MS developing 1000-player online FPS match technology

Stole this from 1up'sforum:

http://blog.darkspirefilms.com/?p=43

1000 Master Chiefs battling each other online? Talk about a Bloodbath!

Despite problems with bandwidth, Microsoft seems to be creating a new technology code named "DonnyBrook"

This system allows people to play new fps games on a massive scale. We're talking about hundreds to thousands of people all shooting at each other at the same time... Sound fun to you? Sounds fun to me!

The video below describes it as Helms Deep from Lord of the Rings but with every orc, every elf, every person on the battlefield being controlled by a real person online. Now this would be a huge problem because most people don't have the upload bandwidth capacity to keep themselves up to date with everyone else on the map, but with this new system it is possible through "focus sets"

Focus sets refers to a new system by which the player gets more updates from players they have recently interacted with in the game. This way the players that you are fighting against will be lag free, while the players you aren't fighting against will only be updating once every few frames.

This may lead to some questions, such as, Why aren't the players who I am not focussing on lagging like crazy. This is fixed by another technique called "Guidable AI"

Guidable AI is a brilliant solution to this problem. At the most basic level, the Guidable AI emulates the people you are not focussed on in between the actual updates of the real player. Since this AI is locally being run, there will be no problems with bandwidth.

Wow...if Microsoft pulls this off, will this be the next big thing for games? But to those who play FPS matches online often, do you think this is a good thing ora bad thing? Which do you prefer? Tightly 4-16 player matches or a all out crazy 1000 player war?

I kind of like the idea of 1000 players fighting each other out. That sounds crazy, like a real virtual war! But it can also have disadvantages.

If this happens with Halo 4, talk about Halo Wars maximized!

I'm quite content with 16,32 & 40 player games with FPS. But I certainly wouldn't mind experiencing it one day.

Didn't...uh...Starsiege: Tribes(?) have something like this?

Maybe it wasn't that - but I remember that some sci-fi themed game had multiple-hundred-player online battles...

Well, I once heard a guy from Microsoft throwing out ideas about an RTS/FPS game which would feature PC/360 interactivity. For example, a PC gamer would play an RTS game and control hundreds of units which would in actuality all be 360 FPS players. This technology sounds like it would make that game a reality, although I believe we're still very far off. I seriously doubt we'll see something like this this generation.

What happened with Planetside? I remember playing the trial and there were lots of people fighting....can't rememeber if the number of people was limited or not though.

Anyway with this technology what happens with long range fighting? If you play Battlefield or Quake Wars you can snipe from a killometre away.

Didn't...uh...Starsiege: Tribes(?) have something like this?

Maybe it wasn't that - but I remember that some sci-fi themed game had multiple-hundred-player online battles...

Planeforger

Tribes had large battles but not THAT large. 128 players if I remember correctly.

Didn't...uh...Starsiege: Tribes(?) have something like this?

Maybe it wasn't that - but I remember that some sci-fi themed game had multiple-hundred-player online battles...

Planeforger

Tribes had large battles but not THAT large. 128 players if I remember correctly.

Anything Microsoft sucks tbh they're always behinc the competition and yet people forget that, like Linux is a far better OS.Grantelicious

Ugh, as a long time Linux dual booter I can assure you Linux is in no way a better OS than windows. It's free and safer, but those are the only real advantages as far as I'm concerned, windows is a far better OS if you're only looking for entertainment and don't care about the tech beneath it all IMO. Not to mention mac, which would be the best of the bunch if it wasn't for the overpriced hardware.

Sorry for going off topic.

Surreeeeeee.

Their console is still behind what PCs have been able to do for quite a while . . . and they're suddenly going to jump to 1000. Vaporware City.

Surreeeeeee.

Their console is still behind what PCs have been able to do for quite a while . . . and they're suddenly going to jump to 1000. Vaporware City.

duxup

no thanks ill stick with 40 man maps, it would be awesome but its to soon the lag would be horrible-DirtySanchez-

The whole point of the system is to eliminate the lag...

[QUOTE="-DirtySanchez-"]no thanks ill stick with 40 man maps, it would be awesome but its to soon the lag would be horribleTeufelhuhn

The whole point of the system is to eliminate the lag...

Yeah. And there's nothing impossible about it. EVE is a bit different, but it can hold over 50,000 players at same time.

1000 man modern or future warfare would in no way work. Because of the possible range of your weapons you can have 100 players pointing your gun to you. The point of fps games is that you can do something to not have you die. If you have so many enemies, you'll go down anyways. With medieval warfare it might work though. I think 100 players is enough.

[QUOTE="-DirtySanchez-"]no thanks ill stick with 40 man maps, it would be awesome but its to soon the lag would be horribleTeufelhuhn

The whole point of the system is to eliminate the lag...

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]

[QUOTE="-DirtySanchez-"]no thanks ill stick with 40 man maps, it would be awesome but its to soon the lag would be horrible-DirtySanchez-

The whole point of the system is to eliminate the lag...

What happened with Planetside? I remember playing the trial and there were lots of people fighting....can't rememeber if the number of people was limited or not though.

Anyway with this technology what happens with long range fighting? If you play Battlefield or Quake Wars you can snipe from a killometre away.

matthewjackman

wow that would be so amazing....just imaganie all the possibilities

i think it would be cool if you could only hear the people talking who are close to you so you dont hear some one on the other side of the map that has no importance to you

this would work amazingly with endwar....maybe a sequel to it could have this technology

Wow i can only imagine the advantage the host will get :| I already make nightmare about it.

It's so easy to sell hype to people these days i can't believe it. I said it and say it again MS could sell **** to people even if those people produce it each day of their live.

Wow i can only imagine the advantage the hostwill get :| I already make nightmare about it.

LaP

[QUOTE="LaP"]

Wow i can only imagine the advantage the hostwill get :| I already make nightmare about it.

Teufelhuhn

At the time i'm writing this i can't even see a free dedicated server hosting this. It's not like MS is synonymous of programming genius. It took them how many years to get a ******* web browser right with IE 7 ?

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="LaP"]

Wow i can only imagine the advantage the hostwill get :| I already make nightmare about it.

LaP

At the time i'm writing this i can't even see a free dedicated server hosting this. It's not like MS is synonymous of programming genius. It took them how many years to get a ******* web browser right with IE 7 ?

Wow i can only imagine the advantage the host will get :| I already make nightmare about it.

It's so easy to sell hype to people these days i can't believe it. I said it and say it again MS could sell **** to people even if those people produce it each day of their live.

LaP

I'm sure most people will agree it sounds fun, but I don't see anyone running out and getting a 360 or Vista based on this information.

Problem with 1000 person death matches is any shot you take will most likely kill someone else. The same thing occurs with any FPS death match where everyone gets explosives galore. I hate those matches and unless there is some true sense of balance, I'd hate this too.SemiMaster

You are right in a 1000 men online fps game you would need to remove all nades as the game would quickly become a nades fest.

[QUOTE="LaP"][QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="LaP"]

Wow i can only imagine the advantage the hostwill get :| I already make nightmare about it.

Teufelhuhn

At the time i'm writing this i can't even see a free dedicated server hosting this. It's not like MS is synonymous of programming genius. It took them how many years to get a ******* web browser right with IE 7 ?

mmo framerate is not that great in city when a lot of people play. they are not free. and there israrely more than 50 peoples in a area at once. For the most part WoW area are empty expect big cities and evenbig city are not 1000 men of population at once far from it. The only time there a lot of people at once is when a world raid occur or when the game or expension comes out. When BC came out it was very laggy for a couple of days. And when a big world raid occur you can prepare yourself for the slide show. And i don't talk of 1000 men world raid here. This would make the server crash.

Try to visit stormwind when the horde raid it and comeback again. If you can comeback of course the lag you will get could kill your computer. I was in SW once when the hord raid it it was so much laggy it was barely playable.

MMORPG are big. Yes at lot of people play it at the same time but in different area of the world. They are on the same server but you can't interact with them or see them.

When someone talk about a 1000 players online game i think og a game where you can interact with the 1000 players at any given time which is not the case with a mmorpg since you need to travel like 1 hour to get from point A to point B.

[QUOTE="LaP"]

Wow i can only imagine the advantage the host will get :| I already make nightmare about it.

It's so easy to sell hype to people these days i can't believe it. I said it and say it again MS could sell **** to people even if those people produce it each day of their live.

H3LLRaiseR

I'm sure most people will agree it sounds fun, but I don't see anyone running out and getting a 360 or Vista based on this information.

Agreed.

Thinking that this sounds awesome and hoping that something like this comes to fruition is not the same as "buying the hype".

[QUOTE="H3LLRaiseR"][QUOTE="LaP"]

Wow i can only imagine the advantage the host will get :| I already make nightmare about it.

It's so easy to sell hype to people these days i can't believe it. I said it and say it again MS could sell **** to people even if those people produce it each day of their live.

Archangel3371

I'm sure most people will agree it sounds fun, but I don't see anyone running out and getting a 360 or Vista based on this information.

Agreed.

Thinking that this sounds awesome and hoping that something like this comes to fruition is not the same as "buying the hype".

Of course

But your know at lot of fans will buy into this ;) This will happen one day no doubt about it. But i would not bet you will see itthis generation unless it's a game working like a mmorpg (big population world with many low population area).

Anyway sorry about my dumb answersit's just that as a computer engineer it sound not possible with current hardwares and internet connections. Could be wrong and i'll eat my shoes if i'm wrong.

Of course

But your know at lot of fans will buy into this ;) This will happen one day no doubt about it. But i would not bet you will see itthis generation unless it's a game working like a mmorpg (big population world with many low population area).

Anyway sorry about my dumb answersit's just that as a computer engineer it sound not possible with current hardwares and internet connections. Could be wrong and i'll eat my shoes if i'm wrong.

LaP

Really? Well yeah if people actually buy some kind of product based of this info then yeah that would be pretty sad.

Yeah it will no doubt happen on that kind of scale someday. I don't know if they can produce something like this yet but I could take it either way, if they can then that would be very cool, if not then oh well I can wait. I'm thinking that it may not turn out as some people might be evisioning it as an all out 1000 player shootout all at once but perhaps as some kind of psuedo-1000 player shootout, if that makes any sense. Kind of like you can see multiple groups fighting and perhaps join or leave those groups in a play session.

*entire team throws grenades*

*half the players get kicked for massive friendly fire kill scores*