Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Vhaln

You can still see spell effects (and be hit by them, etc) and hear character voices.  This suggests to me that it's not a network issue at all.  They just did absolutely nothing to preload quick placeholder graphics, or anything like that.  I think its because they're artistically obsessive about the look and feel of the game, and seem to prefer gameplay suffer, than have any rapid loading graphics that might look kinda lame for a bit, while the real characters and customizations load.

This sort of obsession with graphics over gameplay is yet another thing that's killing the massive, in massively multiplayer.

Preloading place-holders is a second rate fix.  It's not that bad looking in Tera, but absolutely horrid in Rift (green cylinders everywhere?).

I think it's because the issue is really fricken complicated, multi-faceted and doesn't have easy answers for every part of the problem. 

Yeah, but I don't understand why it has to look that bad.  Why not a generic version of each race/gender, first.  Then load the color scheme, because that can't be more than a few bits of data.  Then fill in all the customization?

I'm looking forward into more Guild stuff. My dream would be guildhalls (or "bases") in the open world. You know, the HUGE open world that is currently mostly devoid of players.

Oh and I'd like to be able to declare (mutually) a war between guilds and being able to fight it out in the open world. I need to figure out a name for this mechanic. How about "Guild Wars"?! Ohwell, sounds a bit weird, doesn't it?

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Vhaln

Originally posted by adam_nox
Culling isn't a graphics loading issue.  No one sees the invisible players, because it's a networking ans sync issue.  The fix talked about in this article makes me think they have no clue what's even going on.

You can still see spell effects (and be hit by them, etc) and hear character voices.  This suggests to me that it's not a network issue at all.  They just did absolutely nothing to preload quick placeholder graphics, or anything like that.  I think its because they're artistically obsessive about the look and feel of the game, and seem to prefer gameplay suffer, than have any rapid loading graphics that might look kinda lame for a bit, while the real characters and customizations load.

This sort of obsession with graphics over gameplay is yet another thing that's killing the massive, in massively multiplayer.

Preloading place-holders is a second rate fix.  It's not that bad looking in Tera, but absolutely horrid in Rift (green cylinders everywhere?).

I think it's because the issue is really fricken complicated, multi-faceted and doesn't have easy answers for every part of the problem.

 

@Quizzical - here are a couple posts explaining the problem and their work on the solutions.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Update-on-Culling/first#post1137307

This link is in the first post, but if you feel like skipping towards the detailed explanation first, here it is: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/The-real-problem-here-is-invisible-enemies-Give-their-algorithms-time-to-match-servers-properly/page/4#post356817

I think the TERA ones look bad. But its better than nothing I guess. EQ2 had pretty decent lower polygon models, although this sometimes looked bad with cloth mechanics not working on the low poly models.

Will wait and see what GW2 comes up with I guess. But yeah, surprising they didnt have model scaling in already, considering the massive scope they had with WvW and world events.

Originally posted by adam_nox
Culling isn't a graphics loading issue.  No one sees the invisible players, because it's a networking ans sync issue.  The fix talked about in this article makes me think they have no clue what's even going on.

I was also thinking that its not really a loading issue.

During the Lost Shores event I experienced the same behavior and I simply can't believe that my 4GHz machine with its 16GB RAM and an 500MB/s SSD can't load the players fast enough, at least it should do it within a few seconds and not minutes.

There are better MMOs out there for sure.

With that said, I want all the best wishes to ANet. No bad Blood there.

IMO its a bad algorithm along with a bandwidth restriction from NCsoft. I bet if they just lifted their bandwidth restrictions they would could fix culling but as of right now they have to put 10 lbs of shit in a 5 lb bag if that makes any sense.

I feel for the programmers here that have to make magic happen with nothing.

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Vhaln

Originally posted by adam_nox
Culling isn't a graphics loading issue.  No one sees the invisible players, because it's a networking ans sync issue.  The fix talked about in this article makes me think they have no clue what's even going on.

You can still see spell effects (and be hit by them, etc) and hear character voices.  This suggests to me that it's not a network issue at all.  They just did absolutely nothing to preload quick placeholder graphics, or anything like that.  I think its because they're artistically obsessive about the look and feel of the game, and seem to prefer gameplay suffer, than have any rapid loading graphics that might look kinda lame for a bit, while the real characters and customizations load.

This sort of obsession with graphics over gameplay is yet another thing that's killing the massive, in massively multiplayer.

Preloading place-holders is a second rate fix.  It's not that bad looking in Tera, but absolutely horrid in Rift (green cylinders everywhere?).

I think it's because the issue is really fricken complicated, multi-faceted and doesn't have easy answers for every part of the problem.

 

@Quizzical - here are a couple posts explaining the problem and their work on the solutions.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Update-on-Culling/first#post1137307

This link is in the first post, but if you feel like skipping towards the detailed explanation first, here it is: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/The-real-problem-here-is-invisible-enemies-Give-their-algorithms-time-to-match-servers-properly/page/4#post356817

I think the TERA ones look bad. But its better than nothing I guess. EQ2 had pretty decent lower polygon models, although this sometimes looked bad with cloth mechanics not working on the low poly models.

Will wait and see what GW2 comes up with I guess. But yeah, surprising they didnt have model scaling in already, considering the massive scope they had with WvW and world events.

The thing about placeholders is that you have to always keep them loaded because you never know when you'll need them--and don't have time to load something new when you find out that you need them, because the entire point of placeholders is that they're what you use while you're loading something else.  Vertex data doesn't actually take that much space, but textures can take a lot.  You really don't want to burn 100 MB in video memory on placeholders, or even 10 MB.  So it's a question of what you can do that takes very little space.

"...The word guild is in the name of the game, so it should be a main focus for gameplay...."

The "guild" in the name has nothing to do with in-game player guilds. It is about the wars between guilds that happened in lore from before the first Guild Wars game.

That said, yes in-game player guilds (especially PvE guilds) need something to do together in game.

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