Slashdot Mirror
Integrating the Web Into Games
Got Game recently announced the launch of an in-game web browser called Rogue, designed for concurrent use with modern games for those who don't care to to switch back and forth. Their aim is to make it so gamers can more easily keep themselves entertained during downtime in games, and to streamline information retrieval without missing any of the action. An anonymous reader writes with related news from Gamasutra:
"This article details the practical steps for game developers to add a video recording feature to a game, encode gameplay footage in the Theora video format, and share the recording on YouTube. Spore's Creature Creator, PixelJunk Eden, and Mainichi Issho already support YouTube, but not only commercial games benefit. By hosting the videos, YouTube puts this feature in reach of indie game developers who might otherwise not be able to afford the server resources."
How long until a game with integrated web with a game with integrated web?
Rogue? Isn't that a bit old? Come on, people would be a lot less bored in their MMOs if they at least had something like Nethack!
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
2 cents: If it's a full standards compliant browser, it'd be awesome if CCP would replace their incredibly broken, quirky, and almost useless in-game browser in Eve-Online with it.
EVE has had an in game web browser for at least 4 years that I can remember though it may have been in at the game's launch.
Initially it was only (roughly) HTML 1 compatible but it was subsequently improved to HTML 3 standards plus CSS support.
It is really only useful useful for browsing sites designed for EVE due to rendering speed, compatibility (obviously) and plugin suppot (pfd, flash etc). But there are now many sites designed for it such as player corporation (~guild) sites with information about recruitment, sales and member forums. There are also various guides and calculators.
To open a browser you essentially just have to open another window. There's a lot of advantages to browser based games.
play online flash games in the browser during downtime?
Note - Liberal use of <sarcasm> tags may or may not need to be applied.
Once theres a web engine within games it makes something new possible. I presume one the key applications they had in mind (other than just browsing while your on a loading screen) was ingame advertising. Both to target advertising to the gamer while they are waiting for something to happen or being able to actually render standard web banner ads into areas of the game environment.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Their aim is to make it so gamers can more easily keep themselves entertained during downtime in games
Blimey, I hope he's only talking about games that are obviously online-only, such as Counter-Strike. During a single-player of SimCity, *boom*, DRM server goes offline. Voice of GLaDOS: "Sorry -- this game is temporarily available."
*shudder*
Counter-Strike: Source actually already has an in-game browser. It's an embedded Internet Explorer ActiveX control that pops up whenever you connect to a server. Admittedly, it's not very useful as a browser, as clicking any links within the page will minimise the game and launch a real browser.
Also, Second Life uses an embedded Gecko browser (based on Gecko 1.8) in its official client, which is much more functional as a web browser. Mind you, it's a lot slower than using a real browser, as you have the overhead of the 3D universe that you have to render it in.
Play Bejeweled
Dual screens.
WoW makes a good OS, now all it's missing is an MMO game.
Am I the only one who wants to see Lynx integrated into Nethack? Imagine going up against the front-page of Google?
You just got troll'd!
Imagine integrated a virtual machine into a game! Imagine a sort of computer nerd-oriented infiltration game or something, in which you'd get to sneak into some place, sit at a computer and get 'hacking' the in-game local network, for real, with real virtual machines running real OSes with real virtual servers at the other hand, and so on. Only a real computer nerd could enjoy it, but damnit that would be immersive.
I know, a game that consists in sitting on a chair at a computer playing a guy who's sitting on a chair at a computer can sound a bit twisted, but it's nothing yet if you get the game you're playing running in the game's virtual machines!
And I just to clear that up, I don't necessarily mean running Windows Vista or something with GNOME, no, a Unix with a bash shell would be enough. Even better, you can use legacy OSes, like, if your game takes place in 1975, you can use System V stuff and hack a mainframe or something.
Oh crap, did I just invent the perfect mix of modern 3D games and computer history? Don't tell Shampoo..
You just got troll'd!
It fucking sucks. Worst browser I've ever used. Ridiculous CPU usage, memory leaks out the ass, horrible support, lack of supported games, can't be resized, can't change the hotkeys, hotkeys don't work half of the time, and it absolutely kills the performance of whatever game you're using it in. Regardless of the "optimization" level.
Gamers who are sick of paying to be bored could turn to First Life, the incredibly popular Massively Multiplayer Offline Reality-Playing Game released by Jehovah Labs six thousand years ago. At least in First Life, people pay you to be bored.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I presume one the key applications they had in mind was ingame advertising.
Blizzard's various Battle.net clients (I remember in particular Warcraft 3) have shown ads while you're not playing (e.g. joining or creating a game, chatting, etc.).
Taking up valuable screen real estate by showing ads while playing is probably a big no-no if you want happy players. I think the happy variety pays the most money...
(other than just browsing while your on a loading screen)
That's one hell of a long loading screen if you can do meaningful browsing while it's on. Which games are we talking about here? I want to not buy those.
Sorry -- this game is temporarily available
It has to be one shitty game if you have to apologize that it's available ;)
If I'm so bored playing a game that I need to browse the web, it's time to find a new game. Seriously.
There are many reasons to want to do this -- I often run MMOs in a window, rather than fullscreen, for this reason.
For one: Maybe you're stuck on a quest, and you want to look up the answer. So you bring up a guide, leave it onscreen, an refer to it as you do the quest.
For another: If it's got a decent community, you may find yourself spending a fair amount of time in-game just to socialize. If that's the case, the game can be serving the same function as an IM (or IRC) client -- and I don't know about you, but I do browse the web when I chat.
And it's possible to get sick of the music without getting sick of the game. So, turn off the in-game music, turn on your own collection -- or, if all you get is an in-game browser, turn on Pandora.
But then, there's this point -- why bother integrating a web browser into the game, when you can simply run the game in a window and use a real browser?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Taking up valuable screen real estate by showing ads while playing is probably a big no-no if you want happy players.
If it's screen real estate : yes, probably player will hate it.
If it's billboards showing advertisement within the level, I don't think this will cause that much more outcry than the current fake-ads you see on modern-day themed levels.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I dont really care about being able to browse the internet in game, but I want to be able to instant message. In steam, you can place an overlay on the game in order to use the Steam friends community stuff (ie, messaging) but it only works for the steam community. Thats a problem for talking to my friends who dont play at all or just aren't playing at the moment. I can hardly demand they register for steam and use it just so I can talk to them. If they could incorporate yahoo/aim/msn into that overlay, I would be happy. For a long time I used the Miranda IM client and a plugin for my G15 keyboard to chat while I was playing, but I sold it (shouldnt have). IMO, the overlay would be the way to go to make an internet browser. It's unobtrusive yet easy to use.
On the other hand, they could just start with some real multi-monitor/alt-tab support without freezing and crashing. Seems that few games handle it very well and that would be a bigger plus than an in-game browser.
This is completely the wrong problem to solve.
How about playing games that don't suck instead?
I say Satan was Jehovah in the creation of First-Life, and the repentant Loki a sun.
It's bad enough "monsanto" in diction translates as "mountain holy" or "holy mountain."
Thank sweet Shiva Nibiru there'll be a server-wipe on around December 23 of the Year 2012. Now if only Thor and Zeus weren't planning somthing on February of the Year 2009.
Uh, you could already do this on Windows by embedding MSHTML, and quite a few games do - many games are rendered in IE directly, in fact. Civ4 uses IE, for example, as does Stars!, as does Master of Orion 3. On Mac, substitute Safari; on Linux, substitute KHTML. Also, Apollo did this portably within Flash something like a year and a half ago. Or you could use Dillo, or etc.
I mean, it's a cute little technology and all, but it's nothing new; this is just more Slashvertising, no?
StoneCypher is Full of BS
. . .Don't you think? After all, fundamentally, DRM-ed games *are* only temporarily available, by definition. Someday the user *will* be locked out of the game.
has no one here heard of multiscreen setups? game on one screen, email on another, and gasp, a web browser on another! all you need is more pixel space on your desktop. easy peasy.
Dont know if other soe games have it too, but few months ago the devs intergrated mozilla into starwars galaxies.
with /browser [url] a website can be opened, ingame macros can be used as favorites. Someone shows it here how it works.
Just tried it out and watching boobs while playing works too :P
What , You mean like this ?
http://www.thehunter.com/about.php
The engine looks pretty tidy too !
http://www.thehunter.com/trailer.php
Saw this a while back - and i gotta say - I dont think anyone else is trying to integrate web and game like this.
N.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp