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StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

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Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#51

Post by JJMalina »

mattmanser wrote: post #42
JJMalina wrote: post #27

Over the past two years I've played maybe 10-20 hours of SC. I paid $45 for the starter ship and then made some money moving boxes and doing bounties to upgrade my ship and then have enough to buy a bigger one. The game is pretty fun if you're used to MMO style grinding. The only problem is that during the past two years there have been many server state wipes so you lose everything except for the starter ship you pu…

There's Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky, as well as Eve online depending on what you're looking for. All have their faults, but there are obvious alternatives to StarCitizen out there that's not vaporware.

Whether the term "vaporware" applies to SC is kind of subjective IMO. The server meshing feature has been advertised for a long time and it still hasn't been shipped. Though they did add object persistence a few patches ago which really changed the game for salvaging.

I bought the game based on what I see people doing in it already, and it was fun enough for me. That definitely won't be the case for everyone and I recognize that. So to me it's not vaporware and there are lots of other people still enjoying the game today.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#52

Post by jcfrei »

mattmanser wrote: post #42
JJMalina wrote: post #27

Over the past two years I've played maybe 10-20 hours of SC. I paid $45 for the starter ship and then made some money moving boxes and doing bounties to upgrade my ship and then have enough to buy a bigger one. The game is pretty fun if you're used to MMO style grinding. The only problem is that during the past two years there have been many server state wipes so you lose everything except for the starter ship you pu…

There's Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky, as well as Eve online depending on what you're looking for. All have their faults, but there are obvious alternatives to StarCitizen out there that's not vaporware.

Never played Star Citizen myself but follow the development closely. From my understanding it's the only one (of the ones you mentioned) that simulates actual planets, orbits and has seamless transitions from space down to the pavement of a city.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#53

Post by BowBun »

RNAlfons wrote: post #36
BowBun wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you built anything comparable? It's in alpha, making performance/presentation comments seems really out of place. If you were well-informed on the project, you would know that they intentionally put performance optimizations on the backburner, because optimizing tech they intended to replace is not a good use of time. Besides, in the last 6 months performance has drastically improved, as anyone that actually pla…

Do I have to build something comparable to be able to comment on the performance issues I have witnessed? I don't think so. Do I have to accept all those excuses, which like those pictures of ships never run low in this company, to comment on the performance? I don't think so. They promise a lot. They don't deliver. They break things which were already working and I'm still waiting. Those are clear signs of terrible…

[flagged]

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#54

Post by wlesieutre »

JJMalina wrote: post #27

Over the past two years I've played maybe 10-20 hours of SC. I paid $45 for the starter ship and then made some money moving boxes and doing bounties to upgrade my ship and then have enough to buy a bigger one. The game is pretty fun if you're used to MMO style grinding. The only problem is that during the past two years there have been many server state wipes so you lose everything except for the starter ship you pu…

The jump gate to Pyro was a very exciting prospect when they first demoed it four years ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tB3cark5lA

But I'm in a similar boat now, backed on Kickstarter almost eleven years ago now, and playing the game is just too much of a job.

In its current state, you spend 20 minutes riding elevators and trains around to get off a planet, and then crash into an invisible asteroid and explode, respawn and start over. And add a bunch of errands flying around the system to replace all your gear that blew up.

When it works it's very cool. But unless you have a lot of free time, not worth all the times when it doesn't work.

I hope they finish it, once it stops wiping progress and is possible to slowly accumulate longer term progress I'd be more willing to put in the effort. As-is, I'm not putting in any more money. They need some pressure to actually finish the damn thing (especially Squadron 42), and the bottomless fountain of crowdfunding with no publisher calling the shots clearly isn't working.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#55

Post by beowulfey »

monlockandkey wrote: post #30
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Citizen is a big planned online MMO. This page is about their current and planned back-end server architecture, where they want to have thousands of players online in a single virtual world, along with all of the random items - from ships to bits of trash - that float around in space visible to everyone. Ambitious and such; the only other game I know of that tried it was Eve Online, which has tens of thousands o…

I have been in 1000 player battles in Eve Online. It is possible because the game operates in ticks (increments) of 1 second.

And doesn’t time dilation occur with lots of concurrent events?

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#56

Post by causi »

sickofparadox wrote: post #25
causi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure about that? There are several EVE battles that involved multiple thousands of players at once.

Those battles all take place under .25 or lower time dilation so that the servers can handle the load. Star Citizen plans on having a massive player count per shard under full normal time.

RSI's "plans" are less reliable than a politician's campaign promises.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#57

Post by arielweisberg »

dotnet00 wrote: post #49
mattmanser wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky, as well as Eve online depending on what you're looking for. All have their faults, but there are obvious alternatives to StarCitizen out there that's not vaporware.

I think that of the two, Elite Dangerous is the only one that scratches a similar itch, especially in terms of the spaceship mechanics. But it too has suffered from severe mismanagement (pursuing features that got advertising hype over those that made the game fun, abandoning features and leaving them in a broken state, taking forever to fix bugs but being quick on exploits, poor communication and of course the gener…

Elite is kind of tragic in that there are serious steps backwards in performance, VR, and visuals that they just don’t fix things.

A lot of great gameplay mechanics have been added over the years, but it hasn’t all been forward progress.

No Man’s Sky is the total opposite and I really want to come back to that at some point and get lost in it the way Elite was in VR.

Truly transported you elsewhere and gave you presence in an empty uncaring galaxy that made the tedium and grind still feel like something.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#58

Post by TheRoque »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #13
neals wrote: post #5

I'm vaguely familiar with these topics. StarCitizen is a controversial game, if I'm not mistaken? What's this website about?

Back-end server technology, they want to make it a persistent MMO with thousands of concurrent players and effectively infinite objects in space. But this MMO is the most expensive video game of all time (although there's others that have had more invested in them over time, I'm thinking of World of Warcraft or GTA 5, possibly upcoming titles like GTA 6), therefore the server technology also looks like some of the fa…

The majority of the team is actually said to be working on the "solo" project which is Squadron 42. So they have an excuse for the sluggish development pace. Funny thing is, there hasn't been a single footage of SQ42 in 5 years, and you can't even buy the game anymore. There's a roadmap that says that the game is nearly done, but well, they seem to say this all the time.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#59

Post by bluescrn »

causi wrote: post #23
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Citizen is a big planned online MMO. This page is about their current and planned back-end server architecture, where they want to have thousands of players online in a single virtual world, along with all of the random items - from ships to bits of trash - that float around in space visible to everyone. Ambitious and such; the only other game I know of that tried it was Eve Online, which has tens of thousands o…

You sure about that? There are several EVE battles that involved multiple thousands of players at once.

In large EVE battles you don't really see ships, you see lots of little boxes on the HUD and a list of hostile targets on the overview window.

Combat is all about range, and if you're close enough to actually see the enemy ship models, you're probably about to explode.

I'll be amazed if Star Citizen ever comes close to the scale of EVE battles, though. There's so many technical challenges in making an MMO scale, especially when a game is so focused on graphical fidelity.

(Then again, EVE is a 20-year-old game at this point, and was designed for the limited PCs and bandwidth of the time. But I'm assuming that they're using modern top-end hardware for the servers, and they still struggle with the biggest battles)

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#60

Post by JTbane »

dotnet00 wrote: post #49
mattmanser wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky, as well as Eve online depending on what you're looking for. All have their faults, but there are obvious alternatives to StarCitizen out there that's not vaporware.

I think that of the two, Elite Dangerous is the only one that scratches a similar itch, especially in terms of the spaceship mechanics. But it too has suffered from severe mismanagement (pursuing features that got advertising hype over those that made the game fun, abandoning features and leaving them in a broken state, taking forever to fix bugs but being quick on exploits, poor communication and of course the gener…

My biggest problem with Elite: Dangerous is the Engineering mechanic, which basically gives you strictly better ship components in exchange for very long and boring MMO-style grinds.

If you want to be seriously competitive in PvP, it's required to do Engineering.

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