Should Dedicated Servers be the norm and not the exception?

Those of you to follow me on Twitter will know i went a bit of a mini-rant about this today.

Anyway let's set the scene.... i went back to Gears 2 to try and finally do the ridiculous task of getting to level 100 ( never played Gears 2 MP much) to try and get the Golden Gnasher( a shotgun for those who have never played the Gears of War series) for Gears 3.

What do i find when i play it for the first time in about a year?

Slow sluggish movement ( ok this is a design flaw but still) awful hit detection and overall just a damn lag fest. So naturally i get annoyed and just turn the shit off.

I later on jump back on to Gears 3 and thanks to the dedicated servers i find an enjoyable experience that runs as smooth as butter with no lag or hit detection issues. Let's not beat around the bush here Gears 3 is far from perfect like any game it has design and gameplay flaws (Cough Sawed Off Cough Retro Cough) but at least it runs smoothly and fast with no lag issues.

My question is should all major online multiplayer games have dedicated servers going forward?

I personally think they should, it's 2012 for crying out loud not 1992 and the money excuse some companies come out with (cough Activision cough) is damn right poor of them(pun not intended) as these companies make billions on these games.

To continue with peer to peer like we all are in the 90s is a downright joke, i myself had not played many games on dedicated servers coming into Gears 3 being a console gamer but after experiencing it almost a year ago now i had promised myself to never buy a MP game if it didn't have dedicated servers such is the difference between the two.

When i go back to host-based games now the experience feels tarnished and i feel like i have gone back 10 years i just can't stand it, it's sorta like how i can't stand playing in standard definition now.

I personally feel all games should be on servers and not peer to peer going forward, what do you think?

Discuss.

Definitely. At least all the bigger game companies imo.

just another way how consoles ruin everything

dedicated servers cost money and time to set up and maintain, and when you've got hordes of 12-year olds buying every single piece of shit you release you kinda lose any incentive to improve your games, you just rake in the $$$

che wrote:just another way how consoles ruin everything

dedicated servers cost money and time to set up and maintain.

Of course, but is that really an excuse for some of these companies that rake in billions every year?

I personally don't think so.

Yeh and plus dedicated servers would be better for the game companies.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

Of course, but is that really an excuse for some of these companies that rake in billions every year?

I personally don't think so.

read the rest of my post

say, activision have hordes of people gobbling on every godawful excuse of a game they release, they don't need to incur the unnecessary expense of running dedicated servers because they see people buy that crap anyway... the biggest developers stopped caring about user experience around 5 years ago

Yes!

When games like Demon Soul's/Dark Souls have dedicated servers then why wouldn't fifa & cod have it?

Really bs from ea & activision when those 2 series are some of the most played games on consoles..

What is a dedicated server? Doesn't depend on a persons internet speed? So the FIFA servers are not dedicated?

Swagg wrote:What is a dedicated server? Doesn't depend on a persons internet speed? So the FIFA servers are not dedicated?

Basically everyone in the lobby will be playing on a designated server instead of running of someones crappy connection.

It basically evens the playing field and eliminates the advantage of host.

I'm unsure about Fifa i think it still runs on p2p. ( host)

I personally feel all major multiplayer titles should have it, there should be no excuses really but Che has a good point while people are happy to buy the same games over and over again they won't bother.

LeDNA wrote:Yes!

When games like Demon Soul's/Dark Souls have dedicated servers then why wouldn't fifa & cod have it?

Really bs from ea & activision when those 2 series are some of the most played games on consoles..

And that's the reason why they're hesitating to introduce dedicated servers. With the ridiculous amount of people who play Call of Duty, for instance.. they would have to invest in multiple, highly expensive servers, in order to cover the whole amount of consumers. I imagine the cost for these servers would be affordable for such established companies like EA and Activision, but from a business point of view, would anyone spend several million dollars on something that's only rewarded with higher customer satisfaction? Like Che said, people still buy these games, regardless of whether they have dedicated servers or not. The developers and representatives for these companies can flatter us all they want, but at the end of the day, it's the greedy higher ups in those companies that have the final say on matters regarding economic management.

"Working as intended"....

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

Swagg wrote:What is a dedicated server? Doesn't depend on a persons internet speed? So the FIFA servers are not dedicated?

Basically everyone in the lobby will be playing on a designated server instead of running of someones crappy connection.

It basically evens the playing field and eliminates the advantage of host.

I'm unsure about Fifa i think it still runs on p2p. ( host)

I personally feel all major multiplayer titles should have it, there should be no excuses really but Che has a good point while people are happy to buy the same games over and over again they won't bother.

I see.. I always assumed FIFA had dedicated servers because sometimes you can't play online because 'EA servers are down'

Dedicated servers should be mandatory

I don't see why not for the big games. They don't have to be AMAZING and break the companies budget but they should be an improvement from connecting to a (usually) crappy host.

Better servers = more people buy a game?

BiasedMilanFan3 wrote:I don't see why not for the big games. They don't have to be AMAZING and break the companies budget but they should be an improvement from connecting to a (usually) crappy host.

The problem is that it would break the budget. When you're looking at initial sales for a game you're looking into sales figures in the millions whiles you have to have one hell of a game to come close to a million on PC. Nowadays the only games that break the million mark are AAA PC exclusives, or MMO's.

Take CoD6: Modern Warfare 2, only 3% of its sales were for PC. Even a game much more suited to PC than console, Skyrim, only managed a 14% of total sales.

There are very few games that come to mind that handle anywhere near the number of concurrent users that consoles would have to - League of Legends (1.3M at peak half a year ago, growing) & high profile MMO's such as World of Tanks (423,000 in April), SWTOR (350k at peak, now in a steep decline), WoW (~400,000 - guesstimate based on subs, WoW's record is 1.3M but that was years ago) Guild Wars 2 (200,000 - 400k during launch weekend).

On top of that, you would have develop server software for up to 4 different platforms.

What do all these games have in common? A subscription and/or a microtransaction system that keeps the servers running and paid & as well as take relatively little bandwidth compared to a console game which will have to use/reserve relatively high amounts of bandwidth for voice alone. The Internet itself has its own physical limits.

The money "excuse" IS real Mole. Especially because the whole concept of console gaming is centred around maximising profit. Why invest in dedicated servers when the console kiddies don't know difference? Why continue working on the 64bit and DX11 versions of Crysis 2 when the 32bit and DX9 (aka console version) version is finished and ready to be released? (An early Crysis 2 build had a working, but pretty buggy 64-bit executable and the DX11 pack was released several months after official game release).

Yeah, absolutely, I mean lol, I didn't even know some of these MP games are based on host-servers wtf??

Those only work for small number of players according to my experiences, but a dedicated server is a must for proper, high numbers multiplayer action.

Doesnt Battlefield have dedicated servers ?!

pUsHa wrote:Doesnt Battlefield have dedicated servers ?!

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/723702/battlefield-3s-dedicated-console-servers-are-disappearing/

Thimmy wrote:

pUsHa wrote:Doesnt Battlefield have dedicated servers ?!

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/723702/battlefield-3s-dedicated-console-servers-are-disappearing/

So they do huh ? Too bad for console players because there are a sh1t ton of dedicated servers on PC .