The game has been running well in alpha so far, people have been enjoying it, builds are being shared, groups are interacting and people can meet any other player from around the world, all thanks to the global server/P2P system.
As wonderful as the upsides of the system are, I have a small concern about it and I thought it would be good to put it out there.
In short: the current system creates a lot of delay and lag between players.
Since everyone is in a different part of the globe, connection difference feels enormous, which can create multiple problems in regards to PvP and player interaction.
I have seen multiple cases of ships colliding weird, shots appearing to hit too soon after firing, or far too late, and just a general sense of jankiness in a lot of player to player interactions.
This, IMO, is a big problem for the future of the game. A lot of casual players who haven't been following this game for years as I have might feel turned off by the general connections jankiness present in the game currently.
I know Frozenbyte has been pretty clear on their wish to make one big server, but I was thinking what might help would be creating multiple smaller servers per region, just to let players play out with people from their country, their area, with minimal connection issues. You don't even have to scrap the global server, it could be the main server for the game, an all-encompassing melting pot of different people and different ideas. Regional servers could just tide up the difference for people who would rather not have a half-second delay for their interactions between players.
Of course, this is just a suggestion, I mainly posted it to bring up the idea and start a discussion, does anyone else have any thoughts?
As wonderful as the upsides of the system are, I have a small concern about it and I thought it would be good to put it out there.
In short: the current system creates a lot of delay and lag between players.
Since everyone is in a different part of the globe, connection difference feels enormous, which can create multiple problems in regards to PvP and player interaction.
I have seen multiple cases of ships colliding weird, shots appearing to hit too soon after firing, or far too late, and just a general sense of jankiness in a lot of player to player interactions.
This, IMO, is a big problem for the future of the game. A lot of casual players who haven't been following this game for years as I have might feel turned off by the general connections jankiness present in the game currently.
I know Frozenbyte has been pretty clear on their wish to make one big server, but I was thinking what might help would be creating multiple smaller servers per region, just to let players play out with people from their country, their area, with minimal connection issues. You don't even have to scrap the global server, it could be the main server for the game, an all-encompassing melting pot of different people and different ideas. Regional servers could just tide up the difference for people who would rather not have a half-second delay for their interactions between players.
Of course, this is just a suggestion, I mainly posted it to bring up the idea and start a discussion, does anyone else have any thoughts?