NEWS - Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Xbox Gets Online Help From BigWorld
BigWorld Pty Ltd, Micro Forte’s official licensing agent for BigWorld massively multiplayer technology today announced its Early Access Program for the highly anticipated BigWorld Technology. With over $8M and three years in development, the technology offers the world’s most scalable, fault-tolerant, and customisable MMOG middleware available. Microsoft is using BigWorld technology in its eagerly-awaited new title by MicroForte on the Xbox. BigWorld is a unique approach to massively multiplayer gaming. It not only allows millions of people to play in the same world without sharding but also allows the creation of the next generation of MMOGs with technology that provides action game style interaction with high level of detail over low bandwidth connections. John De Margheriti, Chief Executive Officer of Micro Forte said "BigWorld Technology allows game developers to deliver their MMOGs quickly. Our technology is complete - incorporating the server back-end, a 3D PC client and the tools needed to start developing games immediately. No other company currently offers such a comprehensive solution." The BigWorld server architecture is based on modern distributed object patterns. It has been designed to be free of the limitations demonstrated in existing MMOG implementations. The server is compatible with clients running on any platform including PC, next generation consoles. The initial solution comes with a PC client front end. "Providing fast, smooth game-play, while keeping the bandwidth costs low was one of our key objectives," said Simon Hayes, CTO and chief architect of BigWorld Technology. "Our sophisticated and highly efficient load balancing allows thousands of players to come together, to play epic battles and attend grand weddings. The server cluster quickly adapts, focusing more resources on the area of high activity, keeping the load across all servers evenly balanced. The end result is a smooth game-play experience for the players, and cost-effective use of the servers."Source: http://www.xboxaddict.com/
