Cloud gaming for mmos?

Eoin247

You have probably all heard of onlive and their cloud gaming service. It's revolutionary in the fact that you don't need a great machine to play great looking games! Think of skyrim playing on full hd settings on a 7 year old cheapo laptop!

I'm just wondering if a service such as this would be viable for mmos in the future? Or would the latency between server>cloud server>gamers computer> and back again be too much?

Any thought on this?

witless1

To be fair its a really good idea but I cannot see it scaling beyond single player games or small bouts of multiplayer. Single player games are scripted so a lot can be pushed down without a need to hit the server as often. Brilliant idea for anyone not able to afford a top class rig though and it will have a market going forward.

You answered the question yourself though, MMOs have a completely different traffic profile, in particular they have a lot of Client-Server communication going on. The limit then is the edge (boundary) of the cloud, so their network access will be the bottlenecks as they try to push down your raid teams physical position / action while taking in yours at the same time. If the server was completely in the cloud it would be very expensive for the games company to run it. Cloud pricing models are normally resource based so CPU / memory / network, all of which would be very high for an MMO games server. Would get to the point that it would be more cost effective long term to own your own server, that is of course if they got over the technical hurdles of lag!

They certainly will get over both of them given time but how long is the question. Moving to the Chromebook style of computing will speed that up no doubt, pick up a throwaway laptop for 100 euro and be able to play top end games? Yes please!!

Spunge

But MMOs use such little bandwidth, it would only be a little extra onto the huge video download. maybe 5-10kB

oxo_

Don't see why it couldn't work really. Certainly doesn't seem like there's much in the way of technical obstacles given what OnLive has done.
I've set up a test bed multipoint server in the past (Technet is your friend!) and had myself and the two kids play Wow over it all from my computer, wasn't great but it did work at the time but that needed fairly heavy bandwidth (LAN) due to the way MultiPoint worked out (not meant for gaming).

If similar were ported over to OnLive's service, I reckon it would work great.
Give us the option then to use the service on Linux and it'd be smashing !

I think though it might come down to the sheer amount of users, licensing, ownership and security (or perception thereof) - if they can address stuff like that, I think it would help a lot.

Can't the Wow servers now hold 25,000 players per server ? Could something like OnLive be capable of hosting multiple clients in possible multiples again of that 25k amount at the same time and be consistently stable ?

Akarinn

Im not 100%, WoW servers can only hold 6-8k...

Nody

The big problem is, and will always be, bandwidth. We're talking here about streaming HD quality video all over Europe on an ongoing basis. This will be a huge bandwidth hog and even with compression you can only get so far imo and on top of that is the question of cost. At the end someone has to pay to have all those servers running, having the top notch connections and ensure the patches work with the server enviroment.

Doable? Yes. Cost effective? Highly doubt it.

Nothingbetter2d

Spunge wrote: »

But MMOs use such little bandwidth, it would only be a little extra onto the huge video download. maybe 5-10kB

they do use very little bandwith because your high performace pc does most fo the processing client side and high performing servers do it server side.

remove the high performance pcs and replace it with a cloud based setup would require alot more bandwidth to constantly update the low spec laptop.

oxo_

The other option of course would be if big MMO devs, like Blizzard themselves, actually hosted and ran the cloud based client servers which sat beside the actual game servers.

So the bulk of the bandwidth cost then could be bore by Blizzard itself.

Does that make sense ? I felt like a brain farted when I wrote that trying to explain what it was I was trying to say

Nody

oxo_ wrote: »

The other option of course would be if big MMO devs, like Blizzard themselves, actually hosted and ran the cloud based client servers which sat beside the actual game servers.

So the bulk of the bandwidth cost then could be bore by Blizzard itself.

Does that make sense ? I felt like a brain farted when I wrote that trying to explain what it was I was trying to say

The bulk of the bandwith is going to be in the graphic as you need to stream full HD (or higher) to individual users (all users need their own stream as all see different things); this can't be fixed by placing servers next to each other (this is what's done locally today by calculating what to be shown and show it).

Raphael

But the thing is, that's not the theoretical problem - Onlive are doing that right now, and from what I've seen they're handling it nicely.

Would be very interesting it an MMO did a deal with Onlive to put one server inside their cluster, and run it that way. If the MMO server was offsite, lag would be hell, as there'd be 2 trips rather than one, but if the server was in the building, latency client to server would be very low, and for client to other client, Onlive get decent enough pings last time I checked.

Nody

But if I remember correctly from the feedback threads they do it at a resolution far below full HD and even that has issues.

Here's some comments from here:

Just tried it there on osx lion, worked perfect, tried Dirt 3 demo very responsive, but the graphics were a big let down and my connection is ok.

The image quality was very much scaled down considering my poor connection, but I could still tell that all game settings were notched up to the top.

From other threads:

The video quality isn't what you'd be used to as a pc gamer, but it's really good especially when you realise your first game is only 10p or whatever it is.

The quality isnt great but i was on a vodafone terrible 7mb line (thats normally around 3-4mb) and over wi-fi and on a fairly cheap tablet

I played a couple of trial games & the one thing I've noticed is that the graphics aren't great- bit blurry, looks like the games run on medium & lower resolution, but really thats expected.

I can keep on going but it is simply not a replacement for today's consoles or PCs until you can scream it in full HD (and that's before we talk about multiple screens, 3D or any other fancy stuff coming in the years to come) and full HD will require serious bandwidth to all users (the backbones would probably be ok though; need some hardware MUX upgrades but no more cables).

Raphael

Ah right, tbh I'd never looked into the quality of Onlives downstream (haven't poked at it much). Is really more of a logistics issue, since Netflix manage to stream HD content, and if they can reliably do what they do low res, pushing it to hi-res is just a matter of scale.

oxo_

I take your points Nody but give Onlive a go (it's still free to demo it out I think) to see the quality yourself. Personally I thought the experience itself was very good. Yeah it's not full crystal clear epic quality HD but it's still bloody good.

I'm on a 30mb line and I get the full bandwidth so maybe the quality was better for me than others experienced themselves.

It's also a huge opportunity for the likes of UPC to become involved with, what with their high cable and fibre speeds. Integrate an Onlive Box into a UPC cable TV box, throw in a keyboard to allow web browsing, couple of controllers.

Hell, host the game servers at UPC itself so the bandwidth is only on their network rather than anyone having to go outside of it to access onlive.

What with Blizzard in Ireland now, link in their servers too and try a test of Wow on it all on what could conceivably be considered just a UPC LAN.

srsly78

Only console gamers think 1080 is a high resolution.

Lister1

http://www.gaikai.com/press/article/warner-bros.-interactive-entertainment-and-gaikai-partner-to-launch-worlds-first-cloud-based-streaming-mmo-game-experience

LOS ANGELES, CA - Mar. 8, 2012 - Gaikai Inc., the innovative cloud gaming service, today announces an agreement with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to begin the streaming of The Lord of The Rings Online™ and Dungeons & Dragons Online® to players across North America directly from each game’s own website.

For the first time ever, Gaikai is streaming massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) from the cloud, straight to players without the need for any download or installation. Gamers can try The Lord of the Rings Online now, with Dungeons & Dragons Online to follow soon, developed by Turbine, which is wholly owned by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, via a simple one-step registration process that will provide them instant access to try the full version of the award-winning, free-to-play massively multiplayer experiences.

The Lord of the Rings Online The Lord of the Rings Online Dungeons & Dragons Online Dungeons & Dragons Online

“MMOs have always been one of the key genres that we’ve wanted to deliver via the cloud - never before has it been possible to play MMOs in this way,” said Robert Stevenson, EVP at Gaikai. “And we couldn’t be more pleased to showcase Gaikai’s technology by streaming Dungeons & Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online, which are both fantastic multiplayer gaming experiences with legions of loyal fans.”

“Gaikai's game streaming service will make it easier than ever for new players to start their epic adventures in our immersive online worlds,” said Craig Alexander, Vice President of Product Development, Turbine. “Anyone wishing to try these popular MMOs can now instantly launch the games inside their web browser completely eliminating any download wait times.”

The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online are two of the best and most popular premium free-to-play games on the market today. These award-winning games feature an innovative hybrid pricing model that allows players to play for free, purchase elements a la carte from the in-game store, or subscribe to get VIP access to the game’s content.

Gaikai has spent three years building the fastest interactive cloud gaming network in the world, instantly capable of delivering cutting-edge games without the need for any custom hardware or software. Coupled with relationships with the top video game and platform partners around the world, Gaikai is capable of delivering a broad catalog of the world’s most exciting games of every genre straight to consumers on any Internet connected device, from web browsers and PCs to IP-enabled televisions.

About Gaikai Inc

Gaikai is the world's first open interactive cloud platform that provides its partners with the ability to deliver state-of-the-art video game and software application experiences instantly to any internet-connected device. Gaikai's global cloud streaming network is fully managed and live in dozens of countries with top-tier partners. Gaikai's robust service layer is specifically designed to allow Gaikai's partners to grow their online and offline revenues by improving customer acquisition while extending their reach to new channels previously unavailable through physical media. Headquartered in Southern California, Gaikai is backed by Benchmark Capital, TriplePoint Capital, Rustic Canyon Partners, Limelight Networks and Intel Capital.

About Turbine

Turbine, Inc. is a premier creator and operator of massive, persistent online worlds that foster powerful social gaming communities. Turbine is wholly owned by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group and has created some of the world’s most popular and award-winning online games, including The Lord of the Rings Online™, Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Eberron Unlimited™, and Asheron's Call®. For more information on Turbine, its products and services please visit www.turbine.com.

About Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, is a premier worldwide publisher, developer, licensor and distributor of entertainment content for the interactive space across all current and future platforms, including console, handheld and PC-based gaming for both internal and third party game titles.

For more information, please visit:
Web: http://www.gaikai.com
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THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE™ interactive video game © 2010 Turbine, Inc. and patents pending. All rights reserved. Middle-earth Poster Map © 2007 The Saul Zaentz Company, d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises, under license to Turbine, Inc. All rights reserved. “The Lord of the Rings Online”, “Siege of Mirkwood”, Middle-earth Enterprises logo, “The Lord of the Rings” and the names of the characters, events, items and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of SZC under license to Turbine, Inc. Turbine and the Turbine logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Turbine, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Dungeons & Dragons Online, Eberron Unlimited, Stormreach, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering and Wizards of the Coast and related logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S. and/or other jurisdictions, and are used with permission. Hasbro and its logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Hasbro, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other jurisdictions, and are used with permission. Turbine and the Turbine logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Turbine, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.