I love competitive multiplayer games. I’ve yet to put my finger on exactly what it is but there’s just something unexplainably awesome about going head to head with other human opponents around the globe while enjoying my biggest hobby. Maybe it’s the competitive nature I have, or maybe I just like to gauge my skills against other players but for me, multiplayer gaming is an experience like no other.
Like most gamers, I play to have a good time but my enjoyment in multiplayer primarily relies upon the success that I have while playing. When it just doesn’t feel like it’s going right, it can be a very frustrating experience. I tell you this so you’ll hopefully understand where I’m coming from when I confess to breaking multiple controllers over the past decade. Why would I do that? Because sometimes, multiplayer games just aren’t fair.
When I say unfair, I don’t mean that someone is using a weapon that is too powerful or that some aspect of the game is being abused. Granted, that stuff happens but I mean the game is quite literally, unfair. Anyone who has played a Call of Duty game online (specifically Black Ops) probably knows what I’m talking about. Let me walk you through a scenario that I see happen all too often.
I’m hauling ass around a corner with my favorite firearm in hand. Low and behold, an enemy appears in front of me. I aim down the sites of my gun and reign down hell fire on him. I see the barrel of my gun pointing straight at his chest. I fire off a solid 5-6 rounds, yet the hit detector doesn’t go off a single time. In the time it takes to do this, he realizes I’m there, turns and pounces on me without so much as a scratch on his camouflaged face. Controller-breaking rage, initiated.
This doesn’t happen all the time and sometimes I’m even the recipient of kills that I know I shouldn’t have been able to collect, but it still pisses me off to no end. For most players, I think the most frustrating part about that kind of scenario is not understanding why that occasionally happens. Last week, a video hit the web that inspired this piece. A YouTube user by the name of ‘WhaleMasher’ posted a video online in an attempt to explain what lag really is and how if affects your ability to play against other users.
This kind of lag is more prevalent in games that use a ‘peer to peer’ connection (or P2P). P2P means that an individual person that is participating in the game is hosting the match, rather than a server. When an individual is hosting a game, the information packet of you firing a bullet has to travel all the way to his network and back. Granted, with internet speeds being what they are these days, this may only take a quarter of a second (or less) but when playing on a live battlefield, that quarter of a second is the definitive difference between life and death.
The game used for this demonstration is the multiplayer juggernaut, Call of Duty: Black Ops, which uses a P2P connection. Essentially, the video walks you through a handful of kills from the perspective of both the host of the game, and another player that’s not hosting. You can clearly see that what’s happening on both screens is different. Traditionally, the person that is hosting sees everything just a bit before everyone else does, meaning that this person will likely have an unfair advantage over any player that they come across.
Treyarch has taken steps to try and ensure that this kind of lag is compensated on both ends in an attempt to make things as equal as possible but as we saw from the video, that doesn’t always happen just the way it should.
This leads us to the next step in this discussion; server-based games. In my highly uneducated opinion, server based games are the way to go for competitive multiplayer. They’re designed to be even and provide the most consistent experience possible. Sure, your connection still has to communicate back and forth with another network but in theory, everyone has a similar distance to travel which should make for a level playing field.
But that’s just the beginning of the benefits that servers provide. In most cases, a server based game is easier to balance because the developers have complete control over the servers that are hosting the games. Not to mention that servers can handle huge amounts of players, where as the max for a good P2P connection usually caps at around 16-18.
Also, if one player is lagging on a P2P connection, it has the chance to affect everyone in the room. When you’re playing on a server, it will likely only affect the one player, and maybe anyone else that he happens to stumble across. Another benefit of servers is that you don’t have to deal with the inconvenient hurdle that is ‘host migration’. If a player should happen to quit mid-game while playing on a server, it doesn’t really affect anyone else, other than the fact that there’s now a hole that needs to be filled with a new player.
Granted, I’ve never seen a comparison like this for a game that uses dedicated servers but based on my personal experiences, I don’t run across nearly as many kills that seem quite so fishy. The two games I’ve played the most that don’t rely on P2P are Killzone 2 and MAG. I can honestly say that if you combine my time with both of those titles, the number of matches I’ve seen lag in can be counted on one hand.
So why don’t we see more server based games? My guess is mostly because of cost and maintenance. I assume it’s a fairly pricey ordeal to get everything up and running and the amount of time spent tending to the servers after a game launches has to be substantial. I honestly don’t know enough about what it takes to get multiplayer set up on servers to go on any further but if it were easier and/or cheaper than using P2P, why wouldn’t every developer be doing it?
In the end, this discussion leaves me with one glaring question. Would I ever pick a multiplayer game that’s hosted by a physical server over one that uses a P2P connection? After seeing this example, I have to say yes. What about you?
DR-DAVROS
Played codbo last night and have to say I found it very frustrating with the lag. I think because of the success I’ve hadwith the kz3 beta it’s highlighted it evenmore. Im thinking of trading it in to be honest.
Have to look into the 2mb upload for virgin someone mentioned above. As moth 9th march I’m moving off BT a stable 3mb but no infinity in area. To virgin 30mb.
Dr-davros
cc_star
CoD does a good job of highlighting it, because its so popular so more people talk about glitches, problems & other stuff
The worst lag I’ve seen is LBP – I’ve never had a successful MP game without people pinging around the screen making coordinating multiplayer mechanisms impossible.
Uncharted 2 I’ve always found had a lot of problem when it was the full 5v5.
I honestly found BlOps one of the best P2P hosted, even on the big games which must be quite a strain on the hosts upload there must be some seriously good coding going on, although some of the problems people report may indicate this is not the case, although I’ve not personally seen any problems outside of launch weekend.
Of course you can’t beat dedicated servers which is how I’ve spent the past 2 years playing Warhawk – on the official servers with 32 players.
dedicated is great – but would I be willing to pay for it? Maybe on one game (one that I’d get into & play for a couple of years), but I certainly wouldn’t be paying to play more than one game & I’d happily make-do with p2p based gaming, which on the whole is good given its pricetag.
AG2297
I *think* Warhawk had/has a mixture of both. So you have dedicated servers which you can play on, or you can go ahead and host your own. I am hoping they do the same for Starhawk, or whatever it might be called!
cc_star
Warhawk’s dedicated ones [image]
They’re highlighted blue in the list, as opposed to white for p2p hosted ones
AG2297
Yeah that was it! Forgot they highlighted blue.
Hopefully Lightbox Entertainment will continue to use some dedicated ones for their new game.
nerdlegend
For ages i wanted to sign up to here now have
First things killzone 2 did not use dedicated servers ;)
It used P2P but not the standard host P2P but a cluster system. GG said it was a hybrid with dedicated servers being used for stats and recording games.
Sadly GG not release any information on it other then that.
P2P gaming can provide the same results as dedicated servers. The problem is that if the game allows unstable clients you can get problems. Which is what COD does i played COD on one bar due to my ISP saying at 5 cap time. Yet the game never kicked me other games have kicked me. This hints of a serious problem which allows laggy clients in games etc.
BC2 used dedicated servers however once dice allowed non stable clients on EU servers it got laggy ;)
Sooo
What am saying is dedicated servers are not always needed what needed is a system which keeps unstable clients out.
However that would mean some users complaining of never being able to connect to a game. That not good for your forum no ?
Simple way out to remove all the measures to stop lag in the first place.
It saids alot for COD only just to have client filters in black ops don’t it ?
Client filters btw stopped US clients from connecting to EU games which was not stable enough ;)
PC gaming dedicated servers only work because it does not allow unstable clients into games and bans them. Simple as
Deathbrin
That is why PC wins. Dedicated servers.
TURRICAN-808
I would happily choose EA’s BFBC2 over Activsions’s Black ops. Reason, more reliable connection…..i remember watching an interview with a developer from DiCE studios, he explained that their servers can map abd trace every bullet, grenade or tank shell to maximise hit detection. Its because they use dedicated servers…
m61726b
More than just the P2P system your connection has a lot to do with, have 1Mb up 6Mb down and 50ms ping anywhere in the UK. But, still get bad lag. The quality of your connect matters, many speedtest websites calculate this for you. One of the major issues with my Virgin connection is their slow DNS servers, now use OpenDNS. Also thrown away the crappy router they gave me too.
Saying all that, dedicated servers still have issues, not just cost. This is why PC players can spend 100 quid on a LAN card and that again on a router. On the console platforms, they are better than P2P if your playing in your region. I’ve played on US servers on Killzone and had lag, to be exepted but still laggy and no different than get a US host on P2P.
heywoodstock
Good read, I barely ever play online anymore, not because of the issues but because I don’t have time and I much prefer co-op or a single player experience. That’s just me though, you bring up some interesting points in the piece above, I think they’ll be extremely relevant to anyone who does enjoy online games, thumbs up.
TSBonyman
I rarely play online but found the article interesting. I’m guessing a central server based system is better able to compensate for the range of connection speeds/ping that different players have? Perhaps as internet connection speeds improve the viability of P2P will increase also.
Michael
This is why I am rubbish at online games. I have more lag than anyone else.