Dark times ahead...

[Frosty]

This topic has probably been gone over before, but looking at the line of Pc Games to come i am filled with more dread than anticipation, after playing DX2, how could Warren Spector look at himself in the mirror after defiling such a title, sure i heard the tales about it being Dumbed down....but i really am disgusted..one simple touch i liked in DX1 was that when you go upto a keypad you'd have to REMEMBER the number and then TYPE it in! simple but gr8 touch, i mean i don't have an XBOX...but would remembering a number be that hard while sitting on your couch..i think not...seems a bit patronising since even a monkey can remember a code for a while....

And finally the most annoying thing to EVERY BE INVENTED IN THE HISORY OF THE WORLD, when you die in DX2 a box appears "Terminal Life Signs" with ONE option "Yes" or for those XBOX users who can't read a nice pritty "Tick"....

It may aswell say "Are you a n00b for dying after being raped be a horde of Greasels" ..."Yes" or "No" ....*Option picked* "No"....*Error* Format Hard Drive for lying.....*initalising "Format C:*

As for the Frame Rate, on my 9800pro i really though i'd be on happy street, thought i could have High Res and Settings Maxed at bout 60fps but nay...The likes of Halo and DX2 make me wonder why i spent £180 for 30-40 fps..

The Thief Series!! We all know and love it...but even for a pc game it was always a bit hard/tricky/technical...often took that extra bit of Brain Power to get the mission done right? and that was part of its charm Now for Thief 3 i have my worries...ofcourse i hope their unfounded....but there are multiple things which sign its failure:

1: It's not being made by Looking Glass (RIP)
2: It and Dues Ex 2 are mean't to use the same Enhanced Ut2k3 Engine (Bye Bye Frame Rate)
3:It's being Co-developed for the X-Box (It's going to be Dumped Down!)

I just hope the game was made on the Pc First! and THEN ported over to the XBOX and not the other way round..

But sadly as we all know the sign "Being Co-Developed for the XBOX" often means "Made on the XBOX,Dumbed down and then tested on Monkeys for XBOX User Compatibility, and sloppily in the last 10 Minutes of development time get the Resident Llama specially imported from Bill Gates Llama Farm to churn out the Pc version"

Hl2 and Doom3 are also being "Co-developed" with the XBOX, could this be a sign at small levels? 20 IQ needed to complete Game? and no AI!!

With all these games coming out for the XBOX that will never run on the Pc DECENTLY it kinda makes me wanna sell the pc and just get an XBOX if i wanna play games....

Only Games i am now Truly waiting for are those that i think are not being Co-developed for the X-Box, so thats only 2 Games:

UT2004
Stalker: Oblivion Lost

*Plz don't tell me Stalker is coming out on the X-Box"

Ps: I do not hate XBOX users or even the XBOX, it's the lazy money Grabbing developers and management who put too harsh restraints, not enough money and not enough time to make the game properly for Pc, lets face it a game that is on both XBOX and PC is gonna make ALOT more money than PC-only games. Games aren't about fun and quality any more...just about how much money their gonna make

*RIP the PC*

[Bunjiweb]

ut2004 is being developed on xbox aswell but afaik it is beeing done by a side team not the main team who are developing the pc version.

Ben

[Knoxville]

Innovation in games is virtually none exisistent atm and its the market itself that is in a big way responsible, developers have seen us every year we go out and buy the latest fifa game, the newest racing game with shinier graphics and new cars or the latest fps with different weapons and a new storyline, they've seen that to sell copies they only have to change the bare minimum and market well.

In the end unless the market itself catches on and stops buying these games will games producers get off they're ass and do something. Something i've noticed over the past couple of console generations is that the good innovative games come out on the consoles without the backing of huge franchises like fifa such as the N64 and the Dreamcast, Developers for these consoles put in more effort to come up with a good original idea these consoles have given me some of the best games of the past few years but because they don't have the huge backing or the bigger market of the playstation consoles they fail to make a profit and have forced sega and will soon imo be forcing nintendo to get out of the hardware industry.

[directhex]

hell i think knoxeh sums it up pretty well.

anyone for a game of fifa 2005?

[steve threlfall]

Sadly it seems most people dont like good games. If they did the dreamcast would have a 99% share of the console market

[spazman]

If you could make a crap load more cash by turning out a crappy game that appealed to a mass market than you could by making a superb game for a tiny segment of the market what would you do? Its not the developers you should be complaining about its all the morons buying the latest sims update or similar EA garbage you should be complaining about.

[Devilbod]

This is more down to the Publishers rather than the Developers and it's been the gaming press a bit more recently due to some comments made by Jason Rubin (Naughty Dog founder has now recently left). The basic gist of it goes that althought youve got some of the most creative talent in game production (artist, programmers and the like) the people who control what gets put out are the publishers and in a lot of respects they have little idea of what a great game is.

Add to this the rate the industry is growing and become more and more competitive, theres a lot of pressure on the smaller companies to produce game quickly so the funding is there, you simple can't produce the quality if you haven't got the time and to get the time you either have got to have the money already in the bank or convice the publishers to give you credit on that your making the next big thing which is very difficult to do if you haven't just realised the last big thing.
Hence big developers like Valve, ID, Rockstar, EA etc can take longer than most to produce games, hire more staff to work on it, will get better advertising and promotion from their publishers, and because they are going to get success on just their name the publishers love them. Trouble is they are going to stick to what there good at and what their known for so they can make more money.
While the smaller developers are just stuggling to keep there heads afloat and so are not going to take a big risk realising something that might or might not be a success and in any case the publisher probably wont touch them with a barge poll so in the end you end up with little inovation.

On the Console/PC front publishers are more likley to go for and give funding to a Console game because the market is bigger and the problem with developing for a PC is the spec changes and so you have to get out you crystal ball and guess what next year Graphics cards might be able to do in a years time..

It sucks , although people are begining to notice this and some funding ideas for developers (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content...e=dev&aid=2988) are appearing it's still going to be like this for a while, but at least Jason Rubin has now pointed what everyones been thinking it might stir things up.

Theres more about what Jason Rubin said here : http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content...e=dev&aid=3103

[Devilbod]

I meant to add one place you do still see a lot of inovation is in the Asian market, trouble is not unless it's a big success there you don't see it over here

[directhex]

the czech republic & russia are pretty hot at the moment in terms of pc game production - because the progreammers are cheap, they can be given a little more time. i'm sure pleanty of people on here support the work of russian publishing giant 1C, and their in-house development team 1C Maddox (who like WW2 fighter planes)

[Knoxville]

Aye, between them and rockstar thats about as good as games are getting atm

[Dakaras]

I pray every day for Thief 3 to be as good as the 1st two.....Dont change to much, give me Garrett a few cool arrows some tough puzzles and decent AI and ill be a happy Thief

[directhex]

rockstar the ps2 developers with a copy of renderware?

[Knoxville]

They may use an off the shelf engine but they do seem to be using it to try some new things atm other than just relying purely on chucking out another gta game (even though one is in development)

[Devilbod]

Did find a little snipit on web about developers trying different ways to get the funding for games (in asia), they asked the game players themselves to contribute towards the funding of further releases - but before you think £2.50 each would do it it was about £2,500 minimum, but intrestingly it worked the company released another two games with the money raised and also gave each share holder back there doe and got there name in the credits.

Probably a tiny bit out of or league but it's an interesting idea.