Author Topic: Cutscenes should be preloaded to avoid server lag (Read 161 times)

SteveMaurer · « **on:** May 29, 2009, 02:09:13 pm »

Big caveat: if possible.

I was looking through the website and came upon this SS reimbursement request. The video card crashing isn't the important part. It's the part where someone losing a Soul Strand triggers a cut scene that then adds massive lag to the server - thereby endangering everyone else in the party. In this case there was a death (w/o SS loss) caused by the cut scene.

If you had full control of the code, it would be possible to avoid this by preloading the cut-scene on to people's computers. I don't know if, with the limited control you have over the NWN engine, this is possible. If not, please consider dropping the cut scene.

Dorganath · « **Reply #1 on:** May 29, 2009, 02:19:43 pm »

There's already something set to go for next time.

Oh and, we don't have that kind of control. There's nothing to "load" as such on anyone's PC. That's now how they work. The lag created is more local to those experiencing the scene directly rather than server-wide as the visual choreography is rendered on the client side of things. All the graphical resources are already on the client computers, so all that's really being sent from the server is what to place, where, when and associated cues like that. The game clients do most of the heavy lifting.

Anyway, as I said, there's already an adjustment in place for next time.

davidhoff · « **Reply #2 on:** May 29, 2009, 02:22:03 pm »

I agree the cut-scenes are a problem. Twice I have been wrapped in "the movie"; luckily both times I did not die, although I was in battle. They take you out of the game and are quite OOC as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure what purpose they serve and they impose a danger on other party members that is not agreed to before running with that particualar person.

My thoughts,

Tralek

//sorry I got this off before I saw Dorganath's post; thanks Dorganath

Dorganath · « **Reply #3 on:** May 29, 2009, 02:30:05 pm »

The "purpose" was to show a bit of a scene to commemorate the final death of a character with some lore aspects to it as well. Most times you do see it in combat (it's more difficult to die otherwise *winks* ), but part of the cutscene gets rid of all hostile creatures in the area. Sometimes, there is a delay between the start of the cutscene and when the creatures are destroyed. On rare occasions (granted, the cutscene is fairly rare itself), server conditions may cause the creatures to not be properly deleted, though again, this is very rare.

orth · « **Reply #4 on:** May 29, 2009, 02:34:50 pm »

There is only one cutscene. Its purpose was to illustrate the gravity of permadeath, commemorate that death and give hints to the role of the mother and the harvester. It worked great every time I tested, unfortunately I only was ever able to test it with at most 3 people. They are just not cut out to work very well over a multiplayer internet game unfortunately.

I'm not really sure why you'd consider them OOC, what happens in the cutscene is supposed to be a moment frozen in time. If they ran flawlessly I think everyone would agree they are a unique scene to focus on the final death, but alas a lot of opinion is based upon the bugginess of the event.

I had thought it was long removed or I would have removed it in the last update.

davidhoff · « **Reply #5 on:** May 29, 2009, 02:46:48 pm »

I have to admit the scenes are pretty entertaining and do add another dimenson to the game play. I'm all for them, as long as we don't have to worry about our characters getting killed while it's playing.

I considered them OOC because it takes you out of the "heat of battle", prevents you from seeing what is going on, doesn't allow you to heal yourself and allies, etc. But, as long we can feel safe about our characters while it's being played, I would gladly be ok with taking a break and watching the movie out of respect to my fallen comrad.

Tralek

Hellblazer · « **Reply #6 on:** May 29, 2009, 05:33:35 pm »

Well up to the team to decide, but to keep it IC you could take it as the soul of the decease last attempt to give something back to his fellows adventurer. As the soul is cut out of the body it releases it's essence and destroys those that would put harm to his/her friends in the immediate vicinity.