Titanfall’s Error Message Shows the Weak Spot of The Cloud

Just yesterday Microsoft explained how the Cloud could be used to empower games and drive entire worlds, and that the “logic” of Titanfall is run entirely on Microsoft’s Azure servers, even when you’re playing by yourself in the tutorial.

Am error message shows the weakness of that solution when the cloud is used to run the entire logic of a fast paced game like Titanfall.

[ElementX]

It's an online MP game, the message states the connection was lost. Dropped connections are not uncommon when streaming movies and playing online. I think this is just a sensationalist headline.

[Abriael]

Pretty big difference between a simple drop of the internet (that has a different message) and a hiccup that causes the game's logic to fail being processed, which is pretty relevant since Microsoft explained how it works just yesterday.

[Nitrowolf2]

It says Lost connection the the server. That Logic error could still pop up if connection is lost to, just saying. Not a believer of the Cloud TBH, but I've gotten the same logic errors in other titles to. The error could mean a lot of things.

@Below

I've gotten it on Call of Duty MW2 on the PS3 when it first launched, the error would pop up every times I would edit my loadout while in a party with that error followed by a bunch of randomized lettering. It wasn't about processsing it, it was something like "failed to load game logic, random stuff"

I think you are trying to make something big on that assumption you have there. I call BS on that demo to, but you made a post based on one issue ocurrance of this reported? It's been on reddit for 3 full hours, yet no other users have reported this issue? It's an Online game, they are bound to have hiccups no matter the service. Look at the vast majority of online games running on Dedicated servers that still get issues. Cloud is really just a marketing term for dedicated servers with modified coding to do other things, but still, they aren't some god forsaken magical Unicorn that MS keeps sprouting out them to be, and anyone believing that they are or take's that serious hasn't been gaming online for to long.

[Abriael]

@Nitrowolf2: I'm actually very curious about that, do you have examples of games that gave messages explicitly referring to an error in game logic in relation to connection?

Because this is the first time I see one.

Never said this is the first game it happens, by the way, but when you're running the entire game's logic on the cloud, the faster paced the game is, the more susceptible it is to connection hiccups. Which is why the kind of games Microsoft talked about yesterday (slower paced, can go on without connection for a while before errors start to happen) are a better application.

@Above: That isn't in relation to connection, though. Every game has logic processing, but normally it's based in your box, not in the cloud.

Not making anything big, mind you. It's simply a possible weak spot of the solution, and I think it's not random that yesterday Microsoft brought an entirely different kind of game as the perfect application of cloud computing, because it's less susceptible t this.

[ElementX]

A drop from the server is all this is, regardless of the error message. For all you know this could've popped up because the internet connection was dropped when some grunts were coming off a drop ship and didn't get their AI. Either way, this player would've had to join a different game because the connection was lost.

[nicksetzer1]

Ahh, yes one minor incident, that was down for less than 20 min ... normal flamebait that a certain poster loves to throw up about a certain console .... fanboys clearly don't understand proportion, as it only occurred 20 minutes out of thousands of hours since launch .... not to mention this specific error could simply just be due to that person actually losing connection...

https://twitter.com/Titanfa...
https://twitter.com/XboxSup...

[Pinkdolphinyfg]

The message says itself "failed to connect to server" as in his internt dropped therefore the games logic failed because it relies on the cloud to be processed but it cant because his internet went down. What is this "weak spot" that your talking about? Im disappointed you even submitted this click-bait garbage.

[ddgaming820]

"Not making anything big"

"Titanfall’s Error Message Shows the Weak Spot of The Cloud"

"Weak Spot of The Cloud"

[LXGYT]

Now i rarely ever post here, but this article makes it look as if Titanfall has connection issues, when that couldn't be further from the truth, it happens occasionally of course, but Titanfall is a great online experience and its smoother than most MP games

sorry Dualshockers, but your fishing for clicks on this one

[Prime157]

Abriael: http://kotaku.com/a-reminde...

Most of these people stopped at, "lost connection to server" before reading the, "error code."

[alexkoepp]

These things happen, big deal. Basically by saying cloud computing can't work because of connection issues is saying that MMO's can't work for the same reason...

but guess what, they do work

[nukeitall]

@Abriel:

That is like saying your power went out, or that you encountered a bug in a game therefore consoles cannot work.

It happens, but it works 99% of the time and that is good enough!

Point being, stop submitting click bait pointless articles of pure cr@p! Did you just have a discussion about another commenter about this?

If you want your site taken seriously, then let it grow up and stop contributing to n4g's problem.

I also notice your site is always quick on the trigger, which is good, but quality over re-hashes of other interviews and forum posts.

[tokugawa]

Surely it is about time that dualshockers starts getting treated just how hip hop gamer got treated.

N4g I littere with their two paragraph GAF or twitter trolls. Not only that, they are even now churning out their two paragraph hit getters that are linked to other sites as sources.

They are just now abusing n4g in their quest for hits and thus advertising revenue.

And let's not forget the shameless thread titles they use to rope people in.

Ban this site

[dedicatedtogamers]

When I was playing it on PC, there were times of latency that would cause the AI to simply stop and stand there. It was weird. You'd be in a firefight and then suddenly all the troopers as well as any AI-controlled titans would stop shooting and would simply stand there doing their "idle" animation. Titans sprinting forward would screech to a halt. AI troopers (who are stupid as dirt anyway) would point their guns at you but not shoot, not until the game got re-connected to "dat Cloud" which usually only took about 5 seconds.

It's a really crappy game, to be honest. Way too overhyped. The screen tearing and framerate drops were bad, too, even though my PC can comfortably handle games that look 5 times better.

[DragonKnight]

The cloud has more weaknesses than this. A dropped connection of any kind, while the cloud is computing the basics of the game, will have a very noticeable, annoying, and immersion breaking impact.

This is the problem with cloud compute and why it shouldn't be used for gaming. When the quality of your game, in even the smallest ways, relies on a system where there needs to be a consistently reliable network connection, then the quality of your game will always suffer because there is no such thing as a consistently reliable network. Anywhere. Ever.

Even if you have a consistently reliable connection, which no one does, you also have to worry about the other end as well. People buying into cloud compute hype are going to be sorely disappointed more and more. SimCity, SimCity everywhere.

[fr0sty]

I keep hearing "it's an online game"... however, any game that offloads AI onto the cloud is "an online game", even if it's a single player game. It still requires that connection...

[andrewsqual]

@nicksetzer1 A game out 23 days is on for thousands of hours? Are you on craic? And for god sake please don't add up individual hours of every user as we all occupy the same timeline and that makes no sense.

[standbyf0r]

@dedicatedtogamers:

"When I was playing it on PC, there were times of latency that would cause the AI to simply stop and stand there. It was weird. You'd be in a firefight and then suddenly all the troopers as well as any AI-controlled titans would stop shooting and would simply stand there doing their "idle" animation. Titans sprinting forward would screech to a halt. AI troopers (who are stupid as dirt anyway) would point their guns at you but not shoot, not until the game got re-connected to "dat Cloud" which usually only took about 5 seconds."

You are lying. You never had that issue, because if you did you would know that if Titanfall looses connection, it would have a message saying connecting and the screen would be slightly blurred. You would not be able to look around for 5 seconds.

"It's a really crappy game, to be honest. Way too overhyped. The screen tearing and framerate drops were bad, too, even though my PC can comfortably handle games that look 5 times better."

I think this here says it all. You don't say anything about why the game is bad or overhyped, despite it being critcally acclaimed game by the gaming press. Instead you complain about the drop of frame rates. Perhaps you should have gotten it on the Xbox One instead of the PC? Maybe your PC isn't capable.

@DragonKnight:

"This is the problem with cloud compute and why it shouldn't be used for gaming. When the quality of your game, in even the smallest ways, relies on a system where there needs to be a consistently reliable network connection, then the quality of your game will always suffer because there is no such thing as a consistently reliable network. Anywhere. Ever."

Yet the LARGEST and MOST PLAYED games in the world are online, like WoW and plenty of MMOs that all have huge chuncks of their game run online.

It seems to me that certain console gamers are still way behind the times. I don't blame them, when the vast majority of their games are still played on client side servers with a Peer-2-Peer model and just recently even got close to PC level graphics.

[UltimateMaster]

Microsoft will go and fix those issues.

[Eonjay]

What I don't understand is the desire to build this grandiose cluster f*uck when you could just stream the whole games like Giakai.

[Gamer1982]

So its true Titanfall does use the power of the cloud to help with titanfall.. And it still cant run at 1080p.. I am not slating the console here just sick of MS lies.. I want them to be honest with us and say yeah games look amazing on Xbox, maybe not as good as our competitor but almost as good (you cant even tell in most cases) but we can do much more because of blah blah. But instead they lie and this just shoots their lies down..

[joab777]

I dont know alot about this but how much is being done by the cloud? C'mon? If that much computing or processing is being done by the cloud, why is it running at 792? Is it that demanding?

What will it possibly run at on the 360?

[incendy35]

Haha yep. I have had so many fewer issues with Titanfall than BF4 it is not even close. Less issues with Titanfall than COD too. This writer always has headlines like that. It is a Sony site haha, not to be taken seriously.

[Killzoner99]

Xboners just don't like to hear the truth. Duelshockers has become one of the most reputable , news breaking , gaming sites on the Internet . You're so blinded by your fanboyism that you refuse to accept the flaws of your precious Titanfall. The game is loaded with game breaking issues all thanks to the cloud lol.

[thisismyaccount]

If this is common as ElementX said, i´v never seen a game where due missing parts? or broken assets the game refused to work at all... here it kicks you out of the game, because certain assets of the game were not properly loaded or skipped?

Can´t wait to play all the games via the Cloud like Halo were out of the blue every npc in the game are missing a face texture... since where are missing assets of a game a common occurrence?

http://saved.im/mtg0mdq4oda...

[Dinkis]

I get this message when trying to join a friends game and its full. So what.

[iiorestesii]

I think that was a sensational comment.

[UnHoly_One]

Didn't you know?

Every little Titanfall server error requires an article on the front page of N4G.

[player002]

ya cause no online game ever disconnected smh its a always online game so of course is you disconnect you cant play it..did the guy plug out his router did his service provider have a black out smh who the hell approves these articles

[bartender64]

Lol. Maybe dualshockers are trying to compete with gamingblend.

[truegamerkt]

I've had numerous friends tell me about connecting issues on Titanfall. They all have great Internet, so the problem isn't on their side.

[Bigpappy]

Get friends who actually own Xbox1 and you'll probably never hear it again.

[Prime157]

If this was psn4g like you claim, you'd have more a lot more disagrees. Funny, trolls and fanboys on both sides.

My roommate has been playing tomb raider more than titanfall. Whenever I peak in (considering I drink a lot and his room is on the way to the bathroom) his room it's usually on a "lost connection" screen.

I don't know, am I the only one that sees both the xn4g and psn4g?

[truegamerkt]

Unlike you I'm a adult, no time for childish behavior. I wrote what I've been told,I couldn't careless if you believe it. @TRD4L1fe I have eight friends with x1, six of them complain of server issues. They constantly Get the reconnecting to server message. We all have Verizon Fioz, So it's definitely not their Internet.

[Gr1mmyshadows]

@Prime157 and truegamerkt

what you guys said is complete BS. the game rarely has any connection issue, you guys are trying a little too hard.

@Prime157

"Whenever I peak in (considering I drink a lot and his room is on the way to the bathroom) his room it's usually on a "lost connection" screen."

This made me lol hard, you must be a creeper to know his game is usually on a lost connection screen. That screen is usually on for about 2 seconds is that, so i find it funny that you say it "usually on that screen"

btw i have a 30mb internet connection and i have seen the screen once, and it took me less than 30 seconds to find another match.

[Audiggity]

I have a handful of friends who have clocked over 60 hours in-game each...

They've kept track of their disconnections:

1 of them has disconnected 3 times over 65 hours
Another disconnected 2 times over 68 hours
I've disconnected once over 18 hours
Another friend had 2 disconnects over 39 hours

We're averaging one disconnect per 20 hours, in a game that launched without any hiccups.

@TRD4L1fe - you are 100% correct. If* any connection error occurs, it's instantly gone and you move on to a new server. End of story. These guys are trying very, very hard to make something out of nothing.

[Prime157]

What's more audacious to believe, the guy who said his friends have connection issues, or the one who says they track it.

[Audiggity]

@Prime157 - "track" was a strong word... but it's pretty easy to remember how many times you've disconnected from a game when it happens so infrequently.

I lose track of dropped matches, bugged out lobbies and errors in just about every other MP game. Aside from GoW (1 and 3) and some of the CoD games.

My apologies for associating with people who have good memories and are technologically oriented.

[corvusmd]

99% of the time Titanfall has EXCELLENT connection, the fact that this article is getting approved at lighting speed just shows how much people want to jump all over it any chance they get. Older articles with no approvals and the article right after this talking about how good the cloud is has two...then all the sudden here is this article with a spike at 9 in 30 mins. It's the internet, it's not perfect... By no means is this representative of the Titanfall typical experience.

Side note, what happened to this article?

http://n4g.com/news/1487074...

It got approved, and then just disappeared...why? If you scroll and look for it you can't find it, the only reason I could is that I had a notification for it.

@abriael thanks for the heads up...it's a legit question, I hope it doesn't come across "conspiracy theory like" but I wasn't talking about the top bar, it never made it to that I don't think...I just mean if you scroll through ALL past articles (right now it's from 1 day ago) if you look where it should be...it's just not there, and there are other opinion pieces still there...just not sure why ANY approved article would be deleted from the feed.

[Abriael]

As far as I know all opinion pieces get put behind the content filter when they acquire a certain amount of heat, in order to make room on the top row for news, which is what N4G is about, regardless of topic.

It's done manually, so at times it can happen earlier, at times later, depending on when the admin sees them.

Mind you, the conspiracy theory about articles positive on the cloud getting approved slower is kinda pointless. Two days ago and yesterday the positive articles from build got approved faster than this. The problem with the one above this that you mentioned is that it's just a podcast rehashing those. It even has almost exactly the same headline.

http://n4g.com/news/1486511...

@above: it's not deleted. It's there. Just behind the content filter. If you turn it off in the option, it appearss. That's where all the hot opinion pieces go.

[DarXyde]

I mentioned this in another topic--I was wondering how MS planned for fast-paced intense calculations; they mentioned the calculations can be ahead of the game by 2 hours without Internet, but they only demonstrated it with a very slow and deliberate application. Fortunately, it was caught early and it can be improved going forward. I get that the XBOX One was originally an online-only console (where this would've worked just fine in all instances), but it does warrant some concern for the future games.

Thankfully, Titanfall is online only, so this is fine (provided Cloud disruption only comes from the Live service disruption; if they can be disrupted separately, I can see this being a problem). Getting kicked out of a single player game for this though...that would be a problem.

[Bonerboy]

Panic! Online games get disconnected sometimes. Growing pains. Big deal.

[Pinkdolphinyfg]

Oh how i just love it how the writer of this article alludes it to being microsofts fault in the title making the reader think its Azures fault when its probably the users connection dropping. If your connection drops what does it matter if you cant have logic proccessed if you cant even play online. So i guess everything Microsoft does is on some special pedestal where perfect is only expected and any hiccup is bad news. It's pretty clear now......

[spike]

RROD COMING SOON

[swice]

Do you think the new RROD symbol is a sad little rain cloud?

[ArbitorChief]

lol because no games have ever disconnected before XD The reach is real from the Sony fanboys... Pathetic as always.

[Audiggity]

Hahaha... they don't need to worry about disconnects during games because the PSN never worked right to begin with.

[sAVAge_bEaST]

Clowd - Karma

;)

<why do I read about "the future clowd" FAILING every other week? from Friends list's disappearing, to Technical Difficulties.? to Party Chat..
The future seems -Fail.. I'll stick with Grounded Compute ,, It seems more stable than the Clowd.... @ least for now>

[Whiskeyjacked87]

Clouds, no clouds, doesn't matter, if your ISP kicks out, you get dropped. Ain't no cloud gonna save you.

[MeLoveRamen]

lol this got the xbots coming out of the wood works

[headblackman]

it looks like you just wanted to say xboxts and you used this as an opportunity to do so :-/ did it taste good cuming out of your throat??? good! now whipe your mouth. you've got a little xbot cloud sauce on your mouth.

your the kind of person that would start a lie or a rumor just to talk to someone.

how lame :-/

[MeLoveRamen]

Do you really care about a console so much that you get offended and go on the defense when someone makes a joke.

how lame:-/

[1nsomniac]

What I hate is the constant massive screen covering message that its automatically switching server while you're right in the middle of the game. WTF is the point in that! just have a small loading icon or small message.

I'd rather go without the cloud server switching, its a ridiculously stupid idea when I've not had a problem running on a server the normal way in my entire life why would anyone choose to disrupt that by having it pause mid game every 5 mins so that it can stick you on another server for no good reason!

[Gazondaily]

I haven't had this. This happens in the middle of the game?

[SITH]

Curious, none of the Xbox gamers are pointing out the fact connection loss happens with titanfall when you are idle too long. Does the exact same thing in battlefield 4.

Thought at would be the first thing said. This is a non issue.

[andibandit]

I get kicked in BF4 when idle for too long, dont see a particular problem with it...

[mhunterjr]

When, you idle for a while, you are removed from the servers... Which makes sense as server space should be reserved for people who are actually using it.

[ThanatosDMC]

The BF4 auto-kick thing is the same on the PS4 and PC. It's a good thing so people who stop playing are removed from the game and let new players in the server.

[MeteorPanda]

eh? l'm australian and never had a problem. even before they gave us the oceanic server, it was just laggy.

shit happens, even League of legends crashes every now and again.

[No_Limit]

Click bait title from Dualshockers again. Shocking!

[mhunterjr]

I don't get it, is titanfall the worlds first online only game? Sometimes, the internet goes down... It's a fact of life that online gamers are well aware of BEFORE they buy an online only game...

[bornsinner]

oh the ms cloud isn't perfect? finally has a flaw even though it usually runs perfect.. let't take a screenshot & make an article about it to demote xbone ... only on n4g & a site named dualshockers would make this a big deal.

newsflash ps4 games are all p2p, sonys cloud service is reserved for playing 10 year old 1 dollar games for a RENTAL and overpriced service. bet tha powerz of the cloudz they get a lot of disconnects as psn is already a downtime paradise.

oh and fanboys.. i own a ps4.

[truegamerkt]

Actually majority of 1st party ps3 games had dedicated servers. M$ is really late to the party. Considering people payed for live, just to use p2p servers. Even halo never had dedicated servers

[mrmarx]

the cloud and all the microsoft execs

http://youtu.be/Y7lmAc3LKWM...

[phantomxll]

What if it had nothing to do with the cloud, and everything to do with this guys inability to pay his internet provider???

[air1]

No no no... It's a story from dualshockers and it's on n4g... The clouds weak spot has been exposed and is now doomed, as I'm playing titanfall....

[ebreda]

Lol bubble

[air1]

Wow he lost connection and now the cloud is doomed... God this new generation of gamers are a bunch of little bitches.. Fuck it n4g ban me I'm done with all these bull shit stories and constant bashing and fuck all you damn little fanboys it's you ppl that are the true weak spot in gaming period..

[parentsbasement]

Best/truest post ever.....infinite bubbles to you (if that was possible)

[parentsbasement]

Cant we (for the sake of this site ) just all acknowledge that ANYTHING Microsoft does , has done or will do is bad and pure crap and that ANYTHING Sony does , has done or will do is a gift of awesome ? .....search your souls , you know it to be true....not even sure how I typed this since I cant find a good operating system for my computer made by .....(wait for it).........naw , you already know....

[Codewow]

In other news, Microsoft Studios allowed a Halo game on steam. Now THAT is news! Not this "Connection dropped" crap. :P

[tommygunzII]

What a bummer. I was just going to play some streamed games on PSNow :)

[urwifeminder]

Ha ha time to make some stuff up just awesome he at very least xb1 is getting some news with the updates and improvements you don't hear much about other consoles these days.

[ebreda]

The days of good content are really over. Rip dualshockers.

[LuisAlmeida]

Outch!

[kewlkat007]

Garbage..