64 max limit?

Nigel · Post by **Nigel** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:33 pm

Umm, I hear a lot about the max limit of building on a world being 64...but i'm not sure why, perhaps to a player, it would seem like "well just increase it" but...what's the explination? im quite curious as to why there is a limit, and what's stopping it from going any higher, i'm not much of a programmer, but if someone could give me the why's, it would be much appreciated

I am guessing that it is a limitation, but are there plans to overcome it? or are there other ways to tackle this? I'm really curious, i've heard more than one person complain about the max buildings limit, but no reason for it.......

Post by **Magicfinger** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:53 pm

afaik i know there isnt a problem that casuses the limitation it is a hard coded value and is set that way....well because it has to be set somewhere

at present the value of 64 hasnt actually proved a limitation to any player... or at least ive never heard a world owner say that it isnt enough yet

the difficulties in actually calculating a bdat over more than the 64 would be quite difficult and would probbably require additional items to be coded, which would just be a pain in the but

plus remember that the 64 buildings doesnt include background models, trees,walls etc...

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:07 pm

nah, not really a programming limit.

back in 3.53 buildings were unlimited and i remember zoric 1 having around 70 buildings
but then in 3.9x version it was lowered to 32 for unregistered islands and 50 o so for registered islands. Gateways during this time could have an unlimited amount of buildings and i had made 1 bdat that had well over 200 buildings in it.
now were at 64 buildings.

i'd like to see unlimited, but i think mit limited it to reduce bandwidth and downloads.
although even when they were unlimited thier was never an island that had over 75 buildings.

only real problem i can currently see with the 64 building limit is ornamentals. aren't many islands with ornamentals because people rarely have many extra buildings to use for them. some owners in the past have said about useing a seperate bdat for ornamentals so that players could have a nice selection of ornamentals to build instead of 1 or 2 made from empty slots in the bdat.

Nigel · Post by **Nigel** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 4:07 am

There is a sad shortage of ornamentals, yep.

leigon · Post by **leigon** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 4:49 am

Realy this should no longer apply since the introduction of download mirriors...

Should have the game installer download the latest world files before connecti.......

Er....

Idea! Mit you sead that your file download system does not allow for http/ftp downloads as its a p2p cliant... but... why don't you have a popup saying "Do you wish to externaly download the world for faster installation?" when someone lands on a planet with an installer on a mirror. So like it opens lets say IE with a chosen mirror and closes the cliant while its updated.... simple.

Mattizme · Post by **Mattizme** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 1:47 pm

Hell leigon, if you wanted to go the whole hog, then build a simplified version of bittorrent into the client WoW installer style, so people can download off each other as well as the server :]

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:37 pm

leigon wrote:Realy this should no longer apply since the introduction of download mirriors...

yea, well, how many new players do you know of that actually come to the forums, reister, goto the help forum, and read the post about file downloads before going in an island and downloading all the models thier?

or how many stop to read the welcome scren instead of escaping threw it before it even loads or even if reading it go to get the patch before seeing the files downoad while thier playing?

peer to peer would be nice for file downloading.
but it might drasticly slow down people on slower connections

leigon · Post by **leigon** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 7:02 pm

no lol... I asked if we could have the models hosted lets say on a http/ftp external server, and have them downloaded when people connect to the world... but... the download between the server and the cliant is p2p

What ime saying is you could ask the user if he wants to "externaly download" the files as an enstaller if its a new user... increasing his or her download speed.

Post by **Mit** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:35 pm

Idea! Mit you sead that your file download system does not allow for http/ftp downloads as its a p2p cliant...

mmmmmmm.. dont remember ever saying that.. :] u sure that was me?
(doubt i would have said it coz i dont really know what it means

)

but... why don't you have a popup saying "Do you wish to externaly download the world for faster installation?"

that is indeed what i'd like it to do..
the only reason that there isnt built-in http/ftp downloads yet is because i havent yet had time to write it. Tis not a small job. We've got a library in the code that does http downloads already, but its 'blocking' - which means the game would freeze up until each download has completed. Its also not a completely trivial task to rewrite the bits of the gamecode that expect the download to come from the server and have them work such that they can work with the download coming from a different route.
Its on my list to be done this year..

Post by **Mit** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:41 pm

oh.. ps. As stated the 64 max building limit is basically just a hardcoded value and ive not had any requests to increase it yet.. However.. increasing it also implies that the 'modellist' would also need to be expanded - this is the list that defines which models and textures are applied to each configurable model, and currently theres only space for 64 building types in that. The format for this file is a bit unpleasant atm, which is why theres a 10k download every time a player joins just to give em all the filenames used by all configurable models on the island.
In light of the results of the last press release bit - where the amount of file transfer from Biplaneworld was the biggest single issue in stopping ppl getting in to the game (probably about half of the 9000 odd new visitors never got properly connected to a planet because of it) - rearranging & compressing this download (and also going the extra step of having optional http downloads as suggested by leigon) are both priorities atm.

leigon · Post by **leigon** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:37 pm

hummm must have bin when I was drunk... oh well...

Vagrant · Post by **Vagrant** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:08 am

zaroba wrote:
leigon wrote:Realy this should no longer apply since the introduction of download mirriors...
yea, well, how many new players do you know of that actually come to the forums, reister, goto the help forum, and read the post about file downloads before going in an island and downloading all the models thier? :P

Well, I'm one... When looking for a game I usually check the forums to see how bad the game sucks, or what issues there are before I even download and log in. Since most hosted forums occasionally let a few bad comments slip past their moderators it has proven quite useful. So it does happen on rare occasions.

Could also probably organize main page with descriptions of running islands, and feature the mirrors there along with instrustions on how to add.

junk · Post by **junk** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 3:45 pm

i would love to see 64 made 128 i have many ideas for new buildings mostly ornamental im getting really close to the 64 limit and use no ornamental yet, the limit is partly why,waiting for revised items list too

Junk

Post by **Mit** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 3:59 pm

i've started on re-arranging stuff for this now, prolly take a week or two to get it all finished up. In the end it'll allow a max of 256 buildings (and thats all you're gonna get - anyone who needs more than say, 100, is doing something stoopid anyway :] ) and, as an extra bonus, skill names will be configurable too. :]

junk · Post by **junk** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 4:03 pm

WOOHOO and i agree with the "over 100" statement

Junk

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 5:07 pm

skill names? awesome. was thinking of asking about that.
wow, 256 buildings? i would be satisfied with 128. 256 should be plenty for any economy.

Post by **Mit** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 2:39 pm

p.p.s Another lil implication of this that im sure you'll approve of, is an unlimited (well, 256) size to the names on model & texture files.

(Smaller is still better just to keep down the size of the initial file-list download, but hey..)

hedgehog · Post by **hedgehog** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 12:08 am

skill names will be configurable too. :]

woot!

Post by **Fooli** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 1:25 am

I dunno wot any of it means, but i bet the phony still complain :)
f

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 11:24 am

Mit wrote:p.p.s Another lil implication of this that im sure you'll approve of, is an unlimited (well, 256) size to the names on model & texture files.
(Smaller is still better just to keep down the size of the initial file-list download, but hey..)

cool. no more having to shorten names and then having to decode them to figure out what they are