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TLDR:
When will we see Persistent Streaming and Server Meshing in the PU?
Tier 0 'Static Meshing' in Q3/Q4 2022.
What is the current state of the server meshing tech and what are the biggest issues holding it back?
Remember when we said
full Dynamic Server Meshing for 2018? And 2019?. Well that hasn't happened yet.
Isn't that great?!
We did realise in 2020 that we'd need to use a completely different technical approach though. Please add 'Replication Layer' to your list of important buzzwords.
How do you plan on managing a large ship, say a Javelin? Would that be it's own dedicated resource with ships around it?
We don't know.
How many players will be able to see each other in one space ? Whats the maximum you are planning?
We hope to get to 100.
[Please forget all prior claims of
thousands of players being in the same area]
If I make a base on a moon, will my base be reflected on the other shards that I am not on?
The plan is yes, but it will be 'read only' if you're not there.
[Please buy an $850 Pioneer to build one. We'll definitely get it working soon.]
Is the true end goal one single shard for all players?
We have designed for it. We don't actually know how to do it. Or deal with regional ping. But it is 'an operational challenge'. And 'our ambition'.
It's not a problem for now, as we're limiting all shards to 50 players. [You don't know that yet, because we hid that question at the end].
But if we do try and increase the shard population we may have to lock off whole areas of the game once they get 'full'. Or "create new layers for certain locations". [Please don't say "instance". "Instance" is a dirty word. And very very wrong.]
Will the economy of the universe be independent in every shard or joined?
The economy will be global.
[But we're not answering your
awkward questions about how Tony Z's subsumption NPCs will work.]
What will prevent large groups of "blues" and large groups of "reds" ending up in echo-chamber shards? Social dynamics would imply large concentrations of people that will have friends and be in orgs that are of the same interests. Will there be a solution that will ensure proper mixing of good, bad, and in-between?
It doesn't matter because we can only support 50 players per shard to start with. [We'll tell you about this later].
If we were to get large shards working, we would use matchmaking.
Will your character and ship always be in-game when you have left; i.e, if I logged out from my ship bed on a planet, will my ship still be there, meaning people could try and break into or destroy my ship?
No. Same goes for your coffee cup.
[Please ignore Chris's blather to the contrary on persistent coffee cups
coming in 2020, and 2021 etc. In fact, it's best to just ignore Chris generally].
How much is new content dependent on Server Meshing now?
Very. Expect fundamental content delays. We have framed this as a good thing. [Because in the future designers will be able to start designing stuff! Isn't that great?!]
[PS please ignore all prior claims of
Jump Points coming in 2017, for example.]
How much of a performance improvement can we expect?
Server performance should improve.
Other network performance areas may get worse though. But we don't tell you that here. You just want to know about improvements right?
I know that there may not be an answer to this yet but, upon initial release of Server Meshing, how many shards do you anticipate needing to have? 10, 100, 1000, more? We know that the shift away from DGS means more players per game area, just not sure how many you anticipate.
We don't know. We need to check whether our new technical solutions even work under a light load first. [Ask again in 2023. And 2024.]
Can an asset as small as a bullet travel across server shards?
No.
Did you mean between servers? If so, then: No. Because bullets are spawned client side.
Did you mean missiles between servers? Is so, then: Yes! [Please don't ask about latency or authority transfers. That would be awkward.]
When we you are handling different regions of the world, are you planning on hosting four main server farms, such as US, EU, China, Oceanic? Or are you planning on making "One-Global-Universe"? If global, how would that handle the balance of players with extreme ping variations?
Please see our previous answer about ambitions, challenges, and not knowing.
I live in Eastern Europe. After launching Server Meshing, will I be able to play with friends from the USA?
Yes.
Your high ping will negatively effect everyone as some of our game code is still client authorative. But don't worry about this, we buried it in a different answer.
Replication Layer Dying: What will players experience if a Replication Layer is shut down/'dies'? We know that the entity graph will collect the seeded information and feed it back into a new replication layer, but will we return to the main menu if the Replication layer dies compared to if a server node dies, or will we have some sort of loading screen that automatically match-makes us into a new layer?
If the 'Hybrid service' crashes, it will be like the current 30Ks.
[Please avoid firing missiles between servers where possible.]
We saw a lot of talk in the panel about which nodes have write authority within a shard, but what about write authority between separate shards? Are separate persistence databases maintained for separate shards or will the states of world items eventually be synchronized between shards even if they were left in different states (i.e., a door is left open on one shard and left closed on another - will one shard eventually write its state to the database, updating the state of the door on the other shard?)
Larger scale changes (like base placement, and the mining of large nodes) should propagate slowly between all shards.
[Plz don't ask if we have this working yet.]
When you have a party moving (quantum travelling or other) from one object to another, and another DGS node, object, or instance is full , will T0 / Static Meshing create another DGS node pre-emptively? Or how will this be handled?
We have solved this problem! By limiting shards to the player cap of a single server node.
Yes, that's right. Shards will be capped at 50 players to begin with.
Welcome to the multiverse.
[Can you see why we hid this question right at the very end?
]
With the sheer volume of data travelling between the clients and server nodes, and the need for extreme low latency, can you describe or dig in to how you are managing that or what technologies you are using to help speed things up, or rather keep them from slowing down?
- "The biggest latency factors currently are server tick rate, client ping, entity spawning, and the latency of persistent services."
- Server tick rate and entity spawning should get better once servers are dealing with smaller regions.
- The new Replication Layer will add latency back in again. We hope to eliminate this latency. Eliminate it I tell you.
- Client ping is a problem due to client authoritive game code. We will deal with these pernicious Cryengine legacies. Erm. In the coming decade.
