Enhance Multiplayer, Playability

[unmerged(74599)]

An centralized game server for Mulitplayer play, which would host games independently of the players machines. A networked set of servers hosting games with a high bandwidth connection to which all players would connect.

Most people have a connection capable of reasonable speed download, but far fewer have reasonable upload rates.

A simply designed and accesible system such as this would obviously have to work by using a very standardized version of the game, but this would pay off in spades, as game sales would increase because many of the main problems of mulitplayer play, such as slow upload rates leading to lag, multiple versions, and varying cheksums, add significantly to the disorganization of the paradox MP community.

Certainly, much of the beauty of the game and the community which surounds it comes from the modding of the game by enthusiasts, but this could easily continue parrallel to a more standardized version of the game, run on servers hosted independently of the users and would be more easily accesible to the average consumer.

I believe investing in the enhancement of the multiplayer functioning of PI games would greatly increase consumer interest and build the community in general, far more than releasing a new version of the game.

 

[nigo]

dedicated server

 

[unmerged(74599)]

Precisely. Probably the thing that contributes most to PI player attrition rates, in particular new people who want online gaming, is router issues. A lot of people niether have the time or the knowledge to bother researching these aspects of their network configuration, and can not set the appropriate "port forwarding." They move on, give up or simply play other games.

Furthermore, the game is popular with many people who simply are not located in places which have Central European, or North American standards of internet connectivity, and some simply can not afford $100 or even $50 a month internet service, so are limited by deviding their 200 Kb/s up load to 4 to 6 players. The game becomes slow and desyncs, especially at higher speeds.

Myself, I have only recently taken up the online multiplayer aspect of the game, as of the last three weeks, and it is only now that I am fully capable of of both joining and hosting games (I should say too that the community here and at Valky have been very helpful in this regard -- a lot of great people here!) and even now I am in the process of spending a little more to increase my upload capacity through my ISP. But that is me, and many may not have that option. But all of that took more or less three weeks to do!

A lot of this would be solved if the players were merely limited to using their higher downloading rates to recieve data from a high bandwidth server.

 

[{LD}Firestorm]

Furthermore, the game is popular with many people who simply are not located in places which have Central European, or North American standards of internet connectivity, and some simply can not afford $100 or even $50 a month internet service, so are limited by deviding their 200 Kb/s up load to 4 to 6 players. The game becomes slow and desyncs, especially at higher speeds.

Yikes....I pay 34 bucks for High speed cable internet (1mb/sec)

Anyways, I doubt Paradox has the funds available to do such a thing, and Online is still fine for me. I have ah arder time getting people togeather at the right time then speed wise. Below Normal - normal speed is fine, expessialy in wartime.

 

[unmerged(74599)]

1 MB upload or down load? Mine gives me 1 mb down load, but only 400 k/bits upload. I am doubling that and it is still only 50 bucks, but if I want to go up to a true Mb upload, they want to charge me an arm and a leg. Also, I am talking Can$ not US$ (usually about 70% value of US,) so comparable.

And you are right about wartime speed. I pesonally don't mind slow speeds, it is part of the pace of the game as far as I am concerned. But that said, speed is only part of the issue.

But this is the gyst, why so few players? Well I am sure a lot of people just give up because of all the network hassle, port forwarding or figuring out Hamachi. Making the system more accesible would no doubt increase popularity and sell more games and give you more players. I doubt it would lose money in anycase.

As for cost, well that is pretty negligible, really.

 

[{LD}Firestorm]

1 MB upload or down load? Mine gives me 1 mb down load, but only 400 k/bits upload. I am doubling that and it is still only 50 bucks, but if I want to go up to a true Mb upload, they want to charge me an arm and a leg. Also, I am talking Can$ not US$ (usually about 70% value of US,) so comparable.

But this is the gyst, why so few players? Well I am sure a lot of people just give up because of all the network hassle, port forwarding or figuring out Hamachi. Making the system more accesible would no doubt increase popularity and sell more games and give you more players. I doubt it would lose money in anycase.

As for cost, well that is pretty negligible, really.

Heheh Im talking Canadian too (proud to be one!). Anyways, most people have a hassle with getting everyone togeather (time zones, ect.) and I have seen days where there are 40 people on V-net for doomsday. I guess its a matter of timing, but having a centralized server will not help too much, in my opinion.

 

[unmerged(74599)]

So you are saying that you have 1 Mb upload capacity in Canada at $39.99. What company does that?

 

[{LD}Firestorm]

So you are saying that you have 1 Mb upload capacity in Canada at $39.99. What company does that?

Not upload, but download yes. My upload I am not sure about actually. Never checked on that, but my dowload rates are rougly between 600kb/s - 1mb/s


For my Mom's, its Shaw Cable, for my Dad's place its High Speed DSL.....

However I might be getting a cheaper rate for both of them since they are both in a combo (Telus is internet + phone, and Shaw its TV + Internet)

 

[unmerged(74599)]

Well from what I understand the upload is the real issue. You see most Internet service providers advertise their high Download rates, and not their much lower Upload rates. Obviously this makes them look better as far as sales go. Usually the DL is 1/5 the rate of your UL, so in all likelyhood your Up Load rate is something like 200 Kbits pers econd, not one Megabit per second.

What really creates lag is limited bandwidth of the host, not the quality of the machine, as they are usually doing 4 to 6 times the data transfer of the client machine they are servicing.