Don Bradman Cricket PS4/Xbox One version discussion

[BigAntStudios]

I don’t know what is used when it comes to connecting players playing online but right now it feels like a piece of string and two paper cups. You have the error or unable to join game this comes up 5 or 6 times when trying to play a game and when you are in the frame of mind to play it is gone by the time you have turned the playstation, internet on and off 6 times. I know the error is not on my side because I play other online games without failure to connect or very slow delay (lag). If Big Ant put money into better connecting people than things like table top cricket it be further down the road. Also the PC version looks far more advanced than the console which leaves you feeling ripped off as it more or less is the same game. Online really needs looking at before the PS4 version is even talked about I am sorry to complain but it’s really bad. On the plus side it’s great that a company has had a go at making a cricket game.

There is no relationship between money spent on DBC and TTC.

PC costs us little to update apart from the development costs, console updates costs us an absolute fortune in QA and other compliance costs.

DBC does not have a server, I would kindly suggest that you look up how peer to peer connections work.

Ripped off is a strong term that I really object to, especially given that DBC thus far has not made a profit for us.

 

[Acid Burn]

What I can vouch for on the above statement , is that online is hit and miss at the moment. Its either a great experience , or horrible.

And the issue raised about two persons unable to join each others game/saved game or invite is very real , and very frustrating. We have no idea why the matchmaking doesnt allways wanna happen , so if you guys can check it out , it would be appreciated.

Keep well.

 

[Salman1k]

Ross - DBC has yet to be profitable? I thought that it has sold really well. How many more copies do you need to sell to at least break even?

 

[phani001]

What I can vouch for on the above statement , is that online is hit and miss at the moment. Its either a great experience , or horrible.

And the issue raised about two persons unable to join each others game/saved game or invite is very real , and very frustrating. We have no idea why the matchmaking doesnt allways wanna happen , so if you guys can check it out , it would be appreciated.

Keep well.

Agree... Online play needs to have some changes made in order to make it as exciting as it should be for a cricket game.... other than that the gameplay is great and a job well done...

 

[UnknownSoul]

Yes online can be very frustrating even with a good connection with someone else as well in the same country crazy things happen too often and it takes away from the enjoyment sometimes just gets annoying after a while.

 

[Deleted member 149013]

There is no relationship between money spent on DBC and TTC.

PC costs us little to update apart from the development costs, console updates costs us an absolute fortune in QA and other compliance costs.

DBC does not have a server, I would kindly suggest that you look up how peer to peer connections work.

Ripped off is a strong term that I really object to, especially given that DBC thus far has not made a profit for us.

I can’t say I am impressed with your response. If you were buying a laptop and asked the salesman what is Hotmail? and his reply is, I kindly suggest you look into it, I don’t want to study peer to peer. DBC doesn’t have a server I would be asking why this wasn’t discussed in depth before the game went into production. The profit? Why would you be adding new patches if it is so expensive and the game isn’t doing well and I think it would be dropped from the PS4 if it was a flop. The PC been less expensive to update than the console you can’t feed a horse better than the others. I don’t know what to say but it’s clear that online play would be solved with a DBC server wouldn’t this solve glitches and connections? I would kindly suggest you look up EA sports.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

I can’t say I am impressed with your response. If you were buying a laptop and asked the salesman what is Hotmail? and his reply is, I kindly suggest you look into it, I don’t want to study peer to peer. DBC doesn’t have a server I would be asking why this wasn’t discussed in depth before the game went into production. The profit? Why would you be adding new patches if it is so expensive and the game isn’t doing well and I think it would be dropped from the PS4 if it was a flop. The PC been less expensive to update than the console you can’t feed a horse better than the others. I don’t know what to say but it’s clear that online play would be solved with a DBC server wouldn’t this solve glitches and connections? I would kindly suggest you look up EA sports.

Happy New Year...

 

[MattW]

I don’t know what to say but it’s clear that online play would be solved with a DBC server wouldn’t this solve glitches and connections?

A server would make the connections worse - because then the latency would be added to by every single packet going via a server to go to the players.

Peer to peer means that you are directly connecting to the other player - nothing in the middle to go wrong. Which also means, everything that goes wrong with a connection is down to the players at either end.

The only online games that need a server is when one player is playing against many others at once (like shooters or racing games), which you don't need for cricket.

 

[Chief]

Matt's already covered some of this, but I'd add:

I can’t say I am impressed with your response. If you were buying a laptop and asked the salesman what is Hotmail? and his reply is, I kindly suggest you look into it, I don’t want to study peer to peer.

As opposed to most, who wouldn't even OFFER a response in the first place. If you don't want to study P2P then fine, but unless you do then I think the onus is on you to just accept that the people who DO know about it made this decision, and therefore it's the best possible one.

Why would you be adding new patches if it is so expensive and the game isn’t doing well and I think it would be dropped from the PS4 if it was a flop. The PC been less expensive to update than the console you can’t feed a horse better than the others.

Because as explained previously the first iteration of the game was never expected to make a profit. BA are in it for the long haul, and after several different versions or additional platforms then it would be hoped that they can recoup.
Therefore they are offering FREE patches and even ADDITIONAL FEATURES as they build on DBC14.
It doesn't cost anything to update the PC version (apart from the development cost of course), but it DOES cost to put out updates on console. Therefore PC is getting lots of incremental improvements and, when all is perfect, the console versions will be duly updated.

I would kindly suggest you look up EA sports.

As well as this being a slap in the face, it's also pretty laughable for many reasons which you'd find quite easily if you wanted to study it.

 

[Deleted member 149013]

How is EA laughable? Been a online player I have to deal with this but if I was offline it would be a different story. As a gamer it is more feedback and a point to say look its not working is there a solution to this. If your saying the people behind the decision know what they are talking about and have made the right one then why is this a issue?

 

[cricket_online]

How is EA laughable? Been a online player I have to deal with this but if I was offline it would be a different story. As a gamer it is more feedback and a point to say look its not working is there a solution to this. If your saying the people behind the decision know what they are talking about and have made the right one then why is this a issue?

I think it's more of a choice between a rock and a hard place. If Big Ant adds another server, it will surely solve some of the issues as they will be able to penalise quitters or match state/info on the servers etc. but there are other drawbacks. Number one would be cost involved. Big Ant will need to have a 7/24 server availability (or maybe server farm or a cloud solution) in place.

This works for a big developer/publisher such as EA but not feasible for Big Ant. Other big concern would be the single point of failure. If the Big Ant server(s) fail, online gameplay is screwed as you won't be able to play anyone. Plus there would be other issues which Big Ant would have more info on as I'm sure they must have performed a detailed pro-con analysis before deciding on P2P option. But I hope patch 3 resolves most of the other issues not related to P2P connectivity.

@Chief, did AC09 use P2P or hosted a dedicated server(s)?

@BigAntStudios, don't you have some sort of server in place anyway as you are maintaining online leaderboards? Also, what would happen if the "online leaderboard server" goes down? Will we still be able to play DBC 14 online?

 

[Chief]

How is EA laughable? Been a online player I have to deal with this but if I was offline it would be a different story. As a gamer it is more feedback and a point to say look its not working is there a solution to this. If your saying the people behind the decision know what they are talking about and have made the right one then why is this a issue?

Just have a look at how many pages of google search matches there are for "FIFA online bugs" (or pretty much any of their games). You might also have a look at how they supported their Cricket games in the past.

Fact is that there is no solution to bugs caused by external forces - the game works perfectly well under good network conditions. The only solution is to get a better network. My net connection at home drops quite a bit, so I generally don't bother trying to play games where any drops might cause problems (pretty much any AAA game.)

 

[Chief]

@Chief, did AC09 use P2P or hosted a dedicated server(s)?

Hmm. I can't remember exactly: it was all handled through a 3rd party: I believe we used Quazal. Quazal though that might have been another game...

EDIT: Yeah. Yeah it was Quazal. From memory though the games themselves were P2P: only the matchmaking and backend support (leaderboards etc) would have been handled by the server.

 

[RedskinsUK]

Sup all.

Not been on here since i replaced my ps3 with a ps4 so was really pleased to see that the greatest cricket game ever will be landing on next gen in Feb!! Anyone heard where i can pre-order in UK? As am keen to get this asap

Thanks Red

 

[cricket_online]

Hmm. I can't remember exactly: it was all handled through a 3rd party: I believe we used Quazal. Quazal though that might have been another game...

EDIT: Yeah. Yeah it was Quazal. From memory though the games themselves were P2P: only the matchmaking and backend support (leaderboards etc) would have been handled by the server.

So there was a dependency on another server coz I remember Transmission Games making a statement about taking off the AC09 server in 2011 and that was the end of AC09 online. That's why wanted to check with Ross if the leaderboard server is removed, will it impact DBC 14 online in any way.