Scale down the graphics settings on the fly.

I'm kind of curious to learn more about the specifics of how this was pulled off and what kind of network environment it was (if any).

http://youtu.be/k4S19CcnN_Q

We don't need massive battles with thousands of players on the same map.

We need lots of small battles with a few players on each, but all linked together.

Imagine ten simultaneous battles between the same two NPC corps, on a single planet, with 100 players deployed onto each side. Players can move between those battles whenever they want, respecting the existing limit of 16 players per side in each. The overall clone reserves are for the entire planet, not for each individual battle. Instead of applying damage to the MCC over each battlefield, you apply damage to the (single) war-barge in orbit.

Honestly don't believe we will need more than 64 vs 64 ever, that is a ton of people. If you want massive land battles, then, like R F Gyro is saying, you start making multiple battles.

Imagine PC 2.0 where each planet has a set of districts that all come online at the same time. If a planet has 5 districts, you could have 5 simultaneous attacks. At 64 vs 64 that would end up being 320 vs 320 duking it out over the same planet. You are aleady reaching logistical nightmare at this point lol, but it would still be a massive invasion force.

20 districts, all coming online simultaneously would be 1280 vs 1280 fighting at the same time over a planet.

That is still pretty epic and massive to me, while remaining within the realm of feasible and fun.

You add in other effects like having the outcome of a match on one district affect other districts in real time and it can become an immersive experience, where it feels like you are part of something absolutely massive, without actually having to be in a match of 2000 players on a single map (which, imo, would not be fun at all).

You add in other effects like having the outcome of a match on one district affect other districts in real time and it can become an immersive experience, where it feels like you are part of something absolutely massive, without actually having to be in a match of 2000 players on a single map (which, imo, would not be fun at all).

Graphics have little to do with networking as they are rendered client side like in Eve. Graphics only impact your frame rate which is why a lot of capsuleers who often engage in massive fleet battles would tone down their graphics to maintain decent frames. However, it will not improve lag. Lag is something that is managed server side.

What time dilation does in Eve is slow down time to so that every command from every ship is processed in the exact order in which the server received them from the players rather than having the order get mixed up in haste. But this might not do well in a first-person shooter setting and lowering graphics will only help with frame rates but not with lag. You will still see rubber band effects and/or microwarping Legionaries on the ground especially when you have a massive fleet of over 2,000 capsuleers way above you over the planet you are on.

The fog of war for the moment seems to be a likely solution but other options need to be explored first before we can settle on that.

TiDi in Legion will have to be tested first to see if it's even practical. One way it would shown is that your character's vision will appear to altered to resemble a heightened sense of awareness with the surroundings appearing red as you hear your heart beating louder and louder and everything around you is slowing down. On the plus side this would seem awesome at first as you finally get a chance to quickly glance around as you're moving in one direction and being able to react more effectively if you catch someone emerging from a corner you wouldn't otherwise notice under normal time. The problem with this is that after a certain point, TiDi starts to make everything look like you're swimming through molasses. After that it will start to look boring and dull as everyone is just waiting a whole 5 minutes just for their character to run 10 meters. That won't be any fun at all especially if the maps are really vast spanning well over a couple of kilometers in size.

But it's likely that the connection between Eve and Legion will be through a series of battle servers rather than a direct connection with Tranquility. If that's the case, then the best course of action is to implement the following:

1. TiDi kicks in for both Eve and Legion in the affected constellation or node.
1a. If TiDi is above 75% of normal time, then both games will continue to experience TiDi for that given system, battler server, or node.
1b. If TiDi falls below 75% of normal time, Legion reverts back to normal time but all communications between Eve and Legion suffer a total blackout due to whatever interference is happening around you on the ground (throw in some lore to justify it) and also orbital bombardments are no longer accessible until TiDi is up to at least 75% of normal time. RDVs will also not be able to be called in due to the same interference as the Warbarge is probably experiencing similar blackouts in communications. TiDi in Eve will continue at the same time.
1c. If TiDi finally increases back up to 75%, then TiDi in Legion will kick in but you will be able to communicate, call in orbitals, and call in whatever your RDVs drop off.

TiDi works because EVE's calculations are all done by TQ. Since when does TQ handle all of DUST's calculations? Those are almost all client-side. Scaling down the graphics would free up processing power.