1000-Player FPS Sets New World Record - UPDATED

[Antari]

Just another example of how game companies forcing 16-32-64 player limits on modern games is absolutely ridiculous. Hell I played in 128 player games back on dial up over 15 years ago. Partly why I see it as being inexcusable for a company to release anything under 128 players these days. We should have been dealing with this level of action for years, basically since broadband became common place. Granted its not a highly detailed battlefield, and niether are the character models involved, but that allowed them to hit near 1000 players.

Take note people, this is what all games could be like if half a brain is involved.

I'm not so sure it's all the developers' fault - what about the limitations of the technology the average consumer has access to at present? I have a year-old laptop that can play most current-gen games at mid-high settings, as well as high speed internet, but I lag to the point of unplayability if there is too much stuff happening on screen at once in BF3.

The only way I can see over 64 players in one server at present is to dramatically scale back the graphics in triple-A releases with a heavy multiplayer combat focus. For example, Mount & Blade: Warband allows dozens and dozens of people to fight in a multiplayer battle without serious lag to mid-range machines, but that is because it has graphics from circa 2004.

Thats the fault of optimization and testing. Beta testing used to be a paid job. And it used to be effective. Now a days having public beta tests, only teaches the users where the exploits are so they can use them on release. And as far as technical issues go, as long as the game didn't crash on them, whats to note? Nevermind that it performed like a turtle on sleeping pills, it worked, thats good enough.

Graphics can be made to produce anything at nearly any speed. Once you have a set resolution the rest is easy, if you know what your doing. Unfortunately alot of companies BARELY know what they are doing and you've seen the results. Weather its the developer's fault for not preparing for the job at hand, or the publisher for rushing the product to market before its ready. The fault lies squarely with them, not the technology behind it.

Software will always have to adapt to the hardware, it has always been and will always be that way.

 

[Evine]

And here i thought that play MAG whit 256players was to much, simply because you'd never see 75% of the players in a match. That's a game design issue but still, 1000 players is an insane amount.

 

[Valdus]

I'm honestly not sure about it. In a game where say..it's 5 v 5, theres a real chance for skill and teamwork to come into play. Though what I see in the is blind shooting and people just dropping randomly...it would really come down to just who get's off the most lucky shots. Maybe if the map and game elements were well designed and made with these numbers in mind it might work, but the video does nothing to convince me such large games would be any fun.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Hey, was there a game in that light show? I couldn't tell, and it didn't look the least bit fun to me.

It's a great technical achievement to get a thousand people on a single instance. Throwing them all onto a square patch of land to kill and die repetitively is a massive gameplay failure.

 

[Torrasque]

Just another example of how game companies forcing 16-32-64 player limits on modern games is absolutely ridiculous. Hell I played in 128 player games back on dial up over 15 years ago. Partly why I see it as being inexcusable for a company to release anything under 128 players these days. We should have been dealing with this level of action for years, basically since broadband became common place. Granted its not a highly detailed battlefield, and niether are the character models involved, but that allowed them to hit near 1000 players.

Take note people, this is what all games could be like if half a brain is involved.

Well it would be odd to be Playing Gears of war with 40 people and not get one's head blown off. It'd be cool but don't forget there has to be balancing in games.

Then they could make the maps bigger to balance it out because of population. Its not like computing power is lacking these days.

I'd trade another 40 people on each team for "realistic foliage" and "well detailed walls" any day.
One of my favorite shooters of all time was Time Splitters 2 and the texturing was alright I guess. TS2 focussed on making your characters look funny, guns being hilariously overpowered, and gameplay being fun. To hell with the balancing, I want shooters to be fun again.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Aw man, could you imagine, having multiple fronts on a huge map.

The gameplay possibilities that open up when you have a few hundred players on each side is truly mindboggling. You could recreate D-day, The Somme, Pearl Harbour, with every single player being human. This has got me excited for the future of FPS's.

Screw the graphics, I don't care if the models have a realistic reflection of the sky in their corneas, just give us a huge map with tonnes of players, and let rip!

 

[Antari]

Just another example of how game companies forcing 16-32-64 player limits on modern games is absolutely ridiculous. Hell I played in 128 player games back on dial up over 15 years ago. Partly why I see it as being inexcusable for a company to release anything under 128 players these days. We should have been dealing with this level of action for years, basically since broadband became common place. Granted its not a highly detailed battlefield, and niether are the character models involved, but that allowed them to hit near 1000 players.

Take note people, this is what all games could be like if half a brain is involved.

Well it would be odd to be Playing Gears of war with 40 people and not get one's head blown off. It'd be cool but don't forget there has to be balancing in games.

Then they could make the maps bigger to balance it out because of population. Its not like computing power is lacking these days.

I'd trade another 40 people on each team for "realistic foliage" and "well detailed walls" any day.
One of my favorite shooters of all time was Time Splitters 2 and the texturing was alright I guess. TS2 focussed on making your characters look funny, guns being hilariously overpowered, and gameplay being fun. To hell with the balancing, I want shooters to be fun again.

True but not every game needs to shoot for the 1000 mark. Even 128,256,512 would make a major difference. But the current restrictions that are in place, mostly because of laziness, is unacceptable.

 

[SteewpidZombie]

The fact that they had 1000 (roughly) players in a SINGLE game on BROWSERS means that the entire console industry has effectivly been kicked in the nuts and laughed at by the rest of the world in terms of improving Multiplayer games. The fact that the guy recording was playing a LAG FREE game with that many people in a BROWSER! is hilariously insulting to major developers who can barely manage 12-24 people games such as COD or BattleField while still having quite some lag.

Sure it wasn't a overly detailed or complex map/game, but the fact that they had smooth gameplay and a vast number of players is something that basically says that our current generation of consoles are severely outdated in terms of multiplayer.

 

[uzo]

Mount & Blade with 999 people? *gaspgasm*

.. imagine the thrill/terror of riding with 200 of your swadians brothers on horseback, crouching lances as you sweep across the field against a 400-strong rhodok pikeman unit ... especially knowing that every one of those sharp point sticks is held by a *human* opponent, not a barely adequate AI.

Or the hopeless rage as you and your 80 nord huscarls get caught in a hail of arrows from the vaegir archer position on the left battlements ?! The whish and thud of arrows all around, hundreds of them a second, and the inevitable screams that follow? All the time, you just run and pray that the arrow with your name on it hasn't been released yet? That a human opponent is not staring down an arrow shaft aimed at your back?

Or the sheer butchery of hundreds of sarranid defenders as a khergit horde circles the oasis they are sheltering in ... horse archers peppering those unfortunate enough to be in the outer ranks, their shields splintering under the unslaught. And then .. as ...

.. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD.

 

[Terminate421]

Just another example of how game companies forcing 16-32-64 player limits on modern games is absolutely ridiculous. Hell I played in 128 player games back on dial up over 15 years ago. Partly why I see it as being inexcusable for a company to release anything under 128 players these days. We should have been dealing with this level of action for years, basically since broadband became common place. Granted its not a highly detailed battlefield, and niether are the character models involved, but that allowed them to hit near 1000 players.

Take note people, this is what all games could be like if half a brain is involved.

Well it would be odd to be Playing Gears of war with 40 people and not get one's head blown off. It'd be cool but don't forget there has to be balancing in games.

Then they could make the maps bigger to balance it out because of population. Its not like computing power is lacking these days.

I'd trade another 40 people on each team for "realistic foliage" and "well detailed walls" any day.
One of my favorite shooters of all time was Time Splitters 2 and the texturing was alright I guess. TS2 focussed on making your characters look funny, guns being hilariously overpowered, and gameplay being fun. To hell with the balancing, I want shooters to be fun again.

True but not every game needs to shoot for the 1000 mark. Even 128,256,512 would make a major difference. But the current restrictions that are in place, mostly because of laziness, is unacceptable.

Don't forget the shooter requires pacing.

Notice how this type of game is a massive battlefield type while Gears of War is more focused on skirmish battlefield gameplay. Don't forget pacing for gamemodes like Execution where it would be impossible to find the 1 other person on the enemy team in a HUGE map.

I do admit, a game like Halo: Reach with 50 vs 50 on forge world sounds like it would be REALLY fun.

Out of laziness? Unacceptable. What they are forced to do (To make fitting game design)? Acceptable.

 

[Hal10k]

Hey, was there a game in that light show? I couldn't tell, and it didn't look the least bit fun to me.

It's a great technical achievement to get a thousand people on a single instance. Throwing them all onto a square patch of land to kill and die repetitively is a massive gameplay failure.

This is more of a proof of concept than anything else. We have the technology, now we just have to find the fun.

Wow, that second sentence really sounds like the tagline of some 90s children's cartoon, doesn't it?

 

[gruggins]

That looked unbelievebly awesome! And to have the entire thing run on a browser!
Its things like these that makes pc gaming so cool.
...
I cant believe I missed it :C

 

[Antari]

Just another example of how game companies forcing 16-32-64 player limits on modern games is absolutely ridiculous. Hell I played in 128 player games back on dial up over 15 years ago. Partly why I see it as being inexcusable for a company to release anything under 128 players these days. We should have been dealing with this level of action for years, basically since broadband became common place. Granted its not a highly detailed battlefield, and niether are the character models involved, but that allowed them to hit near 1000 players.

Take note people, this is what all games could be like if half a brain is involved.

Well it would be odd to be Playing Gears of war with 40 people and not get one's head blown off. It'd be cool but don't forget there has to be balancing in games.

Then they could make the maps bigger to balance it out because of population. Its not like computing power is lacking these days.

I'd trade another 40 people on each team for "realistic foliage" and "well detailed walls" any day.
One of my favorite shooters of all time was Time Splitters 2 and the texturing was alright I guess. TS2 focussed on making your characters look funny, guns being hilariously overpowered, and gameplay being fun. To hell with the balancing, I want shooters to be fun again.

True but not every game needs to shoot for the 1000 mark. Even 128,256,512 would make a major difference. But the current restrictions that are in place, mostly because of laziness, is unacceptable.

Don't forget the shooter requires pacing.

Notice how this type of game is a massive battlefield type while Gears of War is more focused on skirmish battlefield gameplay. Don't forget pacing for gamemodes like Execution where it would be impossible to find the 1 other person on the enemy team in a HUGE map.

I do admit, a game like Halo: Reach with 50 vs 50 on forge world sounds like it would be REALLY fun.

Out of laziness? Unacceptable. What they are forced to do (To make fitting game design)? Acceptable.

They could make things so much better but don't, for whatever useless reason I don't care about, because its not my problem. So I'll just call them lazy. If they want a sale they have to step it up alot more than 1 step beyond the direct competitor. As well even for pacing .. you can always lower the number of player slots available. But its more to the point of the maximum capabilities. As for gears of war, its a new era game, born under the restrictions of low player numbers, therefore they added a bunch of other "modes" to make the small population work. I've never been a fan of gears of war. Wars usually involve more than a couple dozen people.

 

[Squilookle]

How is this anything like Aussie Rules Football?

Seriously, what the hell?

 

[Chunga the Great]

I genuinely hope they develop this idea into a fully functional game. I would buy a better balanced version of this in a heartbeat.

Seriously, that shot after he respawns of the two sides clashing under a giant firestorm of lasers was one of the best screenshots I've ever seen. Screw graphics, I'll take 1,000 players any day.

 

[chadachada123]

Dude, hell YES.

I remember playing Star Wars Battlefront 2 for years, wondering why the hell there wasn't more games like it, except with even bigger and better multiplayer. Imagine huge, mile-long fronts, and space battles with tons of huge capital ships, ready and waiting to be 'sploded...*sigh* I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Hey guys, little clarification here: the $29 fee wasn't actually to get into the game but to reserve a spot and guarantee access when it started. Non-paying players could get in on a first-come, first-served basis when spots opened up. And since MuchDifferent is a non-profit organization, all proceeds raised by the event were donated to Engineers Without Borders, which makes a pretty damn cool thing even cooler.

 

[bobmus]

All I really want to know is: who won? Being the best in a thousand, even in that mess, has got to feel pretty good

 

[Mumorpuger]

Watching the chat for that video was good for a bellylaugh.