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Interview: How Cloud Computing Changes Trion's Game
Posted by Leigh Alexander at 5:20 AM on June 5, 2008
Trion CEO Lars Buttler promises that platforms like his company's will evolve the way we play online. The company recently announced some ambitious plans - to develop a persistent MMO that ties into an ongoing Sci-Fi Channel television series, to create a new fantasy MMO helmed by Might and Magic creator Jon Van Caneghem, and to publish PlayStation 3 games through an agreement with Sony.
Though Trion has just recently announced its games, the company has been quietly at work on its technology infrastructure since last year, when it scored $US 30 million in investments from Time Warner and NBC Universal, among others. It's this infrastructure, says Buttler, that aims to shift the paradigm for multiplayer gaming.
Trion's World Network server cloud, Buttler said, will allow high volumes of players to participate in a fully persistent online world that can be evolved at any point by the game operators - or affected by the users. And the company has big cross-platform visions, promising mobile access to the worlds as well as console or PC, on the heels of the Sony partnership.
What about the Xbox 360? Is Trion talking to Microsoft, too?
Yes, said Buttler, and we can expect an announcement soon.
"For 20 years, games have been built essentially the same way," Buttler told us. "The client-based game world is only peer-to-peer, so it only really works for 16 to 32 people at a time, and after that it breaks down. Once you ship a game, it only lives in your client, and there's not much you can do."
Even larger games like WoW and EverQuest still rely largely on client computing, Buttler said. The entire game must be built up-front, they lack multi-device capability and neither the users nor the game teams can influence it much in realtime, beyond patches, expansions and bug fixes.
"But the way we build games, of the quality of a Halo or Madden or WoW, is essentially entirely server-based," Buttler said. "All of the computing for the game lives in the server cloud, and because that's the case, the entire game becomes dynamic - meaning anything and everything you want to change in those games after launch can be changed. Users can change it, and live teams can change it, to a degree never seen before."
The objective of the technology, Buttler said, is to create "massively social" game worlds that can evolve over time and tell stories. His ultimate aim is that any changes made in the game world or its story results from a collaborative decision between the users and the live teams.
Every action taken by the users within the game is recorded as data in a database - information such as what quests draw the highest number of players, what areas are the most frequently visited, and what content just doesn't seem to be catching on, and adjustments can be made accordingly.
"They don't have to consciously do it - it's like 'voting with your feet'. We can actually know what people like. Everything is a data entry, an aggregate view of what people do and what they like," said Buttler.
"It's a fine balance. If people influence everything, it might look like a Second Life at the end and destroy the fun. If they influence nothing, it's boring. So we have now the technical capability to improve the game constantly, to introduce new things constantly and allow users to talk about the changes they want to make."
Buttler is especially excited about the way the Sci-Fi Channel partnership will expand online gaing to new audiences. "We can literally evolve the game and the TV show in parallel, and to a large degree also use the game to inform what's cool for writing a show. If you see something in the TV show that you would love to do, you can stand up from your TV, go to your PC or console, and then do it yourself."
In that way, Buttler said, television also becomes a gaming platform in a way that goes beyond the trend of interactive television we see today, when viewers can vote on things like American Idol. He refers to the various games on Trion's platform as separate "channels," as well.
Ideally, he said, users will be able to access the game world from any platform they like - checking in with friends and auctions using the cell phone, and playing in the same world on the console as they do on the PC.
Though the official release date for the company's "Channel One" project, the Van Caneghem-led fantasy MMORPG, has not been announced, Buttler said the Sci-Fi Channel game is set to launch simultaneously with the show in 2010, and that audiences can expect the first project prior to that.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
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Krondonian
Posted 6:03 AM 5/6/08
I'm slightly confused at this. Is he implying that fundamental changes to the game world, like environments or buildings, could be changed?
Or is he simply saying that the actions of the users will basically determine how the game expands, as the most popular areas can be developed on?
Either way, it sounds interesting...though I'm wondering how this would work globally. Here in the UK we get the biggest American shows several months later. So I couldn't exactly alter the story if I'm getting it moths later.
Krondonian
excaliburps
Posted 6:03 AM 5/6/08
What they're planning on doing is very ambitious. A synergy of all media/entertainment components all rolled into one.
It does sound a little too ambitious in my opinion. Oh and letting users/game operators change the "environment" ie gaming landscape or whatnot sounds good in theory but I think we're going to see a lot of inappropriate content come their way. Though of course it's understandably still going to be kept on a short leash. From what he said, he wants the game's dialogue,story to be dynamic. It's certainly something people would like to see but very hard to do. I assume other developers have thought of it and just found the implementation daunting to say the least.
Basically, he wants the MMOs,Tv shows,mobile phones,etc to be in a constant bubble with the game. As if playing MMOs weren't enough of a life-sucker.
Call me a skeptic but I'll believe it when I see it...
excaliburps
XgamerM
Posted 5:59 AM 5/6/08
Great concept...this dude looks a bit freaky though, no?
XgamerM
Assassin9
Posted 5:53 AM 5/6/08
All I can say is WOW!
Assassin9
celery
Posted 6:36 AM 5/6/08
I'm going to have to be skeptical about this one. It's the same MMO promises of a dynamic, changing world, but with the latest technology buzzword--cloud computing--thrown in. I've lost count of how many MMOs have tried the dynamic world bit and failed, and I highly doubt cloud computing is the silver bullet that will solve everything.
There's been tons of "paradigm shifts" and new technologies that promise to solve all our problems and then some. They've been great at attracting investors and hype, but hardly ever attract real results.
I think the best thing we can hope for is that it turns out just to be a solid, traditional MMO.
celery
okenny :)
Posted 6:23 AM 5/6/08
It sounds like the basic benefit of a web application. It should be interesting to see how they handle bandwidth and processing resource issues because those are the biggest shortcoming and challenges of using such models for real-time experiences.
okenny :)
Zugdaga
Posted 7:03 AM 5/6/08
And if all else fails, he could easily be cast in a remake of "The Coneheads"
Zugdaga
Providence
Posted 7:44 AM 5/6/08
It'll probably end up being the next Habbo Hotel rather than the next World of Warcraft.
Providence
mouroutaru
Posted 7:28 AM 5/6/08
I'm skeptical, but I like the ambition. I'm definitely going to be watching this closely, hopefully they can realize their vision.
So will this be cross-platform, cross-console? Can't see that actually happening, but almost sounds like that is what they are working towards.
mouroutaru
MaxS
Posted 8:42 AM 5/6/08
*thin-client -_-
MaxS
MaxS
Posted 8:42 AM 5/6/08
If I get this correctly, they're planning to do a full-blown MMO in think-client format. Kinda neat. It's nothing new, really - just look at all the browser games out there. But I guess they're going for the scale of a "noraml" MMO like WoW or GW or anything, and if they're gonna pull this off, I'm going to be impressed (but I already am with Van Caneghem being involved). If someone doesn't know what a thin-client is - imagine playing a modern MMO without the need to install some 10GB client and the same amount of patches. Basically, the server does everything for you, so you don't need a fast machine to play, and in theory it could be the same on any platform.
MaxS
FunkyJ
Posted 9:15 AM 5/6/08
I've been arguing to see this in MMOs for a while now.
If I risk my life to go into a forest and gather wood, kill 10 wolves and 20 boars so someone has enough skins for a hut, I want to see that god damn hut completed!
But I can't see why they can't do it with "traditional" computing.
Quests are locked out because you're not high enough level or haven't completed a certain prerequisite - so why not use the same logic to change the environment/mesh or even just texture for people to give them a sense of accomplishment.
FunkyJ
Ramonskito
Posted 9:01 AM 5/6/08
Letting users change content directly in the way implied here opens a huge can of worms, that of exploits and cheats of the worst possible kind.
Ramonskito
Slash3
Posted 1:12 PM 5/6/08
The collective gaming community may be in for some sweepingly revolutionary changes if he is allowed to unleash what must undoubtedly be supremely genius ideas from his massive, massive cranium.
(Run-on sentence.)
I bet if he concentrates, he can carbonate beverages from across the room by willing it.
Slash3
Hdfisise
Posted 5:40 AM 5/6/08
Seems very interesting, but it all depends on how far they let the users go. It'll br pretty awesome if a faction could destroy a town of another faction and it takes the game a while to rebuild it, meaning that people actually see the result of their hours training and raiding places. However if every town was down because of this I'm sure it'll get pretty old fast.
Hdfisise
Crawl to China
Posted 12:36 AM 6/6/08
What about the Wii? Is Trion talking to Nintendo, too?
No, said Common Sense, The Wii's online capabilities blow in comparison.
Crawl to China
ssh83
Posted 1:54 AM 6/6/08
wow... might and magic creator... sounds like a richard garriot deja vu. I hope this guy has been playing modern games and hanging out with current gen gamers.
ssh83
vamponymouse
Posted 12:20 PM 8/6/08
"promising mobile access to the worlds as well as console or PC"
This is really akward phrasing. Does it mean that you will have access to the game from mobile, console and PC, or does it mean that you will be able to access your console or PC with your mobile through this network?
vamponymouse