Press release
Quazal, makers of the Net-Z, Rendez-Vous and Spark! online multiplayer middleware today released one of the most significant version updates to their products, with significant upgrades to each of the three products.
Quazal Net-Z, the premiere in-game multiplayer middleware on the market, has now added in a true client-server topology to go alongside its existing award-winning peer-to-peer technology. More specifically, it introduces a generalized routing system that also enhances peer-to-peer connectivity.
Quazal Rendez-Vous, the eminently flexible lobby and matchmaking solution, has been enhanced with full support for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 via LSP. This allows more developers and publishers to add increasingly advanced features to their Xbox 360 titles, including clans, tournaments, complex matchmaking and other innovative features that are limited only by their imagination. The first LSP-based Rendez-Vous titles will start shipping this fall.
Quazal Spark!, the 'lobby-in-a-box' solution built on top of Rendez-Vous improves its featureset with a flexible leaderboard and ranking system allowing developers to have multiple leaderboards with multiple ranking types within their game. Also, Spark! is now officially released for the Xbox 360 platform, running solely on Xbox Live, but sharing an integration profile with all other Spark! platforms, allowing for very rapid cross-platform lobby development. Finally, Spark! for the PLAYSTATION 3 has been enhanced for increased support for the PLAYSTATION Network.
"We’ve been leading up to this release for quite a while now," said Mike Drummelsmith, Developer Relations Manager at Quazal. "Our February release laid the groundwork for a number of enhancements and new features, and it’s great to see that preliminary work come to fruition with this new release."
"A number of developers have been working with us through pre-release versions of this release to ensure that it hit all of the right notes," added Martin Lavoie, CTO at Quazal. "With their input, we've added a number of features and behind-the-scenes improvements targeted directly at their immediate and future needs."
With near-transparent support across all major online platforms, both peer-to-peer and client-server in-game topologies through Net-Z, and both a flexible 'sandbox' lobby system in Rendez-Vous as well as a more contained, rapid-implementation design in Spark!, Quazal now offers solutions for any genre, any schedule and almost any budget.
