The Star Citizen Thread v5

[Britney]

http://wccftech.com/star-citizen-exclusive-interview-erin-roberts/

It is so boring, how can they still pull this vague marketing-blabla off after so many years? That is unbelievable. Very often the structure of the argument is the same: Asking for a certain game mechanic, nothing is actually shown but an idea, how it is supposed to work, is given through an example that often resembles your stereotypical scifi-movie situation. Very clever to make all these references to the beloved scifi-universe, keeps your mind busy fantasizing about playing all these cool situations yourself, like being scottie managing energy levels, being the guy who releases the core after heavy damage, being lost in an asteroid field without fuel (for how many hours do players have to wait in this case until rescued?), playing a game of scifi-chess in your cosy ship during a multiple hours cargo-run etc. Scenarios, scenarios, scenarios, but nothing tangible, nothing systemic, no actual ruleset presented that enables players to play these emerging situations.

 

[Dooguk]

These guys really do think that they're going to be getting 1000 player instances, inter-instance comms etc. Like seriously.

Erin Roberts says hundreds of thousands Derek.

"So with the next big release a lot of the underlying game is there and then we can look at transferring people between servers so we can have hundreds of thousands of people maybe in one instance, but that doesn’t come online until later."

I don't believe him either. He did say maybe, so maybe 32 players.

 

[Tippis]

Erin Roberts says hundreds of thousands Derek.

"So with the next big release a lot of the underlying game is there and then we can look at transferring people between servers so we can have hundreds of thousands of people maybe in one instance, but that doesn’t come online until later."

I don't believe him either. He did say maybe, so maybe 32 players.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that, much like any of the other more technical terms they use — like “schedule” — they simply do not understand what an instance is or why you'd use one. The only real question is what it is they've confused it with. Shard, maybe?

In other clown-shoe news, they apparently let their SSL cert expire.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Those poor people have never heard of the speed of light.

Don't shatter their dreams

 

[hairychris]

Erin Roberts says hundreds of thousands Derek.

"So with the next big release a lot of the underlying game is there and then we can look at transferring people between servers so we can have hundreds of thousands of people maybe in one instance, but that doesn’t come online until later."

I don't believe him either. He did say maybe, so maybe 32 players.

I still have no idea how 1000+ will be technically possible, but I know sod-all about game development.

And that quoted statement doesn't make a huge amount of sense, unless they're having instances ("servers") within instances ("instances") in which case it's still instanced, just called something different.

:S

 

[Dooguk]

I still have no idea how 1000+ will be technically possible, but I know sod-all about game development.

And that quoted statement doesn't make a huge amount of sense, unless they're having instances ("servers") within instances ("instances") in which case it's still instanced, just called something different.

:S

Christances? [???]

 

[Zetta]

Great, seems they're reinventing what instances mean now..

And what's the big deal with mega servers anyway, everybody's using them.

 

[dsmart]

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that, much like any of the other more technical terms they use — like “schedule” — they simply do not understand what an instance is or why you'd use one. The only real question is what it is they've confused it with. Shard, maybe?[/url].

It's just so amazing to me. I mean, not only have they passed the zero barrier point at which they stood a good chance of implementing it like ED did, but they'd have to completely rip apart the underlying StarEngine/LumberYard architecture to even do it.

They're currently stuck at an instance falling over with more than 8 people, a chugfest if even 16 (let alone 24) people are in social module etc. And they're talking about "thousands" of people in an "instance". For a twitch-based game.

Yet, they're still theory-crafting. In year 6. After $142 million.

This is nothing but an elaborate scam playing out right in front of our eyes; because I refuse to believe that these leads saying stuff like this aren't aware that it's simply not true. Even if they were making a good faith effort (which they clearly aren't as we haven't seen anything significant in networking since 2014) of something that was achievable, due to their wanton incompetence, we'd still be suspicious.

It just beggars belief.

 

[Komemiute]

It's just so amazing to me. I mean, not only have they passed the zero barrier point at which they stood a good chance of implementing it like ED did, but they'd have to completely rip apart the underlying StarEngine/LumberYard architecture to even do it.

They're currently stuck at an instance falling over with more than 8 people, a chugfest if even 16 (let alone 24) people are in social module etc. And they're talking about "thousands" of people in an "instance". For a twitch-based game.

Yet, they're still theory-crafting. In year 6. After $142 million.

This is nothing but an elaborate scam playing out right in front of our eyes; because I refuse to believe that these leads saying stuff like this aren't aware that it's simply not true. Even if they were making a good faith effort (which they clearly aren't as we haven't seen anything significant in networking since 2014) of something that was achievable, due to their wanton incompetence, we'd still be suspicious.

It just beggars belief.

You know- you maybe aren't always 100% right... but dammit you can make some fine point.
I wonder what's like to work for you.

 

[MTBFritz]

In other clown-shoe news, they apparently let their SSL cert expire.

+

Holds his breath....could it be...... :O

I always wondered how CiG would crash. This matches one of the scenarios. Nahh...I m probably out of luck


@Tippis

your spoiler in #35581 doesnt show anything

 

[Zetta]

This bit made me laugh

W: So this touches on something that gets asked a lot in terms of multi-crew mechanics .... Everyone else, the concern is that they’re basically going to be playing a bunch of whack-a-mole minigames and then the rest of the time just sitting around doing not a lot. How do you keep things interesting?

ER: So let’s say you’re on an Idris, being the engineer I think is probably the most interesting job and it’s their job to balance the entire ship and keep everything running. It’s like Scotty in Star Trek. When the ship is taking damage and we have the whole power node system (W: I saw this earlier on the tour, very cool), power or systems go down and people have to run around the ship and go to locations to reroute power

In other words, still sitting around doing nothing and then whack-a-mole gameplay...
And I don't know about other people but playing "hunt the broken fuse" sounds like something that will get old, really fast.
Having a bunch of angry Germans yelling at me on voice comms because they're going to lose their $2500 communal love chariot does not sound like my idea of fun.

 

[dsmart]

I still have no idea how 1000+ will be technically possible, but I know sod-all about game development.

And that quoted statement doesn't make a huge amount of sense, unless they're having instances ("servers") within instances ("instances") in which case it's still instanced, just called something different.

It's all rubbish tbh.

An "instance" is just a copy of the entire game. It came to be when describing a single server (hardware) running multiple copies (instances). Even a single server running a single copy of the game, is a "dedicated server instance"

And cloud servers are no different, except a GCE|AWS instance is just a software copy running on hardware servers and with no access to physical machines.

e.g. LoD runs only on hardware servers (co-lo at a data center). And we run separate "scenes" (aka levels) each with the ability to handle 1-256 clients. Each server is powerful enough to handle multiple scenes. So we can run either n+1 space scenes on a server or just 1. In short, the hw server is hosting the instances.

And the way it's all connected is based on architecture we built specifically so that we could control the number of clients in each scene. So if a scene has a client cap (which is server-side configured), no more clients can connect to it until one client drops or leaves. And all scenes are connected in such a way that it all appears as one universe (though it's just 13 connected scenes stitched together with magic). A player going from a space scene on one server to a planetary scene on another server, doesn't notice anything, as it's just an IP connection via a jump gate. And during the jump handshake, if the target server is full or off-line, the connection is rejected, you get a message - and you stay were you are and try again later.

Also, a single hw server runs a number of scene instances depending on their resource requirement e.g. space scenes don't have as much stuff as planets; so we can run 2-4 space scenes on 1 server, while running 1-2 planetary scenes on another server. Our scenes are of 3 types. space (x4), planet (x4), interiors station|capital ship (x5).

There is no gain to having 1000 clients in an instance if the performance is just going to suffer, thus yielding a horrid experience for gamers. And even if you did it, the bandwidth costs alone - especially on cloud instances - would be cost prohibitive.

When running based on an architecture like ours, not only do you get around the n+1 client issue, but player-player comms is a non-issue because it's all one universe. You can be in a scene instance (e.g. space) and communicate with someone in another instance (e.g. planet). Sure, you won't see them due to distance and location, but you can still communicate with them. And if by some fluke a 256 scene instance ends up being full, unless all of them are within a certain range bubble, the packets are priorititized based on proximity.

And we don't have the problem of "grouping with friends" because it's all one cohesive universe. No matter where or when you connect, you will always find your friends; and can join them as long as the scene they are on isn't pop-locked.

A small team of renegade indies, led by a semi-retired mad man, built this. In a span of under two years. And it just works. To the extent that, if you look at our changelog, we haven't messed with networking in over three years. And never underestimate the power of AI bot clients to use for load balancing and testing.

Spoiler

- - - Updated - - -

This bit made me laugh



In other words, still sitting around doing nothing and then whack-a-mole gameplay...
And I don't know about other people but playing "hunt the broken fuse" sounds like something that will get old, really fast.
Having a bunch of angry Germans yelling at me on voice comms because they're going to lose their $2500 communal love chariot does not sound like my idea of fun.

Don't worry. It's all rubbish theory-crafting that's never going to make it to gameplay. It's as if none of these people have ever built a complex and/or ambitious game before.

 

[Rolan]

The expired SSL certificate for ptu.cloudimperiumgames.com has been renewed.
The server is working once more.

Source:https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5umf02/psa_ptu_is_back_up_after_ssl_cert_expired/

 

[Maruun]

This bit made me laugh



In other words, still sitting around doing nothing and then whack-a-mole gameplay...
And I don't know about other people but playing "hunt the broken fuse" sounds like something that will get old, really fast.
Having a bunch of angry Germans yelling at me on voice comms because they're going to lose their $2500 communal love chariot does not sound like my idea of fun.

I want a text to speech for that in SC. Much more fun just like:
[video=youtube;Hv6RbEOlqRo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv6RbEOlqRo&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

[CmdrKull]

So wait, my opinion is not valid because it sees Star Citizen in a positive light, yet a "goon" is a credible source?


Prospector (Mining Ship) Album from ATV: http://imgur.com/a/AbkLv

I like reading your posts Orlando, even if I don't understand how you can realistically be so enthusiastic about Star Citizen at this juncture. The thread would be a dull place if we all agreed that SC is doomed. I'm still very slightly hopeful for the project. I don't want to watch a SC collapse.


That's a very pretty mining ship. I like that it lands on the asteroid.

Well, on the one hand I like that it lands. On the other hand, didn't we learn from Philae that landing on asteroids is serious business?

 

[Ian Skippy]

So wait, my opinion is not valid because it sees Star Citizen in a positive light, yet a "goon" is a credible source?

Its more that you refuse to acknowledge the mountains and mountains of lies. To give an analogy: its fine if you support a specific politician, but when he is caught lying every single day at some point you have to acknowledge that. Otherwise your opinion becomes about as much worth as a picture of a non-existent spaceship.

 

[thorn-]

e.g. LoD runs only on hardware servers (co-lo at a data center). And we run separate "scenes" (aka levels) each with the ability to handle 1-256 clients.

Which is approximately twice the number of players ever in the game... so - good job on estimating capacity needs.

To the extent that, if you look at our changelog, we haven't messed with networking in over three years.

It doesn't appear there's been any reason to mess with the networking; the player population is practically zero.

You continually criticize CIG for doing things that don't work (according to you), or doing things the way that you would do them. Newsflash: it's a very good thing that CIG doesn't do things in the same manner you have. Clearly, your methods don't lead to a successful game.

 

[VidarSnipes]

I can already sense Yaffle going "Oh no, not this <expletive> again" from two time zones away.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Which is approximately twice the number of players ever in the game... so - good job on estimating capacity needs.



It doesn't appear there's been any reason to mess with the networking; the player population is practically zero.

You continually criticize CIG for doing things that don't work (according to you), or doing things the way that you would do them. I believe that it's a very good thing that CIG doesn't do thing in the same manner you have, as clearly that result doesn't lead to a successful game.

Such a shame that you continue to just mindlessly attack other people and games because you cant discuss the game you pretend to belief in. Do you really think anyone here believes, even for a second, that that '1000 person per instance' is going to be feasible because you showed a steamchart of a different game?

SAD!

 

[marx]

Having a bunch of angry Germans yelling at me on voice comms because they're going to lose their $2500 communal love chariot does not sound like my idea of fun.

Hey, it might not be your idea of fun, but there are people who pay well to receive similar experiences.