Will "OnLive" Revolutionize MMO Gaming Forever?

ZAM takes a look at OnLive, an upcoming "gaming-on-demand" service that could potentially change the way we play MMOs, along with the rest of the video games industry.

Throw out the name "OnLive" in video game conversation today and you'll probably be met with one of two reactions, both expressing an extreme opposite of one another: "Yeah, OnLive is the future of video games!" some might say, with enthusiasm. A popular response from the opposing camp is usually something along the lines of, "No way, it's a pipe dream—real-world application just won't work!" It's one of the most hotly-debated topics the video games industry today, and with good reason; if successful in its mission, OnLive could very well change the face of PC and console gaming as we know it.

Although it's actually been in-development for years, OnLive never received much attention from the industry until March of this year, at the Games Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. It wasn't until then that OnLive publicly unveiled its product; a new gaming-on-demand service, capable of "instantly delivering the latest high-end titles over home broadband Internet to the TV and entry-level PCs and Macs." Essentially, OnLive allows users to play graphics-intensive games like Crysis with a piece-of-crap computer, as long they have a decently-fast Internet connection. But what about the MMO market? If the technology works, could OnLive revolutionize MMO gaming as well?

Dubbed by many as the gaming equivalent to cloud-based computing, OnLive promises to make even the most-demanding games playable on the weakest computers. The only requirement is a DSL-or-faster Internet connection; the game itself is loaded and rendered at OnLive's servers, and then delivered to your PC or TV via streaming video (TV version shown below; the PC version uses a simple browser plug-in). When you buy a game from OnLive, there's no need to download or install it; players could presumably be up-and-running within minutes of purchasing a title.

It's usually at this point when a gamer's rational mind steps in, thinking the video would look like crap and the latency would make the game unplayable. But OnLive says your average DSL-speed connection will yield standard TV resolutions, and faster broadband allows HD video, up to 720p. And because of the way in which the video is encoded (a proprietary format that doesn't just stream the "video out"), latency will be negligible; much less than most MMO players experience, since OnLive was built around the idea of being able to play "twitch" first-person-shooters without lag.

To accomplish this, OnLive will rely on several "server centers" built at strategic locations across the country; each server center will cover a 1,000-mile radius, blanketing every gamer in the U.S. According to OnLive, 1,000 miles is all it needs to eliminate the amount of latency it takes to interfere with gameplay. During the GDC last spring, OnLive already had server centers built on both the East and West coasts, with more on the way for the Midwest.

The company's founder, Steve Perlman, is used to skepticism. But a respectable array of companies and video game publishers have already signed on with OnLive, including Electronic Arts, UbiSoft, Warner Bros., Nvidia, Atari, THQ and more. In a GDC interview last spring, Perlman said that he strives for transparency, and offered a lot details behind the technology. Check out the full interview here.

But despite all the buzz and smorgasbord of recent interviews, there hasn't been a lot of talk regarding the potential impact OnLive's might have within the MMO industry. Even in our own forums, the issue was only raised twice. Giving Perlman the benefit of the doubt and assuming that OnLive will perform as intended, the service could offer far-reaching possibilities for the "average" MMO gamer.

Perhaps the most obvious is OnLive's main selling point; the ability for players to run cutting-edge games at high detail and resolution from any computer with decent Internet access. Don't even bother questioning World of Warcraft; if OnLive works, gamers with meager hardware could play MMOs like Warhammer Online, Aion and Champions Online in all their glory without upgrading or buying new hardware. This issue will become especially relevant in the next few years to come, as developers continue using licensed-out FPS game engines to build their future MMOs.

Stability and speed are huge benefits to MMOs, provided OnLive's latency is as low as it promises. Under certain conditions, players might be able to achieve a faster and more-stable connection to their favorite MMO server if it's routed through OnLive's servers instead of their ISP's. (Remember: even when you're playing an online game with OnLive, you're still only streaming the video and audio through the downstream, and the controls/input through the upstream.) "Compensating for latency" in your spell/combat rotations could be a thing of the past.

Finally, because the graphic rendering and CPU work is all performed by OnLive's high-end server machines, the technology could solve the "massive battle lag" problem once and for all. Whether it's WoW, WAR, Aion or any other MMO that offers large-scale PvP with hundreds of simultaneous participants, lag has been the constant thorn in a develeoper's side. Most finally admit there's no graceful way to fix it, so they take the practical approach and cap the number of players allowed in each zone or battle. If OnLive's hardware is able to communicate with an MMO's server at a substantially faster rate than ours (which it's supposed to do, by design), we might finally get the chance to experience a lag-free, zone-wide battle with 500 other players.

OnLive is currently beta testing its service; interested gamers can register on the official site to sign up for the beta. The company still hasn't revealed specific pricing details, although most gamers are predicting a recurring-subscription model, in addition to "cloud-based" game purchases. As of press time, OnLive is still displaying a launch date of "Winter 2009" on its website. ZAM will continue providing news and coverage regarding OnLive's MMO potential as it develops.

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Worst thing ever...
# Dec 16 2009 at 10:16 AM Rating: Decent
OnLive is the leading cause of the new pay-per-gig Bandwidth charge that more and more ISPs are using.....and it's not cheap if you use a lot of bandwidth.
Not Practical for MMO
# Dec 15 2009 at 11:20 AM Rating: Decent
It's not internet connection that will be the problem. It's the sheer number of OnLive machines that will be necessary to support even a single game. The current client-server model is good because it minimizes the necessary bandwidth needed to sustain our games. Cloud computing moves the client into the internet along with the servers. You might be able to need less clients than are currently being used (1:1 ration of players/clients), but bandwidth usage will shoot through the roof.

Currently we are paying for servers and a small bandwidth on a monthly basis. With a game residing in the cloud, we will be paying for servers, clients, and some very large amounts of bandwidth.I just don't think that people who think cloud computing is the next greatest thing have their heads screwed on right. Devolving the internet into a "terminal-computer" model is what "cloud computing" actually is.

"Close" or "distant" really only refers to the number of hops between your machine and the one in the cloud. Actual distance really doesn't come into play.
Sounds sketchy
# Dec 15 2009 at 4:41 AM Rating: Decent
I'll admit I'm a pessimist when it comes to promises from companies in the gaming industry, and rightfully so. That being said, if OnLive actually does what it says it can do, it certainly will change the face of gaming as we know it.

Let's just say I'm... cautiously optimistic about this one. My PC is good enough to run WoW, so I'm ok for now :)
Sounds sketchy
# Dec 15 2009 at 8:55 AM Rating: Good
UncivilizedMike wrote:
I'll admit I'm a pessimist when it comes to promises from companies in the gaming industry, and rightfully so. That being said, if OnLive actually does what it says it can do, it certainly will change the face of gaming as we know it.

Let's just say I'm... cautiously optimistic about this one. My PC is good enough to run WoW, so I'm ok for now :)


My computer is the same. However my comp doesn't have the RAM (I need to add some) to go to placed like Dalaran, or do WG w/o out some major lag (or Dcing).
If this could lower how many people I see on the screen at a time, then I could be a neat way to help fix lag in these LArge areas with so many players.
____________________________
Sandinmyeye | |Tsukaremashi*a |
Sounds sketchy
# Dec 15 2009 at 9:46 AM Rating: Decent
If you don't like lag, just wait until this service goes live. Imagine that you hit a button on your keyboard and the input is then sent to a server somewhere in California, which then makes your WoW character turn to the left or cast a spell, and sends the resulting video data back to your PC, where you see it after it's finished buffering into their playback unit.

I'm 100% certain that they've figure out some nifty software fixes for this kind of issue, but I'm equally certain that there's nothing they can do about the inherent latency in this kind of setup. It will definitely improve your graphics lag, but the cost will be that you'll have up to a half second of delay on every input that you send. That doesn't sound like much, but it will get aggravating very quickly.

I'm not completely against this idea, as it could potentially save people a lot of money upgrading their machines for gaming (that is, if the service itself doesn't cost too much...) but for me, I'm just not interested.
Sounds sketchy
# Dec 15 2009 at 11:02 AM Rating: Excellent
*
93 posts
That's one of the main issues that people have a tough time understanding when they first hear about OnLive; the latency. As I mentioned in the story, as long as you're within 1000 miles of a server center (which covers everywhere in the US except a tiny piece of North Dakota), your latency should be far less than what it usually is when playing MMOs from home. Remember, this service was originally made for first-person-shooters, which require much lower ping than MMOs.

There are two things worth mentioning; first, OnLive has finally advanced to the point that the only factor they can't overcome is the speed of light. That's how they came up with the 1000 to 1500-mile radius figure. Any further out than that, and the amount of time it takes for the data to travel through the fiber optic lines becomes too long (even though we're still talking milliseconds). The biggest bottleneck is what they call the "last mile," when the fiber meets your local ISP's setup into your home.

Secondly, like I also mentioned in the story, it's not just a "video out" technology, like you might have seen with VPN programs like "GoToMyPC" or whatever. It's not as simple as just streaming the video to your PC and waiting for you to respond. Like I said, they developed a proprietary video streaming technology that has to be "built-in" to every OnLive game before it will work...what you see on your PC or TV screen (even though it can be high-quality as 720p HD, allegedly) isn't just a direct stream. The browser plug-in that you install works in conjunction with OnLive's servers, so you're actually controlling your character through a different "channel," so to speak.

I can't explain it that well yet because I still have another 20,000 words worth of articles and interviews to read, but the way I understand it, you can think of it like a "composite" or RCA video cable that you hook up to your TV...you know, the yellow cable for video and the red/white cables for audio? Well, with OnLive, imagine that one "cable" is streaming the video, while the other one handles all the user-dependent interaction and controls. That's probably a really dumb analogy and it might be pretty far off-base, which is one of the reasons we're going to continue covering the technology over the next few months, and try to snag an interview with them.

- Wax
Lag = distance
# Dec 15 2009 at 10:00 AM Rating: Good
45 posts
I suspect it will translate more into how far the center is away. Right now, with a high-end system, you can conceivably respond almost immediately, right? So the only difference between now and that, is that the OnLive servers will be getting your timing. So the only additional delay will be the time it takes OnLive to receive and forward that (milliseconds, if they're serious about making this work) and the time it takes the stream to move from there to you.

I suspect that people close to their centers will see practically no additional delay, and people at the very limits may notice a small lag between their actions and the response.
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