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HoloDust on 06 August 2015
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Machiavellian said:
HoloDust said:
Again that word, Cloud. All I see is game that has portion of its code in multiplayer calculated on servers - you know, like every other mp game with dedicated servers out there. It's just that they decided to add to that portion of code full world destruction as well and gamble with how good internet connection is for most players.

It does look nice, can't deny it (physics, not the game, visuals look terrible at this point), but given how often even ordinary games have problems with servers, I'm waiting to see this running in real world and not as demo on stage.

What you see and what you comprehend are 2 different things.  What is being done with Crackdown is not the same as running a MP game on dedicated server.  

First understand that each portion of the game and its environment are processed by multiple different servers.  To understand why it’s called cloud tech is to understand what the term actually means. 

It’s the main reason why you are getting confused with what a dedicated server is compared to what a cloud does.  A cloud uses multiple dedicated servers and distribute the work among those servers.  When load increase, the cloud has the ability to add more servers or reduce the number of servers used for processing.  Servers can be spun up or down based on load and the switch of this process happens in Nano seconds.  So when MS talks about their cloud this is what they are talking about.  The ability to distribute work among multiple servers at the drop of a dime and scale back those servers also at a given moment.  

 MP games that use dedicated servers cannot do anything that I just mentioned.  MP dedicated servers allow users to be matched on that one server and the server handles sending data to all parties but it does not distribute the work among multiple servers nor does it have the capability to spin up and down servers for load balance.

 

This tech is not new, it’s been used for years in the enterprise.  The new part is that it has not been used for compute work within a game world.  MMOs would be the closes you get and even those do not do what Crackdown is doing with its destructible environments.  Companies use cloud tech like this and send way more data than what Crackdown is doing.  I doubt we will see any difference in real world compared to the demo since the technology is mature.

Oh, you don't have to worry a bit, I comprehend that tech just fine, I just don't honestly care enough to go into details - for me those details are almost completely irrelevant versus how the game will perform depending on internet connection to end users.

I do think this is impressive (if it works in RL), I will think it is even way more impressive if we see anything like that for single-player games, I do not however think there is anything impressive in Misterxmedia alike headlines, so that's were my, initially somewhat irritated, first post comes from.