User Created Content is Key for New Games

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that recently Valve Software's Doug Lombardi has stated his strong belief that user created content is a very important part of games in the near future. "'I would argue that it's the biggest component those guys have to get over if they want online to matter.' 'Half-Life 1 was okay as a multiplayer game and Team Fortress Classic was really good, but Counter-Strike kicked both their asses no question. And that came from a kid going to college in Canada and another kid going to high school in New Jersey, who had our code and thought it would be cool to play our game.'"

Comments

Re:Little Big Planet

[revengebomber]

A game isn't graphically impressive unless it involves Bald Space Marines.

Just ask any Xbot, they know lots of stuff about graphics! The most advanced rendering technique there is is 'bright lights on shiny metal'. While this is flamebait, I do agree that developers need to spend less time on how light looks on any single object, and focus on how it affects the scene as a whole (HDR, shadowing, etc).

Re:Little Big Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

"I do agree that developers need to spend less time on how light looks on any single object,"

It isn't really a matter of spending time but system power. Global lighting solutions require massive parallel floating point power - which the 360 doesn't have. Although it is significantly better than the shitty x86 chips.

The 360 is in essence just another desktop pc type rendering architecture. Which leads to the proliferation of the low poly highly normal mapped graphics in so many games. PC and 360 engines are very similar where you have all of your game logic and collision/physics being handled on the CPU and low poly material heavy data being worked on by the GPU. That leaves pc and 360 developers with only so many options to make things look impressive - which inevitably mean lots of bright shiny bumpy metal.

I have no clue why Microsoft, given a clean slate, would design a rendering architecture on such an archaic one as the desktop pc other than to make it easy for pc developers to dump their pc games onto the system easily.

The PS3 pretty much just uses the RSX to render tris and almost all lighting is done on Cell with it's massive floating point power and ability to crank through lighting calcs in parallel. So you aren't stuck with the silly little vertex/pixel shader crap you have on pcs or the 360. You are able to do real modern lighting models that aren't limited to local data and short little shader programs.

The PS4 will most likely continue down this road of evolution where you have a REYES style rendering system on the Cell side with an RSX like chip spitting out massive numbers of micro-triangles.

Re:Little Big Planet

[Rycross]

That's what I suspected, just another console fanboy trying to downplay something incredible because it's not on their system.

So basically put, you treating the game like the second comming and going on about the "awesome power of the PS3" doesn't make you a fanboy, but me saying that the game is far more impressive gameplay-wise than graphics-wise makes me a console fanboy?

Someone needs to grow up, but its not me.

I believe, in fact, that I said that the graphics are great, just not "absolutely awesome." I also said its a game I'd like to play, and that the gameplay... the physics and interactions, are far more interesting than the graphics. Its quite baffling to me why you choose to focus on the graphics when thats small potatoes compared to what they're doing with the rest of the game

I've been to many GDCs over the years and I've seen many demos of new games or tech. There has never been a reaction to a game from developers like there was at GDC in all the years I have attended.

Yeah, note I didn't specifically discount the reactions of developers. I've heard lots of good reactions. But none of them have been about the graphics. Thats what I was pointing out.

Feel free to share with us what you think the structure of LBP's engine and specifically lighting model is in broad terms on the system. You clearly know more than most of the gaming world's best developers. Right?

Ok, first of all, care to link to some developers raving about how awesome the graphics in particular are? Second, I don't need to know about the structure of the engine, just the end result. No, I don't know more than actual game developers, but that doesn't make me unqualified to judge the end-results, which is what I can see and play on screen. Just because I don't know anything about oil painting doesn't mean I can't say that I don't care for the scenery in the oil painting.

Hell, if you weren't sucking on Sony's cock so hard, maybe you'd realize that I was actually paying the game some very big complements. But I guess that your reaction, when I didn't hail the game as the second comming, is very telling. I wasn't mistaken when I was calling you a shill. And you throwing a hissy fit about the way I choose to compliment a game doesn't really make you seem any more unbiased.