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The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

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Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#31

Post by caconym_ »

stronglikedan wrote: post #2

While the details of this paper are above my head, I can say that, having spent years playing Tribes II, it was one of the smoothest online multiplayer experiences I've ever witnessed. At the time, it seemed very ahead of its time, compared to other online multiplayer games of the era.

I've actually thought about Tribes a lot recently, what with the kerfuffle over hitboxes/tickrate in Overwatch, the architectural issues with The Division (bad game), and general netcode angst these days. I remember the Tribes experience being buttery smooth and precise, even with the high speeds, long distances, and general reliance on physical projectiles rather than hitscan weapons.

Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#32

Post by blakeyrat »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #6

It still blows my mind that Tribes came out in 1998. That was a game with vehicles, easy modding (Tribes Football, RPG, Shifter, Renegades, anyone?), incredible mechanics (skiing), massive maps, recordable gameplay, a very active competitive community (OGL, 5150, players like Natural), And it was very playable on a 56k with some servers supporting 64+ players. Frankly, it puts a lot of titles with massive budgets, de…

Ah, ShifterV1 was the best mod ever. My friends and I used to say that Tribes 2 would be an easy ptoject: just grab the features from ShifterV1 and put on a fresh coat of graphics paint.

Too bad the real Tribes 2 turned out to be such a disappointment.

Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#33

Post by stronglikedan »

caconym_ wrote: post #31
stronglikedan wrote: post #2

While the details of this paper are above my head, I can say that, having spent years playing Tribes II, it was one of the smoothest online multiplayer experiences I've ever witnessed. At the time, it seemed very ahead of its time, compared to other online multiplayer games of the era.

I've actually thought about Tribes a lot recently, what with the kerfuffle over hitboxes/tickrate in Overwatch, the architectural issues with The Division (bad game), and general netcode angst these days. I remember the Tribes experience being buttery smooth and precise, even with the high speeds, long distances, and general reliance on physical projectiles rather than hitscan weapons.

And even on relatively slow internet connections, like four players in one room on a 1.5Mbps DSL connection!

Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#34

Post by musha68k »

mey wrote: post #12
stevebmark wrote: post #10

Part of why Tribes was such an incredible experience was it had 64 player servers. The maps were constant chaos. Haven't quite experienced anything like that since.

PlanetSide and PlanetSide 2. While hard to get into, when platoon level operations are at their best it's something I've yet to experience in another game. I expect Eve would be the other example, but with time dilation and combat mechanics, the game is more strategic than tactical in my understanding.

Planetside 2 IMHO is the best Starsiege Tribes yet.

Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#35

Post by stincity »

ECrownofFire wrote: post #21
stincity wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PS2 still going strong? I thought they were combining server populations to help increase the size of each remaining server.

It just recently had a major update so people can build their own bases and stuff now.

Interesting, maybe I should get back into it.

Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#36

Post by stephengillie »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #6

It still blows my mind that Tribes came out in 1998. That was a game with vehicles, easy modding (Tribes Football, RPG, Shifter, Renegades, anyone?), incredible mechanics (skiing), massive maps, recordable gameplay, a very active competitive community (OGL, 5150, players like Natural), And it was very playable on a 56k with some servers supporting 64+ players. Frankly, it puts a lot of titles with massive budgets, de…

Skiing was a bug - friction didn't apply to players while the jump animation was playing, but gravity equations did, so players slid downhill a bit. During beta, players learned to hammer their spacebar to maintain this frictionless state, skiing incredibly fast. Eventually, a script was released to automate this, repeating the jump when spacebar was held down; other games might consider this a cheat, but the community embraced it, and so did the devs.

Xtremeski came later...

Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#37

Post by MrZongle2 »

blakeyrat wrote: post #32
aaron-lebo wrote: post #6

It still blows my mind that Tribes came out in 1998. That was a game with vehicles, easy modding (Tribes Football, RPG, Shifter, Renegades, anyone?), incredible mechanics (skiing), massive maps, recordable gameplay, a very active competitive community (OGL, 5150, players like Natural), And it was very playable on a 56k with some servers supporting 64+ players. Frankly, it puts a lot of titles with massive budgets, de…

Ah, ShifterV1 was the best mod ever. My friends and I used to say that Tribes 2 would be an easy ptoject: just grab the features from ShifterV1 and put on a fresh coat of graphics paint. Too bad the real Tribes 2 turned out to be such a disappointment.

But in retrospect, even Tribes 2 wasn't that much of a disappointment. The hard-core types that frequented Tribalwar complained incessantly about it, and I grant you that the weeks following its release were bumpy, but there were a lot of people who enjoyed the game considerably.

Now Tribes:Vengeance and the free-to-play nonsense that is Tribes Ascend? Those have brought the franchise to a near-standstill.

Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#38

Post by ShroudedNight »

buzzybee wrote: post #19
digi_owl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best i can tell, most of the dev team and budget is dedicated to the art side of the game. Meaning maps, models, sound etc. And 18 years of learning? Sorry but most of the people and companies from back then are long gone. Best i can tell there are very few game development courses out there, and fewer still focus on the network plumbing.

The difference is substantial: There are books describing some standard practices now, third-party engines will at least include some basic networking functionality, and every worthwhile book on engines will at least mention what you need to do to reasonably support multiplayer. At the time that Tribes was developed, none of that reference material existed yet - you had to do your engineering from scratch, and there…

>Today it's more common for multiplayer to only be broken in a limited set of ways, instead of "we are hacking away at a fundamentally wrong architecture for this problem".

While true generally, that doesn't preclude us from some epic failures. My understanding is that The Division implemented client-authoritative simulation and is now in a hopeless battle against those that would modify their client for an advantage...

Re: The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf]

#40

Post by justin66 »

caconym_ wrote: post #31
stronglikedan wrote: post #2

While the details of this paper are above my head, I can say that, having spent years playing Tribes II, it was one of the smoothest online multiplayer experiences I've ever witnessed. At the time, it seemed very ahead of its time, compared to other online multiplayer games of the era.

I've actually thought about Tribes a lot recently, what with the kerfuffle over hitboxes/tickrate in Overwatch, the architectural issues with The Division (bad game), and general netcode angst these days. I remember the Tribes experience being buttery smooth and precise, even with the high speeds, long distances, and general reliance on physical projectiles rather than hitscan weapons.

> I remember the Tribes experience being buttery smooth and precise, even with the high speeds, long distances, and general reliance on physical projectiles rather than hitscan weapons.

I would think hitscan weapons would make keeping things visibly smooth and in sync harder rather than easier.

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