ThinkTankDesign
Banned
Ok, i came to this revelation last night when enjoying a great battle on Planetside, the new MMOFPS brought to you by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE).
We were in a massive battle with one of the other groups over a few bases. Keep in mind, there are close to 2500 people on the server at this point, easily 500 in this battle. After 2 hours of fighting, the base getting turned over and over, there was a possibility that we would be able to get the maximum amount of XP points possible, 5 seconds left on the hack. All of a sudden: "You have left the world".
*Begin Rant*
I pay 10$ a month to play a videogame, and that is on top of the 50+ i payed to purchase it. I hate the concept, but i love first person shooters, and this is a great one. The server crashed on us, ruining a GREAT battle, and everyones moods.
*End rant*
*Begin Logic*
SOE owns planetside, and the servers it runs on. SOE also owns a tiny little game known as Everquest, and the servers it runs on. SOE is a subsidiary of Sony, the largest electronics manufacturer and distributer in the world. Sony essentially owns Best Buy, the largest electronics chain that has the greatest markups in the history of electronics sales. There is absolutley no reason that Planetside shouldnt be running on a FLAWLESS server, with up to date technology, and on the fastest available internet connection to be able to support the massive amounts of players that have paid massive amounts of money to play this game.
Here is another tasty piece of information, Planetside is written very differently than every other game available. It was designed to support fully, 56k players. Like any good company, SOE did not want to push away any amount of a market, so they wrote the netcode to provide the capabilities for 56kers to play. Essentially what it does is you load the level onto your home pc, you run around and send the packets to the server of where you are, it then registers them and sends that info back out to the other players. So, a 56ker can run up to you, flawlessley, with no lag on their system, kill you, but it doesnt register with your computer until that 56k piece of poo modem finishes transferring the packets. Ive died in the middle of nowhere on a continent because a 56k player killed me 5 minutes earlier.
Here is my proposal:
Take this into consideration, all videogames for the PC, and Mac (god forgives you if you use one), have a small rectangle on the bottom of the box that tell you minimum required hardware and software, and the reccomended. Manufacturers and Developers: Please begin to implement a "Broadband Only" system for MMO videogaming. If you know your game will be hurt, and the netcode wasted because of people who were willing to spend 500$ for a videocard, but were to cheap to get, at minimum, 256k DSL, start using line tests to the users IP, and check if their internet access can handle the load needed to play the game. It is very simple, you make the user agree to the test to be able to install the game, durring this test you send a 1, 3, 5, and 10mb packets to the user and then recieve packets from the user to determine their line speed. If the test does not prove that their computer can handle the internet workload, then have a simple popup that says, I am sorry, but (Insert Corporate name here) did not design this application to corrispond with your current internet capabilites. And offer a open box trade in deal or refund for those poor people that wont read the Minimum specs and see; Internet Access: Broadband, minimum 256k/s Down, 128k/s Up.
Many games do this for graphical settings, you cannot run a game like UT2k3 with Onboard video, you are forced to upgrade to use the game, so should internet access be governed. If you cannot meet the manufacturers requierments, you should have to upgrade. I am sorry, but I do not believe that the majority of people playing these MMO games should be forced to deal with under-qualified netcode just to try and provide a level playing field for all gamers. The producers of Unreal sure did not make their game so that onboard video will produce the same functionality as a GeForce FX.
To quote the popular phrase, those onboard graphics card users are "$hit out of Luck."
SOE should tell 56kers that they are SOL, and to try again when they upgrade their internet to the current status quo of the target market.
Thank you, and goodnight.
All rants may be posted here, or sent to:
Erik Selden
AIM: Jazz227
ICQ: 38023790
seldene@stu.beloit.edu
We were in a massive battle with one of the other groups over a few bases. Keep in mind, there are close to 2500 people on the server at this point, easily 500 in this battle. After 2 hours of fighting, the base getting turned over and over, there was a possibility that we would be able to get the maximum amount of XP points possible, 5 seconds left on the hack. All of a sudden: "You have left the world".
*Begin Rant*
I pay 10$ a month to play a videogame, and that is on top of the 50+ i payed to purchase it. I hate the concept, but i love first person shooters, and this is a great one. The server crashed on us, ruining a GREAT battle, and everyones moods.
*End rant*
*Begin Logic*
SOE owns planetside, and the servers it runs on. SOE also owns a tiny little game known as Everquest, and the servers it runs on. SOE is a subsidiary of Sony, the largest electronics manufacturer and distributer in the world. Sony essentially owns Best Buy, the largest electronics chain that has the greatest markups in the history of electronics sales. There is absolutley no reason that Planetside shouldnt be running on a FLAWLESS server, with up to date technology, and on the fastest available internet connection to be able to support the massive amounts of players that have paid massive amounts of money to play this game.
Here is another tasty piece of information, Planetside is written very differently than every other game available. It was designed to support fully, 56k players. Like any good company, SOE did not want to push away any amount of a market, so they wrote the netcode to provide the capabilities for 56kers to play. Essentially what it does is you load the level onto your home pc, you run around and send the packets to the server of where you are, it then registers them and sends that info back out to the other players. So, a 56ker can run up to you, flawlessley, with no lag on their system, kill you, but it doesnt register with your computer until that 56k piece of poo modem finishes transferring the packets. Ive died in the middle of nowhere on a continent because a 56k player killed me 5 minutes earlier.
Here is my proposal:
Take this into consideration, all videogames for the PC, and Mac (god forgives you if you use one), have a small rectangle on the bottom of the box that tell you minimum required hardware and software, and the reccomended. Manufacturers and Developers: Please begin to implement a "Broadband Only" system for MMO videogaming. If you know your game will be hurt, and the netcode wasted because of people who were willing to spend 500$ for a videocard, but were to cheap to get, at minimum, 256k DSL, start using line tests to the users IP, and check if their internet access can handle the load needed to play the game. It is very simple, you make the user agree to the test to be able to install the game, durring this test you send a 1, 3, 5, and 10mb packets to the user and then recieve packets from the user to determine their line speed. If the test does not prove that their computer can handle the internet workload, then have a simple popup that says, I am sorry, but (Insert Corporate name here) did not design this application to corrispond with your current internet capabilites. And offer a open box trade in deal or refund for those poor people that wont read the Minimum specs and see; Internet Access: Broadband, minimum 256k/s Down, 128k/s Up.
Many games do this for graphical settings, you cannot run a game like UT2k3 with Onboard video, you are forced to upgrade to use the game, so should internet access be governed. If you cannot meet the manufacturers requierments, you should have to upgrade. I am sorry, but I do not believe that the majority of people playing these MMO games should be forced to deal with under-qualified netcode just to try and provide a level playing field for all gamers. The producers of Unreal sure did not make their game so that onboard video will produce the same functionality as a GeForce FX.
To quote the popular phrase, those onboard graphics card users are "$hit out of Luck."
SOE should tell 56kers that they are SOL, and to try again when they upgrade their internet to the current status quo of the target market.
Thank you, and goodnight.
All rants may be posted here, or sent to:
Erik Selden
AIM: Jazz227
ICQ: 38023790
seldene@stu.beloit.edu
