[netburnr]

EVE Evolved: EVE Online's server model - Massively

While most MMOs deal with large number of users by starting up large numbers of separate servers with identical game universes, EVE maintains only a single copy of its game universe on a massive cluster of servers. CCP's decision to go with a server model that doesn't use any sharding or instancing whatsoever has had a major impact on in-game activities and how the game has developed.

Read on to see how the no instancing or sharding decision has made the game better, and why other MMOs should do it.... *glares at Herman*

Anyway, it was a good read so I thought I would share.

[Ratneck]

Good read.

I personally don't like EvE because every piece of 0.0 space is spoken for by alliances, and with the exception of travel corridors to "safe space" it's mostly under used. Fewer choke points into "safe space" would help aleviate this problem, but the alliances want none of it because it would make it actually difficult to defend what they own.

Massive fleet battles over important territory often suffer from the same crippling lag, turning what should be an amazing sci-fi space battle into a poor slideshow.

And there-in lies how they defend their choke points and stations. I faught in a couple of big battles where the tactic of the defender was simply to drop as many containers as possible to lag the hell out of the incoming fleet. The dynamic allocation of server resources is (or was at least) only changable at down-time and is based on extrapolation of previous numbers of residents in a system at any one time. So if you have an average of 100 pilots in an alliance's system at a time and you want to attack with a swarming technique....very useful for people who haven't spent all their training on just 1 field of study....you can't jump 500 ships in for the battle, the server can't dynamically shift the load. Or couldn't when I stopped playing that is.

As far as the note in that article on "corporate spys", that was another one of the parts of the game that pissed me off. Allowing multiple accounts per person was a horrible idea. It keeps newer players from being able to join in the alliances and learn from the old vets. Why? Suspision. Every new player could be a new account set up to spy on and steal from a corp. At least with the other characters on your account, only 1 can train at a time so you have to sacrafice something to be able to spy. With no "real" penalty for death and the ability to delete and recreate a character at will, all you have to do is keep your "main" account seperate from your spying account. This makes it so people who invest more real-world money into the game have a significant advantage over people who simply want to play. I knew a guy who had 5 accounts, and I'm sure he didn't have the most on the server!

All in all, I like the IDEA behind EvE. I don't like point and click, but I like the economic model in that game. I hope Jumpgate Evolution takes a page from their book. Their server model is really interesting to read about, I'd love it if NetDevil took a page from their book....so long as PvP didn't suffer because of it. :-) And they're right, any game gets boring if you're safe whereever you fly....and all you have to do is outsmart a predictable AI.

[netburnr]

I thought they were saying in the article that the SQL server CAN load balance the SOL servers to keep up with load, so if 100 people jump in, it puts that universe on a SOL server that has the resources to handle it....

What I'm really getting at here is that with today's technology and server systems, it is very possible to keep one universe with everyone on it, and this is the way ND needs to develop the game (imho).

[Ratneck]

Originally Posted by netburnr

I thought they were saying in the article that the SQL server CAN load balance the SOL servers to keep up with load, so if 100 people jump in, it puts that universe on a SOL server that has the resources to handle it....

What I'm really getting at here is that with today's technology and server systems, it is very possible to keep one universe with everyone on it, and this is the way ND needs to develop the game (imho).

I totally agree with you, that would definitely be the way to go. This game is going to be alot more susceptible to lag since it's twitch based though, so I think they're going to have to weigh out the ramifications of both methods.

I sort of read it that way too, that's why I made sure to include "When I left" so many times. I'm not sure if they've changed it, but that's the way it was at the time.... I remember trying to attack AAA just to get lagged out due to canisters, and I remember jumping in to a sector just to have a node crash, and by the time it was brought back up the defending forces were already on in huge numbers and picking us off as we logged back in. I can't speak for any changes they've made over the past year and a half though.

[netburnr]

I havnt played since beta, but people were using that canister lag crap back then too, I figured they had fixed it. Another trick people used were "Sector edges", god I hate that. PvP in EvE was the least fun I ever had playing a game.

[biteme]

For real time games you would still have to have regional servers because the speed of light will always be a limiting factor for a single world wide server.

[quillo]

Originally Posted by biteme

For real time games you would still have to have regional servers because the speed of light will always be a limiting factor for a single world wide server.

This.

Having a constant ping of roughly 500ms because the only server is located in US is hardly my cup of tea.

[netburnr]

You can still have localized gateway servers with high speed low latency connections to the main load balancing server..... Even today's internet structure is able to make this possible. All you need is a good local level 1 data center for the regions you want, and then the centralized server in another good data center (I would say the main server would belong in DC as thats where the majority of the level 1 US data centers are)

[Ambrosius]

1), 2) and 3) Eve sux
4) Eve does have instancing (Deadspace somethingorother as I recall)
5) 30 lashes for any time spent reading about or thinking about Eve -- spend such time playing Jumpgate.

[netburnr]

Actually this isn't about EvE as a game, its about server infrastructure and its impact on game design.

Had you read the article you would have known that.

And yes, EvE did suck, even playing it with the OEC guys it was still boring as hell, which says a lot. And no, I will not play jumpgate, its even more fucking boring.

[Ambrosius]

Could not read it before. Blocked at work.

1), 2) and 3) Eve sux AND is laggy.
4) This reinforces what I said before about the propsed split between a Manserver and Grrlserver with the latter being the place with NO econ since there will be few consumers but lots of opportunity to hold hands and sing songs.
5) Jumpgate Classic still rocks.