Dev statement about wvw rendering

[–]ArenaNetHabibArenaNet Programmer 155 points 1 hour ago

It sounds like they could make some efficiency gains and put the reporting back to a distance by loading a base model for each player in high-load situations. This would save the lookup for all the character customization, armor models, and weapon models involved, and increase performance for both the client and the server. Keep the base model in memory, and it will always be quickly available to display. Players wouldn't be able to see everyone else's fancy armor and weapons (until things quiet down and everything can load properly), but at least they'd be able to see each other. In the heat of battle, I want to see the enemy's position, direction, and animations. I'm not really interested in admiring their cool new dye job.

And you can't see their dye job anyway in WvW. They're Blue or Green or Red, right? This is my cool sig and it's in text because I love English! Dynometric Jones Natalia Rasputin

» Edited on: 2012-10-17 18:17:11

Are they? I haven't seen an enemy player in WvW for awhile, just their name plates. :P

There's a scene in Goodfellas where the main character is describing the whole wise guy attitude and it's become associated for eternity in my brain with whenever somebody tries to pass off on their obligations with a weak excuse. Goes something like... I'm sorry, we had to pay our mortgage this month. And the reply is, 'Eff you, pay me.' I kinda feel that way about this whole horrible situation with the character model culling in WvW. They had enough people on staff and stole enough of the design tenets from Dark Age of Camelot to realize that this would be a huge issue. This is not an issue that would/should have taken them by surprise. This is an issue that was most likely decided upon as something to be handled post release and right now it's just damage mitigation. Do I like it? No. But then again we still find our fun with WvW, it just adds an extra level of meta-game to it that really I'd be happy to stop dealing with. However, if this sort of thing goes on for a while it signals death to competitive pvp. The hard core folks for WvW won't deal with it for too long and then will start looking for the next new thing.

The frustrating thing is we've played games where they dealt with the issue (and every other issue GW2 is suffering). 2003's Lineage 2 (on the unreal engine) looked fantastic and handled big battles (and solved the hacked-account problems, but NCSoft never very much cared about bots as it's assumed in Korea that you'll use bots if you're competitive). Why's it feel like they're having to reinvent the wheel, when they're under the wing of a company that's done this stuff since the 90s? Anywho... hope they work it out.

It's good to hear an official statement come down the pipes about this issue...I wish there has been something more concrete time-wise, though. I don't mean an exact date, or anything like that, but 'we hope to have these updates completed sometime in the next week/month/year/millenia' would have been more reassuring.

I realized last night that I have to lower my rez for WvW otherwise the frame rate drops to a stutter in the biggest conflicts, otherwise it's not that bad. It'd be nice if there were presets..on everything. :)

I'm a bit surprised that they didn't go with a generic model that loads instantly and then based on a number of criteria the generic models eventually get replaced by more detailed models like Arowefell mentioned. I mean there had to have been a discussion at some point relating to this. Developer A: Ok, so how should we handle rendering a large number of players in WvW? Developer B: I have a great idea. Let's just not render them at all. Developer A: Er... Not even some generic, decently detailed model? I mean we could make it so there are maybe 3 or 4 generic models that render instantly so battle looks good still without taxing the bandwidth or client-side memory. Developer B: No, I'm thinking like... nothing renders. Just an empty battlefield. All sorts of pew-pew-pew going on and you don't know what's hitting you or if there's anything for you to hit. Developer A: Um... I don't know about that.. Wouldn't even ONE generic model that shows up for each enemy and ally be better? Developer B: No way man, totally invisible friends and foes is the way to go. We're doing the player a favor here, make them use their imaginations! POW! ERK! It'll be great! Developer A: Ok ok, how about a grey blob at least so they know something is there... Developer B: You're not listening to me are you?? Nadda! Zip! ZILCH! Show them nothing, they'll LOVE it! Developer A: You're a bit nutty aren't you? Developer B: PEWPEWPEW!! ZWINGBOWBOWBOOOOWWWWWWWW!!! POOF! Dead before they know it. It'll be GREAT! ZROOWWERRRRRRRROOOMP! Developer A: Uh... Developer B: MEOW!

haha that's great Kalizaar. *Now* we can understand how this came to pass.

I was going to say... they just need a default gray gumby stick man, but I see that Kalizaar already covered that ... heh heh However, I usually dont even get the nametags to render until 30 seconds into a fight. I think its about time to "mulch" my old laptop...

Glad you guys got a chuckle out of that. I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually and I don't seriously feel that their programmers are lacking in skill or anything. I just have these thoughts sometimes (as a programmer myself) when I encounter various issues in games that makes me go... Huh, this was their solution? And then I giggle a bit because I know it's always much more complex than what it first seems. :)

Personally, I think it would be hilarious if they'd load a base model of the proper race/sex, and put the armor and weapon model lookup and communication on a lower priority thread. It would be amusing, and solve some of the performance issues. The net effect would be hordes of naked characters on the battlefield, making shooting/casting/slashing motions at each other with bare hands. Like little kids playing pretend. It would be glorious, and maybe take a little of the ego out of WvW.

Or how about kittens! See a bunch of kittens pouncing playfully at each other.

It would be confusing if we were all cats. Maybe dogs vs cats vs ferrets.

The red team renders as sheets of paper. The blue team renders as pairs of scissors. The green team renders as rocks. Problem solved.

I had major fps issues originally but using the guide Anet put on their forums (tech area) i managed to go from 1 fps in large battles to 15 fps in large battles. The fps issue I think is a separate issue from the culling and is either related to my system not being up to spec or hardware specific issues as I know others have no fps loss in large battles but still have the culling issue.

key phrasing (in my own words) - Client reaction time. How fast can your computer process the info being thrown at it by the server? This they can't change obviously because not everyone has the latest and greatest tech. However, I know they work to aim at a level that works with the requirements they suggest. Then there is what kind of ISP connection do you have. Mine likes to *burp* a lot. ::chuckles:: And I bet they knew about this, but every game engine has its quirks with the code. Rift did the "birdcage" thing, but that still didn't help my computer as they changed things that made it run like a dog on my computer when before it worked pretty good. And you always have a battle with performance versus quality of game art. I bet they are working on this just like the post says and that they will figure it out. Having done programming myself in the days when life on a computer was simpler, it isn't that simple ever. ::chuckles:: Miss one little typo and things just aren't right if they work at all.

Isometric view Sprites is the answer I tell ya!

I had alot of trouble with drawing and loading characters in both WvW as well as in PvE (I would just see name plates floating around sometimes, or area effects on the ground. Even my turning my char during large battles would be so laggy. My husband picked up more RAM for our computers, and while I haven't tried the WvW, my PvE has improved immensely especially on larger battles.