will there ever be 2000 player battles? [Archive]

Ivam Akorahil

2012-08-13, 04:20 AM

was just thinking. 2000 players (accounts) on one sever. one server will have 3 continents. if players fancy all continents equal then it will be 2000/3 = 666 players per continent. and then maybe not everybody is playing at the same time. hard to estimate but lets say only 1/3 play at the time. then we are down to 222 players per continent. not that massive?? or am I thinking wrong here?

your wrong its 6000 per server, 2000 per continent

the cap for activ players per server is 6000 which is probably going to happen easily, because active players does not mean the amount of people who have chars on servers

there can easily be 30000 people having chars on one server but only 6000 of them can play at the same time

also the 2000 per continent/6000 per server is the guaranteed minimum soe assured
if the tech goes with it they might allow more

where the hell do you people get your numbers from ? :V

Realmofdarkness

2012-08-13, 04:25 AM

222 players in a base battle isn't massive? Interesting. When is the last time you took 222 people and put them in the same room with guns.

Think about that.

222 on the same continent wouldent be much becasue there are several bases where the battle could occur. But the answer to this was that there are a limit of 2000 per continent and not server.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 04:27 AM

your wrong its 6000 per server, 2000 per continent

the cap for activ players per server is 6000 which is probably going to happen easily, because active players does not mean the amount of people who have chars on servers

They never said anything about a pop limit of 6000 players per server. I highly doubt it if you compare it with other MMO games.

also the 2000 per continent/6000 per server is the guaranteed minimum soe assured
if the tech goes with it they might allow more

They said, the target and estimate 2000 players per continent, they never promised. Beta will tell what is possible.

where the hell do you people get your numbers from ? :V

Where do you get your numbers from?

Realmofdarkness

2012-08-13, 04:28 AM

there can easily be 30000 people having chars on one server but only 6000 of them can play at the same time

So if there is 30k accounts but only 6000 can play. will people have to wait until they get in then? a que system?

FortySe7en

2012-08-13, 04:33 AM

222 on the same continent wouldent be much becasue there are several bases where the battle could occur. But the answer to this was that there are a limit of 2000 per continent and not server.

No. Because people don't spread to random locations. They go to hotspots. Most likely most of those 222 people would be in the same spot.

Joomba

2012-08-13, 04:34 AM

Sunrock

2012-08-13, 04:37 AM

Just like to point out that all numbers in this thread is pulled out of a hat. No one at SOE have came out and sand that the servers can only handle X players at the time. In fact I don't think anyone at SOE is really sure about how many the servers can hold yet. That is something they have to test in the beta.

However I think it's a safe bet to assume that the servers can hold 6k players per continent at the same time. 18000 players logged into the servers at the same time that is.

But the how many the server can handle fighting over one fort is allot more interesting. And I hope we can see 500 or so. But if SOE wants most of there players to be able to play on max graphic settings while doing that... maybe only around 200.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 04:42 AM

So if there is 30k accounts but only 6000 can play. will people have to wait until they get in then? a que system?

Most likely, thats how most MMO games do it. You still have the chance to go to a less populated server, although you will be playing a different char there.

Choosing the right server at the begin of a MMO is a difficult task. On day 1 you cant know which server will be over- or underpopulated. Later choosing a low-pop server might be a bad idea because if the total amount of players drops over the next months your server might die. Choosing a high-pop server may lead to waiting queues, which (if the total amount of players grows) may be there for a long time.

Sunrock

2012-08-13, 04:42 AM

Not everyone who has an account will be on at the same time. People do things other than play video games.

Imagine a 6000 person server: over time, players will quit. Eventually, the server will be "full" but have almost nobody available to play.

Well if they open up 5000 servers on day one they will have a problem filling any of them. But if they have only open a few servers they can avoid most of server population problems over time.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 04:53 AM

Just like to point out that all numbers in this thread is pulled out of a hat. No one at SOE have came out and sand that the servers can only handle X players at the time. In fact I don't think anyone at SOE is really sure about how many the servers can hold yet. That is something they have to test in the beta.

True, except that SOE themselves actually brought the 2000 players per continent into the discussion

However I think it's a safe bet to assume that the servers can hold 6k players per continent at the same time. 18000 players logged into the servers at the same time that is.

Lol, now you are making numbers up. Which MMO in existence can handle that?
WoW servers got cap between 4k and 8k of users online at the same time. And those people are not on one actual server, but different servers (instance servers, PvP servers and continent servers)

Harasus

2012-08-13, 04:55 AM

was just thinking. 2000 players (accounts) on one sever. one server will have 3 continents. if players fancy all continents equal then it will be 2000/3 = 666 players per continent. and then maybe not everybody is playing at the same time. hard to estimate but lets say only 1/3 play at the time. then we are down to 222 players per continent. not that massive?? or am I thinking wrong here?

I have played medieval FPS games with 250 players on the server at the same time, and that is an indie game which is not even created to have that many players at the same time.

If SOE will have a limit of 666/continent, then that is very silly and I can continue playing previously mentioned game some more. I have heard that there will be 3 continents/server, and each server can hold 6 000 players. Therefore, 2 000 players/continent. That sounds a lot more reasonable, and I am willing to believe that.

So, yes, you are thinking very wrong here.

Sunrock

2012-08-13, 05:05 AM

True, except that SOE themselves actually brought the 2000 players per continent into the discussion

Lol, now you are making numbers up. Which MMO in existence can handle that?
WoW servers got cap between 4k and 8k of users online at the same time. And those people are not on one actual server, but different servers (instance servers, PvP servers and continent servers)

All MMOs use a cluster of servers and I expect they do the same with Planetside using just one physical server for any game that have over 60 players online is stupid, at least if you want any fancy graphic in the game.

But with the network tech that exist today I think that is possible to fit in 6k players on a 8km x 8km map.

ringring

2012-08-13, 05:07 AM

I have played medieval FPS games with 250 players on the server at the same time, and that is an indie game which is not even created to have that many players at the same time.

If SOE will have a limit of 666/continent, then that is very silly and I can continue playing previously mentioned game some more. I have heard that there will be 3 continents/server, and each server can hold 6 000 players. Therefore, 2 000 players/continent. That sounds a lot more reasonable, and I am willing to believe that.

So, yes, you are thinking very wrong here.
As people are saying SOE are going for 2000 per continent which is 6000 active at any one time on the launch server of 3 continents.

Yes, if 20000 have characters on a server they can't all play at the same time, but then they wouldn't all want to given that folk have to do RL stuff from time to time.

I'd also point out that just recents PS1 was hosting battles of 600 per continent (200x200x200) and I'm confident of a big increase in PS2.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 05:15 AM

All MMOs use a cluster of servers and I expect they do the same with Planetside using just one physical server for any game that have over 60 players online is stupid, at least if you want any fancy graphic in the game.

But with the network tech that exist today I think that is possible to fit in 6k players on a 8km x 8km map.

ArmA II (more specifically DayZ) got servers (one physical server) with a few hundred people as pop limit.

In terms of cohesion its a bad idea to separate entities which can influence each other very much on different servers. Is save to save that a continent in PS2 is one physical machine.
Just think it through, there cant be any borders in which you hand over people from one server to the other.
If one continent would be already divided into a server cluster, seamless contients wouldnt be that complicated to implement, but as Smedley wrote in his blog, technical difficulties are the main reason that this might never be done.

Ivam Akorahil

2012-08-13, 05:32 AM

They never said anything about a pop limit of 6000 players per server. I highly doubt it if you compare it with other MMO games.

thats rubbish, get your facts together before posting

They said, the target and estimate 2000 players per continent, they never promised. Beta will tell what is possible.

exactly, 2000 per continent = 6000 per server, we have 3 continents, it invalidates your first point

Where do you get your numbers from?

from there :

ehm yes the devs said they want to achieve a MINIMUM of 6000 active players per server, but MORE if the tech allows it - no i cannot be bothered to listen through 12 hours of video to find the point again where it was said, just to prove you wrong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlanetSide_2
large battles featuring up to 2000 players on foot or in land/air vehicles

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/planetside-2k/
(smedley in interview)
And those games can’t have 2,000 players playing at the same time. I don’t mean like in instances, I mean 2,000 players in the exact same continent at the exact same time.

http://www.topiama.com/r/202/iama-john-smedley-22-year-game-industry-veteran
smedley again
2 - it's likely to be a max cap of 2,000 per continent. Still working out the final details about pop caps per empire.

http://mabination.com/threads/59744-Planetside-2-What-is-it-and-why-do-I-want-to-play-it?p=931704
smedley AGAIN
he game is played on gigantic open world continents with up to 2000 other players on a single continent. When we say it's massively multiplayer, we're not talking about a bunch of instances like other games. All 2000 people are literally playing together and fighting in massive battles

btw i hate you for wasting my time by looking for all the quotes - just to make a point

Mystwalker

2012-08-13, 05:34 AM

y'all touting number with no fact checking soe said in the pc gamer magazine it'll be 666x3 empires x 3 continents at realease
6000 at release 24/7 coverage means at least 3x that per server
oh and they will be adding more land to fight over and if things go well naval battles as well as space
sounds like the if the plans happen we could have 30 to 40 k on a server,all not on at the same time,but i do expect eve like numbers active on a server
expect big numbers if they can stay on track and deliver
i say this knowing sony's track record on releasing broken games due to budget and managment pressure but i will still keep my fingers crossed that ps2 is shiney and polished and glowing,at least till we baptise it in terran and vanu blood.
NC FOR LIFE
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD EMPEROR
proud member Legion of the Damned

Ivam Akorahil

2012-08-13, 05:36 AM

Lol, now you are making numbers up. Which MMO in existence can handle that?
WoW servers got cap between 4k and 8k of users online at the same time. And those people are not on one actual server, but different servers (instance servers, PvP servers and continent servers)

you can connect servers to make a sort of super server

have a look at eve, averagely 40000 people logged into the only server the game has

technicaly you can seperate the servers into 3 sub servers one for each continent, increasing the pop 3 fold, then you could even split up the hexes on each continent. Its no far future stuff, its simple networking and it works

but computers would struggle to render 10000 people fighting in a tight frontline. the limitation is not networking its computer performance

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 05:41 AM

ehm yes the devs said they want to achieve a MINIMUM of 6000 active players per server, but MORE if the tech allows it

But for this claim you dont have a quote. Why? This is the point we are in dispute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlanetSide_2
large battles featuring up to 2000 players on foot or in land/air vehicles

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/planetside-2k/
(smedley in interview)
And those games can’t have 2,000 players playing at the same time. I don’t mean like in instances, I mean 2,000 players in the exact same continent at the exact same time.

http://www.topiama.com/r/202/iama-john-smedley-22-year-game-industry-veteran
smedley again
2 - it's likely to be a max cap of 2,000 per continent. Still working out the final details about pop caps per empire.

http://mabination.com/threads/59744-Planetside-2-What-is-it-and-why-do-I-want-to-play-it?p=931704
smedley AGAIN
he game is played on gigantic open world continents with up to 2000 other players on a single continent. When we say it's massively multiplayer, we're not talking about a bunch of instances like other games. All 2000 people are literally playing together and fighting in massive battles

btw i hate you for wasting my time by looking for all the quotes - just to make a point

2000 players per continent, sure they said that multiple times. Please note hat there are often phrases like "likely", "plan on" and "up to" involved. We will see how this plays out during beta.

You cant simply multiply 2000 with the number of continents, it may very well be that there is a cap of (say) 4000 players and 2000 of them can be on a single continent, while the rest will divide up on the other continents.

Ivam Akorahil

2012-08-13, 05:44 AM

But for this claim you dont have a quote. Why? This is the point we are in dispute.

2000 players per continent, sure they said that multiple times. Please note hat there are often phrases like "likely", "plan on" and "up to" involved. We will see how this plays out during beta.

You cant simply multiply 2000 with the number of continents, it may very well be that there is a cap of (say) 4000 players and 2000 of them can be on a single continent, while the rest will divide up on the other continents.

its okay just go against the stream, everyone knows these numbers, iam the only one stupid enough to take offense by you and waste my time argueing with you. 6000 people per server is absolutly nothing for modern networking.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/08/10/a-look-into-the-nuts-and-bolts-of-eve-onlines-single-shard-arch/

have a look at that, if your still sceptical, go home :|

Piper

2012-08-13, 05:50 AM

Few things.

First up I gather (don't recall where I heard this so er....) each cont' is technically a server, that is to say a bit of hardware in and of itself. It might be best to refer to the servers (realms) as something else.

In answer to the thread question, we should at least going on the information we have coming out of SOE? It will depend on so many factors. How well they juggle what they think they will be having in ratio terms of player base(s), localized to each global area, to servers at launch. That is always a gamble, a pretty big one for an MMOFPS more than an MMOrpG to boot.

I'm sure we'll see queuing to get onto busy cont's, ala PS1, perhaps queues to get onto servers (realms) in the early days and weeks depending on how they gamble above.

Another factor will be population drop off, MMO's are these days played like single player games by some, buy one, buy crud off store, over-play it till nausea sets in and then move onto the next one that's out near on every month these days.

Lastly it depends how fast and often they bring out new cont's, perhaps diluting combat populations per server (realm) Which is not always a bad thing in terms of strategic play!

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 05:53 AM

technicaly you can seperate the servers into 3 sub servers one for each continent, increasing the pop 3 fold,

Of course, i never said all continents are hosted on one physical machine. But there has to be also a meta server allowing interaction between players on different continents (mainly chat, but also outfit-, squad-related stuff)

then you could even split up the hexes on each continent. Its no far future stuff, its simple networking and it works

Thats different and far more complicated. Not impossible but i doubt PS2 works that way (yet, as seamless continents are planned).

Please note that i am not denying that there may very well 6k players on each server, effectivly locking all three continents, but i have yet to see some offical quote for that claim.
Before that i am sticking to what the devs actually said (planning for 2000 players per continent) and dont jump to conclusions.

magnatron

2012-08-13, 07:00 AM

well ps1 allowed for 133 player from each side on each of the conts witch added up to 4389...and in the early days ive seen most of the conts pop locked and did not have to sit in a que to log in.

seems to me if they had a tech to handle that many back then, saying 6k per server total now seems conservative actually imo.

couple that with the tech used for some of the single shard games like eve, witch has had more than 60,000 players logged into the same server at the same time (albeit not to the level of action we will see in ps2).

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 07:12 AM

well ps1 allowed for 133 player from each side on each of the conts witch added up to 4389...and in the early days ive seen most of the conts pop locked and did not have to sit in a que to log in.

Well, that was a long time ago. But as i recall there were always some continents without fighting at all, before broadcast warpgates. Most certainly there havent been all 3 empires on all continents. So i am not sure about that numbers.

seems to me if they had a tech to handle that many back then, saying 6k per server total now seems conservative actually imo.

True, very well possible, but not yet confirmed. To this day they never had more than 2000 players on a server ;)

couple that with the tech used for some of the single shard games like eve, witch has had more than 60,000 players logged into the same server at the same time (albeit not to the level of action we will see in ps2).

EVE is specifically designed for that, the PS2 devs may not see the necessity to implement a similar server structure.

We have to just wait and see (what happens if the beta servers will start to break the 2k limit)

Snipefrag

2012-08-13, 07:24 AM

A lot of rubbish posts in this thread, please stick to facts and not hearsay/your opinion. If you don't know or aren't sure just hold off posting. The facts as we know them right now are:

2000 concurrent people online allowed on each continent (technically 666x666x666 so its even numbers)
3 continents at launch
6000 concurrent people at launch on each server
One faction per server per account

Subject to change during beta of course. Some logical assumptions based on current information:

There will almost certainly be queues to get on a server if they are pop locked, the devs will obviously try to spread players over many servers so people arn't in massive queues to get on. But queues will be unavoidable.
They might close character creation on servers where the pops are capping out too often to deter people from creating characters on full capacity servers. Like WoW has done at times in the past.

My opinion on the single/multiple shard debate is this:

Each continents real time data is handled on single very high spec server, there are no instances in PS2. So you cannot easily break apart sections of the map to run on different servers, it would just be inefficient in my opinion to do this. The optimizations that make this possible will need to be done at a software level, to keep the load the server has to process in real time as light as possible so it can handle so many people. You cannot compare PS2 to Crysis or BF3 server sizes, the server architecture for this game has been built from the ground up with the understanding that it will have to support up to 2000 people per shard. They might break things apart so that all the real time stuff such as collision detection, movement, bullet calculations, player positions are done on one server and less real time related stuff such as squad details, outfit lists, cash shop stuff, resource calculations, friends lists are done on a second one. At least thats how i would do it as a software developer. But who knows, none of us will ever get to glance inside the code at that depth.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 07:35 AM

A lot of rubbish posts in this thread, please stick to facts and not hearsay/your opinion. If you don't know or aren't sure just hold off posting. That facts as we know them right now are:

2000 concurrent people online allowed on each continent
3 continents at launch
6000 concurrent people at launch on each server
One faction per server per account

Yes, but still i would like to know where the 6000 per server are confirmed. Never seen that officially acknowledged.

Snipefrag

2012-08-13, 09:06 AM

Yes, but still i would like to know where the 6000 per server are confirmed. Never seen that officially acknowledged.

It hasn't been confirmed because we are still in beta, but the devs have said that they aim to have 666x666x666 per continent so pretty much 2000 people. They have said it MANY times, in AMA's, twitter, marketing blurb, interviews with PC Gamer, youtube videos.. If your that worried about it go use google and watch some dev interviews and you will find places where it has been stated.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 09:13 AM

It hasn't been confirmed because we are still in beta, but the devs have said that they aim to have 666x666x666 per continent so pretty much 2000 people. They have said it MANY times, in AMA's, twitter, marketing blurb, interviews with PC Gamer, youtube videos.. If your that worried about it go use google and watch some dev interviews and you will find places where it has been stated.

I am starting to wonder if i am using a different language :huh:

Yes, there are multiple quotes and confirmations that they plan on having 2000 players per continent. I have stated this multiple times in this thread.

But having 2000 players on one continent does not automatically equal they can support 6000 players per server/shard, as the infrastructure might not be able to handle that.
Of course it might be able to do it, but there is simply no confirmation of that that i am aware of.
I actually think that 6000 per server/shard will be possible, but if they start adding more continents i am not sure if the can scale the total server capacity along with it.

Duskguy

2012-08-13, 09:15 AM

as stated, 2000 per continent, 3 continents to a server (for now), so 6000 for a server, logged on at once.

thats about 600 and change players per faction, per continent

Greeniegriz

2012-08-13, 10:18 AM

Wait and see....

Cheers,

GG

Sent from Auraxis using Tapatalk

Hamma

2012-08-13, 10:31 AM

2000 people will never be at one base that would never work. There will be multiple servers and a mission system/territory capture system that will cause people to spread out.

Snipefrag

2012-08-13, 10:32 AM

I am starting to wonder if i am using a different language :huh:

Yes, there are multiple quotes and confirmations that they plan on having 2000 players per continent. I have stated this multiple times in this thread.

But having 2000 players on one continent does not automatically equal they can support 6000 players per server/shard, as the infrastructure might not be able to handle that.
Of course it might be able to do it, but there is simply no confirmation of that that i am aware of.
I actually think that 6000 per server/shard will be possible, but if they start adding more continents i am not sure if the can scale the total server capacity along with it.

I think you might be looking at this in the wrong sort of way, the way i see things working (as a software developer with quite a lot of experience with load balancing across multiple servers) is they should probably have a separate server shard for each continent. This does all the real time information about battle etc. Sitting around all these shards that they could have a 'login shard' for managing player logins and limiting player movement based on continent caps etc.

That 'login shard' will not have to do much actual processing, its a glorified database that works with all the individual 'continent shards' to keep track of what players are where. Each of the 'continent shards' would only know about the players that are on them so it would just be a matter of each continent shard notifying the login shard about when a player leaves or joins it.

Technically its probably one of the simplest things PS2 will have to deal with, it could just be done with a database and a smaller gateway server application that communicates with each shard. All these elements roll up into a server cluster which would go together to make your "Emerald", "Markov", "Gemini" server you click on to log into. Armchair development you might say, but thats how i would do it. By delegating tasks to different 'shards' as opposed to having 1 massive server that does everything you make it much more scalable.

The PS2 developers are clever, you don't have to worry about if they can handle keeping track of 6000 people on a 'server', that is child's play to these guys when you look at the other challenges they are facing.

Ivam Akorahil

2012-08-13, 10:45 AM

agreed snipefrag, people some to get all paranoid about the simplest stuff

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 11:04 AM

I think you might be looking at this in the wrong sort of way, the way i see things working (as a software developer with quite a lot of experience with load balancing across multiple servers) is they should probably have a separate server shard for each continent. This does all the real time information about battle etc. Sitting around all these shards that they could have a 'login shard' for managing player logins and limiting player movement based on continent caps etc.

That 'login shard' will not have to do much actual processing, its a glorified database that works with the all the individual 'continent shards' to keep track of what players are where. Each of the 'continent shards' would only know about the players that are on them so it would just be a matter of each continent shard notifying the login shard about when a player leaves or joins it.

Technically its probably one of the simplest things PS2 will have to deal with, it could just be done with a database and a smaller gateway server application that communicates with each shard. All these elements roll up into a server cluster which would go together to make your "Emerald", "Markov", "Gemini" server you click on to log into. Armchair development you might say, but thats how i would do it. By delegating tasks to different 'shards' as opposed to having 1 massive server that does everything you make it much more scalable.

The PS2 developers are clever, you don't have to worry about if they can handle keeping track of 6000 people on a 'server', that is child's play to these guys when you look at the other challenges they are facing.

Yeah, well thanks for telling me things i already know and which are problably common knowledge for alot of PC gamers with basic programming skills.
Sorry if that strikes you as a bit rude but you clearly havent read most of my postings in this thread, which i actually find pretty rude.

There are a couple things you are forgetting about the meta server keeping the continent servers together. There is also the issue of chat and all other non continent specific real-time data (squads, outfits) which needs to be shared across all servers which is most likely handled by the meta server. Also changing continent and other stuff i am missing. There will also be a quite sophisticated voicecom feature, possibly spanning over the continents (outfit chat maybe). So its more than just keeping a database and login procedure.

It might be possible to do this for 6000 players, some arguments and examples in this thread convinced me even that it is likely, but still:
There ist no confirmation whatsoever that 6000 players will be possible concurrently

To quote your first posting in this thread:please stick to facts and not hearsay/your opinion

You could even argue that limiting the players per server below 6000 is a design choice. For example to help filling the servers more evenly or to avoid that players are forced on one specific continent (i.e. if you limit a server to 4000 players everybody logging in always can choose between 2 continents to fight on, as its impossible for 2 continents to be pop locked)

Diojr

2012-08-13, 11:26 AM

Truth is the battles will be epic, and of a scale which haven't been seen in any FPS before.

Snipefrag

2012-08-13, 11:38 AM

Sorry if that strikes you as a bit rude but you clearly havent read most of my postings in this thread, which i actually find pretty rude.

No, i haven't. This thread is full of so much rubbish that i skimmed most of it and felt the need to help clarify some things. Just because you reply to something I've posted doesn't mean that its rude because i haven't gone back and read everything you have ever posted. if i have missed something, point it out to me and then we can discuss it.

There is also the issue of chat and all other non continent specific real-time data (squads, outfits) which needs to be shared across all servers which is most likely handled by the meta server.

Yes, its nice to see you follow the concepts. A lot of people probably don't, I'm not going to presume anything.. Especially from someone i have never seen before or spoken to on these forums. I would be surprised if player generated chat is going to be a massive load, the way it will most likely work is each player on the meta server joins text chat 'groups' be it outfit, squad, platoon.. When a chat message is sent from a particular player it hits the 'meta server' as you call it. From there it is pushed out to the individual players clients belonging to that group, Whats so taxing about that? Additionally i don't think chat even needs to be real time.. Sure it needs to be prompt, but why would a different of up to half a second during periods of high load seriously hamper gameplay? Local chat doesn't need to go to the meta server, nor combat spam.

If they cant handle this how can that handle hundreds and hundreds of people in the same place at the same time? There is very little difference between PS1 and PS2 in regards to chat, and the first game was made 10 years ago. Technology is a lot better and the devs are probably a lot better at doing what they do now with all that experience.

Also changing continent and other stuff i am missing.

This isn't taxing at all, think of the logic:

Client requests change to continent X
Meta server checks if current player count for selected empire < total allowed count for selected empire
if true lets player onto continent X, hands that information to continent shard X.

Again, if PS1 can do it on hardware 10 years ago, why would this be so taxing?

There will also be a quite sophisticated voicecom feature, possibly spanning over the continents (outfit chat maybe).

The way i see voice com working is that its ip point to point on the client, i might be wrong. Who knows? If that is the case then the meta server just tells each client in that voice com 'room' and IP addresses of each of the members.. Like Mumble or teamspeak, that data shouldnt have to be funneled through the server/meta server.

It might be possible to do this for 6000 players, some arguments and examples in this thread convinced me even that it is likely, but still:
There ist no confirmation whatsoever that 6000 players will be possible concurrently

The difference between me and you is that you are jumping up and down because something hasn't been confirmed, I'm simply trying to tell you that in the grand scheme of things i think non-real time stuff like the 'meta server' is going to be the least of the PS2 devs worries. Making sure that when you have a 6-7-800 person battle and when you shoot someone they stay shot, and everyone renders in the right place etc is going to be the major challenge.

As for opinion vs fact, when i'm giving an opinion i let people know about it. In this thread people have been presenting opinion and hearsay as facts, that isn't good as it spreads misinformation, worrying etc.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 12:28 PM

The difference between me and you is that you are jumping up and down because something hasn't been confirmed, I'm simply trying to tell you that in the grand scheme of things i think non-real time stuff like the 'meta server' is going to be the least of the PS2 devs worries. Making sure that when you have a 6-7-800 person battle and when you shoot someone they stay shot, and everyone renders in the right place etc is going to be the major challenge.

If you are indeed an experienced software developer as you pretend to be you would know that there are lots of reasons for design decisions. Technical plausability being only one of them. Ignorant as you are (alone for ignoring previous postings and still maintaining a snotty posting style) you seem to have skipped my last paragraph. Another reason might be they don't grant this meta server as much resources as they do for continent servers or they combine several of them on one machine and scale it accordingly.

As for opinion vs fact, when i'm giving an opinion i let people know about it. In this thread people have been presenting opinion and hearsay as facts, that isn't good as it spreads misinformation, worrying etc.

Really?

A lot of rubbish posts in this thread, please stick to facts and not hearsay/your opinion. If you don't know or aren't sure just hold off posting. That facts as we know them right now are:

2000 concurrent people online allowed on each continent (technically 666x666x666 so its even numbers)
3 continents at launch
6000 concurrent people at launch on each server
One faction per server per account

It's not a fact, you don't know, i don't know, maybe even the devs don't know yet. It's an assumption you made, nothing more and that's all i was pointing out.

Ivam Akorahil

2012-08-13, 12:30 PM

There ist no confirmation whatsoever that 6000 players will be possible concurrently

well if soe isnt able to bring 6000 players on a server/server cluster then goodbye ps2 before it started. So i assume it as a minimum that SOE who has alot of expierience with mmos and networking is able to do so, because , well simply because they should be or they suck :V

and if you doubt that soe can do 6000 at any given time then best sign off and forgett about ps2

but to come back to the topic, whic is entirely different

ofc there are 2000 player battles, it depends how you define battle
to me an area of 64 square kilometers is a medium sized battlefield, therefor all players on the continent partake in the battle

Duskguy

2012-08-13, 12:39 PM

um, in an interview or an episode of planetside insider or w/e that show with matt higby and tray is called, im pretty sure they specifically said, 2000 players a continent, 3 continents per server.

^^ that equates to 6000 person servers. if they cant handle the 6000 then the continents wont support 2000 each and they outright lied about what the game is capable of.

being that the game looks as good or better than what they've been promising, i am inclined to believe they are NOT simply lying outright.
the servers may take time warming up to 6000 players and may end uup crashing on release when everyone tries to log on at once, but i am inclined to believe them in their claim that they will be able to handle the numbers.

so perhaps you two can stop stroking your e-peens at each other, its unsightly, unneeded and childish.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 12:49 PM

Sephirex

2012-08-13, 01:10 PM

I can't imagine why the servers couldn't handle 6000 players. Each continent can be treated as its own separate 2000 player sub-server with a chat/character service uniting the 3 of them.

OnexBigxHebrew

2012-08-13, 01:42 PM

Yeah, well thanks for telling me things i already know and which are problably common knowledge for alot of PC gamers with basic programming skills.
Sorry if that strikes you as a bit rude but you clearly havent read most of my postings in this thread, which i actually find pretty rude.

Nothing more transparent than someone saying 'sorry if you think I'm rude' right after being deliberatly rude with someone who was just trying to politely state their opinion after several pages of TLDR long-winded posts.

And for the record, despite your 'basic programming skills', his point is a valid and simple one to make.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 02:14 PM

And for the record, despite your 'basic programming skills',...

There seems to be a lack of text comprehension skills here in this thread.

RoninOni

2012-08-13, 02:20 PM

Not everyone who has an account will be on at the same time. People do things other than play video games.

Imagine a 6000 person server: over time, players will quit. Eventually, the server will be "full" but have almost nobody available to play.
:huh:

FFS a server can have ANY NUMBER of registered players, but only 6000 ACTIVE LOGGED IN PLAYERS (split over 3 continents... this will grow over time as well) at a time.

If a server is over capacity, you can either wait or load a character on another server.

goZiva

2012-08-13, 02:39 PM

I think the precise number is 2100 for each continent. 6300 per server.

Snipefrag

2012-08-13, 02:43 PM

If you are indeed an experienced software developer as you pretend to be you would know that there are lots of reasons for design decisions. Technical plausability being only one of them.

I'm not pretending, 5 years as C++ developer working on client/server products in the broadcast automation sector writing framework, drivers, UI's and integrating with SQL/PL databases + degree in computer science probably entitles me to some opinion. If only on the 'plausibility' of maintaining 6000 people on a single server + chat + w/e. If I feel given enough time that I could do it, then I'm sure the PS2 devs could also ! It makes no difference to me if someone trolling PSU doesn't believe me.

Another reason might be they don't grant this meta server as much resources as they do for continent servers or they combine several of them on one machine and scale it accordingly.

So they are going to limit capacity on the servers because of cost cutting measures?! Is SOE really that hard up :D ?

It's not a fact, you don't know, i don't know, maybe even the devs don't know yet. It's an assumption you made, nothing more and that's all i was pointing out.

I actually said That facts as we know them right now are, we know that they are aiming for 2000 people per server, they are going to have 3 continents per server. That equals 6000 people, they have never mentioned that they are going to artificially limit server numbers, sure.. This is possible, but its never been mentioned. I would much rather be limited to playing on one continent or sitting in a queue to get on a second continent with my outfit members than just being told I cant log into my server when there is continent spaces available. You're right, its an assumption. But its not an unreasonable one. Quite pedantic aren't you?

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 03:02 PM

You're right, its an assumption. But its not an unreasonable one. Quite pedantic aren't you?

I am in certain aspects, developing software is one of them actually.
Let's recap:
All i was pointing out was that one little line in your posting, explicitly labeled "facts" was not a fact but an assumption. I didn't even accuse you of being wrong on this. It may have been possible that somewhere was an offical statement regarding total server capacity i have missed.

Next time please don't be so ignorant and snarl up on someone, who actually shared your opinion on the thread as a whole, when you havn't read the thread entirely.

Mordecai TR

2012-08-13, 03:26 PM

Also people are not going to a certain base or continent because that is their favorite one. They are always going to go where the battles are. Planetside had more continents and smaller continent POP caps, those battles were more often then not plenty big.

Snipefrag

2012-08-13, 03:31 PM

I am in certain aspects, developing software is one of them actually.
Let's recap:
All i was pointing out was that one little line in your posting, explicitly labeled "facts" was not a fact but an assumption. I didn't even accuse you of being wrong on this. It may have been possible that somewhere was an offical statement regarding total server capacity i have missed.

Next time please don't be so ignorant and snarl up on someone, who actually shared your opinion on the thread as a whole, when you havn't read the thread entirely.

A certain amount of snarling was needed to bring this thread under control. Its alarming how much misinformation was floating around, it needed someone to be specific and decisive to bring it to a close. I'll snarl up less if you be less defensive about your posts, feeling insulted just because someone hasn't read your posts? come on.

FortySe7en

2012-08-13, 05:06 PM

feeling insulted just because someone hasn't read your posts? come on.

Brilliantly Played.

Hunterzen

2012-08-13, 05:39 PM

Next time please don't be so ignorant and snarl up on someone.

Really? Have you even been reading your own comments? Snipefrag has been nothing but polite and informative. He's not the one calling people ignorant or faker.

Papscal

2012-08-13, 05:46 PM

222 players in a base battle isn't massive? Interesting. When is the last time you took 222 people and put them in the same room with guns.

Think about that.

222 players in and around a base is profoundly different than a room.

Scotsh

2012-08-13, 05:49 PM

feeling insulted just because someone hasn't read your posts? come on.

If you answer to these postings? Of course its rude if you insinuate things, i clarified before, simply because you haven't read it.

Really? Have you even been reading your own comments? Snipefrag has been nothing but polite and informative. He's not the one calling people ignorant or faker.

Good thing you chose to only quote the first half of that sentence, otherwise someone might get the context :rolleyes:

SpottyGekko

2012-08-13, 05:58 PM

If a continent can hold (up to/at least/around) 2000 players, how can the game prevent all 2K from descending on the same base mega-battle ? Spawn timers ?

It may be self-regulating though, because players will probably flee from battles where they're getting 5fps...

Toppopia

2012-08-13, 06:00 PM

There is the mission system that will supposedly draw people away from big conflicts. But i want to see a 3 way ceasefire so all 2000 people descend into the middle of the continent, then 1 person gets trigger happy :eek:

Bye bye server for a while. Might actually cause it to explode :lol:

adddemon

2012-08-13, 06:06 PM

two THOUSAND, man, that is a lot, even if 1% of the player base were in bombers, that would mean that base is getting hit with 20 bombers at the same time, that's a lot of kills.

the real question is, will you be alive long enough to savor it? :lol:

FortySe7en

2012-08-13, 06:27 PM

222 players in and around a base is profoundly different than a room.

Not really. The way planetside has always been designed is CQB style. Sure there are open areas to fight in, but the majority of what makes planetside, well, planetside, is the intense fighting in close quarters.

222 players in a single base at a single time is very overwhelming.

Drakkonan

2012-08-13, 06:32 PM

:huh:

FFS a server can have ANY NUMBER of registered players, but only 6000 ACTIVE LOGGED IN PLAYERS (split over 3 continents... this will grow over time as well) at a time.

If a server is over capacity, you can either wait or load a character on another server.

I have another great solution. They're called sanctuaries. One can wish, right?

Papscal

2012-08-13, 06:40 PM

Not really. The way planetside has always been designed is CQB style. Sure there are open areas to fight in, but the majority of what makes planetside, well, planetside, is the intense fighting in close quarters.

222 players in a single base at a single time is very overwhelming.

Overwhelming has nothing to do with facts. Like i said,222 players in and around a base is profoundly different than a room. So ya really. A room is a room. Around a base involves OUTSIDE.

Ruxios

2012-08-13, 06:53 PM

im leaning more towards the 2k per cont thing and even then after some days in planetside of seeing every cont locked and ques everywhere i just dont think that SOE would limit thier server like that they want it massive you dont get massive by limiting things

kidwithstick

2012-08-13, 07:03 PM

What we were told pre tech test was 2000 per cont. thats 666 players per faction per cont. with 3 continents were looking at 6000 players per server.

obviously there is going to be more than 6000 people playing at once which is why there will be more than one server per coast line.

pretty simple stuff here guys....:rolleyes:

FortySe7en

2012-08-13, 08:03 PM

Overwhelming has nothing to do with facts. Like i said,222 players in and around a base is profoundly different than a room. So ya really. A room is a room. Around a base involves OUTSIDE.

No, not really. Let me re-iterate it to you by saying this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URtnOPUwryE

Rivenshield

2012-08-13, 11:54 PM

I have another great solution. They're called sanctuaries. One can wish, right?

With rotating warp gates, so we aren't constantly fighting the same enemy over the same terrain in the same bloody direction. Yes please.

/signed

cellinaire

2012-08-14, 05:10 AM

...So, none of you here seem to follow Smedley's twitter very often, I guess.

And funny, 'cause basically nothing in this whole thread make me worry a wee bit.

morf

2012-08-14, 10:07 AM

A player character is more complex in PS2 than it was in PS1 - with hitboxes, a player is now actually 5+ objects rather than just one. So I don't think it's productive comparing the number of players in PS1 as if they were 1:1 entities and assuming that PS2 populations will be astronomically higher due to newer tech.

I recognize that the goal is 2000 per continent as stated by the devs many times, but from everything I know and everything I've seen so far, my guess is that the goal was too ambitious and we won't see those numbers at launch. Just my opinion.

Fyrn

2012-08-14, 10:47 AM

Yes, opinions of random people on the internet are what counts. Whenever I design software or infrastructure, I simply pay a random person on the internet $50 to hear their opinion on what should be done and then abide by it.

This is obviously how the world works. Deal with it.

Factual numbers given by official representatives have been quoted multiple times now (2000/cont), whether you believe these or not doesn't make any difference.

Also: everytime I see someone state "I believe there will be clusters of servers", as if that is a deep technical insight, I drown a kitten in mustard.

morf

2012-08-14, 11:15 AM

Yes, opinions of random people on the internet are what counts. Whenever I design software or infrastructure, I simply pay a random person on the internet $50 to hear their opinion on what should be done and then abide by it.

What can I say? Like everyone else in this thread, I'm a developer too, and I has an opinion. But in sincerity, I'm not pretending to know what kind of code is running this game - that would just be random guessing. I don't see how anyone in this thread could speak to what should be possible with the netcode etc without actually seeing the code. Rather, I'm basing my opinion on everything I do know and everything I have seen from this game, and trying to think realistically about what we will likely seee at launch. Realistically speaking, I think the 2000 number that has been mentioned as a goal is too ambitious.

Factual numbers given by official representatives have been quoted multiple times now (2000/cont), whether you believe these or not doesn't make any difference.

Right, I guess I'm crazy and because devs said they were shooting for something it must be true. It's not as if I've ever gone out on a limb and contradicted something that official SOE representatives said, and been called crazy looney batshit on these very boards and then ended up being right. (oh wait, that DID happen) (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=35808)

They aren't always right. Things change over time and those 2000 numbers are really old. Yes, this is my opinion but based on what I know and what I've seen, I feel confident saying we won't see 2000/cont at launch. Could I be wrong? Sure but it's pretty damn unlikely.