Originally posted by MajorBiggs

I just played a game session of DDO, and that game is kind-of twitchy. But I dont feel like im swinging a sword or hitting someone with an axe.

Maybe! if there was an mmo made with twitch mechanics and the source engine! wait.....that's Twilight War (post apoc mmo) and last i heard it got cancelled and replaced by fallen earth.

Right, well... we'll see when it comes out.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Are you high? I'm listening to a cracking album atm so I'm in a spanking mood atm so I'm going to try to agree with you at all costs. For a single player game, yes client side is king. That's the best I can do I'm afraid.

Uh, of course a single player game is going to use client side hit detection.  THERE IS NO SERVER.  Please point out a single triple A title FPS that uses server side hit detection.  I sure don't know of any.  At least not any that have been made in the past 6-7 years or so.

Have you actually played a F2P game that uses it like Gunz?  A single lagger can ruin a game.  Your only option is to boot the person if you can or find a new game.  When you compare this to the downside of client side hit detection (aimbots) you'll find that laggers are much more rampant.  It's much easier to force lag than program or find an aimbot.  It's also easier to deal with players who aimbot over laggers, since much of the time it's not the laggers fault they are lagging and they should be allowed to have as much of an enjoyable game experience as someone with a better connection than them (and certainly shouldn't ruin the person with a better connection's game experience).

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any game programmer or designer who thinks server side hit detection is superior to client side.  I'd like to know your reasoning (you haven't stated one in any of your posts) as to why server side is superior.

Firstly, the single player thing, I know, I was taking the piss. Now on with the rest of the discussion. Why do you think they use cshd? You got it! They have NO CHOICE. For an mmofps to work they HAVE TO use cshd, the internet simply isn't in a possition to support anything else with results that would be playable. Edit: After rereading this Irealised it would be possible but it would require a server array so vast in size that the game would become unprofitable or have subs in the $100's, even then with diminished returns I'm not convinced.

This leads to a few points, what is the reason that all non fps mmo's use serverside? Because people cheat, plain and simple, they cheat whilst even playing single player games. So when they are given the chance to port everywhere and pwn peeps they do. Now in some games that may not be a big thing as it may not impact other peoples game, but in an mmofps is absolutely gamebreaking, as DarkFall is finding out.

Now lets take planetside as an example, I still play and have done since beta because I can accept that there are a huge number of hackers playing but from experience I can still beat them if they are crap or new. But it really doesn't matter how experienced I am if they can instant 2 shot bolt driver me while cloaked. Unless a dev or GM is actively watching at the time they hack there is no way they are getting banned. For most people this is where they hit the unsub button.

Now lets take Darkfall which also uses cs but also has more traditional mmo features such as loot and grinds etc then we are talking a whole new level of fked up. Instead of just invisibly one shotting me he can also loot all my gear and cash. Once people realise (as they eventually did in ps) how easy it is to hack, they leave after pissing around for a bit themselves, the game loses any value or sense of acheivment.

Thats why serverside is not only superior to clientside in an mmo but is imo vital. Now while its true that in games like cod and cs it is still possible to hack it is not possible to port about the place, fly, alter damage values, go invisible. In fact the only aspects of those game that you can hack are.... wait for it.... clientside. But there obviously always has to be a degree of clientside processing the trick is to keep it to a minimum and have no vital data there.

In my 2.5 years of Planetside, perhaps 2-3 fights out of tens of thousands involved cheating. A ridiculously low number. Perhaps things have changed since I played, but 2.5 years is a damn long time to see that little cheating.

So Planetside's "disadvantage" for using CSHD is 2-3 cheaters out of tens of thousands of fights, while its advantage is that in each of those tens of thousands of fights my weapons were responsive, accurate, and landed shots reliably on the enemy. F PS games live or die based on weapon responsiveness - based on seeing your shots hit and knowing they hit. Current SSHD tech is simply incapable of achieving that.

If the naysayers cannot cite example games that use SSHD successfully, they're full of crap.  Because 99.9% of FPSes out there use CSHD, and it's not by accident: it's because it's better.  And the 0.1% of games that try to use SSHD?  They're terrible!

From all I've heard, DFO is simply a poorly managed game.  Poor coding is poor coding.

..which of course brings up the possibility that Gunz is poorly coded -- except that unlike DFO there aren't hundreds of examples of SSHD working in a FPS setting, but there are hundreds of examples of CSHD working.

Maybe that's why I havent had a chance to enjoy a Fpsmmo?

I always thought they felt slow and loose, I could never really get into them like CS or Half-life 2.

Maybe one day someone will create one with tight controls and i'll change my tune about RPG only combat systems in mmos.

Originally posted by Axehilt

In my 2.5 years of Planetside, perhaps 2-3 fights out of tens of thousands involved cheating. A ridiculously low number. Perhaps things have changed since I played, but 2.5 years is a damn long time to see that little cheating.

To recap, Planetside's "disadvantage" for using CSHD is 2-3 cheaters out of tens of thousands of fights, while its advantage is that in each of those tens of thousands of fights my weapons were responsive, accurate, and landed shots reliably on the enemy.

If the naysayers cannot cite example games that use SSHD successfully, they're full of crap.  Because 99.9% of FPSes out there use CSHD, and it's not by accident: it's because it's better.  And the 0.1% of games that try to use SSHD?  They're terrible!

FPS games live or die based on weapon responsiveness - based on seeing your shots hit and knowing they hit.  SSHD cannot achieve that.

However you must admit the incentive to cheat in a persistant world is much greater than in a game where losing is merely a statistic. In an MMO a simple rumor people are cheating is enough to make paying customers quit. Also you may have been cheated hundreds of times and not know it. Only stupid people cheat in obvious ways.

Originally posted by zymurgeist 

However you must admit the incentive to cheat in a persistant world is much greater than in a game where losing is merely a statistic. 

That's partly why I'm so convinced CSHD works (that, and the legions of other working CSHD games, and the tiny room of 1 malfunctioning SSHD game.)

All that incentive, yet I seriously only witnessed cheating those 2-3 times.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by zymurgeist 

However you must admit the incentive to cheat in a persistant world is much greater than in a game where losing is merely a statistic. 

That's partly why I'm so convinced CSHD works (that, and the legions of other working CSHD games, and the tiny room of 1 malfunctioning SSHD game.)

All that incentive, yet I was seriously only witnessed cheating those 2-3 times.

So you were only caught cheating 2-3 times? I'm not sure I get your point.

I think what zymur was aluding to is that the current fps's mmo or not that use cshd are awashed with hackers, counterstrike or planetside for example. Those are games where there is little to gain from killing, the enemy simply rezzes and heads back with no detriment other than time. In games where there are other things at stake such as loot, flying boats, clan castles etc the draw to cheat and benefits from doing are so much more rewarding how bad will those games be?

On a side note if you think you were only killed by cheats 2-3 time in 2.5 years you're delusional. Only last night we had a breko on banning people for being idiots, they were going around insta-capping basses on a cont. He later told everyone how they were all 5 year-vets, how likely do you think it is they only just started cheating and doing something so blatant.

If everyone saw atleast 2-3 cheaters in game wouldn;t that mean a whole bunch of cheating was going on?

Originally posted by whatamidoing

The thread basically says most of it all. First of all what's wrong with them?...every MMO that I've played that's tried to implement free aiming/FPS style aiming has felt slow, unresponsive, clunky and awkward to boot (basically they tend to feel like so pop-up games where you shoot the targets).

You said can't even remember the combat from DDO. There have only been a few MMOG's that have tried to implement free aiming systems. Which ones did you try? The only other two I can think of are Darkfall and Spellborn. Both were first time MMOG's by small companies. Just to clarify, I'm talking about non-shooter MMOG's since Oblivion was used as an example.

Also, saying that its slow, clunky, or unresponsive is a matter of reference. Compared to other MMOG's both Spellborn and and DDO are much more responsive and less clunky than games like WAR, LotRO, and WoW. Compared to pure shooters they probably do seem clunky, but pure shooters are nothing like Oblivion either.

So lately I've revisited Arx Fatalis. Its pure first person, manual aiming, and definitely feels like you're swinging a sword. Its almost just like Oblivion in many regards. But I seriously don't think the combat system would be desirable in a MMOG. It ends up being repetitive hack hack block, hack hack block. Its fun for a change, but would be boring as hell in the long run. Combat systems really need things like the weapon selections of DDO, or the skill deck of Spellborn to keep them interesting.

Coming up we have a few shooter MMOG's. Crimecraft is nothing more than a persistent lobby with CS-like matches. It will have the right shooter feel, but not the right MMOG feel. Then there is Fallen Earth, but it hardly counts since its twitch aiming is very rudimentary. I definitely wouldn't call it a twitch game. I know there are other games, but those are the only two I have seen in action.

Of all these games, DDO takes the crown for twitch and reflexes. All the level 5+ content requires a fair amount of player skill, coordination, planning, and knowledge. If only they made the game a bit more persistent open world with a real crafting system...

Originally posted by JGMIII

If everyone saw atleast 2-3 cheaters in game wouldn;t that mean a whole bunch of cheating was going on?

 

Cheating was not bad or really relevant until the game hit its 5th year. People need to keep in mind, this game was the first of its kind, no other FPS had this kind of battles (still don't), and it came out in 2003.

People have had a LONG time to make hacks, and due to SOE not developing the game, it only got worse.

Its a very old game, with a very old code base, and many many years under its belt. However, until recently, hacking/cheating was not rampant.

Say what you want, but it is one of the greatest MMOFPS of all time. You will still, to this day, not find the game play it provides.

Obviously the previous post had a typo (corrected); I don't cheat in games - it ruins the point of them.

I make no claims about the existing state of Planetside; at this point it's been out many years, and the dev team has long since been rolled back to the bare minimum needed to keep the game running.  It's entirely possible the game is full of cheaters by this point (long after dev support has been sufficient for it).  3 years is a damn long time to run with near-zero cheating though, and they would've kept it near-cheat-free for as long as the community supported the game.  With subscriber loss comes dev loss though.

I'm not delusional.  Those 2-3 times were the only I can recall, and were speedhacking (people zipping around in MAXes).  Perhaps if you could mention specific other types of hacks you witnessed, I might remember more?

While hacking might be prevalent now, it'd take a lot to convince me it was prevalent in early PS when I played.  Mostly because (A) I never cheated and yet (B) I probably received a staggering 50 cheat accusations against me in those same 2.5 years.   Most of whom would say in a forum that they'd been victim of a hacker.  The vast amount of accusations vs. the tiny amount of actual hacking I witnessed makes it very hard to take hacking claims seriously.

Originally posted by Sarr

You're welcome. But I'd encourage you to try it AFTER Module 9 hits live - it will be anounced on MMORPG.COM for sure : ). There's so many changes in that mod, very good for newcomers, that you could spoil everything by playing now, hehe ; ).

This game changed since those 3 years so much, that people coming back were amazed. There's something "big" going on behind the scenes too, but Turbine still keeps secrecy. They bring major investment in DDO and want to expand it's growth drastically. How? We still wait for Mod 9 and info... Mod 9 was already on test servers, now it seems Turbine's already working on Module 10 - probably some legal issues, like changing publisher may be keeping them from realeasing Mod 9 already.

Here are my videos of DDO combat . Xfire was causing some glitches, but generally it's playing fine:

www.xfire.com/video/b7a7c/

www.xfire.com/video/b7a51/

www.xfire.com/video/b7a43/

www.xfire.com/video/b8182/

And game intro + new character screen:

www.xfire.com/video/bbc6e/

Check those out. I'll try to port them later on youtube : ).

PS: I DOES count as MMO much more than GW : ). WoW isn't a definition of an MMO. Fully open world isn't a definition too, it's just an old way of thinking about it : ).
And DDO is much more MMORPG than WoW in my opinion - I played them all and many others. DDO is 100% real MMO, GW is... I wouldn't say it's 100% MMOish. It's more like a big multi PvP game, while DDO is about socializing, exploring, questing, finding traps, hidden passages, ways to overcame obastacles and roleplaying. GW lacks in those areas, it's like a vast PvP game with a fantasy background.

I watched those videos last night, and I have to say: The gameplay on DDO looks absolutely perfect, top notch. Same goes with the graphics, that dungeon looked brilliant and somehow reminded me of Diablo.

But, it makes me want to cry that it's just another instanced restricted PvP game. :(

Originally posted by Axehilt

In my 2.5 years of Planetside, perhaps 2-3 fights out of tens of thousands involved cheating. A ridiculously low number. Perhaps things have changed since I played, but 2.5 years is a damn long time to see that little cheating.

So Planetside's "disadvantage" for using CSHD is 2-3 cheaters out of tens of thousands of fights, while its advantage is that in each of those tens of thousands of fights my weapons were responsive, accurate, and landed shots reliably on the enemy. F PS games live or die based on weapon responsiveness - based on seeing your shots hit and knowing they hit. Current SSHD tech is simply incapable of achieving that.

If the naysayers cannot cite example games that use SSHD successfully, they're full of crap.  Because 99.9% of FPSes out there use CSHD, and it's not by accident: it's because it's better.  And the 0.1% of games that try to use SSHD?  They're terrible!

From all I've heard, DFO is simply a poorly managed game.  Poor coding is poor coding.

..which of course brings up the possibility that Gunz is poorly coded -- except that unlike DFO there aren't hundreds of examples of SSHD working in a FPS setting, but there are hundreds of examples of CSHD working.

Counterstrike uses SSHD just like any other source title: www.worldofpwnage.com/pg/networking.php

Unreal Tournament and Gears of War use SSHD

Battlefield series always have used SSHD

The list goes on and on.... These games use client/server architecture otherwise they would be overrun with hacks galore. The server is the authority because clients cannot be trusted reliably of course.

Think about it:

We have a player named Jimmy that has a hit radius of 10 in a Deathmatch:

Client A sees Jimmy at (34,50) and fires

Client B, due to lag, sees Jimmy at (10, 5) and fires

What just happened? Clients, unless they are 0 ping with the server, do not have an accurate representation of the world. In reality, they are merely running local simulations of 'what they think' the actual world is like. The server replicates velocities of all objects in the world to the client to keep them in sync.

Only the server has the 'real world' in client/server architecture. Everyone else are like dumb terminals, only outputing their representations of the game world. Thus, the server only trusts the bare minimum of information coming from the client and constantly runs checks to validate they are not running through walls (server side collision detection) and verifying hits

Here is an excerpt from the CS document I'm quoting for clarity:

"This screenshot was taken on a listen server with 200 milliseconds of lag (using net_fakelag), right after the server confirmed the hit."

Client side, or server side. Is irrelevant. a good FPS is a good FPS. Please stop with the armchair. In boath cases the quility of the coding and mesures taken are what curb hacking.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Client side, or server side. Is irrelevant. a good FPS is a good FPS. Please stop with the armchair. In boath cases the quility of the coding and mesures taken are what curb hacking.

Thats the thing its highly questionable how good an MMOFPS is if it has to resort to client side hit detection- a technology that is definitely not in mainstream use in FPS

Hard to call something an 'MMOFPS' when it makes a severe departure from basic client/server architecture FPS gamers are used to

My point being, if Planetside really isn't a true MMOFPS then what proof do people have MMOFPS is successful at all? I personally never considered PS an FPS that has never been proof too me.

What is more reliable proof of 'twitch' to some extent is Chronicles of Spellborn (to some extent) and Darkfall. I believe DFO at least uses server side hit detection since it relies on projectiles which is the way to go for MMOs.

Anyway the main kicker against MMOFPS is why should I pay $15 a month for something I can get done very well for free in an FPS? Hell, FPS gamers can even get PVE done much better then MMOs without the grind. We beat Halo 3 a bunch of times and Left 4 Dead is killer fun

Originally posted by mrw0lf

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Are you high? I'm listening to a cracking album atm so I'm in a spanking mood atm so I'm going to try to agree with you at all costs. For a single player game, yes client side is king. That's the best I can do I'm afraid.

Uh, of course a single player game is going to use client side hit detection.  THERE IS NO SERVER.  Please point out a single triple A title FPS that uses server side hit detection.  I sure don't know of any.  At least not any that have been made in the past 6-7 years or so.

Have you actually played a F2P game that uses it like Gunz?  A single lagger can ruin a game.  Your only option is to boot the person if you can or find a new game.  When you compare this to the downside of client side hit detection (aimbots) you'll find that laggers are much more rampant.  It's much easier to force lag than program or find an aimbot.  It's also easier to deal with players who aimbot over laggers, since much of the time it's not the laggers fault they are lagging and they should be allowed to have as much of an enjoyable game experience as someone with a better connection than them (and certainly shouldn't ruin the person with a better connection's game experience).

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any game programmer or designer who thinks server side hit detection is superior to client side.  I'd like to know your reasoning (you haven't stated one in any of your posts) as to why server side is superior.

 

Firstly, the single player thing, I know, I was taking the piss. Now on with the rest of the discussion. Why do you think they use cshd? You got it! They have NO CHOICE. For an mmofps to work they HAVE TO use cshd, the internet simply isn't in a possition to support anything else with results that would be playable. Edit: After rereading this Irealised it would be possible but it would require a server array so vast in size that the game would become unprofitable or have subs in the $100's, even then with diminished returns I'm not convinced.

This leads to a few points, what is the reason that all non fps mmo's use serverside? Because people cheat, plain and simple, they cheat whilst even playing single player games. So when they are given the chance to port everywhere and pwn peeps they do. Now in some games that may not be a big thing as it may not impact other peoples game, but in an mmofps is absolutely gamebreaking, as DarkFall is finding out.

Now lets take planetside as an example, I still play and have done since beta because I can accept that there are a huge number of hackers playing but from experience I can still beat them if they are crap or new. But it really doesn't matter how experienced I am if they can instant 2 shot bolt driver me while cloaked. Unless a dev or GM is actively watching at the time they hack there is no way they are getting banned. For most people this is where they hit the unsub button.

Now lets take Darkfall which also uses cs but also has more traditional mmo features such as loot and grinds etc then we are talking a whole new level of fked up. Instead of just invisibly one shotting me he can also loot all my gear and cash. Once people realise (as they eventually did in ps) how easy it is to hack, they leave after pissing around for a bit themselves, the game loses any value or sense of acheivment.

Thats why serverside is not only superior to clientside in an mmo but is imo vital. Now while its true that in games like cod and cs it is still possible to hack it is not possible to port about the place, fly, alter damage values, go invisible. In fact the only aspects of those game that you can hack are.... wait for it.... clientside. But there obviously always has to be a degree of clientside processing the trick is to keep it to a minimum and have no vital data there.

Is Darkfall clientside? That would explain all the hacks..... I never looked into their architecture.

Originally posted by PatchDay 

Counterstrike uses SSHD just like any other source title: www.worldofpwnage.com/pg/networking.php

Okay, well the Input Prediction and Lag Compensation sections are the systems I have incorrectly been referring to as CSHD.

Now that I've admitted calling them the wrong things, the original point remains: Planetside felt exactly like the Source engine in terms of "when I see a bullet hit locally, I know I've done damage."  And that's really the most important thing for a FPS to feel responsive and useful.

Originally posted by PatchDay

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Client side, or server side. Is irrelevant. a good FPS is a good FPS. Please stop with the armchair. In boath cases the quility of the coding and mesures taken are what curb hacking.

Thats the thing its highly questionable how good an MMOFPS is if it has to resort to client side hit detection- a technology that is definitely not in mainstream use in FPS

Hard to call something an 'MMOFPS' when it makes a severe departure from basic client/server architecture FPS gamers are used to

 

My point being, if Planetside really isn't a true MMOFPS then what proof do people have MMOFPS is successful at all? I personally never considered PS an FPS that has never been proof too me.

What is more reliable proof of 'twitch' to some extent is Chronicles of Spellborn (to some extent) and Darkfall. I believe DFO at least uses server side hit detection since it relies on projectiles which is the way to go for MMOs.

Being a FPS has NOTHING to do with how its subsystems are handled. a Good FPS is a good FPS, it does not matter if it uses client side or sever side. Planetside uses Client side so it could support 150 x 150 x150 battles. It did this, does it matter how its done? No.

Planetside is a true MMOFPS, one of the first to be correct.

And no, DFO uses client side for just about everything. as far as hacking, it does not matter how something is done, it matters how it is implemented code wise, and security wise. This is called being competent in your chosen field. Planetisde was fine for about 4+ years,until development stopped, and the code base stagnated, making hacking viable because nothing ever changed.

Your attempt to keep trying to say that planetside is not a FPS using semantics, and pointing to subsystems that do not have any bearing on the definition of FPS, is growing thin.

Originally posted by PatchDay

Anyway the main kicker against MMOFPS is why should I pay $15 a month for something I can get done very well for free in an FPS? Hell, FPS gamers can even get PVE done much better then MMOs without the grind. We beat Halo 3 a bunch of times and Left 4 Dead is killer fun 

Basically it boils down to Planetside offering something no other FPS has offered - incredibly epic warfare.  I've played a huge variety of FPSes, and even if you include every non-FPS I've ever played Planetside still stands head and shoulders above any other game in terms of the epic warfare it offered.

It's like the futuristic equivalent of the Warcraft 3 intro cutscene where Humans and Orcs pour over hillsides in vast swarms to engage each other.

This thread is the first I've heard of MAG.  If it's released for PC, it may be the first game to really offer the epic warfare Planetside did, and I'd likely subscribe for quite a while to it.

The majority of MMOFPSes seem to provide similar experiences to those found in FPSes, which is sort of disappointing when the best MMOFPS was the one that provided something truly unique, and really capitalized on being an MMO.

EDIT:  Whoa...people are questioning whether Planetside is a MMOFPS?  WTF?   My average interaction with other players in WOW ranged from 5-25 players at a time.  My average interaction with other players in PS fights was like 30vs30 (with 200vs200vs200 occurring at times, and 150vs150 being very common.)

No other MMO deserved the title "MMO" as much as Planetside imo.