Which is interesting in that Age of Empires is loosely (very loosely) based on Civilization, which in turn was based on a board game called "Civilization". So it really has gone from board game, to computer game, back to board game. I know this from working on Age of Empires and with Bruce Shelley myself.
You mean like a DISCover or a PC with a DVI or TV-OUT? Or even a HTPC? Hey, the technology is already here ready for you to take advantage of it. There's no need to wait for someone to build you a box when you can go out and build it yourself for possibily less. Or just drag your existing computer and hook it up to your television. Or grab a used laptop and use the TV output.
Need older games? Just visit the many abandonware sites on the net. Can't beat free games. The whole point is everything you describe can be had more or less right now and inexpensively.
This was settled in court ages ago. What are you going to do? Put Ebay, Blockbuster, flea markets, Goodwill and used car lots out of business as well?
It's pretty much a consumer's right to sell, trade in or do whatever he wants to his purchase. It's not like game publishers also don't get into this as well. How else do you explain the collector's editions, multiple covers, numbered boxes and special editions? Sorry, but the crying towel for this subject was used long, long ago.
I've seen so many posts get this wrong that I had to step in. The first 3D engine that used all three planes in game play was Ultima Underworld in 1992.
I thought games were mostly clear on morality. Aliens invading earth are bad. Zombies eating my flesh is bad. Portals to hell are bad. Nazis are bad. Hitler is especially bad. Orc invasions are bad. Evil King Liches are evil and bad.
Almost all video games with a storyline are basic good vs. evil stories. A very small minority fit into the "being bad is good" catagory and those games are rated M by the ESRB and targeted for adults only. Why is a nine year-old being allowed to play such a game is the real question. And since when did Link defeating Gannon, the Avatar saving Britannia, Mario saving the Princess from Bowser and saving Black Mesa from an alien invasion become morally ambiguous?
This is a personal message to Wil Wright. I hear you have a rather large collection of small regtangular green colored pieces of paper. This collection was a result of having so many big selling games. As a friend, I'd be more than willing to help you uncollect these pieces of paper. Please email and we'll set something up!
I equate it with another sci-movie series. Braga fell underneath the dark spell of Darth Berman. Together they have ruled the Star Trek galaxy with an iron fist.
As far as the facts go, you're right in that more time is needed to see where this current direction is heading. It's not like I'm trying to find something wrong with it, it's just I've never had much faith in their business plan; going where so many others have gone in the past and utterly failed.
But isn't not having content something wrong? I think that pretty much everyone can agree that the hardware is secondary to the content available to the system. If the Phantom was able to secure several AAA titles to the system, then I'd be all for it. E3 might be able to change that. I see Infinium having immense obstacles to overcome in securing this content. They have six months to line up titles and produce game catalogs. It's going to come down to content, content, content.
>Derr. They had it profesionally photographed.
Actually, professionally Photoshopped. Look at the metadata for the jpgs and you'll see they were at the very least cleaned up in PS 7.0.
As for the money, technically you're right. Get past the press release and FUD, you're paying $720 to get a free console. So what you're really paying is ~$22 rather than $30. That subscription fee is paying for access to the network and some free games. You're forgetting that there are premium games that cost extra. That Doom 3 release isn't going to be part of the subscription fee. It's going to cost you extra.
So yeah, if you're into Tetris or solitare or Yahoo! Games, those games are part of the $30 package. The Unreal Tournaments, Doom3 and Half-Live 2 games are going to be quite a bit more... on increasingly dated hardware. Those savings are quickly disappearing.
That's $30 for regular content. The premium games of the Quake and Half-Life ilk would be extra. It sounds less and less like a good deal when you add it up over time.
There's always more to the story, and especially in this case. Lawsuits, criminal backgrounds, past failed ventures... it goes on and on. Whereisphantom.com and HardOCP have been leading the investigations into Infinium Labs. If you want to get more than press release information, then you should check out these sites.
I've just got to tweak your post a bit. The "two kinds of hard" that you are describing are actually two schools of game design; logic and reflex. The degree to which they are implemented is difficulty.
Logic puzzles can be extremely simple to just bizarrely difficult. An example of simple logic in a game is a dark room with a switch on the wall. Turn on the switch you have light. Insane logic would be to coat the switch with peanut butter then hold out a ferral squirrel with tongs so the rabid rodent flips the switch. Reflex puzzles mostly involve timing and key combinations. Occasionally they can be mixed with simple logic puzzles to focus in on key areas, such as a glowing spot on an enemy to show their weak spot.
A game will fail when it fails to scale appropriately for the player or the logic used to arrive at an answer is actually in fact, illogical. You are absolutely correct when you state that often a player has to "brute force" his way to a solution. Proper game design shouldn't give an answer away, but instead offer enough clues along the way to offer a solution. Infocom games, while extremely difficult, were possible to solve because enough context and clues were given to solve any puzzle. Riven was horrible for just dumping a puzzle in front of a player and walking away without any explaination.
In the end, you want the player to use his reasoning and increased knowledge of button skill to solve the challenges in the game. It's often too easy to toss out a kick to the crotch to a player by using insane logic or immpossible foes. Difficulty comes through design, not through tricked up foes and puzzles.
If anything, it shows that the handheld market is the most unstable, most frustrating gaming market. For something that seems to be a homerun, the market chews up new entries and kills product left and right. Simply amazing when you think about how just one platform (the Gameboy incarnations) has stayed around for so long and been so popular.
Everyone is different, but you have to admit that there's a deficency when it comes to QoL (Quality of Life) in the video game industry. Part of it is self-destructive; the built-in drive that seems to exist in the soul of game developers to work long hours. Those long hours eventually catch up to you as deminishing returns.
Do you remember the time when I pulled a 36 hour shift at Ensemble? (It's been several years.) Sure, I got a lot of work done but at the end the quality suffered and it took me time to recover. Developers putting in regular 80 hour weeks on average have buggier code, which then requires even more time to fix.
The other half is management. During Age of Empires 2, Harter Ryan did this milestone schedule of nine weeks normal, four weeks crunch time. Sounded good at the time, but what happened is that everyone slacked for those nine weeks knowing that they could catch up during crunch time. Crunch time ended up being six weeks. Then the nine weeks of regular time ended up being compressed on the next milestone so it got progressively worse. It was absolutely murder on me and my family (with a brand new baby in the house). I ended up leaving the company because of burnout and the time commitment that I couldn't give to the company anymore.
I know that there comes a time when you just *have* to give extra time to a project. I'm in one know that's caused me to miss a week of trivia (there'll be some today) but my present company figured out a way around it. Instead of everyone working 16 hour shifts, they divided everyone into three shifts working eight hours. We get 24-hour coverage, but everyone is always rested and working. It won't work for every situation and company, but it's a new option.
Commitment for quality is commendable and even desirable. There's a big problem in this industry with QoL. There is a lot of truth to the sterotype of a game developer being male, overweight, smelling and having a wardrobe only of T-Shirts and shorts. As a whole, the industry needs to focus on improving QoL for it's employees and make large leaps in labor areas.
I'd place bets that the PSP will greatly outdo the DS. If it didn't have the Nintendo name attached to it, the DS would be dead in the water. The DS won't enjoy the third-party support the PSP will and the DS indirectly competes with the GBA.
I feel the marketplace wants to find a good competitor to Nintendo in the handheld market. The PSP is currently the best shot in a long line of failed other attempts.
I'll play devil's advocate. I can totally understand why Gearbox doesn't want a several hundred person beta test to manage. Better to handle a small group of people and concentrate on game design and programming issues rather than handle dozens of people with bizarre system configurations. They need to concentrate their resources on developing, programming and fixing rather than managing testers. That the entire reason why Microsoft has such a large group of testers.
Most developers have their own internal testers anyway and it's easier to control. It was a Microsoft tester that leaked a beta of Age of Empires 2 to the internet. (I should know, I was QA Lead at Ensemble at the time.)
Overall, I was extremely pleased with the help Microsoft gave us during testing. The developer and publisher need to work together to ensure a quality product. I still remember with pride when Stuart announced that Age of Empires had the fewest reported bugs out of any Microsoft published product. I'm getting a bit off track. I really don't think that Gearbox, dispite any development or management problems, is deliberately flipping off Microsoft. If you look at it from a developer perspective, they actually have some good reasons for doing what they did.
Ahem, Sandy has done more than just do Quake. He's done fantastic work at Ensemble Studios, almost single-handedly designing the Rise of Rome expansion pack. He knows games inside-and-out. Yeah, I'm biased since I worked with him at ES but don't sell him short. He's a fantastic human being and one of the best designers in the business.
It seems like the fanboi and press seems to forget that E3 isn't about publicity or awards. It's about selling games to brick and mortar stores. The real stories of the show don't happen on the convention floor, but in the meeting rooms on the second floor.
John Callahan of HomeLAN Fed is missing the point. E3 is to games like ShoWest is to movies. Hey, everyone knows that the games aren't finished yet. It's the entire point of having E3; pitch your unfinished game to retailers in hopes of having it finished in time for the Christmas buying season. If all the games were finished, there would be no need for E3. Sheesh, everyone knows that the E3 awards are based on impressions made on the journalists and public. The real awards that count are the IAIAA awards or whatever they're calling themselves now.
Like my bud Greg Kasavin at Gamespot said in his editorial, these games are often at the show two years in a row. Is it stressful? Well yeah, because you're working not only to impress the buyers but other developers at the show. The years I worked at Microsoft's booth at E3, we did our best to impress the press but we worked harder to impress the guys from Blizzard who wandered over to see our game. (And vice-versa). E3 is what it is. Personally I think HomeLan Fed is complaining about nothing and this year's E3 is no less stressful than any other year.
That "farm" smell seems to reek of Interplay trying to get this on a console somehow. I'm not sure if I would touch this project. It's got "disappointment" written all over it.
It would be better if they bundled the pricing with an option to purchase the song as well. Chances are that if I want to know the name of the song, I would buy it as well. A buck for the name of the song and buying it becomes a value to me.
Only the petition was filed. No depositions or supporting documents were entered as evidence. If the settlement goes through and Terry Nagy signs a NDA then he will be little help to the [H]ardocp case. No one really knows what information he has or what help he can be other than possibly supporting the initials claims against Tim Roberts.
That being said, I do know that the [H] lawyers have copies of the original petition and only erodes Infinium's current claims in court.
While I'm at it, there is the small beginnings of an organized protest against IL at E3. Where is Phantom?? is encouraging people to wear this T-Shirt at the convention as a way of supporting free speech. You have to see the back to really understand.
No need to wait a few weeks. Gearbox is having their 5th Year Anniversary Party in Dallas this Saturday. They'll make the announcement then. Just got my invitation in my inbox the other day.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is interesting in that Age of Empires is loosely (very loosely) based on Civilization, which in turn was based on a board game called "Civilization". So it really has gone from board game, to computer game, back to board game. I know this from working on Age of Empires and with Bruce Shelley myself.
You mean like a DISCover or a PC with a DVI or TV-OUT? Or even a HTPC? Hey, the technology is already here ready for you to take advantage of it. There's no need to wait for someone to build you a box when you can go out and build it yourself for possibily less. Or just drag your existing computer and hook it up to your television. Or grab a used laptop and use the TV output. Need older games? Just visit the many abandonware sites on the net. Can't beat free games. The whole point is everything you describe can be had more or less right now and inexpensively.
This was settled in court ages ago. What are you going to do? Put Ebay, Blockbuster, flea markets, Goodwill and used car lots out of business as well? It's pretty much a consumer's right to sell, trade in or do whatever he wants to his purchase. It's not like game publishers also don't get into this as well. How else do you explain the collector's editions, multiple covers, numbered boxes and special editions? Sorry, but the crying towel for this subject was used long, long ago.
I've seen so many posts get this wrong that I had to step in. The first 3D engine that used all three planes in game play was Ultima Underworld in 1992.
Almost all video games with a storyline are basic good vs. evil stories. A very small minority fit into the "being bad is good" catagory and those games are rated M by the ESRB and targeted for adults only. Why is a nine year-old being allowed to play such a game is the real question. And since when did Link defeating Gannon, the Avatar saving Britannia, Mario saving the Princess from Bowser and saving Black Mesa from an alien invasion become morally ambiguous?
This is a personal message to Wil Wright. I hear you have a rather large collection of small regtangular green colored pieces of paper. This collection was a result of having so many big selling games. As a friend, I'd be more than willing to help you uncollect these pieces of paper. Please email and we'll set something up!
I equate it with another sci-movie series. Braga fell underneath the dark spell of Darth Berman. Together they have ruled the Star Trek galaxy with an iron fist.
Renew Enterprise. Cancel Berman and Braga.
But isn't not having content something wrong? I think that pretty much everyone can agree that the hardware is secondary to the content available to the system. If the Phantom was able to secure several AAA titles to the system, then I'd be all for it. E3 might be able to change that. I see Infinium having immense obstacles to overcome in securing this content. They have six months to line up titles and produce game catalogs. It's going to come down to content, content, content.
As for the money, technically you're right. Get past the press release and FUD, you're paying $720 to get a free console. So what you're really paying is ~$22 rather than $30. That subscription fee is paying for access to the network and some free games. You're forgetting that there are premium games that cost extra. That Doom 3 release isn't going to be part of the subscription fee. It's going to cost you extra.
So yeah, if you're into Tetris or solitare or Yahoo! Games, those games are part of the $30 package. The Unreal Tournaments, Doom3 and Half-Live 2 games are going to be quite a bit more... on increasingly dated hardware. Those savings are quickly disappearing.
That's $30 for regular content. The premium games of the Quake and Half-Life ilk would be extra. It sounds less and less like a good deal when you add it up over time.
There's always more to the story, and especially in this case. Lawsuits, criminal backgrounds, past failed ventures... it goes on and on. Whereisphantom.com and HardOCP have been leading the investigations into Infinium Labs. If you want to get more than press release information, then you should check out these sites.
Logic puzzles can be extremely simple to just bizarrely difficult. An example of simple logic in a game is a dark room with a switch on the wall. Turn on the switch you have light. Insane logic would be to coat the switch with peanut butter then hold out a ferral squirrel with tongs so the rabid rodent flips the switch. Reflex puzzles mostly involve timing and key combinations. Occasionally they can be mixed with simple logic puzzles to focus in on key areas, such as a glowing spot on an enemy to show their weak spot.
A game will fail when it fails to scale appropriately for the player or the logic used to arrive at an answer is actually in fact, illogical. You are absolutely correct when you state that often a player has to "brute force" his way to a solution. Proper game design shouldn't give an answer away, but instead offer enough clues along the way to offer a solution. Infocom games, while extremely difficult, were possible to solve because enough context and clues were given to solve any puzzle. Riven was horrible for just dumping a puzzle in front of a player and walking away without any explaination.
In the end, you want the player to use his reasoning and increased knowledge of button skill to solve the challenges in the game. It's often too easy to toss out a kick to the crotch to a player by using insane logic or immpossible foes. Difficulty comes through design, not through tricked up foes and puzzles.
If anything, it shows that the handheld market is the most unstable, most frustrating gaming market. For something that seems to be a homerun, the market chews up new entries and kills product left and right. Simply amazing when you think about how just one platform (the Gameboy incarnations) has stayed around for so long and been so popular.
Hey Zoid...
Everyone is different, but you have to admit that there's a deficency when it comes to QoL (Quality of Life) in the video game industry. Part of it is self-destructive; the built-in drive that seems to exist in the soul of game developers to work long hours. Those long hours eventually catch up to you as deminishing returns.
Do you remember the time when I pulled a 36 hour shift at Ensemble? (It's been several years.) Sure, I got a lot of work done but at the end the quality suffered and it took me time to recover. Developers putting in regular 80 hour weeks on average have buggier code, which then requires even more time to fix.
The other half is management. During Age of Empires 2, Harter Ryan did this milestone schedule of nine weeks normal, four weeks crunch time. Sounded good at the time, but what happened is that everyone slacked for those nine weeks knowing that they could catch up during crunch time. Crunch time ended up being six weeks. Then the nine weeks of regular time ended up being compressed on the next milestone so it got progressively worse. It was absolutely murder on me and my family (with a brand new baby in the house). I ended up leaving the company because of burnout and the time commitment that I couldn't give to the company anymore.
I know that there comes a time when you just *have* to give extra time to a project. I'm in one know that's caused me to miss a week of trivia (there'll be some today) but my present company figured out a way around it. Instead of everyone working 16 hour shifts, they divided everyone into three shifts working eight hours. We get 24-hour coverage, but everyone is always rested and working. It won't work for every situation and company, but it's a new option.
Commitment for quality is commendable and even desirable. There's a big problem in this industry with QoL. There is a lot of truth to the sterotype of a game developer being male, overweight, smelling and having a wardrobe only of T-Shirts and shorts. As a whole, the industry needs to focus on improving QoL for it's employees and make large leaps in labor areas.
I'd place bets that the PSP will greatly outdo the DS. If it didn't have the Nintendo name attached to it, the DS would be dead in the water. The DS won't enjoy the third-party support the PSP will and the DS indirectly competes with the GBA.
I feel the marketplace wants to find a good competitor to Nintendo in the handheld market. The PSP is currently the best shot in a long line of failed other attempts.
Most developers have their own internal testers anyway and it's easier to control. It was a Microsoft tester that leaked a beta of Age of Empires 2 to the internet. (I should know, I was QA Lead at Ensemble at the time.)
Overall, I was extremely pleased with the help Microsoft gave us during testing. The developer and publisher need to work together to ensure a quality product. I still remember with pride when Stuart announced that Age of Empires had the fewest reported bugs out of any Microsoft published product. I'm getting a bit off track. I really don't think that Gearbox, dispite any development or management problems, is deliberately flipping off Microsoft. If you look at it from a developer perspective, they actually have some good reasons for doing what they did.
Ahem, Sandy has done more than just do Quake. He's done fantastic work at Ensemble Studios, almost single-handedly designing the Rise of Rome expansion pack. He knows games inside-and-out. Yeah, I'm biased since I worked with him at ES but don't sell him short. He's a fantastic human being and one of the best designers in the business.
Hey, if that homebrew technology is as tasty as eggdrop soup or Kung Pao Chicken then I'm ready for a wok on the wild side.
John Callahan of HomeLAN Fed is missing the point. E3 is to games like ShoWest is to movies. Hey, everyone knows that the games aren't finished yet. It's the entire point of having E3; pitch your unfinished game to retailers in hopes of having it finished in time for the Christmas buying season. If all the games were finished, there would be no need for E3. Sheesh, everyone knows that the E3 awards are based on impressions made on the journalists and public. The real awards that count are the IAIAA awards or whatever they're calling themselves now.
Like my bud Greg Kasavin at Gamespot said in his editorial, these games are often at the show two years in a row. Is it stressful? Well yeah, because you're working not only to impress the buyers but other developers at the show. The years I worked at Microsoft's booth at E3, we did our best to impress the press but we worked harder to impress the guys from Blizzard who wandered over to see our game. (And vice-versa). E3 is what it is. Personally I think HomeLan Fed is complaining about nothing and this year's E3 is no less stressful than any other year.
Well, that is unless you're Infinium Labs...
That "farm" smell seems to reek of Interplay trying to get this on a console somehow. I'm not sure if I would touch this project. It's got "disappointment" written all over it.
So that big old guy dressed in white with the beard turned on "God" mode? It's all beginning to make sense now...
It would be better if they bundled the pricing with an option to purchase the song as well. Chances are that if I want to know the name of the song, I would buy it as well. A buck for the name of the song and buying it becomes a value to me.
That being said, I do know that the [H] lawyers have copies of the original petition and only erodes Infinium's current claims in court.
While I'm at it, there is the small beginnings of an organized protest against IL at E3. Where is Phantom?? is encouraging people to wear this T-Shirt at the convention as a way of supporting free speech. You have to see the back to really understand.
No need to wait a few weeks. Gearbox is having their 5th Year Anniversary Party in Dallas this Saturday. They'll make the announcement then. Just got my invitation in my inbox the other day.