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Xbox 360 Version of Champions Online Being Held Back By MS
Tomorrow marks the launch of Cryptic Studios' new superhero MMO, Champions Online. It was developed for the PC and the Xbox 360, but the console version will be much delayed, according to Cryptic CCO Jack Emmert, because Microsoft is holding things up. "Microsoft's a big company, and they have to work out all the various issues related to MMOs. It just takes time for the big beast known as Microsoft to get moving. I really have no explanation other than that, because it's as baffling to developers as it is to everyone else," he said during an interview with VG247. The game itself is apparently finished, but Emmert isn't sure it'll even go live for the 360 by the end of this year. Square Enix developers made similar comments earlier this month regarding Final Fantasy XIV, which will be available first on the PS3 largely because it's taking a long time to work out how the game will interact with Xbox Live.
You must surely recognise that you are on the wrong side of the debate.
The key question here is how will Microsoft Monetise this new games to make more money for XBox Live via the subscriptions that people take out for these games. They don't yet have the sophistication of Apple's App Store for content, subscriptions and upgrades so the choice is either allow more freedom (the Sony choice) or batten it down until you can develop, and enforce, something that ensures the money passes through your pockets.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
While I agree with those who believe that MSFT will milk this thing for every penny they can... there's more on the table here. Console MMORPG's are a potentially enormous genre -- both in terms of revenue and in terms of audience.
For years now, MMO's on consoles have seemed like a oddly absent category. Where are they? Why isn't _____ making _____ for the _____?
Sure there was Sega's "sort of" MMO, and a few others -- but they were MMO's for the console, not 'true' MMO's.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Microsoft, in some respects recognizes the huge-ness of what this title represents. Yeah, okay .. bring on the Vista jokes if you must .. MSFT has whiffed on the "huge expectations front" before, but a failure with XBL (as a platform) with C.O. would have repercussions across dozens of forthcoming MMO titles.
There's more on the table here than just the release date of one title...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
First let me start off with its strongest point: Avatar creation. The Avatar creation is very excellent. I've never seen one as good as this one where you can customize your character's looks. Many people spent over a half hour customizing their character in this tool. It is also a treat when you play the game to see new looks.
There is a high degree of character customization. Out with the Tank/Heal/DPS/Ranged/PETS, in with do it all if you know how. Some people like to pick skills based on their character, but you can pick skill all across the board if you like.
There is encouragement to do quests by a lot of experience in relation to grinding. You won't see much grinding in this game, but more of mission doing.
I fought a Super Villian with my friend the other day. He had turrets and minions. So we killed the minions, then turrets, then one of us would block while the other fought the villian. If we took too much damage, we could scoot around the many walls in his chamber and heal. I'm going to upload Youtube videos when I get bored, but I'm not bored. I'm level 30, and haven't died. Level cap is 40.
My last MMORPG that I really liked was Asheron's Call 1. I felt WOW was sort of a boring grind. Champions Online is a great game if your computer can handle it(need a computer in last 2 years with good video card). Finally: Flight + Ranged = New era of combat tactics. Super speed is really cool too, as if you go fast enough, you can run up 80% grade inclines too. I haven't tested out everything, but I really like this game.
God spoke to me.
...to actually require the developer to deliver a complete, bug free, enjoyable gaming experience BEFORE they ship it instead of sometime in the indefinite future.
CO is a very good game, but it's undergoing nearly nightly changes and by the developer's own admission the support for a gamepad controller is only half-baked at the moment.
So no way in hell is the game complete enough to pass the standards of any console game company, let alone Microsoft which has some of the highest standards around.
The standard PC philosophy of "just ship it, we'll patch it later" will not fly in the console world, even if the console vendors are open to the kind of ongoing incremental enhancements that MMOGs are known for.
G.
What would you prefer, that this be rushed through without planning, server load testing, and figuring out exactly how it interacts with existing services?
Or, when it is released, that is works?
I prefer the second.
Yes, the 360 is a "success", but also has terrible flaws. For one is its 50% failure rate (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/17/game-informer-xbox-360-at-54-2-percent-failure-rate/ http://kotaku.com/5339555/report-xbox-360-failure-rate-over-50-percent http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/24/microsoft-responds-to-xbox-360-54-2-percent-failure-rate-report/ ). While XBL is fine for gaming, buying stuff with "Microsoft Points" is odd, unlike Nintendo Points or buying gift cards with Sony, theres no easy way I can find out what everything costs in US dollars. Etc.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
What delusional fantasy world are you living in?
Sony has an online service that is more like the open PC gaming online model than any other console manufacturer:
* Free online play for all non-MMORPG titles
* Dedicated servers
* Open to mods and other free content from developers
It's Microsoft with the absurd grip on their online service that is continually causing developers nightmares in dealing with. It took Epic a half a year to rewrite/work around Microsoft's online service's restrictions to get the latest Unreal Tournament out the door after it had no problems whatsoever with PCs and Sony's PS3.
And these problems Microsoft is causing for Cryptic Studios is just the latest in other MMORPG developers before them.
I agree DirectX was an amazing accomplishment. I can't think of any other API where you would allocate buffer and you had to constantly check to make sure that the pointer to that buffer hadn't been magically lost. Oh, I loved the sound API from version 5-8, and it was always going to be fixed "In the next version."
.Net. Microsoft isn't interested in making good APIs, they are interested in making good enough APIs and using their marketing power to ram it down developer's throats. After all, if they came out with a great version of lets say DirectX, what would be the point in developers upgrading their version of Visual Studio?
*Start Rant*
Actually that's not true, the Winsock API used to be so buggy you used to have to do error checking on operations which on any other OS there is no possibility of them failing. (I hear things are better now)
Also, if DirectX is such an amazing accomplishment, how come they had to make a version specifically for the XBox that is only partially compatible with the PC version? Why are they having to come out with a new version of the API every 6 months to 1 year? DirectX 9, 9a, 9b, 9c, 9d, 9e, 10, 10.1, 11
Why, if it's so amazing are so many companies switching to OpenAL for their audio?
Why did so many companies continue to develop for Glide when DirectX worked on all graphics cards?
The truth is that DirectX started out as a piece of garbage, and is slowly getting better and better. Microsoft was given the chance to work together to come up with a graphics standard that would be flexible and would be properly designed. It was called Fahrenheit. Microsoft was originally going to be a big force behind this, but did not allocate the needed resources, instead ramming DirectX 7 down our throats.
Microsoft does not want a good API. Look at the number of versions of DirectX there have been. Look at
I most recently ran into this when looking into the contacts system in Vista. Here it was, this brand new system to centralize all our contact information in Windows. A new API that is only about 1.5 years old. No longer supported. No links to the new API, if there is one. I can't even figure out if Windows Contacts are just in Windows 7 for "backward compatibility", or if its meant to be be used.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.