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Video Game Industry Thread: Master Chief -- script delivery boy

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Posts

  • -SPI--SPI- Osaka, JapanRegistered User regular
    I wish there was a fighting game built as an online focused platform. Similar to WoW, built from the ground up to accommodate frequent balance patches, content patches and occasional payed expansions, but a continuous single game. As if Street Fighter 4, MvC3, SFxT and so on were all a single interlinked product.

    It's a very pie in the sky wish given most fighting games can't even figure out online play in a satisfactory form.

  • SwashbucklerXXSwashbucklerXX Swashbucklin' Canuck Registered User regular
    Closest you've got to that right now is Rusty Hearts.

    Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    Couscous wrote: »
    Gamification is proof that attaching bars and stats to something is the perfect way to get people to do anything, no matter how much like work it is.

    Doesn't Tycho basically say the same thing every few months?

    Hardly a new concept; how many times have any of us heard the phrase "turn it into a game" applied to any sort of dull, tedious work? Idea's been around for at least decades, if not centuries or more.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5IW9wK_HNg

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  • TcheldorTcheldor Registered User regular
    Rusty Hearts is a Brawler, not a fighter...

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  • SwashbucklerXXSwashbucklerXX Swashbucklin' Canuck Registered User regular
    Hence why I said it's the closest we've got. :)

    Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Couscous wrote: »
    Gamification is proof that attaching bars and stats to something is the perfect way to get people to do anything, no matter how much like work it is.

    Doesn't Tycho basically say the same thing every few months?

    Hardly a new concept; how many times have any of us heard the phrase "turn it into a game" applied to any sort of dull, tedious work? Idea's been around for at least decades, if not centuries or more.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5IW9wK_HNg

    Mary Poppins: proving that most dysfunctional families would have their problems solved if basic home maintenance could be done by magic.

  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    Cantido wrote: »
    Sony and Microsoft's patch policies are a whole other can of worms. Uberent, Team Meat and Double Fine each came out and said a patch on 360 costs 40,000 after an initial free patch. I'm not familiar with Sony's policy though.
    40k for every patch? holy fuck!
    no wonder those guys hate making games for XBLA, MS makes it as hard as possible it seems

  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    Cantido wrote: »
    Sony and Microsoft's patch policies are a whole other can of worms. Uberent, Team Meat and Double Fine each came out and said a patch on 360 costs 40,000 after an initial free patch. I'm not familiar with Sony's policy though.
    40k for every patch? holy fuck!
    no wonder those guys hate making games for XBLA, MS makes it as hard as possible it seems

    That barely covers their bandwidth costs. Microsoft is, after all, hosting the patch and distributing it over Live themselves. Not to mention, they provide QA on everything as standard.

    I think it's also punitive, in a sense. That's why the first patch is free. Stops people making shitty, buggy games and provides financial incentive to do your own goddamn QA before launch.

    You know, aside from the true indie scene with the dev stuff, Live Arcade has a much higher quality threshold than most services. I mean, they're complete games, not half finished sketches fixed after launch.

  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    Bandwidth costs seems.. odd. I mean, a small-ass game shouldn't be using nearly the amount of bandwidth per patch than, say, Monday Night Combat would. Why are they judged on the same scale?

    Then again, if it were me, I'd do something like having the various Xboxes serve as P2P/bittorrent seeders for other players with the patch, a la World of Warcraft, to speed up download times and keep bandwidth costs low/distributed.

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  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    Because it's easier to have a base rate than calculate it on a case by case basis? I'd imagine a Skyrim patch uses significantly more bandwidth than 40,000 dollars worth. It averages out across the board. Which is why big developers like Bethesda can afford to release buggy games.

    Them's the brokes. It's a hard life.

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    Also, consider that every console that connects to LIVE (Silver and Gold) will download the title update. Some updates can be quite large and the more popular the game is, the more it happens. And have you ever deleted the update or cleared your cache? Then you have to re-download it.

    As Scarab suggests, it's both for overhead costs and to try and make sure that devs/pubs don't abuse the idea.

  • agoajagoaj Top Tier One FearRegistered User regular
    If only they had advertising or membership fees to cover the cost...

    ujav5b9gwj1s.png
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    agoaj wrote: »
    If only they had advertising or membership fees to cover the cost...

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  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    None of the other services have problems with people abusing the system, even stuff like Steam where there are a bunch of indies. Buggy games generally don't sell well.

  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    Cantido wrote: »
    Dragkonias wrote: »
    Yeah. The small character poll is my biggest complaint too.

    But well it's only 15 bucks and they said they would add more later so whatever

    Here's my thing. MvC3 has loads and loads of characters. And they all die from copious amounts of Wesker. It burns me badly that this is the case. With my brother moved out, online play for fighting games is important to me. So I'd rather take a small roster if the online experience is better. This is also why I forgive SC5's shitsack of a story mode.

    That is a thing. Like, everyone loves fighting games with enough characters in them, but there's also a point where there's too many characters, and it doesn't look that bad on the roster screen, but when you get in the game itself...

    Take the new Mortal Kombat. I think it's pretty great. But I also think it's kind of funny that in the traditional arcade mode, you will only fight, like, a third of the roster before you're at the bosses. I don't know if that's a waste or what, but, maybe 25 is too much? Can you really zero in on what makes one character better than three other characters for your playing style?

    Mind you, most of the characters are cool-looking and have their own flair, but...I really think, if Skullgirls is as good as it wants to be, that it's to their credit if they can make a solid, enjoyable game with seven playable characters. I'd argue it might be more difficult to do fighter with that few than it would be to do one with fifteen or sixteen, because with that many you can spread shit around a little more, and create these variants that share qualities and it all kinds of runs together and it's harder to critique because it's harder to isolate the failings. Suddenly you can have two or three characters that are half-baked but no one notices because of all the others that people prefer to play anyway. Granted, a crap game is a crap game, but if you've only got seven characters, you really got make sure everything you have is top-shelf.

  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Couscous wrote: »
    None of the other services have problems with people abusing the system, even stuff like Steam where there are a bunch of indies. Buggy games generally don't sell well.

    I can agree if bugs alone were the case, than MS's "get it right the first time" policy would be okay, but for something like competitive multiplayer, tweaking and balance patching shouldn't have to end, ever. This can depend on how much competitive multiplayer is a core part of a game, such as a fighting game, RTS, Action RTS, Racing Game, Sports Game and so on will always need more than one tweak as win/loss statistics are found and community reactions go. They keep a game's online community healthy.

    Uberent and Team Meat were most vocal about this, Team Meat being nastiest about it. Uberent said they had a feature in place for MNC where every time you played online, you would get the freshest updated stats before a round of MNC Started.

    Cantido on
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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    I thought the $15 a month for XBL was supposed to take care of crap like that

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    Oh, goody. More LIVE hate.

    You guys are awesome!

  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    I thought the $15 a month for XBL was supposed to take care of crap like that

    Then your naivete has been exploited by an unscrupulous, but smart, corporation. Sorry. Welcome to capitalism, enjoy your stay.

  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Oh, goody. More LIVE hate.

    You guys are awesome!

    I like LIVE. A lot. XBLA is the one thing holding me back from playing PC exclusively. But devs should be able to patch, tweak and balance their games as much as long as the communities want to keep playing it. And the dev comments out there reflect they believe that too.

    Cantido on
    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • agoajagoaj Top Tier One FearRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    I really do need to cancel my Live account.
    I also need to stop renting Baten Kaitos 2. I think I've had that for over a year now.

    agoaj on
    ujav5b9gwj1s.png
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    As microtransactions become more and more common, removing barriers to patching helps keep communities healthy. This helps make the company money. Didn't Capcom not even make it so other people could even see the different colored costumes because that would require a patch?

  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    Man, I don't even know why I have a Gold account, other than the bullshit involving Netflix.

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  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    agoaj wrote: »
    I really do need to cancel my Live account.
    I also need to stop renting Baten Kaitos 2. I think I've had that for over a year now.

    I almost cancelled it, but SCV just had to be so damn awesome. Also, Amazon had a sale on yearly subscription codes for $40

    In fact I'm thinking of picking up Skullgirls on PSN, because though I never play on PSN but their fighting game communities seem more active.

    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    as someone who has spent as much money on my xbox/accessories/live sub/arcade games you can bet your sweet ass i'm going to call MS on bullshit. they do pull some foul stuff sometimes, there's no point in defending their shitty practices, we need to tell them what they are doing wrong so they can learn to give us a better experience.

    i renewed live but only because i'm addicted to XBLA games

  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    What was that fightstick that worked on both PS3 and Xbox360?

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  • UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    i renewed live but only because i'm addicted to XBLA games

    You can buy XBLA games on a free account...

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    I like how it's a shitty practice that MS charges devs money as an encouragement to get their game right the first time. Or do I not constantly see people bitching about how devs are just so damned lazy and can't get anything right and how horrible it is that they use this update-after-release process to just ship terribly buggy games and use consumers as unpaid testers?

    Nah, you're right. MS should reverse this practice because it's just patently unfair.

    Hey, if devs think MS is giving them a raw deal, then by all means, go somewhere else. And when the content dries up, MS can either make the changes you deem necessary or they'll just go out of business since all that patch money dried up. And when the content goes away, then all those dumbass subscribers paying '$15' per month (somehow) will stop pissing away their money on such a worthless enterprise. You know, since everybody else does so much better at it for far, far less.

    Poor, poor Team Meat and Double Fine... I feel real bad about how horrible it is that MS wants them to get their own shit right. Boo freaking hoo. Go to Steam and quit bitching about it if it's so bad.

  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    I've never had an issue with paying for Live service and I've had a Live account since pretty much Live existed and even I'm starting to wonder if I want to bother with it any more. I've got multiple Netflix-ready devices that don't cost anything extra to use, 360 patching times suck ass, and I don't have the time any more for much multiplayer.

    A decent enough service when it started, but now it's lagging behind pretty badly and dragging consumer satisfaction down with it thanks to certification processes and patch fees.

  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    I like how it's a shitty practice that MS charges devs money as an encouragement to get their game right the first time. Or do I not constantly see people bitching about how devs are just so damned lazy and can't get anything right and how horrible it is that they use this update-after-release process to just ship terribly buggy games and use consumers as unpaid testers?

    Nah, you're right. MS should reverse this practice because it's just patently unfair.

    Hey, if devs think MS is giving them a raw deal, then by all means, go somewhere else. And when the content dries up, MS can either make the changes you deem necessary or they'll just go out of business since all that patch money dried up. And when the content goes away, then all those dumbass subscribers paying '$15' per month (somehow) will stop pissing away their money on such a worthless enterprise. You know, since everybody else does so much better at it for far, far less.

    Poor, poor Team Meat and Double Fine... I feel real bad about how horrible it is that MS wants them to get their own shit right. Boo freaking hoo. Go to Steam and quit bitching about it if it's so bad.

    Starcraft was patched, balanced and rebalanced for TEN FUCKING YEARS. It only recently got it's "final" patch. It has nothing to do with the competence of the devs, but the nature of competitive online play. And moving to Steam is exactly what all three devs did, and what other devs will continue to do.

    This is why I'm enjoying SMNC on PC, not on XBLA, because such a game can't exist there.

    Cantido on
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  • UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    Also, yeah, how the hell would somebody pay $15 a month for Live?

    Here is how to get cheap Live:

    1) Get the cheapest paid version of Live that you can. Either the one-month recurring or a three-month card, if you can find one for less than the $24 MSRP. A good method is also to get a subscription that has some sort of games bonus as an added incentive. They just ended a deal where you paid $40 for six months of Live and got Halo Reach, Fable III, Kinect Sports, The Gunstringer and...some other game for free.
    2) Cancel any recurring billing that will occur at the end of the subscription period.
    3) Let Live subscription run out.
    4) When it does, there will be crazy-ass ads all over the dashboard for Live at really cheap costs. Right now I'm in the middle of a "2 months for $2" deal. These deals will always pop up, like clockwork, if the subscription that just ended was one that you actually paid full-price for.

  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    Alternatively, work at a Gamestop and steal points cards at weekends.

  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    I don't think I've ever paid 15 bucks a month for live; I'm running 5 bucks a month (60 a year), which is basically what I've always had.

    And as much as I detest the trend of "release and fix it later", Microsoft's crappy way of dealing with 3rd-party patching does jack shit to combat that. All it effectively does is discourage third-party devs from being able fix the things they should be able to fix or apply balance patches; it turns out that games are actually pretty damn complicated, what with having the programming equivalent of thousands upon thousands of moving parts. Glitches happen.

    Microsoft certainly isn't responsible for the mistakes devs/publishers make, but saying "boo hoo, they should use another service" is a really lousy, short-sighted idea, for the players and for Microsoft. There's nothing stupid about implementing a better, patch-friendly service so things are better for everybody.

  • AZChristopherAZChristopher Registered User regular
    Microsoft has sold a lot of Arcade units. They don't want those people to have to download patches.

    And a console is not a PC. Most people don't expect to be constantly downloading tweaks to gameplay experiences.

  • UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    And a console is not a PC. Most people don't expect to be constantly downloading tweaks to gameplay experiences.

    Why not? This is the case with "serious gamers" on the PC, and with "casual gamers" on iOS devices. Why should consoles get a pass? Shit, I think gameplay-tweaking patches and updates should hit much more often on consoles.

  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    I paid for about 36 months of Xbox Live after my 360 red ringed and I got a PS3.

    I couldn't figure out how to cancel the subscription. It only stopped when my card expired start of 2012.

  • AZChristopherAZChristopher Registered User regular
    And a console is not a PC. Most people don't expect to be constantly downloading tweaks to gameplay experiences.

    Why not? This is the case with "serious gamers" on the PC, and with "casual gamers" on iOS devices. Why should consoles get a pass? Shit, I think gameplay-tweaking patches and updates should hit much more often on consoles.

    Not so much serious gamer as it is 2 decades of consoles that didn't allow downloads.

    I don't have a problem with patches and very much am happy that Bethesda games have them, but I also don't see any issue with Microsoft charging publishers.

    Maybe Minecraft will lead the way to a sub category of games that are set from the beginning to be allowed to update often.

  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    Well. I mean this is the first gen where online connectivity has been a common thing and not just some add-on.

    I'm interested to see how the gen works with it since it has been shown to be a big thing.

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Gawd I just realised this board is gonna be filled with "next-gen" being used as if it's a meaningful word where it isn't again.
    Plus everyother gaming site on the internet.

    Morninglord on
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  • ZephiranZephiran Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Gawd I just realised this board is gonna be filled with "next-gen" being used as if it's a meaningful word where it isn't again.
    Plus everyother gaming site on the internet.

    It's that time again, that magical season where people forget everything that has happened up until this point in the gaming industry and raise their starry eyes to the heavens, expecting the coming of the new nirvana.

    Zephiran on
    Alright and in this next scene all the animals have AIDS.

    I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
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