Fractured Universe resumes
by Tony Richards · 11/28/2008 (8:55 pm) · 10 comments
Several years of development have culminated into this one moment... my fantasy game is finally becoming a reality.
I started with Torque back in 2001 and slowly but surely I've wrangled a bunch of C++ code into the perfect game engine.... in the end I wound up dropping Torque completely, but the path could never have been possible without using Torque as an interim engine.
One of the biggest problems hosting Fractured Universe was the significant amount of bandwidth required.
The default networking in Torque basically made it impossible to host an MMO game without significant rewrites... so, a couple of years later, I've successfully ported FracU to the new 0.3.0 alpha version of Zen Engine.
The fantastic new networking allows peer to peer updates with master server oversight, reducing bandwidth allocation to 1kbps per client.... significantly less than the 16 - 64kbps required by Torque.
I'm also pleased with the Zen Studio progress... forest paint brushes, incredible collaboration, fantastic tools for game editing... this is how Indie game creation should be.
Granted... 0.3.0 alpha screams "incomplete" and "bleeding edge"... but I'm definitely pleased with the progress.
Next month we'll see the finalization of the new networking and GUI integration.... I can't wait!
If you're interested in following the ZOSS + Fractured Universe progress, check out the IndieZen forums and download the latest 0.3.0 alpha installer.
I started with Torque back in 2001 and slowly but surely I've wrangled a bunch of C++ code into the perfect game engine.... in the end I wound up dropping Torque completely, but the path could never have been possible without using Torque as an interim engine.
One of the biggest problems hosting Fractured Universe was the significant amount of bandwidth required.
The default networking in Torque basically made it impossible to host an MMO game without significant rewrites... so, a couple of years later, I've successfully ported FracU to the new 0.3.0 alpha version of Zen Engine.
The fantastic new networking allows peer to peer updates with master server oversight, reducing bandwidth allocation to 1kbps per client.... significantly less than the 16 - 64kbps required by Torque.
I'm also pleased with the Zen Studio progress... forest paint brushes, incredible collaboration, fantastic tools for game editing... this is how Indie game creation should be.
Granted... 0.3.0 alpha screams "incomplete" and "bleeding edge"... but I'm definitely pleased with the progress.
Next month we'll see the finalization of the new networking and GUI integration.... I can't wait!
If you're interested in following the ZOSS + Fractured Universe progress, check out the IndieZen forums and download the latest 0.3.0 alpha installer.
About the author
I am the founder of IndieZen.org, a website dedicated to the Indie 2.0 Revolution where a number of Indie game development studios and individuals collaborate and share a suite of custom built open source game development tools and middleware.
#2
Pretty sure vSide and several other MMO's will disagree with the strength of your statement.
I definitely appreciate your energy and drive, but it would be refreshing to see a post from you that doesn't include disparaging Torque--you may have chosen to go another route with your development, but others come here for well informed advice--and statements like the ones in your posts and the one above are very misleading unfortunately.
For further discussion on general networking with Torque for various game types, please discuss here so we don't derail Tony's .plan.
11/29/2008 (7:35 pm)
Congrats on your progress--it's always cool to see people doing new things!Quote:
The default networking in Torque basically made it impossible to host an MMO game without significant rewrites... so, a couple of years later,
Pretty sure vSide and several other MMO's will disagree with the strength of your statement.
I definitely appreciate your energy and drive, but it would be refreshing to see a post from you that doesn't include disparaging Torque--you may have chosen to go another route with your development, but others come here for well informed advice--and statements like the ones in your posts and the one above are very misleading unfortunately.
For further discussion on general networking with Torque for various game types, please discuss here so we don't derail Tony's .plan.
#3
11/30/2008 (12:28 am)
Quote:With about 7 changes to the underlying code and a few adjustments to previously programmed parameters, you can easily serve 200 players with a decent network (not even a good one)--and that's more than Everquest serves even today per zone.Sorry to hijack the discussion, but in this case, why isn't it set as a default in the distribution?
#4
11/30/2008 (2:17 am)
I think it is important to remember that your 1kb may not be very adequate for twitch based gameplay...say a MMOFPS. 
#6
11/30/2008 (9:22 am)
Thank you for moving the derail to another area where it can be discussed. It's a great topic, but you're right. It shouldn't derail Tony's blog about FracU. Those who want to discuss it should head to the topic that Stephen posted.
#7
I didn't say you can't make an MMO game using Torque. I said that it was nearly impossible to host. Taking into consideration the audience reading this .plan, I don't believe that's a misleading statement. Do you?
Most of the people reading this blog probably do not have the kind of money to outlay for the hundreds of computers and the networking infrastructure required to publish a large MMO game.
Not all MMO games are as innovative as Fractured Universe... if you're satisfied with 200 players per zone and you can afford the bandwidth for a traditional client / server game then Torque works fine.
I wanted something more innovative... something that could be used as a sandbox for games, toys and even serve as the next generation 2d and 3d virtual worlds web browser. The requirements for Fractured Universe include seamless zoning and support for 10,000 players per cluster with only a 10mbps pipe.
So, in the end, I chose not to use Torque.
[edit - made nicer]
11/30/2008 (10:29 am)
Quote:With a couple more months of well informed architectural decisions and implementation, you can serve Torque across distributed servers and have as many players as you wish up to your main server farm input pipe.
I didn't say you can't make an MMO game using Torque. I said that it was nearly impossible to host. Taking into consideration the audience reading this .plan, I don't believe that's a misleading statement. Do you?
Most of the people reading this blog probably do not have the kind of money to outlay for the hundreds of computers and the networking infrastructure required to publish a large MMO game.
Not all MMO games are as innovative as Fractured Universe... if you're satisfied with 200 players per zone and you can afford the bandwidth for a traditional client / server game then Torque works fine.
I wanted something more innovative... something that could be used as a sandbox for games, toys and even serve as the next generation 2d and 3d virtual worlds web browser. The requirements for Fractured Universe include seamless zoning and support for 10,000 players per cluster with only a 10mbps pipe.
So, in the end, I chose not to use Torque.
[edit - made nicer]
#8
If your MMOFPS has RPG elements then you'd still need a server to keep track of statistics and for transaction support such as trading, leveling, etc, but otherwise my gut feeling tells me we'll be able to accommodate nearly pure peer to peer and just use the server to help with NAT punch through and a few other non-innner-loop tasks.
I'll post another .plan with actual numbers ZeeBall uses as soon as they become available.
11/30/2008 (10:41 am)
@Marcus - Azaezel, one of the guys working with the open source libraries of Zen Engine, is in the process of helping me make an open source version of this peer to peer networking and he's specifically targeting ZeeBall which is an MMOFPS game.If your MMOFPS has RPG elements then you'd still need a server to keep track of statistics and for transaction support such as trading, leveling, etc, but otherwise my gut feeling tells me we'll be able to accommodate nearly pure peer to peer and just use the server to help with NAT punch through and a few other non-innner-loop tasks.
I'll post another .plan with actual numbers ZeeBall uses as soon as they become available.
#9
Congrats on the progress
11/30/2008 (7:53 pm)
@Stephen, since when can people not be honest? If he had problems getting torque to do what he wanted he is only being honest. There is no rule that in order to post plans you have to be 100% in favor of torque. And with the many people who share in the same problems that he had with torque I don't think the statements are the least bit misleading.Congrats on the progress
#10
My concern was that the above is not a factual statement. Yes, re-tuning for an MMO does require good knowledge of the underlying networking, as well as fundamental understanding of the engine architecture, but it does not in any way require a "significant re-write".
As I stated in my initial post--it's awesome to see community members looking at, and if appropriate, taking alternate approaches and even different engines for their specific needs. We don't claim that Torque handles everything you could ever possibly want out of the box, and there are certainly scenarios and project needs that Torque doesn't fit trivially--but the tone of his message was very strong.
12/01/2008 (11:19 am)
Quote:
The default networking in Torque basically made it impossible to host an MMO game without significant rewrites...
My concern was that the above is not a factual statement. Yes, re-tuning for an MMO does require good knowledge of the underlying networking, as well as fundamental understanding of the engine architecture, but it does not in any way require a "significant re-write".
As I stated in my initial post--it's awesome to see community members looking at, and if appropriate, taking alternate approaches and even different engines for their specific needs. We don't claim that Torque handles everything you could ever possibly want out of the box, and there are certainly scenarios and project needs that Torque doesn't fit trivially--but the tone of his message was very strong.
Torque Owner Nicholas Bogart