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"OMG there is a Dragonair! Do you see it?" "Na, I'm not on your server.." Blizzard scaled using appropriate technologies for its time. i.e. sharding basted on

"OMG there is a Dragonair! Do you see it?" "Na, I'm not on your server.." Blizzard scaled using appropriate technologies for its time. i.e. sharding basted on "Realm" and enforcing active player limits. This scaling mechanism was used by every MMO I knew about until EVE. EVE pioneered the modern MMO. It is no longer acceptable for an MMO to be sharded by server. Even WoW has been aggressively trying to scale its architecture and infra such that it can re-connect these shards into more cohesive worlds. With the most credit to them, they have a lot of technical debt in this regard, but the fact that some servers are labeled "full" with wait queues to join, implies that they still don't have the technology to scale let alone connect all their servers[0]. [0] Note, there are also other reasons (i.e. in-game economical and political reasons) why they are not aggressively connecting more shards.

revelation 10y ago
Pokemon Go uses sharding called "the real world". The fact that it's technically one world is wholly immaterial. I'd wager that at any point in time WoW dealt with higher player densities than Pokemon Go, realms or no realms. Certainly higher data densities with VASTLY higher latency requirements. Of course in EVE, when the whole Python shambles eventually crumble under the load, they just slow down time. I also think there is some Excel spreadsheet you are supposed to fill out prior to a battle so they can deploy some more Cython before that epic MMO experience. (I think EVE is great, it's just also a hilariously convoluted Python hack sending serialized objects rivaling XML in complexity over TCP. Not much leverage in that for other game types.)
- alasdair_ 10y ago
  >I'd wager that at any point in time WoW dealt with higher player densities than Pokemon Go, realms or no realms. How much are you willing to bet? I'd definitely take that bet.
elsonrodriguez 10y ago
EVE still uses sharding in a sense. One system cannot scale over more than one server. So when you jump through a gate or bridge, you are probably connecting to another server. This limitation shows itself when a system suddenly becomes the flashpoint for a ridiculous battle, and CCP has to scramble and move the system to a beefier server.
- yazaddaruvala 10y ago
  Totally true. If it came across like I meant EVE has no sharding mechanism, my bad. > One system cannot scale over more than one server. In this regard, Blizzard's dynamic realms are really interesting. Ideally, we can move to a world, where even single "systems"/"zones"/"areas" are able to scale horizontally. I have zero experience with it, so I don't know if it can practically scale to solve this problem, but http://www.paralleluniverse.co/spacebase/ http://www.paralleluniverse.co/spacebase/ has a really cool set of features that MMOs could take advantage of.

revelation 10y ago

Pokemon Go uses sharding called "the real world". The fact that it's technically one world is wholly immaterial. I'd wager that at any point in time WoW dealt with higher player densities than Pokemon Go, realms or no realms. Certainly higher data densities with VASTLY higher latency requirements. Of course in EVE, when the whole Python shambles eventually crumble under the load, they just slow down time. I also think there is some Excel spreadsheet you are supposed to fill out prior to a battle so they can deploy some more Cython before that epic MMO experience. (I think EVE is great, it's just also a hilariously convoluted Python hack sending serialized objects rivaling XML in complexity over TCP. Not much leverage in that for other game types.)

alasdair_ 10y ago
>I'd wager that at any point in time WoW dealt with higher player densities than Pokemon Go, realms or no realms. How much are you willing to bet? I'd definitely take that bet.

elsonrodriguez 10y ago

EVE still uses sharding in a sense. One system cannot scale over more than one server. So when you jump through a gate or bridge, you are probably connecting to another server. This limitation shows itself when a system suddenly becomes the flashpoint for a ridiculous battle, and CCP has to scramble and move the system to a beefier server.

yazaddaruvala 10y ago
Totally true. If it came across like I meant EVE has no sharding mechanism, my bad. > One system cannot scale over more than one server. In this regard, Blizzard's dynamic realms are really interesting. Ideally, we can move to a world, where even single "systems"/"zones"/"areas" are able to scale horizontally. I have zero experience with it, so I don't know if it can practically scale to solve this problem, but http://www.paralleluniverse.co/spacebase/ http://www.paralleluniverse.co/spacebase/ has a really cool set of features that MMOs could take advantage of.