Xbox Reveal

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Honestly, i wish it could just be bone-headed game design we worried about.

Sadly, this industry presents too many issues for it to just be about that now and I just want people to be able to grow up and enjoy this stuff like I did regardless of how technology might change. If we're going to have physical media out there, limiting how its shared or resold will only bring negative consequences on the industry. Xbox One will be a console that prevents sharing and while I might not have borrowed or let a friend borrow a game in years, there are kids at school and in college that are. There are adults that still swap up and this is part of how word of mouth is still generated.

If you're not going to commit to digital in full and stay in physical media, then you have accept physical media for what it is and trust the customer.

[Malacite]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Still don't see the difference between buying a physical copy or the digital copy other than Activision gets 100% of the profits from the latter transaction.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Xbox Reveal

You bought Diablo 3 too, Mr.

I didn't!

#MoralHighGround

[Icemage]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Technically, I buy games with online passes because I don't really have a choice when I buy them new. They come with the game, and frankly most games that have online passes aren't really all that spactacular on the online front anyhow aside from Battlefield 3. That said, I think online passes are a bit silly but not nearly as evil as day 1 DLC or removing important chunks of a game to be sold later. They don't block used games, and in many cases the difference in the experience is so marginal that it shouldn't even matter.

Add-ons and DLC should be just that: additional content if you want to explore it. Not content that is required to properly enjoy the base game. Mass Effect 3 came perilously close to violating this due to it being impossible to get your war assets high enough to trigger the (lol) "best" endings, though this was not known until after the game released.

P.S. to Mal: C'mon, I know you well enough to know your buying habits. You spend a lot of time bagging on Call of Duty and yet still somehow manage to magically acquire a copy of the latest edition every year. And that's for a game you claim you don't even particularly care for. Halo is a no-brainer in comparison.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Actually it's not so much that I hate CoD itself, but how lazy the devs are (IMO) at fixing the glarring MP issues; It's still the only FPS series where I get major hit detection problems and I can't for the life of me figure out why - Halo uses P2P as well but I don't have issues nearly as often in taht franchise. Battlefield is all dedicated servers so yay, no issues there either. And seriously, what precisely is wrong with buying it as a gift and giving it a whirl myself afterwards, just so I can actually say I've tried it and therefor have a valid opinion on it? I never have and likely never will go out and buy a CoD game for myself, at least until such a time as they employ dedicated servers. MW2 was a LOT of fun when it came out, but quickly got ruined by the community and the franchise hasn't really recovered since.


Halo I absolutely love to bits largely for the story - I'm not as big on the MP as I used to be, and the novels are often better than the games by miles. That said, I still love the games. But if you think I'm going to put up with that always-on DRM + Camera bullshit, you don't know me.


As for that DLC crap, the only game I've ever owned that did that was Dead Space 3 and I didn't find out about Awakened being on-disc until after the fact - I still haven't bought a single (recent) Capcom release either - I've stuck to my guns on that. Tried the DmC demo, thought it was OK enough but still don't like new Dante. Haven't bought it. Never mind all the Mega Man trolling... Capcom has pissed me off to the core, and I haven't yet and continue to refuse to give them any money until such a time as they god damned apologize for the systematic abandonment and destruction of their one-time flagship franchise.


As far as Diablo 3 goes, the DRM, while annoying, isn't really any worse than using Steam and I have to agree with TM - it's the bone-headed design choices that irk me about it more than anything else. Well, that and the RMAH destroying the game's economy. I don't know where BBQ gets off saying just buying the game promotes it - I bought Dead Space 3, never once actually paid any money for the micro-transactions but I guess according to his logic I supported that anyway?

[cidbahamut]

Re: Xbox Reveal

As far as Diablo 3 goes, the DRM, while annoying, isn't really any worse than using Steam

Steam doesn't make my single player games lag. You're full of shit, as usual.

[Taskmage]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Steam doesn't make my single player games lag.

This. Also, Steam will let you play previously verified games even when offline, and when your game launches you actually get to play it. The problem is not that they used DRM, it's that they did it stupidly. It negatively impacted the game experience of paying customers who had done nothing wrong, while also utterly failing to stop any of the things it was meant to stop.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Steam is a client program that checks to see if you still have Steam installed or it won't run the game. It requires that I just have Steam on my PC and Steam barely takes up any space, so it can always be there when i start a game.

Diablo III and now Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm require you always be online to play the games at all. The internet, while often reliable, can become this mercurial thing. You can't always trust it to be there or work the way you want it to.

As DRMs go, Steam as barely a blip on the radar and manages to associate itself with things like awesome deals. Always-on DRM choses just reminds you what a bad deal it was. There is a lesser of two evils here and on the scale Steam ranks as mildly mischevious imp whereas always-on DRM is Emperor Palpantine.

[Armando]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Also being able to text/voice chat multiple people while running my game in fullscreen all without launching another program is pretty nice. Steam arguably improves my game experience, albeit in a subjective way.

[Malacite]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Steam is a client program that checks to see if you still have Steam installed or it won't run the game. It requires that I just have Steam on my PC and Steam barely takes up any space, so it can always be there when i start a game.

Diablo III and now Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm require you always be online to play the games at all. The internet, while often reliable, can become this mercurial thing. You can't always trust it to be there or work the way you want it to.

As DRMs go, Steam as barely a blip on the radar and manages to associate itself with things like awesome deals. Always-on DRM choses just reminds you what a bad deal it was. There is a lesser of two evils here and on the scale Steam ranks as mildly mischevious imp whereas always-on DRM is Emperor Palpantine.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25309[/ATTACH]

Yeah that was a weird change they made to WoL *after* launch - initially SC2 didn't require you to be online but in an update like a year ago I think they put that in.


EDIT: Back on top (had enough of everyone's judgment tyvm...) apparently Microsoft has some "amazing" announcement that's going to "push 25 million more units" they're saving for E3. I'm calling bullshit on that right now, but we'll see.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Cutting-edge AI only found in next-gen consoles per Infinity Ward!

[Malacite]

Re: Xbox Reveal

that made me chuckle. Those rubes still don't have a clue...

Hell I'm pretty sure Echo the dolphin had decent fish AI

And BF4 still looks loads better than Ghosts :3 (Still on the fence about it though, hoping some of the rumors about Dynamic battlefields etc. are true) - Naval Combat should be interesting as well if they do it right. I have a pretty damned long laundry list of shit that went wrong in BF4 that I hope gets corrected (or at least half of it).

[Taskmage]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Although he did an inadequate job of explaining it, he was probably talking about a boid simulation, which is a relatively recent innovation in AI that models each element of the flock/swarm autonomously, resulting in more accurate reproduction of the emergent behaviors displayed by real animals, which as a side effect look pretty cool. Like so:

- - - Updated - - -

Took me forever to find a non-simulated reference:

[Icemage]

Re: Xbox Reveal

^ Sure, but it's still bullshit meaningless AI tech. Unless I'm running an aquarium simulator, I don't particularly care how accurate the fish AI is. I'd rather have my games thinking about what's important, like not making the game look like something that released on a console made 7 years ago. CoD's segment at the Xbox reveal was pretty terribad. They had the whole stage to themselves for a next gen reveal and they showed ... fish, dogs, and inaccurate sunlight.

---

Microsft just need to shut their mouths until E3.

Microsoft answers the question of Xbox One region locks | Digital Trends

we have one more piece of information to confirm about the console: the Xbox One will still feature regional locks.
“Similar to the movie and music industry, games must meet country-specific regulatory guidelines before they are cleared for sale,” A rep from Microsoft confirmed to Digital Trends. “We will continue to work with our partners to follow these guidelines with Xbox One.”[

As if the console didn't have enough problems...


Icemage

[Taskmage]

Re: Xbox Reveal

It's a polish item. If the game is a turd, it'll still stink, and if it's a gem, it'll shine more. I didn't watch their presentation, I'm just saying that "fish moving out of the way AI" isn't in itself laughable.