Bring dedicated servers back.
Can’t have persistent server capacity issues if I can throw my own hardware at it.
This also gets rid of match making, which is whatever. Just give me a server browser and I’ll find a few favorites and hang on those.
It can also keep working long after the companies give up on them too.
This also gets rid of match making, which is whatever.
In the real world, probably.
But it doesn’t actually have to. There’s nothing stopping you from letting users add multiple matchmaking servers, and even adding some basic rules to queue up in multiple (eg: primary matchmaking for 30 seconds, if no signal indicating good progress towards a match, fall back to also joining server two, etc). It would take a little thought to the base server you provide to handle everything gracefully, but if your priority is actually to give your players the best chance to have a long term ability to form their own communities and play the game reliably instead of to maintain an iron grip to squeeze every penny out, you could do it.
Bring dedicated servers back.
Can’t have persistent server capacity issues if I can throw my own hardware at it.
This also gets rid of match making, which is whatever. Just give me a server browser and I’ll find a few favorites and hang on those.
It can also keep working long after the companies give up on them too.
In the real world, probably.
But it doesn’t actually have to. There’s nothing stopping you from letting users add multiple matchmaking servers, and even adding some basic rules to queue up in multiple (eg: primary matchmaking for 30 seconds, if no signal indicating good progress towards a match, fall back to also joining server two, etc). It would take a little thought to the base server you provide to handle everything gracefully, but if your priority is actually to give your players the best chance to have a long term ability to form their own communities and play the game reliably instead of to maintain an iron grip to squeeze every penny out, you could do it.
Seriously, it’s also the only way to preserve the online game long after it’s stopped being profitable.