And this is exactly why Nintendo is not playing the "HD" game this time around...not enough people will be able to take advantage of it to make the expenditure worthwhile.
Well, since there hasn't been anything like it before, it would be Revolutionary by definition. However, I think that it will be a little while before we can really make any intelligent conclusion on the matter as it is still way to early in the development cycle for any kind of "review" to be valid. What, with one game and one demo as all that is available? Too soon.
Agreed. I have seen mentioned that the launch price of the Ageia card would be around $250 - $299. Counter that with the upwards of $699 that some GPU's are going for and the Ageia solution starts looking a lot more enticing. Especially since Ageia has said flatly that they haven't even approached the ceiling of their hardware yet. After they release, they will spend their time working on inproving the drivers and incorporating more and more effects into the h/w engine. Ageia has said that their product should support at least as many "boulders" as nVidia is touting, but at half the cost.
You can d/l quicktime separate from iTunes...you just need to look a little harder for the link. Try this: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone .html . the other option that I have used if you don't want iTunes, is to open the iTunes installer with Winrar, and just extract the quicktime installer from it. The quicktime installer is called separately from the iTunes installer, so extracting/running it separate from the rest of the app works just fine.
For the most part, I was using my office PC as an example of the fact that a lot of OEM's shovel these configs on as many people as they can. If you like, you can substitute me with Joe College who doesn't know much about computers and wants something "good".
With regards to your question about spending money on something that has no need to be faster, I answer you this: To keep it in a similar generation support-wise as the rest of the computer. I had need to update the video drivers for a different computer that I support in order to properly run a presentation (Something about video overlay, as I recall), only to find that the video driver hadn't been updated in the two years since we got the computer, while all the other components had drivers that were not more than 3 - 4 months old. Sure I can go out and find *new* drivers from ATi or nVidia, but if my user wants/needs some of the functionality built into the VAR version (granted this is more prevalent with notebook graphics, but the same argument can be made for them), I'm SOL.
Basically, my gripe is that as these machines age, the video cards reach the end of their "Product Lifecycle" YEARS before the rest of the components, which makes supporting them increasingly difficult. I remember on previous generation machines that I've had to support, trying to find working Rage IIc drivers in order to install windows 2000 on a machine that should have otherwise been able to run it just fine. PCIe is the only thing that is just now starting to force these OEMs to start upgrading what they put in.
Aside from all that, during lunch and off hours, yes, I am allowed to game. You'd be surprised at how decent Guild Wars looks on a 6 year old graphics card that isn't even officially supported by them for the game. In my opinion, though, that's more a testament to the engineers at Arena.Net.
I say this can be a good thing. We'll finally either:
A) Get some decent integrated graphics systems (or see NForce boards take off in popularity)
or
B) See big computer retailers putting at least adequate graphics cards into their base systems.
Good god do I hope that point 'B' starts happening. Right now my office computer is running a 2.8Ghz P4 with a 6 year old 32MB video card... Don't understand how OEM's (Read: Dell) can get away with that crap.
"We are getting close to release and some have been wondering about a manual. Will the game come with a manual and if so, how detailed will it be?
The game will have not one but two manuals. The first manual will come in the box. I've seen the final proofs and I can honestly say - hand on heart - it's the most beautiful game manual I've ever seen. It's really like a collector's book, with a ton of lore and back story and images of all types, from renders to concept art to screenshots. With this manual, you'll really become immersed in the story of Guild Wars, and you'll know a lot about how the world came to be and who the important personages are in Tyria. It will provide the sort of information that helps you feel an emotional connection to the storyline, and a realization of your essential role in propelling that story forward.
But there's more. In addition to the full-colour printed manual, there will also be a complete online manual. I don't know exactly how that will look, yet, but I know from talking to our excellent writing team that it will be a very useful tool for learning the essential gameplay elements. You will consult the online manual if you need a quick guide to the default hotkeys. You'll consult the printed manual if you want to know the story behind why Rurik keeps impulsively charging ahead and getting himself into trouble. (I have a feeling it was a blow to the head in his youth.;) ) With these two manuals, you will find that you have both the history and the future of Guild Wars, combined. "
Re:For anyone who is sick and tired of MMORPGs...
on
Guild Wars Launches
·
· Score: 1
But, if after a year, they both go down, with Guild Wars, I'll be out $50, but the WoW player will be out over $200. Neither of us will be able to play, but I guarantee you the WoW player is going to be a lot more pissed than the GW player because of the investment.
Re:For anyone who is sick and tired of MMORPGs...
on
Guild Wars Launches
·
· Score: 1
Don't forget that there are also some GvG areas that offer competition between 6 (I believe)8-member teams at once.
Yeah, but in all the recent buyout/selloff attempts for VU's games division, the main reason (IIRC) VU keeps saying no, is that the buyers just want to buy Blizzard, and not the rest of the drek. If they have that kind of interest outside in the corporate world, if they ever did get tired of VU, they could probably negotiate a similar exit strategy to Valve's.
Not trying to troll. Realistically, the dual G4 would be next in line on the upgrade path for the notebooks, but to be honest, none of the people I know would ever need to use it longer than that on battery. The only place that you'd need more is on long flights, and for the kind of work that is most likely (watching DVDs), throttle everything down to low power usage mode, if you need more bat time.
I wouldn't be suprised if the distributor (Vivendi) has made sure contractually that Blizzard can't do this. Look at the legal fiasco when Valve offered direct sales of HL2. Direct distribution cuts into the distributors profits. They don't like it when you do that.
Yeah, but with Valve (same distributor) I can have my key transferred to another account for a $10 fee if I decide to sell the game. That method is not that unreasonable....this is.
If it was reuseable you don't think it would get passed around on the net or something. I doubt any company wants to sell 1 copy per 100 people using it.
Yeah but it's trivial to make sure that only 1 person can be using the key/account at a time... Hell, even Microsoft figured that out with their product activation.
The fact that Blizzard has to maintain persistent servers in order for people to play this game means that they have an ongoing cost above the cost of developing the game. Now with the old battle.net, this wasn't a big deal. Although still an ongoing cost, the servers only had to dish out random numbers for monsters and store character files. Servers for an MMORPG have to pass much more traffic and store much more information, in addition to needing more processor power to maintain the game world. The monthly cost goes to keep the servers running and probably help defray the cost of updates/patches, etc.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect people to purchase the game (to cover the costs of development) as well as pay a monthly subscription (for the use of the servers).
No, the unreasonable part is that they are profiting at the front (box sales) and are PROFITING AGAIN at the back. I GUARANTEE YOU it does not cost $4.5 million (conservatively... 300,000 x $15) per month to maintain those servers.
He said matinee, though. Is $10.50 your evening price or your matinee? If that is your matinee price, I shudder at the thought of what a full priced evening ticket might cost.
Slashdot Mirror
I totally misread that title as Street Fighting Robot Chicken. Imagine my disappointment upon opening it.
And this is exactly why Nintendo is not playing the "HD" game this time around...not enough people will be able to take advantage of it to make the expenditure worthwhile.
That would be cool. An Anti-Slashdot Effect Hardware Accellerator!! Sign me up!
Well, since there hasn't been anything like it before, it would be Revolutionary by definition. However, I think that it will be a little while before we can really make any intelligent conclusion on the matter as it is still way to early in the development cycle for any kind of "review" to be valid. What, with one game and one demo as all that is available? Too soon.
Agreed. I have seen mentioned that the launch price of the Ageia card would be around $250 - $299. Counter that with the upwards of $699 that some GPU's are going for and the Ageia solution starts looking a lot more enticing. Especially since Ageia has said flatly that they haven't even approached the ceiling of their hardware yet. After they release, they will spend their time working on inproving the drivers and incorporating more and more effects into the h/w engine. Ageia has said that their product should support at least as many "boulders" as nVidia is touting, but at half the cost.
Sign me up for Ageia, please.
You can d/l quicktime separate from iTunes...you just need to look a little harder for the link. Try this: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone .html . the other option that I have used if you don't want iTunes, is to open the iTunes installer with Winrar, and just extract the quicktime installer from it. The quicktime installer is called separately from the iTunes installer, so extracting/running it separate from the rest of the app works just fine.
If you're worried about quality, you can always rip it to FLAC for play at home and make mp3 copies from the flac as needed for portability.
Wasteland FTW!! That was, I think, the first game I actually finished, and was it a long ride. I hear they did a remake of it.
For the most part, I was using my office PC as an example of the fact that a lot of OEM's shovel these configs on as many people as they can. If you like, you can substitute me with Joe College who doesn't know much about computers and wants something "good".
With regards to your question about spending money on something that has no need to be faster, I answer you this: To keep it in a similar generation support-wise as the rest of the computer. I had need to update the video drivers for a different computer that I support in order to properly run a presentation (Something about video overlay, as I recall), only to find that the video driver hadn't been updated in the two years since we got the computer, while all the other components had drivers that were not more than 3 - 4 months old. Sure I can go out and find *new* drivers from ATi or nVidia, but if my user wants/needs some of the functionality built into the VAR version (granted this is more prevalent with notebook graphics, but the same argument can be made for them), I'm SOL.
Basically, my gripe is that as these machines age, the video cards reach the end of their "Product Lifecycle" YEARS before the rest of the components, which makes supporting them increasingly difficult. I remember on previous generation machines that I've had to support, trying to find working Rage IIc drivers in order to install windows 2000 on a machine that should have otherwise been able to run it just fine. PCIe is the only thing that is just now starting to force these OEMs to start upgrading what they put in.
Aside from all that, during lunch and off hours, yes, I am allowed to game. You'd be surprised at how decent Guild Wars looks on a 6 year old graphics card that isn't even officially supported by them for the game. In my opinion, though, that's more a testament to the engineers at Arena.Net.
I say this can be a good thing. We'll finally either:
A) Get some decent integrated graphics systems (or see NForce boards take off in popularity)
or
B) See big computer retailers putting at least adequate graphics cards into their base systems.
Good god do I hope that point 'B' starts happening. Right now my office computer is running a 2.8Ghz P4 with a 6 year old 32MB video card... Don't understand how OEM's (Read: Dell) can get away with that crap.
What a fucking ass.
If I only had mod points....
From Fansite Friday #39:
;) ) With these two manuals, you will find that you have both the history and the future of Guild Wars, combined. "
"We are getting close to release and some have been wondering about a manual. Will the game come with a manual and if so, how detailed will it be?
The game will have not one but two manuals. The first manual will come in the box. I've seen the final proofs and I can honestly say - hand on heart - it's the most beautiful game manual I've ever seen. It's really like a collector's book, with a ton of lore and back story and images of all types, from renders to concept art to screenshots. With this manual, you'll really become immersed in the story of Guild Wars, and you'll know a lot about how the world came to be and who the important personages are in Tyria. It will provide the sort of information that helps you feel an emotional connection to the storyline, and a realization of your essential role in propelling that story forward.
But there's more. In addition to the full-colour printed manual, there will also be a complete online manual. I don't know exactly how that will look, yet, but I know from talking to our excellent writing team that it will be a very useful tool for learning the essential gameplay elements. You will consult the online manual if you need a quick guide to the default hotkeys. You'll consult the printed manual if you want to know the story behind why Rurik keeps impulsively charging ahead and getting himself into trouble. (I have a feeling it was a blow to the head in his youth.
But, if after a year, they both go down, with Guild Wars, I'll be out $50, but the WoW player will be out over $200. Neither of us will be able to play, but I guarantee you the WoW player is going to be a lot more pissed than the GW player because of the investment.
Don't forget that there are also some GvG areas that offer competition between 6 (I believe)8-member teams at once.
Yeah, but in all the recent buyout/selloff attempts for VU's games division, the main reason (IIRC) VU keeps saying no, is that the buyers just want to buy Blizzard, and not the rest of the drek. If they have that kind of interest outside in the corporate world, if they ever did get tired of VU, they could probably negotiate a similar exit strategy to Valve's.
couldn't be bothered to do the math.
Depends on the pressure. Crank it up to a couple atmospheres, and the water would stay.
Not trying to troll. Realistically, the dual G4 would be next in line on the upgrade path for the notebooks, but to be honest, none of the people I know would ever need to use it longer than that on battery. The only place that you'd need more is on long flights, and for the kind of work that is most likely (watching DVDs), throttle everything down to low power usage mode, if you need more bat time.
/unimpressed.
Wake me when they announce the Powerbook G5.
Until then, meh.
I wouldn't be suprised if the distributor (Vivendi) has made sure contractually that Blizzard can't do this. Look at the legal fiasco when Valve offered direct sales of HL2. Direct distribution cuts into the distributors profits. They don't like it when you do that.
Yeah, but with Valve (same distributor) I can have my key transferred to another account for a $10 fee if I decide to sell the game. That method is not that unreasonable....this is.
If it was reuseable you don't think it would get passed around on the net or something. I doubt any company wants to sell 1 copy per 100 people using it.
Yeah but it's trivial to make sure that only 1 person can be using the key/account at a time... Hell, even Microsoft figured that out with their product activation.
The fact that Blizzard has to maintain persistent servers in order for people to play this game means that they have an ongoing cost above the cost of developing the game. Now with the old battle.net, this wasn't a big deal. Although still an ongoing cost, the servers only had to dish out random numbers for monsters and store character files. Servers for an MMORPG have to pass much more traffic and store much more information, in addition to needing more processor power to maintain the game world. The monthly cost goes to keep the servers running and probably help defray the cost of updates/patches, etc.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect people to purchase the game (to cover the costs of development) as well as pay a monthly subscription (for the use of the servers).
No, the unreasonable part is that they are profiting at the front (box sales) and are PROFITING AGAIN at the back. I GUARANTEE YOU it does not cost $4.5 million (conservatively... 300,000 x $15) per month to maintain those servers.
Except for the important difference that Guild Wars has no monthly fee.
He said matinee, though. Is $10.50 your evening price or your matinee? If that is your matinee price, I shudder at the thought of what a full priced evening ticket might cost.