When a player runs the game for the first time, the Goo'd program lets the user enter in their email address and serial number which associates their game to that person as opposed to a piece of hardware like most activation systems do. Once validated, the game never needs to connect to the Internet again.
You need an internet connection to "associate" your email and serial to the game.
This is not intrusive either and does not prevent you from installing the game everywhere you want.
I approve.
Unless you don't have an internet connection available.
I've been saying that for years now. Stardock/Impulse/etc. are DRM. They limit the ability to distribute digital media.
You still need an internet connection to enable it from the wording in the summary. What happens when that server is no longer alive? How am I to play the game? What if I don't have internet when I install it on my laptop on a plane to play when I'm bored?
If you had the proper infrastructure, it could be based on a proportion of work done on the project that is sold. How you measure that work is another issue. They are using a peer review system to do it. It would be like getting paid part of the ad revenue to post insightful comments on Slashdot stories...
I always wondered how so many Sky/Solstices were sold. That seems to explain that phenomenon. Looks good, breaks easily, hard to use (have you ever messed with that top? It's a nightmare!)
The problem I have is the back/forward/address bar that can't be removed, moved, or resized at all. On screens that it's not needed, it's still there.
Also, the countless wizards/interfaces that get between me and changing my IP (or other options)...
The tree view that doesn't have lines anymore...
The "Organize" bar that cant be removed or moved...
The oversized status bar that needs to be toggled back to small mode...
The lack of "File" menus that need to be toggled visible... even when they are needed to get to your bookmarks in IE.
The inability to reduce the start menu to one column and assign a folder of shortcuts to one of the items to make it perform as well as the classic menu...
Which is okay if you had no dropped packets and was able to get all your bandwidth, but we all know that never happens. Also, tack on the TCP routing overhead, control communication, the latency you stated (although, I normally get around 16-18ms)...
A point you make though, the frame would still be rendered on the server end as fast as it would be locally. It would just take your latency to get to you. It would be like a laggy LCD. Tack on LCD lag (if you're on an LCD screen locally) and I think it would be even worse. You have 17-26 ms before your screen gets the information. If your screen is laggy that can add up to 60ms.
You hit your button, 16 ms later, the server gets it, renders the frame, sends it back, you get it 16 ms later. Thirty-two milliseconds have passed. Your LCD renders it adding another 15-50ms... we are at 47-72ms lag. That is, on a perfect connection.
There's a huge difference between a FPS and an MMO. There are a large chunk of gamers who didn't use wireless mice for a long time because of the input lag. There are those that still refuse to use some of these laggy LCDs for the same reason. You have to "play" the game before you can see it happen.
I remember being able to run through a Unreal tournament match and hit off head shots of moving targets because I could respond in a split second and had precise control. I was not able to reproduce that when I moved to a LCD monitor. It's not because my reaction time was decreased. Lag is a serious consideration for FPS games. It works well for MMOs because you aren't rocket jumping and popping off head shots while in mid air. Online shooters are a pain as well. I don't know how many times I've shot people to have nothing happen because their client doesn't agree or registered the shot differently.
True, the hard drive may be a slow point, but if you "thread out" a loader procedure to cache that data in memory for faster access, you can alleviate some of that waiting. The hard part is figuring out what to cache. Another hard part is describing to the user that your program isn't eating up all their memory because you have a leak. The other method is deciding if generation of data is quicker than saving and loading data from disk. What I'm talking about are things like texture generation for games and such. If you can task an 8 core processor to generate textures in memory at a quicker speed than loading it from disk, why not do that?
I remember working with my old 386sx that storing an array of COS/SIN calculations for a set range of values in an array was much faster than letting the processor figure it out each time. I haven't tried to test if this is still the case today, but I imagine it's not. My point being, there may be things that people rely on data files for in order to speed up processes when they aren't needed today.
It's an interesting world of IT we are coming into.
Motorstorm sold purely from its demo, the game, like #2, was a let down.
Just curious here... what about ANY racing game isn't a let down? There's a certain breed of people that pay for pure racing games. There's also a breed of people that pay for Need for Speed like customizable car racing games. What were you expecting from a pure off road race game?
Figures it would be financial... I have a National City Visa and you can't even log into the website without providing your password, plus some personal data to verify. It's a real pain in the ass to check my statements because of this backwards policy.
Yeah, I would figure they were behind a proxy or firewall that blocked all but a white list of sites if it was locked down that much. Personally, I think I'd be looking for a job that trusted me a little more than that.
Slashdot Mirror
The PS3 has region free gaming. In fact, I just imported an Asia/Chinese game Demon's Souls and it runs perfect on my US PS3.
When a player runs the game for the first time, the Goo'd program lets the user enter in their email address and serial number which associates their game to that person as opposed to a piece of hardware like most activation systems do. Once validated, the game never needs to connect to the Internet again.
You need an internet connection to "associate" your email and serial to the game.
This is not intrusive either and does not prevent you from installing the game everywhere you want.
I approve.
Unless you don't have an internet connection available.
It's still DRM.
I've been saying that for years now. Stardock/Impulse/etc. are DRM. They limit the ability to distribute digital media.
You still need an internet connection to enable it from the wording in the summary. What happens when that server is no longer alive? How am I to play the game? What if I don't have internet when I install it on my laptop on a plane to play when I'm bored?
That's it. We should ban all video games because farmers are being taught bad habits.
But how are we supposed to support the hospitals if we don't have people show up to get their eardrums broken instead of their windows?
I want them to test the myth that a big enough explosion will knock Earth off orbit. ;)
Not to mention the double wide trailer start menu is still there even if you "turn on classic mode."
Never even tried that... I guess it didn't feel intuitive to me to right click there.
Someone will vote up the poor SOB that had to go in and clean up those sections. Maybe even a couple people will.
If you had the proper infrastructure, it could be based on a proportion of work done on the project that is sold. How you measure that work is another issue. They are using a peer review system to do it. It would be like getting paid part of the ad revenue to post insightful comments on Slashdot stories...
An 'o' works with a redirect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Cooperative_Corporation
If MS will implement it in five years, I'll learn about it in five years.
Well, you have the right attitude to work for them and use their software. The perfect user. Accept their pace...accept that they know best.
I always wondered how so many Sky/Solstices were sold. That seems to explain that phenomenon. Looks good, breaks easily, hard to use (have you ever messed with that top? It's a nightmare!)
The problem I have is the back/forward/address bar that can't be removed, moved, or resized at all. On screens that it's not needed, it's still there.
Also, the countless wizards/interfaces that get between me and changing my IP (or other options)...
The tree view that doesn't have lines anymore...
The "Organize" bar that cant be removed or moved...
The oversized status bar that needs to be toggled back to small mode...
The lack of "File" menus that need to be toggled visible... even when they are needed to get to your bookmarks in IE.
The inability to reduce the start menu to one column and assign a folder of shortcuts to one of the items to make it perform as well as the classic menu...
Those are just a few...
Working out the math...
1080p would be:
1920x * 1080y * 30bpp = 62,208,000 bits/screen
30 frames per second:
(62,208,000 * 30) = 1,866,240,000 bps (1.7 Gbps)
Which is okay if you had no dropped packets and was able to get all your bandwidth, but we all know that never happens. Also, tack on the TCP routing overhead, control communication, the latency you stated (although, I normally get around 16-18ms)...
A point you make though, the frame would still be rendered on the server end as fast as it would be locally. It would just take your latency to get to you. It would be like a laggy LCD. Tack on LCD lag (if you're on an LCD screen locally) and I think it would be even worse. You have 17-26 ms before your screen gets the information. If your screen is laggy that can add up to 60ms.
You hit your button, 16 ms later, the server gets it, renders the frame, sends it back, you get it 16 ms later. Thirty-two milliseconds have passed. Your LCD renders it adding another 15-50ms... we are at 47-72ms lag. That is, on a perfect connection.
There's a huge difference between a FPS and an MMO. There are a large chunk of gamers who didn't use wireless mice for a long time because of the input lag. There are those that still refuse to use some of these laggy LCDs for the same reason. You have to "play" the game before you can see it happen.
I remember being able to run through a Unreal tournament match and hit off head shots of moving targets because I could respond in a split second and had precise control. I was not able to reproduce that when I moved to a LCD monitor. It's not because my reaction time was decreased. Lag is a serious consideration for FPS games. It works well for MMOs because you aren't rocket jumping and popping off head shots while in mid air. Online shooters are a pain as well. I don't know how many times I've shot people to have nothing happen because their client doesn't agree or registered the shot differently.
True, the hard drive may be a slow point, but if you "thread out" a loader procedure to cache that data in memory for faster access, you can alleviate some of that waiting. The hard part is figuring out what to cache. Another hard part is describing to the user that your program isn't eating up all their memory because you have a leak. The other method is deciding if generation of data is quicker than saving and loading data from disk. What I'm talking about are things like texture generation for games and such. If you can task an 8 core processor to generate textures in memory at a quicker speed than loading it from disk, why not do that?
I remember working with my old 386sx that storing an array of COS/SIN calculations for a set range of values in an array was much faster than letting the processor figure it out each time. I haven't tried to test if this is still the case today, but I imagine it's not. My point being, there may be things that people rely on data files for in order to speed up processes when they aren't needed today.
It's an interesting world of IT we are coming into.
There speaks someone with absolutley no frakking clue about the retail chain. The developer sees maybe 25%-30% of that at best.
Sounds like you might not be too sure yourself... maybe 25-30%? Was that a guess?
Motorstorm sold purely from its demo, the game, like #2, was a let down.
Just curious here... what about ANY racing game isn't a let down? There's a certain breed of people that pay for pure racing games. There's also a breed of people that pay for Need for Speed like customizable car racing games. What were you expecting from a pure off road race game?
In case you haven't noticed, Anonymous Cowards are here for our entertainment. Unless you make your post funny, nothing you say matters.
When the government gave them money, free market was out the window.
Figures it would be financial... I have a National City Visa and you can't even log into the website without providing your password, plus some personal data to verify. It's a real pain in the ass to check my statements because of this backwards policy.
Yeah, I would figure they were behind a proxy or firewall that blocked all but a white list of sites if it was locked down that much. Personally, I think I'd be looking for a job that trusted me a little more than that.
Or make your own website dedicated to "nerd news." It perplexes me how many people complain that their favorite news isn't covered on someone's site.
Thumb drive.