The 2017 Game Developers Conference is drawing nigh, and today organizers are happy to say that Blizzard’s presence at the show will include a great talk about the networking and scripting tools that drive the studio’s popular game Overwatch.
Dan Reed is a senior software engineer at Blizzard, and he’ll be giving GDC attendees a behind-the-scenes look at Overwatch in his talk on “Networking Scripted Weapons and Abilities in ‘Overwatch’.”
See, Overwatch uses a proprietary visual scripting language called Statescript to execute the high-level state machines used throughout the game, including the logic driving hero weapons and abilities. This talk describes the features of the language and why they were chosen, and it explores how prediction and replication of script behavior is automated so that common networking problems are handled for the scripter.
Attendees will learn the details of Overwatch’s visual scripting language and why its approach to networking scripts saves time for engineers (by solving two error-prone problems common to gameplay engineering: state machines and synchronization) and unlocks designers to create new heroes with an ever-growing library of code-backed building blocks.
So don’t forget about this talk when it comes time to head to GDC 2017, and don’t miss your opportunity to save money by registering for the conference early — the deadline to register for passes at a discounted rate is January 18, 2017. GDC 2017 itself will take place February 27th – March 3rd at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
For more information on GDC 2017, visit the show’s official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas
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