Not entirely sure why a P2P model was chosen, there seems to be more and more of it in newer games these days. Given that hacking/game-modding is much more likely under a client-side P2P model, why then is it on the rise? I'm not suggesting that programmers are just being lazy (well not at this moment im not
), but I wonder if there are other reasons why client-side stuff is on the rise.
Besides the cost, likely because with a central server the game stops working (or, at least, loses multiplayer) when you close the servers, while under a peer to peer architecture the game can keep running in all its multiplayer glory even after the publisher has moved to new ventures. Notices of a game closing down, or of it losing its multiplayer capabilities, are the kind of news that goes round and destroys player confidence in new games from the same publisher or developer.
With a central server, you basically have the game running (sans audio and graphics) on the publisher's servers, with all costs that it incurs; with a peer to peer architecture, you just have far lighter functions, such as the matchmaking, running on the game's servers, which cost far less to keep running and might even be offloaded to the players' machines.
Not necessarily valid for ED, but I guess it's a consideration for most other multiplayer games.
If you want to make an online game, get servers, if you can't afford servers don't make an online game.
I want to restore and fly a Concorde but I can't afford to, so I don't.
If you want to have dedicated servers in a long running game that is online only, you need a per-player revenue stream. The £20-£40 each player paid for the game only goes so far, specially when you take into account that the publisher needs to keep staff around to handle customer support; after all, in an always online game, the game itself prevents players from helping themselves and solving little things like savegame issues, so they depend on customer support even if they would otherwise be able to help themselves.
Though otherwise I do agree with you, Frontier didn't have what was needed to make an online game, so ED should have been done as an offline game
It will not discourage either. Essentially serverhopping and persistent multiplayer don't work anywhere.
You do realize that server hopping is an ever increasing trend in MMOs, right?
UO has Trammel and Felucca. GW allows players to change servers at will, as does Runescape. GW2 also had server hopping, though a bit more limited, from launch, afterward removing some of the limitations. Rift allows players to change servers for free once per month, if I'm not mistaken, while SWG gave free server transfers for each character every three months. WoW introduced paid for server transfers a long time ago, and now allows temporary server hopping as long as you can get someone from your target server to invite you to a group. DCUO introduced free and unlimited transfers between the PvP and PvE servers some time ago. And so on.
Being able to use whichever character you have to play with whoever you want is a good thing; putting up barriers that prevents players from being together increasingly looks like a retrograde thing, something better left in the past.
