I played the beta but not the actual game. It was really fun, but it turned me off that there weren't that many people involved at any one time. I think an MMO should have a lot of people. Shame it didn't catch on. I'm keeping my eye on Vendetta Online as well.
I agree, fantasy MMO's bore me to death, and games like EVE really didn't appeal to me either (I want to fly the ship, not click it!). I got really hooked on Planetside though because the larger outfits really were tactically oriented and allowed you to play the game with strategy in mind and you didn't have to kill rats or snakes or anything to level up. You leveled by sticking with the outfit and capturing bases. It was the most fun I'd ever had in an MMO. I think I'll probably find most MMO's monotonous until they can incorporate more of the dirty work of leveling and grinding into the game in a better way. AO was really bad at this - you constantly fought in the same dungeon for the same reasons.
I think they're going to have to make it some form of Steam via Xbox Live. HL2 uses your Steam ID as part of the player code. It's actually exported and part of the server DLL code they distribute for modding. I imagine it's populated by the engine itself, but I don't know if they'll turn it off or not. If they instead make it part of the Xbox Live network that might be why it's taking a little longer. Of course, on the Playstation side they can effectively do what they want since there isn't really a standard.
EA has complained about the entire generation from the PSP onward. They're shoving love all over Nintendo and complaining about Sony and Microsoft. I wouldn't have a problem with this except for the fact that 90% of their problems on the new consoles are their own. They complained the PSP was too difficult to develop for, which is proven by showstopping bugs on Madden 06, NCAA Football 2007, and insanely long loading times in other games like Sims 2. Does the PSP have a problem with the UMD? Yes. Is EA's problem justified? No. Rockstar had no problems adapting their games to the PSP with very short loading times by streaming the media, which is exactly what we saw Bethesda doing for Oblivion on PS3, so the fact that a big box developer like EA can't program worth a damn is not entirely Sony's fault.
Personally, I've stopped buying EA games. I'll buy Spore, but that's it. Until they start developing quality code, I'm not listening to a word they say.
To my knowledge, the 360 and PS3 won't have access to Steam and so you'll have to buy the Orange Box separately.
On a tangental note, it might be a good idea for Valve to develop console friendly versions of their platform since both consoles support hard drives and launching applications from these hard drives. Plus, it'd open them up to a whole new revenue stream with considerably more money attached. If I could use my current Steam ID on my PS3 to download PS3 friendly games (like the Orange Box), I'd definitely do it.
His point is that the originally intended for PC Halo took at least a year from when it was announced as an Xbox first title to its launch on the Xbox itself. So it's pretty comparable. Oblivion is actually more impressive when you consider that not only did they have to migrate to a different platform, but unlike Xbox, which was basically Pentium 3/Nvidia hardware, but to completely different and unrelated hardware on the PS3.
Your $600 video card does just as well, if not just a little better than, a $600 console. How much was your processor, memory, hard drive, dvd drive, motherboard, network card, and case? And before we forget, how much did your copy of Windows cost you?
Your link (1/17): The PS3 Oblivion team compensated for the slower drive by duplicating data across the Blu-ray disc, making it faster to find and load
Today's link (2/6): Bethesda's Pete Hines also commented that recent reports of data duplication on the PS3 Oblivion disc have been exaggerated, and this technique isn't different from the similar strategy that was employed in the creation of the Xbox 360 game last year.
Plus PS3 has that blinking issue...maybe good for "3D" movies (ref to old vid cards that came with "special" LCD glasses).
The blinking issue that only people with 1080p televisions using HDMI have? Right, well apparently the problem is really HDCP handshaking and not the PS3 or the TV necessarily, and how does your 360 look with HDMI? Oh right, it doesn't have that yet. I bet you can buy a $200 add-on for it though, or just a whole new console in 6 months. But believe the hype, the $400 360 has so much more over the $600 PS3/Bluray player!
I don't think it's always cheaper - it depends on what you're buying and what you already have. Initially I think it's more expensive. However, over time I think it ends up saving you money if you decide to stick to bleeding edge and leaving some components in the box, such as the CD/DVD drives, hard drives, audio card, etc. I had two or three cycles where I basically just upgraded the motherboard, cpu, ram, and video card for about $1000 (P3 to P4 upgrade) and the only reason I had to upgrade the memory was because I went from RAMBUS to DDR. So I had bleeding edge for $1000 versus $3000 for a comparable Alienware or Voodoo machine.
Of course, now that everything has moved to SATA and PCI Express with $1000 high end processors, it's very debatable. You basically have to upgrade everything all over again, save maybe the network and audio card.
I'm really leaning toward buying a Mac as my next desktop, or just eliminating my desktop all together as I use my laptop more than anything.
Quake 1 definitely premiered multiplayer over TCP/IP, but Doom was really what kept BBSs alive, along with Descent. I remember playing both games over dialup to my friend's place way back when. Anyone remember DWANGO?
Funny also that they mentioned Quakespy with no mention of Kali/Kahn which really were the first services that brought TCP gaming to the masses. I used to play 8 player Warcraft 2 over dialup via Kahn before Battle.NET was even in existence.
I think that it's going to differ between people who have tried it and those who tried it and had trouble. The people who had trouble are going to be harder to convince. Anything you'd counter with they'll just shoot down. At that point, I'd probably use the "things have improved since you tried it" argument, particularly if they had trouble installing it. You can always advocate that they use online forums and of course they can dual boot with Windows if they feel more comfortable with that.
If they've never tried it, I think it's a lot simpler.
1. No viruses, spyware, or adware. 2. Free upgrades under your control. 3. Highly customizable desktops 4. Excellent tools and great stability for system administration.
I'd push either 3 or 4 depending on what their needs are.
Good point. I think however that their marketing campaign towards the end user is really nothing more than trying to justify why folks should buy new PCs with Vista
Not to mention the anti-PC Apple advertising that is on the air right now. It's like a political contest - if you don't respond soon people will think the meme is true and stop buying PC's altogether. Particularly because A) Apple is attacking Vista head on and B) the commercials are really funny and easily likeable.
Quite a bit - definitely nowhere near as much as FF would have though. I'd estimate between 10 and 15 minutes worth gamewide. They did a lot of in-engine stuff though.
Did you read the vouchers? I don't have mine on me but I think you had to buy 2 other BR discs to get one free, and it was a mail in offer. So basically, you still had to buy in order to take advantage of it.
I'm not saying that I doubt that it takes up that much space on disc, but I can ASSURE you that game could have been made to not be so overweight.
You're right...I guess we should just go back to 16 bit textures...even better, let's eliminate 3D worlds while we're at it because the models take up way too much room...and any stretch of animation at that point....and forget music soundtracks because they really aren't necessary, I'll just get out my MIDI keyboard...finally, I'm pretty sure we can just eliminate the textures altogether for a real size crunch and I'm positive that we can just make Tic-Tac-Toe for some real space optimization. There you go, a great game with an excellent design that fits on a floppy disk.
Of course they used really big files to fill up the space - 1080p allows for that. The whole point of high def gaming coinciding with your surround sound setup is for unparalleled quality and you're going to need space to achieve it. Even more so with large games like Final Fantasy...what if Diablo 4 comes out for 360 or PS3...how many disks would a game like that need to achieve a high-def experience?
the 360 has the same graphics (in some cases, better) and still uses "old" dual-layer dvd technology.
I'll argue with the capacity of the DVD versus the capacity of the blu-ray. I think it's better to have that extra room (it's like a factor of 10 or 20 larger). Hideo Kojima said in an interview linked on Slashdot that he thought games would eventually get to 50GB. The interviewer even says that Resistance was 16GB, much larger than any DVD can hold. Personally, I prefer the one disc to multi-disc games. And yes, the 360 does have the HD-DVD external drive but a developer won't be very open to moving to that as it doesn't guarantee him the same install base. So now you're looking at possibly two different format releases for a game on 360 versus a guaranteed known quantity on the PS3. It might not affect the platform now, but eventually I'm sure it will.
PC's started out flat as well, now they're all effectively on their side. Only difference here is the disc drive on the PC's usually aren't flipped. Speaking of which, can you load a disk in the 360 sideways?
Slashdot Mirror
I played the beta but not the actual game. It was really fun, but it turned me off that there weren't that many people involved at any one time. I think an MMO should have a lot of people. Shame it didn't catch on. I'm keeping my eye on Vendetta Online as well.
I agree, fantasy MMO's bore me to death, and games like EVE really didn't appeal to me either (I want to fly the ship, not click it!). I got really hooked on Planetside though because the larger outfits really were tactically oriented and allowed you to play the game with strategy in mind and you didn't have to kill rats or snakes or anything to level up. You leveled by sticking with the outfit and capturing bases. It was the most fun I'd ever had in an MMO. I think I'll probably find most MMO's monotonous until they can incorporate more of the dirty work of leveling and grinding into the game in a better way. AO was really bad at this - you constantly fought in the same dungeon for the same reasons.
I think they're going to have to make it some form of Steam via Xbox Live. HL2 uses your Steam ID as part of the player code. It's actually exported and part of the server DLL code they distribute for modding. I imagine it's populated by the engine itself, but I don't know if they'll turn it off or not. If they instead make it part of the Xbox Live network that might be why it's taking a little longer. Of course, on the Playstation side they can effectively do what they want since there isn't really a standard.
EA has complained about the entire generation from the PSP onward. They're shoving love all over Nintendo and complaining about Sony and Microsoft. I wouldn't have a problem with this except for the fact that 90% of their problems on the new consoles are their own. They complained the PSP was too difficult to develop for, which is proven by showstopping bugs on Madden 06, NCAA Football 2007, and insanely long loading times in other games like Sims 2. Does the PSP have a problem with the UMD? Yes. Is EA's problem justified? No. Rockstar had no problems adapting their games to the PSP with very short loading times by streaming the media, which is exactly what we saw Bethesda doing for Oblivion on PS3, so the fact that a big box developer like EA can't program worth a damn is not entirely Sony's fault.
Personally, I've stopped buying EA games. I'll buy Spore, but that's it. Until they start developing quality code, I'm not listening to a word they say.
To my knowledge, the 360 and PS3 won't have access to Steam and so you'll have to buy the Orange Box separately.
On a tangental note, it might be a good idea for Valve to develop console friendly versions of their platform since both consoles support hard drives and launching applications from these hard drives. Plus, it'd open them up to a whole new revenue stream with considerably more money attached. If I could use my current Steam ID on my PS3 to download PS3 friendly games (like the Orange Box), I'd definitely do it.
His point is that the originally intended for PC Halo took at least a year from when it was announced as an Xbox first title to its launch on the Xbox itself. So it's pretty comparable. Oblivion is actually more impressive when you consider that not only did they have to migrate to a different platform, but unlike Xbox, which was basically Pentium 3/Nvidia hardware, but to completely different and unrelated hardware on the PS3.
Your $600 video card does just as well, if not just a little better than, a $600 console. How much was your processor, memory, hard drive, dvd drive, motherboard, network card, and case? And before we forget, how much did your copy of Windows cost you?
Yeah, way to not read the article.
Your link (1/17):
The PS3 Oblivion team compensated for the slower drive by duplicating data across the Blu-ray disc, making it faster to find and load
Today's link (2/6):
Bethesda's Pete Hines also commented that recent reports of data duplication on the PS3 Oblivion disc have been exaggerated, and this technique isn't different from the similar strategy that was employed in the creation of the Xbox 360 game last year.
Amazon has the re-release under Inside Out U.S., which lists him as their artist here.
Plus PS3 has that blinking issue...maybe good for "3D" movies (ref to old vid cards that came with "special" LCD glasses).
The blinking issue that only people with 1080p televisions using HDMI have? Right, well apparently the problem is really HDCP handshaking and not the PS3 or the TV necessarily, and how does your 360 look with HDMI? Oh right, it doesn't have that yet. I bet you can buy a $200 add-on for it though, or just a whole new console in 6 months. But believe the hype, the $400 360 has so much more over the $600 PS3/Bluray player!
I don't think it's always cheaper - it depends on what you're buying and what you already have. Initially I think it's more expensive. However, over time I think it ends up saving you money if you decide to stick to bleeding edge and leaving some components in the box, such as the CD/DVD drives, hard drives, audio card, etc. I had two or three cycles where I basically just upgraded the motherboard, cpu, ram, and video card for about $1000 (P3 to P4 upgrade) and the only reason I had to upgrade the memory was because I went from RAMBUS to DDR. So I had bleeding edge for $1000 versus $3000 for a comparable Alienware or Voodoo machine.
Of course, now that everything has moved to SATA and PCI Express with $1000 high end processors, it's very debatable. You basically have to upgrade everything all over again, save maybe the network and audio card.
I'm really leaning toward buying a Mac as my next desktop, or just eliminating my desktop all together as I use my laptop more than anything.
Quake 1 definitely premiered multiplayer over TCP/IP, but Doom was really what kept BBSs alive, along with Descent. I remember playing both games over dialup to my friend's place way back when. Anyone remember DWANGO? Funny also that they mentioned Quakespy with no mention of Kali/Kahn which really were the first services that brought TCP gaming to the masses. I used to play 8 player Warcraft 2 over dialup via Kahn before Battle.NET was even in existence.
Is there a downloadable version?
Sure, but you have to buy a Playstation 3.
I think that it's going to differ between people who have tried it and those who tried it and had trouble. The people who had trouble are going to be harder to convince. Anything you'd counter with they'll just shoot down. At that point, I'd probably use the "things have improved since you tried it" argument, particularly if they had trouble installing it. You can always advocate that they use online forums and of course they can dual boot with Windows if they feel more comfortable with that.
If they've never tried it, I think it's a lot simpler.
1. No viruses, spyware, or adware.
2. Free upgrades under your control.
3. Highly customizable desktops
4. Excellent tools and great stability for system administration.
I'd push either 3 or 4 depending on what their needs are.
Okay I just got WAG-COTWR. I definitely am a moron.
Wish I had modpoints for you. Definitely an insightful post.
I'm in NYC too and all I see are PSPs. I haven't seen a DS in forever. At least once a day there's a guy on the train with a PSP however.
Actually, GP did mention Toy Story:
The best two animated films Dreamworks put out since Toy Story and they're dropping the production company?
And was wrong since Dreamworks didn't put out Toy Story. I'm not really sure what WAG-COTWR or Howls Moving Castle is either.
Good point. I think however that their marketing campaign towards the end user is really nothing more than trying to justify why folks should buy new PCs with Vista
Not to mention the anti-PC Apple advertising that is on the air right now. It's like a political contest - if you don't respond soon people will think the meme is true and stop buying PC's altogether. Particularly because A) Apple is attacking Vista head on and B) the commercials are really funny and easily likeable.
Quite a bit - definitely nowhere near as much as FF would have though. I'd estimate between 10 and 15 minutes worth gamewide. They did a lot of in-engine stuff though.
Did you read the vouchers? I don't have mine on me but I think you had to buy 2 other BR discs to get one free, and it was a mail in offer. So basically, you still had to buy in order to take advantage of it.
Yes, it's definitely a bias as 2 and 3 never appear next to each other on a keyboard.
I'm not saying that I doubt that it takes up that much space on disc, but I can ASSURE you that game could have been made to not be so overweight.
You're right...I guess we should just go back to 16 bit textures...even better, let's eliminate 3D worlds while we're at it because the models take up way too much room...and any stretch of animation at that point....and forget music soundtracks because they really aren't necessary, I'll just get out my MIDI keyboard...finally, I'm pretty sure we can just eliminate the textures altogether for a real size crunch and I'm positive that we can just make Tic-Tac-Toe for some real space optimization. There you go, a great game with an excellent design that fits on a floppy disk.
Of course they used really big files to fill up the space - 1080p allows for that. The whole point of high def gaming coinciding with your surround sound setup is for unparalleled quality and you're going to need space to achieve it. Even more so with large games like Final Fantasy...what if Diablo 4 comes out for 360 or PS3...how many disks would a game like that need to achieve a high-def experience?
the 360 has the same graphics (in some cases, better) and still uses "old" dual-layer dvd technology.
I'll argue with the capacity of the DVD versus the capacity of the blu-ray. I think it's better to have that extra room (it's like a factor of 10 or 20 larger). Hideo Kojima said in an interview linked on Slashdot that he thought games would eventually get to 50GB. The interviewer even says that Resistance was 16GB, much larger than any DVD can hold. Personally, I prefer the one disc to multi-disc games. And yes, the 360 does have the HD-DVD external drive but a developer won't be very open to moving to that as it doesn't guarantee him the same install base. So now you're looking at possibly two different format releases for a game on 360 versus a guaranteed known quantity on the PS3. It might not affect the platform now, but eventually I'm sure it will.
PC's started out flat as well, now they're all effectively on their side. Only difference here is the disc drive on the PC's usually aren't flipped. Speaking of which, can you load a disk in the 360 sideways?