MMORPGs moving to 1-10 MS server side polling

[Aussir]

I remember this GIF going around early on, possibly back when the game was in beta. It's still a 100% accurate representation of what goes on in this game, and it consistently makes me feel like I'm still playing a beta version of FFXIV.

Spew excuses about my internet connection or system specs all you like. The fact remains I have played lots of MMOs, some more action/timing intensive than FFXIV, and none of them behave anything like this.

This... I've had this happening too many times for my taste. Some tried to blame it on my net until I pointed out that I'm on 50Mbps Optic Fiber and I run regular speed/ping/tracert tests and found no bottlenecks.

Also, I really doubt that it's people's internet connections all the time. Game servers have an internet provider as well and if their internet provider screws up, everyone will have issues connecting to the servers.

[Wobi]

Here is a fun thing to consider, only in more recent years have ISPs jerked around server traffic like they have been doing. Depending on the time of day I play I get a wildly different experience going to the same servers over in Canada. This is the cost for not raising more hell about Net Neutrality, expect things to get worse until Gigabit internet is more ubiquitous and it might balance out a bit. Currently though they have us as well as SE by the balls.

Also polling position that often is absolutely unneeded, 1-10 ms is far faster than any human can react and it just wasting bandwidth/resources.

[TheRogueX]

Also polling position that often is absolutely unneeded, 1-10 ms is far faster than any human can react and it just wasting bandwidth.

Eh, this is just server-side polling. Faster server-side polling means more accurate and better overall response time in the game. A 1-10ms polling interval means positioning will be *extremely* accurate, and that's a good thing.

[Roris]

Funny, back in 2.0's launch and even a bit before during beta the official response was that 300ms was "the norm" and "global standard" used by most MMOs and that faster speeds weren't possible. Maybe now that the one MMO that everyone keeps blatantly copying over and over except in the places that actually matter is, is increasing its responsiveness even more, they'll actually copy that responsiveness for once.

[TheMoonflow]

I believe it is a million dollar + investment.
Probably something this other mmo can afford due to being one of the biggest mmo's on the market for 10 years.
I'm not saying SE cannot afford such an investment, but they probably consider more carefully if it's a good business move for them.
As long as they can mask the problem, they can continue to get away with spending a huge amounts to fix it.


I should add though that I unsubbed for 6 months because of this very issue.
So it is costing them money.
Though perhaps not millions...

[VesperiaTonberry]

A certain well known MMORPG has recently disclosed that, in its 6.0 build of the game, it will be reducing server-side polling to 1-10 MS intervals.

Compare to FFXIV where 300 MS is the standard.

It will potentially update character positions 300x faster than what FFXIV is currently doing server side.

Newer content does a better job not to highlight the ridiculous delay in between FFXIV client and server, but it's still noticeable.

It would be nice to hear that FFXIV development team is working on some technology to reduce lag between client and servers.

WoD? i don't know about this, do you have any link ?

[Dwill]

WoD? i don't know about this, do you have any link ?

Right here.

[Bixby]

Right here.

Which is talking about how often their servers process actions and says absolutely nothing about movement/position updates, which is what FFXIV's 300ms (100ms in instances) is all about. Edit: Not directed at you, Dwill, you just provided the source. Directed at the general idea presented in the topic.

[reality_check]

Which is talking about how often their servers process actions and says absolutely nothing about movement/position updates, which is what FFXIV's 300ms (100ms in instances) is all about. Edit: Not directed at you, Dwill, you just provided the source. Directed at the general idea presented in the topic.

I've witnessed too many benediction deaths and hallowed ground deaths to believe that FFXIV processes actions at intervals any less than 300 MS.

[Bixby]

I've witnessed too many benediction deaths and hallowed ground deaths to believe that FFXIV processes actions at intervals any less than 300 MS.

In those cases, the effect isn't applied until the animation ends. Which is the case for most actions. Varying animation length makes it hard to determine if the kind of action batch-processing delay WoW says they're moving away from exists in FFXIV at all, let alone what it might be. Doesn't sound from that blue post like this is necessarily some kind of industry standard that Blizzard is ditching (unlike the movement/position polling, which is), it's just how they were doing things before.