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OK, don't get me wrong, I don't think that online gaming is in a downward spiral! However have you noticed that a lot of online shooters (CounterStrike, Quake III etc) essentially boil down to the same thing. Run around very fast, shoot, have a slanging match with some dude called 'player224' and whinge about the lag you're suffering. True each game has it's differences, CS has a fairly unique style of play, but lets face it, the Half-Life engine is looking a bit tired now. Quake III, very pretty, nice lights and so on, but it's all been done before (maybe a bit more brown..). There are more games on the horizon (when I say horizon, it's big far away horizon, seeing as some are over a year away), which promise loads of great things - co-operative teamplay, stunning graphics yadda yaddaa. When Team Fortress 2 was announced, we jumped for joy, worshipped Valve and couldn't wait to get our teeth into it. Now pushing 3 years later, we still can't wait, but we are not quite champing at the bit like we used too. This is because since then so many more games have been announced that promise the same thing. Our repsonse has diminshed from the 'WAAHOO yeah bring on man!' to a quiet 'hmmm could be good, I'll wait and see'. That was until Planetside surfaced. Not since the inception of Team Fortress 2 has the gaming community been in such a state of pant wetting anticipation. Whilst at a cursory glance it appears to be a pretty Team Fortress, further inspection reveals the not so hidden depths. Levels are huge, and complex. Outside theatres are very much outside (no towering buildings or high walls to fence me in). The world is persistent giving a high level of interaction, making it more captivating. You will have a more consistent role, with a long term aim and sense of purpose. No longer is it just a case of seeing your name at the top of a score board after 10 minutes. Whilst some games promise fully user defined worlds - which wonderful in theory, would be very hard to administer and manage - Planetside offers a realistic framework, which makes the game appear more tangible. A cynic I may be, but when I hear about some of these new massively multiplayer games, I start to count down the time until the project is dropped or radically altered to something completely different. Planetside seems to offer something achievable, yet different and very exciting. News may have been around on Planetside for a while now, but, ever the cynic, I wait until something more solid appears before I start champing at the bit.
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PseudoSavant wrote:
> gronti:
I'm afraid that he's right. Consoles are specifically
> built for gaming, whereas PCs are used for so many things, gaming
> becomes a sidenote. I'm sorry, but you give me the chance to play
> some really elite online games on my console, and the PC may never
> hear from me again. The fact that no one ever ported Thief onto a
> console still drives me insane; I just can't understand it. It's a
> wonderful game that could be translated easily to a console, given
> the way that it plays.
I don't find that gaming is a sidenote, with all the high powered games coming out now gaming is a big thing on the PC. Yes Consoles were specifically designed for gaming but the PC is multifunctional including being good for games. The thing with a PC is that you get more choice of games, cheaper price and the games keep getting better since they are given more to work with as technology advances. The PC is also upgradeable so games push the boundries of what minimum specification is. Okay this can be frustrating for people who have to keep upgrading or replacing but nowadays more companies are striving to have low minimum specifications. The weakest computer you can get now from Special Reserve is a P3 700 right? well most games could work on less than that but with that power can be made even better. What I mean is that there are often more options to change graphics to suit your hardware in games so keeping up is becoming less of a problem (plus some of the better games don't need super computers to run, like Baldur's Gate for example).
On the subject of Thief I really didn't like the game. Okay, the game itself was great with all the sneaking and stealing but after the first level the main opponents are zombies who can only be killed with a holy water arrow, gas breathing lizards who are best taken at range and the odd giant mantis creature. So really it became more like "Mystic artifact hunting, Zombie killing, fantastic monster fighting fellow" rather than any actual thievery. I think it would have been much better if you only had to fight human opponents (or hide from them) and you were stealing for the money rather than looting mystic artifacts from ancient haunted temples so that the evil (somewhat predictable) conspirative story can unfold. Okay Garret (the thief) thinks it's for the money up to a point (the last few levels) but really thievery isn't much of a factor. It's more like tomb raider really because that's mostly what you do. I played through a lot of the game in the hope that there would be more levels in which you steal things with human guards and they taunted me with that Hammerers level in the middle of the game but really there were far to many undeads, evil creatures and worthless magical artifacts to be any good. To start with when I first saw a Zombie I thought it might just be the odd one, which was acceptable but really the main points of the game deteriorated later on. The stealth aspect was lost quite quickly too and the best tactic tended to be shoot the zombie, run at the zombie or run from the mighty skeleton warrior thing.
Gettting back to the main point, the PC will always be the king of RTS and flight sims and will probably dominate FPSs for some time so it really is improving it's position as a games machine as well as for other reasons. Another thing is that consoles are slowly becoming more and more like games dedicated PCs, which may be the end result and the type of Console that pulls people away from the normal PC (since it will have faster operating system loading and things... probably) but most likely the PC will survive a long long time as a games machine and make it's console opposition become more like it rather than give up the fight.
> gronti:
I'm afraid that he's right. Consoles are specifically
> built for gaming, whereas PCs are used for so many things, gaming
> becomes a sidenote. I'm sorry, but you give me the chance to play
> some really elite online games on my console, and the PC may never
> hear from me again. The fact that no one ever ported Thief onto a
> console still drives me insane; I just can't understand it. It's a
> wonderful game that could be translated easily to a console, given
> the way that it plays.
I don't find that gaming is a sidenote, with all the high powered games coming out now gaming is a big thing on the PC. Yes Consoles were specifically designed for gaming but the PC is multifunctional including being good for games. The thing with a PC is that you get more choice of games, cheaper price and the games keep getting better since they are given more to work with as technology advances. The PC is also upgradeable so games push the boundries of what minimum specification is. Okay this can be frustrating for people who have to keep upgrading or replacing but nowadays more companies are striving to have low minimum specifications. The weakest computer you can get now from Special Reserve is a P3 700 right? well most games could work on less than that but with that power can be made even better. What I mean is that there are often more options to change graphics to suit your hardware in games so keeping up is becoming less of a problem (plus some of the better games don't need super computers to run, like Baldur's Gate for example).
On the subject of Thief I really didn't like the game. Okay, the game itself was great with all the sneaking and stealing but after the first level the main opponents are zombies who can only be killed with a holy water arrow, gas breathing lizards who are best taken at range and the odd giant mantis creature. So really it became more like "Mystic artifact hunting, Zombie killing, fantastic monster fighting fellow" rather than any actual thievery. I think it would have been much better if you only had to fight human opponents (or hide from them) and you were stealing for the money rather than looting mystic artifacts from ancient haunted temples so that the evil (somewhat predictable) conspirative story can unfold. Okay Garret (the thief) thinks it's for the money up to a point (the last few levels) but really thievery isn't much of a factor. It's more like tomb raider really because that's mostly what you do. I played through a lot of the game in the hope that there would be more levels in which you steal things with human guards and they taunted me with that Hammerers level in the middle of the game but really there were far to many undeads, evil creatures and worthless magical artifacts to be any good. To start with when I first saw a Zombie I thought it might just be the odd one, which was acceptable but really the main points of the game deteriorated later on. The stealth aspect was lost quite quickly too and the best tactic tended to be shoot the zombie, run at the zombie or run from the mighty skeleton warrior thing.
Gettting back to the main point, the PC will always be the king of RTS and flight sims and will probably dominate FPSs for some time so it really is improving it's position as a games machine as well as for other reasons. Another thing is that consoles are slowly becoming more and more like games dedicated PCs, which may be the end result and the type of Console that pulls people away from the normal PC (since it will have faster operating system loading and things... probably) but most likely the PC will survive a long long time as a games machine and make it's console opposition become more like it rather than give up the fight.
er-no the saviour getting rid of dans post
Not enough paragraphs.
(You sound a lot like Sniper doing this...)
(You sound a lot like Sniper doing this...)
gronti:
I'm afraid that he's right. Consoles are specifically built for gaming, whereas PCs are used for so many things, gaming becomes a sidenote. I'm sorry, but you give me the chance to play some really elite online games on my console, and the PC may never hear from me again. The fact that no one ever ported Thief onto a console still drives me insane; I just can't understand it. It's a wonderful game that could be translated easily to a console, given the way that it plays.
As for dismissing Planetside because of Verant: I don't blame them for dismissing it out of hostility towards Verant at all. You should trust that the company releasing an online game isn't going to screw with your gaming, and Verant's made a career out of it.
I'm afraid that he's right. Consoles are specifically built for gaming, whereas PCs are used for so many things, gaming becomes a sidenote. I'm sorry, but you give me the chance to play some really elite online games on my console, and the PC may never hear from me again. The fact that no one ever ported Thief onto a console still drives me insane; I just can't understand it. It's a wonderful game that could be translated easily to a console, given the way that it plays.
As for dismissing Planetside because of Verant: I don't blame them for dismissing it out of hostility towards Verant at all. You should trust that the company releasing an online game isn't going to screw with your gaming, and Verant's made a career out of it.
gronti_v wrote:
> Aha, but no! There's thousands of interesting new controllers for
> PCs. Steering wheels for example, and controllers much the same as
> you might get on a console. Plus the traditional joystick and the
> keyboard, which allows you to have loads of functions (one for each
> key) which can be very useful in playing games (especially flight
> sims and RTSs). Also there are newer things like the commander
> mouse thing that has various abilities to improve swiftness of
> control in RTS games... What's it called again? hold on...
Maybe, but as good as the N64's?
> Aha, but no! There's thousands of interesting new controllers for
> PCs. Steering wheels for example, and controllers much the same as
> you might get on a console. Plus the traditional joystick and the
> keyboard, which allows you to have loads of functions (one for each
> key) which can be very useful in playing games (especially flight
> sims and RTSs). Also there are newer things like the commander
> mouse thing that has various abilities to improve swiftness of
> control in RTS games... What's it called again? hold on...
Maybe, but as good as the N64's?
Aha, but no! There's thousands of interesting new controllers for PCs. Steering wheels for example, and controllers much the same as you might get on a console. Plus the traditional joystick and the keyboard, which allows you to have loads of functions (one for each key) which can be very useful in playing games (especially flight sims and RTSs). Also there are newer things like the commander mouse thing that has various abilities to improve swiftness of control in RTS games... What's it called again? hold on...
I dunno, maybe, but I do enjoy using the PC for all my on-line gamery. Well, what little of it I do (Diablo, and I gave that up when Diablo2 was no where near as good as it should have been and slowed down the whole Battle.Net). Still, consoles could one day be almost as good (If you can find a good RTS that works well on a console and can be played on-line then they may be able to be just as good.) The PC would probably be better for hardware anyway.
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