server-architecture
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ArcheAge gives import progress report
Wondering what's going on with ArcheAge and when-oh-when will we ever see it in North America and Europe? While Trion Worlds is still being cagey with its time frame, CM James Nichols gave a progress report to give us some info as to what the team is doing. Nichols reported that the team is tackling several hurdles, including connecting the game to Trion's billing system, setting up the server architecture, and translating over a million words for those of us that don't speak Korean. He said that players should expect any changes to the Korean version to be "very minimal," so players shouldn't expect huge new features or differences. He urged patience for those looking to beta test ArcheAge: "We're just as excited to get to the point where we can invite external testers, but expect the closed testing period to last at least a few months." [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
WildStar explains how MMO servers work
Welcome, class, to MMO Servers 101! Your professor today is Carbine Studios Lead Network & Database Engineer David Ray, and he's here to give a technical overview of how MMOs set up and run their servers. Please take notes. While Ray won't reveal all of Carbine's secrets, his explanation should be sufficient if you're curious as to how an average MMO sets up its backend. If you're expecting an article that reveals WildStar's server rulesets, specific regions, or other practical player concerns, then this is not for you. However, it is a frank and fascinating look at the guts of the ship that runs MMOs, and considering that Ray has worked on both the space shuttle and other MMOs, we suspect that there's a good chance he knows what he's talking about.
DayZ standalone version jacks up graphics, player customization
The race to a DayZ standalone version release is on, and creator Dean Hall is feeling excited and confident about the progress being made. Hall posted a list of improvements that the team is currently working on, from graphics to customization, and gave an update regarding the testing process. DayZ standalone's graphics are clearly improved from the ARMA II-modded version, and Hall includes side-by-side comparison photos of a town to show just how big of a difference the new engine makes. He said that the team is working on vehicle, character, and weapon customizations, although players will find that the real avatar customization will come while engaging in the game proper. One notable entry on Hall's list is the fact that the team is building the servers to be "MMO-like" so that hacking and cheating will be markedly more difficult. He also said that while external testers haven't been invited into the beta yet, this will happen once the full server/client architecture is completed.
EVE Evolved: The war on lag
It seems as though everywhere I go to read about EVE Online, someone is complaining about lag. Throughout the game's seven-year history, developers and server engineers have waged a constant battle against the lag monster. Frequent upgrades and code overhauls have ensured that the capacity of each server cluster increased at pace with the growing subscriber numbers. When the Dominion expansion came, something in it caused lag to get a lot worse. The issue has yet to be corrected and has even spurred some players to put media pressure on CCP to correct the issue. Until recently, the developers at CCP had been very quiet on the topic of lag and their efforts to combat it. Aside from the occasional fleet-fight mass testing event on the test server and the news that there was actually an entire team dedicated to lag, players were left largely in the dark as to what was being done to address the issue. In the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, many players began to assert that EVE's developers weren't working on lag at all. Earlier this week, we posted that CCP was planning a series of devblogs on lag to showcase the progress it's made. In a surprisingly rapid turn-around, four devblogs on lag and another on CCP's core technology groups have already been posted. They cover such topics as server scalability, the results of recent mass testing events, and CCP's new "thin client" testing tool. In this week's EVE Evolved, I introduce each of CCP's four recent devblogs on lag with a quick summary.
A look into the nuts-and-bolts of EVE Online's single-shard architecture
Have you ever wondered why MMOs have multiple servers and limitations on the number of people that can be squeezed onto each? It's a good question, especially when you consider EVE Online's impressive single-shard (single-server) setup, where tens of thousands of concurrent players can log on in the same environment. CCP's Kjartan Emilsson wrote an article for Gamasutra explaining why most MMOs choose to separate their population onto several severs. The main problem, Emilsson said, was the issue of avatar density. Too many players in too small of a space creates a miserable experience for all involved. So either the game has to put limits on how many avatars can be in an area, or create a playing field that is so large as to render this issue null. Emilsson went on to argue the case for single-server games that create a united society instead of a fractured one. He detailed the setup of EVE's server architecture, which is held together by a single database at its nucleus and has been steadily growing and improving over time. If you love to read the nuts-and-bolts of the underlying technology that makes games like EVE run, then do yourself a favor and give this article your time.
