I miss server browsers. I remember (in the days before it completely turned to trash) when Black Ops 2 went to a lobby system, even on PC. It was the last CoD I ever bought. (I was gifted mw3 later, put like 4ish hours in and never went back)
Then around that time (I forget what year that was exactly, I wanna say about 2014) every other game started doing the same thing as that generation of console started to mature and really take off in the DLC world, and the land of MTX started to become an issue, choking innovation and value. Gone were the days of just buying a game and having it, and I’m came the era of splitting it up and charging for every little piece.
Personally, I’m completely against extra skins and cosmetics being sold at all, in any way, period.
Adding a huge chunk of a new campaign or new missions or something sure, but just buying different jpegs to slap over a gun model should be highly discouraged, if not outright illegalized. (insert obligatory “fuck capitalism”)
Anyway lemme get off my soap box. I forgot I still had that rage about how the industry went in that time period.
But yeah, official servers are fine, and even having a lobby thing is fine, but server browsers are how you build community in the games. Back then clans and guilds could rent (or own) their own dedicated servers that could set their own rules and such. You would find rules and maps and gametypes you liked and just hang out there, and organically get to know the other people that frequent that niche.
Now you just get randomized groups and (at least in my experience) rarely ever run into the same people more than once. I think this promotes anger and negativity, since (again, my experience) players rarely blame themselves ever, and if they have no emotional stake in treating the person at the other end of the connection, it turns into total blame game. Somebody will then leave in a huff (often in the middle of a game) and even the even tempered, relaxed players will get upset that “is happening again”. But if you (using the royal “you” here) know at least some of them, you tend to treat them as humans more often.
It’s just a better system overall.
I never felt like I formed a community on servers out of a server browser. I did get that years later on Discord. Matchmaking was always a far better experience, but the population will drop eventually, so you need the server browser.
Still waiting on that Linux version of Killing Floor 2 that they promised
Peer to peer shpuld at least be an option. Instead of shitting down games let the dedicated few who remain playing it support it.
Tripwire Interactive is the publisher. The article specifically mentions Deceive Inc.
Well, shit. Why’d we ever give that up???
Because publishers can’t shut down private servers to make you buy the latest entry.
Money. If you can host your own servers, you won’t be peer pressured to buy the latest skins.
P to P is potentially laggier, especially in farther-flung areas. It’s less secure, since the server is someone’s machine. So it’s easier for cheaters to do their thing. You also need to run a whole server alongside the client, so you need to leave a reasonable amount of perf overhead on your recommended machine that you could otherwise dedicate to just running the client.
That said, it’s cheaper to run and easier to maintain at EoL. So tradeoffs.
It isn’t laggier though… I mean anything has the potential to be laggy, sure. But if you’re in Europe, play on EU servers, if you’re on the US East Coast, play on East Coast servers. This isn’t rocket science.
It isn’t inherently less secure either, any server is someone else’s. In fact, I trust other players far more than I trust the publisher or whoever they’re contracting with for game servers. The players aren’t looking for additional revenue streams.
For most games, the performance hit for running the server is not significant. I think the majority of this post is pretty misguided.
Tbh that’s why community servers+p2p are the best options to have for a game - people are more than happy to host their own servers for friends and the public, and the dev doesn’t have to worry about perpetual infrastructure upkeep. Win-win.
Yeah, I missed that from the battlefield games, being able to join non dec hosted servers was the best of both worlds. Didn’t have to join a discord server to make a party but could still play on the same server enough to make friends.
Warframe’s multiplayer sessions are hosted by the players, and you can feel when the game is hosted on a Switch. The ping is consistent around 300 ms (which is not good, but about average for the EU region), but every action will have a second of latency and the enemies will constantly rubber-band around.
Wait they managed to cram hosting onto the Switch? That’s bananas. I don’t play in public most of the time so I’ve never experienced this.
The Switch port is handled by Panic Button, the same studio that developed the Doom 2016 port. It’s impressive work considering the hardware limitations, but the introduction of cross-platform play made the gap between it and other platforms impossible to ignore.
I keep thinking about jumping back into Warframe but feel intimidated whenever I open it. Got a fancy character I don’t remember how to play (Necros or something?), and I have no clue where to go once I’m in.
Any good resources for returning players?
Yep, that’s right. Thanks. :)
