MMOs may be on the horizon for OnLive

The OnLive gaming platform officially launched in the US last year, bringing a new on-demand gaming service to homes with broadband internet connections. OnLive hosts and renders games on a computing cloud and delivers the resulting video feed over the internet. The potentially revolutionary system lets people play high-end games on low-end computers, but has a minimum bandwidth requirement of 2Mbit.

OnLive celebrated its UK release this week during Eurogamer Expo in London, and we were on the floor to ask the OnLive staff some questions about the service. Representatives were able to confirm that there are plans to bring MMOs to the OnLive service in the future but no solid deals had been made. The only thing keeping MMOs out of the game catalogue is the fact that no deals have been signed with MMO publishers.

OnLive representatives stated that it would be unlikely to see Activision-Blizzard's games like World of Warcraft on OnLive, but that Star Wars: The Old Republic and other MMOs could eventually be licensed to both the PC client and the home console. Talks are already underway with Electronic Arts, which released its first game on the system this week to coincide with the UK launch. When asked about latency issues, staff explained that the service already supports a large number of multiplayer titles with similar connectivity requirements to MMOs and latency is not a problem in those games.

Reader Comments (30)

I wouldn't mind seeing MMOs on OnLive. They could really pump up the graphics and #'s of players on screen with no problem, especially if the game was designed from the ground up to work on their servers. Most of the traditional constraints would be lifted.

Only problem would be that the combat would most likely have to be at todays current pace or a little slower. Something like FFXI, EVE, FFXIV would be perfect for OnLive or even the more popular MMO's.

@BuyAquafina
The problem is that any developer who's going to design their game from the ground up to work with onlive would be better off just hosting it on their own servers anyway, unless Onlive has some amazing developer tools of their own to share.

So you can lag while you lag?

@Tizmah
I was thinking the same thing.

@Tizmah

Yo dawg, i heard you like... nevermind, too easy.

@Tizmah There's less lag in OnLive than all the MMO's I have played. OnLive uses more locations to provide better pings than any MMO unless you happen to be really close to a particular MMO's servers.

Basically anyone with a decent connection wouldn't say OnLive has noticeable 'lag' unless they didn't know what they are talking about.

@Tizmah

Not being able to play at all vs. playing with some lag may be acceptable to many people in some games. This service is obviously not for gamers who have access to a computer that can render the game just fine; but if you're on a budget or visiting grandpa and forgot your laptop, this service is just the ticket.

@Neiloch

Glassfibre 20+ mbit. Pings of 5 or less to any multiplayer game out there.

Onlive is pretty much unplayable for me. Input lag + network lag = lots and lots of lag.

@Neiloch ^ This. I have Onlinve (been using there $10 pass for a few months now just for casual gaming) and I get less lag than most MMO's, and I'm on a 5 Meg connection.

@ChromeBallz Pretty surprising unless you aren't in the united states.

Until you can play games with little to no lag through onlive, I don't see how anyone could play an mmo through them. Not to mention, wouldn't that compromise security having your information going through a third party? I don't see anything good from this given current technology and net speed.

Probably games where there is a strong solo based element as well as the multiplayer content.

Since most people in mmos spend the majority of time soloing anyways these days, there are probably a lot of games that can fit this bill.

Most people solo 1-50 etc anyways so proably wouldn't be that bad. Dungeons are 5 man stuff mostly, etc etc.

I don't see how they'd avoid latency issues if I've got to fire off packets to a cloud server that emulates the client then fires off packets to the actual game server.

I'm used to playing at sub 100 ms in every online game. 300ms is tolerable outside of PvP, but any game that I'd want to PvP in (such as any MMO I'd actually play very often) I need 100 ms or faster to enjoy.

@Mystal onlive has practically zero lag in multiplayer (as in between 2 people playing multiplayer on the service) and as far as input lag goes, it is definitely under 100ms

I'm not impressed at all with the service myself, but I can see where people would be, especially for games they can hardly run or can't run at all. Though I think this service will disappoint most people, since 3MB connection is a pretty stiff requirement for a great deal of users.

@drunkingamebar you can easily play with a 2mb connection with no lag. I did it for months before I moved and had access to better speeds.

@Neiloch Did you move out of the Onlive server room?

I just reboot my modem and luckily I had just a hair over 3MB, Onlive started fine no warning "blah blah blah connection speed", but the game I selected still lagged.

I'm not against Onlive, but it's seems to troublesome. Instead of worrying about 2 connections, you and the MMO, now you add a third one you have to depend upon.

More independence than dependence in my opinion, so I'd never use Online for an MMO. To many variables.

Might I say: ew

And the dumb flock to the stupid. why yes I want more lag in my gaming, lemme guess anyone who says they don't notice it is coming from console gaming as they are too stupid to notice or play real online games? Anything above 50ms ping is unacceptable and that is going east-west or west-east coast hauls.

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MMOs may be on the horizon for OnLive

Reader Comments (30)

Posted: Sep 23rd 2011 10:13PM BuyAquafina said

Posted: Sep 23rd 2011 11:10PM Mystal said

Posted: Sep 23rd 2011 10:24PM Tizmah said

Posted: Sep 23rd 2011 10:27PM Ironraptor said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 1:38AM Laurs said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 1:53AM Neiloch said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 11:48AM Ordegar said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 12:19PM ChromeBallz said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 3:12PM Raikulxox said

Posted: Oct 21st 2011 8:17PM Neiloch said

Posted: Sep 23rd 2011 10:29PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 23rd 2011 10:43PM real65rcncom said

Posted: Sep 23rd 2011 11:08PM Mystal said

Posted: Sep 26th 2011 8:40PM stickzman said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 12:08AM drunkingamebar said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 1:50AM Neiloch said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 2:52AM drunkingamebar said

Posted: Oct 1st 2011 10:38AM Tizmah said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 2:07AM Lightdud said

Posted: Sep 24th 2011 3:07AM Amusednow said

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