Thousand-gamer FPS fragfest shoots for world record
Gib to go
A Swedish tech outfit is to pit no fewer than one thousand first-person shooter players against each other simultaneously in a bid to set a world record.
Uppsala-based outfit MuchDifferent reached out to the gaming community this week to gather interest in Man Vs Machine, an event which will see developers fight it out against regular gamers in a web-based FPS. Those who would like to guarantee a place in the brawl can pick up one of 100 tickets for €23. All proceeds go to charity.
The Man Vs Machine tickets that are up for grabs will provide early access to the game page, assuring paid-up users a spot in the battle 40 minutes before it starts. All other spaces will be available free on a first come, first served basis, with links provided publicly 15 minutes prior to kick off.
MuchDifferent crafted a dynamic traffic router, PikkoServer, which is able to divide a game between different servers, gluing the results back together and running it all smoothly, it claims.
According to the company, while Man vs Machine runs on a Unity Engine, any game engine could be retrofitted with its technology, expanding capabilities and the maximum number of users a game can handle.
As it stands, the company says the most players ever in a single FPS game is 399, as supported by the commercial game PlanetSide. Time to smash some records then.
Those on PCs and Macs with fast enough internet and a machine good enough to power modern first-person shooters will be able to run the one-off game through their browsers. Check out MuchDifferent's Man vs Machine page for further information. ®
COMMENTS
What's EVE Online's record?
I know it's not an FPS, but the idea, and presumably the computing challenge, is similar. Graphics processed on the client, with the server handling object positions, and damage effects. Have they not already got close to the thousand gamers in combat mark?
I'm not into my online gaming, so I don't know if anyone else regularly does things bigger than EVE.
I don't know if it's still the record, but according to this 2010 article: http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/10/30/the-largest-battle-ever-held-in-eve-online-is-going-on-right-now/
"The number of players in the system peaked at over 3,110 pilots"
Though I think there needs to be some measure of lagginess taken into account for such records. If Man vs Machine can get thousands of players interacting without noticeable extra lag, that would indeed be something IMO.
Looks like people are slowly working towards Ender's Game
The largest FPS ive been involved with was MAG on PS3. That was 64 v 64, graphics werent great and the spawn points take you far away from the action.
Wouldnt mind seeing COD or Battlefield try something similar on consoles this gen.
Not a real game
More like a technology demo. That's why they're talking about it being retro-fit to other games. So no point putting resources into fluff. I'd expect only 1 or 2 (TDM and CP) maps as well.
If this event goes off I'd expect financiers, and other game companies, to be tripping over each other to throw money at them. Then they can choose if they want to flesh out the game or just licence the tech.
Besides, how many different classes does a typical team based shooter have and would having 5-10 different avatars really matter on teams of 1000 fighting off NPCs as described?
