Crackdown 3: Crackdowner - The Bear and Badger

IanHamlett

That's really something else.

Part of me worries that people won't be as impressed as they should be because they've seen levolution in Battlefield. Another part of me wonders if there's much gameplay advantage to having real destruction over the likes of levolution.

b0r1s

See this is where Microsoft fucked their launch. If they had showed this and said this is WHY you need to be online, then they would have won the first round of the next gen war, no argument. I'm probably going to buy one just to play this.

You lovely green fucking orbs you!!

Paul the sparky

Levolution was shite, one building breaks apart in exactly the same way each time. The first time you saw it was incredible, but it was diminishing returns from then.

The little houses and walls in Bad Company 2 which you could blow a hole in and make a door/sniper hole were much better and actually added to the gameplay.

Can you go in the buildings in this? You've got to assume so. I can't wait to blow a hole in the side of a sky scraper, jump through it and into the building opposite.

Would love a Rampage update using this tech, I'm the wolf.

b0r1s

You did watch the video Paul? If not watch it, you can indeed shoot a hole in the wall as he demoed very well. We are talking about specific geometry being individually destructible based on the type of material.

Paul the sparky

Yeah I've watched them. First one shows a few small interiors actually.

djchump

It's fantastic tech, especially the flexible server drop in and out - really something else and uniquely it's something only Microsoft can do with their infrastructure.
There's no doubt a shed load of interesting networking r&d gone into this that hopefully they'll roll into the sdk to share with other devs - but even then it does seem like tech that'll only get used by the first party studios doing platform exclusives (as multi plats will be loathe to use it, especially EA). Hopefully crackdown will prove the tech works and more devs will look at it for running dedicated servers etc.

My only 2 concerns are that (1) azure is a business, pure and simple, so it will be interesting to see if they can cope with the scale of launch weekend demand (but I can't see that being an issue, as it's not going to be CoD level of hype) and also that the big corporate clients are presumably the first class paying citizens when it comes to using azure resources, so if one of those wants to use a huge amount of resources it doesn't limit game availability (but I have no idea about the world of online cloud processing so have no idea what kinds of hardware MS has available and what kinds of demands their business clients put it through).
Also (2) they can throw as much processing power at the physics as they want, but the more they calculate server side, the more bandwidth needed to get that data to the client. Obviously, they'll LOD it to prioritise smoothness for the debris etc closest to the local player, but it's still a lot to come down when for the majority of games the push is to minimise bandwidth requirements (to the point where rather famously the zombies in the L4D hordes would normally only send the X and Z coordinates, as they didn't travel up or down in world space very often so it reduces the bandwidth needed for position update by a third if you only send 2 of 3 coordinates). So, it'll be interesting to hear how it plays over ADSL in this country.

But really, this is fantastic tech that only MS are in a position to use - Amazon could try and use AWS like this, but they don't have the realtime game engineering expertise and they don't have a decent console to run a game on! Awesome to see so much hard work being put into being able to smash the crap out of a city! Hopefully this and Rainbow 6 will make DICE think again about chasing the CoD dollar and go back to the roots of battlefield with some proper destructability.

FranticPea

Amaze.

IanHamlett

Dave Jones' other company is the one that's been doing the serverside physics shit. I don't know if Microsoft have got any fingers in there.

But yeah, it was 2.5 years ago when they first talked about the infinite power of the cloud but the best thing they've been able to point at until now has been drivatars. I was screaming for some kind of tech demo, even if it was an X1 next to a massive server rack. They showed off early Crackdown stuff during the Azure part of their generic Microsoft event sandwiched between a Powerpoint presentation about the new exciting productivity developments in Excel and another Powerpoint presentation about additions to Powerpoint.

IanHamlett

Paul the sparky wrote:

Levolution was shite, one building breaks apart in exactly the same way each time.
The little houses and walls in Bad Company 2 which you could blow a hole in and make a door/sniper hole were much better and actually added to the gameplay.

Levolution is just flicking an explosive switch. Block off one path and open another. I loved the shit in BC and the look of the new Rainbow6 thing. I'm just wondering how much extra gameplay possibilities you'll get for involving those servers.

adkm1979

I loved the first game. Colour me sceptical about the cloud stuff working in the wild, but if the game is anything like the first, it would tempt me to get a One.

Skerret

2 was a misstep but I'd bone up for this. MP would be glorious. I might even join some B&B mp.

ShabbyMcCrabby

#gasp

beano

djchump wrote:

There's no doubt a shed load of interesting networking r&d gone into this that hopefully they'll roll into the sdk to share with other devs - but even then it does seem like tech that'll only get used by the first party studios doing platform exclusives (as multi plats will be loathe to use it, especially EA). Hopefully crackdown will prove the tech works and more devs will look at it for running dedicated servers etc.

For other devs to go dedicated would depend on the other vendors, how congruent their on demand services are, such as Infrastructure Endgame Machines, IEMs are. SKYNET!!!!.

Azure could be an IEM. Microsoft does have the Azure Stack. It also has an eye-wateringly expensive baby Azure that you can buy from Dell.

Windows Server is baking a primitive form of hyper-convergence called Storage Replica into its next Windows Server, and trying hard to cut Windows Server down to a usable size. Heck, Microsoft is even adding container support to the mix.

Trust and licensing are Microsoft's stumbling blocks here. Though Microsoft will deny it vehemently in public, the company emphatically does not want you using regional service providers or running workloads on your own infrastructure. The company’s words and actions are not aligned.

The IEM is about more than simply running your workloads on expensive public infrastructure owned by a company beholden to the US of NSA. It is about the ability to run those workloads where they are appropriate and make the most sense. The body corporate of Microsoft doesn't agree that this is the future, though some parts keep working on it, and the marketing messaging periodically tries to convince us of this, before changing to "Azure public is the solution to everything".

Microsoft has spent billions trying to put regional service providers and a large part of its own partner ecosystem out of business. The company has jacked up SPLA pricing to where it is essentially impossible to compete with Microsoft's hosted Azure directly. SPLA still has completely ridiculous licensing restrictions that prevent service providers from building a truly shared infrastructure, and VARs and MSPs have margins for everything other than selling Azure public cloud services slashed to meaninglessness.

From a technological perspective, Microsoft would seem to be on track towards creating an IEM. That said, this is Microsoft. It might decide tomorrow that the future of IT is a mutant hybrid chihuahua-giraffe thing that requires all new APIs, new programming languages, a baffling new interface and you to retain Microsoft-certified licensing lawyers on staff. It's Microsoft: consistency isn't its strong suit.

I mean, this is what I see really, the icons [see previous vid - Ed] aren't whole servers hosting the component parts that keep these in game items in check. They'll be managing the database, logs, firewalls, encryption, algos. and live environment as an infrastructure across many machines, you're more likely to have someone else's live data running along side your own on one [specialized - Ed] server than you are your physics database or much else. I'd love to see the management platform for this shit and what else it can endgame.

MS should get the bideogamu market in the bag as far as things go but I think what seems as a persistant reluctance for them to converge properly dissatisfies some cultures from participating and only risks another big firm [VMware? Nah. - Ed] from bying in and thus hinders the industry.

So er, yeh.

I'm with the penultimate antipodean. I'll tag that on now.

pantyfire

Wow so, from the video, there are multiple servers per instance of the game!
Is that even financially viable?

I know it's a ms exclusive and also a potential loss leader to show off the clod but still is what they are showing off viable for other devs or even for ms to keep supplying that kind of computing power?
They did say you can get clod features IIRC to devs for some kind of exclusivity.

Skerret

It'll be a case of combined processing power spread over a range of servers which would be handling requests from many players at once. Cloud innit.

Gremill

Holy fuck that video is insane.

beano

I wanted him to turn the cloud overlay on again when they were enlisting the equivalent of five bones. What a fucking spod.

[Deleted User]

It's very impressive. If MS execute this flawlessly when Crackdown launches and communicate the potential of the tech to the gaming masses then they might turn this gen around (sales wise) yet.

Also, what does this mean for the PC master race? Surely 20 fully-erect Xboners > any home gaming PC in terms of grunt. I predict a cornucopia of saltiness, then many sad, sad and fat, resigned suicides.

Actually scratch the above, they'll surely apply the same tech to the PC space too.

RedDave2

I'd be more excited if this wasn't the generation were getting the internet to work seems beyond many developers. I can see another driveclub / halo collection on the cards.

Sure does look impressive though.

acemuzzy

It is very impressive but yep, it'll be interesting to see how it works in realistic use cases (eg g.man's broadband connection...)

Also very interesting to see what wider impact it could have on the market. Sony/Amazon partnership??

FranticPea

acemuzzy wrote:

(eg g.man's broadband connection...)

Wooo that's great news. Broadband is coming to g's house!

b0r1s

You're assuming g's use case is realistic. I would guess the stats say otherwise with the majority of people having at least 4 or 5 Mbps connections.

b0r1s

Further to that: http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2015/02/ofcom-average-uk-home-broadband-speeds-slowly-reach-23mbps.html

Now I know some people will argue that it doesn't really consider rural areas, but guess what, MS won't either. It's not worth crippling a USP just because a few thousand people have shitty broadband. Christ of services couldn't launch because of low BB in the countryside then we'd have no Netflix or iPlayer.

pantyfire

See - screw you g.

acemuzzy

Aye, fair point

isanbard

All looks lovely an all but shoehorning it into Crackdown specifically seems a bit odd. My memories of the game revolve around boinging about the map and grabbing sweet, sweet orbs in difficult places. There was some shooting but collecting orbs is where it's at. It's an orb collecting game.

With this tech that is largely negated; see difficult to reach orb on top of precarious building/ledge, ignore any attempt to reach it and just blow the living shit out of the area, orb becomes Cloud enabled object and drops to the floor with the rubble??
Defeat main USP of game. Game is rubbish, MS burns to the ground. World Ends. New Life sprouts from ashes. Circle of life.

This will lead to the end of the world. In short order. Mark my words.

Or they'll turn it off/down somehow in the SP game and defeat the magic of the Clod.

b0r1s

I like this post.

Bring me your orbs

pantyfire

My best guess - for gameplay reason like the above the destruction will be very limited in the SP windows and building fronts etc... most likely.
Or, the orb will disappear if you bring the building down and reappear when it doozers come and fix it later.

djchump

beano wrote:

For other devs to go dedicated would depend on the other vendors, how congruent their on demand services are, such as Infrastructure Endgame Machines, IEMs are. SKYNET!!!!....

Cheers for the link beano - I have absolutely zero visibility on the network/cloud/internet tech world (other than knowing we use AWS for our dedicated servers, and I remember hearing a snippet of how insanely powerful a single unit of that hardware is compared to our work desktops, but I have no idea even how many instances we target/can run on one server) so it's an interesting read!

As that guy mentioned, one of the main issues with MS is consistency. I'm figuring this will be cracking tech that will only be used to the fullest by a handful of first party studios/games, and thus will end up the way of kinect. Saving grace will be if they can make it super-easy to use for devs/publishers to run the vanilla MP dedicated servers, but even then it will be the business tit-for-tat that will hold it back - MS won't be giving it to devs/publishers for free, they want something in return (last I heard it was some form of exclusivity, even if it's just some DLC or whatever).

acemuzzy wrote:

... Also very interesting to see what wider impact it could have on the market. Sony/Amazon partnership??

TBH, unless MS really put a huge amount of money/effort behind it and roll out maybe 2 or 3 big titles EVERY YEAR that use it and, like the Crackdown MP demo shown, would be clearly not achievable on a single PS4, I don't see it actually enough impact for Sony or anyone else to need to compete. If it's just Crackdown MP and then maybe another first party title 2 years later, it'll fizzle out. If they really push it so that the Clod tech essentially becomes an integral and easily available part of the platform itself, then that could be a huge multiplayer tech/power advantage for MS - e.g. MMOFPS etc would run much smoother, huge Minecraft 2 persistent worlds for clans or an entire Minecraft 2 MMO central universe maybe?

Yeah, thinking about it, Minecraft 2 being xbone/Win10 only and using Clod tech would be a *huge* sales boost for MS.

FranticPea

I wouldn't mind buildings respawning in SP at all.

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