That Cloud, popping back up again smh. CRACKDOWN-XB1

http://www.xboxmad.net/x/cloudgine-bigs-up-the-cloud.html

Cloud processing remains an enigma for many gamers. Amidst the furore of doubt over DX12 gains for Xbox One, doubt over whether HoloLens can truly deliver on it's insane tech demo, another pillar of magical Microsoft promises has been forgotten.

Cloud processing is the practice of offloading computational data utilizing your internet connection, rather than your local hardware. Theoretically, a stable internet connection can provide ridiculous processing gains for rendering objects that rely on heavy computational data, like physics emulation. Key word being theoretically.

Cloudgine are developing Crackdown for Xbox One, a game which seeks to take the concept of procedural destruction to the next level. A verified Cloudgine developer took to NeoGAF to lay claims on the technology.

"On another note, the latest installment is known to be heavily supported with the cloud(TM). Yayaya … That stupid cloud talk again ;) I know you can not hear it anymore. What I want to say though is: your local gaming mashine does not have enough calculation power to run our game engine. I think we always communicated it that way and there is no reason not to be honest here. If you want to deliver something that has never been done before in that kind of scale, then you can not make compromises. We totally know that there are huge risks involved. But this is the route we will take. We are super confident here and can’t wait to get out of the dark. Personally, I can totally understand that there are huge doubts. I’m not an idiot. Too many games did things wrong or communicated something wrong. People want to see what cloud computing can be used to in gaming. So give a chance at least on showing this. I think that would be fair. It’s up to us to deliver on your bolded sentence. Again – personally – I want to see you playing this game really thinking “holy SHIT why doesn’t my mashine burn already?”. We want to achieve this. And we’re working super hard to get to that point."

Crackdown's destruction engine can be seen in prototypical form below, and seems ridiculously impressive. Whether or not it can be pulled off in the real world remains to be seen - given consumer internet speeds are more than likely less stable than whatever dedicated pipes Microsoft uses

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Crackdown XB1 info below:

http://www.crossmap.com/news/crackdown-3-release-date-and-updates-crackdown-to-be-released-excusive-to-xbox-one-15579

Well my goodness. Microsoft really isn't letting this Cloud thing go, are they? They must really being doing something with it.

Really though, MS really seems more and more like the real deal lately. They seem to be trying to innovate with their tech AND their games...while Sony seem like the pretenders in this here video game, game. I mean, cows are waiting for The Order 1886 to release to act as if they have something worthwhile on the ps4 for goodness sake. And the whole H1Z1 debacle, my goodness.

Offloading physics onto the cloud is completely possible. This is already known. How well itll work and on what scale it can be done hasnt been seen yet, but Im really excited about Crackdown. I remember I posted that prototype video some time ago, and I think its promising.

Will this have an impact on graphical fidelity? Most assuredly no, but physics on that scale would have a demonstrably bigger impact on the gameplay than graphics.

Videos are dead.

so if their engine is too powerful to run on my local machine, what happens when I don't have internet access?

@lostrib: You cant play the game. How often is that the case though?

uh, depends how stupid my apartment's third party intermediate feels like being.

But it seems kind of shitty for a single player game.

Wouldnt be the first time. Many console games require an internet connection now. And Dragon Age Inquisition does too.

One thing is that it shouldnt require a substantial amount of bandwidth. The cloud physics rendering would only be sending coordinates (literally numbers). There will be some milliseconds of lag though.

Doubters and haters talk shit on The Cloud. It will be here for Crackdown 3 soon enough. The dev for CD3 says this game wouldn't be possible just running on hardware alone. This is the future.

are you serious?

@wolverine4262: Dragon Age: Inquisition does not "require" an internet connection. Don't know where you picked that up.

Anyways, this kind of sucks to see SP games demanding an internet connection to play. I've experienced several situations playing Destiny where my internet had lost contact with the Destiny servers out of the blue, and I get returned to the start screen and my progress in a story mission was not saved.

I wont support games that hold SP games hostage to the internet in the future because of stuff like that.

The only thing that annoys me about "always on" data connections and "the Cloud" are things like when you internet is out for a few weeks and you are stuck staring at menus because even your single player game requires internet. Other than that it has huge benefits. But those few moments in between can be annoying.

@Zen_Light: Oh really? I thought it did. First thing the game does when you start it up is connect to the EA servers. Guess thats not required?

At least in situations like this, the internet connection is used to expand the gameplay and not simply as drm or the like.

Ya, it's not required for DA

When you start the game there is a brief status screen that says it's searching or connecting to EA servers, but if you're not connected to the net it goes away after a minute or two and you can play the game normally.

My mistake.

Wait, seriously? The game wouldnt be possibly otherwise. This isnt something like Sim City. This actually affects the gameplay. Its not a just because or DRM scenario. They have to do that to make the game they want.

That's fine, but I wont be playing it despite being interested in it since E3. After Destiny I'll never again support games that require internet for SP content.

You say thats fine and then that you wont play it because of that. OK.

I say "it's fine" because I'll still have tons of other games to play that don't force an internet connection for SP games. I just can't support products I feel are going down a wrong path for the future.

I smell a Crackdowngrade coming.

Finding a way to allow for city scale physics destruction is a "wrong path for the future"?

I would completely agree if this was about DRM, but its not at all. The internet connection is actually being used in a meaningful way.

Are these videos working for anyone? Cuz, I wanted to point and laugh if this was the tech demo being done with a server farm in the same building.

What happens if your connection loses contact with their server? Will I lose my progress and be taken out of the game world if it does? If it's anything like Destiny then the answer is yes, you lose your progress and are returned to the start screen with no apology.

My concerns have nothing to do with DRM, just accountability. We've yet to see how they plan on handling this. It could be they have a delay if the player loses contact with the server for a few seconds, so it might not be a problem. But if it's handled like Destiny then yeah, that's a major problem as far as I'm concerned.

@Zen_Light: Yeah, we dont know what will happen in that instance. Even if that were the case, its a small price to pay for what we will hopefully get.

I played Destiny with freedomfreak quite a bit. The good thing about co-oping is that when he did disconnect, he was able to rejoin me incredibly fast and in pretty much any situation. I think they handled that aspect as well as they could.

crack down has always been about co-op. if you're playing it single player then you're doing it wrong.

English was never pnf's strong suit.

Not a big deal when people buy every Halo game, CoD, Titanfall, BF, counter strike,basically every fps out just for multiplayer, if their net goes down, they can't play. And before you say "but they can still play single player" HAHA, who buys those games for the single player, well apart from me.

@Tighaman: I dislike u with a passion.. But that lostrib comment about the Internet being his life had me dying

I don't know why so many people are freakin out about needing an internet connection to play a game?? games like halo and KZ use a internet connection all the fuckin time and people don't bitch and moan about that....at least not anymore. I remember back before online gaming when people didn't think it would work lol....or were like why would you want to game on line??....it takes all the fun out of getting together for lan parties. Look how turned out lol

Anybody remember how terrible Crackdown 2 was? Why M$ invests in this series instead of their other IPs I'll never know.

@UnbiasedPoster: Crackdown 2 was terrible because they DIDNT invest in it. The ip has plenty of potential.

Crackdown 2 was made in less than a year start to finish.

Won't get it if I need to have online. But i'm interested in what happens with it.

damn. I have no idea why gamers don't want to move forward with tech. If you guys don't like cloud tech. Then go back into your rock

Better not play WoW, any MMO for that matter, LoL, Dota, CS,Halo, I don't know why people are exited to play Planetside 2 on Ps4, what happens when the internet goes down? Unsubscribe yourselves from Netfix, Amazon and the multitude of online streaming services, might as well quit Gamespot for that matter as you can't post if the net goes down. This whole argument is terrible.

Edit: Oh dam those 20million+ people playing minecraft might as well give it up right now.

more like if you own an x1, you're doing it wrong.

nogames

Lems getting ready for the next sekrit sauce after GDC disappoints?

Dat clawd powwa, maybe MS will one day show it outside of a controlled environment.

Can't wait for the PR on this one when it doesn't work at launch.

SecretSauce, DX12, StormCloud... Late 2015 X1 will be firing on all cylinders, :P

Anyhoo, Crackdown 3 is up there in my list of must have games I just hope it delivers the over the top gaming fun addictive game-play like the first one.

lol loved how the TC ended off Damage Controlling a soon to be released graphically impressive PS4 exclusive with an experimental and unrealized implementation of tech that is supposed to make xbone perform above it's capabilities for a game that no one has seen and has no release date hahaha.

In other words BELIEVE and JUST WAIT!

Suggesting Crackdown is "worthwhile"? lol, ok then. The Order releases next month and yes an exclusive ground up current gen new IP is indeed worthwhile for PS4 owners, sorry xboners have nothing to play and PS4 getting high profile exclusive games hurts your feelings.

On that note, when does your experimental tech demo game, Crackdown 3, that no one has seen in action release? any time in 2015? holiday 2016 maybe? lol

Lems are so transparent with their butthurt, what this thread has to do with the order I do not know but...

Incredible looking current gen new IP.

Releasing Feb 20, no required online, indefinite waiting, secret sauce PR or clouds required.

And all it took was two years of waiting.

Unless GDC is another bust, in which case it's back to waiting.

That frickin alien tech inside X1 takes a while to get your mind around for lowly human beings but their starting to come to grips with the powah & complexity of The One. :P

Nice one, do you have pictures and sources of the server farm in the same building?

da powwa of da mist doe

2 years already hearing this bullshit about "teh cloud" and xbone is weaker than ever with their powerful 900p and fps drops, but sunset overdrive and teh titanfalll will use it! just you wait (tm) xD

In the ken Lobb interview he states that crackdown 3 will be the first game to properly use cloud for compute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JXs7HVXXmk

skip to 58.40 it's only short about 50 seconds long

The premiere game for cloud compute.

Weird one Crackdown. I really really enjoyed the first. It was new, fresh, fun, early in the gen it helped to establish a new gen's capability. Addictive collecting all those thingiembobs as well.

Then number 2 came out and bored me to tears, and I don't know why. Looking back the first game is so dull compared to what we've seen since I hardly understand what I saw in it. Certainly disinterested in another unless it's a completely different game.

I'm assuming you can't play the game...the same as numerous other popular games these days.

Expecting an internet connection isn't exactly an undo burden in 2015.