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Fixing the Internet for Games

gafferongames.com

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Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#61

Post by Insanity »

cjslep wrote: post #55
gsich wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random players can work with proper servers too, and many games just do that. The problem with server browsers, or user hosted servers are/were arbitrary rules enforced by the admin of that server. It's what killed Black Ops 1 on the PC.

The benefit of the server browsers is that there were tons of positive gaming communities that competed around making the best and friendliest server possible in the early 2000's. I fondly remember playing Call of Duty as a tween with other community members that were adults and learned how to have fun, manage disagreements, and deal with problematic people without screaming profanities and raging about other peoples…

Absolutely agree, and that is one of the main reasons why modern games have little to no appeal to me.

Matchmaking lobbies killed a lot of the fun to me

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#62

Post by baud147258 »

gsich wrote: post #53
Insanity wrote: post #52

Modern games have a problem that I believe is a direct consequence of consoles. The lack of a server browser. Just let me choose a server to which I have a good connection and I will be much happier. Instead of dropping me in games with random people all the time with random connection issues. One of the main reasons I don't play fps on the consoles is missing this. (And there are social advantages of playing with th…

Random players can work with proper servers too, and many games just do that. The problem with server browsers, or user hosted servers are/were arbitrary rules enforced by the admin of that server. It's what killed Black Ops 1 on the PC.

> The problem with server browsers, or user hosted servers are/were arbitrary rules enforced by the admin of that server

I'd say it's a benefit. I remember playing on a bunch of CS servers with special and/or zany rules that couldn't exist without server browsers.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#63

Post by kaoD »

simonsays2 wrote: post #57

This sort of stuff has been around for a while, it helps some, but realistically your game needs to be designed from the ground up with latency and stutter in mind. If you do this, you wont need the complexity and expense of this sort of thing. First you need client side prediction and smoothing. Next, you must design your game so it follows certain very strict rules about player interaction. These rules allow the pl…

Are you teaching game networking to Glenn Fiedler? You probably learnt it from him, or someone who read his articles!

Now seriously: client side prediction is not magic and it always introduces its own problems, like getting killed after getting into cover (especially in low TTK shooters) or the opposite: bullets not registering when if they hit in your screen.

Client side prediction is sleight of hand. It will never replace actually perfect network conditions and will still feel better the lower your latency is.

It's necessary, but not sufficient.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#64

Post by gsich »

Insanity wrote: post #59
gsich wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random players can work with proper servers too, and many games just do that. The problem with server browsers, or user hosted servers are/were arbitrary rules enforced by the admin of that server. It's what killed Black Ops 1 on the PC.

Yeah but then you just go to a server with good admins.. Those servers are the reason games like CoD4 and CS survived for decade(s). You get the power of choice.

This much is true. But it's hard to play Cod or CS (1.6) in a "normal" ("vanilla") way.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#65

Post by gsich »

Insanity wrote: post #60
gsich wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often times admins are the assholes here (kick for using weapon X, perk Y, attachment Z) and you have no way prior to connecting to know which stupid rules are now in place. (that and the fact that dedicated servers in BO1 meant you could rent them just from one or two places, no files for you)

At least on CoD4, people would often play the same servers with the rules they liked. Banning boring weapons is a good thing. Also, some servers mentioned the main rules in the name.

That's the problem, "some". I partially blame the developers for not having proper filters in the serverbrowser.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#66

Post by Insanity »

gsich wrote: post #65
Insanity wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least on CoD4, people would often play the same servers with the rules they liked. Banning boring weapons is a good thing. Also, some servers mentioned the main rules in the name.

That's the problem, "some". I partially blame the developers for not having proper filters in the serverbrowser.

Hard to support all possible mods and changes I guess. The best they might be able to say is "modded: yes/no". And that is another great thing that is dying out. Mods. :(

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#67

Post by gsich »

Insanity wrote: post #66
gsich wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem, "some". I partially blame the developers for not having proper filters in the serverbrowser.

Hard to support all possible mods and changes I guess. The best they might be able to say is "modded: yes/no". And that is another great thing that is dying out. Mods. :(

That would be enough. Although mods are easier I guess. In BO1 I just wanted an "all stuff allowed" filter.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#68

Post by bilbo0s »

kbenson wrote: post #42
bilbo0s wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??? Isn't the entire point of the original article to lock you into the Network Next platform by forcing you to implement their SDK? I think every network provider is going to work to lock you into their platform.

Well, in defense of Network Next, their system seems to fall back to public routes if there's no benefit. That doesn't seem too much like lock in, since you have to have public servers working anyway.

Nope, still lock-in.

You have to use THEIR APIs. It won't work if you use regular networking code. Gotcha!

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#69

Post by gafferongames »

bilbo0s wrote: post #68
kbenson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in defense of Network Next, their system seems to fall back to public routes if there's no benefit. That doesn't seem too much like lock in, since you have to have public servers working anyway.

Nope, still lock-in. You have to use THEIR APIs. It won't work if you use regular networking code. Gotcha!

Our APIs are just simple replacements for UDP sendto/recvfrom and they’re open source. While they won’t work unless you work with our marketplace, if they don’t work, they just fall back to regular UDP packets. How is this lock in again?

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#70

Post by gafferongames »

ucaetano wrote: post #40
gafferongames wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, even the routing to google data centers can be improved.

Not to the datacenters, just to the POPs or edge nodes, after that, it is all private networks. And, afaik, the distance to the closest pop or edge node is a small share of the total distance to the datacenters.

We are measuring improvement to google’s own data centers.
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