"Always On" and food for thought

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, March 08, 2013, 09:36 (4065 days ago) @ Revenant1988

The server load for Sim City is undoubtedly higher than it will be for Destiny. XBL and PSN are very lite, in that the matchmaking servers only pair players up, then the host player's connection is responsible for maintaining the game. In contrast, the Sim City servers actually run simulation code, and so one of the things EA is doing is removing game features to alleviate problems (such as limiting the simulation speed to llama, and not letting you choose cheetah).

Like Diablo 3, running critical code server side is without question an anti-piracy move. And like Diablo 3, whose console versions will NOT require an internet connection, the game will probably run fine locally.

The reason Blizzard isn't requiring a connection for the console versions is simply because folks don't pirate console games in large numbers since it is much harder, and even if they did they couldn't get online with it. So Bungie would be foolish to be running large chunks of the game code on servers, since the 'problem' it's meant to solve doesn't really exist, because 1. people don't pirate console games in significant numbers, and 2. even if they did they couldn't play online anyway.

Basically, Bungie would have to be dumb to do what was done with Sim City.