How many channels will there be if implemented?
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I was wondering if the developers were planning to implement channels in this game and if so, how many channels do they plan to implement?
It does have an impact on PvP especially if people can just run and change channels to hide from conflicts.
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You are talking about switching between several instances of the game in the same area?
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As far as I know, there are no plans to implement sharding.
Also, imho, games without sharding are better games.
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Sharding is needed if the poplutaion will be so massive that it may become impossibile to find resources because every zone will be filled with people all around.
If that is not the scenario, than sharding is something that is simply not needed otherwise the world will seems empty with people spread into low populated istances of the same zone instead of being all on the same.
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Starting zones could benefit from sharding during the time of launch and make it smoothier, but it would be better to limit it just there.
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Sharding is the death of many games.
Specially for a game like fractured.So probably, no.
Easyer fix then "lazy" shards. Simply make the world big enough and have no tuturial area. Fractured will probably not have any tuturial area, rather learn by doing or a simple "begginers quest" to learn the basics. If i remember correctly. I bet we will be dropped into different starting "zones" from where we can spread and do whatever we want xD.
Too many people around? Go explore new areas.
And if the server map is really to small, they can just add more landmass to it~
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@Greenfox I am not a fan of sharding either and people are for example exploiting it in WoW Classic Beta atm. However, we all know how tough the launch times have been for MMORPGs in past and almost everyone have suffered from different kind of performance problems. Relese time in Albion was horrible even the start was divided between three days. There was a several starting zones, but still people could not even get out from the starting town, because they were just freezing on loading screens, rubberbanding for hours.. if they first passed the looong queue of login.. Now if all that shit can be avoided with starting area sharding (if there is no other way) I would gladly take that for exchange for smooth start.
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I really hope there won't be sharding. Only had not so pleasant experiences with that so far.
Also it can be annoying to buddy up with your group sometimes if that shard is full so everyone has to switch and so and so on. So i personally would prefer the game without it. Sure, more competition when everyone roams on the same server, but thats part of the game.
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@Tuoni Trust me, you don't want to kill a game. Just to have a bit more room in the first week. When everyone is hyped and to lazy to walk ^^.
And problems like Albion had and has, are just lazy network codeing. And a bad decision to even create "zones".
By beta in Fractured, we will probably know how good the server tech can handle alot of people logging in at once. Atm the tech they use, should make it possible to have alot of people spawn into the game and run about, in the same time. Worst case, we all get a que system in place.
And if everything is gone and empty in a zone, people should just naturally move out further... channels/shards just make people channel/shard hop.
The last game i tested of this kind, was tree of savior. Looked nice, devs had goals and everything was fun in the Alpha. Then they tuned down spawnrates so much, that YOU NEEDED to channel hop to have something to kill all the time... it was a grind game. So that's the point of it. In the end, they lowered exp gain and spawn even more. As people ate trough the themepark content to fast ...Will people have the same problems in fractured? Might be, my goal here is to have fun. Like in most games. DOn't need no endgame carrot, that is just a papermachete bait.
IF fractured is a to big hit at realese, they just need to prepare enough server power and landmass and server tech must work well.
As the worlds are already 3 "servers", it should work out ... most likely. And i rather have problems duo too many people, then 10 servers extra. That will be empty after 2 months ... or channels i NEED to hop in search of stuff to kill. Fix the game, don't bandaid the problem xD.
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I believe DS said there'll be EU and NA servers so i dont think sharding/instancing will be needed. but i've seen plenty of games not handle the population during the first 1-3 months of a launch.
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@Greenfox said in How many channels will there be if implemented?:
@Tuoni Trust me, you don't want to kill a game. Just to have a bit more room in the first week. When everyone is hyped and to lazy to walk ^^.
We do not even know if sharding is needed, but it definitely not mean automatically killing the game. It can be set only on starting areas and for X amount of time. Just to get through the launch chaos. Blizzard is most likely going to do this at Classic launch, so lets wait and see how that temporary and short sharding will kill the game..
And problems like Albion had and has, are just lazy network codeing. And a bad decision to even create "zones".
Well I am not a fan of those zones either, but I would not put that bad start only under reason "lazy network codeing". I bet SBI did not have enough knowledge and resources to handle so massive start. Even studios which have knowledge and resources have been in trouble especially when something unexpected happens.
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One.
If the world is too crowded, they'll just make it bigger. They have the ability to expand the world procedurally.
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Also remember, not everyone starts in same zone. There are 3 planets.
There could also be more than one starting mini zones per each race, so starting can be more smooth, even without sharding.
Since levels do not exist here, there is no reason that everyone has to start in same spot. You can start more or less anywhere...
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The mention of Classic WoW actually reminded me a memory.
Not all sharding/instancing is bad. There are games like Guild Wars, Warframe*, Path of Exile (stretch but there is that lesser PvE planet), and Tera that allowed the player to move between them whenever they wanted via a menu near the compass. I can see some specific instances that would want to be separate from the others such as heavy roleplayers. I tend to like RP realms because I dont like to see names spongebob, naruto, onepunchman, wanpoochmaan, noobmaster69, xXtriplexXx, etc., in an infinite number of a simi-readable characters.
For this instance, lol pun intended, I wouldn't mind some type of instances but I'd still like just ONE game server for the US. I hate needing to pick between different servers and then needing to tell my friends which to join. I want to play with guild mates on the west coast while I'm on the gulf coast.
* Warframe only has this when you spawn into a 'common area'.
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@Pwnstar said in How many channels will there be if implemented?:
You are talking about switching between several instances of the game in the same area?
Yes, I am.
The only argument I can think of for sharding or channels at the moment in this game is areas that spawn high amounts of rare materials that usually becomes overcrowded from people trying to collect resources. I hope the environment is spaced out enough that this doesn't become an issue, especially since respawn times for natural resources in this game seemed to be half an hour during the alpha.
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@Belligero said in How many channels will there be if implemented?:
that usually becomes overcrowded from people trying to collect resources.
it's a pvp sandbox. that's done by design. it's call
point of interest!
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@Tuoni said in How many channels will there be if implemented?:
(...)I bet SBI did not have enough (...) resources to handle so massive start(...)
That should (in theory) be a massive advantage of SpatialOS. Where other companies have fixed amount of hardware, Fractured is highly scalable (in theory).
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@Logain
still limited to hardware though unless they have access to infinite amount of hardware.
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@Logain said in How many channels will there be if implemented?:
@Tuoni said in How many channels will there be if implemented?:
(...)I bet SBI did not have enough (...) resources to handle so massive start(...)
That should (in theory) be a massive advantage of SpatialOS. Where other companies have fixed amount of hardware, Fractured is highly scalable (in theory).
Yeah I have understood the same. At least SpatialOS has promised that their servers and systems will hold a massive amount of players at the same time. That would be awesome, but I will truely believe after I have actually saw it myself.
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@Jetah said in How many channels will there be if implemented?:
@Logain
still limited to hardware though unless they have access to infinite amount of hardware.I'm sure the limit is very large, although I have no way of knowing that. And we wouldn't need an "infinite" amount, anyway.
