Would you be interested in a cloud server?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Strawberry, May 10, 2020.

  1. Strawberry Augur

    Hi,

    People get (rightfully) upset about other players employing 3rd party programs to cheat in the game.

    On a cloud server these problems don't exist. None of the code is available to cheaters, all a cloud server does is send a stream of images to the client, not much different from how Netflix works.

    Cheaters no longer have access to mob location, zone layout, health bar info, because no game code is sent or installed on the user's PC.

    Cloud services have been running for years and they seem to be immune to hacks. While it is technically possible to use AI to analyse screen images, mob distances, health bars and zone layout, this would be more challening than developing self-driving cars, especially in 3D games, it is (at least currently) not within the real of possibilities.

    If a cloud server would guarantee that there are no hacks possible whatsoever, would that entice you to play on it?
  2. Duder Augur

  3. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur

    If it kept the game play legit, sure.
  4. Dewey Augur

    How much would it cost for these games? How many players could daybreak support on one server? It sounds cool, however, can I still change up my ui(default is horrible I like all my bags open)
    minimind likes this.
  5. Moege Augur

  6. Tucoh Augur

    High latency, high bandwidth, compression artifact EQ from a company that has poor uptime after twenty years of operation, only so we have no hacks and less capable bots? No thanks.
  7. Nadisia Augur

    Interested in a cloud server, and cloud gaming for EQ1 ?

    Short answer : no.

    As Moege said in the other thread (linked in his post just before this one), with cloud gaming :
    • Bye bye personal UI
    • Goodbye log analysis (G.I.N.A, Gameparse, etc) if they don't provide the logs in real time.
      And if they do provide the logs ... well, back to square one :p, it won't fix anything, because with a «simple» log parser, you can automate A LOT of things.
    Any small standalone app coded around very simple and common script languages can analyze the logs in real time, and interact with the hardware client-side (if we can call this a client).

    And as Moege said (again hehe), cloud gaming is a bandwidth pig and this is probably the main issue.

    With the old classic client-server technology, the data stream is very minimal , small packets here and there, and we're able to play the game with a relatively crap internet connection.
    Remember, we were able to play EQ on 56k dial-up «zoing-&-tswong» noisy modems.

    Now, with cloud gaming, and video streams ... if you're not on fiber internet, good luck, because it's crap.
    Imho, forcing cloud gaming on an antique game like EQ1 would kill the subscriptions.

    So definitely, no.
    If one day, they decide to go with this bad move, I'll stop my subs instantly and probably install an emulated server on my own lan.

    In my personnal case, internet speed is not an issue, I'm on fiber, but atm the technology is not really convincing (yet).
    I've tested Shadow, Stadia (a good laugh on this one), and Gforce now (by Nvidia, this one is ok) and frankly, our good old client-server technology has still a bright future ahead.
    Cloud gaming is not ready to kill it.
  8. MyShadower All-natural Intelligence

    I cannot understand why machines created and controlled by humans would be immune to hacks. Those breaches we hear about only make me wonder what we do not hear about. Information security is often not made a high priority for information systems.


    No right-minded business is going to actually guarantee this in some way that compensates you. It would also make them a more enticing target as it is just issuing a challenge.

    The state of AI is definitely not covered well in that thread. The tasks that have been accomplished with AI are taking leaps, not merely steps. Specifically, self-driving cars and the issue of being able to understand a scene was stagnant for nearly 10 years until machine-learning was applied to it.

    AlphaGo beat the best human player at that ancient game and simultaneously stunned with how it approached the game. Essentially all it did was begin playing with the perspective that it only needed to win by 1. The moves it was making confused a lot of people and even the people working on it thought it may have broken somehow as the system calculated the moves it was making to be extremely unlikely to be made by a human player. A newer version of that system then beat the old system 100 games to 0. The original event woke China to the fact they were very far behind in AI technology and triggered them to commit to huge investments to become the world leader in AI technology, by 2030.

    Even an AI of a child's intelligence is incredibly impressive as learning is fast becoming no longer exclusive to living things. Google has shifted their focus to "solving intelligence" and using that to solve everything else. The state of AI is rapidly changing and there is a lot of power already available in free software and relatively cheap hardware.

    All that aside, using AI to repeatedly kill stationary or slow moving targets in a very limited area by watching a video stream is probably overkill. Neat though.
  9. Tucoh Augur

    The most advanced game AI in existence is Fishmonger that looks for a bobber to move in WoW :D

  10. Whulfgar Augur

    With this type of server, You would be history I bet ?

    Considering you won't be able to utilize outside game programs to assist you.
  11. Tucoh Augur

    Huh? It wouldn't impact me any differently than another person playing without outside game programs, because I don't do anything with the game's information besides perceive it and make decisions myself.

    I make heavy usage of GINA triggers that go through the log file that wouldn't exist here unless I created one with some basic OCR. I also have a larger resolution than most, so the required bandwidth would be higher than some person playing on a 1920x1080 or whatever resolution, but it still wouldn't matter that much.
  12. Nadisia Augur

    I don't know what Tucoh is using, so I won't answer for him, but if you're talking about legit boxing tools (like IS bxer) which only broadcasts keypresses, it won't be hard to do the exact same thing for cloud computers.

    You know, you can use hardware multiplexers (expensive ones, like the old VETRA products, or cheap ones found on Amazon).
    You can even build your own with a Rasp Pi, Arduino microcontrollers, and a little bit of electronics tinkering for a handful of dollars.

    That way, it's not hard to broadcast what you want to multiple cloud sessions if you want.
    In fact, it's exactly the same as dealing with multiple game sessions on one (or 2, 3 etc) computers.

    But if you're talking about the nasty M Q stuff, yeah, in that case, you're right, it won't work anymore because it needs some memory access to inject its stuff.

    But for classic boxing, cloud computing won't change anything.
  13. Tyreel Augur

    You think server lag is bad now wait until you try to raid at prime time on a cloud based server with the current conditions keeping more at home than usual.

    I don't want a server where the only ones that can mass box are those lucky to have 200mbps~gigabit internet.

    Everyone drastically over estimates the availability of actual real broadband internet in the US. A cloud server just out of data needs would exclude many users, add to that many may be able to meet the connection needs but having anyone else wanting to watch even a 720p highly compressed video while they are playing means crippling lag or link dead. ISPs that normally have data caps are another issue, some of those ISPs the bill would double to go from a data cap plan to an unlimited plan.

    My house only has 3 people in it but if we had a 4th that would like to use the internet during
    eq play time i would never be able to play on a cloud based server and i have the fastest most expensive package available, a much more expensive faster business package doesn't exist. They recently upgraded my area one of the techs said at least 10 years for fiber and the competing ISP with much worse service has gone bankrupt. I live 15min from a major government complex, 20min from a university, and 45min from a major university and i still have this lack of internet.

    TLDR: US internet infrastructure sucks major #@$.
    Whulfgar likes this.
  14. Whulfgar Augur

    It was for I s b o x e r
  15. Whulfgar Augur

    Your autofollow is one key aspect that is better then in game's auto follow aspect. They hug the toon they following as opposed to staying waaaaaaaay back .. as they follow.

    I'll double check the website for I S B O X E R .. but I thought there was more that would be effected other then just the autofollow, however I may be wrong.
  16. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur

    This sounds more like an argument against Denuvo. No matter the positives or unaffected, a certain group of people will complain and even slander it saying how it will ruin performance among other things, even though it does not on a lot of the cases and then threaten to take their money else where, even though a lot of those threatening don't pay for games anyway. ^^!

    I am not accusing anyone here, I just thought the parallels were interesting. ^^! If what others were saying that it does severally limit the performance of the game, then obviously don't use it. I do not think cheaters and hackers in this game on a regular server really do anything anyway. Unless on a PVP where life and death between players actually count, I can not see them doing any real harm to the EQ community.

    And what is possibly harming the EQ community can easily be dealt with by the admins and DMs of the game if they so choose. Either through videos sent to them and them following up or actually taking the time to "poof" in and "poof" out. And most of that is simple griefing, purposely manipulating the prices of certain items and what ever breaks the rules of EQ.
  17. Tucoh Augur

    I use the ingame autofollow. Inner space boxer is a tool to manage display windows and send key presses from one EQ instance to another on the same PC, that's it. It would not be impacted by a cloud based service except that the service would suck so nobody would use it :D
    Pawtato likes this.
  18. Zalamyr Augur

    I feel like people supporting this don't really understand how cloud gaming works and the implications it would have for EQ.

    The short answer is no, I wouldn't want this. And neither would you after you tried playing on it. Nor could they ever, ever afford to do this. They can run the game servers on some hamster wheels right now. The bandwidth and processing power they'd need to be rendering and compressing video in real time to send to a remote client is literally tens of thousands of times greater than what they currently require. It would be enormously expensive.
  19. Nadisia Augur

    Honestly, it's not a rant, nor a libel, but just a fact.
    It's exactly the same with video on demand, or streaming : if you don't have a (really) good internet, it sucks.
    And Tyreel is right, it's maybe hard to believe, but US internet is overall pretty crap :D

    I'm not american, I live in EU, and some EU countries have way better internet than USA.
    It's even incredibly good in some new emerging countries like Croatia, Serbia, Romania.

    And on top of that, don't forget that a lot of people still play EQ on old toasters. :)

    Sadly, for now, Tucoh is right about high latency, high bandwidth and compression artifacts (even on pretty good systems).

    Test it by yourself if you don't trust me. ;)