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if only the servers were bigger!
Luftwaffen
Member UncommonPosts: 101
am i reading this right its bassicly a bunch of 64 player maps ? and niot a real server ? as a long time UO Player i would love to see this game in true MMO form big map and mass players !
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Now, which one of you will adorn me today?
That's exactly what I thought when I first followed one of Bill's links to the game and read up on it. Best thing for RPers since Neverwinter Night's persistent worlds (and by that I mean Bioware's RPG, not the MMO Neverwinter by Cryptic, since people often confuse them).
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Each Map will support at initial, 64 players, increasing soon to 128, and eventually 256.
Shards can be linked in clusters allowing for creation of expansive worlds supporting many more players. Shards/Worlds/Maps function similarly to Zones in standard MMO's, though there can be deviation in game world behavior between connected worlds. (ie Technology worlds can be connected to magical worlds, with options to restrict or permit cross world technology or magic.)
Sry, I don´t believe it untill it runs on an average machine with 64 players not just standing around!!
I don´t like Unity at all.. and this games has Unity as it´s core. I think 256 Players on the same map (shard) is quite a slideshow or worse..
If big developers already have problems to let 256 players fight simultaneously on the same map.. why should it work on a low budget Unity Project ?!?
There have been many cases in the last 10 years when developers and marketing tricked players with promises.
I say: show it! And show it smoothly in a video or real time event.. not some screenshots.
Sry.. atm Shards Online is a lot of promises and not much delivery!!
Currently our AI has proven more intensive than player actions. And we haven't been doing dedicated performance improvement on the servers. We have comfortably supported an active 36 players without lag, though there are a few memory leaks yet to be ironed out in the server so after a few hours it will start to get shaky. Additionally simply switching our server hosting platform granted noticeable improvement.
As to Unity, well our server is home grown not Unity based, and we havent even begun to optimize the client side. That being said I am able to play find on my PC which is more than a little behind the times, and really have client lag issues when I get 50+ mobiles on screen with a whole bunch of effects going. That could probably be improved by adding a decent video card, but sticking a new card in a 6 year old computer is kind of a waste.
My laptop which is a mite older does come to a grinding halt if I get to 30+ mobiles and effects. But that also happens with Heroes Of the Storm so, its not something I'm worried about.
And as of today we entered our next phase in Pre-Alpha, which means our Pre-Alpha Admin level backers now have their hands on their own servers. Pre Alpha Backers have been in game during playtests every month, and will be able to play both on the Citadel server tests as well as any of the Pre-Alpha Admin servers which they are granted access to.
twitch.tv/shardsonline Whole bunch of streams with game information and of course in game footage, highlights are on YouTube.
Thx for answering openly on the issue
I just have some questions in my mind.. :
*So which Machine is needed for 64+ Player PvP/PvE in the same Area?! This will also be critical for housing regions!
*What specs are needed if the players are scattered across the whole map/shard? As it seems any 3 year old PC would do, but I´m curious. With 100+ players on the map, I imagine that eg: your computer cannot handle 50 other clients in the area anymore without serious lag
*What will be the Minimum Requirements for Shards Online? I guess the minimum RAM needed to play smothly is around 2-4GB and at least Entry-level Gfx-card ?! Can you pin that down plz.
*How far is the AI setting bringing down performance on server? The way you spoke of it, I get the image that NPC´s create hardware lag much faster. And this is an issue if Shard admins go for automated NPC behaviour via scripts.
My local run on my laptop supports 200+ NPCs + 5 or 6 players without lag. (Haven't had a chance to get a large number of people on it yet so can't say at what point that breaks down) Due to the memory leaks the server will start to experience performance issues the longer its up, how fast it gets to the point that is noticeable depends on how much activity/mobiles/players. On a smaller map, I think that it was somewhere along the lines of 9 hours or so, then a restart brings it back to normal again. On the larger map which is 5x larger and much more populated it was about 5 hours. As the leaks get closed and the code optimized we approach longer running times. In earlier tests prior to closing any memory leaks,with a similar feature load, a few hundred NPCs and about 30 players it was about 100 minutes to 2 hours before the performance hits became noticeable.
This is speaking to server lag which affects all players regardless of their gaming computer configuration/stats.
For the client performance, since we haven't performed any client optimization yet, there's still no standard measure. We have some people who experience some lag throughout especially when bringing up lots of UI elements, or around tonnes of mobile activity, while at the same time we even have a few users running the game on Macs through WINE and having pretty smooth gameplay.
It seems a small group playing Co-Op (1-4 players) is no real issue. So that is good for the NWN crowd, playing quite privately with their Storyteller/Gamemaster.
But since many others want a bit more "Grouping" and hopefully some "Factions" , I´m a bit concerned about the Server Lag issues with 30 players. Is there a way to mirror the map/shard on Server and always have 1 "active" Shard up?
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
With clustering you can connect as many worlds as you want, and there would be no restrictions on running multiple instances of the same map in a cluster.
(Also if its an uptime issue, Restart is on the order of seconds rather than minutes. In our weekend play tests when the automated restart takes place, players are usually able to reconnect as soon as they get the disconnect.)
Some of our early admins have already jumped ahead and implemented features that are further down in our dev schedule. They've done a party system, quest system, and there are even a few new crafting systems. (Someone even made a chron system so the server could run its own day night schedule and have events tied to the time of day server time).
On our small map there is a faction system, which allows for team pvp, and on the larger map there is a faction/reputation system which throws a whole bunch more stuff into the mix.
Isn´t it complicated to update their Server if they add stuff that Citadel Studios is doing different later on?
Wouldn´t it be more wise to just play on the official Servers until Beta is done ?!
I´m a bit confused. It just makes sense ,If you really want a total different setting and have a staff to make this reality.
Btw ,will it be possible to purchase such Modules directly from Citadel via DLC content purchase?!
If I were to try build my own Kingdom ..whatever.. I would always go with stuff from the Developers .. so I can be sure to get a working product, which is also working after lets say 20 Updates.. maybe some Hotfixes (hopefully not) and a full Year later...
hmm.. ;D
Now, if it really is one of those games that people can buy their own servers and stuff, then that's a turn off.
I really dislike those types of games. >.<
Most games provide you with a base setup, that you can configure and maybe add to or change a bit, but you end up fundamentally with the same game with a slight variation on formulas.
Probably the biggest difference is simply that we almost have 2 development projects going on; the technology/framework, and the game itself.
We are building, and running the game with our own servers, rules and persistent worlds. Including content, storyline etc.
What our modders get, is both the technology/framework that our game/systems and content run on, as well as the game systems and content itself.
This means they can use as much or as little as they want. It also means that they have working functional examples that they can take apart, re-apply, or change as needed.
The added benefit is also that since most of core system architecture is in, most of our changes won't affect their mods. (They can also override anything in our systems anyway)
Personally I'm hoping when we get to beta I'll have some free time to put together a MOBA mod. Hopefully the community will beat me to it. (Highly recommend swinging by the shardsonline.com forums and checking out some of the community projects. They are impressive.)
Of course since we plan on running our own servers, the player/content limits will essentially be based on the resources/power of our hosted servers, so even if we are able to support a few thousand players on a single map, the majority of player-run servers may not have as much at their disposal. But looking at our community I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them aren't going to be pulling out some serious hosting capabilities.
Basically we've written pretty much everything in lua, and are handing that over to the players. So those wanting to run their own start of with the same stuff that we run.
Mods can use, partial override, or full override our content. This is down to the script content level, so if they liked the combat system but wanted to use different calculations, they can replace those hit calculations without writing a new combat system. (Though they could also write a new combat system).
The server tech/infrastructure has little to nothing to do with game mechanics, and really just handles data xfer/character storage and object management. This means that unless we mess with functionality there aren't too many instances where player admins would have to mess with their code. Most of our stuff is functionality additions, so they don't have to go and chance code unless they want to take advantage of new features.
Currently we are working with the community for feature development through gameloop, and the community by themselves is doing a github shared repository to build stuff.
Really, 64 players in a zone isn't really a huge problem, particularly if they can up it to 128 once they optimized the engine. More than 64 players tend to crowd any themepark game pretty badly.
There is an exceptiion and that is in towns where you have little or no combat and use as social hubs. There you do need more players.
But the question is what happens when you get more than 64 players, do you open up a new instance, does it tell you to go to another soon or will you be put in queue? The last thing sucks.
Logrus_CS said: That sounds awesome. I hope the same goes for awarding XP so we can set the leveling/gaining power as we want as well.
This game was pretty low on my radar before I heard about the custom shards, now it is easily number one.
If you queue players they will run off to other servers! Only queue is maybe Arena-fighting, where evenly sized teams are needed.
Best option is to have 2-3 versions of the same map running and just change the channel, as many MMORPGs do, when there is a lot of grind and server performance is just medium. Ofc it depends on what the Cluster-system is capable of..!
Also Chat-system has to work Cluster-wide, so you don´t miss out something.
Since clusters can run multiple instances of the same world, if you had reached capacity on one, you could launch another instance of the same map and allow the spillover to play there.
I mean, there has to be longterm benefits and goals. And I doubt a really good crowded Server/Cluster will work without money for hosting and administration. As long as it´s not game-breaking VIP-stuff (just cosmetic) and some benefits, I´m sure there is quite some players without a prob to pay around 20-30€/year. Such kind of Server could deliver a top-notch gaming environment and has the money for some professional hosting, programmer and the latest modules from the Citadel Shop.
Is there alsready concrete plans about this kind of stuff?!