Age of Ascent
Age of Ascent is a video game,[2] aiming "to become the biggest MMO ever".[3] It uses an on-demand scaling cloud-based architecture and features real-time direct piloting in a single integrated universe.[4] It was announced on February 28, 2014.
Age of Ascent | |
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Developer(s) | Illyriad Games[1] |
Publisher(s) | Illyriad Games |
Platform(s) | Web browser |
Genre(s) | Space trading and combat simulator, first-person shooter |
Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
On March 14, 2014 Age of Ascent sought to officially break the Guinness World Record for the "World's Largest Videogame PvP Battle" in a public alpha.[5] The alpha was designed for 50,000+ players with a throttling mechanism for up to 2,000,000. At peak they had 997 concurrent players using 2% of their deployed server CPU capacity and did not break the record of 4075.[6]
One particularity of the game as opposed to other games of the genre, is that it is browser-based and relies heavily on WebGL for its implementation, allowing players to drop in and start playing, irrespective of their device, and without the need to install plug-ins, apps or executables.[7]
Scale
Powered by Microsoft Azure, Age of Ascent has been designed from the ground up allowing it to run across hundreds of computers, yet create a single, fluid, cohesive universe. It is said "Age of Ascent will usher in a new era of ultra-MMOs".[8]
Illyriad Games worked closely with the Microsoft Technology Centre and the Microsoft Developer eXperience Technical Evangelism & Development team to fully exploit the Azure platform.
To achieve responsiveness the game is partitioned across a number of datacenters, geographically distributed across the globe, offering high-bandwidth, low-latency network access for the players.
See also
- Eve Online – persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting by CCP Games
References
- Maiberg, Emanuel (March 3, 2014). "Age of Ascent attempts to create the largest PvP battle in history March 14". PC Gamer. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- Hindman, Beau (February 28, 2014). "MMObility: Age of Ascent hopes to beat EVE Online's battle concurrency record". Joystiq. Archived from the original on September 28, 2014. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- "How Age of Ascent Aims to Become the Biggest MMO Ever". Intel. June 23, 2014. Archived from the original on September 14, 2014. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- Walden, Chris. "Age of Ascent: Defining a new genre and plans to smash a world record". Microsoft. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- Burns, Chris (March 14, 2014). "Age of Ascent aims at world record for largest video game battle". SlashGear. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- Kidd, Neil (March 16, 2014). "Not enough Space combat in Windows Azure!". Microsoft. Archived from the original on April 18, 2014. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- Shewchuk, John (November 4, 2014). "Building a massively-multiplayer game on Microsoft Azure". Microsoft. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
- Donnelly, John; Duizer, Anko; Gristwood, David; Kidd, Neil. "Age of Ascent, an epic space game on Microsoft Azure". Microsoft Developer Network. Retrieved November 5, 2014.