That is not the trailer that aired during Angel last night. It's a small, edited version with lots of footage from the previous trailers. I have also got morpheus waiting to share the file (if I can get it), but the trailer you have posted, while new, is not the/awesome/ one from last night.
I agree, people should grab morpheus and get this thing going peer to peer.
Found some info on their service. Can't quite determine what's tech-talk and what's marketing-speak, but maybe someone else can digest this and offer opinions.
Dude. As far as difficulty settings are concerned, I was checking out the service, not trying to prove that I'm a 'l33t qu4k3 d00d' (which I am...*wink*). I agree that 72 hours won't work for many games (RPG's are a good example.) I spent over 200 hours on FFVII over a couple monthes when it came out.
But it's so obvious that the people who built the service understand that there are many different pricing models. I didn't mention it in my first post in detail, but one of the links on the service page (the link said "my stuff") was "Manage Subscriptions", so it seems that someone there is aware that people may want to play this stuff for more than a weekend. I didn't see any options to subscribe to anything, but like most new things, they're probably just trying out different pricing schemes, or maybe Electronics Boutique only wants video-tape-like rentals. The service has been up for what? A couple days? You can bet it's going to change as more people use it and the companies involved get more feedback. (If they're smart, they're reading this and any other forum where people are yacking about it.)
It would be awesome if I could subscribe to a piece of software and if a patch came out I wouldn't have to do anything, it just updates automatically. The service provider has to worry about updating their content, but I don't have to keep track of patches.
This is a good idea. Like I said in my first post, I'll always pay more for simplicity and convenience, and I think I'm an average user. Sure there was a time when I was a hardcore gamer, and wanted to get into the guts of my system and hand-hack everything to optimum perfection. I've overclocked and bios hacked, and hex edited games for fun and profit, but these days I've got other things on my mind and don't want to spend my time managing all that. I think the people behind this know that most of us want something that just works and doesn't need to be managed.
Imagine what would happen if you could use more than games on this system. Imagine if there was a link on my online banking service where I could fire up Quicken, or MS-Money. That would be sweet! I could telecommute to work and not have to install any apps beforehand since they'll just stream down to my PC as I need them. IT people might love this! Sure makes setting up a PC easy.
Good god! [Insert huge gasp] What would the world come to if I could use only the parts of MS-office that are actually useful?!?! Since I never actually use 95% of the menu options, does that mean that I'll never stream them down to my machine? This could mean that MS-office wouldn't take up any more room that it/needed/ to on my HD. Saints be praised!
They're almost banking on the laziness of the average user...not a bad bet in my book. *grin*
Electronics Boutique is the company offering the games, but obviously Into Netoworks is the company providing the service. Who else is going to join up? Probably more than just game companies. I wouldn't be surprised if more websites start showing up that use this "IntoPlayer". I don't think they're leaving modem users behind at all. The entire world seems to be headed for broadband. This stuff is exactly what makes everyone/want/ broadband. I bought net access to get on the web and get email. I bet lots of people will get broadband to run software over the net. Software companies will probably love it. When your one year contract for WinXP expires, you get disconnected till you pay for it again. It has good and bad overtones, but it'll probably drive broadband sales, which in turn will drive broadband research since capacity is desperately needed and everyone will win. (Hopefully...let me remain the optimist.)
Tried it out ($5...big deal I'll always pay more for convenience). The verdict: Not 100% perfect at my bandwidth (540kb adsl) but very/very/ cool.
Purchase Details:
You start at EB's Flash driven site, and when you rent you get a HUGE license agreement. After you agree you bounce to a site the has the game ("Serious Sam", a fp-shooter in my case) and a link to download the "IntoPlayer" (Funky power button logo combined with the letter "I"). I downloaded the player from "www.intonetworks.com" (feels like the RealPlayer without all the "Big Brother is watching" corporate schtick,) and it bounced me back to the game page. The button that had said to get the player now displayed a rental offer for $4.99 for 72 hours. There wasa link for me to check "System requirement" which ran some test that told me that I had directX 7 installed and that everything was cool. I clicked the offer and paid my money (Visa, and I had to create an account, so I assume this will facilitate future purchases.) After some processing it sent me to a page that had a play button, there was also a link to "My Titles" and various account managment links. It looks like you can maintain a library of software online.
Play Details:
When you click the play button, the IntoPlayer comes up and a bunch of message zipped past in a little dialog, then a progress bar and timer told me that my title would be ready in 20 minutes. It was bringing down about 90 meg of the game (so says the progress bar) and the game would start when the transfer finished. There was a check box you could select to make the game ask you before starting up. 25 minutes later (close enough estimate for me) the game started up. Everything seemed normal. I did notice on subsequent runs of the game that the loading time was almost nil...caching?
I couldn't tell any difference between playing a game locally and playing it this way except for load times. The games was level based, and at each new level there was about 2 minutes of load time. I suppose this would change if I had more bandwidth. The actual in game play was superb! I finished the game (on the easy setting) this morning and have about 36 hours left on my rental. Pretty sweet for $5! Load times are a small price to pay for not shelling out $60 for a game you'll finish in a weekend.
This has awesome potential. It's convenient and simple. I like not having to screw with installations.
Other notes: There's some sort of caching going on. I Saved multiple times, and when I went back to an old save there was almost no access on my dsl modem. I think it saves the data locally.
Very, very cool. This thing can only get better as bandwidth improves and the companies involved get more saavy about this space.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're saturated...;)
-L
That is not the trailer that aired during Angel last night. It's a small, edited version with lots of footage from the previous trailers. I have also got morpheus waiting to share the file (if I can get it), but the trailer you have posted, while new, is not the /awesome/ one from last night.
I agree, people should grab morpheus and get this thing going peer to peer.
Found some info on their service. Can't quite determine what's tech-talk and what's marketing-speak, but maybe someone else can digest this and offer opinions.
http://www.intonet.com/tech/platform.htm
-UT
Dude. As far as difficulty settings are concerned, I was checking out the service, not trying to prove that I'm a 'l33t qu4k3 d00d' (which I am...*wink*). I agree that 72 hours won't work for many games (RPG's are a good example.) I spent over 200 hours on FFVII over a couple monthes when it came out.
/needed/ to on my HD. Saints be praised!
But it's so obvious that the people who built the service understand that there are many different pricing models. I didn't mention it in my first post in detail, but one of the links on the service page (the link said "my stuff") was "Manage Subscriptions", so it seems that someone there is aware that people may want to play this stuff for more than a weekend. I didn't see any options to subscribe to anything, but like most new things, they're probably just trying out different pricing schemes, or maybe Electronics Boutique only wants video-tape-like rentals. The service has been up for what? A couple days? You can bet it's going to change as more people use it and the companies involved get more feedback. (If they're smart, they're reading this and any other forum where people are yacking about it.)
It would be awesome if I could subscribe to a piece of software and if a patch came out I wouldn't have to do anything, it just updates automatically. The service provider has to worry about updating their content, but I don't have to keep track of patches.
This is a good idea. Like I said in my first post, I'll always pay more for simplicity and convenience, and I think I'm an average user. Sure there was a time when I was a hardcore gamer, and wanted to get into the guts of my system and hand-hack everything to optimum perfection. I've overclocked and bios hacked, and hex edited games for fun and profit, but these days I've got other things on my mind and don't want to spend my time managing all that. I think the people behind this know that most of us want something that just works and doesn't need to be managed.
Imagine what would happen if you could use more than games on this system. Imagine if there was a link on my online banking service where I could fire up Quicken, or MS-Money. That would be sweet! I could telecommute to work and not have to install any apps beforehand since they'll just stream down to my PC as I need them. IT people might love this! Sure makes setting up a PC easy.
Good god! [Insert huge gasp] What would the world come to if I could use only the parts of MS-office that are actually useful?!?! Since I never actually use 95% of the menu options, does that mean that I'll never stream them down to my machine? This could mean that MS-office wouldn't take up any more room that it
They're almost banking on the laziness of the average user...not a bad bet in my book. *grin*
-UT
Performance was good. It does require some patience if you're bandwidth impared though. I beleive it's caching.
I only tried one game so far.
-UT
Think about this:
/want/ broadband. I bought net access to get on the web and get email. I bet lots of people will get broadband to run software over the net. Software companies will probably love it. When your one year contract for WinXP expires, you get disconnected till you pay for it again. It has good and bad overtones, but it'll probably drive broadband sales, which in turn will drive broadband research since capacity is desperately needed and everyone will win. (Hopefully...let me remain the optimist.)
Electronics Boutique is the company offering the games, but obviously Into Netoworks is the company providing the service. Who else is going to join up? Probably more than just game companies. I wouldn't be surprised if more websites start showing up that use this "IntoPlayer". I don't think they're leaving modem users behind at all. The entire world seems to be headed for broadband. This stuff is exactly what makes everyone
-UT
Tried it out ($5...big deal I'll always pay more for convenience). The verdict: Not 100% perfect at my bandwidth (540kb adsl) but very /very/ cool.
Purchase Details:
You start at EB's Flash driven site, and when you rent you get a HUGE license agreement. After you agree you bounce to a site the has the game ("Serious Sam", a fp-shooter in my case) and a link to download the "IntoPlayer" (Funky power button logo combined with the letter "I"). I downloaded the player from "www.intonetworks.com" (feels like the RealPlayer without all the "Big Brother is watching" corporate schtick,) and it bounced me back to the game page. The button that had said to get the player now displayed a rental offer for $4.99 for 72 hours. There wasa link for me to check "System requirement" which ran some test that told me that I had directX 7 installed and that everything was cool. I clicked the offer and paid my money (Visa, and I had to create an account, so I assume this will facilitate future purchases.) After some processing it sent me to a page that had a play button, there was also a link to "My Titles" and various account managment links. It looks like you can maintain a library of software online.
Play Details:
When you click the play button, the IntoPlayer comes up and a bunch of message zipped past in a little dialog, then a progress bar and timer told me that my title would be ready in 20 minutes. It was bringing down about 90 meg of the game (so says the progress bar) and the game would start when the transfer finished. There was a check box you could select to make the game ask you before starting up. 25 minutes later (close enough estimate for me) the game started up. Everything seemed normal. I did notice on subsequent runs of the game that the loading time was almost nil...caching?
I couldn't tell any difference between playing a game locally and playing it this way except for load times. The games was level based, and at each new level there was about 2 minutes of load time. I suppose this would change if I had more bandwidth. The actual in game play was superb! I finished the game (on the easy setting) this morning and have about 36 hours left on my rental. Pretty sweet for $5! Load times are a small price to pay for not shelling out $60 for a game you'll finish in a weekend.
This has awesome potential. It's convenient and simple. I like not having to screw with installations.
Other notes: There's some sort of caching going on. I Saved multiple times, and when I went back to an old save there was almost no access on my dsl modem. I think it saves the data locally.
Very, very cool. This thing can only get better as bandwidth improves and the companies involved get more saavy about this space.
-UT