When it launches next year, Respawn Entertainment’s online shooter, Titanfall, will be banking on Microsoft’s latest cloud technology to deliver an unmatched multiplayer experience. Exactly how the studio intends to do this has remained a mystery; well, until now.
Hoping to allay any confusion Respawn engineer, Jon Shiring, has taken to the web to explain how cloud tech and dedicated servers can improve the current online infrastructure enjoyed by gamers.
As some of you may already know, even the biggest-selling blockbuster titles mainly rely on player-hosted servers. As the name suggests, the quality of these servers depends solely on the connection speed/latency of their hosts. Games will tend to sift through connected players to find an optimal host but, even then, matches are prone to lag and disconnections.
Dedicated servers, on the other hand, are standalone units that direct all of their power towards creating and maintaining servers, nothing else.
Jon Shiring also explains that dedicated servers speed up the matchmaking process and afford the studio additional CPU, allowing them to tune Titanfall’s AI and graphics.
Even for those who only dabble in multiplayer, the benefits are relative but come at a hefty price that most studios and publishers simply can’t pay. When pitching Titanfall, Respawn highlighted to both Sony and Microsoft that dedicated servers needed to be guaranteed in order to create their vision.
Luckily for them, Microsoft were thinking along the same lines, prioritising cloud tech as one of the main features for its next-gen console, the result being a pool of over 300,000 servers dubbed “Azure”. It’s important to note that this will also support the 360 and PC versions of the game.
However, as Shiring points out, the presence of these servers isn’t just for the purpose of hosting online matches:
Look at Forza 5, which studies your driving style in order to create custom AI that behaves like you do. That’s totally different from what Titanfall uses it for, and it’s really cool!
Hearing more about Microsoft’s cloud drive breaks down the preconception that they’re out to nickel-and-dime everyone on the planet. With Azure, the company can offer affordable, reliable servers to studios to expand their creative visions.
DJ Judas
So the cloud is simply dedicated servers repackaged with a buzzword name.
Why not just let users buy their own dedicated server slot, it’s worked for years on PC.
This should mean there’s no reason the Xbox One version of bf4 shouldn’t have 64 players, however I doubt that will be the case.
double-o-dave
Didn’t they confirm 64 for players for both next gen consoles?
teflon
They did indeed. The 24 player limit on PS3 and X360 was down to the local hardware, not the servers, which are plenty capable of supporting 64 players on the PC, where the local hardware can be a lot more capable.
double-o-dave
I thought it was something along the lines of the hardware and not the servers. This should be pretty cool apart from the fact I’m now likely to get killed about 75% more often.
teflon
And not only more often, but with half of all your deaths coming from being crushed by a skyscraper. :P
DJ Judas
Ah nice, at least that’s included then finally, I hadn’t delved too far into what’s been announced for bf4. Makes my decision between getting it on PC or ps4 a little more difficult.
double-o-dave
I guess being crushed by a sky scraper is better than some tea leaf knifing me and stealing my dogtags. I remember when someone did that to me 5 times in a row on BFBC2, I was FURIOUS!!!!! That’s was the first of many controllers to break after being smashed against my living room wall. lol
leeroye
Games like battlefield 3 run on dedicated servers all ready, yet you still get lag and latency issues?