Player Housing Visitors Cap

Sanguiness130

I'm doing this out of curiousity to see how many people here think the amount of visitors in houses should be raised?
I run an RP tavern on the EU Server, and it's getting ridiculous that even if I upgrade to a larger house (from 12 players to 24 players) I will still be faced with the same problem - and not to mention that people come to my place (The Cruel Heart, as it's known in RP) like it because you can look around and see where everyone is, rather than having to walk around a house looking for people to mix with.
I really think that they should upgrade it, or at least have the option to upgrade it by ten or something.

Who thinks the same? Let me know your thoughts!

WaterBearer

Yeah, this has been mentioned time and time again by housing and RP enthusiasts alike. Although I was told it would be difficult to make happen bc of the instancing limits ZOS currently has? Can anyone with more relevant knowledge deny or confirm?

ghastley

There may be a decent case for medium houses with large house limits for the tavern situation you describe. Would you be prepared to trade something else for it, such as furniture slots? Maybe we could persuade ZOS to add specific tavern housing that has a higher visitor count at the expense of another attribute that takes the same server load.

Tavern may be a bit to narrow a description here, of course. Maybe "meeting house" describes it better.

Woefulmonkey

This is a 'Technical' and 'Practical Monetary' issue not a 'ESO' is lazy or hates us issue.

Houses are 'Instanced' meaning they don't run on the main game servers. (I am not going to argue that point with people who don't believe me as it is clearly obvious.)

There are 3 ways instancing occurs:

1.) Peer to Peer meaning some 'Players' hardware is used as a 'Server' and other players connect directly to their system as clients. The 'Provider' in this case ESO only has to act as a 'Directory' to help players connect to each other.

2.) Dedicated servers, meaning the Provider in this case ESO would spend their own money to buy a bunch of servers and any time a player wants to 'Go Home' or any player tries to 'Visit' someone home a server is assigned from a pool and then it must remain assigned until 'Everyone' leaves that home.

3.) Dynamically Assigned Cloud Servers..... This is a relatively new thing, and the only company I know for sure has done something like this is the team that created TitanFall. In this case the Provider (ESO) 'rents' services from a cloud provider who spins up new servers as needed. As with the 'Dedicated Server' option any time a player wants to 'Go Home' or any player tries to 'Visit' someone home a 'New' server is 'Created' and then it must remain 'In Existence' until 'Everyone' leaves that home.

Supporting option 2 (dedicated servers) means spending tons of money on hardware up front to ensure you 'always' have enough servers to support 'ALL' customer needs...

with knowledge that over time those severs will go 'out of warrantee' and need to be replaced and they will need regular maintenance...

In order to support 'More Player' per house they must buy more and more expensive hardware...

To get say 100 players in the same house would probably require a server almost as powerful as the main game servers and they would need them not just for ever player who has a house but for every 'house' that 'exists'...

which means you incur ongoing hardware support costs. (MONEY MONEY AND MORE MONEY!)

Supporting option 3 means you don't have to 'Buy' hardware up front or manage that hardware...

Which is good but you still have to 'Pay' for the 'Rented' hardware and you have no real control over how much customers will use it...

So... if you don't pass that cost on to customers which ESO clearly has not... it means you are signing up for a total unknowable monthly bill...

In order to support 'More Player' per house ESO must rent more expensive system resources from the cloud provider...

And again.. to get 100 players in the same house would probably require a server almost as powerful as the main game servers and they would need them not just for ever player who has a house but for every 'house' that 'exists'...

Additionally cloud servers are a new things and if you don't manage them correctly you can end up paying more for them than you would have spent buying your own hardware.... (MONEY AND MONEY AND MAYBE MUCH MORE MONEY!)

That takes us to Option 3....

You don't have to 'Buy' hardware up front or manage that hardware... since it is owed and managed by the player.

You don't have a monthly bill you have to pay to 'rent' the hardware needed... since it is provided by the player

But... if you use that solution you must plan on making your 'service' work with the 'lowest' possible hardware specs you allow your customer to have....

Which in turn means you are severely limited when it comes to allowing 'mass' network connections between Peers.

With that in mind what do you think ESO and Most providers do?

Now... Assuming they 'Did' choose option 1 and are using a Peer to Peer instancing solution... they can't easily up the 'Visitor' counts for houses...

It may be possible with some really creative and good network code... but that is a lot harder to come by than people think...


OK... But What could they do to provide some kind of 'larger' group experiences?

They could give players a kind of 'Meeting' hall that player could join and use 'Text' chat and even see their Avatars...

BUT... those Avatars would not be allowed to move or interact with the 'House' in any way...

Essential they would give you interactive chat stream with a limited visual overlay...

That itself would probably be somewhat expensive to design... but is probably doable with user hardware even with lowest specs.