NO. They should leave it alone because the world has enough remakes. Considering how bad MGS4 was they need to seriously take a massive break from that franchise before it collapses in on itself like a black hole of bad writing and nanomachines war economies war war has changed snake can you hear me snake i live on in this arrrmmmmmm
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
On Wednesday, the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us. They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff, and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game. We loved that they all wanted to keep working together, but it was pretty clear they’d have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out.
In one of life’s coincidences, Epic’s directors had spent the morning discussing how we’d love to build even more successful projects with our growing team, but that we’d need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so. Which, we all knew, was impossible.
So now we’re planning to start an impossible studio in Baltimore.
Classy, Epic.
Nintendo Network ID: V-Faction | XBL: V Faction | Steam | 3DS: 3136 - 6603 - 1330 PokemonWhite Friend Code: 0046-2121-0723/White2 Friend Code: 0519-5126-2990
"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
Wait what
Are you saying you would have preferred it actually have been Liquid taking over Ocelot's body instead of Ocelot just pretending?
On Wednesday, the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us. They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff, and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game. We loved that they all wanted to keep working together, but it was pretty clear they’d have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out.
In one of life’s coincidences, Epic’s directors had spent the morning discussing how we’d love to build even more successful projects with our growing team, but that we’d need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so. Which, we all knew, was impossible.
So now we’re planning to start an impossible studio in Baltimore.
Classy, Epic.
Leads to interesting speculation as to which one of Epic's IPs they want to use to make their game. It'll be an RPG, right? Here's the quick wikipedia list of their IPs:
Castle of the Winds
ZZT
Overkill
Jill of the Jungle
Jazz Jackrabbit
Epic Pinball
Fire Fight
One Must Fall: 2097
Unreal series
Age of Wonders
Gears of War series
Shadow Complex
Kiloblaster
Infinity Blade
Infinity Blade II
Infinity Blade RPG? Unreal 3 (Not to be confused with Unreal Tournament 3)? JILL OF THE JUNGLE RPG? (HELL YEAH)
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
It's no worse than the arm 'plot twist' that was in Bionic Commando.
[fake spoiler]"MY ARM IS MY WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!"[/End fake spoiler]
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
Sorry, but you don't get to be surprised about ridiculous plot twists in a Metal Gear game. Every one of them since MGS2 has beaten the player over the head with the fact that the premise for anything is outright ridiculous. The series is a sci-fi Japanese soap opera with guns, they've always been very clear about that.
If you had been playing Splinter Cell Whatever and all of a sudden Lambert came back to life as a hockeystick weilding half robot half corpse animated by Soviet nanomachines that were built in the 1970s and is possessed by the soul of Grim's dog who speaks solely in palindromes, than yeah, that would be a little weird, but complaining about weird shit in a MGS game is like complaining about black tires on a car.
On Wednesday, the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us. They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff, and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game. We loved that they all wanted to keep working together, but it was pretty clear they’d have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out.
In one of life’s coincidences, Epic’s directors had spent the morning discussing how we’d love to build even more successful projects with our growing team, but that we’d need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so. Which, we all knew, was impossible.
So now we’re planning to start an impossible studio in Baltimore.
On Wednesday, the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us. They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff, and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game. We loved that they all wanted to keep working together, but it was pretty clear they’d have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out.
In one of life’s coincidences, Epic’s directors had spent the morning discussing how we’d love to build even more successful projects with our growing team, but that we’d need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so. Which, we all knew, was impossible.
So now we’re planning to start an impossible studio in Baltimore.
Classy, Epic.
I wonder what IP BHG was looking at using.
I listed out the options above. Happy speculation!
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited June 2012
Man...I would love an Unreal Tournament in this day in age. Not enough just balls out crazy competitive shooters anymore.
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
Sorry, but you don't get to be surprised about ridiculous plot twists in a Metal Gear game. Every one of them since MGS2 has beaten the player over the head with the fact that the premise for anything is outright ridiculous. The series is a sci-fi Japanese soap opera with guns, they've always been very clear about that.
If you had been playing Splinter Cell Whatever and all of a sudden Lambert came back to life as a hockeystick weilding half robot half corpse animated by Soviet nanomachines that were built in the 1970s and is possessed by the soul of Grim's dog who speaks solely in palindromes, than yeah, that would be a little weird, but complaining about weird shit in a MGS game is like complaining about black tires on a car.
Straw that broke the camel's back I'm afraid. I always just went with the flow and ignored the ridiculousness of it. But that was just too far. It's not that it's dumb, because the whole series is dumb, it's that it is inconsequential. It's plot for the sake of plot, an extra level of mindfuckery for no payoff. Well I just won't be havin that. Kojima can go die in a well for all I care, he's a terrible, awful writer who needed an editor more than air itself.
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
Sorry, but you don't get to be surprised about ridiculous plot twists in a Metal Gear game. Every one of them since MGS2 has beaten the player over the head with the fact that the premise for anything is outright ridiculous. The series is a sci-fi Japanese soap opera with guns, they've always been very clear about that.
If you had been playing Splinter Cell Whatever and all of a sudden Lambert came back to life as a hockeystick weilding half robot half corpse animated by Soviet nanomachines that were built in the 1970s and is possessed by the soul of Grim's dog who speaks solely in palindromes, than yeah, that would be a little weird, but complaining about weird shit in a MGS game is like complaining about black tires on a car.
Straw that broke the camel's back I'm afraid. I always just went with the flow and ignored the ridiculousness of it. But that was just too far. It's not that it's dumb, because the whole series is dumb, it's that it is inconsequential. It's plot for the sake of plot, an extra level of mindfuckery for no payoff. Well I just won't be havin that. Kojima can go die in a well for all I care, he's a terrible, awful writer who needed an editor more than air itself.
Gosh yes he DEFINITELY needs an editor. Someone sane, and possibly, willing to smack him upside the head a few times if he tries to go off the rails again.
Incidentally, this is Kojima after releasing MGS 1.
Hideo Kojima: MGS is not about telling a good story. It's about a protagonist who infiltrates and fights some bad guys. The bad guys occupy a certain area. That's why the protagonist infiltrates that area to eliminate the bad guys. That's the whole plot. Well, I do throw in many twists towards the end to surprise the player, but I limit that to a level that is not confusing. MGS is an action game, and I cannot really make the story any more complex. I am for limits. What's important is to make the player objective obvious. The same holds true with what the player must do next.
All I can say is his limits are somewhere past the FREAKING MOON.
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mntorankusuI'm not sure how to use this thing....Registered Userregular
MGS4 went too far for me too. It retroactively made the other games worse. And the gameplay wasn't even very good.
Its a cool move for Epic to hire these guys, and it definitely raises my opinion of them. Hopefully they'll ease back on the questionable DLC decisions they made with Gears3, as that's my biggest beef with them at the moment.
Undead Scottsman on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
On the eve of E3 2012, we are able to inform you, according to our credible sources, that Sega Europe will be finally closed in the coming months as well as all the local branches in Europe like Sega France. This is partly a consequence of the ineffectiveness of Sega's strategy over the past several years of developing games by western developers. At the same time, Sega will also announce, according to these sources, they will no longer develop AAA games on consoles, but will focus on digital games, notably for cell phones and tablets. Sega's last big title developed by Creative Assembly will be presented at E3 2012 in a few days. Furthermore, remember that Sega has announced they will not be at Gamescom 2012.
Next on the news, Sonic died for your sins and the portable game system that is secretly converting your child to Pokemonism.
It's one thing when we all see stuff about how Sega is doing poorly, but when divisions are rumored to shut down that's a little much to take.
Its a cool move for Epic to hire these guys, and it definitely raises my opinion of them. Hopefully they'll ease back on the questionable DLC decisions they made with Gears3, as that's my biggest beef with them at the moment.
to be fair, MS could have had a hand in that as their publisher. i don't know if you've seen the fun stuff happening with halo 4 preorders, but i can bet the DLC for halo will be handled just as poorly...
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
MGS4 went too far for me too. It retroactively made the other games worse. And the gameplay wasn't even very good.
I choose to believe that Kojima's been serious about not wanting to make another MGS after 2/3 and Konami/his fans keep putting him up to it, as opposed to letting someone else take the reins.
OK, this is pretty cool tech with a pretty awful name: SOEmote. It'd be neat if future MMOs and other multiplayer games lined up for this.
The future is here and it’s full of Ratonga. SOE is adding new facial recognition tech to EverQuest 2 that lets the game track your movement and facial expressions and replicate them on your avatar in real-time. Voice chat is also built into the feature so that your character will animate naturally while you talk.
We have a full demo video of the tech below, and the inside scoop on how it works and why the devs think MMO players will love it from EQ2′s Director of Development David Georgeson and the CEO of the company that developed the technology, Robert Gehorsam.
PCG: Aside from it being cool future-sci-fi-world technology, why is it important to get this tech into MMOs??
Dave Georgeson: Any game that calls itself a roleplaying game absolutely needs this feature. For other games, it’s just a really good idea that your players will want.
Pick a character. Pick a class. And then be that character instead of just being yourself. That’s what a roleplaying game is supposed to be.
You’re you for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When you play a MMORPG, you get to be someone else. Someone bigger than life that can be heroic or evil, passionate or savage, but someone that lets you stretch out beyond the normal RL envelope of life while simultaneously becoming legendary, fighting dragons and demons and saving the world. SOEmote lets you do that in a fashion that you’ve never experienced before.
PCG: Can you explain exactly what the software is tracking?
Robert Gehorsam: Within EverQuest 2, the Live Driver software essentially performs detailed measurements of the player’s facial expression on every image captured from their webcam. Today’s webcams typically operate at 30 frames per second. Our software tracks 64 points and makes around 100 expression measurements per frame, for over 5,000 measurements per second.
PCG: As a player, a lot of my time is spent looking at the back of my character’s head, and other characters can be far away from me. How useful will this really be, especially in combat?
DG: When we first started creating this feature, our assumption was that you wouldn’t really be able to see the facial distinctions at any distance, so we figured we would need to add a pop-up window so that a player could essentially create an in-game version of Skype with another player or create Brady Bunch-style windows for group interface.
But what we found after we got it into the game was surprising. Humans are very good at discerning even the tiniest differences in facial expression at much greater distances than you can imagine. Even when a face is tiny at distance, your eye is still noticing important elements, like an eyebrow being raised, a grinning mouth, or even eyes squinting in concern. The more we experimented, the more we realized we didn’t need a close-up window at all.
But is SOEmote designed to be useful in combat? Not really. Combat already has a million things going on that you need to watch, and checking out the nuances on a fellow player’s face while you’re supposed to be keeping that player alive is not what we were shooting for here.
SOEmote’s “purpose” is simply to let players communicate more effectively, to immerse into the world more deeply, and to allow roleplaying to return to our roleplaying games.
PCG: So it’s being designed primarily as a roleplaying tool?
DG: SOEmote is, of course, a fantastic roleplaying tool. That method of gaming got pretty seriously beat down when we added VOIP to MMORPGs. Of course, it’s far easier to voice chat than to type in a text pane, but that ease-of-use improvement had a high consequence. Once players revealed their real voices to each other, it suddenly started feeling awkward to pretend to be a big gruff troll or a high elf princess… and roleplay took a serious nosedive.
But now, with SOEmote, you can make your character’s face come to life, and also filter your voice to sound like your actual character (thus restoring anonymity and enabling roleplay again). It’s amazing how much life suddenly springs into your character when those two elements combine to make your character become believable.
Our objective with SOEmote was to enhance people’s ability to immerse within the game. Yes, that definitely makes roleplaying a lot easier, but it’s also great for anyone that just wants to hang out and talk to their friends. It really has to be experienced to fully understand the impact.
PCG: Will players be given the option to opt out or pause their input without unplugging their webcam?
DG: Absolutely. SOEmote is really easy to use. Plug in your webcam, open up the SOEmote panel, hit Calibrate, select a voice font, and ta da you’re done.
Then when you‘re playing, and you want to stop the camera feed, you just hit a hotkey and the face data and voice stops immediately. At that point, your character’s face returns to its normal neutral pose. Just use the hotkey again and you’re back on SOEmote and transmitting.
It should be noted that your actual image never gets transmitted at all. All the webcam is doing is watching key spots on your face and transmitting that positional data to the game. Your facial images are never actually sent or stored anywhere.
RG: One advantage of the technology that powers SOEmote is that it provides anonymity to the players. Images are analyzed in real-time. The resulting data is only used to provide animation values and then it’s discarded.
PCG: Aside from roleplaying, how else do you expect players to use this tech in-game?
DG: The feature wasn’t designed to be used in any specific way. This is one of those emergent gameplay features. We’re enabling it with some basic ideas of how it will be used, but with the intent to sit back and watch how players use it.
But what can we imagine? Externally to the game, Machinima is pretty obvious. We already have YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter support within the game. I can picture some pretty amusing stuff happening on that front. Player creativity is boundless and anything we can imagine here will be dwarfed by what the players actually do.
But within the game, whether or not you’re interested in roleplaying, the ease of communication when using SOEmote is tremendous. Anything that breaks down communication barriers between players is fantastic for MMOs, and something that also bolsters immersion and roleplay in this manner is tremendous.
We did support a couple of specific behaviors. For example, we’ve set things up so that guild leaders can broadcast a live feed via a special guild window. Sort of like a live TV broadcast. The leader opens a window, the guild members choose whether to receive the window or not, and the leader can then broadcast via SOEmote to the entire guild at once. Neat, eh?
We’re really just scratching the surface with this initial release of SOEmote. We’re working with a fantastic partner, Image Metrics, that has been developing and using this technology for filmmaking now for many years. They are indisputably the best people in this space and they’re continuing to develop new ways to use the webcam interface. Like hand tracking, or recording your own full-body emotes.
Immersion is a fantastic thing and we’re pushing it hard here at SOE.
PCG: Has this technology been used in anything I might recognize?
RG: Prior to Live Driver—the technology used in EQ2—our professional facial animation technology, Faceware… was used in more than 40 AAA gaming titles, including Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV, Assassin’s Creed, Max Payne and more.
PCG: I imagine there were some amusing bugs during testing.
DG: When we first implemented the SDK from Image Metrics, the software didn’t clamp down the feeds if you turned your head too far left or right. It got into a very strange math state and your head suddenly started flipping out like a scene out of Lawnmower Man or Max Headroom. We had a lot of fun with it before finally fixing it.
Also, watching someone use SOEmote for the very first time is always hysterical. Once people get used to being anonymous in-game again, they start really stretching their faces and voices to push the limits of the feature, and that’s funny stuff.
PCG: Have the devs found any particularly creative or surprising uses for the tech?
DG: One of our animators immediately set up all kinds of hotbar shortcuts for various character emotes and spent far too much time singing via SOEmote and being a tavern dancer. It was hysterical. You really don’t need to see a Ratonga dancing to Britney Spears. (Okay, you do. But just once.)
PCG: So it can handle Britney Spears, but how subtle of changes in facial movement can the technology actually pick up on and display?
RG: It’s not just a simple face tracker: [it can] track highly-accurate facial expressions in real-time, including subtle micro-expressions, which allows the player to see the intent behind the facial gesture. Not only does it capture broad movement like head pose, smiles, and blinks, but also the intent of more nuanced expressions: a sly smile vs. a snarl, surprise vs. an arched eyebrow. It also captures asymmetrical movements—something that’s important in gameplay.
Equally important in gameplay: freaky animal duels.
PCG: With tech like this and constant voice chat, do you see text chat eventually disappearing from MMOs?
DG: Absolutely not. Text chat is going to be around for a long time and I see no real reason for it to go away. Area chats, LFG channels, and brokering are all elements better suited to chat. Also, some people just like to carefully compose their thoughts before sending them and text is better suited for that.
What proportion of text chat will this replace? The players already use VOIP now. SOEmote will certainly encourage some new folks to start using VOIP so they can roleplay, but I don’t expect the balance of conversation to change immediately. Stuff like this takes time to ripple through communities and they’ll have to decide how they want to use it. But the potential is tremendous.
PCG: Do you think this tech could or should be used in all games, or is it peculiarly useful in EQ2 for some reason?
DG: My personal opinion? All games should have this. You’ve got to try this. Once you get used to other people’s faces moving realistically and intuitively, characters in other games start to feel really plastic and mannequin-like.
Human communication is all about face and body language. You already know this because you currently use video feeds whenever possible to communicate over the net, either through YouTube, Skype or Facetime, rather than relying on just VOIP or text.
SOEmote allows you to have that level of communication within a virtual world. Now that this is possible, why would you want anything less?
Tags: digital puppeteering, EverQuest 2, Featured, MMO, SOE, Wait you typed 'lol' but your character isn't laughing--do you not think I'm funny?
SwashbucklerXX on
Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
Wait what
Are you saying you would have preferred it actually have been Liquid taking over Ocelot's body instead of Ocelot just pretending?
Yeah. I just have to disagree with it somehow being "too far," it was actually the only reasonable answer. I loved it. I laughed when it was revealed, because it was fantastically simple. But I really love Metal Gear Solid. All of them.
Part of me thinks the Sega rumor is absolute crap, since pulling out of the console market entirely sounds like suicide. And hell, didn't they just announce that they were going to focus on AAA titles?
Then again, Sega's in the shitter and everyone else is going bonkers with digital/smartphones. So I don't know what to believe anymore.
Very, very fine move by Epic.
Other stuff from the Nintendo announcement:
Looks like it really is "Wii U." Eh. Personally I think they'd be better served by another name, but they survived "3DS" okay, and that one's also confusing.
It's got video chat. Huh, neat. Maybe not a gigantic gamechanger in a world of Skype and Facetime, but neat.
Then there's this:
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata announced new Wii U details today during the company's pre-E3 2012 Nintendo Direct briefing. When the system is first powered on, players will see a home screen full of all their friends' Mii characters - a "Mii Universe," as Iwata described it. It will act as a communication hub of sorts, where players can see their friends' Miis gathered around whatever game they're playing.
The Miiverse will also allow players to share in game assets, like screenshots, with each other, and to send each other messages during a game. Players can also send each other hand-written notes, much like in the 3DS's Swapnote application. Your Miiverse will be accessible from Wii U, 3DS, mobile devices and online, and you'll be able to suspend play of any Wii U games to check on your Miiverse whenever you want.
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
I need to restart MGS4 after my major theft, does the Rising trailer spoil anything from 4?
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
I need to restart MGS4 after my major theft, does the Rising trailer spoil anything from 4?
No, not really.
Nintendo Console Codes
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
HAIL HYDRA
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The_SpaniardIt's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
I remember playing MGS4 and getting to the bit where they actually explain the arm thing. And they explained it. And I stood up, calmly, leaving the controller and console running, just as it was. I walked out of my apartment, went to the shop, bought a Mars Bar, sat on a wall in the sun and ate it slowly. And time passed, I don't even know how much, but I came back to my apartment a changed man. I had seen the worst plot twist in the history of all mankind. It was like emerging from slaughterhouse five and seeing the world in ruins, you simply step outside of your mind in awe.
Wait what
Are you saying you would have preferred it actually have been Liquid taking over Ocelot's body instead of Ocelot just pretending?
As someone who has never played any game in the series besides MGS3 and has only read summaries of MGS1 and MGS2's plots, that particular plot twist sounds to me like it would make perfect sense. Was it handled more poorly in-game that it sounds?
Everything in MGS4 was done bad, especially the beauties who once you beat you got their sad history by an outside source that was so ham fested and laughable that I wished you had found out on your own via finding and reading some document instead. It was delivered that bad.
BTW did everyone forget, Sony is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED
On the eve of Sony’s much-awaited PlayStation-centric press conference at E3 2012 comes some stunning news: Sony’s stock fell below 1,000 Yen (or $12.79) for the first time since 1984 during trading in Japan on Monday.
CNBC Tweeted the ominous news, noting the information in a brief “Market Flash.” Reuters expanded upon the news, stating that although Sony’s stock did indeed fall below the 1,000 Yen threshold, it “eased 1.3 percent” to bring it back up to 1,000 Yen before trading ended.
Bad news has been flowing about Sony’s financial health all year. Its credit and debt ratings were downgraded in February on the heels of a massive quarterly loss. Such a financial reality caused Sony to outline new plans for the future while planning to layoff 10,000 workers. The maelstrom of bad news caused the New York Times to declare that Sony is in the fight of its life.
Although the PlayStation brand is considered healthy, poor sales of the PSP’s successor, the PlayStation Vita, have called into question how to measure the new handheld’s success. Meanwhile, the financial downturn Sony has encountered forced the company to shutter two of its 15 fully-owned development studios in 2012, a historic move considering Sony only shuttered one of its development houses total since PlayStation premiered in Japan in 1994. BigBig Studios, the UK-based studio responsible for the Pursuit Force franchise on PSP and Little Deviants on Vita, closed in early January. Soon thereafter, Zipper Interactive, the American developer best-known for the SOCOM franchise, as well as MAG and Unit 13, was also closed.
Everything in MGS4 was done bad, especially the beauties who once you beat you got their sad history by an outside source that was so ham fested and laughable that I wished you had found out on your own via finding and reading some document instead. It was delivered that bad.
BTW did everyone forget, Sony is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED
On the eve of Sony’s much-awaited PlayStation-centric press conference at E3 2012 comes some stunning news: Sony’s stock fell below 1,000 Yen (or $12.79) for the first time since 1984 during trading in Japan on Monday.
CNBC Tweeted the ominous news, noting the information in a brief “Market Flash.” Reuters expanded upon the news, stating that although Sony’s stock did indeed fall below the 1,000 Yen threshold, it “eased 1.3 percent” to bring it back up to 1,000 Yen before trading ended.
Bad news has been flowing about Sony’s financial health all year. Its credit and debt ratings were downgraded in February on the heels of a massive quarterly loss. Such a financial reality caused Sony to outline new plans for the future while planning to layoff 10,000 workers. The maelstrom of bad news caused the New York Times to declare that Sony is in the fight of its life.
Although the PlayStation brand is considered healthy, poor sales of the PSP’s successor, the PlayStation Vita, have called into question how to measure the new handheld’s success. Meanwhile, the financial downturn Sony has encountered forced the company to shutter two of its 15 fully-owned development studios in 2012, a historic move considering Sony only shuttered one of its development houses total since PlayStation premiered in Japan in 1994. BigBig Studios, the UK-based studio responsible for the Pursuit Force franchise on PSP and Little Deviants on Vita, closed in early January. Soon thereafter, Zipper Interactive, the American developer best-known for the SOCOM franchise, as well as MAG and Unit 13, was also closed.
Meanwhile someone was arguing to me in the E3 thread last week that Sony is fine financially. :rotate:
This is a pretty important week for them, all things considered. I hope they break out with good news to hold on.
I'd take it with a grain of salt but if true you know what this means.
PSN will know what the term hacking really means.
It's a fairly solid bet considering Blizzard was hiring for console positions some time ago. They basically were saying "We're hiring for consoles but Diablo 3 isn't coming out for consoles", and most of the internet rolled their eyes.
Now the kicker is to see whether Sony of Microsoft lets them get away with their fucking retarded DRM.
I would imagine a console version would simply require you to have a Battle.net account and have you log into that every time to play.
So in a way, I would think that would be more safer. There's no point trying to hack a PSN or Live account. And theoretically a console is immune to most malware and keylogger attacks.
Still though, almost anything could happen, I suppose.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Ubisoft still reigns in the UKIE GfK ChartTrack All Formats Top 40, with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier winning a second week at No.1.
Max Payne 3 is another non-mover at No.2 despite a 39 per cent dip in sales. Ghost Recon saw a similar decline of 35 per cent.
Several EA titles have staged a comeback this week, with FIFA 12 leaping two places to No.3. Meanwhile, Battlefield 3 returned to the Top 10 after a long week, fortifying its position at No.8.
There were very few new releases last week, with Resistance: Burning Skies the only new title in the Top 20. The Vita shooter took No.12 - the franchise's previous outing on a Sony handheld (2009's Resistance: Retribution for PSP) failed to place in the Top 40.
Here's the All Formats Top 20 in full for the week ending June 2nd:
1. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Solider (Ubisoft)
2. Max Payne 3 (Rockstar Games)
3. FIFA 12 (EA Sports)
4. Dragon's Dogma (Capcom)
5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision)
6. Sniper Elite V2 (505 Games)
7. Dirt Showdown (Codemasters)
8. Battlefield 3 (EA)
9. FIFA Street (EA Sports)
10. Prototype 2 (Activision)
11. Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Sega)
12. Resistance: Burning Skies (Sony)
13. Mass Effect 3 (EA)
14. Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision)
15. Mario Tennis Open (Nintendo)
16. Assassin's Creed: Revelations (Ubisoft)
17. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (EA)
18. Batman: Arkham City (Warner Bros)
19. WWE '12 (THQ)
20. Kinect Star Wars (Microsoft)
Ahead of its presentations at E3, Nintendo revealed several key initiatives for its upcoming Wii U console, including a social layer that will be deeply integrated into the system - and beyond onto PCs and smartphones.
The company did not make any game announcements during Sunday's Nintendo Direct livestream, but it introduced new features for the "Wii U GamePad," its newly named tablet controller for the system, such as video chat (similar to iOS's Facetime feature) and "Miiverse" social functions.
When users turn on the console, they will be greeted with crowds of Mii avatars surrounding game icons and discussing them. They can read what people around the world are saying about a game, as well as participate in the conversations by posting their own typed or handwritten messages.
Nintendo showed a Twitter-like newsfeed that users could access and post messages to with the GamePad. They can even call others from that feed, and conduct a video chat session that uses the tablet's built-in camera.
"The purpose of Miiverse is not only to add information but a new degree of empathy between players," said Nintendo CEO and president Satoru Iwata. He noted that the console's development team sought to build something "that will help unite people rather than divide them."
These Miiverse features extend into games -- Nintendo showed a clip of players going through a New Super Mario Bros. title, and then seeing text-based comments posted by others appear next to specific game stages.
When Wii U launches this holiday season, Miiverse will only be accessible through the new console. But Nintendo intends to eventually make this social platform available on Nintendo 3DSes, PCs, and web-enabled mobile devices such as smartphones.
"We consider the small screen on the Wii U itself as a social window fully capable of linking player to player, from living room to living room, sharing across both time and space," said Iwata.
He adds, "Not only does Wii U offer players a way to connect across great distances, but they can also enjoy a sense of connection even when they are not playing at the same time."
A concept video showed a gamer struggling with a game, and using an element of the Miiverse to check other players' progress and opinions on the content. The player was encouraged to share his experiences with other players.
...
Miiverse allows players enjoying the same game to exchange notes and messages, and even shows achievements and accomplishments.
The demo showed a map from New Super Mario Bros overlaid with various other players' comments, progress and success.
It would probably be easier just to integrate Facebook or something. I can see the game discussion feature being useful for trying to get people to discover new games.
I wonder if Infinity Blade would have the legs for a full console game.
Are there any sales figures for the iPhone version?
They're working on an isometric Infinity Blade action RPG for ios so the brand is definitely getting developed. It's a much safer (financially) route to building an IP up to a point where it can sell big on name alone if/when they brought it to consoles/AAA.
I would imagine a console version would simply require you to have a Battle.net account and have you log into that every time to play.
So in a way, I would think that would be more safer. There's no point trying to hack a PSN or Live account. And theoretically a console is immune to most malware and keylogger attacks.
Still though, almost anything could happen, I suppose.
The safest option is to remove the DRM altogether. That would severely impact Blizzard's p2w/RMAH plan though.
Diablo and Diablo 2 had a perfectly functional system for online security with their open/closed Battle.net setup. There's no reason why something like that could have taken place with Diablo 3, with the RMAH limited to closed Battle.net characters.
Around a quarter of the PS3s and 360s sold don't ever connect to the internet. I would be completely speechless if they released a console version that required an active internet connection.
I would imagine a console version would simply require you to have a Battle.net account and have you log into that every time to play.
So in a way, I would think that would be more safer. There's no point trying to hack a PSN or Live account. And theoretically a console is immune to most malware and keylogger attacks.
Still though, almost anything could happen, I suppose.
The safest option is to remove the DRM altogether. That would severely impact Blizzard's p2w/RMAH plan though.
Around a quarter of the PS3s and 360s sold don't ever connect to the internet. I would be completely speechless if they released a console version that required an active internet connection.
Yeah I would be pretty surprised if they went the always online route for console.
Posts
Classy, Epic.
Pokemon White Friend Code: 0046-2121-0723/White 2 Friend Code: 0519-5126-2990
"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
Wait what
Leads to interesting speculation as to which one of Epic's IPs they want to use to make their game. It'll be an RPG, right? Here's the quick wikipedia list of their IPs:
Castle of the Winds
ZZT
Overkill
Jill of the Jungle
Jazz Jackrabbit
Epic Pinball
Fire Fight
One Must Fall: 2097
Unreal series
Age of Wonders
Gears of War series
Shadow Complex
Kiloblaster
Infinity Blade
Infinity Blade II
Infinity Blade RPG? Unreal 3 (Not to be confused with Unreal Tournament 3)? JILL OF THE JUNGLE RPG? (HELL YEAH)
edit: Epic Pinball: Reckoning
Are there any sales figures for the iPhone version?
Definitely an XBLA version, in fact I'm surprised they haven't gone that route
I've seen Dave and Buster's commercials that show an arcade version of Infinity Blade
Arcades. You know, like the deadest thing in the world. Shit, that's almost insulting XBLA.
It's no worse than the arm 'plot twist' that was in Bionic Commando.
[fake spoiler]"MY ARM IS MY WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!"[/End fake spoiler]
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
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Sorry, but you don't get to be surprised about ridiculous plot twists in a Metal Gear game. Every one of them since MGS2 has beaten the player over the head with the fact that the premise for anything is outright ridiculous. The series is a sci-fi Japanese soap opera with guns, they've always been very clear about that.
If you had been playing Splinter Cell Whatever and all of a sudden Lambert came back to life as a hockeystick weilding half robot half corpse animated by Soviet nanomachines that were built in the 1970s and is possessed by the soul of Grim's dog who speaks solely in palindromes, than yeah, that would be a little weird, but complaining about weird shit in a MGS game is like complaining about black tires on a car.
I listed out the options above. Happy speculation!
Straw that broke the camel's back I'm afraid. I always just went with the flow and ignored the ridiculousness of it. But that was just too far. It's not that it's dumb, because the whole series is dumb, it's that it is inconsequential. It's plot for the sake of plot, an extra level of mindfuckery for no payoff. Well I just won't be havin that. Kojima can go die in a well for all I care, he's a terrible, awful writer who needed an editor more than air itself.
Why did Nintendo put in clicking analogs! I despise them so much. I'm glad they chose to put regular analog sticks on it though.
edit: wrong thread, sorry.
Gosh yes he DEFINITELY needs an editor. Someone sane, and possibly, willing to smack him upside the head a few times if he tries to go off the rails again.
Incidentally, this is Kojima after releasing MGS 1.
All I can say is his limits are somewhere past the FREAKING MOON.
It's one thing when we all see stuff about how Sega is doing poorly, but when divisions are rumored to shut down that's a little much to take.
I choose to believe that Kojima's been serious about not wanting to make another MGS after 2/3 and Konami/his fans keep putting him up to it, as opposed to letting someone else take the reins.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
We have a full demo video of the tech below, and the inside scoop on how it works and why the devs think MMO players will love it from EQ2′s Director of Development David Georgeson and the CEO of the company that developed the technology, Robert Gehorsam.
PCG: Aside from it being cool future-sci-fi-world technology, why is it important to get this tech into MMOs??
Dave Georgeson: Any game that calls itself a roleplaying game absolutely needs this feature. For other games, it’s just a really good idea that your players will want.
Pick a character. Pick a class. And then be that character instead of just being yourself. That’s what a roleplaying game is supposed to be.
You’re you for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When you play a MMORPG, you get to be someone else. Someone bigger than life that can be heroic or evil, passionate or savage, but someone that lets you stretch out beyond the normal RL envelope of life while simultaneously becoming legendary, fighting dragons and demons and saving the world. SOEmote lets you do that in a fashion that you’ve never experienced before.
PCG: Can you explain exactly what the software is tracking?
Robert Gehorsam: Within EverQuest 2, the Live Driver software essentially performs detailed measurements of the player’s facial expression on every image captured from their webcam. Today’s webcams typically operate at 30 frames per second. Our software tracks 64 points and makes around 100 expression measurements per frame, for over 5,000 measurements per second.
PCG: As a player, a lot of my time is spent looking at the back of my character’s head, and other characters can be far away from me. How useful will this really be, especially in combat?
DG: When we first started creating this feature, our assumption was that you wouldn’t really be able to see the facial distinctions at any distance, so we figured we would need to add a pop-up window so that a player could essentially create an in-game version of Skype with another player or create Brady Bunch-style windows for group interface.
But what we found after we got it into the game was surprising. Humans are very good at discerning even the tiniest differences in facial expression at much greater distances than you can imagine. Even when a face is tiny at distance, your eye is still noticing important elements, like an eyebrow being raised, a grinning mouth, or even eyes squinting in concern. The more we experimented, the more we realized we didn’t need a close-up window at all.
But is SOEmote designed to be useful in combat? Not really. Combat already has a million things going on that you need to watch, and checking out the nuances on a fellow player’s face while you’re supposed to be keeping that player alive is not what we were shooting for here.
SOEmote’s “purpose” is simply to let players communicate more effectively, to immerse into the world more deeply, and to allow roleplaying to return to our roleplaying games.
PCG: So it’s being designed primarily as a roleplaying tool?
DG: SOEmote is, of course, a fantastic roleplaying tool. That method of gaming got pretty seriously beat down when we added VOIP to MMORPGs. Of course, it’s far easier to voice chat than to type in a text pane, but that ease-of-use improvement had a high consequence. Once players revealed their real voices to each other, it suddenly started feeling awkward to pretend to be a big gruff troll or a high elf princess… and roleplay took a serious nosedive.
But now, with SOEmote, you can make your character’s face come to life, and also filter your voice to sound like your actual character (thus restoring anonymity and enabling roleplay again). It’s amazing how much life suddenly springs into your character when those two elements combine to make your character become believable.
Our objective with SOEmote was to enhance people’s ability to immerse within the game. Yes, that definitely makes roleplaying a lot easier, but it’s also great for anyone that just wants to hang out and talk to their friends. It really has to be experienced to fully understand the impact.
PCG: Will players be given the option to opt out or pause their input without unplugging their webcam?
DG: Absolutely. SOEmote is really easy to use. Plug in your webcam, open up the SOEmote panel, hit Calibrate, select a voice font, and ta da you’re done.
Then when you‘re playing, and you want to stop the camera feed, you just hit a hotkey and the face data and voice stops immediately. At that point, your character’s face returns to its normal neutral pose. Just use the hotkey again and you’re back on SOEmote and transmitting.
It should be noted that your actual image never gets transmitted at all. All the webcam is doing is watching key spots on your face and transmitting that positional data to the game. Your facial images are never actually sent or stored anywhere.
RG: One advantage of the technology that powers SOEmote is that it provides anonymity to the players. Images are analyzed in real-time. The resulting data is only used to provide animation values and then it’s discarded.
PCG: Aside from roleplaying, how else do you expect players to use this tech in-game?
DG: The feature wasn’t designed to be used in any specific way. This is one of those emergent gameplay features. We’re enabling it with some basic ideas of how it will be used, but with the intent to sit back and watch how players use it.
But what can we imagine? Externally to the game, Machinima is pretty obvious. We already have YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter support within the game. I can picture some pretty amusing stuff happening on that front. Player creativity is boundless and anything we can imagine here will be dwarfed by what the players actually do.
But within the game, whether or not you’re interested in roleplaying, the ease of communication when using SOEmote is tremendous. Anything that breaks down communication barriers between players is fantastic for MMOs, and something that also bolsters immersion and roleplay in this manner is tremendous.
We did support a couple of specific behaviors. For example, we’ve set things up so that guild leaders can broadcast a live feed via a special guild window. Sort of like a live TV broadcast. The leader opens a window, the guild members choose whether to receive the window or not, and the leader can then broadcast via SOEmote to the entire guild at once. Neat, eh?
We’re really just scratching the surface with this initial release of SOEmote. We’re working with a fantastic partner, Image Metrics, that has been developing and using this technology for filmmaking now for many years. They are indisputably the best people in this space and they’re continuing to develop new ways to use the webcam interface. Like hand tracking, or recording your own full-body emotes.
Immersion is a fantastic thing and we’re pushing it hard here at SOE.
PCG: Has this technology been used in anything I might recognize?
RG: Prior to Live Driver—the technology used in EQ2—our professional facial animation technology, Faceware… was used in more than 40 AAA gaming titles, including Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV, Assassin’s Creed, Max Payne and more.
PCG: I imagine there were some amusing bugs during testing.
DG: When we first implemented the SDK from Image Metrics, the software didn’t clamp down the feeds if you turned your head too far left or right. It got into a very strange math state and your head suddenly started flipping out like a scene out of Lawnmower Man or Max Headroom. We had a lot of fun with it before finally fixing it.
Also, watching someone use SOEmote for the very first time is always hysterical. Once people get used to being anonymous in-game again, they start really stretching their faces and voices to push the limits of the feature, and that’s funny stuff.
PCG: Have the devs found any particularly creative or surprising uses for the tech?
DG: One of our animators immediately set up all kinds of hotbar shortcuts for various character emotes and spent far too much time singing via SOEmote and being a tavern dancer. It was hysterical. You really don’t need to see a Ratonga dancing to Britney Spears. (Okay, you do. But just once.)
PCG: So it can handle Britney Spears, but how subtle of changes in facial movement can the technology actually pick up on and display?
RG: It’s not just a simple face tracker: [it can] track highly-accurate facial expressions in real-time, including subtle micro-expressions, which allows the player to see the intent behind the facial gesture. Not only does it capture broad movement like head pose, smiles, and blinks, but also the intent of more nuanced expressions: a sly smile vs. a snarl, surprise vs. an arched eyebrow. It also captures asymmetrical movements—something that’s important in gameplay.
Equally important in gameplay: freaky animal duels.
PCG: With tech like this and constant voice chat, do you see text chat eventually disappearing from MMOs?
DG: Absolutely not. Text chat is going to be around for a long time and I see no real reason for it to go away. Area chats, LFG channels, and brokering are all elements better suited to chat. Also, some people just like to carefully compose their thoughts before sending them and text is better suited for that.
What proportion of text chat will this replace? The players already use VOIP now. SOEmote will certainly encourage some new folks to start using VOIP so they can roleplay, but I don’t expect the balance of conversation to change immediately. Stuff like this takes time to ripple through communities and they’ll have to decide how they want to use it. But the potential is tremendous.
PCG: Do you think this tech could or should be used in all games, or is it peculiarly useful in EQ2 for some reason?
DG: My personal opinion? All games should have this. You’ve got to try this. Once you get used to other people’s faces moving realistically and intuitively, characters in other games start to feel really plastic and mannequin-like.
Human communication is all about face and body language. You already know this because you currently use video feeds whenever possible to communicate over the net, either through YouTube, Skype or Facetime, rather than relying on just VOIP or text.
SOEmote allows you to have that level of communication within a virtual world. Now that this is possible, why would you want anything less?
Tags: digital puppeteering, EverQuest 2, Featured, MMO, SOE, Wait you typed 'lol' but your character isn't laughing--do you not think I'm funny?
Yeah. I just have to disagree with it somehow being "too far," it was actually the only reasonable answer. I loved it. I laughed when it was revealed, because it was fantastically simple. But I really love Metal Gear Solid. All of them.
Then again, Sega's in the shitter and everyone else is going bonkers with digital/smartphones. So I don't know what to believe anymore.
Very, very fine move by Epic.
Other stuff from the Nintendo announcement:
Looks like it really is "Wii U." Eh. Personally I think they'd be better served by another name, but they survived "3DS" okay, and that one's also confusing.
It's got video chat. Huh, neat. Maybe not a gigantic gamechanger in a world of Skype and Facetime, but neat.
Then there's this:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/03/e3-2012-nintendo-introduces-the-miiverse
Finally, some actual friend interaction!
No, not really.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
As someone who has never played any game in the series besides MGS3 and has only read summaries of MGS1 and MGS2's plots, that particular plot twist sounds to me like it would make perfect sense. Was it handled more poorly in-game that it sounds?
BTW did everyone forget, Sony is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED
Sony's stock fall to the lowest since 1984
What it really does though is throw a crapload of interactions between Solid Snake and Ocelot over the years into question.
Meanwhile someone was arguing to me in the E3 thread last week that Sony is fine financially. :rotate:
This is a pretty important week for them, all things considered. I hope they break out with good news to hold on.
I'd take it with a grain of salt but if true you know what this means.
PSN will know what the term hacking really means.
It's a fairly solid bet considering Blizzard was hiring for console positions some time ago. They basically were saying "We're hiring for consoles but Diablo 3 isn't coming out for consoles", and most of the internet rolled their eyes.
Now the kicker is to see whether Sony of Microsoft lets them get away with their fucking retarded DRM.
So in a way, I would think that would be more safer. There's no point trying to hack a PSN or Live account. And theoretically a console is immune to most malware and keylogger attacks.
Still though, almost anything could happen, I suppose.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/uk-charts-ghost-recon-holds-its-ground-at-no-1/097262
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/171695/Nintendo_reveals_Wii_Us_Miiverse_new_hardware_specifics.php http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/e3-2012-nintendo-s-online-vision-brings-people-together/097257 It would probably be easier just to integrate Facebook or something. I can see the game discussion feature being useful for trying to get people to discover new games.
They're working on an isometric Infinity Blade action RPG for ios so the brand is definitely getting developed. It's a much safer (financially) route to building an IP up to a point where it can sell big on name alone if/when they brought it to consoles/AAA.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
The safest option is to remove the DRM altogether. That would severely impact Blizzard's p2w/RMAH plan though.
Diablo and Diablo 2 had a perfectly functional system for online security with their open/closed Battle.net setup. There's no reason why something like that could have taken place with Diablo 3, with the RMAH limited to closed Battle.net characters.
Around a quarter of the PS3s and 360s sold don't ever connect to the internet. I would be completely speechless if they released a console version that required an active internet connection.
Yeah I would be pretty surprised if they went the always online route for console.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
So I guess this is going to be their theme or something? I guess it is at least up to date with internet shit.