Sources speaking to Kotaku say that BioWare and parent company EA haven’t given up on Anthem, the studio’s ambitious online shooter that launched with little fanfare earlier this year.

If those sources are to be believed, the company is looking to revitalize interest in its live game through a hefty update down the line, a potentially risky stunt but one that other studios like Ubisoft and Hello Games have pulled off to breathe new life into their own games after tepid launches.

Kotaku notes that there’s no official timeline for what’s internally being called Anthem 2.0 or Anthem Next, and EA declined to comment on any of the rumored plans. In fact, beyond tentative plans to overhaul the game, nothing about Anthem 2.0 is set in stone. Kotaku’s sources teams know the game’s core systems will see significant change, but the exact form those will take is unknown.

Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said as recently as June that the company had no plans to cut its losses on Anthem after its rocky launch and, while these reports are yet unconfirmed, tentative talk of Anthem 2.0 would mean that EA plans to back up those earlier claims.

James

ASP.NET Core now enables developers to build gRPC services. gRPC is an opinionated contract-first remote procedure call framework, with a focus on performance and developer productivity. gRPC integrates with ASP.NET Core 3.0, so you can use your existing ASP.NET Core logging, configuration, authentication patterns to build new gRPC services.

This blog post compares gRPC to JSON HTTP APIs, discusses gRPC’s strengths and weaknesses, and when you could use gRPC to build your apps.

gRPC strengths

Developer productivity

With gRPC services, a client application can directly call methods on a server app on a different machine as if it was a local object. gRPC is based around the idea of defining a service, specifying the methods that can be called remotely with their parameters and return types. The server implements this interface and runs a gRPC server to handle client calls. On the client, a strongly-typed gRPC client is available that provides the same methods as the server.

gRPC is able to achieve this through first-class support for code generation. A core file to gRPC development is the .proto file, which defines the contract of gRPC services and messages using Protobuf interface definition language (IDL):

Greet.proto

// The greeting service definition.

service Greeter { // Sends a greeting rpc SayHello (HelloRequest) returns (HelloReply);

} // The request message containing the user's name.

message HelloRequest { string name = 1;

} // The response message containing the greetings

message HelloReply { string message = 1;

}

Protobuf IDL is a language neutral syntax, so it can be shared between gRPC services and clients implemented in different languages. gRPC frameworks use the .proto file to code generate a service base class, messages, and a complete client. Using the generated strongly-typed Greeter client to call the service:

Program.cs

var channel = GrpcChannel.ForAddress("https://localhost:5001")

var client = new Greeter.GreeterClient(channel); var reply = await client.SayHelloAsync(new HelloRequest { Name = "World" });

Console.WriteLine("Greeting: " + reply.Message);

By sharing the .proto file between the server and client, messages and client code can be generated from end to end. Code generation of the client eliminates duplication of messages on the client and server, and creates a strongly-typed client for you. Not having to write a client saves significant development time in applications with many services.

Performance

gRPC messages are serialized using Protobuf, an efficient binary message format. Protobuf serializes very quickly on the server and client. Protobuf serialization results in small message payloads, important in limited bandwidth scenarios like mobile apps.

gRPC requires HTTP/2, a major revision of HTTP that provides significant performance benefits over HTTP 1.x:

• Binary framing and compression. HTTP/2 protocol is compact and efficient both in sending and receiving.
• Multiplexing of multiple HTTP/2 calls over a single TCP connection. Multiplexing eliminates head-of-line blocking at the application layer.

Real-time services

HTTP/2 provides a foundation for long-lived, real-time communication streams. gRPC provides first-class support for streaming through HTTP/2.

A gRPC service supports all streaming combinations:

• Unary (no streaming)
• Server to client streaming
• Client to server streaming
• Bidirectional streaming

Note that the concept of broadcasting a message out to multiple connections doesn’t exist natively in gRPC. For example, in a chat room where new chat messages should be sent to all clients in the chat room, each gRPC call is required to individually stream new chat messages to the client. SignalR is a useful framework for this scenario. SignalR has the concept of persistent connections and built-in support for broadcasting messages.

Deadline/timeouts and cancellation

gRPC allows clients to specify how long they are willing to wait for an RPC to complete. The deadline is sent to the server, and the server can decide what action to take if it exceeds the deadline. For example, the server might cancel in-progress gRPC/HTTP/database requests on timeout.

Propagating the deadline and cancellation through child gRPC calls helps enforce resource usage limits.

gRPC weaknesses

Limited browser support

gRPC has excellent cross-platform support! gRPC implementations are available for every programming language in common usage today. However one place you can’t call a gRPC service from is a browser. gRPC heavily uses HTTP/2 features and no browser provides the level of control required over web requests to support a gRPC client. For example, browsers do not allow a caller to require that HTTP/2 be used, or provide access to underlying HTTP/2 frames.

gRPC-Web is an additional technology from the gRPC team that provides limited gRPC support in the browser. gRPC-Web consists of two parts: a JavaScript client that supports all modern browsers, and a gRPC-Web proxy on the server. The gRPC-Web client calls the proxy and the proxy will forward on the gRPC requests to the gRPC server.

Not all of gRPC’s features are supported by gRPC-Web. Client and bidirectional streaming isn’t supported, and there is limited support for server streaming.

Not human readable

HTTP API requests using JSON are sent as text and can be read and created by humans.

gRPC messages are encoded with Protobuf by default. While Protobuf is efficient to send and receive, its binary format isn’t human readable. Protobuf requires the message’s interface description specified in the .proto file to properly deserialize. Additional tooling is required to analyze Protobuf payloads on the wire and to compose requests by hand.

Features such as server reflection and the gRPC command line tool exist to assist with binary Protobuf messages. Also, Protobuf messages support conversion to and from JSON. The built-in JSON conversion provides an efficient way to convert Protobuf messages to and from human readable form when debugging.

gRPC recommended scenarios

gRPC is well suited to the following scenarios:

• Microservices – gRPC is designed for low latency and high throughput communication. gRPC is great for lightweight microservices where efficiency is critical.
• Point-to-point real-time communication – gRPC has excellent support for bidirectional streaming. gRPC services can push messages in real-time without polling.
• Polyglot environments – gRPC tooling supports all popular development languages, making gRPC a good choice for multi-language environments.
• Network constrained environments – gRPC messages are serialized with Protobuf, a lightweight message format. A gRPC message is always smaller than an equivalent JSON message.

Conclusion

gRPC is a powerful new tool for ASP.NET Core developers. While gRPC is not a complete replacement for HTTP APIs, it offers improved productivity and performance benefits in some scenarios.

gRPC on ASP.NET Core is available now! If you are interested in learning more about gRPC, check out these resources:

In Philadelphia, Juan Dimida, 40, creates graphic art and electronic music on touchscreen devices, working them into beats with other songs or multimedia pieces.

He recently created an album of electronic music on his Motorola G3 over the summer and has been performing it on his Lenovo Yoga PC, connected to drum machines and synthesizers. He’s playing this music live in November.

His artistic background began with graffiti art as a teen, but then he joined a city-run art program in his 20s that channeled his creative energy into colorful murals that covered up graffiti through community-based commissions. These collaborative projects usually involved four to five people and would include elaborate scenery, characters and animation. While each had a theme, the artists also improvised.

Dimida used Photoshop to get designs together and make alterations. While he was working on these murals, an event planner stopped by with a Lenovo ThinkPad tablet, and gave it to him to draw on. He hired Dimida to create art for a 2012 event, where Dimida connected different devices, such as a Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO, to projectors. Dimida drew mosaics on that screen that projected onto 80-foot walls.

After that event, he gained traction to host his own events, showing his original projections at art shows and parties.

Sound visualizations are something he particularly enjoys. Dimida uses a Lenovo ThinkPad X220t to record different sounds, so he’s able to set up different scenes, music effects and visuals, using multiple projectors. He has a separate Lenovo Yoga feed into that, where he draws on its screen. The ThinkPad X220t adds sounds and projects that out.

At Microsoft, we listen to our customers and strive to address their questions and feedback, because one of our foundational principles is to help our customers succeed. Today Microsoft is announcing an update to the privacy provisions in the Microsoft Online Services Terms (OST) in our commercial cloud contracts that stems from additional feedback we’ve heard from our customers.

Our updated OST will reflect contractual changes we have developed with one of our public sector customers, the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security (Dutch MoJ). The changes we are making will provide more transparency for our customers over data processing in the Microsoft cloud.

Microsoft is currently the only major cloud provider to offer such terms in the European Economic Area (EEA) and beyond.

We are also announcing that we will offer the new contractual terms to all our commercial customers – public sector and private sector, large enterprises and small and medium businesses – globally. At Microsoft we consider privacy a fundamental right, and we believe stronger privacy protections through greater transparency and accountability should benefit our customers everywhere.

Clarifying Microsoft’s responsibilities for cloud services under the OST update

In anticipation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Microsoft designed most of its enterprise services as services where we are a data processor for our customers, taking the necessary steps to comply with the new data protection laws in Europe. At a basic level, this means Microsoft collects and uses personal data from its enterprise services to provide the online services requested by our customers and for the purposes instructed by our customers. As a processor, Microsoft ensures the integrity and safety of customer data, but that data itself is owned, managed and controlled by the customer.

Through the OST update we are announcing today we will increase our data protection responsibilities for a subset of processing that Microsoft engages in when we provide enterprise services. In the OST update, we will clarify that Microsoft assumes the role of data controller when we process data for specified administrative and operational purposes incident to providing the cloud services covered by this contractual framework, such as Azure, Office 365, Dynamics and Intune. This subset of data processing serves administrative or operational purposes such as account management; financial reporting; combatting cyberattacks on any Microsoft product or service; and complying with our legal obligations.

The change to assert Microsoft as the controller for this specific set of data uses will serve our customers by providing further clarity about how we use data, and about our commitment to be accountable under GDPR to ensure that the data is handled in a compliant way.

Meanwhile, Microsoft will remain the data processor for providing the services, improving and addressing bugs or other issues related to the service, ensuring security of the services, and keeping the services up to date.

As noted above, the updated OST reflects the contractual changes we developed with the Dutch MOJ.  The only substantive differences in the updated terms relate to customer-specific changes requested by the Dutch MOJ, which had to be adapted for the broader global customer base.

The work to provide our updated OST has already begun. We anticipate being able to offer the new contract provisions to all public sector and enterprise customers globally at the beginning of 2020.

Working with our customers to strengthen privacy

Before and after GDPR became law in the EU, Microsoft has taken steps to ensure that we protect the privacy of all who use our products and services. We continue to work on behalf of customers to remain aligned with the evolving legal interpretations of GDPR.  For example, customer feedback from the Dutch MoJ and others has led to the global roll out of a number of new privacy tools across our major services, specific changes to Office 365 ProPlus as well as increased transparency regarding use of diagnostic data.

We remain committed to listening closely to our customers’ needs and concerns regarding privacy. Whenever customer questions arise, we stand ready to focus our engineering, legal and business resources on implementing measures that our customers require. At Microsoft, this is part of our mission to empower every individual and organization on the planet to achieve more.

Tags: GDPR, OST, privacy

When Mario Kart Tour made its debut on mobile back in September, fans of the long-running series got quite the shock when it was discovered the free-to-play game contained a Gold Pass subscription system.

Now, a few months later, Nintendo has announced a new paid membership service for its two-year-old game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. This information was revealed via an in-game news update. The service itself will begin later this month on 21st November.

Here’s a screenshot, courtesy of ResetEra user ZeoVGM:

There’ll be two different plans within this service to choose from:

In one plan, you’ll be able to appoint one lucky animal as your camp caretaker and get some extra help around the campsite.

In the other plan, you’ll be able to receive fortune cookies and store your furniture and clothing items in warehouses.

More details about the new paid membership service will be provided in videos due out on 20th November.

Are you still playing Pocket Camp? Have you spent any money on this game? Comment below.

Roll up, roll up for Box Art Brawl, the contest where regionally different covers of the same game battle each other to see which one stands up to the scrutiny and discerning eyes of the modern era.

Last week 49% of you decreed that the Japanese cover of Banjo-Tooie was better than the rest, with the North American version coming in second with 29% and the European variant mopping up the remaining 21%. Congratulations to Banjo and Kazooie’s Great Adventure 2, as it was known to our friends in the east.

This week we’re heading back to the NES/Famicom days with Ninja Gaiden, or Shadow Warriors in Europe. That’s right, just as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were renamed Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles over here, ninjas were deemed too violent or something so we originally knew Ryu Hayabusa’s first outing by a different name. Don’t worry, we call it Ninja Gaiden now.

But which one of these covers can stealthily deliver a killer blow to the others? Take a look at the Ryus below…

Japan

Kicking things off with the Famicom version, we get a rather fetching portrait cover with Ryu walking towards us away from the stone golem-y thing with the tribal tats behind him.

With his bulging blue… thighs, not to mention arms that may as well be made from the same material as the rock monster, you certainly wouldn’t want to mess with this character.

Still, it’s not exactly clear what the green stuff surrounding the figures is. Some sort of mossy spider’s web? Overgrown ivy? A big pile of green silly string? It’s ambiguous and although it makes the ninja himself stand out, it’s arguably a bit too noisy. The rock thing and the title break out of the box into the surrounding black border, but for some reason the whole thing puts us in mind of a book cover. A pretty good book cover, but it’s not screaming ‘action’.

Perhaps that’s the point. Let’s see what the others have to offer…

North America

Hello! What the North American version lacks in subtlety it makes up for with knives, swords and flaming buildings. Our ninja is sporting similarly dangerous arms to his Japanese brethren but the only ambiguity here is exactly how the hell he’s suspended above this flaming metropolis. We like to think he had been enjoying lunch while sitting on a construction beam like those chaps in that famous photo of New York when he suddenly realised something wasn’t quite right.

Hardly the understated way of the ninja, then, but effective nonetheless.

Europe

Ah yes. While PAL A got a cover pretty much identical to the NA version, we’ve gone with the PAL B variant, nobly falling on our sword for the sake of variety. It takes the North American cover and turns everything down a notch. Taken in isolation, perhaps it wouldn’t seem so muted, but after the biceps-out in-your-face-ness of the previous cover, this seems a little too soft, a little too safe, and unmasking the protagonist means this cover loses an air of mystery, too. The guy’s still suspended over a flaming city with only a katana to fight the fire, but we’re not 100% certain this ninja (sorry, shadow warrior) will make it out alive.

Gotta be honest – we don’t hold out much hope for this. Still, you never know. Shadows are cool?

Those are the combatants this week – now it’s time to choose your favourite and click the ‘Vote’ button below:

That’s all folks! Join us next week when we’ll be returning with a fresh batch of fighters for another round of Box Art Brawl.

The mainline Pokémon series has finally made the jump to high-definition, so how does it hold up in terms of visuals and performance? The tech experts over the Digital Foundry found Sword and Shield to be a bit of a mixed experience.

The texturing is described as being on “the basic side” – with low-resolution texture mapping and there are various other issues here and there. The most glaring issue in this department, though, is apparently the character pop-in. While the draw distance in the game is generally fine, the characters have a very limited rendering range, meaning they appear out of nowhere at times.

As for the Pokémon designs and animations in Sword and Shield, compared to Sun & Moon, the models are “surprisingly” close. The lighting and material work on pocket monsters in the Switch release is also “clearly a step up” according to DF.

On the resolution front, Sword and Shield run at 1980×1080 dynamic resolution in docked mode. More complex areas in the game filled with NPCs and Pokémon will drop the resolution. The lowest figure DF recorded was 1536×864 (just under 900p). In portable mode, the game runs at a dynamic 1280×720 resolution and can go as low as 1024×576 from time to time.

The framerate for most parts in Shield and Sword is locked at 30fps, but the game can drop right down to 20fps during more intensive moments on-screen. Portable play is described as being “much the same” and holds up nicely. The performance on display here is said to be more on par with the previous Let’s Go entries on Switch, rather than the older 3DS titles.

Get the full analysis in the video above and tell us about your own experience with Sword and Shield so far.

Double Fine’s business development VP and longtime developer Greg Rice has announced he’s leaving the studio for an unannounced new position elsewhere in the game industry.

Rice’s departure comes shortly after the decades-old studio was acquired by Microsoft earlier this year, though he notes in a heartfelt Twitter thread that he’s comforted by future that newly forged relationship ensures for Double Fine.

 “Here’s something I never thought I’d say, yesterday was my last day at Double Fine. It’s been a dream come true working with the world’s greatest human [Tim Schafer] and the crew of incredibly talented, caring, wonderful people he’s assembled at Double Fine for the last decade,” tweeted Rice.

“I’m so proud of all the amazing things we’ve accomplished and really really sad to leave, but am comforted to be leaving them in a great spot with Psychonauts 2 looking amazing and the Microsoft sale ensuring many many more of the insanely creative games you’ve come to expect.”

While Rice voices his support for Double Fine’s life as a Microsoft subsidiary, the future of several of the studio’s dealings he watched over, like Day of the Devs and the publishing arm Double Fine Presents, were called into question shortly after the ink dried on the acquisition.

In September for instance, Double Fine founder Tim Schafter shared that the future of the latter program was up in the air after the acquisition and, at the time, the studio was still working to figure out the role it would play following its arrangement with Microsoft.

However, Rice doesn’t note any specific reasons for his departure in his thread. Instead he shares memories from his time at the studio and mentions that details on his next adventure will emerge later on.

It’s time I set off on some new adventures. I’ve got something really cool lined up, still in games, and am excited about the future. But for now, I’m going to enjoy these final moments with some of my best friends of all time and try not to dissolve into a puddle. ??? pic.twitter.com/oN0vQbzaEK

— Greg Rice (@GregRicey) November 15, 2019