Maintaining Compatability With Low-Spec PC's Post Unova Update

[Xatu]

All of the features that will be breaking compatibility with older hardware are completely visually based, as such, could be considered optional.

 

Im sure many of you know that PokMMO is a worldwide game.  Many players in regions of the world that are less developed still have the opportunity to play this wonderful game because of how little resources are taken to run the game.

 

The Unova update will break the game for many of these people. 

 

Many of us just cant upgrade either for many different reasons.  For people in less developed regions they may have no way of getting better hardware for a long time to come.

 

Pretty much, heres the suggestion.  It will allow ALL who can play now to still play once the game is out.  YES is will require a whole new Client to be made.  This is well worth including all current players in the new update however.

 

Here's how it could work:

 

• Client still requires B/W ROM
• Single sprite ripped from B/W ROMs battle animations to be used in battles in the same exact engine used currently in use
• Unova mons all accessible through GTL/Trading
• Travel to Unova not allowed
  • Possibly allowed but all 3d effects disabled

 

And thats about it!  No reason to have the client unusable for many for just a couple fancy 3d models here and there. 

[Desu]

The main limitation is going to be OpenGL 2.0 minimum requirement. This is due to us moving the backend over to libgdx which requires a minimum of OpenGL 2.0. This is not something we're willing or able to realistically workaround.

 

Actual performance on 3d maps is not going to be a large change, and on certain hardware may actually perform better than 2d.

[XelaKebert]

This is just my personal standpoint and not an official response.

 

From a practical standpoint it makes sense to go this route, but from a development standpoint it makes zero sense. Having a single codebase is a best practice for coding. The biggest reason is maintainability. It's a lot easier and efficient to troubleshoot bugs working from a single base rather than having to determine which base the bugs are present within so that they can be fixed. Quite honestly, it's not maintainable in the long term to continue supporting legacy hardware using two different codebases. Keep in mind that the current client uses a library that is well outdated, not very well documented, and very inefficient.

[Xatu]

49 minutes ago, Desu said:

This is not something we're willing...

Why wouldnt you be willing?  Shouldnt you want to maintain as many players on the server as possible?  Im not sure about the statistics but based on popularity of this game in many of the worlds regions im certain quite a few players are going to be affected by this update.  If it happens to be a large enough percentage it could mean a serious damper to the overall health of the game, with potentially catastrophic circumstances.

 

...or able to realistically workaround.

Define "realistic".

 

What i suggested was simply a modded version of the client that exists currently.  The region is pretty much just for show, the maps providing little to no real content with the new mons, moves, etc being the true content. 

 

I'm sure the type of work it would take to just pull resources from a rom for simple things like stats, moves etc pales in comparison of the task of scripting an entire storyline.  The amount of work to make this new client is maybe 1% of what effort is currently being on the new region and all that is involved there. 

 

Heres another benefit.

 

If you work on the Legacy client NOW, it will allow you to release the "new regions" content even sooner.  At which point you can scatter unova encounters around kanto/hoenn until the region reaches completion. 

[Desu]

11 minutes ago, Xatu said:

What i suggested was simply a modded version of the client that exists currently.  The region is pretty much just for show, the maps providing little to no real content with the new mons, moves, etc being the true content. 

That is not simple at all. The amount of changes from live client to development client are absurdly large. It would effectively be double or triple the amount of work.

 

Obviously we want as many people to play PokeMMO as possible, but spending extra development time on 2-4% of our playerbase is just not a good investment of resources.

[linwe]

Man, I won't sit here and tell you "Hurr durr, just buy another PC," but chances are, if you're playing PokeMMO right now, you have a decent enough PC to play it post-Unova. When the first PTS came out for it, my craptop with Windows 7 Home, 4GB RAM, an outdated i3 processor, and (laugh while I'm giving you the opportunity) Intel HD 3000 Graphics card in it, which has a grand total of 64MB of dedicated VRAM. This piece of heck laptop still played PokeMMO PTS with no issues in terms of 3D rendering and smoothness. As Desu and Xela have stated before: From a developer's standpoint, it makes no sense to cater to a very small amount of people that might not have 1.5GB of RAM on their computers or a graphics card that isn't compatible with OpenGL 2.0 or higher. (lul)
Chances are is that if you can currently play PokeMMO as it is, you will be able to play post-Unova.

[Xatu]

17 hours ago, Desu said:

That is not simple at all. The amount of changes from live client to development client are absurdly large. It would effectively be double or triple the amount of work.

Simply cant be harder than scripting a whole new regions storyline, maps etc.... Youre greatly exaggerating.

17 hours ago, Desu said:

 

Obviously we want as many people to play PokeMMO as possible, but spending extra development time on 2-4% of our playerbase is just not a good investment of resources.

2-4% sound like a huuuge exaggeration as well, and we wont be able to know if youre telling the truth unless you dump worldwide stats from the server.  2-4% is about the amount of the world that can even afford good PCs.  Everyone else is using old architecture that likely wont support open gl 2.0. 

 

4 hours ago, linwe said:

Man, I won't sit here and tell you "Hurr durr, just buy another PC," but chances are, if you're playing PokeMMO right now, you have a decent enough PC to play it post-Unova. When the first PTS came out for it, my craptop with Windows 7 Home, 4GB RAM, an outdated i3 processor, and (laugh while I'm giving you the opportunity) Intel HD 3000 Graphics card in it,

That card is leagues above what im using, and im super poor living in america, I can only imaging how many people exist below this benchmark.

 

4 hours ago, linwe said:

Chances are is that if you can currently play PokeMMO as it is, you will be able to play post-Unova.

Yeah not true man, the update affects like hundreds of different graphics card becoming incompatible.  Many many of us wont be able to play any longer.

[linwe]

15 minutes ago, Xatu said:

Simply cant be harder than scripting a whole new regions storyline, maps etc.... Youre greatly exaggerating.

 

3

Help them do it then? Since you definitely know ALL about the work going into it, you should actually help.

 

16 minutes ago, Xatu said:

2-4% sound like a huuuge exaggeration as well, and we wont be able to know if youre telling the truth unless you dump worldwide stats from the server.  2-4% is about the amount of the world that can even afford good PCs.  Everyone else is using old architecture that likely wont support open gl 2.0. 

"Good PCs," glad to know I'm in the top 4% (according to you?). If your computer doesn't have OpenGL 2.0 to start with, it's very likely that you aren't on PokeMMO.

16 minutes ago, Xatu said:

That card is leagues above what im using, and im super poor living in america, I can only imaging how many people exist below this benchmark.

Most of the people below the benchmark can't play PokeMMO to begin with.

16 minutes ago, Xatu said:

Yeah not true man, the update affects like hundreds of different graphics card becoming incompatible.  Many many of us wont be able to play any longer.

 

[notmudkip0]

Reminder that OpenGL 2.0 was released in 2004 and most PCs made after this point will be compatible with it. If you seriously can't run a 13 year old version of OpenGL you probably can't play PokeMMO anyway. Accommodating for such a small number of players is incredibly stupid and not worth the amount of work required for your poor idea. Also, please stop pretending to know more than an admin/developer.

[Xatu]

2 hours ago, linwe said:

Help them do it then? Since you definitely know ALL about the work going into it, you should actually help.

Ill gladly help.  This post is me helping them from fucking themselves over.

2 hours ago, linwe said:

"Good PCs," glad to know I'm in the top 4% (according to you?). If your computer doesn't have OpenGL 2.0 to start with, it's very likely that you aren't on PokeMMO.

According to you?  We could go in circles forever like this.  My reference to the 2-4% ratio applied to those who are well off in the world enough to buy a new computer.  You certainly cant think that lesser developed countries peoples are capable of this.  Us rich europeans, americans etc are the 2%.  Not realizing that the rest of the world isn't rich is just ignorant. 

2 hours ago, linwe said:

Most of the people below the benchmark can't play PokeMMO to begin with.

 

 

[notmudkip0]

1 hour ago, Xatu said:

Ill gladly help.  This post is me helping them from fucking themselves over.

She means actually building the thing, of course you can't actually do this.

 

1 hour ago, Xatu said:

My reference to the 2-4% ratio applied to those who are well off in the world enough to buy a new computer.  You certainly cant think that lesser developed countries peoples are capable of this.  Us rich europeans, americans etc are the 2%.  Not realizing that the rest of the world isn't rich is just ignorant. 

You can get computers and parts fairly cheap from some sites, it's not hard to go and look for something within a small budget. 

 

[fredrichnietze]

xatu

http://www.ebay.com/itm/POWERCOLOR-AMD-Radeon-HD-4870-512MB-256-Bit-Graphics-Card-GPU-/152670486077?hash=item238bdebe3d:g:cR8AAOSwz71ZQgJ2

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-GX740-Desktop-Computer-Model-DCSM-/192159511728?hash=item2cbd9974b0:g:faEAAOSwN6JY8k3z#viTabs_0

 

opengl 3.3 support with half a gig of ram AND windows, althou maybe you need a new hard drive.

 

here is a 2tb one for 7$

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seagate-Momentus-ST2000LM003-2TB-2-5-SATA-Notebook-PS4-Hard-Drive-32MB/272826460343?hash=item3f85b968b7%3Ag%3AujMAAOSwgeRZpp0f

 

you're at 18-25$ total for a computer that can play pokemmo for many years to come. meanwhile the dev time your asking for is worth a fortune. 

[Gilan]

2 hours ago, fredrichnietze said:

xatu

http://www.ebay.com/itm/POWERCOLOR-AMD-Radeon-HD-4870-512MB-256-Bit-Graphics-Card-GPU-/152670486077?hash=item238bdebe3d:g:cR8AAOSwz71ZQgJ2

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-GX740-Desktop-Computer-Model-DCSM-/192159511728?hash=item2cbd9974b0:g:faEAAOSwN6JY8k3z#viTabs_0

 

opengl 3.3 support with half a gig of ram AND windows, althou maybe you need a new hard drive.

 

here is a 2tb one for 7$

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seagate-Momentus-ST2000LM003-2TB-2-5-SATA-Notebook-PS4-Hard-Drive-32MB/272826460343?hash=item3f85b968b7%3Ag%3AujMAAOSwgeRZpp0f

 

you're at 18-25$ total for a computer that can play pokemmo for many years to come. meanwhile the dev time your asking for is worth a fortune. 

You can't trick me into turning my computer into a bot for your DDOS army, fred. I see through your plot and sketchy links.

 

 

On a more serious note, @Xatu what is your basis for:

On 8/29/2017 at 6:47 PM, Xatu said:

The amount of work to make this new client is maybe 1% of what effort is currently being on the new region and all that is involved there. 

and thinking this:

6 hours ago, Xatu said:

2-4% sound like a huuuge exaggeration as well, and we wont be able to know if youre telling the truth unless you dump worldwide stats from the server.  2-4% is about the amount of the world that can even afford good PCs.  Everyone else is using old architecture that likely wont support open gl 2.0. 

 

 

It seems like you are making vast assumptions without any basis. Personally, I feel that you are grossly exaggerating the number of people who won't be able to play MMO after the update.

 

Like, did you take a poll of people online in ch. 1 chat or something?

 

And, also, if you really cared about the success of the game, why are you telling staff to cater to these supposed super-poor individuals? If they are so poor, then they obviously won't donate and support the game, so catering the game to them makes no business sense whatsoever, and in the long run hurts the game. Just trying to use your own logic here.

 

If they do roll out Unova as they have planned, we'll see a nice influx of players which will be extremely beneficial to the game. Trying to distract them like you are doing (not that it's even remotely successful) seems absolutely counter-productive to your own agenda (assuming that you actually want this game to flourish).

 

But, alas, this is all assuming you aren't just the biggest troll of PokeMMO like I currently believe you to be.

[Kyu]

7 hours ago, Xatu said:

2-4% sound like a huuuge exaggeration as well, and we wont be able to know if youre telling the truth unless you dump worldwide stats from the server.  2-4% is about the amount of the world that can even afford good PCs.  Everyone else is using old architecture that likely wont support open gl 2.0. 

We're not exaggerating. This issue primarily affects very old Intel chipsets, e.g. the 11 year old GMA 945, which fall into a category where the hardware can only support OpenGL 1.4/1.5. We have stats on what renderers players use, and both `Compatibility Mode` and these very old chipsets fall into around 2-4% of the online playerbase at any given time.

 

The main other issue that we have is 1st-3rd Generation Core i3/i5/i7 devices (Intel HD Graphics 3000~4000) which are unsupported by Windows 10 due to Intel's refusal to maintain End of Life devices, but that's not something new, as it was the main reason `Compatibility Mode` exists.

[Argorok2017]

On 8/30/2017 at 1:51 PM, Xatu said:

Simply cant be harder than scripting a whole new regions storyline, maps etc.... Youre greatly exaggerating.

2-4% sound like a huuuge exaggeration as well, and we wont be able to know if youre telling the truth unless you dump worldwide stats from the server.  2-4% is about the amount of the world that can even afford good PCs.  Everyone else is using old architecture that likely wont support open gl 2.0. 

This is a joke right? My buddy's $200 craptop that is 3 years old ran the beta perfectly fine. To try and make a point that there are a significant amount of computers that can't run Unova is absolutely absurd.

 

Also, aren't you the one who talked a bunch of crap about putting gen 5 in the game in the first place? Are you sure your so called "facts" aren't really based off of a biased opinion?

[Heineken88]

On 8/30/2017 at 1:12 PM, linwe said:

Most of the people below the benchmark can't play PokeMMO to begin with.

On 8/30/2017 at 0:51 PM, Xatu said:

Yeah not true man, the update affects like hundreds of different graphics card becoming incompatible.  Many many of us wont be able to play any longer.

 

If you still running XP, wtf are you doing on the internet?

 

On 8/30/2017 at 8:24 AM, linwe said:

Man, I won't sit here and tell you "Hurr durr, just buy another PC," but chances are, if you're playing PokeMMO right now, you have a decent enough PC to play it post-Unova. When the first PTS came out for it, my craptop with Windows 7 Home, 4GB RAM, an outdated i3 processor, and (laugh while I'm giving you the opportunity) Intel HD 3000 Graphics card in it, which has a grand total of 64MB of dedicated VRAM. This piece of heck laptop still played PokeMMO PTS with no issues in terms of 3D rendering and smoothness. As Desu and Xela have stated before: From a developer's standpoint, it makes no sense to cater to a very small amount of people that might not have 1.5GB of RAM on their computers or a graphics card that isn't compatible with OpenGL 2.0 or higher. (lul)
Chances are is that if you can currently play PokeMMO as it is, you will be able to play post-Unova.

I did play the Latest PTS. It ran ok, in some ways even better than the current normal Client. Ok it did crash somethimes, but I think I just triggered a bug. The PC fans did blow a little faster but it wasn't even close to the limit.  It was smooth, start up was no different than the normal client. And I play on an old office PC. Dell Optiplex 760 With a Intel Core2 Duo E7400 @2,80GHz CPU, an Intel Q43 Express Chipset & 2x 1GB DDR2 PC2-6400 @ 800MHz. Al that running on win 7 Professional.

 

Even though I will upgrade the ram, it is not needed to play PokeMMO the 2e Unova PTS.

[Xatu]

With an overwhelming negative response, please lock this thread as the devs have no intention of maintaining compatibility for legacy systems.

[Argorok2017]

6 hours ago, Xatu said:

With an overwhelming negative response, please lock this thread as the devs have no intention of maintaining compatibility for legacy systems.

Lmfao "legacy" systems. This guy just doesn't give up does he?

 

Here is the thing about trying to maintain compatibility for the tiny 2-4% of the players. As a developer you now have to create 2 separate servers to keep the 2-4% of those players able to play, which doesn't guarantee the fact that they won't quit sometime in the future (Also greatly delays Unova). Also, you have to update 2 separate servers each time a patch comes out, further delaying any new content.

 

OR

 

You can push along with the single server, releasing Unova at a sooner date and bringing back players who had quit due to boredom as well as attracting new players since (I hate to say it) Pokemon PRO had stolen a lot of players due to the generation gap (Don't change my post pls, only mentioned the other game as a reference to make a point). Only having to maintain and update only 1 server will also make it possible to release content at a faster pace.

 

With that being said, going in the direction the developers are going is the smartest because it will overall attract more players and keeping content flowing out at a quicker rate will keep players here.