All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

[Malacite]

All Xbox One Games Will Have Dedicated Servers | Side Mission | GameTrailers

Microsoft's Albert Penello revealed on Twitter recently that all Xbox One games that have a multiplayer component will be using dedicated servers. Very good news as I'm sure it will improve the multiplayer experience significantly on the next-gen console.

This is a really big deal if Sony doesn't do the same thing.

[DakAttack]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

Awww yiss gonna get dat Peggle 2 on dem dedis.

[Firewind]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

The Xbox One ads in the UK are pretty underhanded. They show nothing about the games and advertise the Xbox One as "XBox", and the only Xbox console, with no mention of games for the 360. Even though pretty much all of the advertised games have been announced for both consoles.

Basically, the ads are completely misleading and it's going to be inevitable that less well informed 360 users are going to get duped into buying XBox One games.

[Malacite]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

I don't understand, so they're putting out adds for the Xbox One, or for new games and not distinguishing which platform specifically they're for?

[Firewind]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

Yes. In other words intentionally misleading consumers by making it look like the Xbox One is the only platform they have out.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

Right now, I trust anything MS says not even as far as I can throw it. Just the other week they were talking about how important the privacy of their customer's information was and then the very next day, somewhere in the UK I believe, there was a meeting with overseas advertisers talking about how Kinect was going allow them to use your image and other date it collects to sell to advertisers.

The kicker was was trying to prop up Bing as pro-consumer amidst all the negativity going around regarding Google and Facebook's recent policy changes in a similar regard. At least with Goodle and Facebook we know were can opt out - we don't know that with Xbox One yet because its sooooo important to package it and games you're going to have to have one anyway.

Also, nice to see your stance on XB1 is already wavering, Mal.

If i get a new console beyond Wii U, it will be a PS4. Probably only for the fact that it would be something I could offload MMORPG duties to when I want to play something else on PC and its a slow day on the MMO and I just keep it open in case something happens.. Then again, its possible I could do that just as easily with a Steam Machine. We'll see.

[Icemage]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

Don't personally care much about dedicated servers for most games. Big games like CoD and Battlefield, sure. Fighting games would be nice IF there was a nice clean way to find a server that was in between the two players to minimize the impact of transmission lag.

Since Microsoft already has the Azure servers built, this makes sense. I am surprised that they're willing to lose money on this venture, though, since (according to Penello) they're offering this for no cost to developers. I suppose they can mitigate the cost with Xbox Live Gold fees, but that's still a hefty chunk of change.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

They're obviously doing this to try and get a leg up on Sony.

[cidbahamut]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

Don't personally care much about dedicated servers for most games. Big games like CoD and Battlefield, sure. Fighting games would be nice IF there was a nice clean way to find a server that was in between the two players to minimize the impact of transmission lag.

Fighting games are just kinda fucked no matter what they do. P2P seems like a half decent solution for those of us on the mainland since as long as someone's geographically close to you there will be minimal lag, but even then the split second it takes to send data over the lines can be enough to change the game pretty dramatically. No amount of netcode or dedicated severs is going to overcome the bottleneck of a shitty internet infrastructure.

[Icemage]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

Fighting games are just kinda fucked no matter what they do. P2P seems like a half decent solution for those of us on the mainland since as long as someone's geographically close to you there will be minimal lag, but even then the split second it takes to send data over the lines can be enough to change the game pretty dramatically. No amount of netcode or dedicated severs is going to overcome the bottleneck of a shitty internet infrastructure.

I was looking at it more from "try and find a middleman who has equal ping time to both combatants". But doing something like this would require some really odd BitTorrent-like server detection where every active player could act as a host for a game that they're not involved in, and would be an issue if the player disconnects from the network too.

Another solution is to deliberately lag the host in an equal amount to whatever ping time is taking to the remote player.

But in general, I agree that dedicated servers for fighting games in the way that Microsoft Azure is set up will not solve the problem of unequal ping; it gets rid of host advantage, but if you're playing from Russia or Hong Kong on a game hosted in the Ireland Azure server center, you're still just as boned on ping lag as you would if it were a P2P hosted game where the host is in Ireland. Same really holds true for any other games too, honestly. If you live in Hawaii, you're still screwed on ping time to the US Azure servers, so dedicated servers don't help those players at all. Even for me living in Florida I'd probably have issues too, since all of the Azure servers in the USA are geographically far from me:

Windows Azure Data Centre Locations | Matthew Sorvaag

North Central US – Chicago, Illinois
South Central US – San Antonio, Texas
West US – California
East US – Virginia
North Europe - Dublin, Ireland
West Europe - Amsterdam, Netherlands
East Asia – Hong Kong
Southeast Asia – Singapore

Icemage

[Armando]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

Fighting games are just kinda fucked no matter what they do. P2P seems like a half decent solution for those of us on the mainland since as long as someone's geographically close to you there will be minimal lag, but even then the split second it takes to send data over the lines can be enough to change the game pretty dramatically. No amount of netcode or dedicated severs is going to overcome the bottleneck of a shitty internet infrastructure.

Eh, P2P would be questionable just on the basis that the connection could become terrible spontaneously if someone else in either household starts using up a ton of bandwidth. It's also more work for the netcode programmer.

[cidbahamut]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

I was under the impression that Street Fighter IV used some sort of P2P matchmaking, and it's one of the less shitty online fighting game experiences.

[Armando]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

I wouldn't know. It's probably serviceable, I'm just saying that P2P might give you better best-case performance if you get someone close to you, but overall it'd be less reliable. I mean, you already said it yourself - any lag is too much lag in a fighting game.

[Caspian]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

{Snip}but even then the split second it takes to send data over the lines {Snip} No amount of netcode or dedicated severs is going to overcome the bottleneck of a shitty internet infrastructure.

Its highly probable I just don't have enough tech knowledge and that they could have designed the internet infrastructure to be way more badass than it is now, but the fact that we're at a point where we're pissy about a split second difference in lag because my console has to send info halfway across the country and back again is pretty damned impressive.

Hell, I remember playing Jedi Knight II on msn's game zone years ago and if you played a match with lightsabers you spent the whole game swinging at a point where you'd hope the other person would be a second or two later in order to hit them.

PS: I get the fact that fighting games really are just too twitchy of gameplay for online to be solid.

[cidbahamut]

Re: All XBONE games to have dedicated servers - Step your game up Sony!

Its highly probable I just don't have enough tech knowledge and that they could have designed the internet infrastructure to be way more badass than it is now, but the fact that we're at a point where we're pissy about a split second difference in lag because my console has to send info halfway across the country and back again is pretty damned impressive.

Hell, I remember playing Jedi Knight II on msn's game zone years ago and if you played a match with lightsabers you spent the whole game swinging at a point where you'd hope the other person would be a second or two later in order to hit them.

PS: I get the fact that fighting games really are just too twitchy of gameplay for online to be solid.

It's not being pissy, it's like you say: fighting games are too twitchy for online play to ever be as reliable as offline play. When your input windows are literally 16ms then any amount of lag is going to change things up tremendously. I play online because that's all I've got, but it wouldn't surprise me if at least some of my execution problems stem from that imperceptible lag.