Game Dev Conference MMORPG Highlights

Curious about how your puny 28.8 modem allows you to keep up with your friends (or enemies too I suppose) who use a DSL line or T1 in all the complex happenings of your favorite MMORPG? Of course you are! Even if you’re not, there’s plenty behind-the-scenes action going on in the background to pull the world all together at a rate everyone can play. Herok of the Xroads Network gives us an inside peek (by attending the GDC a few weeks ago) at how MMORPG’s pull it off with an emphasis on the upcoming Atriarch, in an article called Behind the Technology Curtain – A Look at the Insides. A glimpse:

Most gamers have lived through the horrors of lag-death, and so it is not uncommon to see ‘surefire proofs against latency’ come and go. There are only two surefire methods to beat Internet Latency: don’t play on the Internet or convince the rest of the world to not play on the Internet. It is the nature of the beast that lag, latency, or any other term you have for the stutterations one experiences, exists. That being said, there are things that can help minimize the brutal effects. A word of warning: the following may appear to be negative toward specific users and player interest, but they are necessary components. Apologies if they burst the bubble.

Designers of massive multiplayer games are forced to create artificial parity between its slowest users (dialup) with those who run DSL or even T* lines. By slowing the player, the server can keep a steady stream of information flowing, rather than flooding the unsuspecting dialup user or underservicing the high-speed user. Atriarch will probably embed ‘latency compensation timers’ to keep tabs on the flow rates and ensure ‘balance’ for the world.