Why are MMO's, MMO-like?

[treemonster]

Can you elaborate? :p

reload animation, rate of fire, the time between knife attacks or grenade attacks or other melee attacks. weapon switching animations. some of them are more transparent than others, for example l4d there's an actual coold down animation on your reticle between melee attacks, most of the time they are hidden.

sure there are many fps games that you can just spam everything more or less, or the animations are very fast. the same is true of some mmo's.

Fairly sure he means that reloading is like a cooldown in an mmo, to which I disagree.

they serve the same purpose. there have been mmos where everything is spammed semi auto fire/auto fire with fast fire(cast) rates and so on with no cooldowns. in l2 as a sorc i could kill a 9 man party in less than 20 seconds or so with my rapid fire nukes. hell we had one melee nuke that the cast time was less than a second and could be spammed until you ran out of mana(ammo)

saying cooldowns have to do with network traffic is silly, since mmo's send and recieve way more data than the average fps anyway. and most fps netcode is worse than mmo netcode(at least wow)

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

imo MMO's are how they are cause its a proven formula, if they tried something new, it might not work, and be a loss money wise. companies are like that even in non-game products

[Flawed]

Why are MMO's, MMO-like?

Nonne res ipsa loquitur.

[Dashel]

saying cooldowns have to do with network traffic is silly, since mmo's send and recieve way more data than the average fps anyway. and most fps netcode is worse than mmo netcode(at least wow)

That is simply untrue. A FPS uses about 2-3x the bandwidth of an MMO , at a far smaller player count (more updates per player/sec vs less player updates but far more players). But still you miss the point in regards to the global cooldown. Latency, not bandwidth, is the issue. As you add more players your prediction decreases. There is a reason there aren't any 256 player BC2 servers and it has jack to do with the supposed superiority of MMO netcode. Its simply a trade off in gameplay.

[treemonster]

That is simply untrue. A FPS uses about 2-3x the bandwidth of an MMO , at a far smaller player count (more updates per player/sec vs less player updates but far more players). But still you miss the point in regards to the global cooldown. Latency, not bandwidth, is the issue. As you add more players your prediction decreases. There is a reason there aren't any 256 player BC2 servers and it has jack to do with the supposed superiority of MMO netcode. Its simply a trade off in gameplay.

i'm not sure where you get these ideas.

there's way more information being transmitted in wow for examples, and in more frequent smaller packets.

fps games netocde has only gotten fare worse and latency increased over the years. cs 1.6 has pings of like 10 or less on nearby ish servers, where as bf2 had average pings over 100(and was also unplayable due to bad netcode/lag for months). some of the lag current fps players put up with is just horrendous.

wow is also more playable at higher pings, where as the higher the latency in fps the more unplayable they get.

wow has much of the same stuff in the packets as the average fps, like position direction speed etc, plus stuff like what armour every toon in range is wearing, and several other things like stats in case you interact with those toons.

bc2 having smaller servers than say bf2 or bf1942 for several reasons, that have nothing to do with netcode or quality of play in relation to network performance. and from wha ti hear the bc2 netocde is complete **** in terms of fps games in general with the incredibly simplistic mechanics to further reduce network strain(lolz) but still suffers from net related issues for people with very good internet that are close to the server they connect to.

wow isn't the best exmaple of mmo in terms of netowrk code. l2 had much better mass pvp performance with very little lag and decent (comparable to today's mmos with shiny graphics) graphics, but had some tricks to perform well that newer mmo's just don't do anymore. you can have a 800 man siege in l2 the internet of 7 years ago on medium to high settings that performed abolsutely brilliantly on the computers that were relatively low end in that time. but god forbid if you can do that in mmo's of today.

so overall mo's and fps both suffer from increasingly poor netcode despite increases in internet speed and bandwidth. and icnreasingly depend on faster and faster badnwidth and lower latencies which can give a measurable edge in the online components of these games. you can hav e20up2 down in and fps or mmo these days and live 2 blocks from the server farm and 3 blocks from teh node between you adn the farm and get owned by someone with a better latency using a tunneling proxy because they have faster responses from teh server.

it all really depends on teh game, not so much the genre, but typically mmo's do have more to transmit back and forth than fps by far. like i said they have everything an fps has to trasnmit plus other things like quest status armours for every single toon nearby, stats for every single toon nearby, buffs and debuffs, mobs vehicles, mounts, any environmental effects, chat, voice(if the game has built in voip and it gets used at all) and so on. mmo's also have plenty o fpreduiction going on both client side and server side to mitigate the effects of latency as much as possible, such as latency indicators on caster cast bars in wow addons.

[Dashel]

That is just patently false on multiple accounts tree, but continue to believe whatever you want. Your RDF is so strong you should work for Apple.

[splur]

A strategy MMO would be pretty hilarious, like Age of Empires but MMO. No idea how it'd even work, but I like the idea of building up an empire, creating alliances, and fighting wars within a game with actual people in a large interactive world.

[Massiveterra]

Has anyone here played Love? It's unlike any MMO I've ever seen. I have yet to experience it but the FPS/adventure/exploration/good will-based coop gameplay/procedurally-driven world seems very intriguing.

[treemonster]

That is just patently false on multiple accounts tree, but continue to believe whatever you want. Your RDF is so strong you should work for Apple.

go ahead believe that fps have more information to send and that cooldowns are merely to improve network traffic and aren't entirely for game play purposes and fps don't have cooldowns at all.

cool downs are a widely used gameplay mechanics in video games these days.

netcode is worse nowadays in new games than it was 5-10 years ago

[Nagisan]

wow has much of the same stuff in the packets as the average fps, like position direction speed etc, plus stuff like what armour every toon in range is wearing, and several other things like stats in case you interact with those toons.

I stopped reading after that line, but I must say, if you believe MMOs transmit data like armor and what not of every toon in range than you clearly have NO idea how such games handle network traffic. In an MMO with proper netcode, your client only knows a players armor when it needs to, such as (with WoW) when a new player comes into visual range or somebody in range changes armor and what not. It sends that info in a single packet separated from all the other stuff, and your client has a small cache that essentially remembers what armor they are wearing until they move out of range. So yes, MMOs do send more stuff, they send one extra packet per player in range that tells your client what armor models to display. From there, your client puts that in memory and holds it there until the person leaves your range and no additional packets on what armor they have are sent unless they change armor.

It works the same in FPS games. Most FPS games have different models that the player can choose. When someone comes into a certain range (defined by the game engine), your client receives a packet telling it what model that player is using, what weapon they have equipped, etc. It doesn't send this info every packet, it only sends this info when that changes (such as when a player changes weapons, your client gets a packet that tells it to play the weapon change animation and what model to change weapons to).

In short, in terms of packets, MMOs and FPS games are almost identical, the only difference is MMOs generally have more players in certain areas. But at the same time, FPS games generally have to change packets more often (how often do you swap armor in WoW and enter or leave the same place in rapid succession? Now, how often do you change weapons in a FPS, and how often do you enter the same area in rapid succession (think TF2, attacking or defending a control point)?).

So in short, MMOs send more new packets as you enter or leave areas, FPSs send packets in more rapid succession as players change weapons and enter much smaller areas.

Also, a players stats in an MMO are generally not transmitted until there is a reason to, such as when you inspect them. If you are simply fighting them there is no reason to know their stats (when they attack, their damage and other values are calculated on the server, then the end value is transmitted to your client). They also do not pre-load stats "in case you interact with those toons", they only load stats when you actually do interact with them but only when you need to know their stats (such as inspecting someone), not with interaction such as fighting or trading or whatever.

EDIT: That being said, cooldowns are for balance purposes in both MMO and FPS. Imagine if the scouts scattergun in TF2 had access to all 38 shots without having to stop to reload. A scout could essentially attack someone and hold down mouse 1 and hope he hits enough out of 38 shots to kill them, then go pick up more ammo and repeat. It is not really a cooldown, but it is there for balance purposes. At the same time, most cooldowns in MMOs are for balance purposes. Things like global cooldown are for slight balance purposes and to reduce strain by limiting the amount of commands a single player can send to the server per second (Global cooldown means players can only use 1 skill every x seconds, therefore only sending 1 spell usage packet every x seconds), but individual skill cooldowns are designed to balance the skills between classes.

Also to clarify, the reason MMOs are more tolerable at higher FPS has nothing to do with cooldowns or anything, it has to do with how the games actually play. In an MMO, you can push a button and it will eventually activate that skill based on how bad your latency is. In a FPS, the same will happen. The main difference is in most MMOs there is a form of auto-targetting, you do not have to aim your spells (again, in MOST MMOs, not all), whereas in an FPS you have to actively aim at a target and fire in a potentially very small window of opportunity to actually hit them. Add high latency and you have to predict how long your actions will take to reach the server and what not. Games like TF2 are less prone to this for the person with high latency due to the way hitscan works, but this only pushes to frustrate those with low latency because they die when they feel they shouldn't have (when in fact, the person with high latency did hit them enough to kill them, it just took longer for the low latency person to see that they got killed due to the way hitscan works).

[treemonster]

lolz /facepalm

ok it's not like any of us here are netcode programmers... so maybe we can all just lay off the i'm an expert and you're wrong positions here.

seriously if you think that though... /facepalm.

[Nagisan]

lolz /facepalm

ok it's not like any of us here are netcode programmers... so maybe we can all just lay off the i'm an expert and you're wrong positions here.

seriously if you think that though... /facepalm.

Not a netcode programmer, no, but I have worked on WoW private server codebases so I probably have a better idea on what is sent and when, than you do. I don't think that's how it works, I know that's how it works based off experience. Blizzard may work a bit differently since they have a lot more bandwidth than the average private server, but I would assume Blizzard would want to minimize bandwidth costs to maximize profit. But I wouldn't know for sure as I don't work for Blizzard...based off your self-proclaimed "knowledge" of the subject, perhaps you do work for Blizzard though?

[treemonster]

i've worked on l2 private servers and played a wider range of mmo's than you have and seen the effects of things like a wide variety of armour sets vs a lower variety of armour sets on latency among other thing in w ide variety of situations from 1v1s involving mobs to small groups with and without mobs to massive pvp battles both inside and outside instanced zones. so yeah... :laugh:

i read the other month that some ISPs in europe have problems telling wow traffic from p2p traffic and throttle it because the packets are so frequent and smaller, but didn't mention any other games.

every single game is different for netcode, unless they're made by the same company. but if you've been playing online games for the last decade and haven't noticed a degradation in teh quality of netcode in games overall then really i can't help you at all.

never mind that all of this is missing the point.

poster a said mmo's only had cooldowns to improve latency

i said cooldowns had nothing to do with latency and were purely a gameplay mechanic that exist in fps too.

tangent: OMG X GAME TYPE HAS DIFFERENT(BETTER) NETCODE AND YOU"RE WRONG BECAUSE AND YOU SHOULD WORK FOR APPLE!

:whistle:

[Vice]

The only reason WoW feels less laggy and more capable at higher Latency is due to Client side prediction. It's pretty simple, the Server sends the Client some data and then between the gap of receiving new data the client 'predicts' what should happen.

That is why during really high lag issues you are able to take a monster down to 1% health and then once an update arrives the monster has got full health again. It's also why sometimes you can walk right up to an enemy NPC and do a whole sing and dance and they act as if you aren't even there, still walking around as normal and then instantly they start attacking you. Your client tries very hard to mask the latency issues.

In FPS games this just doesn't work because the more you predict the more issues there are. If you shoot at someone and your client is predicting 20 frames of the game (like an MMORPG) then you just missed that player or worse your already dead yourself and not know it.

Usually in an FPS the only prediction that happens is you moving around the environment. It will allow you to move as far as you want even if the server has not yet been told where you are. This is why when a server is under immense lag you may have a 'rubber band' effect where you are taking 10 steps forward and then the client receives an update and you are back where you were 9 steps ago.

In valve games they do a little more client side prediction that they call lag compensation where your client renders the player a few inches in-front of where the actual player is standing if the packets you receive show them as moving in a specific direction as by the time the packets reach you the idea is that player is already where your client will predict them to have been.

Comparing FPS and MMO's without mentioning this ^ is pretty silly as the two game types are just not comparative on netcode.

[treemonster]

The only reason WoW feels less laggy and more capable at higher Latency is due to Client side prediction. It's pretty simple, the Server sends the Client some data and then between the gap of receiving new data the client 'predicts' what should happen.

That is why during really high lag issues you are able to take a monster down to 1% health and then once an update arrives the monster has got full health again. It's also why sometimes you can walk right up to an enemy NPC and do a whole sing and dance and they act as if you aren't even there, still walking around as normal and then instantly they start attacking you. Your client tries very hard to mask the latency issues.

i've never really experienced this in wow, but have in aion. aion netcode is highly reliant on korean level of infrstructure though. it's one of those mmo's where ping really does matter in terms of the outcome of a fight, especially pvp. not that korean mmo's are typically like that.

keeping in mind i have about 350 ms average in wow, and about 200 in aion, and guess which one feels laggier to play? especially in pvp. although aion has some hard client mechanics wow intentionally doesn't have for example in wow you can get cast bar addons which compensate for ping so you can start new spell casts earlier, where as in aion you can not do that at all, even if there were add ons for that game.

in aion it also heavily impacts the flight combat where melee characters with short ranges experience a high degreee of "your target is out of range" spam in flight pvp. where as in vahsjir in wow(swimming zone so similar to flight) melee seemed to hav eno issues hitting me as i swam around up and down and so on.

[Nagisan]

i've worked on l2 private servers and played a wider range of mmo's than you have and seen the effects of things like a wide variety of armour sets vs a lower variety of armour sets on latency among other thing in w ide variety of situations from 1v1s involving mobs to small groups with and without mobs to massive pvp battles both inside and outside instanced zones. so yeah... :laugh:

No clue how many MMO's you have played but you also have no idea of the ones I have played. I have been playing MMOs since Everquest....no, it wasn't the first, but it is one of the older MMOs. During those times though I wasn't into programming at all, I simply know from my experience with WoW servers that packets are not sent constantly that contain the same information. Maybe netcode has changed since your L2 private server days? Maybe L2 sent lots of packets like that, but I know for a fact WoW does not. Another good example is Guild Wars. While it is not a traditional MMO, it does have many MMO qualities, such as large amounts of players in one area (any major town). It works in the same way I have been describing WoW in terms of packets sent. When you load into an area, you get all the packets containing information about the armor that people are wearing. The game then stores that information in the memory and leaves it there until the server detects a chance in someones armor, then it sends another packet to everyone in town that alerts their client to the change in armor.

You can easily watch for this.....all you need to do is get something like wireshark and monitor network traffic, you will see a large amount of packets when you enter a town, then they will slow down and you will not receive nearly as many (Still a lot as players move around, but not packet info regarding armor and what not).

i read the other month that some ISPs in europe have problems telling wow traffic from p2p traffic and throttle it because the packets are so frequent and smaller, but didn't mention any other games.

That's because in WoW you are usually around lots of people in many areas of the game. The packets are small because they only contain movement information (which only corrects the clients built-in prediction), if it sent information about everyones armor and stats like you said it does, the packets would easily quadrupole in size and would no longer be considered small.

every single game is different for netcode, unless they're made by the same company. but if you've been playing online games for the last decade and haven't noticed a degradation in teh quality of netcode in games overall then really i can't help you at all.

never mind that all of this is missing the point.

poster a said mmo's only had cooldowns to improve latency

i said cooldowns had nothing to do with latency and were purely a gameplay mechanic that exist in fps too.

tangent: OMG X GAME TYPE HAS DIFFERENT(BETTER) NETCODE AND YOU"RE WRONG BECAUSE AND YOU SHOULD WORK FOR APPLE!

:whistle:

True, ever game is different, and it is possible and more likely that older games sent much more data (they had to deal with the same data, but didn't have nearly as much knowledge or half the technology we have to efficiently deal with it). Who says there has been degradation of netcode? While I do not remember much about EQ netcode, I do know it has not gotten worse since then. I do know that some modern FPS games have gotten worse, but only some of them, mostly because they are going from simple netcode (hitscan-style netcode) to more complex hitbox based netcode (where bullets are projectiles and everything is more realistic, which forces you to lead targets and hope to hit). But other games, like TF2, are not really worse in terms of netcode than games like UT or Quake.

I am somewhat split between cooldowns for better latency and cooldowns for better gameplay. I think games implement both. For example, World of Warcraft has a global cooldown. Many skills from most classes activate this GCD. Would it really break the game if they completely removed GCD from everything? No, but I bet it would cause havok on their servers as people start spamming skills as quick as they can. This is seen in other games too, like Guild Wars. Skills have a sort of global cooldown based on animation. You cast an instant cast skill and there is a slight delay before you can do anything (including moving) due to the animation. Is that for balance? No, that's to reduce packets sent from the client to server. Now skills that have a defined cooldown, you are right, they are there for balance.

I find it funny how much you claim to know on every subject that arises, yet you never want to back up your claims. Maybe monitor packets coming to your computer and watch for those magical armor and stat packets that don't exist, then post the proof if you wish to make crazy claims like that. Let me ask you this. Why WOULD an MMO constantly send armor and stat packets when it doesn't need to?

[treemonster]

it not like you actually back up your claims any better than i do. we both tend to speak from experience and second hand knowledge. so that's a moot point.

and like i said, i've played mmo's with rapid fire spell casts and little to no cd's whatsoever in mass pvp situations that wow can't even handle on older hardware with older internet speeds with less lag.

it's not hard to see how fps mechanics have been dumbed down over the years, and they suffer from more lag issues than ever before, and the lag has a greater impact on newer games than it did on games we played on 33.3k dial up modems in the 90s or nullmodems and lans with lower speed than average NA broadband.

standing around in org there are cosntnatly people coming and going. you seem to say that packets caontained what armour they're wearing is infrequent, and yet it's constant movement of players wearing wide variety of armours. you brought tf2 as if it the variety of models and armour pieces is anywhere near that of a naked wow toon before adding armour, with afar more l imited number of toons to to track, in a far smaller space than the busy area of org alone.

we see what happens in mmo's as complexity of data needed to be communicated increases especially in large populations all gathered into small areas such as cerntral social hubs without instancing or mass pvp activities, where as older games witht eh so called "clone" effect of there being a limited variety of toon models and armour skins performed much better in these areas,packing everyone into dalaran, or to a much mor enoticeable degree, wintergrasp with the added strain of combat and interaction of large parts of the character sheet and a wide variety of spells and skills all with different values for each indivdual character and we see huge amounts of latency compared to some older mmo's with greater numbers and much lower cast times and cool downs and variety of armours.

wow has smaller more frequent packets to mitigate packet loss and effective lag over wide distances, where as other games, fps in particular have larger slower packets, since the server can spend more time doing math for predictions, on less hardware than the average mmo. and mmo attains higher server populations sprread throughout the world which helps with server hardware load balancing in a variety of ways, that no wow p server is goign to be able match in terms of performance in either traffic or server side calculations, where as an fps server can run side by side with other server side software instances on the same hardware fairly easily with much less traffic and calulation to deal with in part due to sginigicantly smaller space, and on varerage fewer toons in teh same small space, the largest fps map being about the size if not smaller than the average wow zone, with much less to calculate(no mobs in non populated fps, if that fps game even has mobs). fps servers also tend to be closer to the client than mmo servers, phsyically speaking, and have less internet nodes to travel through.

as for fps and the degradation of netcode, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to notice the sloppy play scoring head shots and other lolzy **** that just wouldn't fly in cs1.6 in the year 2000 let alone today at higher pings and more noticeable lag apparent even from watching the videos and handicaps to input speeds in some of these games people talk about and so on.

actually playing these games for a few hours a day for a week and doing a variety of pve and pvp (in mmo's) and playing online in fps, it doesn't take long to get a feel for the netcode balanced against client side hardware performance while keeping in mind that ping is pretty relative and 100 ping in one game might be extremely laggy while 100 ping in another might be realtively smooth.

[The_DINGUS]

I can't imagine an MMO making much money off of continued monthly subscriptions if it was as insufferably boring as Red Dead Redemption.

[treemonster]

I can't imagine an MMO making much money off of continued monthly subscriptions if it was as insufferably boring as Red Dead Redemption.

watching my bro play rdr ther ewas a lot of stuff that was kind mmo like, like farming wildlife for drops for progress.

personally i see this kind of mmo ization in alot of games these days, and quite frankly i'd rprefer if they kept it to mmo's because i don't want every single game to be mmo style. when i tak ea break from my mmo of the moment i want to play something different, not that same grind 20 mobs/players for x reward/title/stat upgrade/unlock.

on the other hand as long as it's entirely optional and gives no half decent edge in play it does give players short and long term goals to work towards. although i never needed these for video games myself. i tend to play them because they're fun, not because of some shiny lewt.

[c3ntury]

GTA with hundreds of people would fail.. lets face it, you would be shot in the face every couple of seconds xD

[Massiveterra]

GTA with hundreds of people would fail.. lets face it, you would be shot in the face every couple of seconds xD

which is what happened in APB

[Nagisan]

it's not hard to see how fps mechanics have been dumbed down over the years, and they suffer from more lag issues than ever before, and the lag has a greater impact on newer games than it did on games we played on 33.3k dial up modems in the 90s or nullmodems and lans with lower speed than average NA broadband.

Dumbed down? I don't think making things more realistic by turning bullets into projectiles and having them affected by wind (if it exists in the game) and gravity or by passing through objects is dumbing down FPS mechanics....FPS mechanics have been constantly improved since the first few FPS games. I don't think you can classify improvements as being "dumbed down".

standing around in org there are cosntnatly people coming and going. you seem to say that packets caontained what armour they're wearing is infrequent, and yet it's constant movement of players wearing wide variety of armours. you brought tf2 as if it the variety of models and armour pieces is anywhere near that of a naked wow toon before adding armour, with afar more l imited number of toons to to track, in a far smaller space than the busy area of org alone.

we see what happens in mmo's as complexity of data needed to be communicated increases especially in large populations all gathered into small areas such as cerntral social hubs without instancing or mass pvp activities, where as older games witht eh so called "clone" effect of there being a limited variety of toon models and armour skins performed much better in these areas,packing everyone into dalaran, or to a much mor enoticeable degree, wintergrasp with the added strain of combat and interaction of large parts of the character sheet and a wide variety of spells and skills all with different values for each indivdual character and we see huge amounts of latency compared to some older mmo's with greater numbers and much lower cast times and cool downs and variety of armours.

wow has smaller more frequent packets to mitigate packet loss and effective lag over wide distances, where as other games, fps in particular have larger slower packets, since the server can spend more time doing math for predictions, on less hardware than the average mmo. and mmo attains higher server populations sprread throughout the world which helps with server hardware load balancing in a variety of ways, that no wow p server is goign to be able match in terms of performance in either traffic or server side calculations, where as an fps server can run side by side with other server side software instances on the same hardware fairly easily with much less traffic and calulation to deal with in part due to sginigicantly smaller space, and on varerage fewer toons in teh same small space, the largest fps map being about the size if not smaller than the average wow zone, with much less to calculate(no mobs in non populated fps, if that fps game even has mobs). fps servers also tend to be closer to the client than mmo servers, phsyically speaking, and have less internet nodes to travel through.

True, but lets say you stand in the middle of Orgrimmar for an hour. Anyone else who is AFK for that time causes no packets to be sent to you (they are AFK and not moving), those who are running around to the AH, Bank, etc, are only sending movement data to the server, which is sent on to you. The only time armor data is sent are when someone wanders into your sight range for the first time. If someone walks in a building where you can't see them, then walks back out, no new packets are sent other than movement packets. FPS games work quite differently, if someone walks from one part of the map to another part, if the parts are completely separated, your client doesn't even draw the model, so as soon as they wander back into range where you might see them again, the server sends you packets to tell you what they have equipped and what not. MMO games do not quite work like that. I'm sure MMO games do send more data than FPS games because there are many more people in one area than you normally get in an FPS, but I think you are exaggerating quite a bit.

as for fps and the degradation of netcode, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to notice the sloppy play scoring head shots and other lolzy **** that just wouldn't fly in cs1.6 in the year 2000 let alone today at higher pings and more noticeable lag apparent even from watching the videos and handicaps to input speeds in some of these games people talk about and so on.

What CS1.6 are you playing? Years ago, before CS:S came out and when CS1.6 was still highly popular (it is still popular today, but I'm talking back towards it's peak) I had a friend who was a great player (within the top 50 or so in many large competitions which consisted of thousands of players). He was on dialup, and the reason he was so good is because he knew how to account for his latency. Even against lower latency players he would still dominate because of how he had learned to play. Long after he quit competitive CS, he switched to broadband, his latency fell to a fraction of what it was on dialup and he did horrible until he learned to play without high latency. My point is, put somebody in an older game like CS1.6, and they have to account for latency and what not. Put somebody in a newer game like TF2 or another game that uses hitscan, and they do not have to account for latency when it comes to shooting a target. How does going from a method that highly relies on latency to one that doesn't, a degradation of netcode? If anything it's a hell of an improvement. The last game I remember being slammed for bad netcode was BF2, in which you could run sideways shooting a player running the same direction, hitting the back side of their model (the side opposite of the direction of movement) and their model would bleed and play hit animation, but you would not actually hit them so you would do 0 damage. I personally do not remember any modern games nearly that bad, but feel free to show examples if you have any.

[treemonster]

too man ygames to name it's obvious from watching the videos. it's absolutely horrendous to think people actually play these games with that kind of lag on today's computers, and we see plenty of complaints about them on the gaming forums of neowin alone, even if people will argue till their blue in the face that that doesn't happen at all.

and bf2 was particularly bad. i don't think games have gotten worse since then, i'll give you that.

what are these games with wind in them that affect bullets? cs1.6 had bullets passing through object but alot of these games have either destructible object made out of paper mache or or cardboard with the properties of 4 ft thick steel.

i transitioned from dial up to broadband in fps and adjusted to the lack of lag within a play session or two and saw a marked increase in my kill counts. just like i've seen with other technology advances such as going from ball mice to optical mice and a keyboard to an nf50 then to an n52. the thing about lag though is when it's constnat it's easy to adapt to, but when it's incosnistent it throws you off constantly, and that the kind of lag we see more often today, where as once we were more used to a seemingly constant 7fps, and we actually could play with that kind of performance. now a drop from 30fps+ to 7 fps is going to cause kill our toon for sure.

which is what happened in APB

APB wasn't anything like that. you could only kill people you wer matche dup against, which was at most half dozen at any given time, but more often 1v1. more often then not other players in teh game world were simply driving in anotehr direction or having a shoot out as you drove past, and if you parked your car in between one team and another team, you were an invincible barrier(this was actualyl a common exploit where out of party clan mates would interfere in missiosn to help their friends)

[Nagisan]

what are these games with wind in them that affect bullets? cs1.6 had bullets passing through object but alot of these games have either destructible object made out of paper mache or or cardboard with the properties of 4 ft thick steel.

I was not talking about any particular game when I mentioned wind, I do not know of any off hand that work this way, but it honestly will not surprise me if they start doing that soon, they seem to be trying to make them more realistic, even if it's less fun. Though in Modern Warfare there was a sniping mission that had wind affect the bullet, but it was only a specific area so it was probably scripted instead of actual wind. Though gravity affects bullets in BF2, and many other of the realistic-styled games it seems. As for bullets passing through objects, that was just an example of progress from Quake and UT, it could certainly be done better (bullets damage scale from velocity, and have different materials that slow bullets by a certain velocity, instead of either bullets penetrate something or they don't).

i transitioned from dial up to broadband in fps and adjusted to the lack of lag within a play session or two and saw a marked increase in my kill counts. just like i've seen with other technology advances such as going from ball mice to optical mice and a keyboard to an nf50 then to an n52. the thing about lag though is when it's constnat it's easy to adapt to, but when it's incosnistent it throws you off constantly, and that the kind of lag we see more often today, where as once we were more used to a seemingly constant 7fps, and we actually could play with that kind of performance. now a drop from 30fps+ to 7 fps is going to cause kill our toon for sure.

That comes down to your computers performance though, I get constant FPS without a problem in most FPS games I play, what I was talking about (and what you were talking about earlier) was latency, which has nothing to do with FPS. I guess your argument is changing from crappy netcode to bad optimization in general, which is different, and does seem to be a major problem in most modern games on release.

[Dashel]

Did my own test last night if you want to compare numbers. A 15min round of TF2 with 16 or so people generated 15MB of traffic. 30min of running around Dal checking the AH and then an Isle PvP match generated a whopping 8MB. I'm still waiting to play a 256 man shooter though, or even an 80 man like AV. Tree must not have explained to them how this is easily possible with 1337 korean MMO netcode. Cause then my rockets would always find their target, even around corners!