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Why does Warframe / Digital Extremes still claims to use peer-to-peer-hosting?

Pave

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Pave

Pave

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I am an “old-fart”.
Whenever we used to talk about "peer-to-peer" file-hosting-wise, there would be "seeds" with the original file to be shared, and "leeches" that download this file.
Once these leeches would have gotten the file 100% downloaded, they in turn would have the option to become "seeds" to be downloaded from.
The advantage of peer-to-peer-file-sharing over a singular file-host generally was that eventually this would allow faster downloads with less "bandwidth-strain" on singular file-hosts, because you could download the same file from multiple sources at the same time ( even from some "leeches" that didn't yet have the file 100%-downloaded ).
 
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Digital-Extremes ( alongside a large amount other enterprises ) claims to be using "peer-to-peer"-hosting for the gameplay-sessions.
Yet there still is only a singular host, therefore making their game work identically to "listen-server"-games, since this host alone pretty much dictates how the gameplay-session goes for the most part ( which in large amount times simply can make the gameplay just outright broken / dysfunctional, or otherwise "shuts-down" ).
 
 
 
I have understood that if we'd indeed would be using real-peer-to-peer hosting in this game, wouldn't this mean that all the players in the session would be "seeds" / hosts because we already have the whole game already downloaded and installed to begin with? 
 
But now instead we seemingly have "hosts" with the complete game which functions for the most part "as intended", where as the "clients" might me missing almost 50% of the content during gameplay-session ( from missing special-effects, to game simply functioning pretty much opposite “as intended", and so on things that either are or not being "band-aided" at some point of the game-development-process, maybe ).
 
 
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Frankly speaking, what I have been seeing so far, any developer insisting to claim their game is run in "peer-to-peer"-hosting-environment, when it is pretty much yet another "listen-server"-game, not only is giving even more bad reputation to peer-to-peer-technology in general. But it has already severely "bastardized" the term; now pretty much all "kids" are calling listen-server-games as "peer-to-peer"...
 
Not only this, but the claims of "going bankrupt" we keep hearing from Digital-Extremes whenever we bring up the topic of dedicated-servers being hosted by the company themselves just sounds like "player-shaming" due the (quite-blatantly) apparent responsibility shifting onto players when it comes to gameplay-session hosting ("Oh, it's just a lag-issue", I keep often reading having been written as an "hand-wave / gloss").
Meanwhile there are many smaller-companies (less than 50-personnel) worldwide hosting their own dedicated-servers for millions of players, while also having their own database-storages for the replay-files and all the other data. "Icing on the cake" is that their in-game store doesn't use the "ransom"-practices to more or less force players to use cash in order to "play normally" ( in-case of Warframe, we're especially talking of "inventory-slots"; lack of them can completely stall the progression of players ).
 
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To those people who are more new to online-gameplay-session-hosting, here are some more comparisons in "analogies" (as far as I’ve understood):
 
Peer-to-peer:
All players bring their "table" for the gameplay-session.
Even if one of the players drop-out, they can still continue playing since they rest of them still have the table to play on.
All the players are also refereeing (E.G. "hit-detection").
Communication is constant with all the players, and might get somewhat "tangled" due the constant requirement of all the players need to watch over the tables of each other.
 
Listen-server: (Most similar / likely used in "Warframe")
A singular-player bring the "table".
If the "host" leaves, then the game is over.
The "host" also is the only one doing the refereeing / "Dungeon-Mastering".
 
Dedicated-Server:
The table is offered by 3rd-party.
Regardless of any of the players leaving, the table stays.
Since none of the players are doing any of the refereeing, they can concentrate simply on the game itself.
 
 
(( Naturally "hit-detection-refereeing" can also be be "server-side", "player-opinion-based / client-side" and so on with various other nuances. But on this thread I'd like to concentrate on the gameplay-session-hosting specifically. ))
 
 
 
A link to some reference-text:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_server
 
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Pave

Pave

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4 minutes ago, Jeffrey94 said:

You're forgetting about host migration

Which itself either fails 9,999.../10-times or breaks the game even further.
Not to also mention the "key-item"-sessions in which the session indeed just ends / is aborted, leaving all players with nothing but (irreplaceable) lost time (99.999...% of the times that is). Or even in "normal-session", the game simply just decides "no game for you".

In other words, in my experiences, "host-migration" is same as simply "not having a game to begin with".

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peterc3

peterc3

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35 minutes ago, Pave said:

Not only this, but the claims of "going bankrupt" we keep hearing from Digital-Extremes whenever we bring up the topic of dedicated-servers being hosted by the company themselves

DE has never said this, this is an invention of the community.

As to the rest of it, you are conflating file-sharing with game hosting. DE hosts next to nothing for each individual session, but sends/receives to the host of the session and the rest of the players deal with the player-host.

How cheap do you think it would be to have "servers" all over the world servicing millions of players while having to redo the networking that has been in place since the game was merely an outline on paper?

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Pave

Pave

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1 hour ago, peterc3 said:

DE has never said this, this is an invention of the community.

(( Off-topics. But let's address this since the whole post quoted here hangs-around the expenses. ))

This was (probably) "Steve" himself said in one of the development streams way before they even had (plans to) tease about player-powered-dedicated-server-hosting; maybe not word-by-word, but the implications were quite clear:

"What we had been seeing with games that host their own dedicated servers is that they have now gone belly-up. Hence we don't want to risk it."

Now, if I had the time & resources, I would fetch the Devstream-session in question with the semi-quoted-quote.
But Digital Extremes has disabled the "transcript"-option on their channel (or at least on the Devstream-videos); a function that is also tied to auto-translator-tool.
Therefore making finding this video and the quote a huge hassle...

 

1 hour ago, peterc3 said:

How cheap do you think it would be to have "servers" all over the world servicing millions of players while having to redo the networking that has been in place since the game was merely an outline on paper?

 

And yet here we have Digital Extremes hosting the "Relays" and the "Dojos" themselves nowadays...

 

And I did mention on the thread-starter-post, I am still currently playing various games that won't even allow player-hosting in their game. And these games have millions of active-players.
(( I won't be "advertising" these games because 1. it's off-topics and 2. advertising especially in this situation breaks the forums rules.
But I can say these games aren't hard to find. ))

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But my main topic here was not demand Digital Extremes to start hosting all the gameplay-sessions themselves
( which in reality isn't (seemingly) that expensive nowadays, especially thanks to options such as "cloud"-services and other dynamically-adjusting hosting-services (I.E. they are similar to "pay-as-you-go"-models in which the bills are calculated after the traffic rather than just forced to paid for "empty-servers" ).

 

Main topic here is to inquire information why this game claims to be "peer-to-peer" when it in reality works identically as "listen-servers" function (as in "practice" or as we players experience it; only the developer themselves can tell all about the "technology" (code and such) as of why this game supposedly is "peer-to-peer" ).

Heck, the "dedicated-servers" we have for the PvP-mode / "Conclave" further disproves this game being being peer-to-peer-hosting.

 

And yes, before anyone brings this up:
I watched this video mentioned here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/709664-dedicated-conclave-servers/?page=19#comment-8756981
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVetqMgcN50
(( Anti-Link-Rot-Title: "Maciej Siniło: Networking Architecture of Warframe" uploaded by "Digital Dragons"

And pretty much everything mentioned there is same as for any other listen-server or generally online-games to begin with; nothing "peer-to-peer" exclusive.

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Now, I am just an "armchair expert" obviously; I claim nothing else.
But I still try to study at least some basics through stuff that might have been written in the most "vernacular"-language as possible.

And here once again, I am here simply inquire information, even if I am somewhat "inquisitive".

 

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_Vortus_

_Vortus_

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If you have issues on a host migration, you might want to check your own internet.   As to what they are calling it, don't really care.   Just know that when I get in a game, good ping generally means the host is good.   Bad ping means they are generally far away.   Really bad ping means far away and they have bad internet.   And lag with a good ping means its me most times having latency issues.   Bad ping and lag could be me or them.  And 99% of the time, host migration means getting a better host.    The few times it won't connect back and sends us back to the ship, or boots us out of the game completely means at the time anyway, the game is pretty much telling is our internet sucks, come back later.

Though I do wish they would fix the connection ping max so it actually worked on options.    And added an option for players with crap internet to opt out of hosting.

Pingplotter, free version, is a nice tool for checking as it will graph over periods of a time.   Not just ping, but latency, each jumps IP and data on that IP and other things enabling you to track issues.  Worth learning how to use.   Its given me some free time from my ISP due to showing them some issues and not getting what I was paying for.

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Buff00n

Buff00n

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This just reads like you've decided to fight a semantic battle for its own sake.

Fine, it's not technically peer-to-peer.  A true peer-to-peer fast-paced shooter would be both a technical marvel, and completely impractical on anything other than a LAN.  You think lag and warping issues are bad with a single server?  True P2P, where there is no one "system of record" for the game state, would make those infinitely worse.  Not to mention needing 4x the combined bandwidth for a four-person squad, or 8x for a trial.  When nobody is hosting then everyone is hosting.

In a peer-to-peer Nightmare Law of Retribution run, who determines where the core is?  By the time you've reconciled eight competing game states it's already hit electricity on the machine of that guy who's playing from Malaysia.

Warframe has "peer-hosted" games, where any player can be the host, and with host migration that works well enough in my experience.  It has a central server just for account management, match making, and hosting Relays and Dojos.  But with Relays and Dojos it's obvious they're hosted with far lower fidelity with respect to real-time movement and feedback.  I haven't tried it lately, but my understanding is even starting a duel in the Dojo will load a new, peer-hosted session.

"Peer-to-peer" is marketing speak, for sure.  But to the non-technical public it's generally understood to mean "games are not centrally hosted", which is accurate enough.

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Helch0rn

Helch0rn

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13 hours ago, Pave said:

And yet here we have Digital Extremes hosting the "Relays" and the "Dojos" themselves nowadays...

You don't need a low ping to use Dojos and Relays.

Having 1 server in Canada hosting a dozen dojo and relay sessions is no biggie as players still can use them to their full extend even if npcs have an ungodly long response time.

Having servers all over the globe (because playing on a server that has a really high ping because it's on the other side of the world sucks) is expensive. And imho DE is better off hiring talented people with the money they would have to spend on Servers

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DogManDan

DogManDan

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Let me put this all in simple terms that you can understand as defined in the game industry and not the "file-sharing" industry:

 

Peer to Peer (P2P) Servers - Is a server that is created by a game developer and one user simulates a server while everyone else simulates clients with the same rights.

 

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Thank you come again!

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ChuckMaverick

ChuckMaverick

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I'm happy with the current hosting model.

95%++ of public missions run smoothly with no problems at all, and DE can spend the money that dedicated hosting would have cost on developing things that actually impact my play, like new content.

If you're going to argue semantics of peer-to-peer vs listen-server (whatever that is, it's not a term I've ever heard used before), then at least provide an authoritative source for your definitions. But frankly I don't see the point of arguing such semantic details.

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Pave

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16 hours ago, ChuckMaverick said:

listen-server (whatever that is, it's not a term I've ever heard used before)

Well, whatever is your reason for not ever "hearing" about listen-server, I won't judge you.
But for the sake of education, here is a link to teach you how to self-educate yourself, alongside even more links that leads to various places telling about listen-servers:
http://lmgtfy.com/?iie=1&q=Listen+Server

(( And yes, I did look up my question of this thread before-hand; the results were pretty much non-existing; hence I made this information-inquiring-thread. ))

 

On 17.6.2017 at 4:40 AM, Buff00n said:

This just reads like you've decided to fight a semantic battle for its own sake.

Well, thing is: People go to court a lot all because of semantics.

Heck, come to any country part of European-Union and you will be bombarded with stories that were all about semantics:
E.G. there is this product "mixed-butter"-product called "Voimariini" (which was a "portmanteau" of "voi" (butter) and "margarine") that was forced to be renamed  because this "butter" was not 100% milk-fat.
This is the same product today under the "new"-name: https://www.valio.ee/en/products/butter/valio-oivariini-75-400g )

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Buff00n

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42 minutes ago, Pave said:

Well, thing is: People go to court a lot all because of semantics.

Heck, come to any country part of European-Union and you will be bombarded with stories that were all about semantics:
E.G. there is this product "mixed-butter"-product called "Voimariini" (which was a "portmanteau" of "voi" (butter) and "margarine") that was forced to be renamed  because this "butter" was not 100% milk-fat.
This is the same product today under the "new"-name: https://www.valio.ee/en/products/butter/valio-oivariini-75-400g )

Until they mandate a binding legal definition for "Peer-to-peer", they same way they currently do with "butter", this whole discussion is purely academic.

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ChuckMaverick

ChuckMaverick

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4 hours ago, Pave said:

Well, whatever is your reason for not ever "hearing" about listen-server, I won't judge you.
But for the sake of education, here is a link to teach you how to self-educate yourself, alongside even more links that leads to various places telling about listen-servers:
http://lmgtfy.com/?iie=1&q=Listen+Server

(( And yes, I did look up my question of this thread before-hand; the results were pretty much non-existing; hence I made this information-inquiring-thread. ))

Well, as I said...

21 hours ago, ChuckMaverick said:

But frankly I don't see the point of arguing such semantic details.

...so I didn't think it worth the effort, but thank you for the link.

4 hours ago, Pave said:

Well, thing is: People go to court a lot all because of semantics.

Heck, come to any country part of European-Union and you will be bombarded with stories that were all about semantics:
E.G. there is this product "mixed-butter"-product called "Voimariini" (which was a "portmanteau" of "voi" (butter) and "margarine") that was forced to be renamed  because this "butter" was not 100% milk-fat.
This is the same product today under the "new"-name: https://www.valio.ee/en/products/butter/valio-oivariini-75-400g )

And yet some people still find it strange that we decided to leave the EU; to each their own, I guess.

 

Based on the definitions from the Wikipedia page on game servers, I'm not convinced that Warframe operates a pure Listen server model. It seems to incorporate features of both Listen server and Peer-to-Peer, the fact that host migration can happen being evidence of this.

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