5punk

buzzmong wrote: Don't forget that the systems in Eve are massive things (you know, not warping but using MWD's takes hours if not days to get from planet to planet, you're still travelling over a landscape)

No, you perceive them as massive. An imaginary space is as infinitely massive as you want or more precisely in the gaming sense as you are lead to believe.

The problem I see with with planetscapes is you are directly limiting yourself to a finite amount of room to work with and have to render more as a result.

And space doesn't have a landscape...

Anhamgrimmar wrote:Sort of want

?

HereComesPete wrote:
No, you perceive them as massive. An imaginary space is as infinitely massive as you want or more precisely in the gaming sense as you are lead to believe.

The problem I see with with planetscapes is you are directly limiting yourself to a finite amount of room to work with and have to render more as a result.

And space doesn't have a landscape...

I'm talking from a technical standpoint. Eve systems are massive cubes. Period. They're still finite though. It's just in Eve you don't see most of the systems as there is nothing notable there.

If I recall correctly there was an issue with the old bookmark system and the new scanning system, it was possible that older players after an update to be in possession of safespot bm's so far out of the way that it wasn't possible for them to be scanned by anyone ingame anymore. The systems arn't tricks in Eve, they are simply just massive cubes. The universe on the other hand is actually much smaller than the ingame map would have you think as between the systems is only the illusion of distance.

As for rendering, only the client has to actually render anything and what the client can see is limited to Line of Sight (or a roughly similar system).

HereComesPete wrote:No, you perceive them as massive. An imaginary space is as infinitely massive as you want or more precisely in the gaming sense as you are lead to believe.

wat

The systems are most definitely large, 'real' areas in the game. The size of eve universe is different, since there's no real distance between systems, but the systems themselves are effectively just massive cubes that can be moved around in.

Hold on. We have a problem here.

We've lapsed into SRS BSNSS. Bugger.

buzzmong wrote:Hold on. We have a problem here..

YOU'VE got a problem? I'm considering re-subbing Eve! Halp!

eRabbit wrote:YOU'VE got a problem? I'm considering re-subbing Eve! Halp!

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_GJkKMPHxw[/media]

amblin wrote:
It's a thread that in some way connects with Eve-Online. What in the name of screaming monkey fuck did you expect?

lolcats.

In appropriate serious...I should saying SRS FKNG BSNSS, you'd not be surprised to learn that there is an entire pamphlet written by Goons on the 'actual' size of Eve and how to manipulate it. Namely, the Grid.

The grid is simply a subset of objects in space that are able to see each other, and are defined in space by the game engine ONLY if they contain an object. They are typically about 250km radius, so if I travelled away from a stationary object I'd eventually 'drop off the grid'.

Clearly this can be done in Eve because there aren't very many objects in space, and therefore the 'real' size as far as the client-server relationship is concerned is relatively small.

buzzmong wrote:I'm talking from a technical standpoint. Eve systems are massive cubes. Period. They're still finite though. It's just in Eve you don't see most of the systems as there is nothing notable there.

As for rendering, only the client has to actually render anything and what the client can see is limited to Line of Sight (or a roughly similar system).

I think you are missing the point here mr buzz. From the computer resources point of view, how "big" the space is is irrelevant. You could make your game world appear to be a million squillion light years wide, and it still wouldn't take up much resources as long as there was nothing in it. EVE gets away with appearing to be hueg by not having a whole lot of stuff in it. A big world with nothing in it would be shit, but as soon as you put stuff in it, that stuff takes up space somewhere. Yeah, you could use some sort of procedural generation thingy to make it, but you still have to store that generated stuff somewhere.

Joose wrote:
I think you are missing the point here mr buzz. From the computer resources point of view, how "big" the space is is irrelevant. You could make your game world appear to be a million squillion light years wide, and it still wouldn't take up much resources as long as there was nothing in it. EVE gets away with appearing to be hueg by not having a whole lot of stuff in it. A big world with nothing in it would be shit, but as soon as you put stuff in it, that stuff takes up space somewhere. Yeah, you could use some sort of procedural generation thingy to make it, but you still have to store that generated stuff somewhere.

Storage of data like that isn't an issue though, it's mostly just a database like structure of the objects with coordinate data for their position in the landscape. Databases and files store the location of objects, and it's simply the client that displays that object via modelling and particle effects. All the server has to do is log it and keep track.
Eve is exactly the same in that sense.

What a System is in Eve could simply be a large square on a map in this game, anything in it will be stored somewhere anyway. Most of what is stored on a map is static data anyway. If like Eve each map section has it's own server, that server is responsible for keeping that map specific data up to data and making sure any clients that are connected have up to date records on any data that's changed.

I don't think I've explained myself or how I'm imagining the system will work very well, but I'm of the very strong suspicion that it's entirely workable.

I think the biggest problem with a one-shard persistant world would probably be filling it with interesting things to do. That's not a problem in Eve, as people make their own entertainment, but in a more standard MMO it would be interesting to see how the PvE stuff is handled. I've my own ideas, but I've gone over them before and haven't the time to reiterate now.

5punk

Spreadsheets not in Space?