Originally posted by Alberel

Originally posted by azzamasin

Whats the difference if you have players you cant see on another server or in another instance?

 

I find a strong sense of selective outrage in some posts on these forums.  Sorry to burst that little bubble you have or crack that shell around your precious ego but a game that features servers with others you cant see or communicate with is the exact same thing as having players you cant see or communicate with while in a seperate instance of a zone.

There is a major difference that you would have seen already if you'd read the thread.

Ten isolated servers mean ten isolated communities; that means you will regularly be playing with the same people and will get to know the community on your server. Individuals will develop repuations within that community (good and bad) and players will be more likely to form friendships with those they encounter regularly.

Ten instances on one mega-server leads to something very different; those people are switching around all over the place which essentially means it's one HUGE community ten times the size of the isolated server example. This means that you very rarely encounter a player more than once due to there being ten possible different versions of the same place. This means that individuals cannot build a reputation for themselves because they just get lost in the crowd.

This also leads to one of the most endemic problems of the WoW-era MMO community: a lack of consequence for anti-social behaviour. WoW's dungeon finder (which combines many servers into one pool) makes it inconsequential to troll whereas the isolated server example would see such a person develop a bad rep and ultimately shunned by the community unless they started playing nice.

There is a VERY distinct difference between servers and instances, because instances are designed to be easy to move between and that means there is no persistence in the community. Persistence is one of the concepts the MMO genre is built on, so yeah I'd say it's a big deal when a mechanic removes it.

What if each separate instance of this mega server is actually the size of a normal server?  Instead of holding 100 people it can hold 2k+ people?  Then any argument you have is null and void.

Originally posted by Sirmaki

@ OP : Please explain how this is worse than all the "invisible players" being on a completely separate server that one of you would have to pay to be switched to?

 

I mean seriously? This solves the problem of realizing an acquaintance also plays your fav. MMO, but on a different server. Ah well, that sucks.

 

For the slow among you, ESO won't have that problem. So please, tell me what the actual problem is.....

Sir I cant believe someone has to explain the difference to you.  Just stop and THINK about it for 10 mins before you post.

Originally posted by azzamasin

Originally posted by Alberel

Originally posted by azzamasin

Whats the difference if you have players you cant see on another server or in another instance?

 

I find a strong sense of selective outrage in some posts on these forums.  Sorry to burst that little bubble you have or crack that shell around your precious ego but a game that features servers with others you cant see or communicate with is the exact same thing as having players you cant see or communicate with while in a seperate instance of a zone.

There is a major difference that you would have seen already if you'd read the thread.

Ten isolated servers mean ten isolated communities; that means you will regularly be playing with the same people and will get to know the community on your server. Individuals will develop repuations within that community (good and bad) and players will be more likely to form friendships with those they encounter regularly.

Ten instances on one mega-server leads to something very different; those people are switching around all over the place which essentially means it's one HUGE community ten times the size of the isolated server example. This means that you very rarely encounter a player more than once due to there being ten possible different versions of the same place. This means that individuals cannot build a reputation for themselves because they just get lost in the crowd.

This also leads to one of the most endemic problems of the WoW-era MMO community: a lack of consequence for anti-social behaviour. WoW's dungeon finder (which combines many servers into one pool) makes it inconsequential to troll whereas the isolated server example would see such a person develop a bad rep and ultimately shunned by the community unless they started playing nice.

There is a VERY distinct difference between servers and instances, because instances are designed to be easy to move between and that means there is no persistence in the community. Persistence is one of the concepts the MMO genre is built on, so yeah I'd say it's a big deal when a mechanic removes it.

What if each separate instance of this mega server is actually the size of a normal server?  Instead of holding 100 people it can hold 2k+ people?  Then any argument you have is null and void.

Not really, the instances are not persistant worlds like isolated servers. The instances open and close as necessary, and the world can be in a different state from instance to instance meaning there is no persistance from the view of the player.

If each instance held as many people as you suggest then that would only make it worse; with that many players hopping between instances you really would never see the same person twice...

Originally posted by Alberel

Originally posted by azzamasin

Originally posted by Alberel

Originally posted by azzamasin

Whats the difference if you have players you cant see on another server or in another instance?

 

I find a strong sense of selective outrage in some posts on these forums.  Sorry to burst that little bubble you have or crack that shell around your precious ego but a game that features servers with others you cant see or communicate with is the exact same thing as having players you cant see or communicate with while in a seperate instance of a zone.

There is a major difference that you would have seen already if you'd read the thread.

Ten isolated servers mean ten isolated communities; that means you will regularly be playing with the same people and will get to know the community on your server. Individuals will develop repuations within that community (good and bad) and players will be more likely to form friendships with those they encounter regularly.

Ten instances on one mega-server leads to something very different; those people are switching around all over the place which essentially means it's one HUGE community ten times the size of the isolated server example. This means that you very rarely encounter a player more than once due to there being ten possible different versions of the same place. This means that individuals cannot build a reputation for themselves because they just get lost in the crowd.

This also leads to one of the most endemic problems of the WoW-era MMO community: a lack of consequence for anti-social behaviour. WoW's dungeon finder (which combines many servers into one pool) makes it inconsequential to troll whereas the isolated server example would see such a person develop a bad rep and ultimately shunned by the community unless they started playing nice.

There is a VERY distinct difference between servers and instances, because instances are designed to be easy to move between and that means there is no persistence in the community. Persistence is one of the concepts the MMO genre is built on, so yeah I'd say it's a big deal when a mechanic removes it.

What if each separate instance of this mega server is actually the size of a normal server?  Instead of holding 100 people it can hold 2k+ people?  Then any argument you have is null and void.

Not really, the instances are not persistant worlds like isolated servers. The instances open and close as necessary, and the world can be in a different state from instance to instance meaning there is no persistance from the view of the player.

If each instance held as many people as you suggest then that would only make it worse; with that many players hopping between instances you really would never see the same person twice...

why are so many people "hopping instances" ?  if they want to be in the role players instance why would they swap out of it?

Are people really starting to defend this? Dear lord. The one title I had hoped people would break the marketing hype cancer with was this travesty of a 'mmo'.

Looks like it going to happen again, as it has done before, again, again, again and again. 

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

Originally posted by Hostar

MMOs are more mainstream these days. Hell, I remember when Mythic were proud and did a server broadcast because they had 500 users online at one time in Dark age of Camelot.

It is in that light you need to be realistic about your servers. You need to accept the fact your game might attract MILLIONS of players now. You can either choose to entertain the instancing system or you need to set up more and more servers.

Sure, you lose a bit of immersion with the instancing systems but a "game breaker?" Not sure i'd call it that. Especially if each instance holds 2000 players. It becomes a mild annoyance when wanting to play with friends.

Frankly i'd rather see MMOs go with this type of architecture because inevitably you avoid the age old problem of server A which has lag, queues and 10,000 people vs server B which has 1000 players and is dead as a doornail, thus forcing even more onto server A.

I'm struggling to see how having 10 unique servers with a 2000 player cap vs one server with a 2000 player instance cap is in any way different.

It's not any different and is, in fact, much better. However, show me one game that has done this? Instead, we only have examples of games that limit 100-200 people per instance, such as SWTOR, AoC, STO and so on.

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

How about option 3 where the game doesn't look amazing, but passable, yet in return allows me to play with thousands of people?

Originally posted by karmath

Are people really starting to defend this? Dear lord. The one title I had hoped people would break the marketing hype cancer with was this travesty of a 'mmo'.

Looks like it going to happen again, as it has done before, again, again, again and again. 

Yep, reminds me of GW2's community. They'll defend every feature to death, shout down even fans that criticize, and then a few weeks after release, those same fanbois will trash the game. Just like GW2.

So basically this dude has an issue with idea and that's cool he'll play another game if he can't get over it. What i do like about it that kind of blows all the issues with it up is, no server transfers, no server mergers, groups and guilds can all be in the same shard who gives a crap about anyone else.

Peace

Lascer

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

How about option 3 where the game doesn't look amazing, but passable, yet in return allows me to play with thousands of people?

Its not the graphics that stops developers from building a seemless world with thousands of players, its the moving objects and server load. It could look like minecraft and still crash. Its the moving objects. People will never get that part of game development. Those same people need to just get over the fact that it will not happen. Not with this game, not with the next big game. There all built off what they can handle server wise. Trust me when i say this, the hardest part about making a game isnt the game itself. The hardest part is getting it took work over a network with the intention of supporting thousands of players. And this is why you will continue to get phasing/instancing. Now if someone really wants to help out, start using some of that free time to develop a server of that caliber.

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

How about option 3 where the game doesn't look amazing, but passable, yet in return allows me to play with thousands of people?

Its not the graphics that stops developers from building a seemless world with thousands of players, its the moving objects and server load. It could look like minecraft and still crash. Its the moving objects. People will never get that part of game development. Those same people need to just get over the fact that it will not happen. Not with this game, not with the next big game. There all built off what they can handle server wise. Trust me when i say this, the hardest part about making a game isnt the game itself. The hardest part is getting it took work over a network with the intention of supporting thousands of players. And this is why you will continue to get phasing/instancing. Now if someone really wants to help out, start using some of that free time to develop a server of that caliber.

Yea, majority of players won't understand hardware limitations. If companies could have everyone on one server, they would've done it already, especially considering the cost effectiveness. 

Originally posted by Pocahinha
lol damn these developers keep making instanced games and have the nerve to call them mmorpgs... An instanced game with 1 server and multiple copyes of the zones is NOT an mmorpg.

That is according to you.

Show me where in the definition of an MMORPG that it states there can be no instances?

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by BadSpock

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Spock.

If having servers is such a bad approach. Explain wow.

The only reason GW2 went with it was WvW.

 

And because, its a good design idea that's worked more or less flawlessly since MMOs were invented?

And don't forget that this game is supposed to have RvR too, just like GW2 and DAoC.

No, it was entirely down to the WvW. In every other aspect of the game they intend to make it super easy to group with people cross server.

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by BadSpock

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Spock.

If having servers is such a bad approach. Explain wow.

The only reason GW2 went with it was WvW.

 

And because, its a good design idea that's worked more or less flawlessly since MMOs were invented?

And don't forget that this game is supposed to have RvR too, just like GW2 and DAoC.

No, it was entirely down to the WvW. In every other aspect of the game they intend to make it super easy to group with people cross server.

he must have forgotten about overflow and guesting.

Originally posted by doragon86

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

How about option 3 where the game doesn't look amazing, but passable, yet in return allows me to play with thousands of people?

Its not the graphics that stops developers from building a seemless world with thousands of players, its the moving objects and server load. It could look like minecraft and still crash. Its the moving objects. People will never get that part of game development. Those same people need to just get over the fact that it will not happen. Not with this game, not with the next big game. There all built off what they can handle server wise. Trust me when i say this, the hardest part about making a game isnt the game itself. The hardest part is getting it took work over a network with the intention of supporting thousands of players. And this is why you will continue to get phasing/instancing. Now if someone really wants to help out, start using some of that free time to develop a server of that caliber.

Yea, majority of players won't understand hardware limitations. If companies could have everyone on one server, they would've done it already, especially considering the cost effectiveness. 

Well I'm certainly no expert, but explain how all the older games managed to do it? With an up-to-date machine (at the time), I didn't have a whole lot of trouble with lag in heavily populated areas in other games. Mytic used to show server populations for DAoC and I remember them being around 3k in its prime. That 3k was, of course, spread across all 3 realms. If you're going to say newer MMORPG's have more moving parts per area than older games, then let me rephrase my other post and say that I'd be fine with an MMO with just as much moving parts as the older games and Vanguard, a newer game, and not have multiple instances of the same zone. 100-200 people per map before it duplicates is really bad IMHO and that's all I've seen with modern MMORPG's that use the technology you're defending.

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by doragon86

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

How about option 3 where the game doesn't look amazing, but passable, yet in return allows me to play with thousands of people?

Its not the graphics that stops developers from building a seemless world with thousands of players, its the moving objects and server load. It could look like minecraft and still crash. Its the moving objects. People will never get that part of game development. Those same people need to just get over the fact that it will not happen. Not with this game, not with the next big game. There all built off what they can handle server wise. Trust me when i say this, the hardest part about making a game isnt the game itself. The hardest part is getting it took work over a network with the intention of supporting thousands of players. And this is why you will continue to get phasing/instancing. Now if someone really wants to help out, start using some of that free time to develop a server of that caliber.

Yea, majority of players won't understand hardware limitations. If companies could have everyone on one server, they would've done it already, especially considering the cost effectiveness. 

Well I'm certainly no expert, but explain how all the older games managed to do it? With an up-to-date machine (at the time), I didn't have a whole lot of trouble with lag in heavily populated areas in other games. Mytic used to show server populations for DAoC and I remember them being around 3k in its prime. That 3k was, of course, spread across all 3 realms. If you're going to say newer MMORPG's have more moving parts per area than older games, then let me rephrase my other post and say that I'd be fine with an MMO with just as much moving parts as the older games and Vanguard, a newer game, and not have multiple instances of the same zone. 100-200 people per map before it duplicates is really bad IMHO and that's all I've seen with modern MMORPG's that use the technology you're defending.

100-200 is bad.  but,  the worlds game developers have created are also heavily zoned and therefore smaller.  smaller areas mean less people per area in order make sure it runs smoothly. 

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

Yes. DAOC, Darkfall, hell even at release Warhammer had some pretty high numbers in endgame RvR. 

More recently, Planetside 2.

Please stop spouting what zenimax's staff has said as impossible or too hard. It's not, not by a long shot. Zenimax has been in damage control since day one, and will continue to spout utter lies as fact right up to release of the game. 

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

Yes. DAOC, Darkfall, hell even at release Warhammer had some pretty high numbers in endgame RvR. 

More recently, Planetside 2.

Please stop spouting what zenimax's staff has said as impossible or too hard. It's not, not by a long shot. Zenimax has been in damage control since day one, and will continue to spout utter lies as fact right up to release of the game. 

would you say that guild wars 2 is more technologically advanced than those titles?  (generally curious as to your opinion,  not attacking you)  that game has some major culling issues.  i never played DAoC but,  did that game suffer any performance issues?  im curious as to why a deccade later developers would seem to revert their stance on open worlds when tech. seems to have only gotten better. 

Originally posted by muffins89

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Wow 7 pages worth of threads and no one mentions the obvious. Im not here to defend what they are doing, but there is a reason. It's called game programming. Have you ever in your life seen a seemless world that can support hundreds of thousands of players on one server? You could probably answer yes to that on one game, EVE. But heres where things go wrong, ENTITIES!!!!!! You can only have so many moving objects on a screen before the server load gets to high and eventually crashes. If anyone of you have ever read anything John Carmack has written, then you would see why it can't happen with todays technology. There isnt one server that could handle 10000+ players on top of NPC's and the like.

So the question really is, would you rather play a game that crashes constantly but looks amazing and you can play with everyone, or would you rather have smooth gameplay and no crashes and only play with a select few? Trust me on this, you will never see a one server seemless world anytime soon. Getting over this now will help you move on and maybe you can start enjoying what you have.

Yes. DAOC, Darkfall, hell even at release Warhammer had some pretty high numbers in endgame RvR. 

More recently, Planetside 2.

Please stop spouting what zenimax's staff has said as impossible or too hard. It's not, not by a long shot. Zenimax has been in damage control since day one, and will continue to spout utter lies as fact right up to release of the game. 

would you say that guild wars 2 is more technologically advanced than those titles?  (generally curious as to your opinion,  not attacking you)  that game has some major culling issues.  i never played DAoC but,  did that game suffer any performance issues?  im curious as to why a deccade later developers would seem to revert their stance on open worlds when tech. seems to have only gotten better. 

No I wouldnt say gw2 is more 'advanced' than pretty much anything other than the hero engine. The gw2 engine is actually the gw 1 engine patched up, it was pretty average to begin with, so when you make software (and hardware for that matter) do things it wasnt originally designed for you get lag. An optimised non laggy engine needs to be written from the ground up with mutlicore and threaded support.