04-27-2006, 10:08 AM
Having played a few games were there is some sort of server I have come up with a problem I simply can't understand why it still exists. The problem is of the game putting your character into the game before your client is ready.
Lets have some examples and start back in the D2 days. There was this small cave with the Boss called Duriel which you entered through a portal. Typically your client started to load graphics and sound like mad, yet the server put you almost instantly in the cave and started to "play" the game. If you were lucky, you could hear your character scream when hit. Usually, once your client was done loading and started to show the action, your character was already half dead and Duriel was beating on you. Death was unavoidable.
So, how did they solve this problem? In a quite unexpected way of "lets start to load the level a bit earlier, before you actually enter the portal". Sure, helped a lot, but there was still problems. The more obvious solution would seem to be to not have the server start playing the game and insert your character until it got a "I am ready and loaded" from the client.
Lets move to Wow were one would have thought Blizzard would have learned from previous mistakes. There are several occasions were your client "load" a whole bunch of stuff while you look at some sort of loading screen with a meter (totally unrelated, it always amazed me why they have them when typically it moves 10% of the distance during 99% of the loading and then just fills in the rest in the remaining 1%, totally useless). This happens when you enter the game after logging on, when moving into or out of instances and while moving between the continents.
In all cases, the server doesn't care if the client is up and ready before it inserts you. Now this is typically not a problem in most cases. While transferring between continents, there is just travel time that goes on while your client load the continent/area. Typically you are done before you reach the destination and if not, it won't hurt you having to wait some more on the ship/boat. Same while going into and out of instances, Blizzard have at least learned that they should not place monsters close to the entrance, so you are safe until you start moving. Entering the game when you log in is usually safe, especially in town were again, it won't matter if your character just stands there while your client load the world.
However, if you happen to be out in the wild when logging in, you are on your own and can actually be dead before you even get to see anything but the loading screen. My latest example was in Ungoro Crater. My hearthstone was set far away (there isn't any close place anyhow), the town was in other side of the area and I had to go, relatively unexpectedly. Usually, some high up hill can be safe, although not always. I was in the middle of the south among small dinosaurs. Basically all around me was killed and bodies had vanished. I settled for a small hill close by, thinking that even if there was one spawning there, I can handle it.
When I logged in a few days later, looking at the meter somewhere in the middle, I hared my char getting attacked a lot, when finally the loading screen disappeared, my life was down to about 20% having at least 3 monsters if not more hitting on me, on top of that, the interface was still lagging and the hard discs spinning like mad. Obviously I died soon after.
So, how hard can it be to not put your character into the world until the client is ready? And how come Blizzard has at least not got some idea of this type of problem and why do they not care? Punishment for people not wanting to plan a 10 minute run to town as the last thing they do, including another 10 minute run back when they start playing the next time? If you play for an hour, that is 33% of your playing time, if playing for 4 hours, it is still almost 10% of your time to avoid a stupid desynch issue fixable quite easily. Besides, I do âleaveâ the game in the middle of nowhere due to for example game crash or server going down as well, it is not always due to bad planning.
Lets have some examples and start back in the D2 days. There was this small cave with the Boss called Duriel which you entered through a portal. Typically your client started to load graphics and sound like mad, yet the server put you almost instantly in the cave and started to "play" the game. If you were lucky, you could hear your character scream when hit. Usually, once your client was done loading and started to show the action, your character was already half dead and Duriel was beating on you. Death was unavoidable.
So, how did they solve this problem? In a quite unexpected way of "lets start to load the level a bit earlier, before you actually enter the portal". Sure, helped a lot, but there was still problems. The more obvious solution would seem to be to not have the server start playing the game and insert your character until it got a "I am ready and loaded" from the client.
Lets move to Wow were one would have thought Blizzard would have learned from previous mistakes. There are several occasions were your client "load" a whole bunch of stuff while you look at some sort of loading screen with a meter (totally unrelated, it always amazed me why they have them when typically it moves 10% of the distance during 99% of the loading and then just fills in the rest in the remaining 1%, totally useless). This happens when you enter the game after logging on, when moving into or out of instances and while moving between the continents.
In all cases, the server doesn't care if the client is up and ready before it inserts you. Now this is typically not a problem in most cases. While transferring between continents, there is just travel time that goes on while your client load the continent/area. Typically you are done before you reach the destination and if not, it won't hurt you having to wait some more on the ship/boat. Same while going into and out of instances, Blizzard have at least learned that they should not place monsters close to the entrance, so you are safe until you start moving. Entering the game when you log in is usually safe, especially in town were again, it won't matter if your character just stands there while your client load the world.
However, if you happen to be out in the wild when logging in, you are on your own and can actually be dead before you even get to see anything but the loading screen. My latest example was in Ungoro Crater. My hearthstone was set far away (there isn't any close place anyhow), the town was in other side of the area and I had to go, relatively unexpectedly. Usually, some high up hill can be safe, although not always. I was in the middle of the south among small dinosaurs. Basically all around me was killed and bodies had vanished. I settled for a small hill close by, thinking that even if there was one spawning there, I can handle it.
When I logged in a few days later, looking at the meter somewhere in the middle, I hared my char getting attacked a lot, when finally the loading screen disappeared, my life was down to about 20% having at least 3 monsters if not more hitting on me, on top of that, the interface was still lagging and the hard discs spinning like mad. Obviously I died soon after.
So, how hard can it be to not put your character into the world until the client is ready? And how come Blizzard has at least not got some idea of this type of problem and why do they not care? Punishment for people not wanting to plan a 10 minute run to town as the last thing they do, including another 10 minute run back when they start playing the next time? If you play for an hour, that is 33% of your playing time, if playing for 4 hours, it is still almost 10% of your time to avoid a stupid desynch issue fixable quite easily. Besides, I do âleaveâ the game in the middle of nowhere due to for example game crash or server going down as well, it is not always due to bad planning.
There are three types of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can't.