Nintendo. Or go to a PC, I don't buy this is about just consoles since a lot of this thread is bringing up Steam. Pay up or move on.
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I find it hard to accept the idea of paying for online multiplayer on consoles
- Thread starter ArtHands
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Nintendo. Or go to a PC, I don't buy this is about just consoles since a lot of this thread is bringing up Steam. Pay up or move on.
GhostTrick
Banned
Sorry but your exemple is just stupid and is just a PROOF of how consumers shape up the market.
Best exemple on that matter ? France.
We used to pay 60 euros during the ADSL 512K era per month with data cap. Today ? We're rocking 1Gbs no data cap internet, with TV and phone included for 30 and down to 15 euros during sales per month.
We used to pay 30 euros for 1 hour of phone and unlimited texts but limited internet data. We used to think 100 euros each months for everything unlimited was a crazy deal.
Today we pay like 15 euros for unlimited call/text/internet data up to 20GB with limited bandwith after cap is reached.
We have shiton better services with far lower prices, because consumers and competition shaped the market this way.
Your thinking is a gullible and submissive consumer behaviour.
"Sony and Microsoft charges up for a service THEY DONT PROVIDE ? Who cares, lives with your times, it's only 60 bucks a year". Thank god corporations have apologists to allow these scammy practices to keep going on.
Ah yeah, Nintendo's amazing online multiplayer that consists of Splatoon, Mario Kart and Smash Bros. Truly the perfect alternative when you just want to play Overwatch without having to pay again just so you can play the game
And yeah, this is about consoles, read the title again. Steam has only been brought up as counter argument to the "Well they have to make us pay to cover the maintenance costs!" line, because that's bollocks.
TheRedSnifit
Member
So are console players.
You do realize that your PS+ money does not go to EA to fund Battlefield 1 servers, right? You're playing for free as far as they're concerned.
If you want Overwatch go get a PC and play online for free, if the free part of MP is so important to you. Otherwise if playing the games is more important than pay up on PS4 or Xbox One. I never said Nintendo was a good place to go, but it is free which is apparently super important to some people.
We either can use Steam or not. You don't get to cherry pick Steam into the picture only when it suits your needs.
LordRaptor
Member
A dedicated server is inherently fairer; with two people of identical skill and reflexes, if one is the host and the other isn't, the host will always have the advantage in a matchup, as they are working from effectively 0 ping.
The ideal solution is of course the one pioneered by the forerunners of online multiplayer like Quake and UT, where you have "Server Browser" (streamlined to be matchmaking on consoles because someone at Ms once upon a time decided a list of servers was too confusing for console folk), "Host a game" and a seperate server-only version of the game for download that can be run by anyone to provide a dedicated server locally.
This is of course hugely at odds with modern business objectives, as a dedicated server wouldn't check if your online tithe is paid up, that you have grinded enough games to have your unlocks, perks and prestiges, and that you've bought all the DLC an season passes that comprise the bulk of that game, or be able to turn servers off when next years edition of that game comes out.
But in theory, best case scenario for consoles would be a free XBL / PSN download of [insert game name] server edition, that you can run on a spare X1 / PS4 as a dedicated server, and let people connect to it.
I believe a few PS3 titles offered this functionality. This was obviously pre-online paywall.
Hosting your own server can be effectively free if you have spare bandwidth and spare hardware capable of running the game in question (and given servers don't actually ened to run the entire game, 'capable of running' could be a laptop with shitty intel integrated graphics)
I agree 100% with your reply and I think its true that its a problem with customer mindset, this is also true and in the same line of thinking for performance problems ie: reactions to dishonored 2 pc performance problems vs TLG performance problems.
A little offtopic tho, what provider in france offers 1gbps? Im looking to upgrade from 300mbps orange to something better and I can't find any better option although I live right in the center of Paris.
Is this for real? Like, does this person actually believe this?
Let me clue you in, multiplayer pc gaming existed waaaay before any paywalls, battlefield for example had dedicated servers by the developer and offered dedicated server tools so you could host your own server on the server provider of your choice or at home.
GhostTrick
Banned
wonderful103
Member
Publishers are paying for servers whether that's on consoles or PCs. Your live and psn fees don't go towards third party dedicated servers. The fee you pay when you buy your game is going toward running those services. When it starts costing more to run those servers than the game is bringing in, those servers get shut down. This is also why games as a service is a thing.
The funny thing is, though, that many publishers just choose to put you on a p2p self-served system instead. And on console you still, hilariously, pay for this.
Again, live gold and psn aren't really paying for dedicated servers for your games. You're just conditioned to think so to feel justified in your wasted money. It's probably more likely that those fees are going toward paid dlc exclusive bullcrap. You also get to rent games that are generally part of a humble bundle (where you, you know, own them on pc). It's also, Unfortunately, a fact that a small percentage of those fees go to certain publishers who figure they deserve a piece of that, and you get absolutely nothing in return:
https://www.engadget.com/2010/11/12/bobby-kotick-on-the-business-of-call-of-duty-dlc-treyarch-inf/
Kotick said:
So keep on keeping on, but there is a reason many of us have moved away from the BS and gone to open platforms.
$60 does suck and if I could only play online without the extra crap (free games, online storage and other stuff) without paying, I would totally do that plan. However, I cant play PC games online knowing that people with a better PC (mine is OK) always have an advantage over me.
I wish i could be as careless as you.
But sure, if you can provide me the money for a decent PC for me and my 4 other buddies, we will gladly switch to PC and play with free MP.
As far as i am concerned, i am asked to pay 60 bucks for a service that used to be free with no improvements for that payment. You can be sure that i will complain about shitty practices like this.
LordRaptor
Member
I suspect those time limited DLC exclusivity deals that are all the rage are paid for with online tithe percentage points rather than straight up moneyhats, but have no real evidence for this.
e:
You're gonna have an increasingly bad time in an era of PS4Pro and Scorpios.
What about people with better TVs, sound setups, or more importantly connections?
Suburban Thug
Member
You know Nintendo's online infrastructure is a joke so that's not a valid solution. Also, having a "pay up or move on" mentality is really foolish in my opinion. If gamers took your advice Xbox would have gotten away with their DRM nonsense. Sorry but consumers don't have to shut up and take whatever scraps these multinational corporations throw at our feet with a big dumb grin on our faces. Change starts at the grassroots level and if enough people feel like they are not getting value for their money, we can make a difference by voting with our wallets. Social media and forums are also a great way to let your voice be heard. I just take big issue with the "be quiet and take what you're given or go elsewhere" argument.
GhostTrick
Banned
Thing is, there's an annoying compliance to corporations going on. Basically "If you don't like it, don't buy it", which is silly. What happened to the customer is king ?
Huge Succeeded
Banned
it's expected that this became a Console vs PC thread, but it's downright sad that it stayed that way
Nydius
Member
I can't help but feel he's trying to rile people up on purpose because I can't see how anyone could miss the point so badly. He latched onto the fact that Steam was being brought up but the fact is we could replace Steam with ANY of the PC gaming systems and the point would be the same.
Origin, uPlay, Battle.net; None of these charge me a subscription fee to use their service, paywalling their respective multiplayer game functions behind said subscription fee (edit: with exception to MMOs on Battle.net's platform, but that's an entirely different issue). We'd be having a much different discussion if they all charged separate fees for their platforms. THEN the concept of single console multiplayer fees would seem reasonable. But when I bought Titanfall on Origin on PC, all I had to do was download it and I was good to go... buy it on Xbox One and it was a coaster unless I dropped an additional subscription fee for access to the entire purpose of the game for only one year.
If it is more expensive to get a decent PC than to game on consoles and you still want to play Overwatch than look for a good deal and snag Gold or Plus at that time.
I get free games and additional sales since paying. You're complaining isn't going to change this gold mine.
Negotiator
Member
You still ignore lag compensation. Why?
Who told you that the host has zero ms? If the other player has 100ms ping, then you will always be 6 frames behind the action (for a 60fps game). Did you know that there are people who set up home-made servers and they purposely "nerf" themselves for the sake of ping fairness?
Why is a dedicated server fairer, even though it may be located far away? Have you heard of region hopping? Why do you assume that everyone lives in the UK or Germany or whatever? Companies do not deploy servers everywhere.
Server browsers were the norm before 360/PS3 came out. Achievements/trophies didn't exist in the Quake/UT era, hence no boosting.
Yeah, you're right, considering his new response, that guy is definitely trolling. He is ignoring the main point and is only responding to stuff he himself brought up.
Now i feel bad that i fell for it.
Ofc a host isn't going to have any latency, they're the host. You aren't behind if a client has a latency of 100ms, theyre behind 100ms. The server is the box that makes all the decisions, the client just sends to the server what it's doing (usually the case, netcode dependant).
For example, if you're the host and you shoot someone at the time as a client, and they're both one shot kills, then the server would receive the client doing so 100ms after you've just done the same action, so the host would get the kill and the client would die.
LordRaptor
Member
There is no need for companies to be the only providers of dedicated servers, other than the business interests that made those companies choose to do so.
I mean, you're literally arguing in favour of the setup the companies want you to have, because they gimped the solution that would be better for you precisely to make the worse option more appealing.
As I said, if there were business interests in letting consumers get the best option, you'd be able to run any game on any console as a dedicated server, which means if you want a fast local dedicated server you don't need to go via corporate cloud hosting, you could literally just leave your console on running a dedicated when you're doing something else on it like watching Netflix, and rely on others to do the same.
Not trolling, I'm honestly saying pay or go to another service. A few complaints isn't going to stop the money being made by these services. Too many gamers have bought in already.
I find it laughable that someone must be trolling if they are ok with paying the relatively small fee these services ask. "If someone doesn't align with my rally call they must be trolls."
supermarioworldE
Banned
After reading this thread, Im glad I never bought a PS4. I had no idea that Sony sold out as well, and with the massive influx of multiplayer games this gen, that's really absurd.
Negotiator
Member
You guys need to understand what lag compensation is and why it exists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EwaW2iz4iA
Host advantage is a myth.
You ignored the lag compensation part... okay.
I'd rather have a unified pool & ping-based matchmaking. Thank you very much. I'm not a fan of (pool) fragmentation and that's the norm in PC gaming because of "choices".
Regarding your idea, I always wondered why they don't utilize consoles to distribute content and thus have faster download speeds for everyone (kinda like BitTorrent). p2p isn't the incarnation of devil, it's a very useful technology, as long as it's properly implemented.
They could compensate people who seed content by giving them PSN/XBL credit... after all, Sony has to pay CDN companies like Akamai and Limelight to deliver content.
Acerac
Banned
Absolutely tons of people. The store I work at has sold out of 1 year subscription cards for Live and people are buying 2 6 month cards instead.
paperspace
Member
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LordRaptor
Member
Host advantage isn't a myth. Nor is bullshit like getting shot in the head while clearly behind cover thanks to lag compensation / interpolation, or people using lag switches on consoles to abuse that 'feature'.
Its a band-aid to compensate for the fact host advantage is real and inherently shitty for everynoe not a host, its not a - no pun intended - magic bullet fix.
Negotiator
Member
You're confusing lag compensation (ping equalizer) with the tick rate (low sampling results in getting hit behind walls):
I have plenty of links here if you're interested: http://feedback.naughtydog.com/foru...97-getting-shot-around-walls-and-behind-cover
TheRedSnifit
Member
"Ping equalizer"?
Are you implying that lag compensation is the game throttling your connection so everybody's on the same level? Because that's not actually what it is.
Lag compensation is when the host rewinds time to see what the client saw when they sent the command. This does indeed result in you getting shot behind walls.
Valve said:
Petrae
Member
In the video game industry, the "customer is king" ideal has been dead for years.
Most video game consumers just accept what the industry feeds them when it comes to additional fees and charges. Message boards (including GAF) are populated with people more than happy to defend these additional fees and charges against the loud minority who doesn't approve of them.
It's a little sad to see people just roll over and take it-- or even happily take it, as some posts here seem to indicate-- but it is what it is. We either accept what console gaming has become and soldier on, or we don't and find alternatives.
LukasTaves
Member
It's a strange thing when your argument goes to I don't think X is worth paying for.
People are entitled to, and usualy do pay more for convenience /better service all the time.
I care for simplicity, going into no more than a few steps and joining my friends in game and chat beats the hell of having to use separate apps and go through the hassle of seting up each session individually, and if the platforms that allows that charge for this convenience I will gladly pay for it if I think the price is right.
But it doesn't by it's very nature of openness. The fact that the platform is so open you can (and have to) use different stuff to get online already makes it an inferior solution when it comes to user convenience.
And that's not taking into account discoverability. Very often I set up a party with my friends or family and a friend of theirs seeing that we are in a party and playing a game join us and became a new friend to play with.
You can't have that on Pc, because even if you happen to have most of your friendlist in another chat app they won't see that you are in a gaming session call, not to mention that for sure you won't have no where near close to 100% of your friend list added in another chat platform so that discovery would be even possible however unlikely.
LordRaptor
Member
In the short term, maybe.
In the long term, due to inherent competition, the 'best' solution becomes the most popular one.
In a closed system, its a moot point, because everyone is on the same system, even if that system happens to be particularly shitty at whatever it is supposed to do.
Negotiator
Member
No. You're also confusing lag compensation with the tick rate."Ping equalizer"?
Are you implying that lag compensation is the game throttling your connection so everybody's on the same level? Because that's not actually what it is.
Lag compensation is when the host rewinds time to see what the client saw when they sent the command. This does indeed result in you getting shot behind walls.
Tick rate = the amount of sampling (Hz) for player movement
Lag compensation = rewinding back in time, which is entirely dependant on other players ping (higher ping = more lag compensation)
It doesn't matter if you have ZERO milliseconds because your IP address is 127.0.0.1 (localhost). If someone has 500 ms, then you will always be 30 frames behind the action (for 60fps games).
The only way to have almost zero lag compensation is to organize a LAN party. Are you going to complain about p2p/host advantage in that case? No, because everyone will have <1ms ping, which also results in zero lag compensation.
Internet is inherently unreliable for the most part and people love to spout buzzwords they barely understand (host advantage). Host advantage is contradictory with lag compensation, since you cannot have both at the same time!
LukasTaves
Member
Not quite, in a p2p match there's no single server, on consoles you usually see a player acting as a host.
TBH I don't even know if there's a single actual p2p mp game on consoles EDIT: Except for games that sync logic, like halo coop campaign or fighting games.
The vast majority of online games are peer-to-peer or player-hosted.
For example, the game I played most online this year is Dark Souls 3. On a console, I'd have to pay an arbitrary fee (to Microsoft or Sony, not Namco-Bandai or From Software) to do so, on PC I don't have to pay anything, and neither did anyone else.
I've also played a lot of Grim Dawn. That's self-hosted. And tons of other coop games like Raw Data, or Arizona Sunshine. All of them either self-hosted or peer-to-peer.
So I'd say that in the vast majority of cases that poor third party paying for all thse server expenses is entirely fictitious.
hooijdonk17
Member
Just when I thought I had truly heard it all, this thread continues to amaze me with bullshit.
Negotiator
Member
I love it when uneducated people try to correct me. That's cute.
Just when I thought I had truly heard it all, this thread continues to amaze me with bullshit.
hooijdonk17
Member
I love it when idiots assume my level of education. It reminds me to use the ignore list function.
Negotiator
Member
Feel free to do so. It's your loss.
You're the idiot that ignores all the evidence I posted though.
to take it further, halo (up until 5) only synced button presses
edit: in campaign and firefight. MP was client/server.
LukasTaves
Member
The best solution will always vary from region to region, and in periods of time. For instance right now I gather that discord is very big on gaf. But not a single one of my friends use it, they still use good old skype for party chatting when gaming.
And, some issues will never go away unless both platforms make a deal or something, even if someone develop a super thin chat client that has 0 delay, great voice quality and uses almost no bandwidth, it wouldn't still integrate into your gaming friends list nor would they would be able to join a session look at you on steam.
If such thing happens, either by Valve tackling on the problem on its own, or by making a deal with a chat provider, it will start to become a closed platform, for a real example, that's kinda of what ms is trying to do with the xbox app on pc, but I don't say that is a bad thing, because due the nature of pc it will always be a choice, even if that choice is to use a closed system.
I probably should have specified "does anyone on GAF...", because I like to think (most of us) are aware it's cheaper online &/or like to look for the best deal when possible. Unfortunately, and I wish we could, but we can't stop the uninformed from paying full price for something they could get almost half off elsewhere. In your case, doubling down on the 6 month cards.... jesus christ, that's insane!!
Duly noted.
BigSoftieFF
Member
Pretty sure that was the whole point of the thread.
ViolentP
Member
I think the irony here is that it should be about something PC gamers and console gamers should have alike.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Standing ovation!!!!
TheRedSnifit
Member
"You're totally wrong, lag compensation isn't rewinding back in time. It's actually rewinding back in time!"
Is there anything wrong with what was in my post? If so, you might want to email Valve's network programmers and tell them they've been getting it wrong this whole time.
So basically, the player with zero ping and the player with 500 ping are going to be on a level playing field? The player with 500 ping will absolutely not be at a disadvantage?
My post literally had an illustration for you. The space between the character model and the red wireframe is the lag caused by high latency. The space between the red wireframe and the blue wireframe is the "lag" caused by the tickrate. Which one of those looks more dramatic to you?
And it is, so what is your problem exactly? They are not as cheap as they used to be, but it's not like prices have gone up as much as you claim in midrange.
Why wouldn't you buy a GPU with less RAM if it's cheaper and more suited for your budget?