ESO Megaserver Whitepaper

jdoe · May 2014

I've have a CS/ECE background, and I was told that Zenimax invented some new techniques as well implemented novel methods to make the megaserver approach work (such as a completely custom UDP layer as opposed to TCP, some novel graphics techniques, etc). I was just wondering if anyone was aware of a white paper or anything that discussed some of the more technical aspects of ESO's design (I'm not talking about gameplay or mechanics at all, but rather the more under the hood type stuff)?

I would greatly appreciate if we could try to avoid actual gameplay issues in this thread. I'm aware some of the community is upset with bugs/balance/lag/etc issues. That said, some of the more technical aspects underneath are very exciting, and I would just like to read about it. Moreover, they may provide us with some insight into what we can expect in the future, when these techniques are fully developed and expanded upon.

ShintaiDK · May 2014

I had to laugh. What they did was to make the client responsible for the wast majority of normally server calculations. Hence why all the exploits is so blatantly easy. The megaserver is barely much more than a proxy setup with an item database. You can even instant heal via the client only or add gold.

jdoe · May 2014

ShintaiDK wrote: »

The megaserver is barely much more than a proxy setup with an item database.

That's actually completely untrue. That said, even if it were, all I suggested is I would like to read about it. Go troll somewhere else.

SirAndy · May 2014

jdoe wrote: »

such as a completely custom UDP layer as opposed to TCP

I have to stop you right there.

Any multiplayer game worth their money using a client/server architecture (starting with Quake in 1996) has been using UDP instead of TCP.

In a high traffic client/server environment, UDP has untold advantages over TCP (if implemented correctly).
;-)

jdoe · May 2014

SirAndy wrote: »

jdoe wrote: »

such as a completely custom UDP layer as opposed to TCP

I have to stop you right there.

Any multiplayer game worth their money using a client/server architecture (starting with Quake in 1996) has been using UDP instead of TCP.

In a high traffic client/server environment, UDP has untold advantages over TCP (if implemented correctly).
;-)

Of course UDP has many advantages over TCP, that's obvious. And just because other servers have used a similar approach, that doesn't make theirs any less custom. That said, I'm not sure your assertion that all games since '96 have used UDP exclusively is correct, however that really isn't the point anyway. I almost didn't include any examples of differences, as again, the reason I'm asking is I don't know how they implemented it. I put that brief example just to show the types of differences I'm talking about (e.g. not minimal UI to WOW UI type differences).

I don't know how ESO was built under the hood, nor how it differs from other MMOs; and I'm guessing most of the player base doesn't either. Which is why I asked if there was a white paper on it.

SirAndy · May 2014

jdoe wrote: »

I'm not sure your assertion that all games since '96 have used UDP exclusively is correct

Probably because i never said that ...

I said "any game worth their money" (not my best English, btw.) which obviously excludes quite a large number of games.

At this point, i doubt ZOS will ever publish a white paper on their network architecture.

Especially since the whole "Hey, lets let the client make important game decisions and just have it sent the result to the server" debacle.

Epic fail doesn't even begin to describe that decision ...