Server/Instance Limits and How they work?
- Thread starter breakpointUK
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If that is how EVE etc do it than something like that was what I was thinking. Like I said though it probably comes down to time and cost.
More importantly would we WANT a big server with everyone on it like EVE? No thank you. I'd rather have smaller instances.
If it is stable and has good performance than, why not?
My opinion is definitely different indeed.
I made a lot of suggestions how technical issues with crowded places could be avoided without parallel instancing in this thread - which was closed.
Without rethinking ill-considered decisions like letting thousands of players start in the same system everything is hopeless of course.
If you don't want to share the same world with everyone you can simply avoid the "All"-mode instead of agitating against a proper MMO mode for those who would like to have that option as well.
Staying in a group where you know everyone is the only way to avoid encounters with unknown pilots - instancing won't prevent that as soon as you enter "All".
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I was going to add that a previous thread had thoroughly tried to find out the answer to this question unsuccessfully.
It is something we will need to wait to find out more about in time, and where as we can argue and bicker about what is best, we can only highlight all the options and wait and see who would be right.
1. Quueueieing system
2. Instancing
3. All In All the Time
My tuppence is I suspect it will be a very complicated setup BUT i can not think of ANYTHING worse than a station where you stutter into because of hundreds of ships selling rare finds bleargh like ALL of those Multiplayer games.
So I for one am patient and as much as I would LOVE to see a system where everyone can meet up for a massive space battle, I would rather have seamless game play than the EVE "Fill in this form to notify us of large group mining expeditions"... which is how they work it.
It is something we will need to wait to find out more about in time, and where as we can argue and bicker about what is best, we can only highlight all the options and wait and see who would be right.
1. Quueueieing system
2. Instancing
3. All In All the Time
My tuppence is I suspect it will be a very complicated setup BUT i can not think of ANYTHING worse than a station where you stutter into because of hundreds of ships selling rare finds bleargh like ALL of those Multiplayer games.
So I for one am patient and as much as I would LOVE to see a system where everyone can meet up for a massive space battle, I would rather have seamless game play than the EVE "Fill in this form to notify us of large group mining expeditions"... which is how they work it.
OK, here's how I see it going:
There will be LOTS of instances all the time and they will mostly be invisible to the player.
For starters, every player gets to select in what instance they will be playing - Single Player (SP), Friends-Only (FO) or All (FFA).
There will be loads of the first two types (with SP being optional as to whether the game interfaces with the central servers). No-one playing in SP or FO mode will ever see another player that they haven't approved.
Unless player-killer rules are breached, no-one in the FFA instance will ever see players from the FO instances.
So, before we even begin to address more than [insert number equal to or greater than 32 here] in the FFA instance, there will already be LOADS of instances created by player choice.
However, we will all be connecting to a central server running a simulation of one universe. There will not be "multiple server clusters" - the answer to Bungarus' quote on page one is also "NO" for ED. There will be one universe, but many instances within that universe.
The result of "multiple server clusters, each supporting a unique game universe" is many separate servers with no interaction (beyond chat) between characters on each "world".
The games listed, EverQuest, WoW...etc, all contain a fairly static world which very rarely changes due to player interaction with it and is hosted on different "login" servers.
Your character only exists on one server in a multiverse of identical "worlds", influencing very little.
In ED, everyone will be in the same, single universe, albeit instanced thru player choice or technical requirements.
How will this work for "unique" objects, will you see a piece of space debris you were about to scoop up disappear before your eyes because someone in an alternate instance got there first?
I really don't know. I'm not designing the game, just going on what's been confirmed.
There will be LOTS of instances all the time and they will mostly be invisible to the player.
For starters, every player gets to select in what instance they will be playing - Single Player (SP), Friends-Only (FO) or All (FFA).
There will be loads of the first two types (with SP being optional as to whether the game interfaces with the central servers). No-one playing in SP or FO mode will ever see another player that they haven't approved.
Unless player-killer rules are breached, no-one in the FFA instance will ever see players from the FO instances.
So, before we even begin to address more than [insert number equal to or greater than 32 here] in the FFA instance, there will already be LOADS of instances created by player choice.
However, we will all be connecting to a central server running a simulation of one universe. There will not be "multiple server clusters" - the answer to Bungarus' quote on page one is also "NO" for ED. There will be one universe, but many instances within that universe.
The result of "multiple server clusters, each supporting a unique game universe" is many separate servers with no interaction (beyond chat) between characters on each "world".
The games listed, EverQuest, WoW...etc, all contain a fairly static world which very rarely changes due to player interaction with it and is hosted on different "login" servers.
Your character only exists on one server in a multiverse of identical "worlds", influencing very little.
In ED, everyone will be in the same, single universe, albeit instanced thru player choice or technical requirements.
How will this work for "unique" objects, will you see a piece of space debris you were about to scoop up disappear before your eyes because someone in an alternate instance got there first?
I really don't know. I'm not designing the game, just going on what's been confirmed.
i shouldn't worry about it, frontier has a fairly sizable DB, about 6'4" so i'm told 
did he actually say that, or did he actually say something a little bit vaguer along the lines of "this is not like a traditional mmo", in a response to a specific question about gameplay?
I don't know for sure, I just used Google.
http://games.on.net/2012/11/elite-d...nt-an-mmo-closer-to-things-like-call-of-duty/
Quote in context:
“This isn’t an MMO. You’ll be able to load and save your position, and you’ll be able to choose who you play with. It’s a very different thing, and it’s got more common with the way people tend to play things like Call of Duty,” he said.
I don't need massive amounts of players in one small portion of space.
But I need persistence without parallel instancing.
In the thread that I mentioned I outlined a concept that would also work with limited resources, of course with some inevitable restrictions, but keeping those at a minimum that I can easily tolerate, so for myself at least I found the answer.
"Queueing system" is abridging it dramatically because it does not rely on queueing as much as the current plans rely on instancing, since it is accompanied by measures to have the limit as high as possible and measures to make situations where that limit is reached as rare as possible.
Going the easy way by relying on instancing means such measures don't need to be (as thoroughly) investigated and the limit will be reached far more often. If one is not interested in complex intaractions with other players or in a persistent 3D environment one won't notice much of this splitting up of players in parallel worlds - which makes it such an easy way - but in the long term the lack of meaningful player interactions and persistent gameplay will result in a shallow game.
I know for sure the concept I came up with is far from being as good as a concept that brilliant people like DB and his team could come up with if they were just thinking persistence. Sadly thousands of players starting in one system and hundreds of NPCs in one place shows they did not even start thinking about starting to think about it.
The main thing in a multiplayer online game are the players, and those will be split up into numerous pararellel worlds by instancing according to the current plans. I consider this as a serious flaw and can't get comforted by the market prices being the same in all instances because those are from a central database.
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I think your going to slightly disappointed at first because of what you think and then will come to terms with instances once you actually start to play the game.
There will be instances, this has pretty much been confirmed by FD in various unrelated posts (e.g. the hyperspace one).
How the instances are handled will be the important part.
People playing together or just on friends list should be kept together. Hunter and prey should be kept together.
Where the instances are will make a difference too (e.g. solar system instances or multiple instances in the same solar system) along with the player limit of instances (32 or 64). So for example lets say that the player limit is 64 and there is instances based on planetary bodies in a solar system then in the Sol system there will be 64 x 10 players. 640 players in a solar system isn't too bad is it?
You've also got to understand the scale of the game too.
Even if everyone played in the exact same server and everyone can see everyone else the chances of hundreds of players in the exact same space will be very slim (other than launch day I guess)
As I outlined, many of the players, probably the majority of players will be in their own instances. That is a core concept of Elite: Dangerous, that it will satisfy all playstyles from single player to free-for-all PVP.
Is it really bad design to give players as much choice as possible?
I can see arguments on both sides. One, that the FFA instances might seem awfully empty if (almost) everyone else is sectioned off in their own instances. On the other hand, that may not be such a bad thing either - do we really want SPACE to feel over-populated?
And two, giving players the choice to play where they want means more sales, which results in a more successful, ongoing investment in the Elite universe.
At the end of the day, I don't think I agree with you. I'd much rather see options for single player, friend only and FFA, and some real incentives to play in the FFA instances that balance the threat of being shot at by arses all day long. Especially if you're trying to survive in Ironman mode in FFA.
I don't see that concept being changed, so you'll just have to walk away or deal with it.
I made up my mind I won't ever start playing a game that relies on parallel instancing.
640 players in one system devided into several zones would indeed be perfectly ok. What I don't appreciate is the parallel instancing part. Sometimes the limit will be reached in an importand zone or in a zone where something important happens, and for these cases I want a less surreal and illogical solution than instancing.
I agree with such a big universe it could be achieved to make places that reach the limit a rare occurrence. But letting thousands start in a single "Founder's System" and thousands in Lave and having the Sol system in the game that will attract many players are completely counterproductive decisions in that respect.
I could tolerate Sol as the only instanced system in the game - if it is made clear and there is an explanation for this anomaly in the background story to save some immersion.
No, not my playstyle as a persistent non-instanced sandbox MMOG player.
As much choice as possible would include a proper persistent MMO option.
Not giving the players the choice to play where there's no instancing means the game can't be sold to those who can't tolerate instancing.
Death should be unpleasant, but death meaning "Game over" in a persistent multiplayer online game is ridiculous. Who came up with that idea, FD or the DDF?