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[In this Intel-sponsored feature, part of the Visual Computing section, the technical experts behind Mythic and EA's Warhammer Online discuss the mechanics of keeping the MMO running across multiple servers and data centers.]
Late at night in unattended
server rooms around the world, noiseless except for the soft whir of cooling
fans, the peculiar entities that inhabit Warhammer Online: Age of
Reckoning (WAR) are in ceaseless motion. Guided by artificial
intelligence, these computer-generated beings continue to roam across the
elaborately detailed landscapes and through underground passageways, even at
times when few players are active in the game.
Battles erupt when characters
randomly encounter each other. Footprints are etched into damp grass, branches
snapped, rocks dislodged from walls, and the landscape is altered in
innumerable ways-all as a part of the never-ending background activity.
Persistence is a key element of the imaginative Warhammer Online world.
Its creators at Mythic Entertainment see that persistence as a differentiator
amidst a slate of competitors in the increasingly popular genre of MMORPG(massively
multiplayer online role-playing games).
The Warhammer Online universe is
populated by an extensive selection of characters, each belonging to an
individual class that occupies a unique role in the game (such as Engineer or
Shaman). Competition can take the form of Player vs. Player (PvP) or Player vs.
Environment (PvE) activities.
Support for public quests is a new addition to
this venerable game's legacy, which dates back decades to the Games Workshop classic Warhammer fantasy
game series created over 25 years ago. Free to engage in impromptu Warhammer
Online public quests, players gain influence based on their degree of
participation. Some of the most spirited play takes place in Realm vs. Realm competition, where organized
teams of characters carry out quests as a group against opponents.
Who Are You?
Gamers choose from a broad range of alter egos,
selecting 3D bodies
to inhabit while traveling across the WAR territories. To get started,
each new player selects a server in a particular region of the world. Servers
exist in five regions: North America, Oceania, Europe, Russia, and (as of May 28, 2009) Taiwan.
The creatures, daemons, humanoids, and monsters
likely to be encountered during a WAR quest are extensive and varied-not
unlike the range of beings introduced in any good science fiction or fantasy
tale.
The Undead stalk the landscape, with bone
giants, living armor, and the winged nightmares among their numbers. Monsters
such as the flayerkin, dragon ogre, and troll make life difficult for players.
Humanoids fit into distinct categories, including beastmen, dwarves, elves,
greenskins, humans, ogres, and skaven. Many of these WAR world
inhabitants are animated by artificial intelligence and the underlying game
logic. Others represent the avatars of players engaged in the competition.
Role-playing adventure games on the computer started out as text-based
interactions, such as Zork, a popular game from Infocom in the early 1980s.
Now, the scope, intricacy, and immersion is akin to being embedded within an
ever-changing motion picture, following a storyline that is shaped by thousands
of other participants, requiring massive processing power to control and
coordinate astronomical numbers of interactions.
In a recent interview with Online Technical Director Andrew
Mann at Mythic Entertainment and Chief Technical Officer Matt Shaw, we talked
about the challenge of coordinating hundreds of servers spread across the world,
the importance of normalizing the hardware platform on a common set of
specifications, and the power and performance demands of processing millions of
events across a 45-square mile world populated with millions of objects and
thousands of players.
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Not sure how it is now, but war couldnt handle more than 300 in a zone ~2 months after launch; however, daoc could handle 500 all in a keep.
Most of the old daoc players I played with quit all about this time as there werent any epic battles. Just 80% deserted zones, with mini-zergs running around taking objects, if they happened to meet up it would just end up being a scatter match back to an objective. You couldnt CC them for long term fights like in daoc.
Too bad the game died, I quite like it and the potential it had.
Secondly : instanced scenarios are a solution taken from Wow. In exchange of limited players it garanteed more fun and less lag. It is feel like a regression from DAOC which has a more "real" world.
Is it possible to have an real article which explain the real problems in War, how they solved them,
which technology could help etc... and compare with Eve on line tech.
The massive battles are a fascinating subject.
Server fans only typically run quietly when the servers are under low or minimal load.
In our datacentres (running MMO games - on Intel mostly) you almost need ear defenders due to the noise of hundreds of servers' cooling fans, plus Datacentre Aircon, UPS, SAN, Network equipment etc. etc. It's certainly not noiseless !
I'm presuming some creative licence for effect. :-)
So, I can see why Intel chose WAR to promote blade servers. with net code this bad you're going to need all the hardware you can get.
And I agree with Julien. I would love to have seen a technical discussion on handling large scale battles in MMOs.