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Analysis: PC Gaming -- Trying to Make a Connection
by Phill Cameron [PC, Console/PC]
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August 5, 2009
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[Have the games kept growing while the tech remains the same? In this opinion column, writer Phill Cameron looks at the technical pitfalls surrounding how PC gamers play -- or don't play -- together.]
Opening Ports....
Lowering Firewall...
Authorising False Localised Network...
Attempting Connection...
The heart flutters. The false hope that resides in every PC gamer's heart surges, hoping that you've not forgotten the tiny, insignificant setting that will mean that the game will throw up the rude, coarse and unwelcome error message. Multiplayer games really haven't come a long way.
The internet was supposed to be a huge boon, something to let you reach out and touch someone. For gaming, that 'touch' was usually with high velocity rounds or razor-sharp blades. But, well, it was still something we were looking forward to.
The problems were that the developers couldn't, and haven't, moved fast enough, and more often than not you'll get nothing back from the fickle 'refresh' page when looking for servers, or your friends will have some inscrutable 'NAT' configuration that means you're out of luck, and back at square one, bored and frustrated.
With multiplayer modes coming packaged with almost every game released, and broadband becoming so prevalent that if your ping is over 100 you're in trouble, you'd think that making a connection was the least of your worries. The problem would seem to be the alacrity of progress; the games are becoming vastly more complex, and they are still supposed to be able to throw around all that data at the right speeds for continuous play, and that's just during a match.
The recently-released Demigod faltered at this particular hurdle. A game where you play a titan ascending to godhood through battle, it was intended to be a huge free-for-all of strategy gaming, played out in multiplayer on a persistant stat-tracking system called the Parthenon.
The problem was, the developers underestimated the players -- not to mention the people pirating the game -- and the sheer amount of queries sent to their servers overloaded them, making organizing a multiplayer match almost impossible for the few weeks after release. Thanks to the diligence and hard work of the people over at Gas-Powered Games, they've mostly rectified the situation, allowing the rather good game to be played with nary a worry. It was still a rather embarrassing oversight, regardless.
It does highlight perhaps the greatest weakness of the PC platform; diversity. You'll struggle to find any two systems alike, be it hardware or software, so when creating a game with a multiplayer component, you have to make the code versatile enough to accomodate most comers. Even the hardcore PC gamers out there may struggle if they have to open ports, restart routers and create false networks to just play a game. In most instances, the effort just isn't worth it.
 I bought two games recently, both of which had multiplayer modes which, while not the reason I bought the game, where something I was interested in. That neither of them could find a single person to play with was not because the servers were deserted, and no one was playing; it was merely that some nebulous part of my PC was preventing it from operating properly. The main reason this is so frustrating is that the tools are in place to make it work.
I claim that multiplayer has stagnated, not moved forward since the early days of the internet, but really, that's not true. Valve's Steam service has made a huge leap forward in multiplayer, with games like Team Fortress 2 and Counterstrike almost always guaranteeing a connection, and a comprehensive server browser to find your best fit. That they've released the framework for all this, 'Steamworks', for free for any developer to use not only makes ignoring it a silly mistake, but it also shows up some of the larger studios for their shoddy multiplayer components.
I'm not sure if it's pride or ignorance, but the smaller, lower-budget indie games seem to have embraced Steamworks, using it to track leaderboards and allow people to play with each other, while the larger developers have largely ignored it. The biggest exception to this rule is Empire: Total War, which utilised Steamworks for its multiplayer. Most notably, this is the first game in the series to be introducing a multiplayer campaign mode, allowing for huge matches spanning over years (of game time), something that Creative Assembly have not been able to do before. Whether this is down to Steamworks isn't clear, but it certainly can't have hurt.
All this raises the question of whether the PC needs a standardised system to allow people to have a consistent experience of playing together. Games for Windows Live is attempting to make this true, attaching itself to GTA IV and Dawn of War 2, organising the multiplayer for both games. That neither is particularly easy to set up a multiplayer match for is hardly encouraging, but the ideas are in place to make playing games with each other easier.
 It may perhaps be that there are a few big players competing for dominance, and a few other major publishers forcing their multiplayer systems down their developer's necks, but right now, it seems that having a simple time joining a game online is more the exception rather than the norm.
In the interest of making sure that I wasn't an isolated case, a simple Google search of my issues was enough to find the vocal masses sharing the problems. With multiplayer playing an increasingly important role in the enjoyment of the majority of games, the negligence of making a robust system is puzzling at best.
There's a reason Team Fortress 2 has racked up almost 150 hours of playtime with me so far. It's mostly due to the fact it's a brilliantly made game, but the fact that it's so easy to get in and out of games is just as important. People don't like to be forced to jump through loops just to make something work, and the ease with which your multiplayer works is often the deciding factor on whether people will even bother playing it a month after release.
[Phill Cameron is a regular writer at The Reticule, a PC gaming website. You can contact him here, and follow him on Twitter here.]
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That's why Blizzard's decision of dropping LAN support for SC2 is such a stupid one, and so disrespectful of their fans and supporters.
But they could have made a Multiplayer Campaign before for sure, the TBS (or campaign) bit is the easiest thing to sync and maintain over a network. Coordinating thousands of units across an unreliable network (which the internet by definition is) thats the challenge.
Of course this article is more about setting up a connection, and of that there are two kinds:
Worlds that just keep on playing and anyone can join (if there is room) and leave whenever they want (like TF2 or CounterStrike).
Then there are worlds that start and finish (normally) with the same people like almost all RealTime Strategy games.
With the first kind you always have available worlds, because there are always players leaving a game and you can join in there place, so there are enough possibilities to make a quick connection. The second has more trouble, if nobody wants to set up a game, than you are out of luck, because all the games in progress just are unavailable to join.
I believe in reusing stuff, so Steamworks (it's FREE) is a true and tested system and it should be given a chance by developers. It will save money, time and all the trouble of putting it together.
Also, there are a couple of grammatical and English mistakes in this article, unless I'm mistaken: paragraph starting "It does highlight perhaps the greatest..." has a semi-colon in the first line that should be a colon; and the paragraph starting "I bought two games recently..." has the word "where" in the second line where it should be "were". Normally I don't go around attempting to correct people on their use of English on the Internet, but I felt that since this is Gamasutra that you'd want the standard to be a little higher than the average rag (*ahem* Kotaku).
As much as I disagree with your article, I found your points interesting, and I just thought you'd want to know about those mistakes. :)
(And, I know, he who lives in glass house shouldn't throw stones, but I couldn't help myself.)
The problem is diversity of hardware and connections, yes, but that is universal for all platforms no matter what you're gaming on. The software-based OS, the specific CPU/GPU/console hardware, and everything else about the system actually running the games has very little to do with it.
Most of Valve products connect you to centralised steam servers, which in turn send the user out to dedicated beefy servers. The client/server model is a pyramid filtering power and hardware down to the masses based on a selected criteria for optimal user preference. Its a very expensive and refined process and when done well is pretty much seamless for the end user. Most fps's and MMO's use this system and it's a hefty part of development expense, not something you can slap on lightly.
Client to client connections require vastly less resources as the users terminal connects to a centralised server system, such as the case in say relic online, or demigod and the server attempts to match users together based on skill systems rather than direct performance. In this model a singular user machine initiates the server function and all the other clients sync together off that. That means any deviation in hardware of internet grinds the game to a halt, all in the name of fairness and overall stability. Now multiply that by 10 people in a 5v5 game and you have a lot of potential for error if even one of those users innocently locks down their ports through an aggressive retail firewall they bought from a store in good faith of 'protection'. LAN removes most of these issues by simplifying the mysteries of the internet down to your local network meaning cleaner, faster connections, the only limitation once again is user hardware. Most RTS's and smaller scale games use peer to peer.
Consoles still have exactly the same fundamental problems. Consoles don't have to deal with intrusive firewalls, they have a standardised hardware platform but they are fundamentally at the mercy of peer to peer networks and all that that entails. It may be less noticeable on a console because you are fundamentally getting a more bastardised experience, no real configurations or deviations mean stale, smaller player counts internally in order to normalise potential difficulties. Consoles still have problems with overcrowding and are at the mercy of the centralised pyramid - if Xbox live melts tomorrow under the weight of everyone in China connecting through its centralised hub your game will lag and not a whole lot the user can do about it because they have no power to institute change or configure.
The entire point of PC gaming is that fierce competition drives the edge of innovation constantly forward. The problem with PC gaming is that its so very ruthless nature ensures only those at the tip are rewarded, with very little margin of error. People expect polish and innovation out of the box with a 1 month grace period and if things don't shore up, they burn the ship and move on to the next similar product with shiny marketing. GFWL is a tragically bad system, a clone of a console system that seems to ignore so very many advancements in PC portal gaming. Impulse is a system that through competition forces Steam to innovate and the two regulate their pricing structures constantly by sparring. Competition is good, monopoly of control over users bad.
The article while making a valid point that yeah PC gaming does require setup, once done the rewards are much greater, because it gives access to so very many more opportunities. Once learned the process becomes a lot less frustrating, its just the initial hurdle many are unable/unwilling to grasp even with the miracle of google. All systems are fundamentally limited to hardware and developer investment. If you want an easy easy setup experience all you need to do is get everyone everywhere to uninstall all their firewalls, never switch off anything and buy exactly the same product all the time everywhere. Reality is chaos, it is our ability to adapt that defines us. Maybe it's just years of 56k experience that makes me a lot more patient and forgiving of modern issues.
Regarding multiplayer evolution, I agree up to now the designs are quite limited, the games are designed to be played alone, single mode. A new generation of product, only multiplayer, will come in the next future that the game rule (as the board games were designed) are the most and not the final script or false AI would do… Most of the games now are pure path games, with a limited playable time; in multiplayer games (not games with multiplayer) it is not valid. But changing the public expectations is quite hard, people is looking always for familiar looking and playing games, and moving to pure multiplayer games is something that really I do not know if the gamers will love..
Similarly, Windows Live wasn't a bad idea - it's just been abominably implemented by Microsoft, a company that's so bedazzled by console profits that it seems to have utterly forgotten its PC roots. PC gamers would be thrilled to have a universal connection layer that actually works. Like Steam, for instance. Unfortunately, Valve doesn't have Microsoft's clout.
But despite such mis-steps as Live, things have come a long, LONG way since the days when you needed to wrestle with IPX settings to get a LAN game going, or figure out a way to trick Netware protocols to run over a POTS modem. And they continue to improve. When I fire up a recent game like Unreal Tournament, Company of Heroes or ArmA II, I don't expect to encounter problems getting into an Internet game. I get one warning from my firewall, and click Allow. This is a huge strain??
The fact that really needs underlining here is that the PC remains BY FAR the best multiplayer platform available.