-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Respawn Engineer: Titanfall benefits from Microsoft Cloud servers is real.
- Thread starter Maninthemirror
- Start date
justsomeguy
Member
Hahaha, thank you that is a genius comment
the problem with this is the assumption that they would have used dedicated servers had they not been available free. It could just have likely resulted in the game not being the game we got
I take no offense to the post marking the performance of the game. However, the post comes off more along the lines of "lol M$ cloud" and less about how the game runs. Which, like I said, adds nothing to the conversation...
QuicheFontaine
Member
Someone earlier said it was Respawn's "vision" that they were just like creeps from MOBA, so you'd expect there to be a quote somewhere to that effect.
No, there isn't. The cloud is just a scalable bunch of dedicated servers. The end result for the gamer is exactly the same.
It's called dedicated servers, something that was commonplace a decade ago. It's hilarious how these companies take something away and a generation later give them back and people think it's the greatest thing ever.
Microsoft doesn't have anything in the central part of the US either. And Amazon most certainly does have service in mainland Europe.
So, no, there aren't any benefits of using Azure over Amazon atm.
I just played CS GO on a server where my ping was 15 and many had even lower.
If using Azure servers means no user created servers and no server browser then I don't want those Azure servers.
I don't think anybody has said this. In fact if MS were crafty they'd be offering Azure (or Thunderhead or whatever they call the portion for games) to companies working on multiplatform games. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they're already doing that, in fact.
Here are the locations of Amazon data centers:
N. Virginia
Oregon
N. California
Ireland
Singapore
Tokyo
Sydney
São Paulo
GovCloud
Beijing*
Here are the locations of MS data centers:
East Asia - Hong Kong, China
South East Asia - Singapore
South-central US - San Antonio, TX
West US - California
East US - Virginia
North-central US - Chicago, IL
West Europe - Amsterdam, Netherlands
North Europe - Dublin, Ireland
And it appears MS is building a data centers in Australia, Korea, Washington, Japan, and Brazil.
So yes, Amazon has more data centers currently.
Azure too.
Forgottonone
Member
I actually think he is saying this to inform Industry Dev's to try it out and not just shun it.
lastflowers
Banned
this has happened in counterstrike for nearly a decade. It will happen on dedis too.
lastflowers
Banned
Isn't the cloud actually making things worse in regards to the whole "OFFLOADING COMPUTING, BETTER GFX" shit that Microsoft tried to push down our throads, if it works like they are describing it to work? They say they can have more shit happen simultaneously and have it all synced between players, so they are pushing more AI bots & dropships flying around etc. But what if Xbone can't handle actually putting all that onto the screen, as it evidently can't with all the slowdown & tearing & shit. I mean, it's still the Xbone that needs to draw everything onto the screen, the cloud/dedicated servers just tells every console where those things are & what they are doing at any given time. So the cloud is actually a detriment to the experience, at least if devs use it that way. 
soul creator
Member
As implied in that article, a lot of the "cloud benefits" are things that are more behind the scenes and developer-friendly, rather than anything necessarily directly consumer facing (though consumers can still benefit in an indirect and more subtle fashion)
So any comments about it in public are somewhat useless to the average gamer on a message board, because the advantages can't be summed up in a screenshot or video like other features can.
It'd be interesting if any of this stuff will be talked about in-depth at GDC.
So any comments about it in public are somewhat useless to the average gamer on a message board, because the advantages can't be summed up in a screenshot or video like other features can.
It'd be interesting if any of this stuff will be talked about in-depth at GDC.
Which would you rather?
Portugeezer
Member
Now imagine if they had good AI.
Wow this thread went places since I was last here... This post is gonna be long.
It makes no sense to call out a Respawn dev telling us what benefits they actually implemented in Titanfall, due to stuff that MS claimed before. Completely separate events.
The fact that they can run all this stuff for free is kinda ground breaking tbh. Before games were generally dependent on players hosting servers, or the publisher paying for a limited amount of servers until they considered it not worth the money anymore, or making compromises to the gameplay system itself to make it playable in p2p (again, Outrun 2 and Sonic Allstars).
The details of the deal are unimportant, so long as they work out at the busines end, allowing us to get the servers. I don't need to see the contract, to see that Titanfall offers something online that a p2p alternative wouldn't.
This is actually one of the main benefits of cloud vs standard dedicated servers. MS doesn't have to reserve space indefinitely for Titanfall. If when Halo 2 Anniversary hits, it eats dramtically into Titanfalls player base, the resources used for Titanfall magically become H2A games. The servers only need to be concerned with hosting enough for the players on Live, the distribution between different games is no longer important, so you no longer have to have a game's online be shut down because it is only being played sporadically.
There most likely wouldn't even be 'dumb' enemies. It has nothing to do with graphics, or the level of challenge the AI gives. It's their very existence that is being allowed by the servers.
Sorry to be blunt here.. but you really have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Outrun 2's traffic is handled by the console locally. However in a p2p game the host console cannot be trusted to handle this in an online environment, so they are removed, despite being a core mechanic of the series. It's mostly a case of bandwidth rather than computational power. Some things that are rather simple to do offline, are nigh impossible online in p2p.
This isn't true. As consumers, the business side of games development constantly has an effect on us. Servers are expensive? Then you get a generation of p2p only. Development is expensive? Then you get DLC and microtransactions. You can't separate yourself from the business of games, without simply not playing them anymore.
Probably because THEIR connection is garbage. The data still has to make it to your console somehow, and nothing is going to get you a lagless experience if your connection is acting like 56k. If you're dying after running around the corner, then you never actually ran around the corner. Your console thinks you did, and it's wrong. The server hosts the one true representation of the game, and in it, you got capped in the head.
No. Because "here is the game as it is... and here is it without AI units" isn't really worth showing anybody. If it would result in noticeable graphical downgrades (it wouldn't), then sure.. there may be some point.
Phew... all caught up.
It makes no sense to call out a Respawn dev telling us what benefits they actually implemented in Titanfall, due to stuff that MS claimed before. Completely separate events.
The fact that they can run all this stuff for free is kinda ground breaking tbh. Before games were generally dependent on players hosting servers, or the publisher paying for a limited amount of servers until they considered it not worth the money anymore, or making compromises to the gameplay system itself to make it playable in p2p (again, Outrun 2 and Sonic Allstars).
The details of the deal are unimportant, so long as they work out at the busines end, allowing us to get the servers. I don't need to see the contract, to see that Titanfall offers something online that a p2p alternative wouldn't.
This is actually one of the main benefits of cloud vs standard dedicated servers. MS doesn't have to reserve space indefinitely for Titanfall. If when Halo 2 Anniversary hits, it eats dramtically into Titanfalls player base, the resources used for Titanfall magically become H2A games. The servers only need to be concerned with hosting enough for the players on Live, the distribution between different games is no longer important, so you no longer have to have a game's online be shut down because it is only being played sporadically.
There most likely wouldn't even be 'dumb' enemies. It has nothing to do with graphics, or the level of challenge the AI gives. It's their very existence that is being allowed by the servers.
Have you seen grunts running/wall running and jumping around the map? They stand there in groups like villagers from the Zelda games.
The proof is in the pudding
PR bullshit..
Sorry to be blunt here.. but you really have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Outrun 2's traffic is handled by the console locally. However in a p2p game the host console cannot be trusted to handle this in an online environment, so they are removed, despite being a core mechanic of the series. It's mostly a case of bandwidth rather than computational power. Some things that are rather simple to do offline, are nigh impossible online in p2p.
This isn't true. As consumers, the business side of games development constantly has an effect on us. Servers are expensive? Then you get a generation of p2p only. Development is expensive? Then you get DLC and microtransactions. You can't separate yourself from the business of games, without simply not playing them anymore.
Probably because THEIR connection is garbage. The data still has to make it to your console somehow, and nothing is going to get you a lagless experience if your connection is acting like 56k. If you're dying after running around the corner, then you never actually ran around the corner. Your console thinks you did, and it's wrong. The server hosts the one true representation of the game, and in it, you got capped in the head.
No. Because "here is the game as it is... and here is it without AI units" isn't really worth showing anybody. If it would result in noticeable graphical downgrades (it wouldn't), then sure.. there may be some point.
Phew... all caught up.
MS has a dc in Chicago and one in Texas or somewhere in the south. And you're also wrong about Amazon, their only location within Europe is eu-west-1. Feel free to prove me wrong though and show me those magical datacenters that even Amazon doesn't know about.
Maybe you should have read the rest of my messages as well be for hitting reply....
SwiftDeath
Member
How are the details unimportant? What if the amount of server time offered for free to every XB1 game is minuscule? What if the amount offered to big publishers is magnitudes higher than what is offered to indies or mid-tier etc.? What if the amount offered for free is on a case per case basis that is decided by MS?
Without knowing the actual details of it we don't know the ramifications this may or may not actually have to developers going forward. We simply do no know the extent to which the offer in question helps developers
Yeah, in the past they just gave out the server software to anyone that wanted it and people ran their own servers at no cost to the dev or publisher.
Then they became control freaks and forced lots of games to be P2P or the like.
But now they bring back servers via the "cloud" (but still have control over them) and try to sell it like it is a revolution!
All I can say to that is
very
much
this.
You ignored the qualifier I attached to that. I said the details are unimportant so long as they work out at the business end. If the dev chooses to use the servers, then the servers are obviously not too expensive for it to make sense. I don't care if the dev/pub has to promote the X1 version prominently, sign exclusivity, or offer babysitting services to MS employees to gain access. If they are choosing to do this, then it's obviously being seen as worthwhile for them, and it's beneficial to me in terms of the product I purchased. If the terms are bad, then the dev either buys time on Amazon or Google services, or we go right back to how things have been for the last decade or so, with compromised online experiences. As it stands right now, there's only positive results that can be seen from the initiative.
Your point here seems to be along the lines of "Sure they're offering free kittens, but what if some people are getting more kittens then others!?". Would you rather we didn't have kittens? Between this and the other review thread you appear to be one of the most pessimistic people on the planet. Most of your posts seem to focus on what could possibly be going wrong either now, or in the future, even when there's no evidence to support your theories.
DirtyLarry
Member
So The Cloud is really just dedicated servers is what I got from this.
This makes me think all technologies that are currently out there need new branding to make them seem special.
I propose WiFi is now called The Magic.
This makes me think all technologies that are currently out there need new branding to make them seem special.
I propose WiFi is now called The Magic.
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
Azure seems to bring a lot to the table with what it offers. I certainly care about it and what it has to offer us. The Azure virtualized server platform seems like one of the most tangible next generational leaps. Its true that dedicated servers are nothing new. But on this scale, with this agility and availability/democratization it really is a piece of infrastructure we haven't seen before. And just like every generational leap when a technology like this graduates from just technically possible to another part of the toolkit everyone has access to a lot creative and exciting stuff is bound to happen.
SwiftDeath
Member
Yes this initiative is indeed only positive in its effect that is most certainly true. But without knowing the actual details and for your qualifier what games do or don't take advantage of the offer we don't really know objectively what benefits a consumer would be seeing out of this initiative
I don't care about promoting the deal, I do care about promoting it in a logical coherent way that is not incredibly vague and offering little in substance. If a dev [or publisher I suppose] is getting a real benefit from this offer I expect full heartedly that they would talk about it and its benefits. I simply don't understand why we should accept vague PR double talk as the response? What good does that serve us?
Well I'm no Derrick but yes I am fairly pessimistic in a lot of cases that is true
What evidence is there to support any detailed analysis of the offer at all? It's all just theories of what devs/pubs are or are not getting offered because there is nothing in the way of actual details, that's my problem as I've been saying time and again. If you want to try and sell the benefits of the server to consumers like us be specific in what benefits people are actually receiving and don't talk in general vague PR misnomers.
MikeOfTheLivingDead
Grapetastic!
???
Back in my day no one actually played on a machine that was hosting a dedicated server, that's kinda what the "dedicated" part of dedicated server means.
I can't for the life of me understand why a company wants all this infrastructure. Sure offer it if you must, but why can't an end user buy an extra console, throw it online and run their own dedicated server for their favorite shooter for their friends? What's so awful about allowing a player set up a server that runs the map and game rotations they want and runs by their own rules and moderation?
If there's no evidence to support the argument either way, then it shouldn't constantly be brought up to beat the dev over the head with. This was a podcast with Major Nelson, not some John Carmack style technical panel. He clearly states that the cloud network allows them more flexibility with how the servers are created and distributed. He clearly states that this also allows them to have heavy AI unit participation online, which is something that simply doesn't work well p2p, and is often prohibited with dedicated servers due to the costs involved. Those right there are the benefits. He told you them. For the audience he's addressing, nothing more needs to be said really. Most people aren't tuned in to hear about all the backend implementation and handshakes that allow it to happen. They're not tuned in to here the specifics on the deal Respawn were given, and if other devs received the same deal (something they possibly wouldn't even know).
When Apple tells me the new iPhone runs much faster than the old one, and amazingly also has a longer battery life. I don't go "BS! Explain to me how... in detail!!". That's a completely different discussion, often not suited for the audience they're addressing. You initially came into this thread saying they were talking shit about the AI units, because Resogun has lots of voxels.. giving you an answer you'd have been content with on that podcast would have taken a lot longer than I believe the topic justifies. Especially as they couldn't have predicted what you were going to question.
SwiftDeath
Member
Not at all a valid comparison because I can look towards the tech specs and understand on an objective level what the benefit I would perceive to be actually is. The details will exist in the open at some point for any interested party to determine what they are actually getting from their purchase.
My comment on the voxels with resogun was simply stating how ridiculous it is for a developer to say that they can do 400 things on screen because of the compute. It is a meaningless thing to state because we cannot objectively assess what they gained from the compute resources if anything in that regard.
I have been and will continue to [assuming the conversation persists] that we have not gotten any actual details on what is and isn't now possible thanks to MS's compute in regards to what the developer actually said. It has not been clarified but in fact made more vague. If respawn simply wishes to state that they now have an easy time handling the servers and also run AI on the dedi's that's fine but they have of late been saying things in such a way to heavily suggest other things are actually being done with MS compute but fail to go into any detail whatsoever on it.
Memorabilia
Member
Exactly, the AI in Titanfall is brain-dead. How, exactly, is the magic cloud needed to compute brain-dead AI? I love this game for now...its incredibly addictive...but this guy sounds like hes gone full on PR BS mode.
Abinash117
Member
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/25/titanfall-dev-explains-xbox-ones-azure-cloud-benefits
Its on pc and 360 , there is even a dataserver icon on the start up menu.
The benefits are probably very real. Easy to use servers and all that. Fantastic resources for a new developer to tap into. Makes for a good streamlined experience for everyone, just like P2P.
As someone who is used to something better though, it simply lowers the value of the product unless you happen to live next to one of the very few data centers. In Finland the closest Titanfall server clusters are in Netherlands and from what I've played the retail version, I've not had a match yet where the enemy hasn't killed me behind a corner or "through an obstacle". Typical P2P or high ping problems. Problems that I don't encounter in the very much hated Battlefield 4, a game that apparently has 10Hz tickrate but thanks to servers actually being within 1000 miles of my location, my ping stays in the 10-15ms range and I rarely experience any latency related problems.
Latency issues like these were cool in the 90s but it's 2014 and Titanfall is a high budget game that is literally multiplayer only. They should act accordingly and optimize the multiplayer experience instead of optimizing their relationship with Microsoft. Other than latency issues, I really enjoy the game but I'm not sure how long or often I want to play if the overall experience just isn't as good as with other shooters that happen to actually support proper dedicated servers.
As someone who is used to something better though, it simply lowers the value of the product unless you happen to live next to one of the very few data centers. In Finland the closest Titanfall server clusters are in Netherlands and from what I've played the retail version, I've not had a match yet where the enemy hasn't killed me behind a corner or "through an obstacle". Typical P2P or high ping problems. Problems that I don't encounter in the very much hated Battlefield 4, a game that apparently has 10Hz tickrate but thanks to servers actually being within 1000 miles of my location, my ping stays in the 10-15ms range and I rarely experience any latency related problems.
Latency issues like these were cool in the 90s but it's 2014 and Titanfall is a high budget game that is literally multiplayer only. They should act accordingly and optimize the multiplayer experience instead of optimizing their relationship with Microsoft. Other than latency issues, I really enjoy the game but I'm not sure how long or often I want to play if the overall experience just isn't as good as with other shooters that happen to actually support proper dedicated servers.
The comparison is valid. Sure you can go find the rest of the information out for yourself (and even then many areas of the chip's design will not be publicly available), but that doesn't mean that all these details are fully explained whenever they present the device to people. The tech specs will also not inform you of any OS optimisations that may be effecting the performance and battery life. Furthermore, if you simply wanted to know what was possible using Azure, then that information is also generally available (and is where the majority of what I know about it comes from). The only thing that isn't really available publicly are any business terms between Respawn and MS, and the actual implementation of their code. That's not information you can realistically demand from them.
He didn't say 400 things on screen. He said BROADCASTING that there are 400 things moving this frame. Here, look..
This paints a very clear image of a bandwidth issue being solved by the existence of the servers. But you appear to have misinterpreted this and immediately accused the dev of spouting BS, where in this case they have actually done exactly what you've been asking of them... detailing a benefit of the cloud implementation. As I said before, I feel that to have worded this in such a way as to have satisfied you, they would have had to dedicate an awful lot of time to just this. Hell, this long ass discussion we're currently having about it somewhat points to that. He could have gone into much more detail, made comparisons to how AI is handled in other games like Phantasy Star Online or Monster Hunter to mitigate connection issues... but you know what? Why should he, on this particular podcast?
I must have missed these. Would you mind pointing some of them out for me?
SmoothRunningGun
Member
I'm sorry but this game is not impressive from a technical standpoint. We can debate whether or not it's fun or lacking in content.
SwiftDeath
Member
We are arguing about the level of detail given to consumers in these regards. I am stating that in regards to a new cell phone like an iphone we as consumers have access to far far more objective detailed information that we can use to try and determine what benefits we perceive from it. What information is generally available about the benefits from Azure over previous dedicated server installs that is objective and comparable?
This is again your interpretation of what the dev said in a single sentence without much detail in it one way or the other. My point was not that the servers aren't handling AI work or some of the skybox objects in motion but how much does this implementation of dedicated servers actually benefit users in a ground breaking way that previous solutions couldn't as per pretty much every comment I've made up until now and why I compared it to resogun in the first place. If you want to spend so much time trying to upsell the benefits of the MS compute offer [which I actually want them to do as its interesting] they should do it in a clear and concise way or at the very least not try to state various things they are doing with it besides the obvious dynamic scaling nature of it unless they want to explain themselves.
On this particular podcast? No of course not but if you have respawn engineers continuing the line that the MS compute service is offering something truly ground breaking and then discuss various elements that do not seem to correlate with the dynamic scaling nature of it I would hope they would feel a need to better explain themselves at some point
We have been talking about them the whole time?
Unless you would like to retract you statement previously where you say
This is a video game that you play."The servers are dynamically being created" and "It allows us to use more non-player units than before" are perfectly fine details for detailing what you can expect from it.
I'd be very interested in hearing how many other interpretations you can get from "broadcasting that 400 things are moving". Because the one I gave, is literally the only one I can see being drawn (without falling into completely irrelevant "this is what can be done locally" discussions).
Maybe they will... I dunno. What I do know though is that plenty of games release with unique selling points, and the developers aren't always expected to explain how it all came together in order to be allowed tell you that it's good for the game.
Ah well played. I was actually wondering when that line was going to come back to haunt me.
With that said, I would actually like to retract that statement if you're going to let me. Shortly after I said that JaggedSac reminded me of the fact that the game wouldn't be required to allocate specific servers for training missions and can just create them as required (I did actually later include this scenario in later posts about this disadvantages of standard dedicated servers). They would still be trying to make it sound more exciting than it is, but they wouldn't really be claiming its doing something it isn't.. If you get what I mean?
Of course, we don't know that this is actually what they are doing, but it's not exactly like it outside of the realms of probability. I don't see how them breaking this down to say exactly what happens when you select "Training" makes me any more informaed on if I should be purchasing the game or not though. Is this the only example? You said as of late, so I assumed there would be more than two lines from one podcast to warrant such scrutiny.
SwiftDeath
Member
Apple iPhone 6 has a somewhat longer battery life and is indeed most likely probably faster than previous models. Please buy our product.
Can they at least understand why that example is not comparable to this instance?
If you must keep upselling the MS compute then they should try to educate us on what the actual benefits are above dynamic creation if indeed as the engineer suggests there are use cases not fully understood by those outside respawn but that they would like to mention in passing.
I meant how much resources does it actually free up? Unless 400 things are some objective unit of measurement I'm not familiar with? Is that a lot a little will it be compelling amount of resources for every dev under the sun to go OMG I NEED TO USE THAT so my AI can be super awesome and I can still do this
That is what I meant. I fully realize he was taking about things being done on the serverside but I meant how compelling are the resource allocations they are given?
Of course not but if they want to effectively convince us of why that unique selling point is good for the game then they damn well better explain it. Otherwise how do I actually know what is and isn't due to the added benefits of MS's solution over normal dedicated servers?
Ah well played. I was actually wondering when that line was going to come back to haunt me.
With that said, I would actually like to retract that statement if you're going to let me. Shortly after I said that JaggedSac reminded me of the fact that the game wouldn't be required to allocate specific servers for training missions and can just create them as required (I did actually later include this scenario in later posts about this disadvantages of standard dedicated servers). They would still be trying to make it sound more exciting than it is, but they wouldn't really be claiming its doing something it isn't.. If you get what I mean?
Of course, we don't know that this is actually what they are doing, but it's not exactly like it outside of the realms of probability. I don't see how them breaking this down to say exactly what happens when you select "Training" makes me any more informaed on if I should be purchasing the game or not though. Is this the only example? You said as of late, so I assumed there would be more than two lines from one podcast to warrant such scrutiny.
What is possible is not the question, what is being demonstrated and shown to us the consumer is what's important. I enjoy reading yours and JaggedSac's theories about how Respawn is utilizing the dynamic nature of the MS's Thunderhead, I really do. But they are theories made by fans. Why can Respawn not communicate effectively what they are actually doing that is so ground breaking and never before done? I actually wouldn't be surprised if they were doing something truly interesting with MS compute, maybe something along one of your theories but they have had ample PR time to discuss it and have yet to state anything aside from the pricing and the dynamic nature of MS's solution.
The comparison was to illustrate that there are plenty of things you purchase without the full information of how they work. There are many things in an iPhone that effect its performance that you never hear about. There's less info given in regards to using servers in Titanfall, because significantly less is required for you to make an informed decision whether to buy it or not.
Even with understanding that much of what the game does would not work without servers rather than p2p, there really isn't a statistic that can be given to detail the differences. It simply changes the game's design. It's not like a graphics processing situation, where they can go "and it frees up "25% of the cycles for other cool shit". This is more of a case of "well we can do these things" rather than "we can't". The 400 number given is pointless in this regard, because that could be doubled, tripled or even multiplied by ten on the server side as there isn't a fixed limit on the resources at hand.
*cue infinite power of the cloud quip*
They mentioned the things that count. AI and dynamic servers. I don't believe that anything else you are asking for helps sell the product. One can be achieved with dedicated servers, the cannot. It also doesn't really matter that one can be achieved with dedicated servers, if those server were not about to be purchased.
The game itself is demonstrating what is offered. As far as I'm aware that has been the way pretty much all games have demonstrated the merits of the tech behind them. Anything that is invisible (such as the training mode implementation) isn't really something they are actively trying to sell you. Mentioning aspects of a game doesn't mean it has to be broken down entirely into a strong sales pitch.
SwiftDeath
Member
My argument was never to get complete information on how the server offer works or what they are doing with MS compute but for more information. The debate we are currently having in essence boils down to you thinking we have been given an adequate amount of information to try and determine what consumer benefits users are receiving and me debating that we in fact do not have enough information to do just that.
What is realistically possible in this instance based on the resource allocation presented in the free server offer by MS? MS has stated before how much potential is available in the cloud but every game is still going to be limited to some amount of server time lest one incorrect script in one game asks for infinite resources and nerfs the network and that's not even taking into account the real world limitations MS would impose on server time requests from games.
The cloud has the potential to offer "infinite" power because it's upgradeable. There is still very much a real world current limitation on what it can dedicate to game resources and I think logically it is safe to assume that any game using thunderhead will be limited to some maximum usage especially when/if you start having dozens of online games utilizing the service and needing to ask for server time.
The problem I have is that what they are upselling is not perceivable by the end user. We cannot in fact determine how much better this solution is versus a similar set up with a standard dedicated server solution because we can not make an adequate comparison. So in turn Respawn feels the need to discuss the benefits that users can't differentiate from other solutions [as there is no adequate comparison] and I feel the information given is lacking.
If what the benefits of the server solution are simply the dynamic scaling nature and the freeness of it that's great. Please stop talking about the other elements this solution offers that we as consumers can't perceive unless you're willing to discuss them in greater detail. That's pretty much what I meant though I do talk in circles
NemesisPrime
Banned
PC is also running on Azure. Nothing to do with Live.
Freeman
Banned
Still sounds like just the benefits of hosting a game in a server to me, maybe more practical today, but that isn't an exclusivity of MS. They keep acting like they reinvented the wheel, when all they did is change its name.
It don't like that MS is still committed to this kind of BS PR spin.
One thing this made me wonder is, are there South American Azure servers?
It don't like that MS is still committed to this kind of BS PR spin.
One thing this made me wonder is, are there South American Azure servers?
I was wondering this, since sometimes in the top right corner during matchmaking I'll see it say something about "connecting to Xbox Live servers yada yada" or something like that. Anyone know the deal with that? I just chalked it up to them forgetting to change that bit of text in this version.
Ok, this is fair enough. We both seem to differ on exactly what we need to be told in order to determine whether or not we are benefitting from the choices made. The things you're contesting for more information on seem more borne out of curiosity, than a need to evaluate the product in my opinion. I don't require to know if something could have been accomplished in some other way (dedicated servers), I only need to know what the result of that is in game. If they're saying "we can do this because we can use the cloud as required, rather than make a larger commitment upfront", then that's enough info for me. Anything else isn't going to magically change the product.
The limits would be business deals in this case, and not what is potentially possible by the network. Again, unless they were to divulge whatever contracts they have with MS for this, there isn't really anything they can share here. It's not like they'd say "and having access to Azure lets us do all sorts of thing with AI units, so long as we don't tie up X amount of resources for Y amount of time". There just isn't a statistic here to give, even if realistically there are limits.
As someone that's been playing games online for a long time now, the benefits are perceivable to me. The choice had generally been a limited set of dedicated servers that I would select from, that were running a fixed rotation, but with the ability to maintain larger scale interactions, or matchmaking in p2p with more limitations on scale, and often unstable connectivity, but with games created dynamically as and when they are required. Titanfall has given what I view as the best of both of these scenarios, without any of the drawbacks. I can make the comparison in this case, simply because I've used each scenario plenty of times in the past. Most of what they've said all falls into either of two categories, AI enabled by servers or flexibility offered by the cloud. It's difficult to tell them to stop talking about other elements when there haven't really been other elements that fall outside of these two categories. It's enabling an online environment that would likely not make financial sense otherwise. I don't see what's wrong with them being enthused about it.
Considering you have to stand in front of titanfall ai for 3-6 seconds for them to even think about shooting means they haven't done anything with it ai wise yet.
SwiftDeath
Member
To truly evaluate the benefit more information is needed is my point. I can say that the experience feels better but that would be my subjective take on it. If you must repeat the standard PR lines on such an offer it does well to try and successfully communicate all that is actually being offered in a straightforward knowledge based manner and to be specific. Otherwise it is near impossible to determine what actual benefit is being offered over traditionally solutions and how much value that should have to any end user.
Respawn could simply spend a paragraph trying to iterate how having dynamic scaling servers altered their design of matchmaking and how they handled skill and why this solution allowed them to acheive that assuming that is indeed what they meant but as you retracted that previous comment we discussed then we are debating about those comments actually being something of merit in regards to the MS solution offering something above a standard dedicated server solution. Maybe 2 paragraphs of explanation at some point. Is that really that much to ask?
As per the limitations on the deal, it may solve itself with time assuming there is sufficient uptake of the offer as it would lend credence that the offer makes financial sense to a large subset of developers and is not a deal that specifically benefits Respawn in this case above whatever the standard free offer MS is delivering which in and of itself might not be compelling enough for wide-reaching uptake.
There are actually statistics that could be given out as I alluded to in the previous post. Simply how much server time, bandwidth, region availability is made available to developers based on this free offer. It's akin in many ways to the desire for enthusiasts here to learn what the resource allocations within the console actually were so you could determine what developers had to work with. But with the case of the hardware of the consoles you had upper limits so you could at least rationally cap what expectations developers had on that side even if you couldn't determine the actual limits. There is no information on what MS is offering to developers for free. If I was for instance to use an XB1 as a dev kit and make a game etc. would I be offered unlimited server time on Thunderhead across every region I wanted to? If I become an official Xbox developer [I imagine there's different classifications of developers] am I entitled to unlimited server time across all regions? What is the free deal? What does it encompass? Is it the same across all developers? I don't know, and truth be told I wouldn't be so bothered about it had the PR not been trying to upsell it as an added value of the product/service that is XB1/XBL. Fine if you want me to evaluate the value add from this offering to developers which in turn falls onto me as some benefits please detail what the offer entails.
Your opinion as to what the benefits are and how strong they are is entirely subjective as they are based on your experience within the game versus your experience within other games
That is your experience with Titanfall versus other games with varying netcodes across a multitude of hosting options. The subjectivity in such an assessment is absolute. It is great that you believe you perceive a benefit from the solution but how would you for instance objectively show that to anyone else?
Again my major problem falls into what I perceive to be them overselling the MS compute aspect as they tend to throw some extra additions as to what it makes possible by the matchmaking and training statement that we've previously discussed. Neither of which is expanded upon and yet is mentioned in passing. Furthermore AI enabled by servers has been previously established for many years and is not ground breaking. Flexibility of game hosting [dynamic scaling] is a new adaption perhaps to multiplayer games although not cloud computing in general but it is not expanded upon in any meaningful way discussion-wise except that they have the ability to do it and then careens off into the discussion of matchmaking and training. It appears that they would like us to believe that there is more to it than is actually detailed and I simply would like to know what they mean by that and how I should perceive this added benefit based off objective information after all there have been many cases where a person's opinion of how a game plays is not at all accurate when looked at in an objective light.
I really dont get whats the big deal? i created my own servers in UT and played on servers from friends? whats so new about all of this? are you fucking kidding me?
First you shit on everything awesome in classic ego shooters to rip people off and make a quick buck like dedicated servers, server creation, millions of mods and user created maps.
But now apparently servers are like the "new" awesome shit and i should go on my knees and start blowing Microsoft are you fucking kidding ME?
First you shit on everything awesome in classic ego shooters to rip people off and make a quick buck like dedicated servers, server creation, millions of mods and user created maps.
But now apparently servers are like the "new" awesome shit and i should go on my knees and start blowing Microsoft are you fucking kidding ME?