"Mr. Koguchi, hardware upgrades are merely changes in the medium. Whether it's cartridges, CDs, future DVDs, or even network transmission, what ultimately attracts players is the game content you hold in your hands." Takuya Nakayama looked at his deputy, his tone filled with expectation. "The Hardware Department is building the roads; your task is to prepare the high-performance cars that can run on these new roads."
"The content design logic for online games is completely different from traditional single-player games. You also need to have the Development Department start researching and adapting to this change. Of course, I'm not requiring all games to go online, but once you integrate network interaction into the gameplay, you must be prepared for this shift."
Oguchi Hisao nodded solemnly. "I understand. I will start organizing internal network forums on online game design to build up our talent and conceptual reserves in advance."
A few days later, Redwood City, California.
A business car slowly drove into the campus of Silicon Valley Online's headquarters.
Hideki Sato stepped out of the car, accompanied by three core engineers from Sega's Hardware Department.
Takuya Nakayama's instructions had been crystal clear: they needed to understand how true wide-area network interconnection functioned. This knowledge was crucial for reserving the appropriate network hardware interfaces for Sega's next-generation console and designing a sound underlying architecture.
In the reception area on the first floor of Silicon Valley Online, Hideki Sato spotted a familiar face.
Mark Cerny, dressed in a simple solid-colored shirt and casual trousers, approached them holding a document.
Mark Cerny had previously served as the Technical Director of Sega of America's Game Division.
During this period, he had been stationed at Silicon Valley Online, his primary mission being to coordinate the joint operations between Sega of North America and Silicon Valley Online.
While Silicon Valley Online possessed top-tier network technology talent, they lacked experience in project management and content development for large-scale video games.
Mark's role was to introduce Sega's years of accumulated development processes here, while simultaneously cultivating a talent team capable of handling large-scale online game development for Silicon Valley Online.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Mark got straight to the point and led Sato and his group toward the research and development area.
"Department Manager Sato, Executive Director Nakayama has already informed me of the purpose of your visit," Mark said as they walked. "Before we discuss the console's network hardware, we must first confront the reality of our current network infrastructure."
They entered a spacious conference room, where Mark turned on the projector, displaying several sets of data charts on the screen.
Hideki Sato took out a notebook, and the engineers behind him immediately got to work.
"Currently, the vast majority of home PC users in North America and Japan are still using 14.4kbps to 33.6kbps modems for dial-up internet access," Mark said, pointing to the network latency data on the screen. "Bandwidth is extremely limited and highly unstable. Physical noise on telephone lines and congestion at provider nodes all lead to packet loss during transmission. Worst of all, these connections can drop suddenly at any time for various external reasons."
Hideki Sato nodded in agreement. NTT's lines in Japan faced the same problems.
The expensive per-minute billing model and unstable connection quality were the core reasons he had always been concerned about connecting consoles to the Wide Area Network.
"If we tried to make a real-time action game under these network conditions, the player experience would be terrible." Mark pulled up a recording of the game running in a test environment. "When a player presses the attack key on their client, the command is sent to the server via phone lines. The server then performs the calculations and returns the results to all clients in the same area. If this entire process takes more than 200 milliseconds, players will experience noticeable lag. If data packets are lost, characters on the screen will teleport, or attack hits will fail to register."
"So, in Project D—Dungeons & Dragons Online—you changed the traditional gameplay design?" Hideki Sato asked.
"Yes. To overcome the physical limitations of dial-up internet, we compromised on the core game mechanics." Mark switched to a new slide, displaying the game's combat interface. "We adopted a very conservative turn-based system."
The screen showed a dungeon scene, with several player characters and monsters occupying different positions.
"This design also happens to align perfectly with the original tabletop rules of Dungeons & Dragons," Mark explained. "Turn-based combat doesn't require extremely high-frequency real-time data synchronization, allowing for a certain amount of network latency. Players have ample time to think, and after their commands are sent to the server, the server processes them in a unified manner based on chronological order and the characters' Agility attributes. Even if the data arrives a fraction of a second late, it won't affect the final outcome of the battle."
Hideki Sato jotted down this information in his notebook.
He was beginning to understand the specific meaning of Takuya Nakayama's statement: "The content design logic for online games is completely different from that of traditional single-player games."
"But turn-based combat doesn't solve the problem of disconnections," a Sega hardware engineer who accompanied them pointed out. "If one player's modem suddenly disconnects in a multiplayer dungeon raid, or if their phone line is unplugged by a family member, won't the entire party's combat flow just grind to a halt? The other players would be forced to wait indefinitely for the disconnected player to issue a command."
Mark had already prepared for this question. He pulled up another logic flowchart.
"This is the core of our technical and gameplay integration," Mark said, pointing to a virtual progress bar on the screen. "We've introduced a turn-based decision countdown for party activities. Each player has 30 seconds to make their move. If a network lag prevents a command from being sent in time, or if a player is still thinking, the system will automatically revoke their control once the countdown ends and skip to the next player's turn."
"What about the disconnected player's character?" Hideki Sato pressed. "Do they just stand there and get beaten up?" This still felt like an incomplete experience for the player.
"To address this pain point, we've developed a set of pre-configured auto-decision settings for disconnected players," Mark explained in detail. "Before entering a party dungeon, players can set a simple behavior logic for their characters in the system menu. For example, a Mage can be set to use a healing potion when their health drops below 30%, otherwise casting a basic attack spell on the nearest enemy. A Warrior can be set to prioritize protecting the party's healer."
Mark paused, giving Sato's team a moment to digest the information.
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