Warframe is successful enough to have dedicated servers

[Caine2112]

On 2019-07-25 at 11:38 AM, (XB1)DavidRyder 74 said:

I'm not going to say much, everyone thinks like this.

Host migration is disgusting, having to endure another player's bad connection is disgusting and the fact that Digital Extremes is making hundreds of millions per year gives no excuse to not having dedicated servers.

This is even more important with the squad link, imagine that same Tennocon gameplay but with disconnections and host migrations.

I would be disappointed if Digital Extremes launches Empyrean without dedicated servers. The nightmare of having a consistent gameplay getting cut off by a crappy networking system.

Come on Digital Extremes, you're even upgrading your engine and spending millions on TennoCon, we all know this should be your next jump.

I have been wanting this for YEARS, and always got shot down by the community the few times I brought up the subject.

Host migration is why I tend to avoid most public matches and just run with my brother.  It's also the reason I set my max ping allowed to 100 because the lag is atrocious most of the time.  I am now on a 1.5 GB fibre optic plan with Bell, and I STILL suffer from bad lag because I get tied to someone else's bad internet connection.  IF DE still insists on using HM, then their matchmaking server should first detect who has the strongest internet connection FIRST, and then make that person the host so others can suffer a lot less.  But, that's just a band-aid solution.  The real solution is dedicated micro servers to host a mission. 

Edited July 30, 2019 by Caine2112

[SneakyErvin]

30 minutes ago, 844448 said:

Alternatively, you can volunteer as host if you have a decent PC and internet because having server is like peer to peer with extra step and sort of extra work and might make the ping worse when you can find nearby players (who knows, maybe your teammate is your neighbor next door). Server on another consideration is forcing those who have less than optimal internet to go through server before receiving data, adding more work on the internet so those who can't afford decent internet will be more likely getting forced to go solo because of that

You are just making things up as you go arent you?

What you desribe would never be a case. I've played on plenty of dedicated servers over the years and even back when I had my 512kb connection I still had far under 100ms on EU based servers. Nowdays with a 24mb connection it sits around 30-60 depending on location. There is more work when it comes to peer-to-peer, always. The server is simply there as an information slave that gathers info and sends it back out. Alot of data handling is slowed down in peer-to-peer settings because the host is actively running the game and playing aswell. Not to mention everything else that may bloat his system in the background.

 

[Neuerwinter]

The whole Warframe apologism/fanatism around the game studio it’s what is really hurting the game in the long run. 

You can’t even have constructive criticism about the quality of the network system without people taking up the cudgels for DE and pretending there are no benefits with dedicated servers over p2p ( that’s being delusional at this point)

the ones who bash the OP for acting like he’s aware on the game studio’s finacial situation then proceed on saying that servers are costly and developers can’t affort it, as if they themselves are looking into DE’s wallet, what kind of hipocrisy is this?

I d just say that p2p has a lot of issues, It has been widely recognized since ages by a lot of people, but the old problems still persist and are brought forth with every new content being released. If the community had been more united in bringing to light the issue instead of pretending that it never existed, by now DE would be more actively trying to find a solution to improve things or at least would have given an official statement about it

[Sarge_Tarmus]

On 2019-07-25 at 5:38 PM, (XB1)DavidRyder 74 said:

I'm not going to say much, everyone thinks like this.

Speak for yourself.

[rockscl]

im no expert but to me it looks like the benefits of dedicated servers for PvE are minimal compared to the costs, so unless thay can somehow use the PvP dedicated hosting method for PvE, i would strictly oppose to this as a big waste of resources

[Zeclem]

On 2019-07-29 at 7:03 PM, 844448 said:

Why don't you provide the number on how much money they earn annually? That will prove better that they're making crapton of money, otherwise it's just merely an assumption

yeah a game thats on the top seller list on the worlds largest gaming distrubition platform is definitely not making a lot of money. 

On 2019-07-29 at 7:03 PM, 844448 said:

You expect things will run smoothly forever?

more baseless claims that i never did.

On 2019-07-29 at 7:03 PM, 844448 said:

If you want something, you would at least have some basic understanding about it.

no. again, thats nonsense. im tired of giving analogies at this point cus its clear you dont care about common sense. 

On 2019-07-29 at 7:03 PM, 844448 said:

Also, only saying having dedicated server is doable is not going to get you anywhere, saying they should do it properly only makes it like a childish rant about wanting to have something and people here are already answered why it's not a really good idea

only one thats childish here is the one that puts words in peoples mouths and makes baseless claims on what the opposing side thinks. which is definitely not me. 

[Corvid]

11 minutes ago, Zeclem said:

yeah a game thats on the top seller list on the worlds largest gaming distrubition platform is definitely not making a lot of money. 

"Most Played" is not the same as "Top Seller", or do you need to be reminded what the entry fee for this game is?

[Zeclem]

13 minutes ago, Corvid said:

"Most Played" is not the same as "Top Seller", or do you need to be reminded what the entry fee for this game is?

it is in the top sellers as well. 

[Kunamuta]

70% of my time in warframe is due laggspikes and enemies moving around by teleporting.
I even get freezing screens everytime I enter POE from Cetus.
I don't know how they can solve this issue but it is a big minus at the moment simply because you get tired of it with so much grinding.

[Midas]

I've lost 50,000 event score due to dedicated servers to start (for my clan competing in the top 10 storm for the operation). We would certainly have had a higher position had that not happen. This is a good example of dedicated servers importance

Another good example is tridolons. Tridolon runs are pure speed base... If you DC what happens to your night timer? "We'll pause the night cycle for you no biggie" IT KEEPS GOING! You miss out on big loot from tridolons (arcanes) which is how endgame players make their money.

Trials before removal were an example of this... loading into stage 3 OOPS I DCED AND CANNOT REJOIN RIP MY REWARDS

These are all examples throughout warframe history as to why even 50 dedicated servers for trial groups would be amazing!

[Rhyandra]

vor 16 Stunden schrieb ShadowStalker:

Indie mobile multiplayer games now a days have dedicated servers lmfao DE is able to get away with it because of questionable white knights defending them oh well i mean i don't  care to much about the game anymore so let DE do what they want 

Sadly the truth.

 

 

 

Also, this is the laughable part about the white knights:

vor 3 Stunden schrieb Neuerwinter:

 

the ones who bash the OP for acting like he’s aware on the game studio’s finacial situation then proceed on saying that servers are costly and developers can’t affort it, as if they themselves are looking into DE’s wallet, what kind of hipocrisy is this?

 

Edited July 30, 2019 by Karu-QW

[844448]

10 hours ago, Zeclem said:

 

I'll explain why I think dedicated server is not the best idea

1. netcode, having dedicated server means they need to make a new code to work with dedicated server. With new code being put, are you sure it will work smoothly on release? And if it happens to have some bumps in it, what is the chance of you not making another thread like this?

That leads to

2. Work time, they would spend quite some time to work on it to make it as smooth as they can on release, means they need to focus on it and less work put on other content. Do you accept having railjack and the new war delayed by a month or two for the server to work smoothly?

3. Distance, dedicated server can be seen as peer to peer with extra step, where you have a server as a host. If the server is put far away from you, it might not make the ping better

4. Capacity, a lightweight dedicated server can hold up to 64 players, or less than that to avoid putting too much stress during high traffic where you wilk need lots of server that leads to

5. Price, a lightweight server costs $1,400 a year, as explained by the tenno here, up to $4,000 a year for heavyweight server

On 2019-07-30 at 7:15 AM, Letter13 said:

Those numbers are not off. If you're renting a server blade (dedicated server, rather than an allocated VM) you're pretty much paying anywhere from $1,000 USD to $4,000 USD per year. That money goes towards the company who buys, installs and maintains the hardware. You're paying for an IT employee (or team) to be on call to troubleshoot any issues the server(s) have, the ludicrously high-speed internet the server is hooked up to (Multiple gigabit upload speeds, this will usually run $50~300 USD/month depending on the speed), and insurance so that if the hardware fails the company will set you up with a new server blade at no additional cost.

Now, considering how many players there are at any given point, you're probably looking at well well over 1,000 servers. Steam charts have shown Warframe running a peak of 131,000 players simultaneously at one point; let's say the total PC players are 1.5x that number (assuming 2/3rds play on Steam and not the standalone launcher), you're looking at about 200,000 active players on PC. Let's assume that PS4 and XB1 are 75% of that number for each platform, you're now up to 500,000 players. Let's say Nintendo Switch is 25%, that adds it all up to 550,000 active players at any given time. 

I'm an engineer though, and we like to add an additional 50% on to our tolerance limits to reduce risk of redlining our stuff, so we'll design it for 825,000 simultaneous players just in case. Now, if each server blade can support a single 64 player instance (or 16 4-player instances), you're looking at a shave under 13,000 dedicated server blades, distributed around the world. Assume we're using the cheapest $1,000/blade and voila it's a $13,000,000 yearly expense for DE. If you use better servers (up to $4,000/year/blade), you're looking at up to $52,000,000 per year of expenses... And probably some more than that due to renting servers in foreign countries.

 

Now, although DE doesn't make their financial information public, I have a sneaking suspicion that after costs (renting their office space, advertisements, licenses for software, insurance, overhead, employee salary, etc) that they do not have $13,000,000 ~ $52,000,000 available to spend on dedicated servers.

So there's an explanation on why it's not the best idea to have dedicated server, not just saying it's impossible, it's not doable or too expensive. Now, you can explain why it's doable, or what does it mean by "they should do it properly" that you said before

[Yamazuki]

Dedicated servers=/=increase in stable connection. You would just be trading in Host Migration for other problems.

All dedicated servers do is remove the randomness of location. Other than when a game is published by a studio with a ton of resources, quality of connection to servers are mediocre at best. In addition to mentioned above, DE would have to make sure ISPs across the globe are willing to help with ensuring the optimal routes are provided for everyone, as well as not "accidentally" throttling during specific times of the day.

[RX-3DR]

12 hours ago, Neuerwinter said:

You can’t even have constructive criticism about the quality of the network system without people taking up the cudgels for DE and pretending there are no benefits with dedicated servers over p2p ( that’s being delusional at this point)

It's more delusional to believe that dedicated servers will fix all the problems without introducing its own set of problems, it's somewhat of a utopian dream that is not realistically possible to achieve completely. People are skeptical about dedicated servers because if you understand what you're looking at, you would know that dedicated servers isn't the cure to connectivity world hunger. A dedicated server itself would only provide some level of assurance to potential hardware problems over a bad host, it does not equate to better connectivity on its own.

9 hours ago, Midas said:

Trials before removal were an example of this... loading into stage 3 OOPS I DCED AND CANNOT REJOIN RIP MY REWARDS

Dedicated servers is not a solution to rejoining games. Better functionality for rejoining sessions and reducing how quick a session is to drop a player is the solution to it. It can be done with or without a dedicated server. If you implemented dedicated servers as is, you would have the exact same problems if you were to get disconnected out of the session because once again, it is not a solution that will address rejoining sessions.

Edited July 31, 2019 by RX-3DR

[Ouinpis]

well if we get dedicated server without beeing able to configure and add our maps and weapon also game mod,,you just save them money

you think they will give away their game.humm soon at rank 29.9,but who want it

 

 

[Offending]

How about cloud services like AWS or any other cloud computing company?

[BombtailsTheFox]

OP, do me a favor and don't speak for everyone.

Because trust me, not everyone does think like you do.

[Zeclem]

7 hours ago, 844448 said:

I'll explain why I think dedicated server is not the best idea

1. netcode, having dedicated server means they need to make a new code to work with dedicated server. With new code being put, are you sure it will work smoothly on release? And if it happens to have some bumps in it, what is the chance of you not making another thread like this?

"lets not add any kind of proper changes cus they can fail at start" and considering the netcode is already bumpier than the bumpiest road ever, i dont see a risk.

7 hours ago, 844448 said:

That leads to

2. Work time, they would spend quite some time to work on it to make it as smooth as they can on release, means they need to focus on it and less work put on other content. Do you accept having railjack and the new war delayed by a month or two for the server to work smoothly?

yes. thats not a choice that i'd be hesistant about even. 

7 hours ago, 844448 said:

3. Distance, dedicated server can be seen as peer to peer with extra step, where you have a server as a host. If the server is put far away from you, it might not make the ping better

4. Capacity, a lightweight dedicated server can hold up to 64 players, or less than that to avoid putting too much stress during high traffic where you wilk need lots of server that leads to

5. Price, a lightweight server costs $1,400 a year, as explained by the tenno here, up to $4,000 a year for heavyweight server

so your entire point will never stop being "de cant afford it" when industry standards already prove it wrong? i guess its just a waste of time trying to discuss at this point. 

[Methanoid]

to OP, and where exactly would you host these servers, because the costs involved to conveniently cover all regions required would cost a minted fortune, thats why games like this are always hosted by a player.

[SneakyErvin]

7 hours ago, 844448 said:

I'll explain why I think dedicated server is not the best idea

1. netcode, having dedicated server means they need to make a new code to work with dedicated server. With new code being put, are you sure it will work smoothly on release? And if it happens to have some bumps in it, what is the chance of you not making another thread like this?

It was already done years ago when they decided to let players host dedicated servers for conclave. It is by no means perfect but a dedicated server would benefit far more from it than our currenct ptp system does.

Anything dedicated will always be far better than a ptp system, it will never be worse. A host will always be far slower when it comes to data communication between host and clients than a slave server handling it all. The slave server will never DL crap or have family member stream in the background, nor will it have potato hardware that barely manages to run the game for the host. It will also be professionally managed, so bumps will be ironed out quickly and things will be up to date throughout the service period.

You will allways have top notch equipment and good isp routing with dedicated servers, unless the company that is looking for servers are lazy and pick any random S#&$ty american isp that loves to bottleneck the route i.e like Square Enix did with FFXIV Reborn when finding partners to host the servers in the west.

[marelooke]

23 hours ago, Midas said:

Dead by daylight has dedicated servers. Warframe makes enough money they can at least have a few for certain game modes.

Yes, for certain things, as I mentioned (eg. hubs), but I imagine anything with more than 4 players would be a candidate.

How does Dead by daylight play in NZ/Australia though?

[SneakyErvin]

2 minutes ago, Methanoid said:

to OP, and where exactly would you host these servers, because the costs involved to conveniently cover all regions required would cost a minted fortune, thats why games like this are always hosted by a player.

Path of Exile/GGG begs to differ.

They launched with dedicated servers in 2013 on a leap of faith, they've kept those dedicated servers since and have expanded aswell. Marvel Heroes launched with dedicated servers, sure it was a smaller game, but the paying player to server ratio was the same. Many B2P games that have no cash shop run on dedicated servers aswell, like D3, it has zero sustainable yearly revenue yet they keep the servers running. Inquisitor Martyr, a small indie company game runs on dedicated servers, it is a B2P game aswell with next to zero revenue options outside of the initial sale of the game.

There are so many examples out there. Very few reasons why WF shouldnt run with a dedicated setup given how it is a top seller game with a large yearly profit margin that grows bigger for each year.

[Methanoid]

Just now, SneakyErvin said:

Path of Exile/GGG begs to differ.

They launched with dedicated servers in 2013 on a leap of faith, they've kept those dedicated servers since and have expanded aswell. Marvel Heroes launched with dedicated servers, sure it was a smaller game, but the paying player to server ratio was the same. Many B2P games that have no cash shop run on dedicated servers aswell, like D3, it has zero sustainable yearly revenue yet they keep the servers running. Inquisitor Martyr, a small indie company game runs on dedicated servers, it is a B2P game aswell with next to zero revenue options outside of the initial sale of the game.

There are so many examples out there. Very few reasons why WF shouldnt run with a dedicated setup given how it is a top seller game with a large yearly profit margin that grows bigger for each year.

totally different types of games.

[SneakyErvin]

3 minutes ago, marelooke said:

Yes, for certain things, as I mentioned (eg. hubs), but I imagine anything with more than 4 players would be a candidate.

How does Dead by daylight play in NZ/Australia though?

Just because one company is lazy with localization of servers doesnt mean the next one will be.

And since DE seems to be on a friendly "ha-ha that was funny" level with GGG I'm sure they can get help to find a good isp for oceanic players.

[SneakyErvin]

16 minutes ago, Methanoid said:

totally different types of games.

The costs wont be drastically higher here either way. Just as a 32 player BF server mostly costs the same as a 32 player CoD server. In reality, with your line of thinking, BF would be far more expensive because the maps alone are about 5 times the size of CoD maps, that is without adding vehicle combat into the mix among other things like destructable environments etc. Just as the cost increase between a 32 to a 64 player server is minimal aswell. Not that the 100 player servers of DayZ are expensive either.

edit: Plus, DE wouldnt turn to private server companies anyway, so the costs would be even lower. In some places there would even be state based cost reductions due to job opportunities opening up for the citizens, which increases growth and so on in the region. Lots of that stuff going on in europe, which was one of the reasons why EA took the chance to expand their servers on Ireland in connection to the SWToR release. It is also the reason why Google were interested in a massive server farm on Gotland in sweden a few years back because the costs would be so much lower due to national economical benefits given by the state due to infrastructure expansions. I cant remember how it went with all that since I'm not very interested in what happens with google.

 

Edited July 31, 2019 by SneakyErvin