Originally posted by eric_w66

I wasn't confused. I meant exactly what I said. Eve's world is subdivided into regions. Eve basically lets you move from "server to server" for free all the time. EQ1 charged you for that service. Sure, it is still part of "one world", but since that "world" is merely chat (the economy does not spill over from region to region directly), how innovative is it? It isn't. And eve gets away with zones that probably take 10 seconds of random number generation time to create, and then a little fine tuning by someone to make sure XYZ NPC corp has agents strewn about their regions in appropriate levels (but even that could be coded procedurally rather easily).

WW2 Online is zoneless. There are no zones (unless you count the whole world as a zone). There are terrain tiles, but only one "world/shard/server/zone". Its smart enough not to bog down someone in Reims, France with what is happening in Brussels, Belgium. But if they wanted to (and its coming soon (tm)), artillery and high altitude bombing will let people affect each other from (literally) miles away without ever rendering on the screen.

WW2 online is not zoneless. It uses seamless zones. I used to play it a lot up until a couple of years ago. There were times were some of the zones were down and if you happened to wander (or fly) into those areas, your game client would disconnect and crash to desktop. It gave the impression that it does not use zones, but it really does and there is nothing wrong with that.

The end result is that the player believes that he or she is connecting to a single server and never has to wait a moment at a loading screen after first logging in. And yes, WW2 Online is a much more accurate comparison when giving an example of why many people here do not believe the article topic is innovative. Even more so than Eve, which I currently play.

Good article. Don't necessarily agree with all of it and don't care to get into what game innovated what but it does provide food for thought. Nice to see other people don't agree with the oft stated maxim that shardless worlds are obviously superior. Everything has a tradeoff and people need to think about what they are rather than jumping in with both feet and saying anything without "x" is crap.

Originally posted by Kaelaan21

Originally posted by eric_w66

I wasn't confused. I meant exactly what I said. Eve's world is subdivided into regions. Eve basically lets you move from "server to server" for free all the time. EQ1 charged you for that service. Sure, it is still part of "one world", but since that "world" is merely chat (the economy does not spill over from region to region directly), how innovative is it? It isn't. And eve gets away with zones that probably take 10 seconds of random number generation time to create, and then a little fine tuning by someone to make sure XYZ NPC corp has agents strewn about their regions in appropriate levels (but even that could be coded procedurally rather easily).

WW2 Online is zoneless. There are no zones (unless you count the whole world as a zone). There are terrain tiles, but only one "world/shard/server/zone". Its smart enough not to bog down someone in Reims, France with what is happening in Brussels, Belgium. But if they wanted to (and its coming soon (tm)), artillery and high altitude bombing will let people affect each other from (literally) miles away without ever rendering on the screen.

 

WW2 online is not zoneless. It uses seamless zones. I used to play it a lot up until a couple of years ago. There were times were some of the zones were down and if you happened to wander (or fly) into those areas, your game client would disconnect and crash to desktop. It gave the impression that it does not use zones, but it really does and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

The end result is that the player believes that he or she is connecting to a single server and never has to wait a moment at a loading screen after first logging in. And yes, WW2 Online is a much more accurate comparison when giving an example of why many people here do not believe the article topic is innovative. Even more so than Eve, which I currently play.

Hrm, I'm a day 1 WW2OL player and have never seen any "zone" crash ever. I've seen map tiles not load due to bugs, and I've seen a strat server bug that caused the city of Metz that wouldn't let it be recapped by the allies, but aside from the "pixel of death" while flying, or the odd dropping through the world bugs, nothing that says "zone" crash. Those map tiles are not zones.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Ponico

Shardless???

there is no innovation there mate:

- Makind Online

- EVE-Online

- Dune Generation (never went past beta)

 

That's just three examples right here... give me the day and I can probably pull out 5 more titles with a bit of googling.

 

It's a good article but come on guys... you're suppose to be pros here.

EVE Online is the abberation. games that didn't make it out of beta just can't count in this case, and with all due respect to mankind Online, I think that the article refers to the lack of AAA, high-budget titles using a shardless system.

Also, the Champions Online shardless system operates differently from the EVE shardless system, or really any other.

I'm just saying, you're awfully quick to try to tear someone down without really fully understanding what was said or considering all possibilities.

That may be, Jon, but I don't think the majority of this site's viewers, and MMO gamers who keep up with the hobby at large, aren't willing to just pat Cryptic and CO on the back for being "unique" or "different" when another company, or companies I should say, have been doing this. AAA or not, it has been done and I know I personally am not willing to give Crytpic kudos or write an article for it before any of the companies who have pioneered the idea before them. If anything you guys should have had an article giving respect to those companies and also giving due respect to Icarus and Fallen Earth who, at worst, was implementing the same idea (in general) as Cryptic (as the games were pretty much in development at the same time.

Sure, I get per his disclaimer that Mr. Wachter is a "homer" for Cryptic but that doesn't take away from the fact that if he's going to try to present information in a generalized, "this is pioneering for the industry" manner, well, he should be more versed in the industry. If he is, then he should write in such a way and not present himself as if this is something the rest of the industry should be following Cryptic on. If he isn't, then it should be made clear, in a like disclaimer.

/facepalm

All MMOs since Ultima Online are "shardless."

Originally posted by Jester47

/facepalm

All MMOs since Ultima Online are "shardless."

Good Point.

Reading through the responses to this thread is like reading the responses to a thread on the official EVE forums by someone who jumped his uber faction-fit marauder into lowsec, got ganked by pirates, then decided to put up a post about how he shouldn't be able to be shot by other players anywhere, at any time.  It's almost like a shark feeding frenzy.  As such....

-throws a bag of popcorn into the microwave and drags out a big bowl and some popcorn cheese-

In reality, much as I may violently disagree with the design theory behind Champions (I play EVE, after all, and that's one shard with one--and only one!--instance), the truth is that, as far as I know, the only-one-shard-instanced-to-Hell approach hasn't been tried before.  This meets the criteria for "innovative" in my book.  As a result, most of the objections to the article posted here have little validity.

Now, as to whether that was a good design decision, that's another matter....

Eh, I enjoyed the few points on what's good or bad about being on a single-shard server, regardless of whether or not EVE did it first, etc.

I don't know if you should be trying to use the words like "douchebag" in the future, I mean, "Gankers", "Griefers" and "Ninja-looters" could have been used to replace the word and remained more "professional"

But meh, I agree with most of the pros and cons, anyway. A big con, though, as someone pointed out, is that a single-shard server will likely have some high-population-density zones that'll screw with the players computers if there are too many characters on screen, etc. etc.

But nowadays, I think MMO companies have the budget for a really nice, big ol' server computer with some ridiculous mish-mash of two PlayStation 3, like, eight-core processors or whatever (maybe the i7 processors?), with several dozen GBs of RAM, with crazy fibre-optic 400Mb network connection speeds... I mean, a little monster like that's only gotta be something like $50,000, tops, right?

...right?

Originally posted by Wrayeth

Reading through the responses to this thread is like reading the responses to a thread on the official EVE forums by someone who jumped his uber faction-fit marauder into lowsec, got ganked by pirates, then decided to put up a post about how he shouldn't be able to be shot by other players anywhere, at any time.  It's almost like a shark feeding frenzy.  As such....

-throws a bag of popcorn into the microwave and drags out a big bowl and some popcorn cheese-

In reality, much as I may violently disagree with the design theory behind Champions (I play EVE, after all, and that's one shard with one--and only one!--instance), the truth is that, as far as I know, the only-one-shard-instanced-to-Hell approach hasn't been tried before.  This meets the criteria for "innovative" in my book.  As a result, most of the objections to the article posted here have little validity.

Now, as to whether that was a good design decision, that's another matter....

Yes, thats always funny as hell...Pass the popcorn. Then there are those who start foaming at the mouth at the mere mention of Eve... I suspect they had a typical run in with the Goonies. But Eve is what one makes of it..

Originally posted by streea

Victor's drawing makes him look like he's plotting to destroy the world...

Hahaha. All it needs is pinky in the background.

Originally posted by Wrayeth

Reading through the responses to this thread is like reading the responses to a thread on the official EVE forums by someone who jumped his uber faction-fit marauder into lowsec, got ganked by pirates, then decided to put up a post about how he shouldn't be able to be shot by other players anywhere, at any time.  It's almost like a shark feeding frenzy.  As such....

-throws a bag of popcorn into the microwave and drags out a big bowl and some popcorn cheese-

In reality, much as I may violently disagree with the design theory behind Champions (I play EVE, after all, and that's one shard with one--and only one!--instance), the truth is that, as far as I know, the only-one-shard-instanced-to-Hell approach hasn't been tried before.  This meets the criteria for "innovative" in my book.  As a result, most of the objections to the article posted here have little validity.

Now, as to whether that was a good design decision, that's another matter....

Isn't that exactly what Guild Wars is?

Also, I didn't catch that in the article - so, how are any of the readers supposed to know that by reading the article. From reading it,  "Champions Online recently launched, and one of the innovations that it brought to the table was shardlessness - a single server hosting the entire game population" The opening doesn't make any reference to zones or instances. It simply says that CO launched the game on a single server and it was innovative. It's not. There are a lot of different games that are on a single server. It could be innovative in its implementation, but I'm not spending $50 to find out what the author left out of the article.

Believe it or not, alot of people haven't played EVE and don't consider it a AAA release. (I personally don't consider it one, no matter how good it is.)

Also, Guild Wars is not even close to being Champion's Online. (I think you'd find pros and cons for both styles... only one is really suited for an MMO.  Guild Wars would have more in common with Hellgate than it would CO imo.)

The author basically listed concisely a number of pros and cons for the style of shardlessness employed by Champion's Online, a type of shardlessness that would be reasonable to assume could well be modeled off of in the future.

Finding one phrase that really doesn't have that much to do with the point of the article, nitpicking it to death, and then holding it up as some sort of triumphant dismissal of this author's contribution doesn't make you look perceptive and smart, it makes you look like a short sighted jackass.

Having played Champion's Online, I would by and large agree with his feelings towards their system.  He listed three legitimate "Pros" and he listed three legitimate "Cons".  What varies from individual is the "weight" that each of these systems have... for example, someone who enjoys playing with friends regardless of server may not feel the lack of a server identity a bad tradeoff.  A roleplayer may well feel the loss of server identiy more deeply, with the notion of having to potentially play with "everyone" a bad thing in and of itself.

---

Originally posted by Yunbei Sheesh I am really tired of people telling "EVE this EVE that", usually "EVE had that first", "EVE has that better" or the like. I don't even think EVE is a MMORPG. RPG needs a role to play and in EVE you are a spaceship. Not to say its a bad game, but it is SO out of everything I consider a MMORPG and a game that interests me, god EVE could invent money shitting and I could not care a rats ass.

---

I guess when you are a pioneer, people will keep pointing out that you had something others are calling "new".

Being shardless is not new, unusual at the moment, yes, but definitely not new.

Also Yunbei, you obviously never played EVE or if you did, you never got it. In EVE you are not a spaceship. You are a pilot. When I used to play EVE I had nothing less then 15 ships, each with it's own uses, strength and limitations.

And by the way, money shitting was already invented years ago. It was called a "Bling Gnome" in Dungeon Runners.

LOL, Captain Underpants! I remember being obsessed with that series in the fifth grade, I used to read at least one captain underpants book every week or so... Ah, I loved those flip page animations. I would always wait in anticipation until I got to it, and then spend forever just flipping it back and forth.

On a more pertinent note, I think that the shardless system would ruin a lot of games, like in WoW, the server community definitely defines a huge part of the gameplay. Besides, Blizzard is now going to use cross-server technology for all instanced gameplay for all the benefits of a shardless system in game, and Battle.net 2.0 will give you all the benefits of communication that come with it. That way, you don't have any trouble communicating with your friends on different servers or different factions, and you never have trouble finding a group for things, yet you still maintain the sense of community on your server. I think that sort of deal is pretty much win on all fronts.

"Believe it or not, alot of people haven't played EVE and don't consider it a AAA release. (I personally don't consider it one, no matter how good it is.)"

Well sorry to break your bubble, but Eve is one of the top 5 subscription MMO's considering it's playerbase size, so if it isn't a AAA title then most of the others are not either.

And sorry Stradden, but unless you provide specifics why Champions shardless design is that different from Eve, I have to disagree with your statement.  I don't think it is really pertinent how they implement such a design, it is still basically everyone on the same server.

Personally shardless design has it's drawbacks.  Wow for example, I always play on the roleplay servers to get away from the kiddie corps and their silly names.  A shardless design would be a real negative for me in that situation.

I think more games should start doing it this way, devs are making bigger and bigger worlds so why not pack more people into them. I like the one game one server you can only log into.  Fallen earth has a good idea with the seamless instances. You can watch someone go in first then you go in and poof their gone, unless they were in your team.  Its like magic and its awesome, no loading screen which im always for. Im not sure if they are the first but thats not the point, the point is ,that they are using the technology. Devs and Gamers alike need to embrace technologies like one "Server" worlds and seamless instances, it will make the world feel more massive and no loading screens to help with immersion.

@ Ozmod  yeah I can see how that would suck but then you just have a naming policy just like most games do. If you see someone that don't have the right name report them. Or they could make  4 servers for WoW. a RP, RP PvP ,PVP, PvE. There you go people can all play which server they want with a ton of people.  But right now Im playing FE to try and stay away from those kiddies in the first place.  But WoW will do anything to grab more people IMO, which Im not down with. Id rather have a game that keeps the existing people rather than acting like a whore trying to get as many people to play.

I simply cannot stand the way newer games all appear to be completely instanced. Nothing kills the feeling of immersion more than splitting every single zone into multiple instances of the same area. Yet, this appears to be the growing trend in every new MMO in development.

I am all for a shardless world if it does not rely on instancing every area in the game. If it can be done the way it is in EVE (no instancing ANYWHERE), then it is great. But let's face it, most games that would utilize this model would make it a shardless collection of instanced copies. The more people crammed in the same small game world, the worse this will be... Good luck ever running into someone you know in the gameworld because you are in instance A and they are in instance Z.

Any sense of community is totally lost in this kind of game. There is no permanence to the world and it is completely unrealistic. How do the developers explain it when two friends are in the same zone looking for each other, but neither can find each other because they are in different instances? How do developers NOT see that this is a total immersion killer? It is mind-boggling to me...

In order for a popular single-server game to be done RIGHT, it would have to have an absolutely IMMENSE game world. One the size of EVE. It would have to have such a staggering amount of content that it would be nearly impossible to accomplish in any setting other than outer space.

Either that, or the developers would have to come up with some method for automatically zoning people who know eachother in the same instances as their friends/guildmates. If that could be done seamlessly, then it might not matter that everyone is in different zones. Unfortunately I don't see any way to do that...

Originally posted by Anubisan

I simply cannot stand the way newer games all appear to be completely instanced. Nothing kills the feeling of immersion more than splitting every single zone into multiple instances of the same area. Yet, this appears to be the growing trend in every new MMO in development.

I am all for a shardless world if it does not rely on instancing every area in the game. If it can be done the way it is in EVE (no instancing ANYWHERE), then it is great. But let's face it, most games that would utilize this model would make it a shardless collection of instanced copies. The more people crammed in the same small game world, the worse this will be... Good luck ever running into someone you know in the gameworld because you are in instance A and they are in instance Z.

Any sense of community is totally lost in this kind of game. There is no permanence to the world and it is completely unrealistic. How do the developers explain it when two friends are in the same zone looking for each other, but neither can find each other because they are in different instances? How do developers NOT see that this is a total immersion killer? It is mind-boggling to me...

In order for a popular single-server game to be done RIGHT, it would have to have an absolutely IMMENSE game world. One the size of EVE. It would have to have such a staggering amount of content that it would be nearly impossible to accomplish in any setting other than outer space.

Either that, or the developers would have to come up with some method for automatically zoning people who know eachother in the same instances as their friends/guildmates. If that could be done seamlessly, then it might not matter that everyone is in different zones. Unfortunately I don't see any way to do that...

"Back in my day... blah blah blah."

All I can say is you better get used to it.  The move from statically defined servers to shardless, dynamically instanced everything parallels the shift from static web pages to dynamic ones.  

Have fun lamenting the good old days with the other MMO dinosaurs.  I will certainly not be missing them.

I didn't read through all the responses so this may have been mentioned. There is one thing that shardless allows that isn't really allowed otherwise.

Currently players can't effect their world because once the shards are different the devs have to do multiplying amount of content to reach the same size audience. So more and more work to cover the different states of the shards to bring in the same money.

Shardless allows for the devs to put in a quest that depending on how many people complete it one way over another, that effects the outcome and effects the world from that point forward. So a quick example, an evil guy tries to come to power. Players can choose to help him or fight him. If more choose to help him then he gains power in a future patch and the world is forever changed.

Would be interesting to see a company that went shardless also adopt this strategy and give the players genuine choices in how the game world develops.

 CO would have been a great game if they just would of made it a single player rpg. There is nothing to brag about having one shard, because the game is so instanced it completely destroys the 'Massive' in MMO.