Atrocious.

[Reverend Blood]

I was unaware you were on the dev team.

Not Trion's but I know what I do for a living, and I do it well.

[ironhands]

Not Trion's but I know what I do for a living, and I do it well.

Ok, and because you might write or design server code to purge high-latency or high-loss connections, or prioritize the remaining low-latency connections, you assume that Trions would as well?

Why would that be the assumption, rather than making attempts to balance it as much as possible, to give everyone a relatively smooth experience, versus cutting off and infuriating some users?

We know that some packets are certainly given higher priority than others, primarily, appearance, and chat, but to assume that the servers would prioritize data to those with better connections seems a little backwards, when it comes to primary and basic functionality, like positional data.

[NomadPhx]

*cough* get a PS3 *cough*

i think he'd rather pay xbox live to use the internet he already pays for lol

[Reverend Blood]

Ok, and because you might write or design server code to purge high-latency or high-loss connections, or prioritize the remaining low-latency connections, you assume that Trions would as well? Why would that be the assumption, rather than making attempts to balance it as much as possible, to give everyone a relatively smooth experience, versus cutting off and infuriating some users?

Trion would have to actively rewrite their code to make their servers run like shtako on purpose.
Servers aren't socialist in nature, you can't force it to accept everyone equally and run smoothly.

[ironhands]

Trion would have to actively rewrite their code to make their servers run like shtako on purpose.
Servers aren't socialist in nature, you can't force it to accept everyone equally and run smoothly.

Sure you can, just requires more overhead. You don't have to run everything as UDP.

[Reverend Blood]

Sure you can, just requires more overhead. You don't have to run everything as UDP.

And, as much as I hate people bringing this up like a tool on the forums, that could possibly be attributed to the massive layoffs at Trion, clearly they don't have the overhead.

[ironhands]

And, as much as I hate people bringing this up like a tool on the forums, that could possibly be attributed to the massive layoffs at Trion, clearly they don't have the overhead.

By overheard I was referring to the bandwidth consumption and server CPU usage; it's just a load balancing protocol for the most part. Depending on the nature of their server setup (meaning a separate server for AI) the main routing server might not have to crunch much data at all currently.

Since neither of us worked on the server code, it's impossible to confirm what it does, or doesn't, do, but what we can say, for certain, is that people are experiencing both hardware lag - confirmed by FPS drops, and connectivity issues - confirmed by disconnects and rubber banding. This shows that the code is having troubles executing everything in-time on the hardware, based on the first issue, the FPS drops.

Can software be used to compensate? Sure, but by how much, is the question. Given the age of the hardware, and its limitations, many of the optimizations developers have found over the years may have already been implemented.

Easiest solution would be to impose a smaller max population for the siege cells, which would resolve any hardware concerns, as well as the client/server connectivity, but would lower the scale of the battle to some degree.

The second option would be to tone down the explosions and graphic options when it detects framerate losses, but this might raise issues with M$'s QC and approval process, or require re-evaluation of the client due to the nature of the changes.

[PurePlayinSerb]

By overheard I was referring to the bandwidth consumption and server CPU usage; it's just a load balancing protocol for the most part. Depending on the nature of their server setup (meaning a separate server for AI) the main routing server might not have to crunch much data at all currently.

Since neither of us worked on the server code, it's impossible to confirm what it does, or doesn't, do, but what we can say, for certain, is that people are experiencing both hardware lag - confirmed by FPS drops, and connectivity issues - confirmed by disconnects and rubber banding. This shows that the code is having troubles executing everything in-time on the hardware, based on the first issue, the FPS drops.

Can software be used to compensate? Sure, but by how much, is the question. Given the age of the hardware, and its limitations, many of the optimizations developers have found over the years may have already been implemented.

Easiest solution would be to impose a smaller max population for the siege cells, which would resolve any hardware concerns, as well as the client/server connectivity, but would lower the scale of the battle to some degree.

The second option would be to tone down the explosions and graphic options when it detects framerate losses, but this might raise issues with M$'s QC and approval process, or require re-evaluation of the client due to the nature of the changes.

i said it during beta they need to lower the draw distance of characters when too many are on screen, i think thats where the issue is, for instance 50 people at a arkfall, only show the 10 nearest to you

[Reverend Blood]

By overheard I was referring to the bandwidth consumption and server CPU usage; it's just a load balancing protocol for the most part. Depending on the nature of their server setup (meaning a separate server for AI) the main routing server might not have to crunch much data at all currently.

Since neither of us worked on the server code, it's impossible to confirm what it does, or doesn't, do, but what we can say, for certain, is that people are experiencing both hardware lag - confirmed by FPS drops, and connectivity issues - confirmed by disconnects and rubber banding. This shows that the code is having troubles executing everything in-time on the hardware, based on the first issue, the FPS drops.

Can software be used to compensate? Sure, but by how much, is the question. Given the age of the hardware, and its limitations, many of the optimizations developers have found over the years may have already been implemented.

Easiest solution would be to impose a smaller max population for the siege cells, which would resolve any hardware concerns, as well as the client/server connectivity, but would lower the scale of the battle to some degree.

The second option would be to tone down the explosions and graphic options when it detects framerate losses, but this might raise issues with M$'s QC and approval process, or require re-evaluation of the client due to the nature of the changes.

Understood. And I actually agree.

And after reading more topics on the problems, it does appear that the majority of graphics problems on xbox's are being caused by the older (non-slim) models. I personally would rather see the graphics on explosions lowered, rather than have less enemies spawn, because that's a ridiculous amount of fun in game. However, I haven't checked because I'm at work, but if there isn't currently an option to lower graphic quality on the xbox similar to the way it can be done on the PC version, that feature needs to be ported over so that newer model xbox owners aren't forced to suffer because of the few surviving older models.

[Reverend Blood]

i said it during beta they need to lower the draw distance of characters when too many are on screen, i think thats where the issue is, for instance 50 people at a arkfall, only show the 10 nearest to you

This would be an alternative as well, or at least a good option to have the ability to turn on and off.
It may detract from the MMO immersion of the game and events, but the most I've seen a BMG able to link is 7, so anything beyond that is a luxury.
(although I do see it creating an issue in shadow wars)