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[Bsigg12]

The Xbox Wire's Gamescom roundup article explicitly called it a beta.

Which is odd because both the Gamescom reveal video and their Twitter are just referring to it as jumping into the multiplayer in summer 2016. It's very possible this game becomes the first first party Xbox Game Preview game from Microsoft.

 

[hipbabboom]

I just realized the title got changed. Did people have that much problem with the original? I guess its about truth and transparency in media.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Which is odd because both the Gamescom reveal video and their Twitter are just referring to it as jumping into the multiplayer in summer 2016. It's very possible this game becomes the first first party Xbox Game Preview game from Microsoft.

Only odd in the sense that they obviously made an attempt to be as vague about the game not actually releasing in 2016 as possible.

 

[RespectThySole]

Only odd in the sense that they obviously made an attempt to be as vague about the game not actually releasing in 2016 as possible.

I think it will end up releasing in 2017 and we'll get the beta in the summer/fall. I don't even get the point of being vague about it though because they have plenty of exclusives releasing next year anyway.

 

[elohel]

This looks pretty cool

 

[Hockeymac18]

Only odd in the sense that they obviously made an attempt to be as vague about the game not actually releasing in 2016 as possible.

It's also possible that they're not sure when it'll be done and ready to ship...not everything is tinfoil-hat deception.

 

[Brad Grenz]

It's also possible that they're not sure when it'll be done and ready to ship...not everything is tinfoil-hat deception.

Whether or not that is true doesn't excuse being deceptive about the fact that it's a beta they are promising "summer 2016". It's the same kinda crap they pulled when they let everyone believe Halo 5 was coming out last year when it was actually the MCC and a beta.

 

[Hockeymac18]

Whether or not that is true doesn't excuse being deceptive about the fact that it's a beta they are promising "summer 2016". It's the same kinda crap they pulled when they let everyone believe Halo 5 was coming out last year when it was actually the MCC and a beta.

Fair enough. I would like a bit more clarity, too.

 

[RespectThySole]

Whether or not that is true doesn't excuse being deceptive about the fact that it's a beta they are promising "summer 2016". It's the same kinda crap they pulled when they let everyone believe Halo 5 was coming out last year when it was actually the MCC and a beta.

Yeah it's obvious they're doing it purposely. Just come out and say its the beta for fucksake. You don't have to commit to a release date for the game yet.

 

[JayWood2010]

Naughty Dog and Bioware devs impressed by Cloud Computing Technology used in Crackdown 3

http://www.gamepur.com/news/19869-b...kdown-3s-cloud-have-some-genuine-concern.html

 

[Guerrillas in the Mist]

Naughty Dog and Bioware devs impressed by Cloud Computing Technology used in Crackdown 3

http://www.gamepur.com/news/19869-b...kdown-3s-cloud-have-some-genuine-concern.html

Regardless of the hyperbole and nonsense around the "power of the cloud" stuff over the last few years, there's no denying it's an insanely impressive technical feat.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Regardless of the hyperbole and nonsense around the "power of the cloud" stuff over the last few years, there's no denying it's an insanely impressive technical feat.

Nah, man, my toaster could run this, and my cat could program it. Not impressive at all, IMO.

/s

 

[mocoworm]

Naughty Dog & Bioware Devs React to Crackdown 3 - Destruction Outpaces What Giant Dev PCs Can Compute

Senior producer John Noonan also says specifics for modes and player counts are yet to be revealed.

Reagent’s Crackdown 3 has been making waves with Microsoft hyping up the potential of destruction in-game (with the highest amount achievable only in multiplayer) using the power of cloud computing. Naturally this has sparked interest from various developers. Bioware level/tech designer Jos Hendriks stated on Twitter that, “Seeing Crackdown 3’s destruction makes me excited to see that game, but one question came to mind immediately surrounding that narrative.”

He further followed it up by asking, “What happens to games making use of any kind of cloud computing when that stuff goes offline, either temporary, or end of service?” This was answered by 343 Industries multiplayer designer Patrick Wren who basically said that it would be the same as any multiplayer game where the session would end and you’re taken offline. Hendriks further asked, “Is it, though? I somehow got the impression that the destructible city bit stood apart from multiplayer.”

When it was somewhat clarified that this destructibility was limited to multiplayer (with the single-player having significantly scaled down amounts), Hendriks said, “I hope you are wrong in this case, because I’d love to see that destructibility in SP.”

It’s interesting to see that some developers are speculative about the potential of cloud gaming even after Microsoft showcased a trailer which displayed the so called power of the cloud. But the most interesting bit of reaction comes from Naughty Dog’s Jonathan Cooper, an animator for the upcoming Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. He stated that, “Crackdown 3 spectacularly showing how Microsoft should have pitched the ‘always on’ functionality so people could see the benefits.” Now that you think about Microsoft should showcased such a demo when they revealed the Xbox One back in 2013. Unfortunately, it’s little too late for that.

Crackdown 3 senior producer John Noonan talked further about the game’s tech on Twitter stating that the destruction is completely based on compute and does not require any sort of rendering. Interestingly, when asked if Azure would be necessary for the Windows 10 version, Noonan said, “I don’t think we’ve said anything about Windows, but the destruction massively outpaces what our giant dev PCs can compute.”

Fans have also been wondering how much destruction would be present in the single-player campaign along with whether multiplayer can be played alone. The response? “Specifics about modes & player counts aren’t ready, but Crackdown has always celebrated the sandbox.”

We’ll have to wait to find out more obviously. At this point, Crackdown 3’s multiplayer is set to release on Xbox One in Summer 2016.

 

[Dynasty]

http://kotaku.com/crackdown-3-shows-what-the-xbox-one-can-really-do-1723179052

 

[mocoworm]

http://kotaku.com/crackdown-3-shows-what-the-xbox-one-can-really-do-1723179052

Nice hands on write up.

In Crackdown 3’s single-player, destructibility is limited in the same way that it would be in any other game. It’s in multiplayer that the Xbox’s cloud capabilities come into play. Whenever the physics calculations get too much for the Xbox One to handle, it offloads the calculation to a server - or two servers, or three, or six if things start getting really heavy. Everything then plays out in real-time on your screen, and on the screens of the other people who might be in your multiplayer session.

The result of this is one of the most impressive demonstrations of game technology that I’ve seen in years. Using this network, Crackdown 3 transcends what is ordinarily possible on a console, or indeed even on a super-powered PC. It can have a fully-destructible city where you can shoot a hole in any wall, collapse any building, and then throw the resultant chunks of debris at a car to make it explode.

I tested this out myself with three other players in the session. The weapons had been powered-up for expediency, but it was easy to see that nothing was being faked. First, the bullets strip away the exterior of a building to reveal the superstructure below; if you want to collapse the superstructure, you need something like a rocket launcher and a bit of time, but eventually it will buckle and fall over, and probably take a few surrounding buildings with it. In about fifteen minutes my comrades and I managed to flatten a small section of the city.

In this build, there was a little graphic in the top right of the screen that showed when the physics calculations were being sent to servers. At one point it took seven servers to calculate the amount of carnage going on. It is awesome, in the literal sense of the word. I had immense fun standing on top of a tower and firing RPGs off at distant structures, watching them blow up in the distance. I’d assumed that you’d need a hefty Internet connection to make this work, but I was told that 2-4mbps is all that people will require.

Crackdown 3 is otherwise in quite an early state. It plays like a tech demo - there’s no agility in there yet, no jumping or climbing, vehicles aren’t working, and the textures are early - so creator Reagent Games has a lot of work ahead of it. So far a lot of time has been spent on creating the city’s buildings, which have had to be designed much like real buildings in order for the destructibility to work; they all have rooms inside, and are held up by great spires of metal. But this is still the most exciting Xbox One demo I’ve played yet, because it shows what this particular console can do that nothing else can.

 

[razzmahtazz]

I wonder how they will scale this up with multiple players. 7 servers just for a single instance multiplied by lets say a thousand sounds unsustainable. Maybe a single instance persistent world like an MMO that can handle hundreds of players?

 

[Septic360]

I wonder how they will scale this up with multiple players. 7 servers just for a single instance multiplied by lets say a thousand sounds unsustainable. Maybe a single instance persistent world like an MMO that can handle hundreds of players?

Yeah won't they run out of servers once this is out in the wild? Imagine if this sells shit loads and loads of people are online at one point. Will 300k serveres be enough? Couldn't there be a scenario where MS actually run out of servers?

 

[SatansReverence]

I wonder how they will scale this up with multiple players. 7 servers just for a single instance multiplied by lets say a thousand sounds unsustainable. Maybe a single instance persistent world like an MMO that can handle hundreds of players?

It wasn't number of servers used, it was the amount of "physics reserve per xbox" required or some such.

 

[mocoworm]

I wonder how they will scale this up with multiple players. 7 servers just for a single instance multiplied by lets say a thousand sounds unsustainable. Maybe a single instance persistent world like an MMO that can handle hundreds of players?

It isn't 7 servers. It is 7 times the compute power of an XONE.

 

[Guerrilla]

Nice hands on write up.

Kotaku:"Maybe QB will suck" -> New Thread

Kotaku:"Maybe Halo 5 will suck" -> New Thread

Kotaku:"Crackdown looks absolutely stunning" & The competition praising MS for this tech feat -> burried in thread


Nice read up though, I was sceptical at first but it seems everything really will work as advertised.

 

[EvB]

Yeah won't they run out of servers once this is out in the wild? Imagine if this sells shit loads and loads of people are online at one point. Will 300k serveres be enough? Couldn't there be a scenario where MS actually run out of servers?

I'd have thought so , in that demo the multiplier they was using was based upon the normal cpu that a modern game would reserve for physics . Let's same that is 1core or 15% of a games console's processing power.

What we know is that each Live user has 3x the cpu power of a single Xbox available to it in the cloud (300%)

In that 4 player demo they said they had a record of 14x being used.
So in an extreme case for that demo they are using 14x 15% . This is 210 of the 300 available per user. In a 4 player game the available server allocation would be even higher.

So if you assume a server only has the same compute as a single Xbox one, the 300k servers could power 610k concurrent games with 4 players all permanently "maxing out" crackdown 3.

Please excuse my potentially dodgy maths and poor use of %

 

[SatansReverence]

Kotaku:"Maybe QB will suck" -> New Thread

Kotaku:"Maybe Halo 5 will suck" -> New Thread

Kotaku:"Crackdown looks absolutely stunning" & The competition praising MS for this tech feat -> burried in thread


Nice read up though, I was sceptical at first but it seems everything really will work as advertised.

thisisneogaf.gifv

 

[Pug]

I'm amazed Digital Foundry haven't been all over the Crackdowns environmental cloud based destruction. They tend to thrive on this type of stuff and although I think Jonathan Cooper has a point, even demonstrating this at the consoles launch wouldn't have saved the always online pathway.

 

[justsomeguy]

Borderline new thread worthy IMO - new news, new thread. I'd start it myself but I'd get called a corporate shill no doubt... plus it is only a couple of twitter quotes wrapped into an article...

That sounds ridiculously impressive, really does. I love the idea of the dynamic scaling of compute capability - of course, that makes perfect sense, blindingly obvious in hindsight. It's not 7 servers per multiplayer game static, the server use dynamically scales throughout the match as needed.

 

[Phat Michael]

those writeups are very cool. Really glad to see this being implemented in the next year or so. The implications for other games is really cool

 

[gofreak]

even demonstrating this at the consoles launch wouldn't have saved the always online pathway.

I don't think it would, really.

You don't need to have a platform that universally requires always online access (or regular check-ins) for all its games in order to support this.

It can be an optional enhancement, or where required all the time in a game, something for online-only games. Things that are, and were, quite adequately supported already without requiring the platform to be 'always online'.

 

[travisbickle]

Kotaku:"Maybe QB will suck" -> New Thread

Kotaku:"Maybe Halo 5 will suck" -> New Thread

Kotaku:"Crackdown looks absolutely stunning" & The competition praising MS for this tech feat -> burried in thread


Nice read up though, I was sceptical at first but it seems everything really will work as advertised.

Yeah it's a shame there's only one person allowed to post threads on GAF and he's a big Sony fan!

 

[Oppo]

oh moco

I read it as "this is an impressive physics demo but we have real concerns about server longevity and multi vs single player"

but that's no good for bolding Cloud Powah narrative purposes

oh look you made another thread. you have 3x the hype of an unconnected Xbone

 

[sangreal]

I'm amazed Digital Foundry haven't been all over the Crackdowns environmental cloud based destruction. They tend to thrive on this type of stuff and although I think Jonathan Cooper has a point, even demonstrating this at the consoles launch wouldn't have saved the always online pathway.

The xbox one was never always online. The original DRM plan (which required regular check-ins) wouldn't have had any effect on the viability or lack-thereof of game modes like this, as even then they had to account for disconnected users.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Yeah it's a shame there's only one person allowed to post threads on GAF and he's a big Sony fan!

I would love if we had a new thread every time Phil Spencer writes something on Twitter... .

Seriously, I think that criticizing Kotaku because they dare posting negative impressions and then complaining about gaming press hyping any major game announced without properly analyzing it seem contradictory at least...

 

[Guerrilla]

Yeah it's a shame there's only one person allowed to post threads on GAF and he's a big Sony fan!

You're right, stupid post, I should be better than this, I'll see my self out

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Dat clickbait title

Crackdown 3 Preview: The Xbox One game that is beyond the PS4's capabilities

 

[Deviousx]

I literally just spent 3 hours playing Keys to the City on Crackdown 1. Managed to take out all the bosses from Los Muertos, completely maxed out my explosives and strength skills, and collected about 250 agility orbs.

No game should be this addictive... right?

Crackdown 3 might be too damn much for me. lol :/

 

[frogger]

This probably has been asked. Does this mean crackdown 3 is always online?

 

[Bsigg12]

This probably has been asked. Does this mean crackdown 3 is always online?

No. The single player stuff as it has been stated by the devs is offline.

 

[kitch9]

Physics is the next big thing for me, but not really excited by building demolition simulator games.

How would this tech hold up in fast moving games with loads of bits flying around say in tight gunfights that become a persistent part of the game?

 

[c0de]

Physics is the next big thing for me, but not really excited by building demolition simulator games.

How would this tech hold up in fast moving games with loads of bits flying around say in tight gunfights that become a persistent part of the game?

Well, like many new things, we don't know and have to wait what developers can make out of it and how they can good creative ways to use it.
We can easily create situations where it wouldn't work but it's up to devs to use it, not our work to find out where it doesn't.