It can be very hard to find someone in space if you are not inside the popular systems. People are mostly forced to stay there because if you move a little you are totally alone except for npcs. You can be in a system that sees hundreds of people per day but never see anyone in a 6h sitting. Removing instancing or more realisticaly greatly increasing the number of players per instance would lead some people to move away and seek other homes, other trade routes, other conflict and other system to fight for their faction of choice.
Population would expand if we werent stuck in small instancing maps, increasing player per instance
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You seem not to be completely aware of how the system works: If you and another player are both in a system and your connection to each other is good, you will be in the same instance. Your instancing "bubbles" will merge. If one leaves, two seperate bubbles are created, ready to merge with others if they are around you. The maximum 32 players in your instance are not always the same no matter where they are.
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No but it sure would help though i doubt i personally would lag, you might be rubberbanding across my screen though lol. I wouldnt say lag is the main reason people would expand. It make sense thats 400 people dont fit around the same station though they would fit in the entire system, lag or not. In a fps you dont get 64 people in the same room and i know lag is not the reason.
You do realize that a lot of that instancing is handled through peer-to-peer connections, the server is only an in-between helping the players to get the connection. P2P is a problem in that even 32 is a tall order for some peoples internets to support, increasing that will lead to warping and other "fun" stuff.
Now, if it were a server based structure like in WoW, then you might be able to support a few more people per instance, but even then going over a certain threshold will introduce problems.
Now, if it were a server based structure like in WoW, then you might be able to support a few more people per instance, but even then going over a certain threshold will introduce problems.
I don't know much about p2p but if it can be handled by many computer at once it certainly can use more of the better connection to make it easier for others. no?
Add more nodes to a torrent and it becomes healthier.
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Yes - the matchmaking servers group up players based on geographic position and network throughput - and use some formula to come up with what FD calls Network Strength. It then lets player instances with comparable Network Strength merge with whom it has determined to be the instance owner.
Of course, all that instance information has to be passed to every client connected, and when you get to even say 10 clients, that's a lot of information to be chucked around an inherently unsecure, lossy, and variable throughput connection like the internet. Especially when client connections can disconnect randomly, purposefully feed bad information, get traffic shaped by money-grubbing thieving ISP's - or just be outright rubbish in the first place. You want more than 32 players, simultaneously, in real-time, on a 2megabit down / 512kilobit up BT junkline? That would be a sight to see!
It doesn't quite work like that. Add more nodes to a torrent, and it makes more of the exact same thing available. Game networking data is always changing by the players, urm, playing the game.
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I dont know about that, i can play a night of BF4 with 63 other players and the amount of data dl/ul amount to nothing and there's a lot of information going on in a game like that.
The ability to start a colony in an unpopulated system will solve this problem. There's enough room in the galaxy for everyone.
Sorry but no, it simply wouldn't solve anything as you would still have the instancing limit in your new colony.
Please explain why that would be a problem. If you're far away from civilisation, how are you going to get over-run? The Galaxy is BIG!
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Simple - when your colony (instance) reaches a population of 32, and more people turn up, there's no further room for them in your instance, so a new one is created for them - in which your group of 32 players don't exist.
BlackReign
Banned
I was online with a friend the other day; we both live in the same city, each with over 60/4mb bandwidth. We were even in a private group, and in the same starport. Couldn't see each other.
I think all of us can agree that as it stands today, functionally, ED is NOT a multiplayer game. They seriously need to get this major abyss fixed.
I think all of us can agree that as it stands today, functionally, ED is NOT a multiplayer game. They seriously need to get this major abyss fixed.
The limit is what your own personal computer can handle, as a number of open P2P connections to other players. The current 32 player limit is already more than many can handle, considering router settings, ISP throttling, and geolocation lag. The matchmaking servers are never going to prioritize putting a player in London UK and Sydney Australia together if there are better options, just based on lightspeed lag and world network lag.
There is a reason why other "twitch MMO's" that need fast response like World of Warcraft use regional servers. And also the reason why EvE works so well on one server with a worldwide customer base; it runs on a one cycle per second update. Imagine flying a spaceship in realtime combat when your enemy position updates once per second instead of something very close to the framerate of your CPU/GPU, and you'll see the problem.
ED gets around all that by using a system of world matchmaking servers that tries to put players together based on how solid their P2P connections are. And it only works with relatively small numbers of players sharing an instance.
Torrents don't have to feed data at a constant frame rate that allows flying a spaceship in real time. They can start and stop as needed.
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Here's a totally fictitious tale...
6 months from now, Frontier introduces subscription-only servers. Subscribed players co-exist in the same shared galaxy as P2P players, but they never meet - they are always in separate islands, like a massive private group, or the much talked-about (but never implemented) Ironman mode...
The maximum island size for the subscribers is 256 players.
Free players can still play and be limited to 32 per P2P island, but the support they get after that point is limited to "Is it the Router? Is it the Firewall? It must be your PC then. Sorry, we can't help you there." Free players take part in "Community Events" and make just as much of a contribution as subscribers. Free players don't participate in the epic battles that such larger island sizes provide support for, of course. Also, Wings containing over 8 players are exclusive to subscribers for networking reasons.
What would be the reaction of the player base if that story came true, do you think? What about Kickstarter backers?
(I wouldn't put it past this lot, frankly.)
6 months from now, Frontier introduces subscription-only servers. Subscribed players co-exist in the same shared galaxy as P2P players, but they never meet - they are always in separate islands, like a massive private group, or the much talked-about (but never implemented) Ironman mode...
The maximum island size for the subscribers is 256 players.
Free players can still play and be limited to 32 per P2P island, but the support they get after that point is limited to "Is it the Router? Is it the Firewall? It must be your PC then. Sorry, we can't help you there." Free players take part in "Community Events" and make just as much of a contribution as subscribers. Free players don't participate in the epic battles that such larger island sizes provide support for, of course. Also, Wings containing over 8 players are exclusive to subscribers for networking reasons.
What would be the reaction of the player base if that story came true, do you think? What about Kickstarter backers?
(I wouldn't put it past this lot, frankly.)
And what does BF4 have that Elite doesn't? A client-server model.
What does it matter? In bf4 everyone has to dl/ul tons of the same info about everything and everyone and the server side can't make client side faster or better. In elite there is next to nothing to share but your position in space, your ship and the content of your cargo IF you get scanned.
Fair enough but after a night of playing an online game check your network usage with your internet security software if you have one and you will be amazed at how low the total amount of data was transferred. Torrent know how to use a "population" that ul fast and dopnt ul at all and leverage everyone based on how fast their connection is, meaning ED could say i do 35% of the work for the current instance.
The real drawback to client side multiplayer is how easy cheating becomes, like it was in bf3, the shooting was client side *shakes head*. BF4 rectified that however and cheating is none existent.
ED is not true client side though, you have to get updates to the server but i dont know at what rate and about what and that would be interesting to know.
ED has had almost a full year of testing this P2P network model in Alpha and Beta before it was released. If there has been any actual client-side cheating as a result, I sure haven't heard about it.
We can all throw stones at how reliable this design is for allowing friends in the same area to play together (and I'd join in that, to a degree), but the idea of "P2P = easy cheating" hasn't panned out in this game, as far as I can see.
It matters because that's how it works.
It's not the "amount" of data that's transferred that is important here - it's the "quickness" of it's transfer to everyone involved. As distance, number of connections, and delays add up - it becomes harder and harder to keep everyone in sync, and at some point it becomes simply impossible.
I can't see the instancing system changing any time soon. Of course, if you are able to write a network protocol that can completely nullify trip length, use no bandwidth, have a negative latency and completely thumb it's nose at the speed of light - you'd probably be the richest person on the planet.
Ok then. Geez, all this because Mr Braben wouldnt give offline with the note "you guys are never going to get a story or whatever" and now everyone has to be logged. Servers and bandwidth is so cheap now days too.