The MMORPG Ashes of Creation presented its “Server Meshing” technology in a stream on July 3rd. This is the technological innovation in the MMO genre that enables a massive, simulated world with thousands of simultaneous players and is one of the big promises of Star Citizen. The technology is supposed to launch with Alpha 2.0 in the third quarter of 2024.
What is the technical breakthrough? The holy grail in MMOs and MMORPGs is “Server Meshing.” Developers have been working on this for about 12 years, and hundreds of millions of US dollars have been invested in the development.
The goal is to allow many simultaneous players to be in a shared world and interact with each other without lag and performance making the MMO unplayable.
The current solutions for servers in the MMO genre look like this:
- The SF-MMORPG EVE Online offers a large shared world for everyone, but only manages this by severely slowing down time.
- Other MMORPGs like New World rely on the classic solution and use relatively small servers: when the MMORPG is successful, new servers are added, and when player numbers decrease, they are closed again.
- MMORPGs like WoW solve the problem through “Mega-Servers” and “Layers” – several people are in the game world, but can only see each other or interact to a limited extent.
Ultimately, the goal is to create gigantic simulated worlds through “Server Meshing”: multiple servers work together to simulate a large world. The problem is that all servers must run synchronously so that all players are in the same world and not in different layers of a world.
The holy grail in the MMORPG genre has been pursued for years
This is why it is so important: “Server Meshing” is the holy grail in the MMORPG genre:
- The company Improbable by Herman Narula intended to tackle the problem 12 years ago and received $500 million from investors for this in 2017. However, that did not materialize.
- Chris Roberts is also working on this problem at Star Citizen – the server meshing should simulate a huge SF universe there. But as we know, Star Citizen has scheduling issues.
- The eccentric millionaire Steven Sharif is said to have achieved this breakthrough with his team in the MMORPG Ashes of Creation. The underlying technology was presented in a livestream on July 3rd (via youtube).
In the background, a lot of technology is needed so that the player notices nothing
What kind of technology is this? The “Realm,” the shared game world, is represented by multiple servers simultaneously, with each server responsible for a specific designated part of the game world. For this to happen, the servers need to pass on and receive information from players – and communicate simultaneously with the other servers.
When the player moves in the game world, their data is transferred from their “old” server to the responsible new server without the player noticing.
It becomes complicated when 2 players interact with each other on different servers because a lot of information needs to be exchanged between the servers in a short amount of time: Ashes of Creation does not pass on the complete data of the player in this case, but uses a proxy, a “reduced copy” of the player to minimize the amount of data exchange.
In addition, “microservers” are supposed to help optimize communication between the individual servers. They function similarly to specialized apps and are designed to pass on specific information, such as the player’s location.
This is just a brief overview of the underlying technology – the topic goes much deeper. For those interested, we recommend the 80-minute livestream from the developers (via YouTube)
Streamer Asmongold wavers between enthusiasm and skepticism
This is the discussion: The streamer Asmongold talked about the topic and titled the excerpt “Ashes of Creation has just changed MMOs forever” and published it as a video on YouTube.
Asmongold says in the video: servers are always a problem and a technical limitation. The many servers destroyed the MMORPG New World and restricted fun in WoW.
He is very much looking forward to an MMORPG like Ashes of Creation attempting to bring all players together on one big server.
However, the US streamer is still skeptical whether the team can technically achieve what they are promising here. He keeps saying: he will only believe it when he sees it.
When can we see if this works? Alpha 2 of Ashes of Creation is supposed to start within the next 2 months. Alpha 2 is announced for the third quarter of 2024, so the latest date would be September 30.
A controversially discussed MMORPG could herald the next gen
What’s behind it: Ashes of Creation is the spiritual successor of Everquest Next – the online role-playing game that was supposed to revolutionize the MMORPG genre around 2017 and herald a new generation of online role-playing games 15 years after WoW. However, development was halted in 2016. The Blizzard MMORPG Titan also died.
So the next generation of MMORPGs after WoW was canceled.
Ashes of Creation has long been viewed with skepticism due to some strange methods used to gain money and attention. The head of the MMORPG, Steven Sharif, is undoubtedly a big MMORPG fan, but also a controversial figure, who likes to criticize the press and provoke.
There have been some red flags surrounding the MMORPG with FOMO tactics in the alpha and referral programs for influencers that look like a pyramid scheme.
However, in recent months, the MMORPG seems to be on the rise. Currently, 170 people are working on Ashes of Creation.
Asmongold’s skepticism is justified: “I will only believe it when I see it and can play it” is certainly a healthy attitude.
It is said that it should soon be possible to buy back into an Alpha 2. However, one should be cautious if an exorbitantly high price is called again. In 2018, they wanted $500 for access to the Alpha.
In addition to pure technical innovation, Ashes of Creation aims to bring new gameplay elements to the genre and thus usher in a “next generation” of MMORPGs, so at least is the game’s vision. Quests should have a real impact on the game world: In a new MMORPG, quests should have a real influence – this is how Ashes of Creation aims to revolutionize the genre.
