Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Rich Geldreich On The Concerns Of Open-Sourcing In The Game Industry

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #51
    Originally posted by nomadewolf View Post
    It's a game of cat and mouse...
    Cheaters will always come up with new ideas. But there always a counter solution.
    There are also network limitations to keep in mind. One of the reasons games still try to do the most possible in the client is that otherwise they would need a lot more bandwith to let people play in sync at all.

    That's why many employ Antivirus-like anticheat systems running in the client (again).

    If network was an order of magnitude faster, you could move more functionality to the server itself and just send messages to keep clients in sync with what the server has decided.

    Comment


    • #52
      starshipeleven not only in Arma-series. I, for example play Project Reality (free stand-alone Battlefield 2 full conversion mod). Look at mortar handling howto:
      http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f138...ortars-pr.html

      Another game that may have similar mechanics is "Squad". Not sure, but it's basically PR being implemented on UT4 engine, still in-progress game but already playable (available in Steam as "Alpha version").

      Multiplayer games are actually forced to shift as much processing as possible to server. Or it would be incredibly easy to cheat. Teleport around, speedhack, have infinite ammo et cetera. Having server controlling all the possible physics and properties of the environment negates such hacks. So game client should only render the environment according to changes declared by servers and game client is only allowed minor stuff like animations.
      Tom Clancy's : The Division initially made that very error of letting game client handle things it shouldn't - it did bite back the players fast.
      Last edited by aht0; 29 December 2017, 05:15 AM.

      Comment


      • #53
        Originally posted by aht0 View Post
        starshipeleven not only in Arma-series. I, for example play Project Reality (free stand-alone Battlefield 2 full conversion mod). Look at mortar handling howto:
        http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f138...ortars-pr.html

        Another game that may have similar mechanics is "Squad". Not sure, but it's basically PR being implemented on UT4 engine, still in-progress game but already playable (available in Steam as "Alpha version").
        Thanks. I like shooting games where there is some attempt at teamwork and such.

        Also mortars. I never saw games with realistic mortars.


        Multiplayer games are actually forced to shift as much processing as possible to server.
        As I said, it's a tradeoff they must do. More processing on server = more bandwith required to keep everyone in sync as the server needs to relay all data around.

        More bandwith means that you risk cutting out players with more lousy internet, which is a large majority, and also the costs for your servers rise (as you do pay higher bandwith in your contract).

        Tom Clancy's : The Division initially made that very error of letting game client handle things it shouldn't - it did bite back the players fast.
        I know of many others that still do that, last I played is Warframe (never again). It's so cheap that they don't even have proper servers, the "server" is one of the 4 players in the lobby. Lag. Lag everywhere.

        I remember that the last year there was a patch that moved reward drop tables and the RNG code in their game servers (= it was also handled by the client before).

        Also Dawn of War II (although here it is smarter, and also a different type of game). Feral explained that they can't have players on Linux/Mac play with players on Windows version because online play relies on deterministic actions done by the client (i.e. they all use the same pseudo-RNG generator for the AI and stuff), and this again saves a ton of bandwith as the only things that must be sent over the wire are player commands to their units, while all AI is handled locally at the clients. Linux and Mac can't use the same pseudo-RNG as the Windows version so we can't play with them online.

        Comment


        • #54
          Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
          Thanks. I like shooting games where there is some attempt at teamwork and such.
          Teamplay is enforced to the degree that if you do not have microphone, you'd usually get kicked from the squad you joined in. If you are not in the squad, server may kick you out after awhile (depends on server settings) or you'd be unable to play in any meaningful way (squads set up respawn points outside main base, being in a squad is a precondition for any kit except Basic Rifleman. Squads have to be job-specific (Combat Air Support, Mortars, Infantry, Armor), be a member of Infantry squad taking armored vehicle - admin may temp ban for it.
          Whole game enforces team play to the degree it takes lots of time to get used with. As a result there are very few youngsters playing it. Most are 25+. Not enough fast instant action and lonewolfing is effectively impossible.
          Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
          As I said, it's a tradeoff they must do. More processing on server = more bandwith required to keep everyone in sync as the server needs to relay all data around.

          More bandwith means that you risk cutting out players with more lousy internet, which is a large majority, and also the costs for your servers rise (as you do pay higher bandwith in your contract).

          I know of many others that still do that, last I played is Warframe (never again). It's so cheap that they don't even have proper servers, the "server" is one of the 4 players in the lobby. Lag. Lag everywhere.

          I remember that the last year there was a patch that moved reward drop tables and the RNG code in their game servers (= it was also handled by the client before).

          Also Dawn of War II (although here it is smarter, and also a different type of game). Feral explained that they can't have players on Linux/Mac play with players on Windows version because online play relies on deterministic actions done by the client (i.e. they all use the same pseudo-RNG generator for the AI and stuff), and this again saves a ton of bandwith as the only things that must be sent over the wire are player commands to their units, while all AI is handled locally at the clients. Linux and Mac can't use the same pseudo-RNG as the Windows version so we can't play with them online.
          You seem to have advantage of having played more different games of various genres.
          I've always stuck to games with dedicated servers and pretty much 1-2 franchises - playing some for years and thousands of hours.

          Comment


          • #55
            Originally posted by aht0 View Post
            Teamplay is enforced to the degree that if you do not have microphone, you'd usually get kicked from the squad you joined in. If you are not in the squad, server may kick you out after awhile (depends on server settings) or you'd be unable to play in any meaningful way (squads set up respawn points outside main base, being in a squad is a precondition for any kit except Basic Rifleman. Squads have to be job-specific (Combat Air Support, Mortars, Infantry, Armor), be a member of Infantry squad taking armored vehicle - admin may temp ban for it.
            Whole game enforces team play to the degree it takes lots of time to get used with. As a result there are very few youngsters playing it. Most are 25+. Not enough fast instant action and lonewolfing is effectively impossible.
            Ok, I'm 100% sold. I may never get enough time to get into it properly, but it's at least worth playing.

            You seem to have advantage of having played more different games of various genres.
            Not really "played" many games. Most games I know is something I played with someone else's account/PC for a few dozens of hours while I was testing for issues, I work in IT so I get all kinds of weird questions to help some friend/family member's kid to "fix his pc to game", when in fact the culprit is the game itself (bad design choices for multiplayer like running most stuff in the client) and his lousy Internet connection.

            Comment


            • #56
              I am the lead developer on a project that is reverse engineering and totally cloning the Westwood W3D engine used in Command & Conquer: Renegade and I can tell you that if we published all our code as FOSS (and not just the bits we do publish) the game would die due to rampant cheating and hacks and stuff. That said, I do like it when companies open source their games and wish more companies would do it (especially for older games which dont have an online multiplayer component)

              Comment


              • #57
                Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
                Ok, I'm 100% sold. I may never get enough time to get into it properly, but it's at least worth playing.
                If you have sufficient computer get Squad. More people, more development, better graphics. PR is slowly dying out - graphics engine is 10+ years old after all.

                indirect fire example https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Msha88oni8U

                Comment


                • #58
                  I, for one, am not to enthused with gamers using GNU/Linux. We have enough problems, and I don't think the "Year of the Linux Desktop" is worthwhile, especially if it means catering to gamers.

                  They do not share any values with Free software, and them coming in, will scare some existing users out, and they won't contribute anything and bring nothing but problems.

                  I am beginning to see Steam's shrinking Linux base as a good thing. We don't need gamers.

                  Points

                  * GNU/Linux users don't like DRM, and coversely, Game dev's don't give a damn about the four freedoms
                  * Games and Game content are heavily dependent on non-free resources.
                  * Gamers are assholes, even by our standards. No one has had the militarized police breaking down their door over an argument on systemd.
                  * The chances of a gamer ever filing a bug report, reading the manual, or contributing a bug fix are slim to none.
                  * The chances of a gamer ever grepping through C, Perl or Python to find a bug, or doing routine debugging to help a dev, are slim to none.
                  * Gamers are consumers. They want things to "Just work" because they've paid a fuckton of money for things.
                  * In the discussions I've had about gamers with the GPL and Free software, the first mention of either gets me labeled as a "communist" that "hates companies" and will "never work". Despite the fact I do this for a living, make six figures, and my work centers around mostly using Free Software. I don't even get a chance to explain myself. I'm pretty sure most of these people don't actually work in industry.

                  The big one:
                  * GNU/Linux people really don't play games that often. The few that do, either dual boot, use a console, or something else.

                  These are not our people here.

                  Comment


                  • #59
                    Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                    I, for one, am not to enthused with gamers using GNU/Linux. We have enough problems, and I don't think the "Year of the Linux Desktop" is worthwhile, especially if it means catering to gamers.
                    I generally agree on the sentiment (we don't need freeloaders and idiots) but I think you are singling out gamers for no real reason.

                    * GNU/Linux users don't like DRM, and coversely, Game dev's don't give a damn about the four freedoms
                    * Games and Game content are heavily dependent on non-free resources.
                    Technically true, but games usually get a free pass because they are a special type of program, and entertainment (media or otherwise) is often assimilated to art and thus exempt from strong adherence to these principles.

                    I personally don't see the issue in non-free assets, that's definitely art, I'm ok with paying for art and not distributing it or making copies.

                    * Gamers are assholes, even by our standards. No one has had the militarized police breaking down their door over an argument on systemd.
                    This is assuming that every gamer is like some idiots that crossed the line. Like saying that every environmental organization is made by assholes just because PETA and Greenpeace are.

                    * The chances of a gamer ever filing a bug report, reading the manual, or contributing a bug fix are slim to none.
                    * The chances of a gamer ever grepping through C, Perl or Python to find a bug, or doing routine debugging to help a dev, are slim to none.
                    Of course most gamers are screaming monkeys, but this is just because most of the human race is actually made of screaming monkeys. We can't single out gamers as if they were the only ones affected.

                    You would be fucking surprised to find that there is a whole subculture of modders, beta testers and voluntary validators ready to help out. Also platoons of modders. It's not the first time that some game developers integrated a community mod that fixed some of their screwups, or that a game that is barely playable becomes massively better with some community mods.

                    Of course this requires that the games are moddable in the first place. In general if the game is moddable and does not suck balls to begin with, there is a thriving community of beta testers and modders that can and do open tickets and help track down crap or fix it in their mods.

                    Moddable games are the ones that are closer to the opensource ideals, as they do allow modifications and fixes and stuff to come from outside, and there is a community around them. Ok they are not 100% FSF approved, but they cannot be placed in the same bucket as the games that have 0 modding potential and are locked down for good.

                    * Gamers are consumers. They want things to "Just work" because they've paid a fuckton of money for things.
                    Yeah, we pure souls on linux enjoy debugging crashes, bisecting git revisions to find the offending commit and reading stack traces in our free time. Because we don't have a life and far better stuff to do instead of babysitting a goddamn tool, a "mean to an end".

                    * In the discussions I've had about gamers with the GPL and Free software, the first mention of either gets me labeled as a "communist" that "hates companies" and will "never work". Despite the fact I do this for a living, make six figures, and my work centers around mostly using Free Software. I don't even get a chance to explain myself. I'm pretty sure most of these people don't actually work in industry.
                    Did I say that most people are screaming monkeys?
                    You would get the same answer from managers in a large company, or from workers in a factory.

                    Also technically speaking GPL or copyleft in general is a communist concept, and is harder to use effectively than the simpler closed source model.

                    * GNU/Linux people really don't play games that often.
                    My very anedoctal evidence contradicts this. There is no proof that people on Linux have less interest for games than everyone else.

                    The few that do, either dual boot, use a console, or something else.
                    I'm one of them, but I do so out of necessity, not because I don't want to. I would rather have the games run in a sandbox on my Linux system than having to keep a dedicated Windows 10 gaming rig.
                    But when I want to game I'm tired or sad or whatever, I don't want to troubleshoot issues with Steam being a pile of crap or whatever.

                    Comment


                    • #60
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      I, for one, am not to enthused with gamers using GNU/Linux. We have enough problems, and I don't think the "Year of the Linux Desktop" is worthwhile, especially if it means catering to gamers.
                      Relax, GNU/Linux gaming is not going to be "thing" for quite some time, if ever.
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      They do not share any values with Free software, and them coming in, will scare some existing users out, and they won't contribute anything and bring nothing but problems.
                      You should check up gaming. Games that live longest are usually ones that can be modded and have a lot of custom player-made content added to them.
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      I am beginning to see Steam's shrinking Linux base as a good thing. We don't need gamers.
                      Points
                      * GNU/Linux users don't like DRM, and coversely, Game dev's don't give a damn about the four freedoms
                      When you develop open-source shooter (example) and after hard work and lots of manhours receive only 1/10 of the money you expected to make - you'd start to appreciate closed source. Because your game could be forked to hundred different games out of your control and quite a lot of these could make money - to people who forked it.

                      Open-source would be like gift from God for cheat-service providers who have built their business to selling subscription cheats for your and other games. Easy as hell to produce various bots and figure out other exploitable vectors with source code in hand. And after onslaught of cheaters - when you failed to contain them - your game would simply die. Players do not want contest of aimbots, they want to play.
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      * Games and Game content are heavily dependent on non-free resources.
                      Often enough there are no free open tools of sufficient quality for particular tasks. Have you noticed that free engines generally look like shit compared to commercial engines. Unreal Engine and Unity perhaps make eventually difference here.
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      * Gamers are assholes, even by our standards. No one has had the militarized police breaking down their door over an argument on systemd.
                      Depends on a game. Servers of Counter Strike iterations are full of pre-teen kids who act infantile and swear like drunk seamen. Combat simulators like ARMA usually have folks older than 30. Because many have been military, served missions, have actual patience and understanding that this game is not supposed to be quick killing, fancy levels etc. Different games attract people of different ages. You cannot put everything into same pot - it makes you no better than same infantile CS kids I wrote about.
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      * The chances of a gamer ever filing a bug report, reading the manual, or contributing a bug fix are slim to none.
                      Visit official game studios forums, if such exist and happen to have "Bugs" section then these are usually chock-full of bug reports.
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      * The chances of a gamer ever grepping through C, Perl or Python to find a bug, or doing routine debugging to help a dev, are slim to none.
                      Battlefield 2 was written using Python. You should check the plethora of mods (https://www.moddb.com/games/battlefield-2/mods) that grew out from that game. Game itself is officially dead, it's mods may stlll be alive as separate games (Project Reality for example) https://www.realitymod.com/
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      * Gamers are consumers. They want things to "Just work" because they've paid a fuckton of money for things.
                      What's wrong with being a consumer? Plenty of Linux users want "things simply to work". It's a reason there are distros like Ubuntu and others who try to provide full desktop experience without fucking around on command line. Linux and any operating system is usually tool for doing some task not. When you work as a lumberjack, you do not want to fix your axe or chainsaw in every 2 hours, you want to do your actual work and cut trees.
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      * In the discussions I've had about gamers with the GPL and Free software, the first mention of either gets me labeled as a "communist" that "hates companies" and will "never work". Despite the fact I do this for a living, make six figures, and my work centers around mostly using Free Software. I don't even get a chance to explain myself. I'm pretty sure most of these people don't actually work in industry.
                      Aren't they correct? Principle and idea is pretty much what communists tried to make work in more than one sense.
                      The big one:
                      Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
                      * GNU/Linux people really don't play games that often. The few that do, either dual boot, use a console, or something else.
                      With the jury-rigged patchwork nature of Linux. there ain't much point making commercial game for Linux. Each kernel version would bring need to fix something in the game, anticheat engine or new issues with drivers. Nobody pays game devs for support and bugfixes. Maybe it would work for long term supported distros which are not breaking random shit overnight,

                      Last edited by aht0; 30 May 2018, 03:13 PM.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X