We are making a arena shooter game, where players connect to a matchmaker server to be matched with other players. Once appropriate rivals are matched, they will travel to a newly launched dedicated server instance to start their battle, just like Unreal Tournament did.
As cross-server travelling is involved, it seems not possible to use seamless travel, nor transition map, for the same reason. Players just got stuck before a frozen screen for tens of seconds to wait for the arrival. What’s worse is, this is a VR game, it’s terrible to have a frozen screen with HMD equipped.
So my question here is, is there a loading/transition solution for our circumstance? Here is what I have already tried:
-
Maintain a server pool, so players won’t need to wait for a new dedicated server to launch. This could reduce the wait time to less than 15 seconds - great.
-
Make a small sub-level in the arena map, and travel the players there first. Place the primary combat zone in another sub-level, blueprint-streamed, and teleport the players once it’s streamed. This approach is almost useless, won’t reduce loading time.
-
Fade out before loading, so the players can wait in darkness instead of a frozen picture. This can make the loading process smoother, however it doesn’t really solve the problem.