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New Game Download Site Offers Play-As-You-Download Service
arcticstoat writes to tell us that despite the many game download sites already available, another one has decided to give it a go; only this time, with a twist. UK-based Game Domain International is launching their AWOMO service that will allow you to play the game before it's done downloading. As an added incentive to get people to sign up, you can try out the beta now and get Rome: Total War for free. "The trick, according to GDI, is its 'unique technology' that 'lets you start playing before the game has finished downloading, meaning you can be up and running, jumping and fragging in minutes rather than hours.' Although some other download services allow you to start playing a game before it's fully downloaded, you usually still have to download a big chunk of data before you can start, and GDI reckons that it's cracked this problem. According to GDI, AWOMO takes a look at your PC's spec and connection speed, and then hooks you up with a sufficient buffer to stop your game stalling during gameplay. The company is confident that 'the delivery system accurately predicts the data you require next and ensures it's already there waiting before you need it.'"
The 80s called. They want their "Please Wait. Loading..." screens back.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
on the front page
thought something was wrong / really important...
Sounds like Yummy.net to me.
So does this new technology only allow client only based games, where maybe you could download the first part of the game, and progressively as you complete different levels the rest of the game downloads?
I don't see it being very plausible in multi-player games as you would most likely have to have the whole engine and all the map / character textures and video rendering engine?
This looks like a way in for agent software to charge for modules of software, e.g. episodic games. Alternatively, it looks like a good technology to speed up app launch on any system, using caching.
Perhaps I should patent the idea of adding random superfluous crap to the end of any file such that it can be opened and the useful part accessed before the tail end of it has fully downloaded.
Or then again, maybe adobe acrobat plugins and web browsers already do that.
Nullius in verba
The concepts is awesome, especially for those of us who use services like this. However I am unsure about how they can accurately predict where a player in "going". In some linear games this might not be too hard but what about GTA or other sandboxed games? Also in many cases it seems as though the game engine itself is a significant part of the download. If the entire engine must be downloaded first, then it is not so similar to other download-to-buy services. Still despite my concerns I will keep my eye on this one.
Gametap lets you start playing a game before it's done downloading. "Unique technology" my ass.
Guildwars has done this for years. I think WOW does as well.
It's great if you're at school or work or grandma's or somewhere else. Just stream in the content you need for the region/quest you're in.
like this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome:_Total_Realism
or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Barbarorum
Have you ever tried to run a Virtual Machine with off a Drive Image on a Remote Network location. It does work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Shill!
Let's say I take them up on this beta offer and download Rome: Total War. Then I decide their service just isn't for me. Do I own Rome: Total War? Can I play it after I quit their service? Or does it check with their service that I'm entitled to play the game every time?
ceci n'est pas une
Interesting, but we need both sides of the story: what does NOD think?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Pretty clever, I guess. I wish modern games like WoW would do something like this. It definitely reduces my impulse game purchases, knowing that I'll have to wait 8 hours to download content that I may not ever see. On the other hand, maybe this is a good thing...
To me this seems like it could have really interesting implications for IO queuing algorithms. If this service has an algorithm that can accurately predict what data a game will need then the same technique could be applied to loading data for local applications from the hard drive.
-Buck
Other services like Steam and Metaboli already allow you to start playing the game while it downloads the rest of it in the background.
Mada mada dane.
Blizzard already did this with world of warcraft (you play as it downloads) for new accounts. They weren't the first to do it either, so I'm not sure how this is news...
One of the subscriber plums is letting you see articles when they are queued to be published but before they appear on the live frontpage. They show up in red, with a date of "the mysterious future." Are you a subscriber with no-ads turned on for the frontpage?
Free Game? yay
Having to return to their website every time I want to play it?/reinstall it? meh...not so much.
~/ One man's opinions is a lifetime of pain.
Software streaming is nothing new. Altiris, Citrix, and Microsft all offer solutions.
Microsoft's application streaming is the best of the three (in my opinion, from demoing each of them). They acquired it from another company, and the technology was formerly called SoftGrid.
It allows amazing flexibility, because all you really need to do is "sequence" the app, and it creates a file called Feature Block 1, which contains only the portions of the program required for initial launch. The rest of it is streamed on-demand as other parts of the app are accessed, and also in the background at all times.
You deploy apps by associating them with security or distribution groups, and as long as the client machine has the app-v client, you're set.
I've used it to sequence apps like Quake 3, Counter-Strike, and Warcraft 3 for my home network.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
in case if I ever decide to go back to using my Hayes 2400 modem for my online needs.
It starts out as text base and then as the download progresses you'll start to get crude low polygon monochrome wire frames with only PC speaker beeps. Eventually you'll get to high polygon count fully textured and shaded 3D graphics with surround sound.
This should work very well indeed for Duke Nukem Forever... if the download takes a year or two to complete.
>shoot
YOU SHOT A DUDE [xxWaystLandxx].
>shoot shoot shoot
COME GET SOME! [RAzOR] IS FRAGGED TO PIECES.
YOU SEE A STRIPPER.
>give money
OOPS MY BAD, THE STRIPPER WAS AN ALIEN AND ATE YOU. QUICKLOAD Y/N?
>y
>xyzzy
GOD MODE ACTIVATED! AND I'M ALL OUT OF GUM.
But seriously, if they can make this work, I would think it might shave a couple of years off Adobe's development time for making their entire app suite internet-based. Not sure if that's a good thing, but "Interesting Times", etc. etc.
Their software thingy complains it'll only run on x86, people with 64 bit windows need not apply
Liar!
You never had a genuine Hayes 2400 baud modem! You bought a knock-off, white box, ISA card of dubious origins with a speaker on it. You had a Hayes compatible 2400 baud modem like the rest of us, and you know it because you could probably recite the connection string that you needed to get it to work at "full speed" (read: 'bout 2kbit).
Admit it!
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
any different from what Gametap has been doing for quite some time now. In fact I had to go fiddling around in the settings to turn it off to make sure when I've 'downloaded' a game it's really fully downloaded so I wont get hit with some very annoying lag in certain cut-scenes as they'd be 'dynamically loading' from the servers just as they were supposed to be playing. I'm more than happy to just wait an extra few minutes to get everything local rather than bother with this type of thing.
With a fast enough link, that isn't a real problem. You download all the data for the area around the player. As they move, you download data for the relevant areas they are moving to. Also while they are fiddling around, you are still downloading, of course.
As for engines, they don't seem to be that much of most games. Maybe 50MB tops these days including all the DLLs they need. That's not a ton when you are talking about a 5+GB game.
I don't anticipate this working well on low bandwidth connections, but I think reasonable broadband it should work well. I have a 10mbit cable connection at home. With something like that, I think this could work well. That is about a minute to download the engine, assuming my 50MB example (which is on the high side over all). Figure another minute or two to cache a bit and then I can go. It'll probably have plenty of time to get ahead. All the while I'm at the menus configuring and watching the intro, it is getting more data, 1 megabyte per second or so.
If done well I think it could work on reasonable connections. It still won't be insta play, it could be much faster. If I can start playing after 100MB or so has downloaded, that is only 2 minutes or so. If I have to wait for the whole 5-12GB to download, that's hours. Like when I bought Supreme Commander from Impulse. I started the download and went to sleep. The game is that big. However, with something like this I bet it could have enough in the fist couple minutes for me to start playing.
When you download a game with GameTap, they give you two options: download the whole game, or just the bare minimum. I was playing on a laptop with low free space, so I tried the later.
If you select the bare minimum, then it leaves a bunch of graphic and sound assets, etc. on their servers, and adds a layer to the game that fetches those assets the first time they're requested. The thing is, it takes several seconds to fetch something from the server, and the game you're playing is inevitably designed with the assumption that fetching art assets won't take more than a few milliseconds, at worst.
Several games I played would lock up for several seconds every time it tried to play a sound that hadn't been downloaded yet. It was miserable.
Only games that are actually designed and tested to be progressively downloaded during gameplay will work well in such a context.
Big Deal. GWB has done even better...start bombing and fragging FOR REAL before you have any idea how to leave. Just leave that part to someone else.
... of ADD! These impatient downloaders would be the people who quaff an entire bottle of Ritalin every day and still feel under-medicated, so they augment it with an IV drip of black coffee. Hold the cream and sugar, please.
Run a caching NFS client and mount the remote game server as a filesystem. There are already a dozen shell scripts and utilities out there to preload stuff for booting big servers over NFS. (like if you use NFS for static website data or DNS or nntp)
Welcome to 1996 people.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
When I worked for Bell, I got a few tokens for a free game or two. I chose to play Syberia, an adventure game, and it went pretty smoothly. Except for one thing, the system wasn't smart enough to warn me that I didn't have sufficient disk space, so I had to clean up stuff from my HD before I was able to resume the download. It didn't really impact my gameplay otherwise. The other game I tried was a WWII FPS, whose name escapes me. Medal of Honor maybe? That also worked pretty smoothly.
I assume this means its there...DRM, that is. From the AWOMO terms and conditions...
"The term "Game Software" includes the software included in this game, the associated media, any software associated with the online mode of the game, any printed materials, and any online or electronic documentation, and any and all copies and derivative works of such software and materials."
Possibly a good idea, once I know what I am getting along with the games, but until then, it is a non-starter. If the DRM is unacceptable, the entire scheme is as well.
Sounds like the Mr. Movie on Spaceballs where the new movie comes out before they are done filming it...
Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at?... When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: Now, You're looking at now sir...Everything that happens now is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed it.
Dark Helmet:When.
Colonel Sandurz:Just now... We're at now now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then?
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz:I can't
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon!
Dark Helmet: How soon?
Technician: Sir!
Dark Helmet: What?
Technician: We've identified their location!
Dark Helmet: Where?
Technician: It's the moon of Vega
Colonel Sandurz: Good work. Set a course and prepare for our arrival
Dark Helmet: When?
Technician: Nineteen hundred hours, sir!
Colonel Sandurz: By high noon tomorrow they will be our prisoners!
Dark Helmet: WHO?!?!
[Face mask falls in front of face]
They want their Unreal Tournament back.
Basically it's possible with a lot of games. I've had games before where part of a level was defective (scratched CD). The game would play until a certain point, some games would allow you to just replace the bad or non-existent level file with another level file. There were also some games you would have to switch floppy's or CD's to play further levels.
It's a simple trick, nothing innovative. Just because it's done 'over the internet' doesn't make it new.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
This looks REALLY suspicious and I would advise that nobody registers or downloads the .EXE files until this has been checked out.
Firstly the parent company as listed at http://www.awomo.com/?q=node/10 appears to have an address which is The Queen's residence, Windsor Castle
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=opera&rls=en&q=12+Castle+Hill,+Windsor,+Berks+SL4+1PD&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&um=1&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=title
Secondly, the company GDI Game Domain International plc doesn't appear to exist - try finding a stock ticker. To be a PLC in the UK you must be a public limited company with shares traded on the London Stock Exchange.
Dodgy! Unless this can be cleared up and proof of the company's details validated I would steer clear of this.
don't know why this is marked "troll." all the other comments in this discussion seem to suggest that streamed software/games are nothing new.
i'm glad the parent pointed out the free download of Rome: Total War. it seems to have gotten pretty good reviews.
though i am a little skeptical about the game's quality, as i've played Great Battles of Rome on the PSP, which i think is based off of this title. perhaps Great Battles of Rome was just a really bad port, but i got the feeling that History Channel was just using their name to peddle shovelware under the guise of "educational gaming." and given the quality of some of their shows (Monster Quest, UFO Hunters, etc.), their sponsorship of a video game doesn't inspire much faith in me. but given that it's free, and the game received glowing reviews from pretty much every major gaming media outlet, i think it's worth trying out.
although you may not have noticed, steam will let you start many games before they are finished downloading.
I noticed this when I accidentally double clicked Half Life 2: episode 1 before it finished downloading, and it launched. I'd assume it works for normal half life 2 as well.
Steam will selectively bring in the art for the level you are currently playing first. So, you will get a little bit longer loading screen, but otherwise it works about as ok as steam and half life ever worked (which is to say, filled with bugs).
If I'm not mistaken, Rome Total War and it's development had nothing to do with the History Channel. It wasn't until after the game came out, that the History Channel used a modified version of the game engine to render battles. Or, even if they were tied to the development in some way, it was only minor and for the rendering of battles, and had very little, if anything, to do with the design. (Also, the Total War series has been around for awhile, well before the History Channel used it)
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
This isn't a new concept, and they are simply competing with other platforms that give the same ability to download games in the background while you play.
I also believe that the same concept came to programmers who had to deal with a 56K modem, and decompress the .ZIP files. Given that files in .ZIP can be stored in any order, there isn't really a good reason why the most important bits of a .ZIP are placed first as opposed to being in alphabetical/random order. However, a lack of knowledge/tools of the other developers tended to make this the case.
It starts out as text base and then as the download progresses you'll start to get crude low polygon monochrome wire frames with only PC speaker beeps.
This sort of progressive refinement is a nice idea. But in fact, the text-mode phase need not last very long. Unless you're buying a copy of a game on disc, you probably downloading it on at least an entry-level broadband connection, such as 768 kbps DSL. Such a connection can move a 4 MB MP3 in less than a minute. If it's possible to zip .kkrieger into 96 KiB, the entirety of Wolfenstein 3D into a shade over a half MB, or Super Mario 64 into 6 MB, it's certainly possible to fit the first few levels of a 3D game into 4 MB. So by the time you've downloaded the game engine and first set of graphics to play the first level at N64-class, you've only spent one minute in the text-based portion, probably just setting up your gamepad.
Kane would tell you, but he's not Abel.
True, but Mabel and Sable are.
When you download a game with GameTap, they give you two options: download the whole game, or just the bare minimum. I was playing on a laptop with low free space, so I tried the later. [...] Several games I played would lock up for several seconds every time it tried to play a sound that hadn't been downloaded yet. It was miserable.
Then it was GameTap's fault for not providing a middle ground: download the bare minimum, and while you're playing that, download other files in order based on a log of the files that the game read while the testers were playing it.
So like wizard101.com, then? Extremely small (~2 meg) download, everything else streamed as you play?
Does it somehow not count as prior art because it's a kids game?