The only world reset/wipe requests/discussion topic

[dageir]

If you ask a man if to make this game as it does exist now is financially and practically feasible as team of two men, he will likely tell you no.

What?

[VDZ]

So an EVE-like solution with multiple instances/solar systems, but instead continents/islands on separate "shards"/servers/partitions?
Is this doable with this game? And if so, would it be financially and practically feasible?

If you ask a man if to make this game as it does exist now is financially and practically feasible as team of two men, he will likely tell you no.

Dageir probably meant financially feasible in terms of server costs and the like. Servers aren't expensive nowadays so I imagine it should be, and having separate servers per map should be feasible, but it's likely going to lead to a lot of edge cases they'll need to deal with and inter-map travel isn't going to cleanly mesh with the open world. You'll either need plain portals teleporting you to the other map, or some design trickery (special tunnels you need to go through to access the other map or something like that) which still adds a significant number of edge cases.

[Ysh]

If you ask a man if to make this game as it does exist now is financially and practically feasible as team of two men, he will likely tell you no.

What?

Your question I think is not so precise. What is meant by ''feasible?'' Many men consider game as it already exist to be infeasible with level of resource it does have. Infeasible of course do not mean impossible.

[CyxoB]

Your question I think is not so precise. What is meant by ''feasible?'' Many men consider game as it already exist to be infeasible with level of resource it does have. Infeasible of course do not mean impossible.

any code that has been written for 10 years without thinking about architecture becomes like this.

As far as the complexity and uniqueness of the game is concerned, it is rather complex and unique for the player than for the programmer.
Any online casual game can be much more difficult in terms of game content and program code, because here the complexity is achieved by the fact that the game mocks the player and constantly complicates his progress.

If the progress was like in the usual casual game "fun farmer" then all the industrial chains would be reduced from several months to several days, and the game would no longer seem so difficult.

So in terms of the code base, this is an ordinary online game. All its uniqueness is the consistent hatred and disdain for the players, and especially newcomers, on the part of the developers. This is what makes it so "difficult".

[Mashadar]

Dageir probably meant financially feasible in terms of server costs and the like. Servers aren't expensive nowadays so I imagine it should be, and having separate servers per map should be feasible, but it's likely going to lead to a lot of edge cases they'll need to deal with and inter-map travel isn't going to cleanly mesh with the open world. You'll either need plain portals teleporting you to the other map, or some design trickery (special tunnels you need to go through to access the other map or something like that) which still adds a significant number of edge cases.

The idea of multiple shards is to avoid almost all of those edge cases that would occur with multi-threading.
As an example, you can split the world into 4 quadrants with hard borders - as soon as a player crosses the border of a quadrant (which would ideally always be ocean terrain), the server hands off the player and any piloted vehicles to the next server and instructs the client to connect to the new server. For all other intents and purposes, the quadrant border is treated like the end of the world map, meaning neither animals nor any other objects can cross it. That immensely simplifies things.

Of course, there are still some features that require special treatment, such as tracking of stolen items and party tracking, but if you want to be cheap, you can simply choose not to support those features across shard borders.

[Ysh]

Your question I think is not so precise. What is meant by ''feasible?'' Many men consider game as it already exist to be infeasible with level of resource it does have. Infeasible of course do not mean impossible.

any code that has been written for 10 years without thinking about architecture becomes like this.

As far as the complexity and uniqueness of the game is concerned, it is rather complex and unique for the player than for the programmer.
Any online casual game can be much more difficult in terms of game content and program code, because here the complexity is achieved by the fact that the game mocks the player and constantly complicates his progress.

If the progress was like in the usual casual game "fun farmer" then all the industrial chains would be reduced from several months to several days, and the game would no longer seem so difficult.

So in terms of the code base, this is an ordinary online game. All its uniqueness is the consistent hatred and disdain for the players, and especially newcomers, on the part of the developers. This is what makes it so "difficult".

What?

[VDZ]

Dageir probably meant financially feasible in terms of server costs and the like. Servers aren't expensive nowadays so I imagine it should be, and having separate servers per map should be feasible, but it's likely going to lead to a lot of edge cases they'll need to deal with and inter-map travel isn't going to cleanly mesh with the open world. You'll either need plain portals teleporting you to the other map, or some design trickery (special tunnels you need to go through to access the other map or something like that) which still adds a significant number of edge cases.

The idea of multiple shards is to avoid almost all of those edge cases that would occur with multi-threading.
As an example, you can split the world into 4 quadrants with hard borders - as soon as a player crosses the border of a quadrant (which would ideally always be ocean terrain), the server hands off the player and any piloted vehicles to the next server and instructs the client to connect to the new server. For all other intents and purposes, the quadrant border is treated like the end of the world map, meaning neither animals nor any other objects can cross it. That immensely simplifies things.

Of course, there are still some features that require special treatment, such as tracking of stolen items and party tracking, but if you want to be cheap, you can simply choose not to support those features across shard borders.

So are you suggesting there should be visible magical barriers, or invisible black hole lines as in legacy (and to a limited extent still present in Hafen) that may swallow up stuff you were playing around with close to the border? If the former, why not just go for magical portals transporting you to other shards? If the latter, what are you going to do when someone places a crate on or over a border? What about players across the borders, do they suddenly spawn in out of nowhere and ambush you while you're still connecting? You say any piloted vehicle but no animals, what happens if you try to pull a wagon across the border? What if you're on horseback? What happens to the horse if you get off and leash it while crossing the border?

As long as there's a physical border you can cross, there's going to be tons of edge cases; the more open the border, the more edge cases you can get. (Do you drown if you get transferred across servers while swimming? What if the other server happens to be down?) I don't think it's feasible unless you restrict the methods available to travel between shards.

[Mashadar]

So are you suggesting there should be visible magical barriers, or invisible black hole lines as in legacy (and to a limited extent still present in Hafen) that may swallow up stuff you were playing around with close to the border? If the former, why not just go for magical portals transporting you to other shards?

The barrier should at the very least be visible on the minimap to avoid confusion. I don't know what you mean by magical portals or where you think these portals should be located, but it would be another option. The advantage of the barriers is simply that you can retain the feeling of a single, connected world.

If the latter, what are you going to do when someone places a crate on or over a border?

The same thing that would currently happen - presumably it is destroyed or stuck in the void. However, since the borders should consist of water terrain, most of those confusing or annoying behaviors can be avoided.

What about players across the borders, do they suddenly spawn in out of nowhere and ambush you while you're still connecting?

That is correct. You can add a small intentional delay to give the client a chance to connect first if that concerns you.

You say any piloted vehicle but no animals, what happens if you try to pull a wagon across the border?

Anything that should logically cross the border is transferred: that means vehicles (which includes horses) and the people they are carrying, objects you are carrying and objects that you are pulling. Though again, you can only do a few of those things on water.

What happens to the horse if you get off and leash it while crossing the border?

The horse would stay in the previous world, the leash will then be broken on the other side, since the horse no longer exists in that world. It's unlikely that this situation would need any code changes.

As long as there's a physical border you can cross, there's going to be tons of edge cases; the more open the border, the more edge cases you can get.

Yes well, that is what I was trying to explain. Shards mean closed borders with specifically designed ways to cross over. Introducing multi-threading would mean fully open borders. That is nice for players, since they could not even perceive that any border exists, but a headache for the developer. Of course, you can have open borders with shards as well, meaning you could still see what is happening on the other side of the border, but again, it would be a headache for the developer, since the shards would need to communicate and you would need to deal with many edge cases.

What if the other server happens to be down?

Like many other things, that is up to the discretion of the developer. But it is not a case that I would personally bother with if I had limited development time. That means if a server of the shard cluster goes down, the others would immediately shut down as well.

[dageir]

If the player base was willing to "chip in" funding, would the devs be willing to look at a multi-shard world with sufficient capacity and a Steam launch?

[HappyBuffalo]

New shards will kill old shards. Most players will just leave for a new beginning. And the most fun part of the game is when lots of players are playing and new people are coming.
The current system is perfect for the online that Haven got so far.
Please start world 14