FDev, come on already! Beyond a joke. Anyone else seeing this?

[TheMegaTurnip]

Very much doubt it will ever happen, and P2P is the way many games are going. Hell, even Rockstar are using it. GTA Online is Hybrid P2P like ED. P2P is the future of online gaming. You might not like it, but its where things are going.

Besides, you might be willing to pay a monthly subscription (i'm not), but that as a business model has been dying for years as well as its become rather unpopular, and the other main option is P2W, and i don't think many people would like that either.

I really hope you're wrong man. An unstable system like that being used in online games is a joke.

though Battlefield thank the lord, has dedicated servers and even with my measly internets i get very minimal latency issues, Occasionally i have to lead at a different distance, but it's not a shambles like P2P architecture.

Oh - the one I was looking at was this: https://www.frontier.co.uk/careers/disciplines/programming/web-developer

Find Out More Apply Now
Senior Server Developer
Location
Cambridge, UK
Type
Permanent
Discipline
Programming
Purpose of the role
Frontier is looking for a talented Senior Server Developer experienced in developing PHP server based systems, to join our team. Our company has a growing portfolio of web sites, intranet facilities and online applications. The successful applicant would be an integral part or our online services team and will work across a range of both new and existing projects. You will be working in an enthusiastic, agile environment and will be able to expand your skills and abilities by working alongside our skilled and highly experienced developers.
Key Accountabilities
Develop high performance, high availability websites and applications to support our growing catalogue of online games
Build cloud-based software systems and database structures on public cloud services
Maintain and improve our existing sites, including our ecommerce platforms, to ensure the best user experience, features and technology as necessary.
Person Specification
Work collaboratively with the Online team to deliver high quality websites
Ability to communicate effectively with team members
Excellent attention to detail
Good communication skills both verbally and in writing.
Qualifications & Experience

Essential
Direct experience developing with PHP server-based systems
Expertise in database architecture development including SQL.
Excellent object-oriented design and analysis skills.
Strong documentation skills.
Experience with standards compliant Javascript, HTML and CSS with a good knowledge of implementing responsive designs.

Desirable
Recent experience with modern PHP based CMS and/or frameworks, for example Drupal, Magento, Symfony or Laravel
E-commerce development
Working with cloud-based systems, especially Amazon Web Services
Working with public and private RESTful API’s
NoSQL databases (e.g. DynamoDB, Redis or MongoDB)
Docker
Apache / Nginx / Linux.


Actually - if FD operated mainframe and I fancied going back to the UK for a bit - I might actually apply

If they are hiring to sort the server connections and they actually do, i will never complain on these forums again.

Yep. Thats in writing. I will legitamatly hold to it if they sort the servers out.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I really hope you're wrong man. An unstable system like that being used in online games is a joke.

though Battlefield thank the lord, has dedicated servers and even with my measly internets i get very minimal latency issues, Occasionally i have to lead at a different distance, but it's not a shambles like P2P architecture.

There are many driving factors, the main one being financial of course.

But P2P technology is evolving and getting better all the time. Maybe FD made a mistake using it too early, even GTA Online has issues with connectivity at times due to the P2P nature of the networking, and Rockstar can afford to throw money at the problem.

But i suspect in 10 years or so, most online games will be either pure P2P or P2P Hybrid.

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

There are many driving factors, the main one being financial of course.

But P2P technology is evolving and getting better all the time. Maybe FD made a mistake using it too early, even GTA Online has issues with connectivity at times due to the P2P nature of the networking, and Rockstar can afford to throw money at the problem.

But i suspect in 10 years or so, most online games will be either pure P2P or P2P Hybrid.

If its improved, then it's all well and good, but to the degree we suffer connection issues (at least on the PS4) would be atrocious.

I also was under the impression that P2P is inherently easy to hack? Changing certain values to provide anything from an almost unoticable buff to DPS or shields all the way up to insta rebuying you opponents or having thier rmodules take damage all the time they are in the instance with said hackers (using ED as an example)

 

[Kayweg]

Very much doubt it will ever happen, and P2P is the way many games are going. Hell, even Rockstar are using it. GTA Online is Hybrid P2P like ED. P2P is the future of online gaming. You might not like it, but its where things are going.

Besides, you might be willing to pay a monthly subscription (i'm not), but that as a business model has been dying for years as well as its become rather unpopular, and the other main option is P2W, and i don't think many people would like that either.

There are countless non-P2P games without a monthly subscription.
Heck, numerous of them don't even have an initial asking price and are F2P.
Buy a shovel and bury that myth, really.

 

[Sole Hunter]

I used to play with a friend but we gave up trying to wing with each other.

9/10 it didn't work, nav lock is broken, instancing is apparently random whether you end up in the same instance and can actually see each other etc...

We now both play solo and chat on discord if we want to hook up

I'm surprised PvP happens at all in this game.

sometimes you see players shooting at invisible players.

 

[Safepuppy]

I convinced my mate to try the game, gifted him a copy (Xbox) so we could do multiplayer, co-op missions etc.
Nightmare trying to hook up in game!
It was easiest doing a private session rather than open, but nav lock didn't work at all. We just agreed places to meet and delt with that.
Such a shame.

 

[NoobyMcNoobFace]

It's complicated. On a traditional dedicated servers architecture, you have levels/maps loaded on servers. In ED the "map" is the galaxy...

No real time game is instance free. Maybe in the future, through a mesh of interconnected servers that are mapping areas of the open world games. But even in this case, you cannot beat the speed of light. For an aussie, to connect to a UK server, it will always be less than optimal.

Put it simple, the p2p architecture looks optimal on paper for ED. It's a hybrid, of course. There are a lot of things to fix, but I don't blame the architecture for that. Networking in multiplayer games is hard. Wireless suck. Simple truths.

Planet side 2. In its current incarnation, a pretty good example of open world PvP, where simply it prioritises your squad in the network traffic to you. You need servers mind.

 

[sollisb]

Hold on, there is a word of difference between dev team and management and financial decisions made.

In short, don't bash the devs, they are hard working guys who are doing what they are told.

I'm a major critic of Star Citizen, but i'll never bash the devs themselves.

You might bash the decisions made, but they were made with reasons in mind - you might disagree with those. FD might have been able to capture a bigger market and provide a better experience with a C/S architecture, but we would have had to pay for that, one way or another.

Dev's make the bugs.. Not designers not management. And I don't bash any one person. I bash the entire team from the director all the way down tot he tea boy. To use your own analogy... SC... What we have with Elite is a buggy, disjointed, shallow, unbalanced behemoth. But I guess that's better than a 'promise in a wallet' We all know the reasons; Money!

 

[Old Duck]

Dev's make the bugs.. Not designers not management. And I don't bash any one person. I bash the entire team from the director all the way down tot he tea boy. To use your own analogy... SC... What we have with Elite is a buggy, disjointed, shallow, unbalanced behemoth. But I guess that's better than a 'promise in a wallet' We all know the reasons; Money!

Bugs are my number one complaint with the game, but I don't blame individual developers. Yes, a human made a mistake in the code that introduced a bug that ruins a specific aspect of the game - to err is human. However, that bug (some of which were extremely obvious) goes unnoticed in testing, assuming any testing is done, and then once it's "live" and gets reported by the community, it remains unfixed for weeks, months, and sometimes even years! THAT should not be. I suspect the human who made the bug could easily fix the bug if he / she were assigned that task, but this apparently doesn't happen. So ultimately if I were to place blame, I would place it at the feet of the QA team, and more specifically, the person who makes the decision to deprioritize and even ignore these bugs.

And yes, I do think the ignoring of bugs is driven by corporate greed, but this is short-sighted because losing customers due to dissatisfaction is way more expensive in the long run than the cost of man-hours to fix relatively simple (yet impacting) bugs. Hopefully Frontier learns this before it is too late for them.

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

Bugs are my number one complaint with the game, but I don't blame individual developers. Yes, a human made a mistake in the code that introduced a bug that ruins a specific aspect of the game - to err is human. However, that bug (some of which were extremely obvious) goes unnoticed in testing, assuming any testing is done, and then once it's "live" and gets reported by the community, it remains unfixed for weeks, months, and sometimes even years! THAT should not be. I suspect the human who made the bug could easily fix the bug if he / she were assigned that task, but this apparently doesn't happen. So ultimately if I were to place blame, I would place it at the feet of the QA team, and more specifically, the person who makes the decision to deprioritize and even ignore these bugs.

And yes, I do think the ignoring of bugs is driven by corporate greed, but this is short-sighted because losing customers due to dissatisfaction is way more expensive in the long run than the cost of man-hours to fix relatively simple (yet impacting) bugs. Hopefully Frontier learns this before it is too late for them.

I concurr.

I'd rep but apparently you've already had to many off me lol.

Good observations, but don't forget it is the Devs that put the terrible netcode in too!

 

[Vorxian]

You can :

a) complain about bugs
b) broadcast bugs
c) ignore bugs
d) continuously report bugs
e) work around bugs
f) see bugs as a 'feature' of a dynamic galaxy and indulge.

which one are you? I know what one I am!

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

You can :

a) complain about bugs
b) broadcast bugs
c) ignore bugs
d) continuously report bugs
e) work around bugs
f) see bugs as a 'feature' of a dynamic galaxy and indulge.

which one are you? I know what one I am!

See G: Abuse said bugs.

 

[Miko]

Revisiting my old thread here. I hope that FD speak to us about the Q4 update in terms of it's network stability improvements. All of the upcoming features and improvements are all for naught in my opinion if the game is still very much unstable where Open Play player interactions are concerned.

Of course, some Solo players or anyone who keeps to themselves in quieter systems may not encounter the issues quite as frequently as groups who engage in PvP.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

If a dedicated server model were really so great for Elite, don't you think Frontier would have built Elite that way from the start? I'm sure they've made more games and money from games than the average opinion around here has.

P2P = Your lag sucks for me.
DS = Your lag sucks for everyone.

 

[Quantis Trap]

Hold on, there is a word of difference between dev team and management and financial decisions made.

In short, don't bash the devs, they are hard working guys who are doing what they are told.

I'm a major critic of Star Citizen, but i'll never bash the devs themselves.

You might bash the decisions made, but they were made with reasons in mind - you might disagree with those. FD might have been able to capture a bigger market and provide a better experience with a C/S architecture, but we would have had to pay for that, one way or another.

Well said! When a P2P architecture is selected by management for a developer, the developer does the best they can with that architecture.

 

[Toumal]

Today in wing in open.
Kill conda and its SLF explodes.
My shields are getting hit by something but nothing is red on radar.
I ask my wing m8 whats shooting me ?
He says " The SLF from that conda".
Im like " Dude I saw it explode"
Hes like "Not on my screen dude"
Im like "WTH"
Hes like "WTH"
He blows it up.
END of cool story bro !

Consistency
Availability
Partition Tolerance.

Pick two.

It's called Brewer's CAP theorem and your post illustrates the effects of trying to beat it perfectly.

P2P is needed for the vastness of space but certain combat zones, community goal areas and famous landmarks could be done client/server, possibly allowing more ships in that hosted instance as well.

So far, FD thinks the current system is "good enough".

 

[Toumal]

P2P = Your lag sucks for me.
DS = Your lag sucks for everyone.

It is the other way around. In P2P, one client with a terrible connection ruins the instance for everyone. In client/server, he does not.

 

[Quantis Trap]

It is the other way around. In P2P, one client with a terrible connection ruins the instance for everyone. In client/server, he does not.

Very true! However, if P2P is the only solution, then all the parties in the connection have to be empowered to police their only problems instead of just cast blame.

Maybe Frontier needs to write a little network analysis tool into the game which will run several quick P2P scenarios between the current wing mates/instance mates when they are initially connected. That way all the commanders would get a quick score of how suited their current network connections are for the P2P session. Commanders would always know who the potato was in their group. Potatos could then try to fix their network issue instead of getting on this forum and blaming Frontier. I've seen tools like this quickly illuminate where the problem lies in a given situation.

 

[Factabulous]

Very true! However, if P2P is the only solution, then all the parties in the connection have to be empowered to police their only problems instead of just cast blame.

Maybe Frontier needs to write a little network analysis tool into the game which will run several quick P2P scenarios between the current wing mates/instance mates when they are initially connected. That way all the commanders would get a quick score of how suited their current network connections are for the P2P session. Commanders would always know who the potato was in their group. Potatos could then try to fix their network issue instead of getting on this forum and blaming Frontier. I've seen tools like this quickly illuminate where the problem lies in a given situation.

Interesting, though surely you could have a tool that is orthogonal to the game - kinda like the broadband testers, only between peers. Had a quick look around but the only P2P testers I found were for testing the likes of bittorrent, not quite the same thing. Hopefully someone has more google-fu

 

[Aashenfox]

Urm, they are looking for PHP peeps. Now - you could build a client/server architecture upon HTML, but, but....

It'd be the worst idea ever.

Judgin by their site, I'd venture FD are better at PHP than they are at html. At least I would hope so.