They are working with Unreal correct, with Cloudinge being the middleware tools. What I had not caught before is that Cloudinge is not the developers of the game? (come on Windows 10, stop trying to correct every word I type)
Server based game augmentations. The transition to cloud. Really possible?
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
They are working with Unreal correct, with Cloudinge being the middleware tools. What I had not caught before is that Cloudinge is not the developers of the game? (come on Windows 10, stop trying to correct every word I type)
itsmydamnation
Veteran
The cloud is nothing but servers a network and some network storage ( ie exactly the same as "dedicated servers") , you will not have a single game session span vm's/servers, that will be a nightmare on the latency side and the "cloud" isn't free.
Before i answer any of your other points maybe you should go and learn why i specifically said BF4, all your dial-up MP shooters( CS,UT,tribes etc) didn't calculate server side like BF2/3/4 does. Those games also didn't have anywhere near the level of physics applied to each projectile(or at all in things like CS).
edit: I just want to add that i am a network architect who works for a cloud provider, my last big deployment was the G20 summit in Australia which was running everything in the cloud. I do actually have a clue what im talking about........................
Pretty sure a lot of stuff in BF3/4 is client-side. Their net code has been improved massively towards the end of 2014, so I don't know what changes were made.
TheWretched
Regular
With recent "issues" of online games on release, I expect this stuff to blow up into MSs face, if they actually go the cloud route with single player games. It's one thing, when Drive Club has issues connecting to servers for is "social gaming" features, but whole different story, when we go into Diablo 3s issues, when even single player doesn't work anymore.
Not sure how anticipated a sequel to Crackdown is, but if a lot of people buy it, and the cloud implementation isn't 100% robust, it'll be a nightmare for gamers. Not talking of the problem down the line that the servers might get taken offline in the future, as well (which shouldn't happen with the way Azure is made, as all is on demand).
Not sure how anticipated a sequel to Crackdown is, but if a lot of people buy it, and the cloud implementation isn't 100% robust, it'll be a nightmare for gamers. Not talking of the problem down the line that the servers might get taken offline in the future, as well (which shouldn't happen with the way Azure is made, as all is on demand).
I'm worried that there is a bit of mixing of user experience/server behaviour and what issues are network based and what issues are based on how the server wants to deal with certain attributes.
Getting shot while you are still around the corner is fairness factor to those with higher ping than you. They saw you on their screen and unloaded some bullets on you, but you are head of them in ping time so your client shows you made it back behind the wall without getting shot.
Server will get around to processing the higher latency player and begin nailing you with damage. In this respect i don't see processing being the problem but how they want to deal with it.
Older games people with higher pings just warped or died without ever seeing you. Hitscan style games were kings, the packets that arrived first to the server took priority there was no travel time for bullets so you just calculate who dies first.
FarticusMaximus
Newcomer
I know a fair few people that play Destiny as a single player game. They understand and accept the possibility of network dropouts affecting their game.
Diablo 3 also happened to sell pretty damn well despite being an always-online game and despite teething issues.
If a cloud-powered Crackdown provides an experience that an offline game cannot then I believe people will accept the potential disruption.
As the saying goes: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
MS need to put warnings about network reliance front and centre so that buyers know what they are committing to of course.
The cloud isn't going away. Dynamically allocatable resources means there's nothing stopping a game firing up a cloud service. When the game gets 'pulled', you could have a paid subscription to fund the cloud part yourself. And it's no different to server based games. How many games release with an announced time-line? AFAIK, none at all. No reason it should be different when on dynamic servers instead of dedicated servers.
I hope they do it this way, ie the game fires up a "vm" or what not for when you want to play MP online. Heck add a MP season pass option for when the publisher do not support servers for the game anymore.
TheWretched
Regular
Sure. I am not saying "don't do it". But I want them to properly test it BEFORE release.
And it's not like "the whole internet" exploded when Diablo 3 didn't work Destiny didn't work and a lot of others didn't either (not talking of "online games" here). Day One... or week one, is when you gather either respect or ire from fans. If your game only works some of the time, when there's no real reason for it to not work (saying "all other games work"), then you screwed up.
It's not acceptable for a game to not work day one. Publishers NEED to understand this. For the aformentioned games, there could be a fallback option (i.e. REAL singleplayer), but there wasn't. Why not? Cheaters as an argument only works to some degree... (i.e. implement an "sp only" savegame, and be done with the cheaters argument). When the game is tightly interconnected to the cloud... you better have a good fallback solution. Not everybody has a 120mbit/s line. Not everybody has unlimited data, or even perpetually available internet.
Ah well... I still think the cloud argument is a shill. There's simply no way any cloud system can provide anything meaningful in 33ms, even on a 16mbit/s line with low latency. Integrated over time, maybe... but then it could as well just be prerecorded on disc.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
I think the concern is buying a game that isn't an MMO or multiplayer-centric that relies on cloud services and not be aware that that it won't work at some point in the future, For example I expect GTA V to work for the life of my Playstation 4, and any replacement console I buy. If Rockstar and Take Two go out of business and I turn it on one day and the game won't work, I'd not be happy at all.
This is blending the technical drawbacks of multiplayer games (no server, no work) with traditional single player game expectations.
TheWretched
Regular
Ah well... we still have a lot of open source developers reverse engineering these system. WoW has it, Resident Evil Outbreak has them. And I guess a lot of others as well. Not sure how well they work, though.
They should just release the server binaries if they stop the server. Won't ever happen, even for PC only titles, but... that should be "mandatory".
They should just release the server binaries if they stop the server. Won't ever happen, even for PC only titles, but... that should be "mandatory".
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
I'm sure the philanthropists will be lining around the block for a chance to buy server code then invest in server infrastructure for games with no revenue stream
Yeah I was remembering ( mis or otherwise ) an earlier part of the thread:
https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...sition-to-cloud-really-possible.54209/page-58
Part of the issue with the demo was the alleged robustness of the "control" pc trying to display up to 60k chunks ( times 5 or 10 or 20 polys per chunk ?? ) and how difficult would it be to merely render the trajectories. Leaving that speculation I like everyone else wonders about the scaling of such things. Computation in the Cloud scales but not the bandwidth/latency so the trick is the nature of what is being transmitted from the Cloud. I would assume each packet would be encrypted as well to stop folks from sniffing which could have some effect on processing the packet so it's data can be rendered assuming that is how it is done. Mind you I think it's a great idea and I hope Crackdown 3 shows the way it can be done it's just that whole chicken and egg thing like the Kinect except the Cloud is a less controlled situation.
What was the lowest bandwidth requirement for the Cloud at the beginning 1.5 Mbits ??
itsmydamnation
Veteran
except for the part where i said as my latency increases so do the events. You also get glitching and warping for people with really high latencies, that's why pretty much all servers auto boot anything 100-150ms+.......
As I wrote, MP games
Take for instance MAG or Resistance 1 on the PS3. If I want to play MP now, its not possible, because there are no servers.But if Sony had made an amazon,azure,google whom ever cloud image, that I could from the the game buy server time with/for. Then I could schedule an hour or a weekend with my closest 128 friends and play MAG. Its a niche market for the cloud operator, but their endgame is volume, so why not?
Downside, Sony would turn off their server after 14 days or have you pay for it from day 1.
Games incurring ongoing running costs should probably charge a fee. Perhaps the future is every game you buy comes with 3 months' subscription and then you pay extra on top of that for however much you play. Or have an annual fee, like Live and PSN only actually covering the costs of operations so maybe a higher tier, that allows game instances to be spawned on the cloud for those subscribers regardless of the game.
If we'll do that with streaming games (create an instance on the cloud for the players), we can do it with network-requiring games too.
If we'll do that with streaming games (create an instance on the cloud for the players), we can do it with network-requiring games too.
Generally speaking in the PC space someone is paying for the servers we play on either you are directly, or someone else is (clan), you are getting hit with ads or its a free to play server trying to get you to eventually purchase micro transactions.
People associate PC with being free but that's only true with P2P games. I'm okay with the models today. Consoles use play lists and PC players tend to choose their own servers if the game supports server browsing. I'm the end neither can play when there is no population.
If developers are struggling with server costs then PC players will need to get with the idea of a paid service or game developers need to let PC players setup their own servers and let it run as a free market like before; remove the official servers to save costs. Of course by doing so you are freely giving away control of your game which is fine but anyone that wants to play on a universal global world ranked system will not be able to find that on the PC space.
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