Because you, the consumer, demand flashier and better graphics. Not to mention that the level of graphics we're talking about is *impossible* to implement on CPU - the GPU trounces your CPU's performance many times over for matrix math and other calculations. I really hate the generalisations of *us* the customer, since *I* don't demand flashier graphics, and most (if game companies ever bothered listening) don't either.
*WE* demand better AI and better gameplay, this is why Nethack games are still playable now, since they concentrate on the gameplay rather than the graphics.
The big problem is that those that are crying out for the flashier graphics come from a younger gaming generation that:
1) are used to being brought up on graphics from PS2's and upwards, NONE of them have played or even appreciated the older class of games, from older systems, that benefit from better gameplay.
2) thanks to the newer generation of consoles that run lower class graphics (in comaprison to high end pcs), developers spend time pushing those chips to perform high end graphic for today's gaming market.
Scalability is certainly a problem that game developers face - your game should look fairly decent even on a relatively old card, but PC gaming (especially of the 3D graphics variety) has always been an enthusiast thing. If you're not willing to buy a new $200 video card every year or so, you have no hope of keeping up. Then game devs should also still be using software renderers since they would perform admirably on low end specs. I'm not saying that's it's entirely devs fault for not doing so but since devs know (or should know) all avenues of hardware available, mainly to ensure maxiumum sales, they should cater for all markets and not just a small, and ever growing small, gaming nishe.
Read the requirements on the box! Every PC game I've ever bought has been *perfectly* clear about its video card requirements up front. After all, PC developers don't want pissed off consumers any more than you like getting disappointed when a game won't run. And seriously, if you're buying things like Lego Star Wars for your child, anything higher than a GeForce 6600 will run it buttery smooth, and that's a $50-100 card these days. I wouldn't buy a £50-100 or $50-100 card ANY day, and as a consumer I don't see why I should have to because YOU tell me, thanks to the growing divide between low-end and high-end pc's and bulls*it talking marketing PR's that know NOTHING about gaming, not only that, cheaper low end pc's are going to be bought more in the future (in the US anyways) with the ongoing recession, which means that gaming sales are going to drop even more since game devs haven't taken notice of the market as a whole.
You guy's call yourselves geeks, and all I see in the comments section is ramblings about differences in IE versions and no one mentioned the one obvious anomoly in Windows OS's compared to the respective IE versions??
In TFA:
Internet Explorer 5.50.4807.2300 (SP2) Windows XP Service Pack 2
(Multiple IE) 14%
Internet Explorer 5.50.4134.0600 Windows ME 14%
Internet Explorer 5.50.4807.2300 (SP2) Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 13%
Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13 Windows XP Service Pack 2 12%
Internet Explorer 7.0.6000.16609 Windows Vista (32-bit) 12%
Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP Service Pack 2 12%
Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 11%
Why does an older OS (Win ME), with an older version of IE5.5, perform better than W2K SP4 with the newest version of IE5.5, compared to Windows XP with the newest version of IE5.5??
That doesn't quite make sense. We all know that IE is integrated into windows OSs but if an older version of windows on the 9x version of architecture performs better than, arguably, *one* of the more better built operating systems, what does this say about both IE AND Windows OS's in general??
Secondly, why hasn't the author of TFA included which service pack of IE 6 they are using like they did with IE5.5?
At the same time, WoW is the hot new thing, a competitor to D&D like none before. This is something that WoTC should take into account, there is a BIG difference between MMORPGs and PnP RPGs. If I wanted to I could annoy, NPCs or my fellow PCs alike. I could put explosive devices in the most silly of places, I could even try and blow up the planet with careful planning. Could I do some of the already mentioned in WoW....no (with the exception of fellow PC annoying - Leeroy Jenkins take note!).
However, on a rules point, there has been *some* good come of the 4th Ed rules, but not in D&D. The new Saga Edition of Star Wars uses these rules and it makes Star Wars far more playable in terms of no pointless feats, like stupid Force Feats, and general faster gameplay thanks to the streamlined rules.
Maybe, instead of releasing a new rule set for D&D itself as a benchmark, WoTC should upgrade/make better rulesets for other games that need it and leave D&D on 3.5.
Arguably you could say that about vampire. The only difference is that it's not about the best gear, its about the best disciplines.
Still if you think that about D&D, then you've not found a good enough DM. It's not *just* the game/rules that make a game good, its the way the DM plays it. That is something which is universal in RPGs regardless of the system!
Most companies use game engines that were developed by third parties in order to reduce the need to a) hire people that are really good at the low level 3D interfaces; and b) waste huge amounts of time on an engine for a single title, thereby pushing back their prospective release date by no less than 2 years. iD is one of the few companies that makes both the engine and the game. In fact, several game engines exist that are written by companies that never produced a game themselves.
And it's these most companies that make no or little impact to advancing game technology due to using someone else's engine. Mainly as all they need is in the engine. True enough.
However, those few companies that make a stand and code the engine from the ground up will still be the companies making cutting edge games with the native 3D API.
So in all actuality, the intelligent OpenGL or DirectX user is the one that knows how to manipulate current 3D technology from the ground up without having to mod an existing engine, that may or may not work (this was one of the reasons why Duke Nukem Forever was never released - the fact that they had to keep changing engines, to keep up with the current technology, rather than write one from scratch) and not only that, writing 3D API natively also means that you don't have to worry too much about using more memory/resources than what is actually needed since you are writing the code at a low level layer, giving that performance boost and saving those other resources for extra bits, like better graphics or more in-game physics.
You're slightly wrong there. Outsourcing is contracting the work to another company within the same country, whereas offshoring is contracting the work to another company who are not from the same country.
I really don't like the idea of scientists using the term soccer shaped. Back in the UK where football (or soccer as it is referred to in the US) is something of an obsession on the whole "eat football, sleep football". Once they get word of this, there'll be no stopping them....
PC gets to use a mouse/kb and the console is stuck with a controller There have been a few of games on certain consoles that have used other things other than the controller, for example:
The Typing of the Dead for the Dreamcast used a keyboard
Sea Bass fishing games used a motion sensitive fishing rod controller
Many platforms have a dancemat
But the problem, IMHO, with developers is that when these products are available, esp keyboards and mice, they never seem to take a risk and develop games that would use them. I would love to play a flight simulator on a console (not those arcade sim's that only have some features because they were restricted by the use of a controller) with a keyboard and mouse mainly as the graphics would look quite decent and I wouldn't have to install the thing on a hard drive.
But after thinking about this, and finding out some other things about the game (e.g. that to get the best spear you have to not open 4 treasure chests in the game) WHAT???? Talk about real bad game design, how on earth is ANYONE going to know not to open 4 treasure chests for the best spear in the game (presumably, and knowing the final fantasy series, only used by one character!). If I would have played it and then read about the chests, trying to figure why I couldn't find an item that is usually found in chests at near the end of the story or fighting one of the almost end of story bosses, I would have felt really cheated and enormously annoyed at Square, they should know better!
I don't hate microsoft as such, I hate what they stand for. Their business strategies are although sound on the outlook are actually disgraceful in practice. I don't understand, fully, why microsoft will not be touched by the government.
I always have an aversion to upgrading to newer microsoft products, this is why I never upgraded from windows 95 to 98 when I was still using 95 in late 2000. Although, nowadays, win2k is fine for me and I won't be upgrading anytime soon. I have used windows 98 and XP and found them to be a load of tripe. 98 for being very unstable and crashing badly. XP being to worst, since microsoft sold it on the premise of better security and "oooh look, pretty windows"....ahem! It took them still service pack 2 to sort out some of the security problems wrong with the system - a common occurance over the last few OS's, although I can excuse windows 95 with it stepping from win16 code to win32 code!
Then I saw concepts of the vista vision and microsoft's usual of eye candy and promise of yet more better security plus a whole load of other features that have been slowly whittled away to another version of windows. The only other selling point I can see of this version of windows (vista) is that halo 2 will only play on windows vista (a very annoying fact for most including myself) due to the better features like video/media streaming exclusive to the system. I have had people say, in response to this, Why not get an xbox/360? Why should I?? It's just a strip down pc made as a console - another attempt by microsoft to corner a market for profit! IMHO I can't see Halo 2 ever being ported to the PC's (esp. Vista) mainly as microsoft's habits of saying that their release of windows has a certain amount of features and then taking them away, plus if people want to play halo 2 so badly, well why not get the 360??
I do use microsoft products for programming and gaming, and to be honest, sometimes i prefer using my pc to consoles on a gaming matter. They do have better graphics (although I'm not of those types to have grpahics over gameplay), for example, my ex-housemate had GTA 3 for his PS2 when he saw the graphics on the pc (and I was using an ATI 7000 at the time, and still am) his response was "Wow, nice graphics". PC's (graphics cards with CRT/TFT monitors) will always win over consoles (graphics chips with tv sets/plasma screens).
I've seen links on google searches that don't exist anymore but were ranked highly when they DID exist and still exist in the top 10 of the query.
What happens to those? Do they stay at their ranking till they get overtaken by other more popular pages on the same search? Get their ranking slowly reduced because they don't exist?
Companies like EA just amaze me with comments like this. What does EA expect? It goes around buying out companies to get the biggest share in the games market and wonders why costs are so high! This is what you get when you go down the corporate greed route.
This is the reason why I like the smaller companies like Ubisoft they have the corporate balls to take a risk and develop at a quality level with a descent time scale.
There was also another comment here regarding "marketing dweebs" which shows yet another example of fat cat companies squeezing the gaming market for quick cash at the expense of the comsumer market.
What's next? Outsourcing to India?? And please don't say that'd never happen especially with these companies that want to make a quick buck, with low cost, with their deluded visions of "at a better quality of service", I should know, I work for one of these types of company!
It's quite impressive how many people actually believe this tripe, though.
Its also quite impressive to find that many people were asking questions about his timeline, without realising that his 2036 would be far different from our 2036. He also mentioned that he travelled with a divergence of 1 or 2%. Now imagine two lines A and B, in an angle of, say 2 degrees, and the origin of that angle is the point that he chose to travel to (like the year 2000 he was allegedly on). John Titor's worldline is B and ours is A. The points he talks about in the future from that point refer to line B. If John Titor stayed in this worldline he would find that, as the years went by, the differences between his timeline and ours would go from being extreemely subtle to very different. This is due to the 2% divergence in worldlines as represented by a 2 degree angle with the year 2000 at point of origin.
So his "tripe" as it were, from our point of view, is exactly that!
The problem with this is that as the report says 'Giant sound waves propagated through the blazing hot matter that filled the Universe shortly after the Big Bang.' This means that the sound waves could have tried to 'escape' the infinitely curved universe and got reflected back. Now if most people remember their wave physics then when the raised part of a wave meets another raised part of a wave then it creates a bigger raised part of the wave. Similary so for the bottom parts of the wave. But when a raised part meets a bottom part the effect cancels itself out.
This recording of a deep hum sounding like 'a large jet plane flying 100 feet above your house in the middle of the night' is the probable reason for this sound i.e. the loud part is two raised parts of the wave, the bit where it sounds as though the 'plane' sound 'is directly over the house' is where a raised bit and a bottom bit meet and the last bit is were two bottom bits meet.
its not particularly stupid....for example a manufacturer could tell you that you have 150GB HD when you only have 140GB so thats 10GB missing....for some people that space is quite needed and it still comes under the trade descriptions act (resident in the United Kingdom).
hhmmm yes i kinda agree most millionaires are in it for themselves and not others. They may have money to burn but regarding safety aspects they will try and cut curbs like there is no tomorrow. The only reason why NASA cut curbs is that they don't have enough budget money allocated to them. They mainly relied on the old shuttles due to being cheaper than making new space craft.
Slashdot Mirror
*WE* demand better AI and better gameplay, this is why Nethack games are still playable now, since they concentrate on the gameplay rather than the graphics.
The big problem is that those that are crying out for the flashier graphics come from a younger gaming generation that:
1) are used to being brought up on graphics from PS2's and upwards, NONE of them have played or even appreciated the older class of games, from older systems, that benefit from better gameplay.
2) thanks to the newer generation of consoles that run lower class graphics (in comaprison to high end pcs), developers spend time pushing those chips to perform high end graphic for today's gaming market. Scalability is certainly a problem that game developers face - your game should look fairly decent even on a relatively old card, but PC gaming (especially of the 3D graphics variety) has always been an enthusiast thing. If you're not willing to buy a new $200 video card every year or so, you have no hope of keeping up. Then game devs should also still be using software renderers since they would perform admirably on low end specs. I'm not saying that's it's entirely devs fault for not doing so but since devs know (or should know) all avenues of hardware available, mainly to ensure maxiumum sales, they should cater for all markets and not just a small, and ever growing small, gaming nishe. Read the requirements on the box! Every PC game I've ever bought has been *perfectly* clear about its video card requirements up front. After all, PC developers don't want pissed off consumers any more than you like getting disappointed when a game won't run. And seriously, if you're buying things like Lego Star Wars for your child, anything higher than a GeForce 6600 will run it buttery smooth, and that's a $50-100 card these days. I wouldn't buy a £50-100 or $50-100 card ANY day, and as a consumer I don't see why I should have to because YOU tell me, thanks to the growing divide between low-end and high-end pc's and bulls*it talking marketing PR's that know NOTHING about gaming, not only that, cheaper low end pc's are going to be bought more in the future (in the US anyways) with the ongoing recession, which means that gaming sales are going to drop even more since game devs haven't taken notice of the market as a whole.
You guy's call yourselves geeks, and all I see in the comments section is ramblings about differences in IE versions and no one mentioned the one obvious anomoly in Windows OS's compared to the respective IE versions??
In TFA: Internet Explorer 5.50.4807.2300 (SP2) Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Multiple IE) 14%
Internet Explorer 5.50.4134.0600 Windows ME 14%
Internet Explorer 5.50.4807.2300 (SP2) Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 13%
Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13 Windows XP Service Pack 2 12%
Internet Explorer 7.0.6000.16609 Windows Vista (32-bit) 12%
Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP Service Pack 2 12%
Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 11%
Why does an older OS (Win ME), with an older version of IE5.5, perform better than W2K SP4 with the newest version of IE5.5, compared to Windows XP with the newest version of IE5.5??
That doesn't quite make sense. We all know that IE is integrated into windows OSs but if an older version of windows on the 9x version of architecture performs better than, arguably, *one* of the more better built operating systems, what does this say about both IE AND Windows OS's in general??
Secondly, why hasn't the author of TFA included which service pack of IE 6 they are using like they did with IE5.5?
However, on a rules point, there has been *some* good come of the 4th Ed rules, but not in D&D. The new Saga Edition of Star Wars uses these rules and it makes Star Wars far more playable in terms of no pointless feats, like stupid Force Feats, and general faster gameplay thanks to the streamlined rules.
Maybe, instead of releasing a new rule set for D&D itself as a benchmark, WoTC should upgrade/make better rulesets for other games that need it and leave D&D on 3.5.
Arguably you could say that about vampire. The only difference is that it's not about the best gear, its about the best disciplines.
Still if you think that about D&D, then you've not found a good enough DM. It's not *just* the game/rules that make a game good, its the way the DM plays it. That is something which is universal in RPGs regardless of the system!
Even if the rules are largely unplayable you could just take bits that you do like from the new system and incorporate them into, say 3rd Ed.
I know of someone that did that for Vampire: The Masquerade, as he didn't like the majority of the new Vampire: Requiem.
As for the roleplayers, well, no matter how flexible the system for power gaming is, a good rolepler will always roleplay regardless.
For example (and a poor, but funny one):
DM: "This is the worlds largest dungeon and the door is here"
PC: *Thinks*
PC *Walks to the door and knocks*: "DUNGEON INSPECTION!"
*Goblin opens the door*
PC: "We wanna see your traps and treasure"
Broke the DM's adventure? yes
Roleplayed? Oh yeah!
However, those few companies that make a stand and code the engine from the ground up will still be the companies making cutting edge games with the native 3D API.
So in all actuality, the intelligent OpenGL or DirectX user is the one that knows how to manipulate current 3D technology from the ground up without having to mod an existing engine, that may or may not work (this was one of the reasons why Duke Nukem Forever was never released - the fact that they had to keep changing engines, to keep up with the current technology, rather than write one from scratch) and not only that, writing 3D API natively also means that you don't have to worry too much about using more memory/resources than what is actually needed since you are writing the code at a low level layer, giving that performance boost and saving those other resources for extra bits, like better graphics or more in-game physics.
15% human at a cellular level??
hhhmmm...I wonder by how many percent you'd have to be in order to qualify for human rights??
I bet there's no upper or lower bound limits....
You're slightly wrong there. Outsourcing is contracting the work to another company within the same country, whereas offshoring is contracting the work to another company who are not from the same country.
I really don't like the idea of scientists using the term soccer shaped. Back in the UK where football (or soccer as it is referred to in the US) is something of an obsession on the whole "eat football, sleep football". Once they get word of this, there'll be no stopping them....
I can now see through all your comments!
...myspace, and the governments wouldn't argue, what with the almost constant maintainence going on there disallowing many users to log in....
I don't hate microsoft as such, I hate what they stand for. Their business strategies are although sound on the outlook are actually disgraceful in practice. I don't understand, fully, why microsoft will not be touched by the government.
I always have an aversion to upgrading to newer microsoft products, this is why I never upgraded from windows 95 to 98 when I was still using 95 in late 2000. Although, nowadays, win2k is fine for me and I won't be upgrading anytime soon. I have used windows 98 and XP and found them to be a load of tripe. 98 for being very unstable and crashing badly. XP being to worst, since microsoft sold it on the premise of better security and "oooh look, pretty windows"....ahem! It took them still service pack 2 to sort out some of the security problems wrong with the system - a common occurance over the last few OS's, although I can excuse windows 95 with it stepping from win16 code to win32 code!
Then I saw concepts of the vista vision and microsoft's usual of eye candy and promise of yet more better security plus a whole load of other features that have been slowly whittled away to another version of windows. The only other selling point I can see of this version of windows (vista) is that halo 2 will only play on windows vista (a very annoying fact for most including myself) due to the better features like video/media streaming exclusive to the system. I have had people say, in response to this, Why not get an xbox/360? Why should I?? It's just a strip down pc made as a console - another attempt by microsoft to corner a market for profit! IMHO I can't see Halo 2 ever being ported to the PC's (esp. Vista) mainly as microsoft's habits of saying that their release of windows has a certain amount of features and then taking them away, plus if people want to play halo 2 so badly, well why not get the 360??
I do use microsoft products for programming and gaming, and to be honest, sometimes i prefer using my pc to consoles on a gaming matter. They do have better graphics (although I'm not of those types to have grpahics over gameplay), for example, my ex-housemate had GTA 3 for his PS2 when he saw the graphics on the pc (and I was using an ATI 7000 at the time, and still am) his response was "Wow, nice graphics". PC's (graphics cards with CRT/TFT monitors) will always win over consoles (graphics chips with tv sets/plasma screens).
GOD DAMMIT Bones! I need you!!
I'm a doctor Jim, not a cartoon!
I've seen links on google searches that don't exist anymore but were ranked highly when they DID exist and still exist in the top 10 of the query. What happens to those? Do they stay at their ranking till they get overtaken by other more popular pages on the same search? Get their ranking slowly reduced because they don't exist?
Porn has no quality (just cheese ;p) and is very popular!
I'd love to see pageranking's on those every month!
Companies like EA just amaze me with comments like this. What does EA expect? It goes around buying out companies to get the biggest share in the games market and wonders why costs are so high! This is what you get when you go down the corporate greed route.
This is the reason why I like the smaller companies like Ubisoft they have the corporate balls to take a risk and develop at a quality level with a descent time scale.
There was also another comment here regarding "marketing dweebs" which shows yet another example of fat cat companies squeezing the gaming market for quick cash at the expense of the comsumer market.
What's next? Outsourcing to India?? And please don't say that'd never happen especially with these companies that want to make a quick buck, with low cost, with their deluded visions of "at a better quality of service", I should know, I work for one of these types of company!
It's quite impressive how many people actually believe this tripe, though.
Its also quite impressive to find that many people were asking questions about his timeline, without realising that his 2036 would be far different from our 2036. He also mentioned that he travelled with a divergence of 1 or 2%. Now imagine two lines A and B, in an angle of, say 2 degrees, and the origin of that angle is the point that he chose to travel to (like the year 2000 he was allegedly on). John Titor's worldline is B and ours is A. The points he talks about in the future from that point refer to line B. If John Titor stayed in this worldline he would find that, as the years went by, the differences between his timeline and ours would go from being extreemely subtle to very different. This is due to the 2% divergence in worldlines as represented by a 2 degree angle with the year 2000 at point of origin.
So his "tripe" as it were, from our point of view, is exactly that!
Windows Vista: The DNF Edition!
The problem with this is that as the report says 'Giant sound waves propagated through the blazing hot matter that filled the Universe shortly after the Big Bang.' This means that the sound waves could have tried to 'escape' the infinitely curved universe and got reflected back. Now if most people remember their wave physics then when the raised part of a wave meets another raised part of a wave then it creates a bigger raised part of the wave. Similary so for the bottom parts of the wave. But when a raised part meets a bottom part the effect cancels itself out.
This recording of a deep hum sounding like 'a large jet plane flying 100 feet above your house in the middle of the night' is the probable reason for this sound i.e. the loud part is two raised parts of the wave, the bit where it sounds as though the 'plane' sound 'is directly over the house' is where a raised bit and a bottom bit meet and the last bit is were two bottom bits meet.
its not particularly stupid....for example a manufacturer could tell you that you have 150GB HD when you only have 140GB so thats 10GB missing....for some people that space is quite needed and it still comes under the trade descriptions act (resident in the United Kingdom).
hhmmm yes i kinda agree most millionaires are in it for themselves and not others. They may have money to burn but regarding safety aspects they will try and cut curbs like there is no tomorrow. The only reason why NASA cut curbs is that they don't have enough budget money allocated to them. They mainly relied on the old shuttles due to being cheaper than making new space craft.
looks like the japanese are trying to acquire western space technology so they can dominate the 'market' - again!