Hi all,
I came across this, I'm kind of new to the subject :D
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/About_EVE_Online
"A unique aspect of EVE is that it is run on one server. In EVE you can find over 25,000 players at any given time interacting in the same persistent universe. Other MMORPGS are played on multiple servers called Shards; these have a limited number of players on each, usually between 500 and 3000."
1. Is that really the case or is it just marketing? 500-3000 players? what about WoW?
2. Is EVE the only multiplayer game that supports real time actions that is capable of 25,000 users concurrently?
3. What is the number of subscription for EVE?
4. Any other MMOs that are shardless?
Thanks!
Running Shardless
If it is true, im sure it comes at a price (ie you can't do certain features or some things suck more than other MMO's) and/or that they are able to do this because their play style is different than other MMO's and requires less CPU and/or bandwidth.
Eve online doesnt have some magic bullet that magically makes their code run 8 to 50 times faster than everyone else's code.
As an analogy, have you ever seen stuff from the demo scene? they can do full screen real time procedural raytracing at a solid 60fps on modern hardware that looks photorealistic.
Why aren't modern games able to do this then too?
Because these demos use shortcuts and really specialized algorithms that don't work in the general case and so don't work for games.
What eve claims may be true but like i said, i'm sure it comes at a cost or it isn't generalizable to other MMO types.
Eve online doesnt have some magic bullet that magically makes their code run 8 to 50 times faster than everyone else's code.
As an analogy, have you ever seen stuff from the demo scene? they can do full screen real time procedural raytracing at a solid 60fps on modern hardware that looks photorealistic.
Why aren't modern games able to do this then too?
Because these demos use shortcuts and really specialized algorithms that don't work in the general case and so don't work for games.
What eve claims may be true but like i said, i'm sure it comes at a cost or it isn't generalizable to other MMO types.
The difference is in game design. When WoW started, their shards (named world instances) probably wouldn't take more than 3,000 players. At this point, with all the expansions, they can probably fit double that per shard instance.
Both WoW, and EVE, and any other commercial MMO, split load between multiple physical machines. Thus, the "server" they're talking about is really a "server cluster," or "world instance," or "shard."
MMO games don't generally like single-world, because it's really hard to build a compelling user experience that works when 100,000 players all want to be in the same place at the same time. Thus, MMOs split the players across shards. For EVE, it's okay, because their system mechanism makes the problem less so. In other games, instanced dungeons and other levels help with this, too.
Modern virtual worlds (Second Life, There (R.I.P) et al) typically use single-world, because all players want to be able to communicate with all other players, but they don't have game design reasons why all players would want to be in the same physical location at the same time.
Both WoW, and EVE, and any other commercial MMO, split load between multiple physical machines. Thus, the "server" they're talking about is really a "server cluster," or "world instance," or "shard."
MMO games don't generally like single-world, because it's really hard to build a compelling user experience that works when 100,000 players all want to be in the same place at the same time. Thus, MMOs split the players across shards. For EVE, it's okay, because their system mechanism makes the problem less so. In other games, instanced dungeons and other levels help with this, too.
Modern virtual worlds (Second Life, There (R.I.P) et al) typically use single-world, because all players want to be able to communicate with all other players, but they don't have game design reasons why all players would want to be in the same physical location at the same time.
AFAIK, there are certain times in EVE where 10,000 players will congregate in the same place for an epic battle though, which is quite deserving of the first M in MMO.
I'd guess they'd have a server cluster, with different boxes having 'authority' over different clients/game-objects. These boxes would communicate internally on a fast LAN, and connect to the players though a few different outgoing connections (or even have the state replicated to another data-center altogether, which then broadcasts it to the clients).
WOW apparently has 10's of thousands in a 'shard', but then you go into 'instances' with only dozens of players.
I'd guess they'd have a server cluster, with different boxes having 'authority' over different clients/game-objects. These boxes would communicate internally on a fast LAN, and connect to the players though a few different outgoing connections (or even have the state replicated to another data-center altogether, which then broadcasts it to the clients).
WOW apparently has 10's of thousands in a 'shard', but then you go into 'instances' with only dozens of players.
There are supposedly over 300K subscribers, and I regularly see over 50,000 users online on EVE at any one time.
They used to have epic fights with 1000 vs 1000, but in the last year or so they have had major issues, and currently lag is so bad, that people have difficulty with anything over 40 vs 40.
Major discontent on their forums at the moment, and the developer CCP is more interested in making the game more like WoW (adding avatars that walk around, rather than just ships that fly around) than fixing all the current issues (although that isn't to say they aren't trying at all, it's just they haven't made any progress, and in fact the last expansion seems to have made things worse, not better).
They used to have epic fights with 1000 vs 1000, but in the last year or so they have had major issues, and currently lag is so bad, that people have difficulty with anything over 40 vs 40.
Major discontent on their forums at the moment, and the developer CCP is more interested in making the game more like WoW (adding avatars that walk around, rather than just ships that fly around) than fixing all the current issues (although that isn't to say they aren't trying at all, it's just they haven't made any progress, and in fact the last expansion seems to have made things worse, not better).
Quote:Original post by the enemy
Major discontent on their forums at the moment, and the developer CCP is more interested in making the game more like WoW (adding avatars that walk around, rather than just ships that fly around) than fixing all the current issues (although that isn't to say they aren't trying at all, it's just they haven't made any progress, and in fact the last expansion seems to have made things worse, not better).
Commodity services. Performance has historically mattered very little, at least as far as cost/benefit is concerned.
Here is a better perspective.
Issues will always occur. Even software that is mathematically proven to be correct will fail due to RAM issues or other hardware issues.
Of course, it's easy to take a jab at IBM for not being to implement even a two digit board right. But at the same time, here's what is all behind it (pdf).
It surely cost a lot of money - but when the board broke, IBM had the knowledge and ability to instantly fly in a specialist who fixed it the same day. Try getting Google on the phone when you site drops out of index, or get through to PayPal when your account suddenly ends up blocked.
Or ITA software, who had contractual guarantee of 99.99% uptime with severe penalties if not met. Of course, the contract was in tens of millions of dollars because of it.
Or more accurately - reducing lag has apparently rarely improved retention or other criteria of almost any service (how's FB these days, how often does failwhale show up, reddit broke yesterday) the way any other improvement in features, advertising or anything else can. It's one of those things that is good to have, but historically, I have never seen lag cited much as retention or adoption problem (in relevant materials, not forums).
Old adage still holds - you get what you pay for. Then again, WoW did add paid transfers, so apparently some people do value ability to control their experience, but I'd strongly suspect majority of transfers are due to low population rather than overpopulation.
To add to what Antheus said about things being imperfect to some degree no matter what...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error
(:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error
(:
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