Its the subtle changes that will make the biggest difference in bringing a world alive.
Individually rendered and calculated leaves, affected by wind and physical forces, sand behaving like sand, water flowing properly.
Now combine all that with an Oculus Rift with a consumer level resolution and boom.
From what I've heard the big problem with the Oculus Rift is that the screen resolution is abysmal...
The devkit resolution is low, the devkit might see an upgraded resolution, while the consumer version is definitely getting an upgraded resolution.
It's a lot of "we plan to" and "we might do" from them. It's been in development for a while now, they need to actually show us the improvements.
The Kickstarter occurred last August. Since then developers have been receiving devkits and have been working on software for it. The timetable you want them to work on is unrealistic.
Its the subtle changes that will make the biggest difference in bringing a world alive.
Individually rendered and calculated leaves, affected by wind and physical forces, sand behaving like sand, water flowing properly.
Now combine all that with an Oculus Rift with a consumer level resolution and boom.
From what I've heard the big problem with the Oculus Rift is that the screen resolution is abysmal...
Do people really believe the Oculus Rift will be anything but an interesting novelty? It will remain niche for the same reason 3D cinema ebbs and flows with the same lack of ubiquity. People don't want to put shit on their faces.
I feel like there is a stronger yet calmer current of excitement for this thing than anything else out there. Once the consumer model hits and people experience just exactly what it is I think you're going to see a fundamental shift two ways, either 1. what you said, a curious novelty, or 2. a complete breakout hit that changes gaming in a way we'll likely never see again..
It's literally so much more than "3D on your face!" or "2 screens really close to your eyes!", just watch the reaction of people the first time they use it, it just feels like it's something big. The applications reach so much further than gaming
Its the subtle changes that will make the biggest difference in bringing a world alive.
Individually rendered and calculated leaves, affected by wind and physical forces, sand behaving like sand, water flowing properly.
Now combine all that with an Oculus Rift with a consumer level resolution and boom.
From what I've heard the big problem with the Oculus Rift is that the screen resolution is abysmal...
The devkit resolution is low, the devkit might see an upgraded resolution, while the consumer version is definitely getting an upgraded resolution.
It's a lot of "we plan to" and "we might do" from them. It's been in development for a while now, they need to actually show us the improvements.
The Kickstarter occurred last August. Since then developers have been receiving devkits and have been working on software for it. The timetable you want them to work on is unrealistic.
Which brings us to the question: would Kickstarters rushing a product count as executive meddling? :P
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The image I wanted to use but couldn't find was the PCGamer front cover from, like, 1999 or something that was 'Graphics literally can't get better than this' right beneath some poly'd to fuck model from Unreal or something.
I remember every time that a new N64 wrestling game would come out, my dad would say "It's incredible. They look just like the real wrestlers." Now, those weren't the best graphics at the time, even, but people always think the new hotness is incredible, and then 10 years later they are left scratching their heads at how they ever played it.
The image I wanted to use but couldn't find was the PCGamer front cover from, like, 1999 or something that was 'Graphics literally can't get better than this' right beneath some poly'd to fuck model from Unreal or something.
You mean this one?
Your memory was faulty on the description, but for its time it certainly was the best looking game; even that was garbage compared to the final graphics.
(Unless you meant some other ridiculously labeled magazine cover image that I haven't seen, in which case, never mind!)
Really I think the impressive "next-gen" stuff for games will be more impressive CPU intensive things like AI, maybe more depth. Graphics will improve but we aren't going to see such an obvious jump as we have in previous console generations.
If AI in general improves I will be pleased as shit.
The problem is figuring out what qualifies as "better AI", sadly--it's not always evident. Half-Life 2 broke a lot of ground, but it had predictable, unoriginal AI when it came out (of course, its predecessor blazed a trail in that area). But it works because so much of the game is set in corridors, or makes use of enemy waves (like a lot of games).
Now, having smart, plausible AI in something like Battlefield is immediately evident--and it doesn't even need to be comparable to gamer multiplayer behavior (as hilarious as it is in multiplayer, jets racking up kills by skimming the ground would suck in singlelpayer), just better than the abysmal behavior we've got now.
Well, while an unoriginal / uninspired AI can be a bad thing, a game can also be constructed with that in mind to make it not noticeable or not a problem at all.
Which is exactly what HL2 does (and a lot of other games try to do). It doesn't take a lot to have stupid guys in shoot down hallways or shoot whatever comes through a doorway, or attack in waves. It's definitely a solution.
Really I think the impressive "next-gen" stuff for games will be more impressive CPU intensive things like AI, maybe more depth. Graphics will improve but we aren't going to see such an obvious jump as we have in previous console generations.
If AI in general improves I will be pleased as shit.
The problem is figuring out what qualifies as "better AI", sadly--it's not always evident. Half-Life 2 broke a lot of ground, but it had predictable, unoriginal AI when it came out (of course, its predecessor blazed a trail in that area). But it works because so much of the game is set in corridors, or makes use of enemy waves (like a lot of games).
Now, having smart, plausible AI in something like Battlefield is immediately evident--and it doesn't even need to be comparable to gamer multiplayer behavior (as hilarious as it is in multiplayer, jets racking up kills by skimming the ground would suck in singlelpayer), just better than the abysmal behavior we've got now.
Just wondering if you downloaded Minerva yet.
Because MAN that lets the HL2 AI show off. They're pretty impressive at times if you let them out of their corridors.
I've had Minerva shown to me (I have..pretty much zero interest in HL2 now, or the episodes--just gone over them too much), and it's both an impressive improvement and a shining example of the vanilla's AI tendency to stand still and shoot in the direction of the enemy.
It's the same AI. The exact same AI.
And it tends, on hard, to shoot then dash to cover. I've seen it run or hold a good defensive position instead of following the player more times than I could count. It can remember where better guns are and go for them, form squads to hunt the player down, and it often tries to attack when it guesses you'd be reloading.
I stand corrected! In that case, it's a repeat of what HL2 has done--convinced us its AI is far better than it actually is with clever use of pacing, confining level design for combat encounters, and clever tricks. I remember that Minerva's, which was supposed to be much improved, was still well stupider than a few other FPSs that came to mind. The point remains, AI is a tricky area--outside of obvious games like bots in Battlefield 3, could we even tell?
Really I think the impressive "next-gen" stuff for games will be more impressive CPU intensive things like AI, maybe more depth. Graphics will improve but we aren't going to see such an obvious jump as we have in previous console generations.
If AI in general improves I will be pleased as shit.
The problem is figuring out what qualifies as "better AI", sadly--it's not always evident. Half-Life 2 broke a lot of ground, but it had predictable, unoriginal AI when it came out (of course, its predecessor blazed a trail in that area). But it works because so much of the game is set in corridors, or makes use of enemy waves (like a lot of games).
Now, having smart, plausible AI in something like Battlefield is immediately evident--and it doesn't even need to be comparable to gamer multiplayer behavior (as hilarious as it is in multiplayer, jets racking up kills by skimming the ground would suck in singlelpayer), just better than the abysmal behavior we've got now.
Well, while an unoriginal / uninspired AI can be a bad thing, a game can also be constructed with that in mind to make it not noticeable or not a problem at all.
Which is exactly what HL2 does (and a lot of other games try to do). It doesn't take a lot to have stupid guys in shoot down hallways or shoot whatever comes through a doorway, or attack in waves. It's definitely a solution.
Really I think the impressive "next-gen" stuff for games will be more impressive CPU intensive things like AI, maybe more depth. Graphics will improve but we aren't going to see such an obvious jump as we have in previous console generations.
If AI in general improves I will be pleased as shit.
The problem is figuring out what qualifies as "better AI", sadly--it's not always evident. Half-Life 2 broke a lot of ground, but it had predictable, unoriginal AI when it came out (of course, its predecessor blazed a trail in that area). But it works because so much of the game is set in corridors, or makes use of enemy waves (like a lot of games).
Now, having smart, plausible AI in something like Battlefield is immediately evident--and it doesn't even need to be comparable to gamer multiplayer behavior (as hilarious as it is in multiplayer, jets racking up kills by skimming the ground would suck in singlelpayer), just better than the abysmal behavior we've got now.
Just wondering if you downloaded Minerva yet.
Because MAN that lets the HL2 AI show off. They're pretty impressive at times if you let them out of their corridors.
I've had Minerva shown to me (I have..pretty much zero interest in HL2 now, or the episodes--just gone over them too much), and it's both an impressive improvement and a shining example of the vanilla's AI tendency to stand still and shoot in the direction of the enemy.
It's the same AI. The exact same AI.
And it tends, on hard, to shoot then dash to cover. I've seen it run or hold a good defensive position instead of following the player more times than I could count. It can remember where better guns are and go for them, form squads to hunt the player down, and it often tries to attack when it guesses you'd be reloading.
I stand corrected! In that case, it's a repeat of what HL2 has done--convinced us its AI is far better than it actually is with clever use of pacing, confining level design for combat encounters, and clever tricks. I remember that Minerva's, which was supposed to be much improved, was still well stupider than a few other FPSs that came to mind. The point remains, AI is a tricky area--outside of obvious games like bots in Battlefield 3, could we even tell?
Yea the AI in games feels the same to me. It's the level design and pacing that can make it AI better or worse. A few games do try and key on your reloads. Trying to remember what game I played where they actually had a sound cue saying "he's reloading!"... bleh. Too many games in so little time.
Part of the problem is that the AI in most games has a very limited sight range. The fact that short of scripted encounters AI opponents rarely get first strike on the player makes a world of the difference. Yet, that's one of the safety nets that keeps games fun for players. So, IDK... making "better" AI is just a difficult task, imo.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
There was some WW2 shooter that had realistic site ranges for enemy AI.
It was a game of infinitely dying to snipers you never saw, didn't know the positions of, and who you would've sworn would have no way to see you.
This also applies to Halo 2 legendary
Fucking jackal snipers everywhere
Yea... if they do an anniversary HD remaster of Halo 2 on the XBO you know they're going to eat the nerf bat hard. :P
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
0
fearsomepirateI ate a pickle once.Registered Userregular
edited June 2013
"Good" AI the way many people talk about it would make all One Versus Many games unplayable, so I'm not sure what you all want.
Also, I don't think it's an issue of hardware power so much as it is really friggin' hard to program a computer to deceive you into think it's intelligent.
fearsomepirate on
Nobody makes me bleed my own blood...nobody.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
Just appropriate the techniques that Journey used to populate the environments with nameless human players. Heck, it's been tried a dozen times going back to Perfect Dark.
I mean, it's not suitable for all games, sure. But you would have thought that by 2013 it would have been cracked by now.
I really think that in a decade the current crop of 3d games will look just as crude as PS2 games do now. We aren't even close to true photorealism yet. Just like in years past, the only games we have now that will stand the test of time visually are those with a strong art direction.
You should play the Tomb Raider reboot. It's an absolutely fantastic looking game.
I wish they would stop with the "you killed all the mans" games in general. I mean, AI isn't exactly necessary when it comes to large-scale combat games like CoD, right? Those guys are there to be mowed down, not strategized against (unless you think of "do I duck behind that barrier or stand behind this corner of the building" as strategy). I'd prefer smaller-scale scenarios against fewer, smarter enemies. HL2 was good like that, in that you weren't facing 50 guys at a time for the most part. I'd like to see an enhancement to that.
I really think that in a decade the current crop of 3d games will look just as crude as PS2 games do now. We aren't even close to true photorealism yet. Just like in years past, the only games we have now that will stand the test of time visually are those with a strong art direction.
You should play the Tomb Raider reboot. It's an absolutely fantastic looking game.
It is now, but he's right that in 10 years we'll look back at it and laugh at things like the static clothing and hair (without that PC mod which still isn't even that refined, but better), the environment floor, the explosion effects, etc
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fearsomepirateI ate a pickle once.Registered Userregular
edited June 2013
Because the problem is ill-posed outside of games where the number of allies and the number of enemies are strictly equal. You can, at least in theory, program a Battlefield bot that will perform statistically equally to an average human. It will never be creative and thus never invent strategies and tactics on the fly like a human squad would, but you could hypothetically adjust parameters until it achieved desired outcomes (like an average K/D, points per game, objectives taken/defended, etc). In such a situation, swapping humans in and out for AI wouldn't be detrimental to the overall experience.
That all goes right out the window for a typical One Versus Many game, i.e., most games we're talking about. Those games are designed around an individual AI agent not being equal to a human. Swap an agent for a human, and you've just broken the game.
I really think that in a decade the current crop of 3d games will look just as crude as PS2 games do now. We aren't even close to true photorealism yet. Just like in years past, the only games we have now that will stand the test of time visually are those with a strong art direction.
You should play the Tomb Raider reboot. It's an absolutely fantastic looking game.
When I first played Shogo Mobile Armor division, FF7, unreal, etc., I didn't think anything could ever look better. Hell, the original tomb raider blew my mind on my 4meg matrox video card. Myth the Fallen Lords prompted me to buy a voodoo 2, and it looked so great that it totally justified spending $350 on it to me lol.
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I wish they would stop with the "you killed all the mans" games in general. I mean, AI isn't exactly necessary when it comes to large-scale combat games like CoD, right? Those guys are there to be mowed down, not strategized against (unless you think of "do I duck behind that barrier or stand behind this corner of the building" as strategy). I'd prefer smaller-scale scenarios against fewer, smarter enemies. HL2 was good like that, in that you weren't facing 50 guys at a time for the most part. I'd like to see an enhancement to that.
Too bad the original premise of prey was never realized.
Just appropriate the techniques that Journey used to populate the environments with nameless human players. Heck, it's been tried a dozen times going back to Perfect Dark.
I mean, it's not suitable for all games, sure. But you would have thought that by 2013 it would have been cracked by now.
That might work on a small scale, but for large scale stuff and OMAs that's just off. Largest example I can think of was Agent Hunt in RE6?
Not to mention that not every gamer plays their games online.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
I wish they would stop with the "you killed all the mans" games in general.
I, too, wish they'd stop making games that people who aren't me like, such as RTSes, MMOs, and social games.
I'm sorry you weren't able to read my whole post and realize I wasn't saying those games should never be made again. Or that contextually I'm talking about how those games and AI don't really go hand in hand. Or how I personally would prefer something else and am not wishing people who like those games can't play them.
Then again, this is the Xbone thread where personal opinion either trumps all or has no meaning whatsoever, depending.
Yeah but that always-online horizon is getting closer everyday.
Oh absolutely!
But aside from the people who are fighting it tooth and nail there are still people who simply can't be online to play games, but can afford console gaming and such. It would kind of blow to be playing a single player campaign with crowd-controlled opponents alone since difference between the AI and Humaneys would be really great. Plus how many people would want to play as the bad guys all the time? You figure the initial launch period where everybody wants to play the campaign as a protagonist will be easy, then once the early adopters beat the game and start playing as the enemy the experience of the newer players will be less pleasant, assuming they don't opt out of the experience.
The future of that kind of gaming is going to be niche for a very long time, I guess is what I'm getting at.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Also, not everyone likes multi. I exclusively play single player games now.
I really think that in a decade the current crop of 3d games will look just as crude as PS2 games do now. We aren't even close to true photorealism yet. Just like in years past, the only games we have now that will stand the test of time visually are those with a strong art direction.
You should play the Tomb Raider reboot. It's an absolutely fantastic looking game.
When I first played Shogo Mobile Armor division, FF7, unreal, etc., I didn't think anything could ever look better. Hell, the original tomb raider blew my mind on my 4meg matrox video card. Myth the Fallen Lords prompted me to buy a voodoo 2, and it looked so great that it totally justified spending $350 on it to me lol.
I remember when my dad got a new computer with EGA graphics. The first game I played with any color was Wasteland, which is still to this day my number 1 game.
And I remember being at a friend's place and seeing the FF7 summon and being blown away. But even better was the Soul Calibur intro, because I remember seeing Taki's "sway" and thinking:
a) I'll never see anything better and
b) Someone got paid to make that
I can remember me and a friend shitting our pants over FFVIII... because we saw Squall's model blink.
I really hope we're wrong on the graphics front, because it's clearly entirely a matter of hindsight. Games I know I thought were amazing are now difficult to look at. But... I honestly don't know. We're not at photo realism yet... but we're pretty damn close. I really don't think in 10 years time that we'll be looking at the games of today the same way we look at the games of 10 years ago. There will be clear improvements, but it'll be more supplemental, like lighting or shadows.
But again, who knows. I look at Cloud and think how the flying fuck I ever thought those block mitts looked good. Maybe I'll look at Lightning and wonder how the flying fuck I ever thought that minimally moving hair ever looked good.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
The great part about all the times we thought we wouldn't see better graphics is that we were later proven wrong.
Fawst on
+2
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Also, to be clear, we are not even close to photorealism. Photorealism means that game characters and game worlds are indistinguishable from the real world and real people. We have very pretty games, but nothing where you cannot tell the difference easily.
0
fearsomepirateI ate a pickle once.Registered Userregular
John Carmack thought back in 1999 that the era of single-player was over, and that everything in the future would be all multiplayer, all the time. He was completely wrong. Armies of human-controlled opponents battling in games like WoW, Battlefield, Planetstrike, MAG, etc are fun, but it's not a superior way to have fun. It's just different, and not every game is like that for the same reason not every game is an RPG.
Nobody makes me bleed my own blood...nobody.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
Also, to be clear, we are not even close to photorealism. Photorealism means that game characters and game worlds are indistinguishable from the real world and real people. We have very pretty games, but nothing where you cannot tell the difference easily.
The only problem is that today's visuals are bankrupting companies right and left, and there's already rumblings from developers that costs are going to go up with the new machines. Pretty much no one could afford to make a video game as we know it and be 100% photorealistic.
I think people are mistaking fidelity with accurate representation. With current generation hardware, developers have been able to create characters look incredibly defined and well animated. Uncharted and The Last of Us are great examples. There's always more that can be done - see Nvidia's latest facial demo; it's incredible - but people are still going to look like people on the next generation.
However, lately I have had an incredibly hard time buying console versions of games due to blurry textures, lower resolutions (most games aren't even running at 1080p), pop-in, jarring LOD transitions, framerate drops and more. Those issues become hugely apparent if you try to open up the game world, with grass that will only render a few feet in front of the player character and a distinct lack of shadowing and proper lighting effects. They're a gigantic eye sore that I consider terribly ugly. Those concerns should disappear with the new hardware. They are magnitudes more powerful, especially in regard to memory.
There is going to be a visual jump. A human being's appearance might not make the same jump from current to next as it did with the last transition, but the worlds are going to be so much more impressive. It's far too early to be bellyaching. We haven't even really seen what more powerful hardware can do, despite having that hardware in computers for years. Gaming on the latter has been bottlenecked by eight year old components. Now that leash won't be so tight.
Dashui on
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
+4
fearsomepirateI ate a pickle once.Registered Userregular
Developers this gen are already realizing you don't have to use all the available power. Castle Crashers, Super Meat Boy, and the bit.trip games sure didn't.
Nobody makes me bleed my own blood...nobody.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
Developers this gen are already realizing you don't have to use all the available power. Castle Crashers, Super Meat Boy, and the bit.trip games sure didn't.
It would be nice if the publishers would get that message.
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
+2
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Also, to be clear, we are not even close to photorealism. Photorealism means that game characters and game worlds are indistinguishable from the real world and real people. We have very pretty games, but nothing where you cannot tell the difference easily.
The only problem is that today's visuals are bankrupting companies right and left, and there's already rumblings from developers that costs are going to go up with the new machines. Pretty much no one could afford to make a video game as we know it and be 100% photorealistic.
Yeah, nowadays you can't significantly improve the look of a game just by doubling the polygons. That has a higher cost in the hardware, but is a pretty cheap improvement to make on the developer side because you just run models with more polygons.
Nowadays you've got to have people cranking out increasingly high-end textures, and that just doesn't happen quickly without a huge staff because it's a fairly tedious process compared to upping the complexity of a model used in-game (in-game models tend to be lower-poly versions of development models anyway, if I remember correctly).
Sure, there are improvements that can be made, but that doesn't mean things will actually improve much. All those improvement take time and money, so unless somebody starts making the facial equivalent of Speed Tree or modular/universal procedural generation programs for game environments and whatnot, a lot of those improvements will end up being a trap in terms of cost versus benefits.
Those games were also made with a budget of like $12 dollars.
+2
fearsomepirateI ate a pickle once.Registered Userregular
I'm pretty sure in-game textures are lower-res than the original data set, too, since people aren't making stuff pixel-by-pixel any more. Scene geometry/size is a BFD, though. I expect to see it primarily limited by budget.
Honestly, if all they do is eliminate pop-in and make some draw distances and LOD transitions better, I'm going to call it a victory. I wouldn't mind proper light sources, too. The Enhanced Lights and FX mod for Skyrim adds actual lights to light sources and the difference is huge.
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
I'm pretty sure in-game textures are lower-res than the original data set, too, since people aren't making stuff pixel-by-pixel any more. Scene geometry/size is a BFD, though. I expect to see it primarily limited by budget.
Posts
It's a lot of "we plan to" and "we might do" from them. It's been in development for a while now, they need to actually show us the improvements.
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The Kickstarter occurred last August. Since then developers have been receiving devkits and have been working on software for it. The timetable you want them to work on is unrealistic.
I feel like there is a stronger yet calmer current of excitement for this thing than anything else out there. Once the consumer model hits and people experience just exactly what it is I think you're going to see a fundamental shift two ways, either 1. what you said, a curious novelty, or 2. a complete breakout hit that changes gaming in a way we'll likely never see again..
It's literally so much more than "3D on your face!" or "2 screens really close to your eyes!", just watch the reaction of people the first time they use it, it just feels like it's something big. The applications reach so much further than gaming
Which brings us to the question: would Kickstarters rushing a product count as executive meddling? :P
I remember every time that a new N64 wrestling game would come out, my dad would say "It's incredible. They look just like the real wrestlers." Now, those weren't the best graphics at the time, even, but people always think the new hotness is incredible, and then 10 years later they are left scratching their heads at how they ever played it.
You mean this one?
Your memory was faulty on the description, but for its time it certainly was the best looking game; even that was garbage compared to the final graphics.
(Unless you meant some other ridiculously labeled magazine cover image that I haven't seen, in which case, never mind!)
I stand corrected! In that case, it's a repeat of what HL2 has done--convinced us its AI is far better than it actually is with clever use of pacing, confining level design for combat encounters, and clever tricks. I remember that Minerva's, which was supposed to be much improved, was still well stupider than a few other FPSs that came to mind. The point remains, AI is a tricky area--outside of obvious games like bots in Battlefield 3, could we even tell?
Yea the AI in games feels the same to me. It's the level design and pacing that can make it AI better or worse. A few games do try and key on your reloads. Trying to remember what game I played where they actually had a sound cue saying "he's reloading!"... bleh. Too many games in so little time.
Part of the problem is that the AI in most games has a very limited sight range. The fact that short of scripted encounters AI opponents rarely get first strike on the player makes a world of the difference. Yet, that's one of the safety nets that keeps games fun for players. So, IDK... making "better" AI is just a difficult task, imo.
It was a game of infinitely dying to snipers you never saw, didn't know the positions of, and who you would've sworn would have no way to see you.
This also applies to Halo 2 legendary
Fucking jackal snipers everywhere
Yea... if they do an anniversary HD remaster of Halo 2 on the XBO you know they're going to eat the nerf bat hard. :P
Also, I don't think it's an issue of hardware power so much as it is really friggin' hard to program a computer to deceive you into think it's intelligent.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
Just appropriate the techniques that Journey used to populate the environments with nameless human players. Heck, it's been tried a dozen times going back to Perfect Dark.
I mean, it's not suitable for all games, sure. But you would have thought that by 2013 it would have been cracked by now.
You should play the Tomb Raider reboot. It's an absolutely fantastic looking game.
It is now, but he's right that in 10 years we'll look back at it and laugh at things like the static clothing and hair (without that PC mod which still isn't even that refined, but better), the environment floor, the explosion effects, etc
That all goes right out the window for a typical One Versus Many game, i.e., most games we're talking about. Those games are designed around an individual AI agent not being equal to a human. Swap an agent for a human, and you've just broken the game. I, too, wish they'd stop making games that people who aren't me like, such as RTSes, MMOs, and social games.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
When I first played Shogo Mobile Armor division, FF7, unreal, etc., I didn't think anything could ever look better. Hell, the original tomb raider blew my mind on my 4meg matrox video card. Myth the Fallen Lords prompted me to buy a voodoo 2, and it looked so great that it totally justified spending $350 on it to me lol.
Too bad the original premise of prey was never realized.
That might work on a small scale, but for large scale stuff and OMAs that's just off. Largest example I can think of was Agent Hunt in RE6?
Not to mention that not every gamer plays their games online.
I'm sorry you weren't able to read my whole post and realize I wasn't saying those games should never be made again. Or that contextually I'm talking about how those games and AI don't really go hand in hand. Or how I personally would prefer something else and am not wishing people who like those games can't play them.
Then again, this is the Xbone thread where personal opinion either trumps all or has no meaning whatsoever, depending.
Oh absolutely!
But aside from the people who are fighting it tooth and nail there are still people who simply can't be online to play games, but can afford console gaming and such. It would kind of blow to be playing a single player campaign with crowd-controlled opponents alone since difference between the AI and Humaneys would be really great. Plus how many people would want to play as the bad guys all the time? You figure the initial launch period where everybody wants to play the campaign as a protagonist will be easy, then once the early adopters beat the game and start playing as the enemy the experience of the newer players will be less pleasant, assuming they don't opt out of the experience.
The future of that kind of gaming is going to be niche for a very long time, I guess is what I'm getting at.
I remember when my dad got a new computer with EGA graphics. The first game I played with any color was Wasteland, which is still to this day my number 1 game.
And I remember being at a friend's place and seeing the FF7 summon and being blown away. But even better was the Soul Calibur intro, because I remember seeing Taki's "sway" and thinking:
a) I'll never see anything better and
b) Someone got paid to make that
I really hope we're wrong on the graphics front, because it's clearly entirely a matter of hindsight. Games I know I thought were amazing are now difficult to look at. But... I honestly don't know. We're not at photo realism yet... but we're pretty damn close. I really don't think in 10 years time that we'll be looking at the games of today the same way we look at the games of 10 years ago. There will be clear improvements, but it'll be more supplemental, like lighting or shadows.
But again, who knows. I look at Cloud and think how the flying fuck I ever thought those block mitts looked good. Maybe I'll look at Lightning and wonder how the flying fuck I ever thought that minimally moving hair ever looked good.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
The only problem is that today's visuals are bankrupting companies right and left, and there's already rumblings from developers that costs are going to go up with the new machines. Pretty much no one could afford to make a video game as we know it and be 100% photorealistic.
However, lately I have had an incredibly hard time buying console versions of games due to blurry textures, lower resolutions (most games aren't even running at 1080p), pop-in, jarring LOD transitions, framerate drops and more. Those issues become hugely apparent if you try to open up the game world, with grass that will only render a few feet in front of the player character and a distinct lack of shadowing and proper lighting effects. They're a gigantic eye sore that I consider terribly ugly. Those concerns should disappear with the new hardware. They are magnitudes more powerful, especially in regard to memory.
There is going to be a visual jump. A human being's appearance might not make the same jump from current to next as it did with the last transition, but the worlds are going to be so much more impressive. It's far too early to be bellyaching. We haven't even really seen what more powerful hardware can do, despite having that hardware in computers for years. Gaming on the latter has been bottlenecked by eight year old components. Now that leash won't be so tight.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
It would be nice if the publishers would get that message.
Yeah, nowadays you can't significantly improve the look of a game just by doubling the polygons. That has a higher cost in the hardware, but is a pretty cheap improvement to make on the developer side because you just run models with more polygons.
Nowadays you've got to have people cranking out increasingly high-end textures, and that just doesn't happen quickly without a huge staff because it's a fairly tedious process compared to upping the complexity of a model used in-game (in-game models tend to be lower-poly versions of development models anyway, if I remember correctly).
Sure, there are improvements that can be made, but that doesn't mean things will actually improve much. All those improvement take time and money, so unless somebody starts making the facial equivalent of Speed Tree or modular/universal procedural generation programs for game environments and whatnot, a lot of those improvements will end up being a trap in terms of cost versus benefits.
Unrelated, a new Francis video:
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
I don't know what I'd love more - if he's serious or it's all tongue in cheek.