Call of Duty: Black Ops III devs share lag-fighting tips at GDC 2016

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference are finalizing a lineup of great talks for GDC 2016 next March, and today they're excited to debut another pair of great expert sessions.

Both of these new talks tackle the nuts and bolts of game design, with one investigating how Call of Duty: Black Ops III developers keep lag to a minimum in multiplayer environments while the other dives deep into what makes a great level editor.

Experienced Activision engineer Benjamin Goyette will share what he's learned about building great lag-free multiplayer games using high-speed cameras and instrumented gamepads in "Fighting Latency on Call of Duty: Black Ops III." 

This new approach allowed the Black Ops III team to see exactly what was happening, frame-by-frame, and in his talk Goyette will show how the team used that new perspective to optimize the latency of shooting, jumping, changing stance, strafing and damage feedback.

Check it out and you'll also get an informed look at local input lag, the line-of-sight advantage of client-side prediction, the perceived time-to-kill and the effectiveness of lag compensation techniques in multiplayer game design.

Also, experienced modder and level designer Robin-Yann Storm will be at GDC 2016 to offer a wide-ranging overview of what makes a great level editor -- and how you can find (or build) the right editor for your next game.

In "Keeping Level Designers in the Zone Through Level Editor Design," Storm aims to run down the pros and cons of many popular engines and editors -- everything from Unity to Source. He'll also offer some hard-won advice on how you can improve your own level editor so your level designers can work faster, iterate quicker and perform at a much higher level.

Plus, conference officials also look forward to announcing many more GDC 2016 Summit sessions spanning a diverse array of game industry issues in the months ahead.

For now, don't miss the opportunity to save money by registering for the conference early -- the deadline to register for passes at a discounted rate is Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016.

GDC 2016 itself will take place March 14-18th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. For more information on GDC 2016, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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