Mana Shield orb display bug?

[Crystalion]

As far as I understand client/server architecture, it's all about messages being sent from one to the other.

D1 is "synchronized" peer to peer, not client/server.

In reality, D1 runs 4 different games (with max. players), but the players, having no side-by-side comparision to see the truth of this, believe themselves to be in the same game... this helpful illusion is reasonable to hold because the games are so similiar and because they generally share a common accounting for loot.

In a server/dumb-client model, it might be reasonable to say that everything is about messages. For peer2peer and smart client models, however, the deterministic processing tends to be key...

That is, I can say "turn off the light when you leave" and because you're a "smart" client, I can rest assured that you will do so at the appropriate time. So, later, when I know you've left, I get to assume the light is indeed off.

Nearly twenty years ago I was promoting this concept to game companies as "deterministic synchronicity" (or detsync for short). Made some games, gave some CGDC talks, etc. Doesn't mean the ideas are well understood or implemented in the game industry, even today.

There isn't a lot of money, outside of cutting into the share of exec. fat cat and corp. profits perhaps, available to expend on sound software engineering practices in the games biz, fyi. Even if there were, the time loss involved would bury the effort (changing technologies, competitors, etc.).