Ape Apps

GeneralWadaling said:
My further thoughts would be, what if players customizes their colony by selecting boosts or unique buildings at the beginning, instead of having everything provided by factions?

The initial concept was to give players the same tools used to develop the game, with the possibility to create server with personalized rules and game setup (everything, from planet, tech, building, bot..).

And this setup have several big problem, and of course some very nice sides

.

I think having a global server would be nice. What made MC1 so popular was that it was like a free to play version of clash of clans( which had a global server). If MC2 wants to rival MC1 then it needs a global server because that's what most people want out of a civilization building game that supports multi-player.

I know I'm a bit late to the party ... :P

We talk a lot about the modding aspect that might disappear, of course it's to consider but I think only a small portion of players would have used them. To me the most important issue is game performance. Decentralizing servers had the advantage of taking away much stress out of the client and gave the ability to redistribute some of the computations to the servers, making the client overall more fluid. If we revert to the centralized server, how is performance going to be impacted ?

I also agree with Vince here :

Invincible said:just being able to see everything you made as whole and not through the regional view gives a huge sense of accomplishment and satisfaction

Regions is a workaround to bad performance for huge maps and a workaround shouldn't be a start-off solution for a new game (MC2).

Going decentralized does not necessarily screw trading and cooperation up, from the start I was thinking that server admins who trust each other could mod the game in order to setup unofficial trade routes between servers. Same for the chat (it could even be implemented in the official game, then you input the IP of the server you allow trade with), the two servers then acting as one, and we can setup a large network like that. I'm sure discord servers like NOZ and T1P would be able to do that and create a network of say 5 servers allowing 50 simultaneous players which is a good start considering the MC1 playerbase.

Going centralized does not necessarily mean needing regions otherwise bad performance, as stated by bast here, huge computations are not necessarily needed:

bastecklein said:You know DKMK100 I do like the idea of going back to the "colonizing" roots and feel, and not so much the city management feel as in MC1. I think MC2 will have a slower pace, in some respects, as far as progression goes. And maybe a more realistic feel to it, like what first settling a new world will really be like.

Get rid of the 100+ armies of rovers, 100+ same-type buildings, dozen of stargates "importing" tens of thousands of people a minute and you're left with a game just as enjoyable while being less resource-consuming (right?)


My conclusion is that (feel free to contest that) unless it's possible to guarantee performance changes to the point where the whole game from start to end can be played on an "infinite" map (and not regions) we stick to decentralized, otherwise let's centralize. To me that's what it comes down to, and building on the same map could be done just like multiplayer was (supposed) to happen either way (centr. or decentr.)


Something I must agree to, regardless of the game turning centralized or decentralized:

bastecklein said:trading resources over the GBT instantly really isn't realistic [...]. actually using Star Ships to build trade networks between colonies.[...] Maybe in MC2, Star Ships are the only real way to export/import/trade resources off of your planet. It makes logical sense. You build Star Ships and you can either then trade with Earth for rip-off prices bases on your starship cargo capacity, or you can set up networks with other players.

I like this idea. I don't know if that is what you are referring to but I remember this topic (2.5 years ago wow). Back then I wasn't expecting these changes to go live but they can be relevant now (summed up) :

Sobeirannovaocc said:the [space] station should actually be the starting point of a player. [...] after that you send space ships for every colony you start [...] travel times could be introduced [given the distance on the galactic map] [...] some techs to accelerate the travel time like researching better engines for the ships [...] When you buy on the GBT it can take time to get the resource, depending on the location of the other person's station. When you post a trade on the GBT the ressources are sent to your station. All the resources you buy on the GBT have to transit by your station. This will make players rely more on the commonwealth and the mother colony (bc closer) and rare resources that would only be produced by the zolarg for example will take time to come. [It will also add the need for greater anticipation. Maybe the space staion can be the company's HQ].

I also like the embassies where the other player has a dedicated space to build what they want.

The bad performance with large maps in MC1 was largely from the combination of pathfinding/rovers and sprite rendering, and not necessarily related to the server. The primary reason for decentralizing MC2 is to allow multiple players to build on a single planet. This would require a lot more server capacity VS MC1. The real question, is if that feature is even necessary? Does going decentralized add a lot of unneeded headaches for a feature that may or may not be that great?

I think that decentralized infinite maps will oddly perform better than the current small map + region model. The reason is that, although unseen by the player, this model is somewhat similar to the region model anyway, at least in the way I envision it. The planet is broken into "chunks" of some fixed size, perhaps 32x32 tiles, and at any one time the game is only "actively" processing your "chunk" and the ones surrounding your current camera position. The others are still being updated, but at a lower less intensive level. And your client is not rendering them anyway.

Also in MC2, most of the game logic will be occurring on a separate background thread, which should in and of itself afford a significant performance boost.

Finally, using WebGL instead of the software canvas should improve performance even further.

Whether it is centralized or decentralized, I do think performance will be a lot better than MC1. The main bottleneck will be in allowing multiple players to build on the same map, since on some level you will need to keep all players in sync, and one player with a slow device or connection could kill it for everybody. Now, since the game isn't as fast paced as, say Colony Wars, you may be able to let one client fall behind, but it could become an issue if players are right next to each other.

Actually the game could just as easily have both options. If the clients are not using modded content anyway, what does it matter if you are in a one player game or a planet with multiple people? If basically all the centralized server is doing is managing trade routes and resource prices, any un-modded non-creative game type should be able to connect.

bastecklein said:The primary reason for decentralizing MC2 is to allow multiple players to build on a single planet. This would require a lot more server capacity VS MC1. The real question, is if that feature is even necessary? Does going decentralized add a lot of unneeded headaches for a feature that may or may not be that great?

Not for me.

Build at the same time, on the same map, could be a nice feature for a close friends group, for sure. but .. at what cost?

I prefer a decent worldwide multiplayer (maybe.. a sane economy :D), to a intimate little multiplayer.

Sobeirannovaocc said:
We talk a lot about the modding aspect that might disappear, of course it's to consider but I think only a small portion of players would have used them. To me the most important issue is game performance. Decentralizing servers had the advantage of taking away much stress out of the server and gave the ability to redistribute some of the computations to the servers, making the client overall more fluid. If we revert to the centralized server, how is performance going to be impacted ?

With the original decentralized server, if you are lucky and find a player with decent computer and connection, the game will be very fluid, even if you play using a bad terminal. But.. if the player/server is offline, you won't able to open anything. And.. if you find someone like me, with a very nice computer but a crap connection, you will start to swear 24/24, 7/7. And off course you will be able to play only if my computer is on.

Oh I didn't know that a slow network for one person would mess it up for the other too? Is there no workaround for this. Also is this issue as well faced by people in Minecraft? And how do they sort it out?

@Invincible is a common problem for every game/software, with elevate interaction with the system.

In offline game is easy to create a world where player can interact with everything.

But in online game.. is a living hell. Every change need to be communicated to every player active.

Some online game with openworld, they use to have very few interaction outside, and many interaction in dungeon or closed instance.

If Player A place an house in 1:9:10 (coordinate), Players B/C/D need to receive the information.

But... if Player B have a crap connection with severe lag (i can even have 5-10s lag...), i see the 1:9:10 with free space, and i place a road.. so.. the server need to wait my response, and will be lag for everybody in some situation.

For this reason, Bast can't handle a server where player could interact in the same map, at the same map. Will be require a google Data center.... :D

Everyone needs to remember; Simplicity is the way to go. Some devoted people will take care and learn how to play the correctly, but a lot of people wont know and wont care to learn. This is already prevalent in Mc1, where I have loads of colonies joining my commonwealth and then dieing because the learning curve is too steep. Without a proper tutorial(hint hint-upgrade the one for Mc1) a new user will be turned away from the game. I like all the ideas, but without a proper tutorial, the game wont take off. I'm not saying it cant be done, but it would be hard to teach stocks and stuff to 10-27 year olds.

bastecklein said: ...decentralized servers ...

Ansom said:Every change need to be communicated to every player active.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer

Stecat94 said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer

The Bast idea should use the classic client / server.. using the Cloud gaming structure, like Google Standia (from what i understood, @bastecklein right?)

In any case, if player have lag/bad connection, is a mess.. because all player should play at the same timeprint. If one player (or worse, the server) have a bad internet connection with insane lag.. will be a mess.

Don't matter if is p2p, or classic server / client. Allow multiple players at the same time on the same map.. is... complicated and requires a lot of resources.