Is this game possible?

Hi my name is Janzen and I'm quite new to C++ programming...

I recently had an idea for a FPS game, Basically in a nut shell instead of having maps where 64 Players Max can join a at the same time...
Have one huge map (Like a country) where all the players are fighting for their side (Example: Allies or Axis).

My question is this game possible with no lag?

That really depends on how well you can program and how much money you want to invest in the hardware your program will run on. It also depends on how much hardware your players will have available. It is not impossible, it's just so expensive, that nobody really does. 10 years ago, my computer had problems running CS 1.5, todays machine can run BF3 without lags. Who knows what we will look at in another 10 years.

Originally Posted by jandel122

I recently had an idea for a FPS game, Basically in a nut shell instead of having maps where 64 Players Max can join a at the same time...
Have one huge map (Like a country) where all the players are fighting for their side (Example: Allies or Axis).

With 64 players in a whole country... It'll be Robinson Crusoe scenario instead of a war.

I don't play games but isn't that World of Warcraft (many players online together simultaneously)?

Originally Posted by nvoigt

It is not impossible, it's just so expensive, that nobody really does.

The only person it's expensive for is the person who runs the server.

I believe the major factor is bandwidth, because the slowest connection will limit everyone. Don't some online games drop people when their connection speed falls below a certain line?

I think that, with the popularity of broadband, most online gamers are more concerned with QoS than they are with bandwidth. Having a good dedicated server is still important though, especially with a 64-player map.

Valve has a decent high-level explanation of what they do to get around the problems associated with internet connections. I'm sure there are other places with this sort of information as well; like so many other aspects of game engines, it's all stuff that was pioneered by Quake, and in the case of multiplayer, QuakeWorld. That's not to say that it's the only way to solve these problems, or even the best way, but it's certainly a good starting point.

You can get some source code here (I'm not sure where id's original source releases are anymore but the open source derivatives are better anyway) if you want to get into implementation details. You might even consider using the source as a base for your own game if you're fine with the GPL license.

So what kind of money would I be looking at? could I get a rough estimate

Originally Posted by MK27

I don't play games but isn't that World of Warcraft (many players online together simultaneously)?

The only person it's expensive for is the person who runs the server.

I believe the major factor is bandwidth, because the slowest connection will limit everyone. Don't some online games drop people when their connection speed falls below a certain line?

If you have 3000 Players simultanously that's fine as long as they are not "seeing" each other. A server can handle 3000 players. But once they find out that the magic sword of ass kicking drops at noon at a certain ingame location, they will all flock to it. Then you have to handle exponentially more bandwith (theres no longer 10 players needing 9 updates each for 300 regions, but 3000 Players needing 2999 Updates each for one region). And while the server may manage, the players connection at home needs to handle 2999 updates instead of 9 and it's graphics hardware needs to paint 2999 other players instead of 9. It will fail. The game will crash. In WoW for example, gathering a large player crowd is against the terms of service, because it's basically a DDoS attack.

Originally Posted by nvoigt

In WoW for example, gathering a large player crowd is against the terms of service, because it's basically a DDoS attack.

Sounds like a myth to me, you haven't played much WoW have you? 50% of the players online at any given time are located in one of the faction capitals, it is very common to have 1000+ other players in your viewfield. (Given that you play on a heavily populated server.)

It's just a matter of throwing money at the server clusters, Blizzard has plenty to throw it seems.

Yeah, right, I didn't play much WoW... just from day one. I can remember the days when we wanted to open the gates of An'Quiraj (spelling escapes me, to lazy to look it up) and had to find a secret middle-of-the-night time to get it done because the server could not bear all the spectators at 19:00, 20:00 and 21:00, crashing each time.

You have thousands of players in your viewfield? When did that happen, yesterday? I stopped playing 3 weeks ago but your graphics hardware couldn't cope with 1000 players being rendered with the WoW engine back then and I bet it cannot today. My server/connection started lagging when a few hundred people were in the same zone (Dalaran comes to mind) and not even in view.

And oh... look here someone was banned for crashing a server just this year. The ban was taken back because it was not his intend, but anyway... lots of players in one zone doing stuff is way more than a server can handle.

Edit: and yes, you can throw money at it. But that's just a waste of resources when normally, players don't group up that way. It's better to have the server crash once in a blue moon than spending another bazillion on cluster costs. It's the same logic by which we only own a ~1000€ gaming machine, not a 25K graphics cluster. Because 99% of the time, the gaming machine is more than enough.

Originally Posted by nvoigt

Yeah, right, I didn't play much WoW... just from day one. I can remember the days when we wanted to open the gates of An'Quiraj (spelling escapes me, to lazy to look it up) and had to find a secret middle-of-the-night time to get it done because the server could not bear all the spectators at 19:00, 20:00 and 21:00, crashing each time.

You have thousands of players in your viewfield? When did that happen, yesterday? I stopped playing 3 weeks ago but your graphics hardware couldn't cope with 1000 players being rendered with the WoW engine back then and I bet it cannot today. My server/connection started lagging when a few hundred people were in the same zone (Dalaran comes to mind) and not even in view.

And oh... look here someone was banned for crashing a server just this year. The ban was taken back because it was not his intend, but anyway... lots of players in one zone doing stuff is way more than a server can handle.

Edit: and yes, you can throw money at it. But that's just a waste of resources when normally, players don't group up that way. It's better to have the server crash once in a blue moon than spending another bazillion on cluster costs. It's the same logic by which we only own a ~1000€ gaming machine, not a 25K graphics cluster. Because 99% of the time, the gaming machine is more than enough.

I stopped playing just after Cataclysm came out, started back in 2005 or something like that. And yes, a thousand players was a common occurence on some of the denser servers, i played almost exclusively horde so i can only speak for Orgrimmar, but on any given sunday night close to the bank/AH/mailbox area there was easily a thousand players in the vicinity, easily. And yes, my FPS dropped as a result, but rarely have i experienced a server crash.

Also, there is no mention of this rule against large gatherings that you speak of in the ToS or the EULA, not as far as i can see after a quick peek atleast:
ToS
EULA

I think you overestimate the number of people, but lets just assume it's 1000. My graphics hardware would not handle 1000 but lets just say yours is better. But even yours had to drop frames when seeing those players just idling in front of the mailbox/bank/AH. Imagine each was a DK and pushed the button for the shiny graphics stuff or army of the dead. Even your graphics hardware couldn't handle this load if those supposedly 1000 players actually played. It's like saying "my chat server can handle thousands of connections... as long as they just sit there and don't chat."

The TOS/EULA say that they can ban you for anything the like any time they chose. They have banned people for crashing servers, giving "disrupting gameplay" as a reason (although they don't need a reason).

Difference between possibility and plausibility has been shown yet again. Also. Game will blow up teh internetz.

Originally Posted by Neo1

it is very common to have 1000+ other players in your viewfield

No it's not. That's ridiculous.


Quzah.