The afterglow of the WcWonalds feast had faded, replaced by the sharp, electric buzz of potential, this world was full of potential for me, getting back into my room, I get into my Virtual Space immediately. I wasn't in my cramped bedroom anymore; I was staring at a vast, empty digital canvas. I could see it all—the sprawling island map, the loot scattered across dilapidated buildings, the heart-pounding tension of the shrinking play zone, the sheer, unadulterated chaos of a hundred players fighting to be the last one standing. The blueprint for 'PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' was etched into my consciousness, perfect in every detail, just waiting to be rendered into reality.
I could feel the weight of the guns in my hands, hear the iconic pan shot, smell the virtual grass. The creative high was immense, as I tried the demo offline of PUBG. And then, like a bucket of ice water dumped directly onto my cerebral cortex, the practical reality of what I was planning, and what I can do hit me hard.
"Sunday," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet hum of my PC. The holographic sphere materialized instantly. "The battle royale game…. We can't release it like Silent Hill, can we? It's not a standalone executable… It needs… servers. Dedicated ones….".
The words felt heavy and expensive coming out of my mouth.
"[That is correct, Sael,]". Sunday confirmed, her tone as neutral and factual as ever, yet somehow still managing to sound grave.
"[A live-service multiplayer title of the scale you are conceptualizing requires a robust, dedicated server infrastructure... It is not a negotiable component; The server hardware acts as the central nervous system for the entire experience… It must be powerful, it must possess immense bandwidth, and it must be exceptionally reliable. This is not an area where cost-cutting measures are advisable. The stability and longevity of the game would be directly compromised.]".
I leaned back in my chair, the old leather groaning in protest. The creative buzz was now entirely replaced by the cold, hard calculus of business, I'd been thinking about art and fun. Sunday was talking about uptime, bandwidth, and server racks. It was the most unsexy, yet most critically important, part of the entire endeavor.
"Right…". I muttered, running a hand through my hair. "Of course it does, because nothing can ever be simple... and if I wanted to do this, I want to do it correctly,". The fantasy of just coding the game and dropping it onto Vapor evaporated.
This was a whole other level of operation. My mind, now a repository of flawless game development knowledge, began unpacking the myriad reasons why this was so non-negotiable. It wasn't just about letting players connect to each other. It was about building a world with rules, and that world needed an unbiased observer. A fair, impartial, and omnipresent god, that would make sure that my games would never breakdown.
"Break it down for me, Sunday," I said, wanting to hear the facts aloud, to make the cost feel more justified. "Why is a dedicated server so much better than the peer-to-peer junk everyone else here uses? Make me understand the value proposition…. I do get it, roughly thanks to the Skill, but… you know…".
"[Naturally, Sir, …a dedicated server serves four primary functions, each critical to a competitive online experience,]" Sunday began, her voice taking on the tone of a patient lecturer.
"[First, it acts as the ultimate authority. Every single action in the game—a bullet being fired, a door being opened, a player moving—is calculated and validated by the server. This prevents cheating by ensuring no single player's client can lie about what is happening.]"
I nodded, picturing it. No more hackers with aimbots or wallhacks that worked because their own game client was telling them the info. The server would be the single source of truth.
"[Second,]" she continued, "[it maintains game state and logic. The server keeps the master clock, manages the shrinking play zone, controls the loot distribution, and ensures every player is experiencing a synchronized version of reality. Third, it handles all player account data, progression tracking, and most importantly, the secure processing of microtransactions. The financial ecosystem of the game depends entirely on its integrity.]"
Each point was a hammer blow driving home the necessity. It was the necessary foundation of the entire enterprise. It was what would separate a professional, polished product from an amateurish mess.
"And the alternative?" I asked, already knowing the answer but needing to hear the contrast. "The peer-to-peer model… can we use that, is that even possible?".
"[Peer-to-peer networking designates one player's machine as the 'host,']" Sunday explained.
"[That machine becomes the de facto server for that match. This creates an inherent and unacceptable imbalance. The host player enjoys zero latency or ping. Their actions are registered instantly… For every other player in the match, their actions must travel to the host's machine, be processed, and then the results travel back. This delay, however minimal, creates a tangible disadvantage.]"
I grimaced. I could feel it. The split-second deaths around corners, the shots that clearly hit on my screen but didn't register, the jerky, rubber-banding movement of other players when the host's internet connection hiccupped. It was the stuff of rage-quits and negative reviews.
"[Furthermore,]" Sunday added, delivering the coup de grâce, "[if the host player has a poor internet connection or simply quits the game, the entire match can destabilize or end abruptly for everyone. The experience is fragile and inconsistent…. For a game you intend to be a premier esport, it is an untenable architecture.]"
"So, no P2P," I concluded, the decision final. "It's cheap, it's lazy, and it makes for a crap experience… We're building this right. We're getting a dedicated server." The cost was terrifying, but the alternative—releasing a flawed, frustrating game that tarnished the Meteor Studio name—was unthinkable. The price of quality was high, but the cost of failure was catastrophic.
The problem of the server sat in my gut like a lead weight. Where was I supposed to get enterprise-level hardware? I pictured sterile, cold server farms with blinking lights and humming racks, the kind of thing that required a dedicated building, a team of engineers, and a power grid all its own. The cost would be astronomical. The logistics, a nightmare.
I was mentally calculating the square footage I'd need when my eyes landed on the one piece of truly advanced technology in my room: my VR headset, resting on its charging dock. It was a gateway to another world, a marvel of processing power.
"Sunday," I began, a nascent idea forming. "The VR gear in this world… it's not just a display, is it? To run full-dive immersion, the processing power has to be insane…. Where does all that computation happen?"
"[The bulk of the processing for high-fidelity VR experiences is handled by the VR Pod itself,]" Sunday replied. Her holographic sphere pulsed gently. "[The headsets are merely interfaces. The true computational power resides in the Pod's internal hardware.]"
"A VR Pod…" I mused, standing up and pacing the small length of my room. "How powerful is one of those things? Compared to, say, a top-of-the-line gaming PC?"
"[The comparison is not linear,]" Sunday stated. "[A current-generation VR Pod possesses a computational capacity, memory bandwidth, and thermal design that is orders of magnitude beyond any consumer-grade personal computer. It is, for all practical purposes, a self-contained supercomputer optimized for real-time, immersive simulation. Conservative estimates place its raw processing power at approximately ten thousand times that of a high-end desktop system.]"
I stopped pacing. The number was so ludicrous it was almost meaningless. 'Ten thousand times.' A single VR Pod had more power than a entire rack of servers from my old world.
"It's not just about raw power," I muttered, thinking aloud.
"It's about stability… Reliability, those things are designed to run complex simulations for hours on end without crashing. They have to…. If they glitch, they could fry someone's brain." The idea, once unthinkable, now seemed blindingly obvious. "The perfect server isn't in some data center… it's sitting in people's living rooms….".
"[A valid hypothesis,]" Sunday chimed in, seamlessly following my train of thought. "[A VR Pod would provide more than sufficient resources to host multiple instances of a battle royale game session simultaneously. Its architecture is ideal for the task.]"
A wave of relief washed over me. This was it, the solution. "So, we just need to buy a Pod. We can set it up right here in my room…. We'll just move the bed a little, it'll be tight but—"
"[There is a secondary consideration,]" Sunday interjected, her tone gently halting my momentum. "[While a single Pod could theoretically host the game, for global launch and redundancy, a minimum of three would be advisable. One for each major region: North Amerin, East Asia, Europa. This would minimize latency for players across the world.]"
'Three.' My eyes darted around my room. The space that felt so cramped with just me and my desk. A VR Pod was the size of a single bed. A sleek, white, monolithic single bed. There was no physical way to fit even one in here without throwing out half my furniture. The living room was the only other option.