1000-Player FPS Sets New World Record - UPDATED

[Andy Chalk]

1000-Player FPS Sets New World Record - UPDATED

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Gamers from around the world came together this past weekend in Man vs. Machine, setting a new world record of nearly 1000 players slugging it out on a single FPS battlefield.

Online shooters can be pretty awesome but even the best of them can't really capture the epic feel that comes from being involved in truly massive battles. Storming the beaches of Normandy loses a little something when there are only eight guys doing it. So Swedish tech company MuchDifferent decided to see what it could do to improve that situation with Man vs. Machine, a chance for gamers to take part in a 1000-player FPS.

It all went down this past weekend and amazingly, it just about worked. The project fell one shy of its 1000-player goal but it still blew away the Planetside [http://www.amazon.com/Planetside-Pc/dp/B00007M9SL/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327960003&sr=8-1] record of 600. Players were divided into teams "Man" and "Machine," and while Team Machine spent the first half-hour of play getting massacred, some on-the-fly tweaking had the roles reversed by the end of the two-hour session, as Team Man was being mercilessly spawn-camped.

"Getting a game balanced is hard and our guesswork proved to be quite off the mark," CEO Christian Lönnholm wrote on the MuchDifferent blog [http://blog.muchdifferent.com/?p=281]. "In the end, I think most people had an enjoyable experience of the sheer massiveness of it all and having the game run smoothly helped with that."

Judging by the gameplay videos floating around on YouTube, Man vs. Machine was a bit on the primitive side, essentially a 1000-man game of Aussie Rules Football with energy weapons. But it still looks like a blast, and the point wasn't to make a great game so much as to demonstrate that these sorts of large-scale, browser-based battles are feasible. That's right - this whole thing went down in browser windows.

Derek Wise, an "independent industry expert" who monitored the game, is currently sorting the data for presentation to the Guinness World Record folks. MuchDifferent says its goal now is to make this technology available to game developers for more mainstream use.

UPDATE: The original report stated that access to the game cost $29 but that was actually the cost to reserve a spot and guarantee access. Non-paying gamers were also able to take part on a first-come, first-served basis. All proceeds raised by the event [MuchDifferent is a non-profit organization] were donated to Engineers Without Borders.

Source: Blue's News [http://www.bluesnews.com/s/129541/fps-player-record-claimed]


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[Monkeyman O'Brien]

Holy shit. Thats like the closest thing to a 40K battle I have ever seen.
GO IMPERIAL GUARD! FOR THE EMPEROR!

 

[Agent Larkin]

Right so the doors been opened.

Now we just need to work on this then I can have a really really good game of BF or COD.

 

[Fappy]

This seriously made my day. Now if only I could get over my cold >.>

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Looked like lasguns. Anyone up for an Imperial Guard FPS game, complete with human wave attacks against eight foot tall metal demigods?

 

[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.

 

[TimeLord]

I agree with the two other posters about a 40k game.
Get the license from Games Workshop and make an Imperial Guard vs Space Marines/Necrons/Chaos Space Marines etc game.

Basically any combination that is... well Man vs Machine.
Or in this case, Man vs Genetically Engineered Killing Machine Created By The Emperor to Conquer the Galexy... Or Necrons.

 

[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.

 

[Scars Unseen]

You know what would be interesting? A thousand man space battle taking place among dozens of capital ships in low orbit.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Ok first thing, how did I not know about this???!!! I would of took part in it!!!

Second thing, wow they must have a powerful sever to run that many players!

 

[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.

 

[FoolKiller]

Cool.

I just think they should have run it as a last team standing thing. Meaning you only respawn for the next match. It would have been a better gaming experience but at least it looked nice and hectic.

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, well to be honest I have mixed opinions about the whole thing. I'm not a big FPS player to begin with, but that just seemed utterly chaotic. I'll also admit that I kind of disliked the bit about "on the fly tweaking" when one side was clearly winning, leading to a role reversal and giving the losing side the final victory apparently. Of course then again it shows some horrible design to set it up so it was possible to spawn camp.

I suppose on some levels it's an impressive multi-player achievement, but really I'm not going to be screaming it's praises until I see something done with the technology that I personally find appealing.... and really they seemed to only get that many people active by being very bare bones about it. The more complicated the game gets and the better the graphics the less people they are likely to be able to put in there at once. I mean with a decent machine you still get a huge amount of slowdown in many cases if you pack enough characrters together in your typical MMO.

 

[F4LL3N]

Shweeet. I can't wait to play a 1000-player Battlefield 8 game. Maybe another one or two console gens away.

 

[theonecookie]

I may be missing the point hear but why is this good If your just going to shove a 1000 people in to a area less than a football pitch your just going to end up with a massive clusterfuck and clusterfucks are anything but fun

Surely It would be a better use of time to figure out the optimal number of players for a given space and then work from there

 

[Brawndo]

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 100 players in one multiplayer FPS server is to dramatically scale back the graphics in triple-A releases. For example, Mount & Blade: Warband allows a ton of people to fight in a multiplayer battle without serious lag using mid-range PCs, but that is partly due to the fact that the game uses graphics from 2004-2005.

 

[octafish]

Planetside 2 is coming. Here's hoping they have a decent spread of servers available. God I miss Planetside.