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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:24
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quote:
So whats the last game anyone can remember being a severe challange? |
NetHack.
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child of Thor
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I think for me it probably was the origonal Elite and the Alternate Reality games, although a few games have foxed me for awhile since. At present i'm finding 'Panzer Dragon Orta' on the xbox tricky.
heres an article on FBI catching warez distributers:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4727919.stm
It might just be my impression, but they seem to be getting big on these kind of activities lately. Good for games devs/pubs - bad for warez.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
So whats the last game anyone can remember being a severe challange? |
In what sense? A good number of them have challenging interfaces, meaning that they get your blood pressure up when trying to get anything done 
In terms of gameplay, it depends on the genre. I reckon adventure games can be extremely challenging just by means of cleverly designed puzzles, though I am not a big adventure game fan. RPGs less so, since I don't like the kind of challenges via sheer number of opponents or some kind of stupid design decision. For example in Wizardry 8 there is one place where you go into a lake, and in the middle of the lake there is a monster named Nessie that the party can't kill, and I absolutely hate that.
For most other genres the challenges come from the game stacking the odds against the player, which is bogus IMO, or cheating, which just gets my goat.
AI is not easy to write, but you'd figure the developers would have learned a trick or two after 20 years. Besides, computers have been getting faster while humans haven't, so things like evaluation routines can be a lot more accurate. Also, I don't expect a game to be still challenging after a year or two, but it should be competent at the highest level without resorting to cheating.
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Rasbelin
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Tampere (Tammerfors), Finland
Nov 1999
time: 07:24
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Picking up again on the topic some *cough* 2-3 months later. 
quote:
Originally posted by child of Thor
I wonder about how good this downloading games thing will actually be - it is quite an expensive business with all the associated support costs etc, and Steam didn't exactly go down that well? |
Actually the only real cost there is bandwidth. A gigabyte costs a few US cents, but multiply that with the number of downloads and page loads. I'm speaking about the bandwidth needed to upload from a server in a datacenter to the global Internet all those games. Other than that, it's really just a big save in money. No need to print a written manual, no need to replicate CD/DVD-ROMs, no need to produce an aluring package for the game, no need to distribute it physically, etc. Just a bucket load of bits and bytes to transfer from point A to point B. So as it can all be done fully automated and just requires some hardware and bandwidth, it's getting cheaper.
Now Steam maybe didn't succeed, but my speculation has been that they had the wrong approach and a bad business plan. Also I assume they didn't wait for the potential customers to have decent connections. Well, just look at Stardock now. People sure seem to download just fine GalCiv.
Support is now done via telephone and e-mail, as well as online forums and knowledgebases. And nothing would basically change. Just the medium, so I can't see any issue with rising support costs.
I'm quite sure that someone will come out stronger than for instance Yahoo! games and actually become the Walmart, eBay, Google, iTunes, AOL or whatever giant of online game download retailing. Perhaps something along FileFront and GaySpy (if you didn't get it, try GameSpy ).
Still with a few big publishers controlling most of the outlets i guess it is one of the main avenus for the middle size dev house.
quote:
I think if we could cut out the middlemen(seem to often be the publishers these days?), then games might get a whole lot cheaper to make too? |
That's very unlikely to happen. Why charge less when people anyway pay the current prices? I foresee that what would happen is that rather than it getting cheaper, we see game development studios using these potential increased revenues used to strengthen their development team with more workers, rather than cut back. After all the game market isn't clearly going to diminish anytime soon, but instead we get to see loads of new players. Remember that there's still plenty of untapped markets in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. And let's not forget female gamers. 
So I think that at the end of the day we players are the ones who would benefit from increased competition and investments in developing these games. We already see a huge market developing in selling in-game items for games like WoW, not to mention all the gaming gear like gaming oriented keyboards (Z-Board, etc.), headsets, mice, precision mousepads, etc. Just name it. Overall we won't see a decline and as there's people that are ready to pay, we won't see prices decline.
I was getting abit off-topic from your point, but essentially just wanted to say that I wouldn't expect prices going down, except maybe in some developing markets.
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Rasbelin
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Tampere (Tammerfors), Finland
Nov 1999
time: 07:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What is the point of MMORPG's? The pencil and paper variety has far more social interactions and tend to be much more imaginative. |
Oh, you mean the variant in which people try to jot down human genitalia?
quote:
Originally posted by Zero
No one likes to play Challenging MP games anymore... |
*cut*
quote:
And if they cant have fun button mashing and trigger happly shooting things brainlessly in fighting/RTS/FPS genre, than they say the game is stupid and boring and blah blah blah... |
This is just damn stupid borkheaded thinking. Even if you're trying to ridicule people who don't give a ratass about Civ. First of all people do like challenging multiplayer games and that's why there's a demand for such games in all genres. All the way from Civ III/IV to Counterstrike. Now CS might not be a very thought provoking game and require about as much wits as chess requires, but it does require skill and poses challenges even to those good players. I'm not playing it myself, but just giving you an example.
Now FPS and RTS both do require thinking, fast decisions and even somekind of a clue how not to act stupid. Of course there's those that play it just for a quick adrenaline shot, but those are usually teens and others who are impatient or just want a fast paced game. I like FPS, RTS and TBS alike, but honestly I can't say TBS is what demands most. It demands what it takes, just because of the simple fact you have more time on your hands, so of course you end up thinking more.
And even if your message was a troll, I think it was quite pointless. De facto we people aren't all the same, so can't blame the others, as they can blame me about as much at least. Just switch server or try a different game, if you're into getting bored by midgets.
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child of Thor
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quote:
Originally posted by Rasbelin
Picking up again on the topic some *cough* 2-3 months later.
Actually the only real cost there is bandwidth. A gigabyte costs a few US cents, but multiply that with the number of downloads and page loads. I'm speaking about the bandwidth needed to upload from a server in a datacenter to the global Internet all those games. Other than that, it's really just a big save in money. No need to print a written manual, no need to replicate CD/DVD-ROMs, no need to produce an aluring package for the game, no need to distribute it physically, etc. Just a bucket load of bits and bytes to transfer from point A to point B. So as it can all be done fully automated and just requires some hardware and bandwidth, it's getting cheaper.
Now Steam maybe didn't succeed, but my speculation has been that they had the wrong approach and a bad business plan. Also I assume they didn't wait for the potential customers to have decent connections. Well, just look at Stardock now. People sure seem to download just fine GalCiv.
Support is now done via telephone and e-mail, as well as online forums and knowledgebases. And nothing would basically change. Just the medium, so I can't see any issue with rising support costs.
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This is the way forward i believe, but doesn't it just make piracy easier to do? I think Piracy has had its part to play in the current state of PC gaming vs console gaming, and needs to be addressed before the mid-size developer will feel completely comfortable with using this method as the main-stream way of getting their software to their customers(the other option is to approach a publisher - which can be a bit like selling your soul ).
I also think part of the problem(which may be just a matter of time and getting used to it)with electronic delivery may be that it feels 'cheap' - like downloading from a warez site.
With a physical game box/manual etc you feel like you actualy have bought something real. Maybe thats an 'old-school' physcological tick, but i feel much more attached to my games that have a real box+paper things with them?
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26-07-2005 20:11
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