From the Titan's Mouth - Respawn Addresses Lack of Aussie Dedicated Servers for Titanfall

Post by Steve Farrelly @ 11:17am 13/02/14 | 84 Comments

While out throwing soldiers around dressed in his fancy Titan suit at a Titanfall press event, Joab Gilroy also managed to corner Respawn's Steve Fukuda who serves as Game Director on the studio's debut project.

Obviously the burning question for all Aussies (and Kiwis) has been related to the absence of Microsoft's Azure cloud services infrastructure in Australia, and whether that means that Titanfall won't have local servers in time for launch next month. With the closest known Azure datacentre currently in operation in Singapore, Australian and New Zealand gamers are understandably concerned about the impact that higher latency will have on such a fast-paced multiplayer-only game.

"I don't actually have an exact number for you with respect to Titanfall in particular," Fukuda said when asked about acceptable ping range for the game.

"For example I play from West Coast to East Coast sometimes and I haven't had any problems there. It's surprisingly tolerant of high pings and you don't notice anything bad. So that's what's remarkable about the game -- the guys in the office play and go "Woah, this is actually quite higher ping tolerant and it plays very well and it plays somewhat seamlessly". So there you have it. The game works."

When prodded on the situation of Microsoft and its planned Australian Azure data centre, Fukuda could only touch on information we already pretty much know.

"It is something that we really want Australians to have, these data centres, but I believe that the infrastructure itself is in Microsoft's hands at that level," he said.

"It's not something we can particularly influence or have accelerated in some way, but we'd really love for there to be data centres located in Australia for people to play Titanfall on."

So the game is tolerant of high pings, but Respawn still very much hopes we'll have local Australian servers to play Titanfall on.

dedicated servers microsoft respawn servers aussie servers steve fukuda game director

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Latest Comments

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Zapo
Posted 11:34am 13/2/14

There's a big difference between the ping time between the East and West Coast of the US - typically 70-80ms, VS a ping time between AUS and US West Coast 230ms+

I'll be really interested in seeing the feedback when AUS people start getting into the beta.

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Joaby
Posted 11:48am 13/2/14

It definitely won't be from AUS east coast to US West Coast. It will, however, be from Aus east coast (or New Zealand... does NZ have different coasts?) to Singapore. I'll definitely record some games from the beta and try to match them against my videos from the preview event to show you guys.

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fryzeegunner
Posted 02:01pm 13/2/14

Was just watching twitch streams and they were complaining of lag from west to east US coasts which is concerning. Hopefully like Joab said, it will be aus to singapore or something similar.

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TicMan
Posted 02:19pm 13/2/14

Sounds like the guy has no understanding of the problem with gaming on a server outside of our region.

"Woah, this is actually quite higher ping tolerant and it plays very well and it plays somewhat seamlessly".

Said nobody that paid money for any game and is expecting a quality experience.

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fencer
Posted 02:29pm 13/2/14

Why oh why did I pre order 3 copies :(

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RuleofBooKz
Posted 02:33pm 13/2/14

"For example I play from West Coast to East Coast sometimes and I haven't had any problems there. It's surprisingly tolerant of high pings and you don't notice anything bad. So that's what's remarkable about the game -- the guys in the office play and go "Woah, this is actually quite higher ping tolerant and it plays very well and it plays somewhat seamlessly". So there you have it. The game works."

This is so very wrong. I dont know if its innocent ignorance or "wanting to believe in" the marketing hype and spin or just, like has been already said, that when it comes to Australia idiot americans just assume its like some "east west usa" thing to Australians to connect to singapore.

But it ticks me off that game makers to have a clue about how s*** works in regions where they are actually trying to sell the game to.

And "the game works" is somehow meant to be reassuring???! ffs "it works" is now the best we can hope for in FPS gaming if we live in Australia?

So the game is tolerant of high pings

For that im calling outright BS. No FPS game ever is "tolerant" of high pings. No software server side or client side can compensate between a 200 ping and a 20-50 ping. I wish it could but it cant.

Do you feel you could of pushed harder JooJoo ? I mean on the issue of aussie FPS players everywhere getting screwed over by foreign game makers who think 200+ pngs are "good enuf" and pushing F**uda to address the concern?

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Herron
Posted 02:54pm 13/2/14

It's great to hear a company has finally defied physics and created the best netcode ever!

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Joaby
Posted 03:09pm 13/2/14

Nope, what I got out of him here was everything he had to say on the subject before he started answering in sentence fragments only. I pushed pretty hard. My very first question was "What's an acceptable ping number for an FPS" and he responded as he did above, for example. I pressed him for digits before moving on.

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Moridin
Posted 03:22pm 13/2/14

The continued consolification of games. I'm used to it now... Don't get me wrong i've got an xbox one and it has it's place but i'd never bother with an FPS on it. I had high hopes for this on PC but what 8 months till maybe microsoft pulls their finger out and we get some aussie data centres? Stuff that for a joke.

Bring back ET:QW.. eh Bookz? :)

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Zapo
Posted 03:26pm 13/2/14

Ping time to Singapore is still, what 160-180ms? That's still pretty darn bad.

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RuleofBooKz
Posted 03:37pm 13/2/14

Well JooJoo its good you tried at least.

Seems like they had that "will play fine in Australia dont worry about pings" all prepared because they want people to buy it but also because they know it will be bad. Its like they are shonky car salesmen talking about all the rust on the engine and the wobbly wheels as if it were a "feature" of the car. Lets just hope once the beta results on playability come out (and the inevitable outcry of poor performance) they take note and do something about it. But as long as Devs get away with pointing fingers to 3rd parties for stuff that is bad with their game i doubt things will change.

Ha Moridin you know i got nostalgic for ET:QW around Christmas and logged in to find only overseas servers left and pings of about 300. Even with that high ping I played for a couple of hours just for the sake of it (field ops and support roles as i couldn't hit anything reliably) and because i love the game but yeah if id just bought QW for the 1st time and it was 200- 300 ping id uninstall it the same day and go ask for my monies back ;(

IF there were still aust QW servers and enuf to fill it id prob still be playing it

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TicMan
Posted 04:47pm 13/2/14

Lets just hope once the beta results on playability come out (and the inevitable outcry of poor performance) they take note and do something about it.

If the whole thing is built on the premise of centralised servers that run out of Azure data centres, nothing can be done until Microsoft open up the Sydney & Melbourne DCs.

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Dan
Posted 06:30pm 13/2/14

Welp, I managed to get beta access this afternoon and give it a quick look.

There's a toggle on the main menu that lets you choose a data centre, and as expected South East Asia (Singapore) is the closest when playing from Australia.

I couldn't find any active players on SEAsia, or East Asia so I switched over to the next lowest latency option, South Central US (guessing this is Dallas, TX).

The latency was much like I'd expected, very heavily client predicted. Very playable, but with all the caveats of heavy client prediction. I imagine there will be a lot of dying behind cover until MS gets their s*** together with Austrailan Azure datacentres. It's obviously no good for any meaningful competitive play, but was playable as a casual fragfest.

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WirlWind
Posted 07:03pm 13/2/14

Meh, I still won't be buying it. I am unfortunately one of many Aussies who have a s*** time routing to Singapore.

I did a ping test earlier and was getting 300ms to the Singapore server.

Annoying, because before my connection went tits up and they did a port reset, I was capable of 120ms to Singapore and that would at least be somewhat playable.

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Eorl
Posted 07:41pm 13/2/14

Same experience as Dan, had to jump into US server and while you can't see the lag, you will feel it in missed shots or being killed behind a wall. It was difficult even to kill grunts, which are suppose to be cannon fodder and only take two or so bullets to kill. I would usually spend a whole magazine in a fight against a player, and piloting a Titan is difficult in responding to all the damage coming from every direction.

It was playable yes, and enjoyable due to the actual gameplay, but we definitely need local servers to maximise the fun factor.

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TicMan
Posted 08:10pm 13/2/14

Such a disappointment as this was one of the few games I was excited to get on the XboxOne :(

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ravn0s
Posted 08:33pm 13/2/14

short vid from an aussie playing the beta

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carson
Posted 09:04am 14/2/14

I've not been following this game very closely, but why did they opt to forgo dedicated servers that people can host themselves? And why did they select MS Azure?

They could've gone the route of BF series surely, and let ISPs host servers that are considered official? Sometimes I wonder if game devs realise there is a big market outside of their country when it comes to MP.

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ravn0s
Posted 09:27am 14/2/14

it's all EA, not the devs. hosting the servers on azure would have been part of the exclusivity deal EA made with MS.

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Gung-ho
Posted 12:40pm 14/2/14

It has nothing to do with EA and everything to do with Respawn a.k.a. ex-Infinity Ward. They canned client-dedicated servers with MW2 and that trend continues on with Titansfall. Perhaps Microsoft cloud hosting was part of the exclusivity deal but it would have been at the request of Respawn.

They have at least learned from peer-to-peer and opted for a cloud-dedicated server base. What they have against client-dedicated servers eludes me considering it doesn't cost them anything since they wouldn't be hosting.

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Ronnny
Posted 04:31pm 14/2/14

Downloading the beta now, f*** origin is fast 10meg/sec

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AnarchyAngel
Posted 04:32pm 14/2/14

I got into the Beta will let you know how it goes.

@Whirlwind just call them up and get the to do another reset at the exchange, you will be suprised what this can fix.

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Herron
Posted 04:35pm 14/2/14

Signed up for PC Beta - got an XB1 code...

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kappa
Posted 04:47pm 14/2/14

Signed up for both - got squat

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greazy
Posted 06:15pm 14/2/14

They have at least learned from peer-to-peer and opted for a cloud-dedicated server base. What they have against client-dedicated servers eludes me considering it doesn't cost them anything since they wouldn't be hosting.

I always thought it had to do with development. Dedicated sever software requires additional development time (for obvious reasons) so it might be more cost effective for them to team up with Microsoft to use their data centres (to the dev team it's probably free) than create DSF.

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ph33x
Posted 06:28pm 14/2/14

Problem with a game which is tolerant of high pings means it's probably using extrapolation, so when you have a really good ping (sub 20ms) the game still feels like aids.

Suppose we'll see how that turns out. - What's the Singapore IP?

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Mosfx
Posted 06:32pm 14/2/14

Got my BETA key so I'll download it tonight

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ph33x
Posted 06:48pm 14/2/14

Cloud/propriety dedi is so they have full control of your money. Yes, you'd think it would cost them less with client dedi, but look at games like BF3/4. The rentee pays the RSP and most certainly the RSP pays EA. EA can also decide when to kill older games and get everyone onto the new one.

Test Drive Unlimited was another example. Sequel comes out (which arguably was a worse game) and they turned off TDU1 servers only shortly afterwards and told everyone to come play TDU2.

EA got $50-100 when you bought BF2 when it released and that's all they saw from you. Let's assume there are (on complete average) 10,000 servers worldwide at 64 players.

That's $640k a month. That's you buying BF2 6400-10,000 times over, in a month. (Numbers are a mere example and probably way off, but it illustrates that your $100 for the game is minimal when 3 months of a 32 slot server basically pays it off)

Edit: This is also why they care about getting everyone back into the game with 'love packs' at the moment. When the game first released there was way too many servers. Their server revenue is forever going down and they want to stem the bleed as much as possible until BF5, etc)

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ravn0s
Posted 06:50pm 14/2/14

i did not receive an invite. oh well.

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Mantorok
Posted 07:15pm 14/2/14

Isn't the cut off for an invite Monday? You might still get a code.

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qmass
Posted 07:57pm 14/2/14

f*****g origin. got to 24% after 40mins, 2hours later and im only @ 45%. I wan't to play now damnit. Is it just me or do origin downloads start fast and gradually get slower and slower?

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Eorl
Posted 08:06pm 14/2/14

Or there are a crap ton of people downloading.

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qmass
Posted 08:16pm 14/2/14

well after looking around the net a bit I tried a thing where you can unlock a dev mode on origin and its now going @ 3.4MB/s

it is a mystery

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Trex0321
Posted 10:42pm 14/2/14

alright, i was wrong. the lag makes titanfall pretty much unplayable for me. and im on bigpond ultimate cable. will not buy

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Khel
Posted 11:03pm 14/2/14

I was playing it on XB1 and I'm suprised at how playable it actually was. I mean, theres no way it could ever be a seriously competitive fps, but I actually managed to have fun, people weren't jerking and teleporting all over the place, I even finished second in my third game of deathmatch. Its very spammy though, lots of fully automatic weapons with no apparent way to change fire modes to anything that isn't fully automatic, and even a 'smart' handgun that hits players you're locked onto and homes in on them as long as your crosshair is in their general vicinity.

It must use some heavy, HEAVY client-side stuff cos I was still wall-running and doing crazy double jumps without any hitches on 183ms ping, dunno what it looked like to anyone else though. Had quite a few killcams where I was shot and the person's crosshair wasn't even near me though, thats when you start to see the cracks appear.

FOV also feels really, really tiny, almost claustrophobically so.

The titans are fun to drive though. And theres a perk where you can make your titan explode like a nuclear bomb when you eject from it, I wiped out two other enemy titans with that, so moments like that make it actually pretty fun.

I only played a few games of deathmatch, but games are fast paced, and the 6v6 doesn't seem to hurt it. The bots don't really do much, they're just fodder, but they do a good job of padding out the area and making it feel like a battlefield, and they also do a pretty good job of camoflauging who the real players are cos they look esssentially the same as players till you get close.

Maps are fun, the one in the city felt the best cos it really played up the different types of traversal you can do with the jetpack double jumping and wall running, so there was always crazy ways to get around behind enemies and flank them from new and unexpected angles. The other map is a more open map with some open fields and a couple of ruined buildings and stuff, which works good for titan battles, but wasn't as much fun as a human dude.

Overall though, I dunno if I could play it long-term. It feels very polished, and it was suprisingly fun, but there was a fair few instances of getting killed by people I can't even see yet, or having my titan nailed by rockets I already dodged behind a wall to avoid. That didn't bother me too much in the few games I played cos there was plenty of times I got the jump on people and pulled off what probably looked like bulls*** kills on their screen, but over time, when you're trying to knuckle down and play it seriously, I can see it wearing thin pretty quickly.

Still not sure at this point its something I'd buy, but its fun enough that I'll fire up the beta again over the weekend, theres a couple more game modes to try like a 'Last titan standing' mode and a mode which sounds like Battlefield conquest. Maybe that'll sway me one way or the other, but atm I'd have to say suprisingly fun, and kudos to them for actually handing the lag as well as they do, but its still there, and its still gonna piss you off in the end no matter how well its hidden. Which is a shame, cos it seems like it has the potential to be really cool :(

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infi
Posted 11:50pm 14/2/14

that beta footage looks like S***, stick with BF4

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AnarchyAngel
Posted 12:22am 15/2/14

Ok so the game appears lag friendly but when you actually engage REAL players its just as noticable as ever. Sadly, this has the making of a phenomenal game. Clearly kills CoD without batting and eye. That all said and done. Not in Australia, at least not till Microsoft gets its Azure servers online here in Australia sometime as they call it before the end of the year. But thats 10.5 possible months away.

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Eorl
Posted 12:29am 15/2/14

Yeah it definitely has a lot going for it, gameplay wise it is amazingly fun and just a great shooter in its responsive combat, but that ping really kills it. Such a shame because I do thoroughly enjoy the game.

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WirlWind
Posted 01:41am 15/2/14

Yeah, I was excited and gearing up to buy it as well, but I think I'll just save my money and put it towards the Occulus Rift that is supposed to be changing gaming as we know it later this year.

Can just BF4 myself or Loadout to cure my FPS itch until then.

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Mosfx
Posted 08:21am 15/2/14

I spend 15minutes looking for a game to find one and then loose connection.

From what I played in the tutorial seems like a fun game, might pick it up for 360

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Farreg
Posted 12:11pm 15/2/14

Playing in the Beta from Perth last night, we get 76ms ping to the closest server. The next one after that is 226ms (this was at 9pm-midnight GMT +8).

Better ping than we get with the east coast in most games.

Being in Perth might finally yield some positive gaming results, at least for a little while.

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kappa
Posted 12:42pm 15/2/14

No servers found. Is this normal?

edit: apparently yes, servers are down :(

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RuleofBooKz
Posted 01:21pm 15/2/14

after watching that beta vid all i could think of was remembering when using wall hacks - to see enemies thru walls - was considered ban worthy but these days devs feel the need to add them in as game features?

Features like that makes it look like a nanny hand holding FPS for kids. Once they get the local servers sorted hopefully some comp mode will come out removing all the nanny features

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Khel
Posted 01:29pm 15/2/14

I'm assuming that see through walls thing is a perk or something, cos when I was playing I couldn't see people through walls

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Khel
Posted 01:55pm 15/2/14

Hrmm, I just got sent a PC beta code as well that I'm not going to use, anyone want?

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paveway
Posted 01:56pm 15/2/14

yeah i'll have a go khel

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Eorl
Posted 02:01pm 15/2/14

I've got an Xbox One code and PC code for any takers.

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TicMan
Posted 02:08pm 15/2/14

I'll give the Xbox1 code a go please good sir!

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eski
Posted 02:40pm 15/2/14

Ooh! I'll grab the PC code if noone else has

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Eorl
Posted 04:25pm 15/2/14

Check your messages you two.

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Khel
Posted 04:27pm 15/2/14

PM'd you the code pave

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qmass
Posted 04:35pm 15/2/14

Apparently if you email EA support and say that you got an xbox key instead of PC they just give you one. Pretty much half the thread on SA has done it without issue...

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eski
Posted 04:46pm 15/2/14

Thanks Eorl, much appreciated

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Khel
Posted 10:06pm 15/2/14

The f*** is going on with these codes, I just got ANOTHER Xbox One code. Thats like my third code now.

So yeah, I guess if anyone still wants an XB1 code let me know

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Eorl
Posted 10:41pm 15/2/14

~~Heh I have another PC code as well up for grabs.~~ All gone!

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Crakaveli
Posted 10:43pm 15/2/14

that beta footage looks like S***, stick with BF4

Yes, bf4 is a great example for netcode that works.

/s

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ravn0s
Posted 11:12pm 15/2/14

sweet, just got my code. now to reinstall origin.

edit: looks like me3 and swtor have disappeared from my origin account.

last edited by ravn0s at 23:12:45 15/Feb/14

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Fixah
Posted 11:11am 16/2/14

Im enjoying the beta. Will be picking this up. Don't have any other games besides KI and FIFA14.

Got an extra xbox and pc code here as well if anyone wants em.

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WirlWind
Posted 11:13am 16/2/14

Well hell, if anyone has a spare PC key floating around, I'd be happy to take it off your hands.

Complaining about latency to Singapore is all well and good, but it would be nice to have hands-on experience so I can see if it's actually as bad as I thought.

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Fixah
Posted 11:22am 16/2/14

Well hell, if anyone has a spare PC key floating around, I'd be happy to take it off your hands.

Complaining about latency to Singapore is all well and good, but it would be nice to have hands-on experience so I can see if it's actually as bad as I thought.

PM'd.

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WirlWind
Posted 11:41am 16/2/14

PM'd.

Sent you a message. Code seems to have been used already :(

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ph33x
Posted 11:48am 16/2/14

Yes, bf4 is a great example for netcode that works.
/s

I hear Titalfall isn't much different re: shooting at people, getting nailed around corners, dying to people you can't yet see.

All that lovely stuff that makes a game really, really fun to play.

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Mosfx
Posted 01:34pm 16/2/14

I still can't get into a game, it connects and loads when I finish selecting my Class and Titan for the match 'Reconnecting to Server' and then just takes me back to the menu, and then when I quit Origin freezes my computer for about 10minutes.

From what I played in the tutorial seems like a fun game.

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Eorl
Posted 02:06pm 16/2/14

Oh, found this browsing /r/titanfall, chuck this into the startup options for Titanfall: -novid -noborder -windowed

Will skip intro vid and make it fullscreeen window.

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paveway
Posted 02:19pm 16/2/14

Yeah it's pretty fun though as fun as the titans are half the time you are just painting a gigantic target on yourself by getting in it

It seems pretty well balanced regarding pilots vs titans, it's not a hopeless mission if you have another couple of pilots around to really hassle a titan

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ravn0s
Posted 03:23pm 16/2/14

i double click on the desktop icon and it tells me to install origin. origin is f*****g running!

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Khel
Posted 03:54pm 16/2/14

Its pretty fun, but after a bit more time with it, the latency is starting to get frustrating. So many kill cams where on my screen I've unloaded on a guy, and his screen he kills me and is still at 100%

I've also found, with the smaller teams, if you get a team thats s*** (ie a team that just wants to camp and snipe on the capture and hold missions), you're really f***ed, because there isn't enough other people on the team to carry the bads. Can make for some frustrating games too. At least when you lose you get that cool dropship escape thing

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kappa
Posted 03:57pm 16/2/14

I've only played the TDM mode so far but really liking this game. Very refreshing.

Can only imagine it would be 1000x better with au pings.

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ravn0s
Posted 04:12pm 16/2/14

how to you change server locations? i can't seen any option.

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kappa
Posted 04:15pm 16/2/14

Bottom right of main menu.

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ravn0s
Posted 04:22pm 16/2/14

heh, thought i was on the main menu, it was just a lobby. 150ms to south east asia.

they really need to fix the screen tearing. it's bloody horrible.

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Enska
Posted 04:50pm 16/2/14

Zampella just announced on twitter the xbone beta has gone open, hopefully the same for pc sometime soon.

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BladeRunner
Posted 04:56pm 16/2/14

I have not been following this game but I just watched a couple of videos about it. It seems alright, something a little different. The Respawn guys seem to have their head up their arse though, you play their way or not at all.

Total Biscuit

Robbaz

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ravn0s
Posted 05:04pm 16/2/14

i've got a xbone code if anyone wants it.

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Enska
Posted 09:33pm 16/2/14

Can't say impressed tbh. got matched against a full team with 60 odd ping and just got f*****g decimated.
I'm not gonna bother with it unless we have aus servers, and by then I'll be onto the next game anyways.

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paveway
Posted 10:11pm 16/2/14

It's pretty fun, it has its moments. It's not blow me away awesome or anything

It releases right around the same time as dark souls 2 so it's pointless me even considering buying it though

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ravn0s
Posted 11:21pm 16/2/14

for me it feels like the kind of game you would jump into if you have a spare 15 mins or so. it's definitely not revolutionary or oh ma gerd amazing that some gaming journo's were spouting.

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RuleofBooKz
Posted 12:25am 17/2/14

A new FPS getting super hyped media coverage? Could that even happen?

1st time for everything i guess

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Seacrow
Posted 12:26am 17/2/14

If anyone has a spare PC key they are willing to give, I would really appreciate it. Been looking forward to this game, but so far I haven't got an email from EA.

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ravn0s
Posted 12:34am 17/2/14

apparently it's going open tomorrow on PC.

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Darkdawn
Posted 05:27am 17/2/14

(PC)
I'm from New Zealand and have a decent cable connection, the best ping i got was 160ms and it was playable, the worst i had was over 400 ms and was unplayable, i would shoot entire clip and get tags on my screen but killcams don't even show me shooting (LAG). I wont be buying the game if there are no AUS servers.

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ph33x
Posted 10:32am 17/2/14

*Make sure game is classified low enough to get the masses into it.

*Make sure game is scalable, so many systems out there can play it.

*Make sure you roll out many thousands of beta keys to get everyone to be like "ohh titanfall"

*Make sure to team up with Microsoft and alienate the users of any country that don't have azure.

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Khel
Posted 12:39pm 17/2/14

i would shoot entire clip and get tags on my screen but killcams don't even show me shooting

Yeah, I was getting that heaps last night :(

I dunno if its because more people are playing it than when I was playing it on friday night, but the lag was much more noticeable last night, got really frustrating

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ravn0s
Posted 01:21pm 17/2/14

check your origin account if you still haven't received a beta invite. they're adding the game directly to peoples accounts.

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