Any promising MMOs on the hoirzon?

[BrianMorin]

With all the recent drama thought I'd post a proof-of-life. Been working on Defiance for nearly a year now and have been able to make a pretty big impact there helping with the transition from project to product.

Something that would utilise current technologies (multicore + SLI) well and have a 64 bit client would be a good start.

What would you do with significantly more client side computation power?
We're already seeing the art side in the industry get more and more stylized to keep production costs down and avoid the uncanny valley.

[faye007]

I am personally looking forward to Elder scrolls and Neverwinter although i have no clue when the latter will release.

Oh and also PSO 2 in feb for the EU i believe (although not everyone will be a fan).

[livnthedream]

What would you do with significantly more client side computation power?
We're already seeing the art side in the industry get more and more stylized to keep production costs down and avoid the uncanny valley.

Carbon+Apex go a long long way towards fixing those issues.

[Mammothtruk]

What would you do with significantly more client side computation power? We're already seeing the art side in the industry get more and more stylized to keep production costs down and avoid the uncanny valley.

I would have the giant zone events with 100+ people throwing spell effects not drag my framerates into the ground even with top of the line kit. Who are you trying to kid?

[merph]

I would have the giant zone events with 100+ people throwing spell effects not drag my framerates into the ground even with top of the line kit. Who are you trying to kid?

Agreed! Something needs to be done about zone events. You encourage players to gather in one spot on the map for the bosses, but your engine can't handle it.

[Itvar]

Think elder scrolls mmo will be popular, from what i hear its abit like gw2 so no tanks/healers and more of that dodge/block crap, personally I'm waiting for EQ next.

I want so much for EQNext to be good, I really do. I love the EQ IP. And EQ2 is still a great game in its own way, but SoE have pushed my patience and trust to their limits. My expectations just aren't that high for it. I know I will buy it, simply because it has the EQ name, and I will play it for a while, but I can't help but feel I am going to be bitterly disappointed. I want to be wrong, though.

On other fronts, WildStar from Carbine looks relatively interesting. Pretty heavily stylized graphics though might not be to everyone's taste (even more "cartoony" than WoW IMO). But it looks like they're at least trying new ideas, if not anything particularly revolutionary. Since I am an MMO junkie I'll probably try that too.

Edit: and I like the trinity as it is. One of the things that frustrated me about GW2 is that it just felt like a giant clusterfrack of people randomly slashing at mobs with no real idea what is going on. Lack of defined roles kind of limits what you can do with boss mechanics too. But admittedly I didn't really play GW2 all that much.

[Leif]

What would you do with significantly more client side computation power?

I'd probably hope it could alleviate the massive rendering issues this game has.

[Antigonos]

I would have the giant zone events with 100+ people throwing spell effects not drag my framerates into the ground even with top of the line kit. Who are you trying to kid?

thats not a client issue ... and i think that is was brian was pointing at.

[Icw]

Never heard of these other mmo games being launched in the future. I only have my eyes set on Elder Scrolls.

It's pretty much build vacation time for launch at this point

[Misun]

Agreed! Something needs to be done about zone events. You encourage players to gather in one spot on the map for the bosses, but your engine can't handle it.

It's the same way in Conquest. It's so bad.

[Aeonblade]

Let's just say massive PvP battles will always be a problem with newer games with shinier engines. Anyone remember DAoC the first 6 months to 1 year it was out? Server crashes during every relic raid. Literally. Every one. Massive lag spikes when 2 zergs met, slideshows for 15 minutes while people mop each other up. It took 5 years for technology to catch up to the point where that kind of stuff was completely playable. In 4 years, all these problems with Rift lagging will be laughable.

[livnthedream]

Never heard of these other mmo games being launched in the future. I only have my eyes set on Elder Scrolls.

It's pretty much build vacation time for launch at this point

I find these sorts of comments amusing. Your own ignorance both blinds you to other quality products and enables you to be wowed by the hype train.

[Hydron]

I would have the giant zone events with 100+ people throwing spell effects not drag my framerates into the ground even with top of the line kit. Who are you trying to kid?

Is it computational power needed? When I run in the zone events my cpu is hardly used(any core). I dont think anyone is trying to kid anyone but it was a pretty valid question.

Does anyone have any proof of what is exactly causing the slowdown? cpu? gpu? io? network? etc. It's all guesses and finger pointing right now but I have yet to see anything backing it up.

I am sure there is some performance guru out there that could throw all this together and get to the bottom of it once and for all

I would like to add that at some point the lag got MUCH better. There was a change to something during a recent patch that helped when 100+ people were around because I do not get the 1fps problem any longer.

[Mammothtruk]

When the zone event boss is up and people are throwing spells and attacks the fps drags and latency increases. As soon as it dies fps goes back to normal and latency bounces back to what you would expect syncing with the server. I could see how that would be a server issue I guess. Off loading whatever can be offloaded to the client instead of the server would go a long way for sure, but why NOT have multicore support for smoother gameplay overall? Its a simple matter of compiling and debugging that should have been done from the beginning. We have had 2+ cores for how long now? If opening the client to 4 cores would increase performance by 20% it should be done. Ill take another 10+ fps in the worst case and 20+ in the best.

[the_real_seebs]

With all the recent drama thought I'd post a proof-of-life. Been working on Defiance for nearly a year now and have been able to make a pretty big impact there helping with the transition from project to product.



What would you do with significantly more client side computation power?

Not have busy events result in frame rates under 5fps with GPU utilization also under 5% while a single main thread chews up one core and the rest of the CPU sits around being bored.