ED Server / Servers Down problems discussion thread

[Ende]

I know for myself as a former currency seller that an official solution would have seriously killed my ability to trade, as it was I had to undercut the farmers, but I could afford to do so, as my credit generation methods were far more efficient than what the farmers were doing.

I really do see an official venue for credit sales putting a huge gate on professional farmers.

U do realise that most 'gold farmers' r based in China and that most of them are in prison right?

Basically prisoners in China r used to farm gold, theres no cost to this obviously and this means they can undercut pretty much any official rate (there are few good documentaries on this).

The other way to collect gold/credits is to hack accounts and steal the gold/credits. This also has zero cost to the goldseller.

The problem for Frontier is that there becomes a critical mass point where they cannot lower thier price for credits as it will break the game. Afterall (for arguements sake) whats the point of spending a day to farm 10,000 credits in the game when u can buy it for £1 off the game itself?

Im almost certain that a far greater percentage of players will be put off by a lack of elves in skimpy clothing and large shoulder pauldrons. Also the idea of actually manually piloting a ship in real time and actually aiming and actually firing will put even more players off.

I 100% agree with u but this has nothing to do with my point.

Your point is simply explaining that gamers will always buy games they know theyll like. FPS players will buy the latest COD and Strategists will buy the next Civilisation, we know this.

My point is that certain aspects of game design will attract or keep away gamers too. And sadly alot of players do stay away from games with purchaseable credits.

and once the glowing reviews go out and the word of mouth spreads

This is more my point, its a question of reputation.

"pay to win" has an established reputation and we dont want Frontier to get tarred with this brush. Lets hope that the glowing awesome gaming reviews can give enough positive press so the potential "pay to win" issue becomes irrelvant

 

[-Joe]

ED web server control for player owned assets

This is an idea that some systems within the ED universe could be at least partially user defined. You could choose to enter or ignore these systems or opt out of the whole user system idea.

Most of us with an internet connection get their own active web space provided with their connection but most people don't make use of it.

Now what if frontier provide cgi scripts & SQL scripts that would make a player's active website become part of the game. A website setup wizard could allow a player to set-up a solar system, it's world type, it's initial political basis, the space station type, it's initial market prices. It's planetary details from multiple choice lists.

When the scripts are running all online players who opt in could interact with it as if it were a canonical system. Should the ED server not be able to contact the player server then the player's system goes supanova and ED server forgets about it.

In time more system features could become adjustable as Frontier sees fit.

This way frontiers servers could share some of the load of storing every detail in the ED universe if we allow user content.

 

[Hamerstein]

I'm not sure how this fits with the current model being proposed by FD.

For player created systems to exist, they'd have to be presented on the galactic map. EDs universe is procedurally generated, how would the FD servers reconcile player made systems with their universe?

The player made system would also have to be subject to the same instancing requirements of the rest of the ED universe, that could involve a great deal of webspace if the system became heavily populated.

What happens to players that are in the system when the webspace disconnects from FDs servers? Do they die, or dumped into a nearby fully supported FD system? Either scenario is unfair or immersion breaking for the players concerned.

If players were allowed to define economic and political values for their system, would that necessarily make sense within the evolving galaxy? Where would these custom systems exist in relation to everything else? Would it make sense to have an Alliance system right in the middle of Federation controlled space, for example? The idea sounds a little too open to exploitation without stringent control from FD.

 

[-Joe]

control

Yup very stringent control needed wizard guided generation and very few actual options maybe none open string to start with.

The player's servers are only to handle this custom info, not the game playing. I imagine ED servers grab the data if it's there, then host as usual.

If a player server goes down whilst other players are within that system they are warp thrown to the nearest safe system by the supanova as the player's system dies. Therefore if your server goes down once. Your system is kicked from ED you have to make another! The dead system would then be dropped from the map of user space systems.

The idea is that the players servers should be accessed very infrequently during gameplay, maybe only during warp or docking.

As subsequent distributions of players servers are released more freedoms for system owners could be granted.

As for whether it would junk the universe, this could be scripted out. In such that the position of your system would dictate it's major qualities the user only trimming these. If the user wants a radically different system then they could choose radically different universal position say outer rim worlds and there their options for their system will be different.

Credit mining? well maybe docking fees etc.

All these things could be done on ED's own servers, yes but in this way maybe eventually you would get more detailed content than ED could provide and the responsibility of system upkeep is shifted to the player.

 

[Bromley86]

If a player server goes down whilst other players are within that system they are warp thrown to the nearest safe system by the supanova as the player's system dies. Therefore if your server goes down once. Your system is kicked from ED you have to make another! The dead system would then be dropped from the map of user space systems.

Not a big fan of this, to be honest. I'd rather FD control the feel of the the universe rather than a bunch of different people with their own wacky ideas of what's good, but even if it was the latter anything as immersion-breaking as "Whilst you were asleep the sun went supernova and you were magically transported to another system with no loss" would be irritating.

That's a different question from allowing the game to be modded (excluding the FD hsted persistent universe, naturally). If someone wants to (and if the procedural process allows them too), a total conversion hosted on a non-FD server would be great.

 

[Chriswsm]

I quite like the idea of players becoming wealthy enough to buy their own system or at least their own space station. Perhaps a group of players doing so and getting dividends from the shares they own in the space station.

Perhaps getting one awarded to you for the completion of a very long series of tasks for the Empire or whatever faction you support. As a reward they make you Mayor or CEO.

I think this should however be held on the master system and not separately on a user defined machine or cluster of machines.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Having problems connecting to the server? post in here.

If you are having a problem in connecting to the server, post in here and we'll see what we can do to help.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Meta data server's "heartbeat"

This one for ED developers

Is it known how frequently updates will happen or what's maximum timeout for sync for meta data server with game itself? 1 hour, 6 hours, 12 hours, 1 day, 1 week?

Mortigi tempo,
Peter.

 

[Associat0r]

Good question, I would like to know as well.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Part of the alpha and beta tests will be used to determine this, but different aspects of the simulation are likely to have a different update cadence.

Michael

 

[Kurnis]

North American server?

Sorry if this has been asked before, I tried searching and found nothing...

But have they announced if there will be North American servers?

Im sure its a dumb question.... be gentle lol

 

[Memnoch]

I haven't heard anything along those lines but perhaps it will happen at a later date if not at launch. I don't think there have been any details released on what kind of server(s) will be needed to host the world but I would imagine it unlikely that Frontier will be hosting it themselves at their Cambridge offices, which would mean it would offsite somewhere which could technically mean anywhere in the world.

 

[Bingo Brewster]

Sorry if this has been asked before, I tried searching and found nothing...

But have they announced if there will be North American servers?

Im sure its a dumb question.... be gentle lol

Wot Memnoch said, but also remember the game is P2P, with server for background data, so maybe its not necessary to give each region its own server(s)

 

[JazHaz]

Some of the game, ie the Galaxy simulation will be hosted on servers. However a lot of the multiplayer stuff won't be on servers, they are looking at a peer-to-peer model as far as I understand it.

 

[Patrick_68000]

And then with the optical fiber at the speed of light ...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Sorry if this has been asked before, I tried searching and found nothing...

But have they announced if there will be North American servers?

Im sure its a dumb question.... be gentle lol

Game will only have one meta server (or probably special cluster with shared data storage), so no, not special dedicated US server required. Rest of networking will be trough P2P.

 

[Slawkenbergius]

The good news for the OP is that Frontier have an office in Canada, so it would seem quite plausible for them to set something up there to service North America, if it's needed for performance.

Edit: Got my facts wrong... See below.

Spoiler

I wonder though, because Star Citizen is working in a not dissimilar way, and they're going to have European/Australian server centres...

 

[huwthomas]

I wonder though, because Star Citizen is working in a not dissimilar way, and they're going to have European/Australian server centres...

SC will be using P2P? I hadn't heard that, I was under the impression it was all server based.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I wonder though, because Star Citizen is working in a not dissimilar way, and they're going to have European/Australian server centres....

Afaik SC won't use P2P, but C/S, so for them having regional servers is understandable.

 

[Jenner]

Well if it's at all desirable for performance then I, as a US gamer, wholeheartedly approve!