.3 Second Positional Update Delay (Requesting Dev Response)

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

For those of you who might want to learn a bit more about the issue of server/client sync and concurrency, here a few (technical) sources and (cultural) remarks.

________________
This is one of the most accessible (for non-technical savvy people) documentation I've found on the topic —posted here by someone else, don't remember your name but if you're reading this: thanks! ^^
➔ http://www.gabrielgambetta.com/fast_...ltiplayer.html (you may want to switch directly to part IV if you understand these concepts and want to see the final word on client/server authority)
Note that this documentation applies to fast twitch multiplayer (FPS and the likes), therefore any MMORPG should be much easier to render coherently for the player.

There's also a Valve Developer Community paper that's quite enlightening, a bit more in-depth
➔ https://developer.valvesoftware.com/...yer_Networking

And a Wikipedia article on Lag (in online gaming) that may explain not the particular issues we're having in this game (it applies to all online games), but is good general overview of the challenges that a networked game presents, and explains why developers must find workarounds such as found in the two aforementioned papers.
➔ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag_(online_gaming)

What you can gather, reading these, and looking at how other games perform on a regular basis (the level of "network quality" you expect in your multiplayer games, be it FPS, Fighting, or indeed MMORPG), is that there is no way to argue against the fact that ARR has a serious network programming problem.

***** THE REST OF THIS POST IS TOTALLY OFF-TOPIC *****
Should you wish to discuss this any further, you may quote me and begin a new thread in this forum. Please don't do what I do, digressing way too much.
________________
To widen the issue a bit, here are few facts.

• The bulk of populated Japan areas are very urbanised and very small (geographically), many buildings are connected to the internet through symmetrical 100Mbps akin-to-LAN optic networks; thus neither latency nor bandwidth are issues there. It paints a whole different world than EU or NA for developers, who may not know first-hand what it is to deal with low-connectivity.
• However this is the country of fighting games and high-twitch arcade games, hence why companies such as Capcom do know (even innovated with) state-of-the-art network code. My sources suggest, however, that there's few turnover between studios; aside from joint projects, most workers there tend to stick to one company, even one IP within that company (the guys making PES for instance have been at it for 20 years, likewise for DMC, Bio Hazard and so on; evidently as well for FF).
• Japanese companies, for cultural (including linguistic) reasons are very closed to foreign workers; hence why it's highly unprobable they hire westerners (who would, in the case of network coding, probably be more up to the task of dealing with distant/outsourced worldwide datacenters). There are likely many issues in communicating with their Canadian subsets and partners. Notice how Japan, despite being an IT leader, is overall absent from the worldwide IT market of services —be it cloud, apps, or even mail. They are also very prone to using proprietary technologies, especially software wise, which may hinder their solution-finding processes.
• Another issue is their culture of management: it's very vertical, definitely not flat, and very uncommunicative. To over-simplify, subordinates tend not to criticise or give feedback to their bosses and team leaders because it's considered disrespectful to challenge a higher authority's opinion. Essentially, "right and wrong" matter less than "social entitlement". You can observe this in how customers respond to products: they "eat it" much more than they assess quality from a personal point of view, they follow the press take much more than they criticise, and overall there's a degree of complacency between the media and the companies (PR) that we would deem flat out fallacious in the west.

This is not to diminish or judge negatively the value of Japan's take on business; they also are very diligent workers and quite outstandingly skilled individuals; but all this hard work may not always be put to good use. I think ARR may be fairly indicative of that. Granted also, this environment is changing; albeit very slowly and not without meeting a lot of resistance, not necessarily from the people you would expect so —we sociologists observe that such a setting not only made things easy for higher-ups all through Japan's history, it also gave a sense of security to the lower end of the spectrum: "if you do well the work you're assigned, you can't be wrong about it, so questioning it is not only a waste of time, it undermines your own position". The problem being that, in a very competitive environment, it's highly improbable that a single individual may be right about everything —be it politics, economics, or… game design. You know the rest of the story.

________________
In the end, the whole SE's stance towards issues such as this (network/game design choices, silence towards customers, unwillingness to compromise over feedback that they don't already agree with in the first place, etc.) could be explained by all these facts. Then again, I'm not saying I'm right, but I can't say I'm surprised about it, knowing all this — none of it is exactly new in my book.

I should however conclude this already too long post by saying that I did (and still do to some extent) have faith in an individual such as Naoki Yoshida, but I'm not really sure he alone can change the whole culture at SE, especially when he's "just" a producer/director, and not a CEO. Yet. It may be a while…

[Guyjin37]

For those of you who might want to learn a bit more about the issue of server/client sync and concurrency, here a few (technical) sources and (cultural) remarks.

Bam. That's it.

Being one of those few IT/programmer Westerners working for a Japanese company I can corroborate these things 100%. That's how Japanese companies are to a T.

If the top dawgs won't recognize the problem, it's not going to get fixed. And nobody is going to tell them about a problem until there is absolutely no choice. Though I do think that Yoshida has the power and balls to fix it; he just has to recognize it as a significant enough problem.

Sorry to disregard your instructions to start a new thread

[Sunarie]

Bam. That's it.

Being one of those few IT/programmer Westerners working for a Japanese company I can corroborate these things 100%. That's how Japanese companies are to a T.

If the top dawgs won't recognize the problem, it's not going to get fixed. And nobody is going to tell them about a problem until there is absolutely no choice. Though I do think that Yoshida has the power and balls to fix it; he just has to recognize it as a significant enough problem.

Sorry to disregard your instructions to start a new thread

It's still kind of on topic. I mean, we do want Yoshida to answer. I did post a question (nicely, and hopefully well worded) in the ask thread thing for the next live letter deal.

[Soukyuu]

It's still kind of on topic. I mean, we do want Yoshida to answer. I did post a question (nicely, and hopefully well worded) in the ask thread thing for the next live letter deal.

To be honest, I am not counting on that question to be picked. Why? Because it's a live letter and they wouldn't have time to prepare a reply. Which is kinda the point, but they have never picked such important questions before, unless it also made some big waves on the Japanese side (see: Warrior). So I'm not holding my breath.

[Sunarie]

To be honest, I am not counting on that question to be picked. Why? Because it's a live letter and they wouldn't have time to prepare a reply. Which is kinda the point, but they have never picked such important questions before, unless it also made some big waves on the Japanese side (see: Warrior). So I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah.. I'm not holding my breath either... but it doesn't hurt to ask all the same. I think some part of me still holds a tiny shred of hope that something will happen when 2.1 comes out and they just haven't talked about it yet.