Population... underestimation?

[Grognard]

My premise is "based", on the following map:
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3766/battlelines.png
...pulled from this post (thank you Xyntech):
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...9&postcount=10

So, I am wondering if they are (gu)estimating low. Those numbers on that map seem very reasonable to me, and yet... look how little of the map is being used on one continent. It appears, to me anyway, that there could be far more, perhaps even double that amount, once optimizations are complete.

I understand there are other factors, and that is precisely why I am posting this. I would like to hear opinions from others with more tech savvy than myself, weigh-in on the likelyhood, or unlikelyhood, that we might have even bigger populations.

Points? Counterpoints? Definitives?


Edit: What this map makes me hope for is: 1000x1000x1000. Support opinions, so no follow ups with "why?", please.

[i see you naked]

dont care because the VS will reign supreme and take away the whole planet, oh wait, new safe zones.. lolz

[Canaris]

Originally Posted by i see you naked

dont care because the VS will reign supreme and take away the whole planet, oh wait, new safe zones.. lolz

VS are well documented for their delusions, wasn't the cult leader that set you up always talking to a barney doll

steering back around to the topic, that picture is only a mock up Xyn did. The thing you have to remember about PS is the chaos factor of such a large game, you can guesstimate that the battles will be spread out but from what we've seen in the original is most zergs tend to congregate together,

I'd forsee having one large scale battle going on or two depending on if all three empires are engaged, then you'll have various outfits or squads that will dictate certain stratgies and the direction of the battle.


For instance the TR zerg is attacking an AMP station and the VS are well entrenched and are having a happy farm.
usually a clever TR cmdr will decide enoughs enough and will lead his squad/platoon to another base say a nearby biolab in the hopes of catching it's defenses unprepared.

Now either 2 things will happen the TR zerg seeing that the biolab is a better choice will go charging at it and support the attack or the VS will need to strip out enough defenders to try and secure it also opening up the AMP station for the TR zerg to swarm over.

It's kind of a situation that repeats itself again and again on PS1,

I think clumping up of players will just happen.

[Otleaz]

After playing Arma 2, where the map is even larger, I can't help but feel like these maps will be completely flooded. Especially when the fights are all going to be along the front line.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Otleaz

After playing Arma 2, where the map is even larger, I can't help but feel like these maps will be completely flooded. Especially when the fights are all going to be along the front line.

oh its gonna be zerg all day and all night, at least on my Blackrock 2.

[Figment]

You forget that you need room to maneuvre, push and pull, flank and pincer to have any sort of strategic combat.


If anything, it will feel very crowded and overwhelming to attempt anything behind enemy lines with less than 50 troops.

[Grognard]

So... 650x3 to 1000x3... not feasable? not probable? likely, almost certain?

Technical issues, server issues, soft cap for sake of clumping control... what are we talking here?

What about the other side of the coin... looks likely, due to... current technology, forgelight, map size, some other pros?


Edit: Im interested in the reasoning behind the opinions.

[Knotz]

I'm gonna wait and see how things play out... as long as I don't have to wait more than 2 minutes to spawn me a Mosquito... I'll be happy

[Toppopia]

What i am wondering, What if we make a character on a server, but for some reason it is always full the whole day and i can't join. Then does that mean i can't play with my outfit or friends? Or will we beable to move our character to another, more empty server so i can play with my friends? Because unless they make it only 2000 people can be signed up to a server, i can see very long wait times. Which most people will hate.

[Knotz]

Originally Posted by Toppopia

What i am wondering, What if we make a character on a server, but for some reason it is always full the whole day and i can't join. Then does that mean i can't play with my outfit or friends? Or will we beable to move our character to another, more empty server so i can play with my friends? Because unless they make it only 2000 people can be signed up to a server, i can see very long wait times. Which most people will hate.

No, Maggie said on the day 2 coverage that it is 1 char per server.

[AThreatToYou]

I want a lot of players on the map and I have no problem with an extremely thick battle...
honestly the numbers per zone on that map are kind of depressing

As far as technical limitations, I would be extremely surprised if they could pull off 2000 players per cont all at once. 3000 is even better, but that I have a very hard time seeing. Servers experience a good amount of lag nowadays with even 32, 64, or 128 players... 2000? 3000? That is a serious stretch...


Also, at toppopia, it's 2000 per continent. If they continue with the 2000 per cont limit, that means there's 6000 max players.

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

I want a lot of players on the map and I have no problem with an extremely thick battle...
honestly the numbers per zone on that map are kind of depressing

As far as technical limitations, I would be extremely surprised if they could pull off 2000 players per cont all at once. 3000 is even better, but that I have a very hard time seeing. Servers experience a good amount of lag nowadays with even 32, 64, or 128 players... 2000? 3000? That is a serious stretch...


Also, at toppopia, it's 2000 per continent. If they continue with the 2000 per cont limit, that means there's 6000 max players.

But the other 4000 people don't interact with the other 2000, so as far as the 2000 is concerned, they are the only people on the 'server' till they decide to change, so technically the game would only have to keep track of the people that you are in contact with, so client side, you only have to worry about 2000 people, but the server i guess would still have to register the other 4000 people, unless the separate the work load so that the 2000 has a dedicated machine for it. But i don't know much about servers so this probably isn't correct or possible.

[Grognard]

Originally Posted by elfailo

It's a gut feeling.

I can cough up a bunch of rationalizations like people here like to do so much, but I'm not really afraid of being wrong every once in a while, so I can live with the uncertainty.

No, no, thats completely acceptable. I prefer the honesty. Every once in a while I just get the feeling there was more to someones answer, and I couldnt infer "the rest"...

[KTNApollo]

Originally Posted by elfailo

2000 per continent isn't going to happen. Beta will show why not. I'm guessing they're going to halve it within 3 months.

You must be some kind of netcode programmer that works at SOE with inside information on their code and engine to know what they can and can't do...

[AThreatToYou]

Originally Posted by Toppopia

But the other 4000 people don't interact with the other 2000, so as far as the 2000 is concerned, they are the only people on the 'server' till they decide to change, so technically the game would only have to keep track of the people that you are in contact with, so client side, you only have to worry about 2000 people, but the server i guess would still have to register the other 4000 people, unless the separate the work load so that the 2000 has a dedicated machine for it. But i don't know much about servers so this probably isn't correct or possible.

Actually, toppopia, you're on to it even further.

I'm not worried about how much information can be sent across the internet from a server all at once. Plenty of other MMOs & websites have handled this fine by various methods.

I'm also not worried about how well the client processes over 2000 players at once. With network disregarded and a performance-saving complete lack of AI, there are certainly other engines out there that can run hundreds if not thousands of rigged bodies moving about and "fighting" in real-time. I recall an engine demo of UnrealEngine 3 having about a thousand or so Locusts (from Gears of War) all converging on a single point. Proper optimization can certainly make 2,000 or 3,000 "player objects" a possibility as long as you don't look at every one of them in supreme detail all at once.

What I'm more worried about is how a single server can process, run, and host a game tracking 6000 players at once. From my memory, however, a single "continent" was a single server box in PS1, so they could easily chunk a single server into basically 3 servers linked to a final server that processes all of the overflow over a LAN network. Prioritizing the assets can help to where things like map data, resource amounts, experience gains, kill credits or certification gains are all dumped to another machine as soon as the first one gets loaded. Still, other modern engines such as CryEngine 2/3, Unreal Engine, or Source run into serious problems as soon as all of those 2000 players start shooting, throwing grenades, ducking, dieing and re-spawning. The most powerful server boxes and most modern engines these days just can't handle 2000 players, let alone 1000 players, let alone 200 players. Most engines start to die as soon as they get past 100 players--and this isn't network lag, it's where the server just can't keep track anymore. PlanetSide 2's achievement of 2000 players all at once is, on its own, freaking amazing. I honestly believe we just have to leave it to the programmers who know the ins-and-outs of process management to push the player limit as high as it can reasonably go with today's hardware in a situation where it isn't limited by today's software.