Comment on Statement on Stop Killing Games - VIDEOGAMES EUROPE
Whitebrow@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoAs long as people can host a server instance, does it matter?
Hypothetically, even if it costs 1000$ per hour in AWS fees to get the required hardware to run that, at least you have the option to, alternatively have a peer to peer option to play smaller version on a LAN with a max of however many players your own network can support, there could be many implementations, which at the end of the day would still allow you to play the game when the official servers (authentication or room hosts) are shuttered and inaccessible
The main point of SKG is that currently, we, as customers, are not even getting the short end of the stick, we are getting no stick, despite having paid for it.
And ultimately, at the end of the day, not our problem to try to figure this out, the point is we’re unhappy with the current situation and want things to change.
paraphrand@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s not “changing that” it’s keeping it online only.
Arcka@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Enabling the ability for purchasers to specify an arbitrary server to connect to would require a design change compared to how most games are recently. That feature used to be standard in the early years of online gaming.
We had online-only multiplayer games in the early 2000s with self-hosted servers supporting over 60 players per map. It’s absolutely possible to do better with today’s tech.
paraphrand@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Man. Y’all really think I’m talking about networking design?
I thought we were talking about gameplay design. That’s why I picked 100 player battle royal.
“Change the game design” implies that, to me. I didn’t pick a single player experience with always online requirements. Or a 4 player game with online matchmaking and no direct connect options.
There’s such a strong, and obsessive need among a bunch of people on this topic to explain and explain, and not parse the precise thing being asked.
There’s also a lot of people who conflate having the opinion that the effort will fail due to its approach and the person/people behind it with not wanting it to succeed.
What I’m doing is poking at how people are behaving and how they talk about this initiative. And how the messaging is confusing and all over the place. It takes 5 people racing to explain it to me when I understand perfectly, and lay out a specific case. Yet no one replies to explain how my example would work.
I’m not the only one who sees this initiative as misguided, and mis framed.
Sorry for coming off like a troll, usually my outlier questions get responses instead of people acting like they are here.
I’ve really dug a bit too deep on this one, and I’ll try to stop replying now.
hraegsvelmir@ani.social 2 weeks ago
If you understand perfectly, you’ve yet to demonstrate this. The ask is to remove superfluous, anti-consumer design elements like always-online connections for single-player games, or shuttering official servers with no mitigation plan for those who wish to play the game after this occurs, and people have asked for changes to these, specific sorts of anti-consumer design choices. Meanwhile, you’re over here big brain posting about “That’s not a design change! Now, turning a 100-player online battle royale game into a single player JRPG, that would be a design change!” It’s no great wonder that you’re being treated as either a troll or an idiot when you’ve manage to misunderstand something so fundamental, while confidently insisting time and again that you alone get it, and everyone is just misguided.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
There are, it may surprise you to learn, different types of game that have online connectivity for different reasons. And the appropriate EOL response may differ across those games.
“Live-service” games where the main gameplay is singleplayer but an online connection is required so they can enforce achievements and upgrades (…and “anti-piracy” bs) may be best served by simply removing the online component so it can all be done locally.
Online competitive games can be switched to a direct connection mode.
MMOs and other games with large numbers of users and a persistent online server can be run on fan-operated servers, so long as (a) the server binary is made available, and (b) the client is modified to allow changing settings to choose a server to connect to (it could be something as simple as a command-line flag with no UI if the devs are being really cheap).
paraphrand@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You guys…
I picked an actual “online only” example for a reason. Yet everyone is jumping around talking about other things.
Turning a battle royal into a lan only game sounds like the solution I was expecting in my replies. And then yeah, you can even route that over the internet.
But that’s not changing the design, really. It’s providing the infrastructure needed to run it, even if it’s lan only, and would need more to run it over the internet.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Depends on what one means by “change the design”. It doesn’t make a fundamental change to the deeper architecture of the game, no. But it does require some relatively superficial changes, which are themselves a design problem of sorts.
pugnaciousfarter@literature.cafe 3 weeks ago
The initiative’s issue isn’t with them being online-only (though personally people hate it). The initiative aims for games to have the ability to have a reasonable state of playability past the end of life.
This is for all kinds of games - single-player, multiple player, live service, only only. The point is to keep what you paid for.
paraphrand@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Of course it’s not. That’s why I made my initial reply.