Question to the devs: arenas and server meshing

How about using the server meshing for broadcasting arena fights to all arenas? This would let spectators and passersby to witness ongoing fights all day long regardless of their distance from the fighters. If no one from your node is fighting, then transmit any ongoing fight.

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Azherae

I fail to see what this has to do with server meshing, but I will be really happy to learn about how these two things are connected, if they are.

Intrepid Network Team, if somehow there's a sane subcomponent of your server meshing system that could reasonably lead to this, great job and I look forward to it too.

What are you even visualizing as the 'UI' for this, though, Arya? Do I have to be at my 'local' arena to watch it? Is it something I access in 'spectator mode' while not logged in?

Pendragxn

So basically, you just want a spectator mode for arenas? That could be cool! And maybe throw rotten veggies at the losers—just kidding, or am I?

Laetitian

I feel like all these arena threads (perhaps not this particular one, but the vast majority of them) should really be threads about open-world PVP and why players imagine it won't be good enough for them. So we can discuss how to change that instead of avoiding the subject and improving the coping mechanisms.

I don't necessarily mind public viewing ingame, but it should be restricted to a seasonal tournament event, not a constant or daily or weekly thing, otherwise it'll split up the community too much.

Pendragxn

Laetitian wrote: »

I feel like all these arena threads (perhaps not this particular one, but the vast majority of them) should really be threads about open-world PVP and why players imagine it won't be good enough for them. So we can discuss how to change that instead of avoiding the subject and improving the coping mechanisms.

Write the thread…

Arya_Yeshe

Pendragxn wrote: »

So basically, you just want a spectator mode for arenas? That could be cool! And maybe throw rotten veggies at the losers—just kidding, or am I?

Here's a guy who got the idea, also the server meshing tech saves performance

Pendragxn

I'm a big fan of spectating events, whether they’re large-scale or mid-small scale. I enjoy arenas, tournaments, and competitive battles with commentary and live broadcasts. I love watching guild vs. guild clashes, castle sieges, and any kind of strategic competition. It’s similar to esports, but I’m more into the larger or mid-size battles. That’s one of the things I like about Albion Online—they had AlbionTV, where you could watch all the big PvP, ZvZ (Zerg vs. Zerg), and territory fights live on Twitch. I also watch a lot of esports on Twitch; it’s great content to follow.

Ludullu

I'm also kinda confused as to how this would work in-game. If it's just a spectator mode for literally any arena in the game - I'd be the opposite of Lae. I want daily arenas to be viewable, but anything that's rare and more important should require in-person presence to be spectated, cause I want those events to draw people to nodes where the events takes place.

Laetitian

NiKr wrote: »

I'm also kinda confused as to how this would work in-game. If it's just a spectator mode for literally any arena in the game - I'd be the opposite of Lae. I want daily arenas to be viewable, but anything that's rare and more important should require in-person presence to be spectated, cause I want those events to draw people to nodes where the events takes place.

I obviously don't mind big in-person events either, the more important point I was trying to make is to avoid encouraging people to bum around at the arena all day, when they could be engaging in open-world PvP.
That's how open world PVP becomes less appealing in the first place. People not bothering to show up for it because there are too many other themepark attractions to be distracted by, and the whole server realm is just everyone doing their own thing separately.

People will spend their time however they feel like, but the more risk and cross-node interaction an activity generates, the more appealing the game should make it with rewards and glamorous bling. Encourage people to seek out allies and enemies in the field as a daily activity, not sit around doing 1v1s. You can do 1v1s or 8v8s on tournament day, or while waiting for the siege/war to start.

AidanKD

I definitely want physical arenas you can spectate! Although with instancing I feel like you wouldn't be able to "immersively" spectate a physical fight.

But what if we had regular tournaments with different rulesets? They could offer some sort of reward - allow your gear to be damaged so that it contributes to the money sink. I suggest tournaments because you could have a few arenas that you can float between to watch the fights. Would be a bit funny to physically sit in the stands though i'd want a good enough view! But I appreciate that spectating that way is probably more of a niche feature.

patrick68794

a possibility for allowing players to spectate an arena without physically being there would be having an in-universe "magic camera" (this might not work with AoC's lore, I'm not familiar enough with it to be able to say) and using render to texture to broadcast fights to specific locations like taverns in the same or nearby nodes with almost no performance cost. That way players would still need to travel to specific locations and encourage interactions to watch an arena fight but wouldn't all need to be on the same server node(s) as the fight itself (which even with server meshing is going to have to limit how many people could physically attend) to watch in person.

Laetitian

patrick68794 wrote: »

a possibility for allowing players to spectate an arena without physically being there would be having an in-universe "magic camera" (this might not work with AoC's lore, I'm not familiar enough with it to be able to say) and using render to texture to broadcast fights to specific locations like taverns in the same or nearby nodes with almost no performance cost. That way players would still need to travel to specific locations and encourage interactions to watch an arena fight but wouldn't all need to be on the same server node(s) as the fight itself (which even with server meshing is going to have to limit how many people could physically attend) to watch in person.

I think I prefer the watchparty stadium idea from the original post. Taverns would be too small to host a screen large enough to view from the character perspective. Unless you mean you'd click into a watch screen menu that would zoom in, in your UI, but that would defeat the purpose of render-to-texture. You wouldn't be able to move around and interact while viewing.

patrick68794

Laetitian wrote: »

patrick68794 wrote: »

a possibility for allowing players to spectate an arena without physically being there would be having an in-universe "magic camera" (this might not work with AoC's lore, I'm not familiar enough with it to be able to say) and using render to texture to broadcast fights to specific locations like taverns in the same or nearby nodes with almost no performance cost. That way players would still need to travel to specific locations and encourage interactions to watch an arena fight but wouldn't all need to be on the same server node(s) as the fight itself (which even with server meshing is going to have to limit how many people could physically attend) to watch in person.

I think I prefer the watchparty stadium idea from the original post. Taverns would be too small to host a screen large enough to view from the character perspective. Unless you mean you'd click into a watch screen menu that would zoom in, in your UI, but that would defeat the purpose of render-to-texture. You wouldn't be able to move around and interact while viewing.

Taverns were just an example, they could do this for any location. They could show it outside on larger "screens" or inside other buildings/locations. Render to texture would allow them to broadcast the fights anywhere across the mesh with basically zero performance impact. The idea really is that render to texture would provide a solution that wouldn't force players to congregate at the arenas while still encouraging them to gather (just in more locations) and could be more distributed across the game world, balancing the load across the mesh for a realm.

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