped tackles--helped by the fact that a Titan is one of the least agile ships in the game. They would have had plenty of time to get him properly wrapped up. By the time he realized he wasn't going where he thought he was going, it was too late.

Re:$3600 ship

[OakDragon]

which included *three* titans lost before it was all over, all on the side the guy who misjumped

Let me guess, he jumped into the battle screaming "LEEROY JENKINS!!!"

At least he had chicken

Re:$3600 ship

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit new to this kind of thing so humor me please. You're saying a guy had $25,000 locked up in virtual stuff and lost it in this battle?

Let me clear up a few misconceptions here:

1) It wasn't any single player who lost that much in the battle; those are the losses attributed to the losing group of players, which in this case is huge, so those assets were originally generated by the collective work of probably thousands of players.

2) Even those thousands of players did not collectively pay $25,000 in real money to acquire those assets, they just played the game like anybody else.

3) The conversion of 700 billion ISK (the virtual in-game currency) into $25,000 is based on the ability to buy 30-day play-time cards for $15 and then sell them in-game for (as of writing) ~600 million ISK each.

4) If you do the math on the above, it's clearly wrong; 700 billion ISK would only buy ~1167 play-time cards, which would have cost only $17,500.

5) To top it all off, that real-dollars-to-game-ISK conversion only actually goes one-way; you can use game money to buy the play-time cards, but you cannot (legally) exchange those cards for real money. So the 700 billion ISK isn't *really* worth $17,500 since it's impossible to (legally) exchange the ISK for the dollars;, the conversion ratio is an academic metric.

Re:$3600 ship

[jxander]

Sounds like total losses across the board, not just for one guy.

One of the big selling points for EVE Online is that they fully allow real currency (yes, actual dollars) to purchase in-game goods and services. The general thought process being : in normal video games (specifically MMOs like WoW) people without jobs are at a distinct advantage because they can spend all day killing boars, leveling up, mining ore, etc. EVE balances that by letting employed individuals use the fruits of their daily activities in game. You spent all day farming in-game, I spent all day farming in the real world.

That being said, I'm not intimately familiar with the economy of EVE... but from the article, a single ship is worth upwards of $3,500. A lot of the smaller ships are worth a few hundred bucks at least. Multiply that across 3,000 people involved and, well ... that's a lot of real money blown on virtual space ships.

Re:$3600 ship

[Chris Mattern]

Why he simply didn't jump back to escape from this territory?

Because the first thing any opponent does in this situation is have tacklers web and warp scramble you. And they'll start bumping you to push you away from directions they don't want you go. And you materialize from an incoming jump a few kilometers away from the gate/cyno field. You ain't goin' nowhere.

If he couldn't jump back, why he simply didn't use his escape pod to escape, sacrificing only one titan, instead of three?

*That* is an excellent question. It's probably what he should have done. But he didn't want to eat the loss, so he upped the stakes, hoping he could win.

Re:$3600 ship

[Tacticus.v1]

I believe one of the pirates started "locking up" the initial leviathan in an attempt to prevent it from escaping.

and in the initial stages i would imagine that they did not anticipate meeting as many as they did so throwing in the extra ships for an extraction made sense with imperfect intelligence

Re:$3600 ship

[Spikeles]

Real Money($) can be converted into in game money (ISK) through the use of PLEX so it's pretty simple to calculate the amount of ISK lost and convert the value back into dollars to get an approximate real money value. The current lowest sell of a 30 day PLEX is about 530,000,000.00 ISK and it looks like 30 Days PLEX costs $20. So some division (*depending on if billion means thousand or million million) and some multiplication gives you a rough Real Money cost.

Re:$3600 ship

[sarysa]

So I've googled that there's no permanent death, so how was $3600 at risk? Would it have just been that one ship that the player lost? (I don't play EVE but this stuff interests me)

Re:$3600 ship

[Synerg1y]

So... just to clarify, did this guy actually spend $3500 on his ship?

And.. I dunno man, if you have a job & a family, should you really care if you're level 20, or level 50? WOW / other MMOs let those types of people buy characters, I'd imagine it's ships in EVE, but for every character bought they had to built up to that level, is that the same? I just have a difficult time seeing somebody spending 3.5k on a ship, short of being stinking rich and bat shit crazy.

Re:$3600 ship

[Gamer_2k4]

Incidentally, estimated losses for the entire battle (which included *three* titans lost before it was all over, all on the side the guy who misjumped) is over 700 billion ISK. That's about *$25,000*, kiddies.

$25,000 for 3,000 players?

So each participant lost, on average, 8-9 bucks. Not exactly a mindblowing number there.

Re:$3600 ship

[SillyHamster]

The value is tied to the ship, which can be destroyed. The character survives, but its value is not involved in the calculations.

Re:$3600 ship

[Chris Mattern]

So... just to clarify, did this guy actually spend $3500 on his ship?

Almost certainly not. But he probably could've sold it for enough ISK to buy enough PLEX to enable him to play the game for the next dozen years for free.

Re:$3600 ship

[Sperbels]

The fact that you don't really understand why your statement is stupid is why you can't get-by in Eve.

Re:$3600 ship

[dpidcoe]

To clarify this a bit, those numbers don't mean that people actually spent $3600 on their ships.

The real money-->isk conversion works by players buying gametime in 30 day blocks (plex). They then sell the plex on the market for ingame currency (isk). The conversion usually floats between ~300m - ~600m isk per plex. There's no way to directly exchange real money for isk (it must go through the player driven market as plex), and there's no legal way to exchange isk for real money (unless you want to pay the next 10 years of your eve subscription). It's a somewhat subtle, but vital, difference between the more common microtransaction/RMT schemes out there

If you're a player with a few billion in isk (pretty normal amount to have if you're the type who plays conservatively and saves), it's not hard to leverage it to make 500m in a month (or at least wasn't as of last year, I quit over the whole incarna debacle).

Re:$3600 ship

[cockroach2]

Technically he didn't jump to enemy controlled territory but to an area that isn't strictly controlled by players. From what I read the idea was to drop some big guns on top of a handful of enemies in a "neutral" system, a couple of enemies that were pleasantly surprised when instead of a sizable fleet they got a juicy target.

Then everybody called in reinforcements plus the locals also wanted to join the party.

Re:$3600 ship

[Chris Mattern]

The $3600 was,yes, the equivalent cost of just the one ship. *You* don't permanently die, but your ships and equipment and items can, and do. Also, while death is not permanent, you *can* be killed; when your ship is destroyed, you eject in a pod, which can easily be single-shotted by even small ships. This kills you. That results in the destruction of any implants you may have had installed (which in the case of high-level pilots can run into the billions of ISK) and means you must re-upgrade your medical clone (because you just used the one you had) at a price--generally not all that high, in fact, but it's still another cost.

Re:$3600 ship

[cockroach2]

Well yes and no. Money allows you to buy game time which in turn you can sell to other people for in-game currency. While in reality the difference is not too relevant, you can't directly buy in-game currency, you can however pay for someone else's monthly subscription in exchange for in-game money.

Re:$3600 ship

[cockroach2]

Very unlikely. The way this is calculated is to take the monthly fee (about 15$) and the amount of in-game currency that you would have to pay to play the game for free (last time I checked that was around 600 million but it's a player-driven market) and then apply basic math.

Re:$3600 ship

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is just the approximate value for the ship. Even games that don't "allow" real world trading you can use market statistics to estimate a value for virtual goods. Time is money. Think of earning 3600 dollars, and it probably took him that much work to acquire the ship.

When you think about it, virtual money is no less real than "real" world cash. Just somewhat less useful, because it's not as widely recognized or easily convertible.

Re:$3600 ship

[Chris Mattern]

You use your real money to buy a month's subscription, and an item called a Pilot's License Extension is deposited in your inventory. You can either use it to extend your own sub by a month, or you can trade it on the in-game market for ISK or any other goods.

Not quite. Nobody uses a PLEX they bought for US dollars to extend their own subscriptions because they cost $20 and you can buy a month's extension to your subscription directly for $15. PLEX are bought from CCP solely for the purpose of selling them on the market for ISK (or for obtaining Aurum, but that's another subject). People who have a lot of ISK then buy them so they can play without having to spend real-life money.

Re:$3600 ship

[petermgreen]

AIUI eve does not allow open real money trading (some people do it anyway but there is a risk of bans if caught) but you can buy (it seems you can now buy them directly, afaict you used to have to buy a game time code and then convert it) what is known as a "pilot license extension" (plex for short) which can be sold within the game (and then used by someone else to extend their subscription or to buy a few other premium services). This allows someone to calculate a monetary price for each item by

(value of item in isk on the ingame market) / (value of plex in isk on the ingame market) * (price of plex in dollars)

So if someone was "stinking rich and batshit crazy" they could spend a load of money on plex, sell those plex on the ingame market and use the isk from that sale to buy a ship but its equally possible (and probablly far more likely given that this guy was able to call in a massive alliance when he got into trouble) that he earned the isk to buy the ship through activities in the game.

Re:$3600 ship

[Jim Haskell]

He didn't jump back because he was physically incapable of doing so. In Eve: Online, other ships can use ship modules on you that prevents you from leaving the area. It's called "tackling." The pilot in question, upon erroneously jumping into the system, was tackled by enemy forces before he could escape. Instead of eating the loss, he called up on his allies to jump in to attempt to destroy the ships that were tackling him. (A titan-class vessel is largely unable to destroy the much smaller Heavy Interdictor-class vessels that are capable of tackling it due to the ship's poor tracking and large guns, and requires help if it is tackled. A good analogy here is trying to kill a fly with a cannonball at 30 kilometers -- guns in Eve work similarly.)

When the pilot's allies arrived, the enemies called THEIR allies and joined the fight. With the amount of tackling ships on the field, neither party could easily escape, and things snowballed considerably. The enemy forces in this case had the upper hand of available pilots and were able to inflict heavy losses.

Re:$3600 ship

[Nethemas the Great]

He surely was instantly tackled (prevented from leaving), there was no way that ship was getting out of there alive. Mistakes happen, but the Goons compounded it when they brought in reinforcements. I don't know how the Goons managed it bungle things so badly but it was a massive route.

Re:$3600 ship

[Anonymous Coward]

Most misquoted line ever. Leroy said, "At least I'm not chicken."

Re:$3600 ship

[petermgreen]

IANAL but AIUI there is at least a legal theory in some places that if you violate the agreement you agreed to when getting permission to use a computer system you do not have permission to use that computer system and hence you are guilty of accessing that computer system illegally.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/05/08/20/1423242/kutztown-students-get-felony-charges

Re:$3600 ship

[TFAFalcon]

Unless they changed it, real money only allows you to buy vanity items and sell game time to other players. So you can buy in-game money, not items directly.

You have to take something else into account when converting ship costs into real money - putting real money into the game won't 'create' new ships, just enable you to buy them from the players that manufacture them (with possible intermediaries that buy your plex for ISK).

Re:$3600 ship

[mattack2]

I just have a difficult time seeing somebody spending 3.5k on a ship, short of being stinking rich and bat shit crazy.

Yet people buy BMWs and Lexuses every day. Yes, those are "real", but I think they're a big waste of money too.

(Don't get me wrong, I think spending tons of (or in my case ANY) real cash on virtual goods is a waste, but as in my examples above, I think people waste tons of money on 'real' things too.)

Re:$3600 ship

[TFAFalcon]

It's a gamble - lose one ship or potentially hundreds of ships, while possibly also taking out a large chunk of the enemy fleet.
If they knew the result in advance, they may have chosen to just let the guy die (or not, perhaps the balance of power is now more in their favor then it was before).

Re:$3600 ship

[mattack2]

Why is it so easy to jump (is that effectively warp or hyperspace a-la Asteroids) to the wrong place?

Re:$3600 ship

[Velex]

But BMWs and Lexuses will get you laid.

Re:$3600 ship

[Silent Node]

I hate that I cant directly upvote here on Slashdot

Re:$3600 ship

[mfnickster]

Luke: "TEN THOUSAND??? We could almost buy our own ship for that!"

Ben: It's all right, Luke. I have a cousin who can get us a ship for $3,500.

Re:$3600 ship

[hairyfish]

Yes much like the finance industry. Except swap the cocaine and hookers for pizza and porn.

Re:$3600 ship

[squiggly12]

He jumped instead of opening a bridge which (a bridge) lets you send others in your fleet to the cyno (which meant he went there instead of the people in fleet). The commands are extremely close to each other, pretty much separated by one command. It's happened many a time.

Re:$3600 ship

[fredprado]

No. You jump to where you want to jump. The problem is that what you want to do is not always wise to do...

Re:$3600 ship

[RedHackTea]

The general thought process being : in normal video games (specifically MMOs like WoW) people without jobs are at a distinct advantage because they can spend all day killing boars, leveling up, mining ore, etc. EVE balances that by letting employed individuals use the fruits of their daily activities in game. You spent all day farming in-game, I spent all day farming in the real world.

What about the kid that has parents pay AND sits around playing all day? This is why I'm okay with coding and using bots (although I genuinely avoid other bots in case of viruses).

Re:$3600 ship

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost certainly not. Although buying ISK for cash is possible, there are also in-game ways to get ISK (obviously, like any other MMO), and this Titan class ship was almost certainly bought with assistance from the player's alliance. Which owns assets which earn it in-game items estimated to be worth around $75,000 per month.

Re:$3600 ship

[julesh]

But BMWs and Lexuses will get you laid.

Are you saying that a titan won't? Damn.

Re:$3600 ship

[julesh]

The only sense in which it's not "legal" to trade ISK for dollars is that it's against the rules of the game and CCP can ban you from the game if they catch you doing it. There's no actual real-world law against it.

Actually, there quite possibly is. I looked into the possibility of running a game where such trades would be allowed a few years back, and it turns that anti-money-laundering legislation prevents it in at least some countries.

Re:$3600 ship

[Markizs]

real world currency is also not 'backed' by anything else than what value people give it. So in that sense it is no different from in-game money - if someone is ready to give you something in exchange for x ammount of money, then money is worth exactly that.

Re:$3600 ship

[Paradise Pete]

If that's true, than unless the vast majority of currency (ISK?) in the game is backed by plex (which is sounds like it's not) then it's absurd to compare it to real money.

Value is value. a "Titan ship" may be an inconvenient form of storage, and there is (demonstrably) inherent risk in it, but it still has value. And that risk and inconvenience influence the value. Without those issues it would be worth more. So if the market values it at $3,500 or so, then that's value, even if you or I would have no interest in possessing it.

Re:$3600 ship

[luther349]

you cant tackle a titan there immune the only thing that effects them is those warp bubbles. but there so slow if they do bring a interdictor in quick enough you are not going anywhere until someone kills it.

Re:$3600 ship

[luther349]

eve is a risk vs reward game you can make just as much money in eve in null sec/

Re:$3600 ship

[luther349]

if your flying a titan in null-sec trust me hes making all the money he lost not by trading real money. my miner in my corp pays for 4 accounts with the plex he buys form the mining he does in null-sec the games litterly free for him. as a pve/pvp player i can make hundreds of million running with a fleet on a single complex run. for those us in a really good alliance and corp the game can pay for itself or keep the isk pay for the game and buy massive ships like titans.

Re:$3600 ship

[L4t3r4lu5]

Because the first thing any opponent does in this situation is have tacklers web and warp scramble you. And they'll start bumping you to push you away from directions they don't want you go. And you materialize from an incoming jump a few kilometers away from the gate/cyno field. You ain't goin' nowhere.

Clarification for those who haven't played:
- Tackler: A very fast and highly maneuverable ship fitted no offensive weaponry, just modules designed to prevent your escape. Very fragile; Relies on its speed to survive.
- Web: Propulsion suppression; Severely restricts your speed an maneuverability.
- Warp Scramble: Prevents you warping. In Eve you can warp to planets, stations, asteroid belts etc in the same system from anywhere at any time. Almost all ships need to be at a Jump Gate to leave a system; Capital ships are the exception, of which Titans are an example.
- Bumping: Eve ships have non-catastrophic collision detection. They "bump" off each other, with the imaginable results. You need to align your ship towards a destination to be able to warp there; Bumping prevents that.
- Cyno(saural) field: A point created in space onto which Capital ships can lock and jump to without traversing the systems between your current location and the Cyno. Jump distance has a maximum range, depending on the ship.

One tactic not mentioned is "bubble": A ship called an Interdictor may be fitted with an Interdiction Sphere Launcher. Interdiction Spheres ("bubbles") prevent warping while within their area of effect.

Re:$3600 ship

[bruce_the_loon]

Come back to the galaxy, Incarna is like Windows ME now, forgotten and ignored. They've done a lot of good work on the internet spaceships side since.

Re:$3600 ship

[sg_oneill]

Tackling is one of the things that drew me into this game, and in pvp its something I wish other MMOs would emulate. Its a skill almost custom made for low-skill players (Although for a *titan* you need to be slightly more high-skilled as titans are immune to webs, and need warp bubbles to trap them. ).

When I first started I joined "Goon fleet" and was given a friggate , a warp scrambler and stasis web, and told how to train it in 3 days. A few days later I went on my first fleet battle and about ten of us beginners pinned down a couple of enemy battle ships piloted by guys with 2+ years experience which allowed goonfleets more experienced pilots to wail away hammering the battleships. And I died about two minutes into the battle, but those two minutes where enough to have played a decisive role helping our 30 man fleet beat a bunch of guys with years more experience than us. I was addicted.

It gave a role for beginers as zippy "cannon fodder" to assist the more experienced players win.

Re:$3600 ship

[don depresor]

More like about a fleet of about 50 Hictors who were ready for the ambush (sneaky prepared bastards)

Re:$3600 ship

[Talderas]

PLEXs are essentially a way for Time Rich/Money Poor people to have their playtime subsidized by Time Poor/Money Rich people.

Re:$3600 ship

[Talderas]

The distinction is more that the the isk gained from selling a PLEX is not constant and it in fact will fluctuate with the rest of the economy.

Re:$3600 ship

[Talderas]

Bots negatively impact the people who are not time rich and aren't money rich. Basically, the people that don't have a lot of time to make money and don't have a lot of spare cash to spend on PLEX. Bots impact them doubly by either depressing the price of materials the player can gather or by inflating the amount of currency available and making items more expensive for those players. That is an economic situation CCP would want to avoid if they want to grow their player base, thus bots should not be permitted.

Re:$3600 ship

[cerberusss]

Because the first thing any opponent does in this situation is have tacklers web and warp scramble you. And they'll start bumping you to push you away from directions they don't want you go.

But how did the battle end? It would have to end with all ships of either one or the other side all killed. Unless both sides can agree to stop shooting, which I can't imagine possible with so many players.

Re:$3600 ship

[SharpFang]

From what I read: He was about to gate (send) some of big guns there, instead he pressed "Jump" instead of "Gate".

The target was a small pirate corp they wanted to "teach a lesson". They would, easily.
Except the pirates got a sniff of what was about to happen and called in help from another corp, who intended to turn it into an ambush - crush the force meant to destroy the pirates.

Of course that meant reinforcements meant to save the titan from the pirates were nowhere enough to save it (and themselves) from the ambush...

Re:$3600 ship

[SharpFang]

PLEX is the bridge between dollar and ISK - can be purchased with or sold for both.

Once the real money goes into the game, there is no -official- way to get it back. But the market where you can sell PLEX to other players for dollars is thriving and quite successful. You CAN earn real money on EVE.

Imagine this:

Guy A, overworked businessman with lots of income, little time.
Guy B, a basement-dwelling no-life nerd.
Guy C, a casual with some cash and some time.

Guy A wants to play the game; buys 3 PLEX $15/piece from the official game shop, uses one to prolong account, sells two other for 2bln ISK to guy B, buys an awesome ship with the 2bln ISK.

Guy B is running some corporation, earning heavy ISK on various in-game activities. He spends 2bln ISK on the 2 PLEX from guy A. Uses up one to prolong account, puts up the other one for sale for $13 on a forum.

Guy C decides his subscription is running out, not enough ISK to purchase PLEX for it, but he happens to know there's the forum with PLEX cheaper than the official shop. He pays guy B $13 over PayPal and gets his PLEX which he uses up.

Note Guy B didn't spend a single penny on his PLEX and turned 1bln ISK to $13.

This is all completely legal and within the framework of the game. Since the game creators are the only ones that can create new PLEX they will always get the money, no matter if the PLEX is used up or sold for ISK or sold for $. Sooner or later it will get used up, decreasing in-game supply, increasing the price in ISK and encouraging purchase in $ - both for prolonging and for obtaining a lot of ISK easily.

Re:$3600 ship

[Dodgy G33za]

re: your sigline, just curious, but wouldn't it have been better to use plugw@sh or some other variant rather than something that looks very much like your name. Or is the whole thing a pun that has just gone way over my head?

Re:$3600 ship

[MachineShedFred]

You forgot:

6) It's only worth what someone would actually pay. Nobody would actually pay that much for a virtual asset unless they were either massively stupid, or had enough money to lobby God into suspending physical laws for a period of time.

Re:$3600 ship

[Clockwurk]

So who won?

Re:$3600 ship

[HeckRuler]

They typically don't have the managerial prowess, a firm grasp on micro-economics, or the skill with Excel to be significant EVE players.

Re:$3600 ship

[dpidcoe]

I'm never coming back at this point. They've started along the path of "WoW in space" and I'm just not interested anymore.

Since I started playing: - 3 concord buffs
- removal of insurance for suicide ganks
- massive buff to mining barge HP and cargospace
- modal dialogue explaining that you have player aggression if you try to undock with player aggression, because the red timer wasn't enough indication (the dialogue is also subject to all of the issues associated with timers glitching out, so it didn't even fix anything that lowsec dwellers complained about).
- increased cost to wardec
- nerfing of mercenary participation in wardecs shortly after adding that feature
- still haven't fixed the ability to dodge a wardec by joining and leaving an alliance.
- adding faction items to market (less opportunity to scam)
- adding faction icons to ships and modules (less opportunity to scam)
- removing freeform contract (less opportunity to scam, plus they were a nice way to document a gentleman's agreement)
- crimewatch system now makes stealing ore/mission loot as a way to engage highsec bears completely impractical.
- crimewatch system now makes it impossible to make yourself a legal target (even intentionally) unless you explicitly allow it in settings (and there's no reason to if you're a highsec bear).

There are a few other things I know I'm leaving out of that list that I can't remember at the moment, it should be about 25% longer.

Though a lot of these changes were arguably a good thing (particularly the UI improvements), they demonstrate a clear path in the direction of making highsec 100% safe with the exception of officially sanctioned actions that both sides agree to participate in.

You can argue all you want that this is somehow a better form of eve (and maybe it is), but it's not the eve I signed up to play 6 years ago. The entire appeal to me was that I wasn't safe anywhere except for docked in a station (and even then maybe not), and neither was anyone else. With that becoming less and less true each patch, there's just no appeal in the game for me anymore.

Re:$3600 ship

[slashgrim]

Leroy did get up for chicken. Here's an interview:
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/8/leeroy-jenkins-interview-352074

Re:$3600 ship

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But BMWs and Lexuses will get you laid.

Are you saying that a titan won't? Damn.

A real one would. :-) Do you have one?

Re:$3600 ship

[Chris Mattern]

Han: "Yeah, kid, but could you fly it? You gotta train almost a year to fly a Titan."

Re:$3600 ship

[Chris Mattern]

PLEX is the bridge between dollar and ISK - can be purchased with or sold for both.

No. And your explanation is wrong as well. PLEX can be bought for real-life money only from CCP (which the only way PLEX is created, incidentally). Once PLEX enters the game, players may buy and sell it for ISK. Selling PLEX to any party for real-life money is expressly PROHIBITED by CCP. Both "Guy B" and "Guy C" in your example are in violation of the TOS with CCP and could have their accounts terminated.

Re:$3600 ship

[mfnickster]

You bet I could! I'm fully instrument-rated on Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The best part of MMOs

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll find that the best memories people have from playing MMOs is precisely this sort of encounter. The fact that EVE is designed to handle this type of event is a testament to the developer's understanding of what makes a good gaming experience.

"...hey remember that time when three of the top server guilds from [X] went to [Y] and it resulted in [C]...." The formula is not unique, but they happen rarely enough that each experience is.

Re:The best part of MMOs

[don depresor]

Most MMOs don't have the sheer amount of relevant parameters per player to take in consideration during the fight.

Usually you have something around 20-30 parameters, life, dmg, resistances, position and movement and maybe a handfull more parameters.

In eve the number of parameters explodes exponentially, for example, no only your position and speed is relevant, also your angular speed vs each other ship that is shooting at you or you shoot at.

Add the fact that every player has the option to have at least 5 drones that are basicaly slave ships with their own set of parameters to keep in consideration.Also add that some of the projectiles used to atack enemies are physical entities wich can be atacked and destroyed with their own position, speed, life...

Now add everything up and try to factor that in your comparison...

Re:The best part of MMOs

[Beezlebub33]

3000 players is pretty good. However, I have been playing Planetside 2. What's amazing to me is that they will have battles with, literally, hundreds of players fighting over a piece of land (including ground and air vehicles), and doing it all at FPS speeds. It's really, really impressive.

Re:The best part of MMOs

[metaforest]

This, in a nutshell.

3000 ships:
    core stats
        shields
        armor
        structure
        capacitor
        Power
        velocity (vector)
        acceleration (vector)
        turn rate
        effective radius (apparent size of hull to sensors)
        dynamic resists to damage type
drones up to 5 active per ship
        drones have all the same stats plus a crude AI that evaluates their flight C&C.
up to 8 active missile objects per ship
(no other weapon systems create active objects)
each module mounted on a ship has it's own set of core stats and state info. Ships may have as few as 5 or more than 20. Each of these modules have more state info than most FPS toons.
so:
We are talking about over 72000 complex dynamic active objects that project real-time information to every client view, and to the resolving system and may be acted on by a pilot's interpretation of that information.

Now add to that a somewhat simpler state for destroyed ships, disconnected drones, pods, containers, and other objects that are continually added until the event activity collapses.

Add to that: typically furballs like the event from TFA happen in very close quarters where a large percentage of the client nodes are in direct interaction with each other.
No other MMO I have ever seen processes anywhere NEAR this much real-time data and even can stay running, let alone (*)tolerably playable.

* doesn't result in a coin-flip result for most participants... etc.

PS: Factor in that this was not an anticipated in-game event, so CCP had little to no opportunity to re-enforce the system node that got hammered. So 3000 brawling ships hammering a 2nd or 3rd string node.

Now: go back to your armchairs /.

       

My Takeaway

[Guppy06]

The leader of a huge coalition, preparing for a moderately sized assault, mis-clicked and accidentally warped himself into enemy territory without his support fleet,

UI issue leads to massive server load.

Re:My Takeaway

[doug141]

UI issue leads to massive pant load.

Re:My Takeaway

[MachineShedFred]

Sounds like a piss-poor leader to me. Usually when you're going to "lead an assault" into battle, you make sure you're going the right fucking way.

Re:Since when?

[Jeng]

It should probably read "Journalists know Eve Online from the amazing scamming stories."

I have never heard of their userbase as elitists, assholes yes, but elitists?

Re:Since when?

[Chris Mattern]

I figure he ragequit when he lost his cruiser. Unlikely that he lasted long enough to work up to a BC.

so who won and what did they get?

[gl4ss]

so who won and what did they get?

Re:so who won and what did they get?

[meddle99]

so who won and what did they get?

EVE Online won. They got $25k.

Re:so who won and what did they get?

[meddle99]

That's not quite how it works.

OK. I have never played the game and I really don't understand what's going on in the video. but TFA states there were ~$25k in loss and damages. That is $25k that people paid EVE for (virtual) merchandise that they don't have anymore. Arms sales, even virtual arms sales, is a very lucrative business.

Re:so who won and what did they get?

[DLWormwood]

Not directly; the real world cash values of ISK and property in-game is derived from trades between players, for the most part. CCP's primary income comes from subscriptions and novelty items sales, much like WoW. (It's just that CCP accepts in-game currency as a subscription fee proxy, which makes it seems like CCP is getting a windfall from value destruction, when it’s simply value they already received a long time ago.)

Re:so who won and what did they get?

[julesh]

TFA states there were ~$25k in loss and damages. That is $25k that people paid EVE for (virtual) merchandise that they don't have anymore.

No, it isn't. $25k is what they'd have to pay if they wanted to convert cash to in-game currency in order to recoup their losses, but most of them probably acquired that merchandise through in-game actions, and will likely recover their losses through in-game actions too, so no real currency will actually be involved for a very large proportion of that loss.

Re:Since when?

[Cinder6]

I read that as "stories about EVE" (things that happen because of player actions), not "stories in EVE" (things that happen within the scope of the game's narrative). Whether you like the game or not (I couldn't get into it), there certainly have been a lot of interesting/cool stories about things that have gone on inside the game. This event is one of them.

Computers, Soldiers, Men

[Lorens]

Computer-wise they need some virtualization-clustering fu. Not having coded so a logical node can run on several physical servers I can understand, but having some crazy-powerful server/nodes but no way to seamlessly move users to them seems a pity.

Military-wise, those who made the first mistake decided not to cut their losses, tried to recoup by throwing the good after the bad, throwing in reserves to save suddenly severely exposed friendlies, and they got severely burned for that. I'm sure there are second-years studying military strategy who are shaking their heads at newbie errors.

Human-wise, as alen said, how many divorces...

Re:Computers, Soldiers, Men

[timeOday]

I'm sure there are second-years studying military strategy who are shaking their heads at newbie errors.

Well, it is a game. I won't claim blowing stuff up is the whole point, but it's certainly a big part of the attraction. They were in the Great Battle of 2013. (I'm betting they have a more colorful commemorative name for it already.)

Re:Computers, Soldiers, Men

[Anonymous Coward]

Military-wise, those who made the first mistake decided not to cut their losses, tried to recoup by throwing the good after the bad, throwing in reserves to save suddenly severely exposed friendlies, and they got severely burned for that. I'm sure there are second-years studying military strategy who are shaking their heads at newbie errors.

You are wrong. The narrative you are basing your comment on is the story both sides want you to believe (for different reasons) but it is probably not what actually happened.

Here is my current understanding of events:

There are three major coalitions involved in this battle: CFC, HBC and N3. CFC and HBC used to be very close friends but grew apart over the past ~6 months with tensions escalating to a cold war-like state as of late. N3 is nominally hostile to both but has good diplomatic relations with HBC.

There are also two small alliances involved - Drunk ‘n’ Disorderly (DnD) and Liandri Covenant (AZULA).

On January 17th DnD engaged a CFC fleet in a very ballsy maneuver - it didn't pay off for them as the CFC fleet commander DaBigRedBoat (dbrb) was very fast to call in massive reinforcements (many EVE players are connected to their coalition's jabber or IRC server even when not playing and will log into the game if a "ping" on jabber/IRC goes out. In this case dbrb called for everyone to log in which was a completely disproportionate and unnecessary response.). DnD took more losses than they could deal damage but the CFC now knew them for being a bit reckless and DnD had seen dbrb escalate a small engagement beyond reason.

On January 21st DnD showed - while fighting an unrelated opponent - that they could call in support from Pandemic Legion (an alliance that is part of the HBC) and were quite willing to do so if it would get them the advantage they need. Everyone following current events in EVE took notice of this fact.

On January 25th DnD attacked a Liandri Covenant POS (player-owned starbase) but due to game mechanics couldn't finish it off quite yet (a starbase goes into an invulnerable mode for 42 hours after being dealt significant damage - this defenders time to organize a defense and prevents a starbase from being sniped in some off timezone where no defenders are online).

Knowing that DnD would return the next day to finish off the POSm knowing that alone they would have a hard time defending it and being aware of the events of January 17th Liandri Covenant contacted the CFC (some CFC pilots probably have alts in AZULA) to organize a trap: Liandri Covenant would engage DnD when they returned to kill off the starbase, then dbrb would jump with a superior CFC fleet right on top of them.

The CFC was well aware that DnD could call on support from the HBC within minutes and factored that into their plan. Once DnD was engaged they would jump a Nyx supercarrier into the fray while having a supercapital fleet on standby - hoping to bait the HBC reaction. Nobody knows why dbrb thought this would be a good idea - maybe he just thought he could take on the HBC in late US TZ (as some of the HBC's supercapital-heavy alliances are EU TZ).

Today is the day... dbrb has set up his trap and DnD arrives to kill the AZULA starbase. The HBC is probably aware of the CFC trap (spies are everywhere). When DnD is on the field dbrb intends to jump in his bait Nyx first. Multiboxing several accounts (he is known to praise himself for his great multitasking capabilities) he makes a grave mistake and jumps his Leviathan-class titan instead of the Nyx supercarrier (he needs the Leviathan to stay back and "bridge" other ships to the battle, also the Leviathan is about 5x more expensive than the Nyx [which already is pretty expensive]).

DnD tries to prevent the Leviathan from escaping and calls on Pandemic Legion for support (which takes at least 10 - 15 minutes to form up). dbrb knows that this escalation will come and is pinging madly to get more CFC members to reinforce his planned t

Re:Computers, Soldiers, Men

[metaforest]

Finally a AAR on this incident that doesn't smell like a big steaming pile of bullshit! Thanks AC!

Re:Xirtam

[Cinder6]

Hahaha this is nothing new VOTF Xirtam did this a Few times and even a Red Alliance Leader did this.
Although we did not have 3000 players on back in those days.

So you're saying that they didn't do this? The point of this story is that there were 3000 people fighting in the same area.

Re:Fascinating article.

[michael021689]

No, you're reading comprehension is just poor. Each solar system shares a node with several others. When the solar system in question overloaded the node due to the battle, the other solar systems on that node were disconnected, likely for less a minute, so that that node could be dedicated to the battle. The other systems in question were placed on other nodes. Being disconnected for a number of seconds so that the system that you are in runs at full speed is much better than staying continuously connected and running at 10% speed. On the topic of reduced speed, there is a significant difference between intentionally running a game at slow speed and it breaking into a slow speed. By intentionally slowing the speed, they are employing a controlled and tested process. That is much more sensible than trying to run at 100% and just letting what happens happen.

Re:Help an old guy understand this

[amicusNYCL]

I don't think he was able to run away, it wasn't an option. It probably takes the ship a while to get ready for a jump.

The game is SLOOOOOOOWWWW!

[VortexCortex]

So, the answer to how the game stayed up is that it's not a twitch game, and is actually pretty fucking slow with regard to "real time" actions of other games. In other words: It's basically a turn based game where latency isn't an issue so big fucking deal folks.

Re:The game is SLOOOOOOOWWWW!

[Chris Mattern]

Please repeat after me:

Slow does not mean turn-based.

Turn-based does not mean slow (ever seen a game of blitz chess played?)

Re:The game is SLOOOOOOOWWWW!

[dywolf]

no but MMOs that use math rolls essentially function in a phased turn semi-realtime mode. its not black and white, but more grey.

Re:The game is SLOOOOOOOWWWW!

[HeckRuler]

Actually I believe he was "turn-based" as a metaphor for any environment where split-second twitches fueled by intravenous red-bull and injecting meth directly into your eyeballs in an effort to overcome synaptic lag and reach true plank-length responses are the deciding factor in gameplay.

It's a common sentiment amongst the Counter-Strike crowd.

Re:The game is SLOOOOOOOWWWW!

[Chris Mattern]

no but MMOs that use math rolls essentially function in a phased turn semi-realtime mode.

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that. Given that MMOs involve large amounts of asynchronous activity by large amounts of players, making them in any way turn-based is normally quite difficult, although it has been occassionally done (Kingdom of Loathing is an exception that comes to mind, as is the combat in Dofus). Eve is not in any way turn-based. Abilities are on timers, but you never have to wait for your "turn" to use an ability that is ready.

Re:Fascinating article.

[gl4ss]

eve isn't a direct action game so the slowdown doesn't matter as much.

this type of gameplay is though also why I usually view it as just glorified tradewars..

Re:Fascinating article.

[mdenham]

Okay, let's run through your "points" one by one here (note: I don't play EVE, mostly because I've heard the learning curve is an absolute bitch).

* Unlike most other MMOs, it's relatively easy to put a real-world value on stuff in EVE (thanks to, if I'm not entirely mistaken, being able to spend in-game currency on your subscription fee rather than actual cash). The value of the "make-believe spacecraft" is enough currency to pay for X months, which is also how long $3500 would pay for.

* Nearby systems get moved to other servers in their server farm. The options in MMOs in general tend to be "block people every time they try to get into an area on the same server", or this - a temporary disconnection, followed by being on a server that isn't dealing with as heavy of a load. EVE's method, while it's a disruption, is less disruptive to the players than "Sorry, you can't enter this area" over and over and over again.

* The slowed-down time effect is not "a means to keep people from suffering from a slowdown of the servers". It's a means to give people a better chance to evaluate large-scale battles in as much depth as they'd be able to evaluate smaller battles. Or, at least, close to the same depth of analysis.

I mean, I understand that you think the hobbies of these people are inscrutable and not worthy of your time, but... well, what are your hobbies? I'm pretty sure there are people here who think the same thing about yours.

Re:Help an old guy understand this

[egr]

Probably not so easy to run away with hundred of guys warp disrupting and webbing you. These are debuffs used to hold people in place. The only countermeasures are effective only if you have as many of them as there are debuffs.

What the ???

[Virtucon]

Okay, in this day in age of scalability and Cloud Services, why the hell can't they host this in an EC2 Availability Zone on Amazon? Use Rightscale or Scalar and like that massive Scale on-demand.. Slow down time. Pfft.. this is like thinking in the 90s.

Now, when my Civilization 5 battle comes into Eve you guys are toast!

Re:What the ???

[citizenr]

Okay, in this day in age of scalability and Cloud Services, why the hell can't they host this in an EC2 Availability Zone on Amazon?

Because that's a completely asinine idea, not even warranting a technical response?

I'd urge random smarmy Slashdotters to dig through the EVE dev blog and get a glimpse of the boundaries they've been pushing. Their infrastructure team knows their fucking business.

Boundaries of stupidity. They are using Stackless Python (NO multicore support) on the server.

>'We move other solar systems on the node away from the fight

No they dont, They disconnected people left and right, basically kicked them out of that node and made them reconnect. Its been what, 7 years? and they still didnt figure out how to do live migration.

>Once server load reaches a certain point, the game automatically slows down time by certain increments to deal with the strain. Time was running at 10% speed

He failed to mention your FPS counter also goes to 10% :) It takes HOURS to kill one ship in that SHIT hack of a lag fix mode.

Instead of implementing proper multicore support, or even dividing load among many racks they run everything in ONE python thread ....

Re:What the ???

[mrclevesque]

Yes, to keep things going as they did, the implied software flow, in a situation like they had, gives me chills.

Chills just like the ones I get when an emergency vehicle, with sirens blaring, cuts an efficient pathway through traffic.

Re:What the ???

[Mr307]

Boundaries of stupidity. They are using Stackless Python (NO multicore support) on the server.
No they dont, They disconnected people left and right, basically kicked them out of that node and made them reconnect. Its been what, 7 years? and they still didnt figure out how to do live migration.
He failed to mention your FPS counter also goes to 10% :) It takes HOURS to kill one ship in that SHIT hack of a lag fix mode.
Instead of implementing proper multicore support, or even dividing load among many racks they run everything in ONE python thread ....

This 100%

Time dilation is a kludge at best, it serves only to make large fights just bearable instead of impossible.

The single threaded nature of EVE is grossly apparent in large fleet fights where all input is processed in order, so if you commanded your ship to go in 10 different directions, your ship goes all those directions in order, even if the last command was an all stop, and during the larger fleet fights this may take minutes to complete so most likely you are way out of position, add to that weapon cycles, reload cycles, warps, jumps and lots more to the queue that are stacked and processed in order with no real time consideration.

IMHO what they really need to do is groom the queue for redundant ship commands, Yes an upgrade to multithreaded for all kinds of good reasons, but grooming the command queue will net them huge improvements in playability when the fights get big.

Re:What the ???

[gmueckl]

Don't dismiss what you see that easily. Sometimes there are perfectly good reasons why things came to be the way there are.

1. CCP practically invented Stackless Python, which is quite different from normal Python, although it retains the GIL
2. The core of EVE online was written in the late 90's. Multicores were not really on the radar back then. They became practical and affordable only years later.
3. Throwing away millions of lines of working code behind the company's single most important product (which was responsible for 1% of Iceland's' GDP last I checked) is not justifiable.
4. Nothing prevents you from starting multiple server processes on a single node as long as you have enough memory and network bandwidth left.

Granted, the inability of CPython to run truly concurrent threads would deter me from using it for applications requiring high performance. But 10 years ago I simply wouldn't have lost a single thought about concurrent threads. Would you?

Re:What the ???

[julesh]

2. The core of EVE online was written in the late 90's. Multicores were not really on the radar back then. They became practical and affordable only years later.

Everyone paying attention has known that multiprocessing was the future since, at the latest, the early 90s. Here's a quote from a 1993 research paper:

Resizing will continue to draw applications off mainframes onto networked PCs, workstations, and small servers; simple multiprocessors; large
scalable multiprocessors; and massively parallel processing multicomputers. This trend will accelerate as network cost, performance, and maintainability improve.

Simple multiprocessors will be the mainline of computing throughout this decade, to be replaced eventually by various forms of highly parallel processing computers.

This was a typical conclusion of the (many) discussions of the era. Yes, multicore was a bit of a surprise, but servers with slots for multiple single-core processors were commonplace when EVE launched. It was practically a standard feature of most high-end server systems, so writing their servers not to take advantage of such systems was short-sighted. Also several RISC processor designs had emerged that used multiple threads to offset the delay between an instruction being executed and its results being available for a subsequent instruction to use, and to minimize latency due to branches. Everyone knew the future of high performance computing was in multiprocessing and multithreading.

Granted, the inability of CPython to run truly concurrent threads would deter me from using it for applications requiring high performance. But 10 years ago I simply wouldn't have lost a single thought about concurrent threads. Would you?

Yes. I stopped using python circa 2002 (dated by the fact that I evaluated a new-at-the-time system called 'psyco' for improving python performance just before giving up on it, and the earliest-dated reference I can find to this system is from october 2002) when I realised that this problem was not going to be fixed and would become critically important for any large-scale application with non-trivial interactions between users. I'm pretty sure from discussions I saw on message boards and mailing lists at the time that I'm far from the only one who gave up on it.

Re:What the ???

[ulricr]

using thread is not necessary to do multiprocessing and use multicore machines, it's just one approach, one that is seldom used on multi cpu servers, especially back then. the alternative is to use multiple concurrent processes, which has been the UNIX way to do things since the beginning and is still widely used today for scalable systems - especially those that will also use multiple separate machines that don't share RAM

Re:Fascinating article.

[Githaron]

If I am understanding it right, they are doing a controlled disconnection. A given node handles multiple solar systems. When battle started, the network moved the non-battle solar systems to other nodes. This required the users be disconnected from the node and connected to the new node. In other words, the only people being disconnected were the people not part of the battle. Not sure if they were automatically connected to the new node or if they actually had to log in again.

As far as the time slowdown goes, it is more acceptable than 3,000 players all getting knocked off in the middle of an active battlefield. The last thing you want is to have to log back into the center of a battle blind. This is especially true when there are several thousand US dollars worth of in-game equipment involved. If you read the article, the combined losses by the end of the battle were $24,000 based on the conversion of in-game money to US dollars.

All in all, an impressive feat.

Re:Fascinating article.

[Kittenman]

No, you're reading comprehension is just poor.

I think you mean ".. your reading comprehension is just poor". Oh, the irony.

Re:It is as if nothing really happened

[Dragon_Eater]

http://themittani.com/media/pretty-lights-video-battle-asakai

Tada!

Also..
eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&adjacent&kll_id=16069454
and...
http://dog-net.org/brdoc/?brid=16053

There, it did happen!

Re:Xirtam

[radiumsoup]

yeah, I'm pretty sure the 3,000 players compared to what you had "back in those days" is not actually anything "new".

/I don't play EVE, never have

Re:Help an old guy understand this

[yurtinus]

And then the whole battle got eaten by a grue!

Re:It is as if nothing really happened

[G3ckoG33k]

Thanks. Excellent!

Strange the article didn't include any of that.

Sort of...

[Fallen Kell]

Pretty good analogy, but the difference is that the guy who went to the "wrong room" was then "trapped there" by the people in the room. Forcing him to fight. So he called in backup so that he could get out.

There were many of us who came in and didn't pick any side but simply started using AOE attacks against everyone else for the lols :D

Re:Since when?

[Keen Anthony]

The elitists definitely earn it. They have real money in the game, if they didn't buy their characters, their skill levels came with longevity, and they survived the jump from carebearing around in high sec with destroyers and cruisers modded for salvage and mining to doing PVP in null sec with total assholes. I would have loved to be amongst them except I just found the game frustrating for the constant "Join my clan!" invites. I like soloing, and it's not easy advancing fast without help and protection. I remember slipping into near low-sec territory because I wanted to sell some merchandise at a higher price. I decided to make a quick raid on an NPC pirate hideaway and do some good mining when a player jumped in, destroyed me, then held my pod for ransom. He pod-killed me when I refused to pay. Have to say I respect the guy's style. That you can play EVE that way or you can play EVE my way and try to earn a modest living selling components speaks much about this game.

Re:Since when?

[tonywong]

Not an EVE player but I thought the coverage and screen cap was impressive here:
http://themittani.com/news/breaking-massive-super-fight-asakai-lowsec

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[cockroach2]

As long as you enjoy it you're not wasting your time, are you?

Re:Help an old guy understand this

[kiddygrinder]

Actually if you managed to read the summary it's a story about handling massive server load dynamically.

Bullet time

[tylernt]

Time was running at 10% speed during this 3,000-person battle, which is the maximum amount of time dilation possible."

Cool: bullet time!

Re:Bullet time

[sabt-pestnu]

> Time was running at 10% speed during this 3,000-person battle, which is the maximum amount of time dilation possible.

So they slowed time down within the battle area. I wonder if the stars and planets outside the time dilation area appeared blue-shifted to those within...

Re:Help an old guy understand this

[Jim Haskell]

You are right, but I can clarify the matter. In Eve: Online, other ships (typically your enemies) can use a ship module on you that prevents you from leaving the area, making you vulnerable to weapons fire. It's called "tackling." Tackling a titan-class vessel in Eve is difficult, requiring a special class of ship and a special weapon, but possible if you are coordinated enough and have enough espionage available to determine where your enemies will be.

Re:Fascinating article.

[mrclevesque]

hmmm
  : )

Re:Eh

[Chris Mattern]

- little pluses and squares, because you have to zoom way, way out to prevent your computer from melting

Actually, Eve is rather easy on the computer (as is the case with most older MMOs). You zoom out less to save CPU/GPU cycles and more because it's the only way you can see the actual tactical situation, since in most battles, it's likely to be spread out over dozens of kilometers at a minimum--hundreds if you've got ships outfitted for sniping.

Stackless

[Anonymous Coward]

At the bottom of EVE on the node CPU that simulates a given solar system there is a single thread. EVE uses what is effectively cooperative multitasking as implemented in a version of Stackless Python that CCP maintains. This micro-threading model precludes any real concurrency. That means a solar system (room, generally) cannot leverage SMP; the simulation must run in a single, coherent thread.

No matter how many cores CCP might have at its disposal in their big London cluster, they can't use more than a single thread on a single core to simulate a room, regardless of how many players there might be in that room. They have factored out some parts of the simulation to be distributed to other cores (networking, mostly,) but the essential simulation model is limited to one thread.

While unintended, these limits are probably a good thing; if they could use real concurrency on SMP hardware to handle the load created by many times 3000 players, some other fundamental constraint would assert itself and cause failures.

Re:Since when?

[cockroach2]

Low-sec still offers plenty of opportunities for solo / small gang PvP, whether you learn it on your own or as part of a noob-friendly corp is entirely up to you. I went pirate after some dreadful months in high-sec and I have to say it was probably the best EVE-related decision I ever made.

Screenshot from the battle

[Aereus]

This is apparently what (part of?) the battle looked like... talk about a clusterfuck...

http://puu.sh/1TcVz

Re:Screenshot from the battle

[Aereus]

And another one:

http://i.imgur.com/xXhcWOy.png

NOW I get it!

[Anonymous Coward]

So all this time when games I played dropped to 5-10 fps, it wan't due to unoptimized code, crappy drivers, or old hardware. It was actually cutting-edge technology called Time Dilation!

Re:NOW I get it!

[julesh]

So all this time when games I played dropped to 5-10 fps, it wan't due to unoptimized code, crappy drivers, or old hardware. It was actually cutting-edge technology called Time Dilation!

Actually, this time dilation thing is a solution to that very problem. If you are forced to accept that your game is sometimes going to drop to 5fps, basically because you have no way of controlling how much work is necessary for a frame to be calculated, then you need to find a way of working around it. Typically a game is unplayable at that frame rate because too much stuff happens between each frame -- you'll be perfectly fine in one frame, but by the time the next one comes around you've been shot several times, and it'll be two entire frames before you can do anything about it. What EVE does is simply reduce the amount of stuff that happens per frame to compensate, much like if an FPS slowed its physics engine down rather than trying to carry on in real time as they usually do.

Re:Help an old guy understand this

[Cajun Hell]

> l
Gimli the Dwarf (Necromancer)
Strider the Human (Greater Necromancer)
Legolas the Elf (Necromancer)
>'hey guys, are you all ready?
You say, "hey guys, are you all ready?"
Gimli says, "y"
Legolas says, "wait, I think Frodo is coming"
> s
Pirate Cave
You are in a pirate cave. There are various pirate props here. The only exit is to the north.
Sauron the Maiar (Greater Necromancer).
Saruman the Istari (Necromancer) (blocking the north exit).
Grishnakh the Orc (Lesser Sorcerer).
Magic helmet.
Balrog the Balrog (Greater Necromancer).
Ugluk the Orc (Lesser Sorcerer).
Balrog says, "I see them on who, so there's a chance they might attack today"
>ooc oh shit, meant to type 'lead s'
You say (ooc), "oh shit, meant to type 'lead s'"
> n
The exit is blocked.
Strider shouts, "aren't we coming with you?"
Ugluk takes Magic helmet.
Legolas shouts, "wait"
Sauron grapples you!
Sauron says "what do we have here?"
> n
The exit is blocked.
You can't move while grappled.
> kill sauron
You attack Sauron!
Sauron attacks you!
> shout help!
You shout, "help!"
Saruman laughs.
Balrog blocks the north exit.
Gimli shouts "Are you coming back or should we wait?"
Ugluk wears Magic helmet.
Grishnahk attacks you!
Legolas arrives.
Legolas says "come back north, we're not ready"
You hit Sauron hard!
Ugluk attacks you!
Legolas tries to move north but is blocked by Saruman.
Azog arrives.
Strider arrives.
Bilbo arrives.
Strider says, "did you mean to lead us?"
Shagrat arrives.
Frodo arrives.
Sauron shouts "lag!"

LEEEEROY JENKINS!

[XiaoMing]

The summary reads hilariously reminiscent of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[madprof]

Well it is possible yes. You could be doing something necessary and important but choosing instead to spend your time playing EVE.

So really they can barely handle 300 people

[detain]

What EVE does is just decides its going to slow everything down 10x so its only getting 1/10th the things happening over the same period of time. With this 3000 players are really effectivly only sending the traffic of 300 players operating at normal time. When you think of it like that, them being able to handle 3000 players without problems is not much of a boast, only that they found a way to simulate/force lag on everything. Its not a bad idea, but they are no more impressive than any of the other MMO's out there.

Re:So really they can barely handle 300 people

[Sertis]

It's more like a geometric relationship. 100 people in a room, and each action is relayed to 99 other players. 1000 players, the load is 100x as much. If the server could only support 300 players, they would have needed 100x time dilation.

Re:So really they can barely handle 300 people

[julesh]

You assume the main load requirements are in sending the notifications of events to other players, but it is more likely that most of the load is consumed by calculating the consequences of each action. This will involve interactions with other players, but these can probably be optimized based on the precise location of the player's ship rather than considering all other players in the system, meaning that I suspect the overall system is behaving more like O(n log n) than O(n^2). (obviously as number of players continues to increase that n^2 term would eventually take over as the most important, but I suspect that's at quite a few more than 3000 players).

Re:So really they can barely handle 300 people

[luther349]

as someone else explained its not lag its not frame skipping.

Wish WoW had that back in the day...

[CFBMoo1]

Some of the city raids I went on for my server would have been more fun if things didn't lag like they did. While we never had over 3000 people, the numbers were high enough we had the server buckling a few times just by bringing in 3 raid groups to a whole Alliance city.

Re:Since when?

[Keen Anthony]

It'll probably quite some time before I return to EVE. I just don't get the time to do more than log in and train. For anyone interested, in EVE you can queue training so that your character can be constantly training to level up even when you're not logged in. Low-sec is definitely where the fun begins even if you're wanting to play the market. Right now though I'm really craving a real world based competitive MMO FPS with a lot of customization options for my character builder game personality, but I don't think such a thing exists. I'm living off COD because it's instant satisfaction when I get 10 minutes here and there.

Re:Since when?

[I Mean, What]

This describes slashdot as well.

Re:Xirtam

[I Mean, What]

It's JUST like it, but DIFFERENT!!!!

This is why I play

[Silent Node]

No other MMO has fights or losses like this. Makes it far more worthwhile when you stand to lose something (even a virtual something), as opposed to just reappearing at a spawn location otherwise unaffected by your loss. It's also nice to have a lot of the standard idiots chased from the game by the learning curve, and the need to actually socialize.

Re:Since when?

[Nostromo21]

Doesn't this pretty much sum up the state of the US economy right now...? ;)

Elitist...assholes...a 2-word review of EVE Online in a nutshell. Nothing else needs be said. No, really.

GW2 all the way FTW!!! (& a bit of POE this past week :).

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[fredprado]

As many people choose to spend their times in other equally "useless" hobbies.

Alternate coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a better article than the PCGamer one from the summary: http://themittani.com/news/asakai-aftermath-all-over-cobalt-moon

It assumes more game knowledge, but you should be able to get the gist of it.

Incidentally, GoonSwarm (one of the major corporations involved) is about to begin its annual newbee drive. EVEMail 'Lazyhound' for recruitment information!

Re:Help an old guy understand this

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you give me a car analogy? I've never played EVE.

Re:Fascinating article.

[luther349]

well everyone in eve knows this if you wanna see a example of the games system in dealing with a packed system fly to jita at anytime. trust me the new system is far batter then it was years ago but you would have needed to been around for that.

Not everyone buys PLEXes

[grahamlord86]

The real-money losses are very sensationalised. A single player in null-sec space can easily farm 50-100million ISK per hour.

Hell, even a rookie like me (in my first battleship) solo'ing level 4 missions can generate 100m in half a day if I get on with it, and I only have 4 or 5 months of casual play under my belt, which isn't much by EVE standards.

With a PLEX (the method of converting real money into ISK) being worth around, say, 600ish million, the average ship on EVE doesn't need to be paid for in real money.

Likewise, titans and big stuff like that is often corp funded, they're not necessarily owned by the player flying the ship.

So I very much doubt that $25k actually flew out the door, or into CCP's coffers.

Migration

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

Why dose migrating to another server disconnect people?
Surely in a case like this they can just pause the action (if they can slow down time surly pause is easy) and tell everyone it will resume in 10min as the do the migration.
Worst case you could disconnect them but tell them if they don't connect to the new server within 10min then they are treated the say way as if they had yanked their broadband cable?

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[fredprado]

If you find having hobbies "wrong" I truly pity you.

Re:Since when?

[Luckyo]

Planetside 2 sounds to be close enough to what you're looking for, though some of your requirements are dubious at best (real world based?)

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[madprof]

Indeed, but being late for work or.losing a relationship is not good. I know of people who have done this through both online gaming and sport.
Which was my point.
Enjoying it != there are no problems

Re:Since when?

[Xeranar]

I'mm only familiar with EVE Online through friends but their condemnation of the game seems honest. So why make a statement implying they're a poor player? Different strokes for different folks.

Also, I imagine other MMOs are dealing with greater data than EVE is, so 3000 may not be an apples to apples comparison.

Can't stick with it.

[Westwood0720]

I love this game. I do. But it seems once I get enough SPs that I deem comfortable to leave high sec and venture into nul sec, I get scrammed, webbed, and podded before I have a moment to react. At this point I got bored of mission running and frustrated by getting the absolute shit kicked out of me, I quit. Then, two months later I start a new account and start the process all over again.

I have no idea how CCP makes such a boring yet intense game that is fascinatingly addictive. =P

Re:Can't stick with it.

[Jintsui]

Don't blame the game for your dying in Null. Its entirely pilot error. Rule1: When going into Null, you should always assume you are going to die. Rule2: When going into Null, please refer to rule1.

Re:Can't stick with it.

[Westwood0720]

Well, I do accept it. But I don't even stand a fighting chance. I'll spend 8h scoping out radar sites in lowsec, find one, and in 10 seconds I'm blown to bits. Its just that high amount of work to be lost in just a few moments that really gets me all up in a rage. haha

Re:Since when?

[Jaruzel]

Fsck off somewhere else then, no-one is forcing you to stay.

Re:Since when?

[HaZardman27]

Also, I imagine other MMOs are dealing with greater data than EVE is, so 3000 may not be an apples to apples comparison.

Regardless, if you read the article you'll see some pretty interesting methods that they use to handle server load issues (interesting to me, anyway, but I am not an admin).

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[fredprado]

Everything done obsessively is bad, including relationships and work.

Re:Since when?

[cthulhu11]

You're one sassy frood who really knows where his towel's at.

Political map?

[Keybounce]

I want to see a link to the political maps for this area.

The last time I looked at those maps was the whole Band Of Brothers issues from years ago.

Apparently, there were two major battles going on this weekend, plus the 3100+ bigger battle from ... what, a year prior?

I want to see how the political control landscape changes as a result of these big fights. Link please?

Re:Political map?

[radub]

here you go: Verite Influence http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Verite/influence.png

Re:Political map?

[Keybounce]

404. Sorry, the stargate denies you access.

Re:cash

[Westwood0720]

Not exactly. You can sell off your assets to which you can buy PLEX; or in game time cards. Those are only used for monthly subscriptions. Now, if you were to start selling your PLEX cards for real money then you might make an income.

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[madprof]

You appear to be vociferously agreeing with me.

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[Anonymous Coward]

Play time is something necessary and important.
Take away play time and entertainment from people and see what happens to society.

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[madprof]

Play time when you have important and necessary commitments is living on borrowed time.

Re:Since when?

[Methadras]

I'm still getting my space legs on EVE-O, but I have to tell you that I'm really enjoying it. It's frustrating as hell, but I'm an MMO vet, so my learning curve is just taking a little longer than usual, but I'll be min/maxing soon enough. :D

Re:Since when?

[Rich0]

That is one reason why I never really got into online gaming. I just want it to be casual, and online games have a few attributes I simply don't find fun:

1. They often require scheduling (coordinated events). Ugh, the last thing I need is another appointment.
2. They usually involve forcing you to waste time as a way of enforcing the cost of actions. Staring at a screen waiting for something to happen isn't fun.
3. They don't have a pause button. No, I'm not going to ignore the doorbell or phone call or family just for the lack of a pause button.
4. They usually don't let you save/quit at arbitrary times and pick up when you left off. Just an extension of #3.

I don't mind the concept of playing with other people. What I don't like is the concept of other people having to depend on me such that I'm causing them harm when I don't take the game seriously. I don't even mind playing serious games, as long as you can hit pause. I love to fly flight simulators but I can never fly them online for the same reason - if I want to fly across the ocean I'm not going to do that in real-time.

Mis-jump

[Dabido]

Don't you hate it when you mis-jump to Ironforge and a bunch of dwarves takes out your titan?

Re:I fucken LOVE IT...

[fredprado]

I agree somewhat with your last statement, but the odd cases of people who become obsessive with a game do not define the average player of the game. Eve does not "waste" your time, being obsessive about it does, as being obsessive about anything else will.

Hohoho

[alexanatbar]

online games is evil from them only problem ..

Re:Since when?

[Keen Anthony]

I've never tried Planetside, but I'll look into it, thanks. I get that I'm asking for something that probably wouldn't be very popular. I would like Battlefield/COD meets EVE Online. So, deep customization of my avatar's looks and equipment set in the near-future with contemporary weapons and a huge urban sprawl to explore. What I would really like is Mamoru Oshii's 2001 cyberpunk film "Avalon" If you haven't seen that movie, it's pretty dry. I'm still not sure whether it's what I would have expected from the creator of Ghost in the Shell.

Re:Since when?

[Luckyo]

You pretty much described planetside 2. It's pretty popular since it's free to play title too, but it will need a fairly beefy PC because zerg of hundreds of players takes a lot of machine power to render.

Re:Since when?

[Reapy]

You might be psyching yourself out. I mostly have the same sort of fears about getting online, but you can overcome a lot of those things or choose to do something that doesn't involve heavy requirements.

Coordinated events are usually the most fun, but I haven't participated in one in years for the reason you mentioned, but you have to not think of them as appointments, but something fun for yourself. At one point in time I likened MMO raiding to participating in an intramural sport. I had played volleyball in a YMCA league, and I signed up for a night a week, and it was pretty easy to know that when Thursday came around from 6 to 1030 I was playing volleyball, I was on the court or reffing, pretty obvious times for people to know that I won't be fielding phone calls or responding immediately to texts. People can understand that about sports, but have trouble when you explain that you are going on a raid, joining up with your wing to drop bombs, or practicing with your clan. Still, its blocking time aside for yourself to participate in a hobby you enjoy.

2. Hurry up and wait. I abolish those games/modes immediately, I have no time to wait, there are many that you dont have to wait out, especially if you and a bunch of other people have blocked the time out, its actually pretty fast to meet up and get going right away.

3 + 3. I agree with this for some games. I have enjoyed RTS games but I find the hyper focus for a long duration they require just won't work for my life at this point, so I avoid those. Basically if you find a game where you walking out immediately will ruin no ones experience but your own, you can just spec immediately, alt f4 out, or just stand up and leave your guy AFK.

Anyway no need to fear the online with limited time, it can be done!