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New Game Download Site Offers Play-As-You-Download Service
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Dec 19, 2008 04:55 PM
from the instant-gratification dept.
from the instant-gratification dept.
arcticstoat writes to tell us that despite the many game download sites already available, another one has decided to give it a go; only this time, with a twist. UK-based Game Domain International is launching their AWOMO service that will allow you to play the game before it's done downloading. As an added incentive to get people to sign up, you can try out the beta now and get Rome: Total War for free. "The trick, according to GDI, is its 'unique technology' that 'lets you start playing before the game has finished downloading, meaning you can be up and running, jumping and fragging in minutes rather than hours.' Although some other download services allow you to start playing a game before it's fully downloaded, you usually still have to download a big chunk of data before you can start, and GDI reckons that it's cracked this problem. According to GDI, AWOMO takes a look at your PC's spec and connection speed, and then hooks you up with a sufficient buffer to stop your game stalling during gameplay. The company is confident that 'the delivery system accurately predicts the data you require next and ensures it's already there waiting before you need it.'"
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The 80s called... (Score:5, Funny)
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In the 80s it sometimes took my Commodore 5 minutes to load Activision's Mindshadow. Then you flipped the disk. And it took another 3 minutes of more waiting.* I hope this service works better than that!
*
* This was before the fast-loaders were invented.
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I think the 90s version of this was "Streaming...", courtesy of Realaudio..
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Eep. Wow, it's irritating to remember things incorrectly.
How? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't see it being very plausible in multi-player games as you would most likely have to have the whole engine and all the map / character textures and video rendering engine?
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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So in other words it's blocky and ugly during the entire game, but the ending sequence is AWESOME.
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That actually sounds like the premise for a really fun game. Sort of like a first person "AI coming of age" rpg.
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Hey, maybe you should pitch that to Introversion! [introversion.co.uk].
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Played WoW lately? They have a version of the client that plays the game while streaming content to your PC... most of the time, you'll have the full game installed, but that version is available for download from the website. It's usually only offered (or made obvious) to people who are on a free trial friend code.
It's about a 5MB initial download, and the content streams as you play. It's compatible with both of the expansions, too, though I never actually tried taking my character off Azeroth with it, so
Is this a granular revenue model? (Score:4, Interesting)
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superfluous crap (Score:4, Funny)
Or then again, maybe adobe acrobat plugins and web browsers already do that.
Could be cool, but I'm skeptical (Score:4, Interesting)
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Maybe it works similar to Metroid Prime on the Gamecube where the "next" room is preloaded as you approach it, thereby eliminating the need for loading screens.
How well it will work will depend (Score:2)
With a fast enough link, that isn't a real problem. You download all the data for the area around the player. As they move, you download data for the relevant areas they are moving to. Also while they are fiddling around, you are still downloading, of course.
As for engines, they don't seem to be that much of most games. Maybe 50MB tops these days including all the DLLs they need. That's not a ton when you are talking about a 5+GB game.
I don't anticipate this working well on low bandwidth connections, but I
Guildwars (Score:4, Insightful)
Guildwars has done this for years. I think WOW does as well.
It's great if you're at school or work or grandma's or somewhere else. Just stream in the content you need for the region/quest you're in.
Re:Guildwars (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really the same thing. What you are talking about is loading an area before you get to it. Games have been doing that since the original Playstation, or ealier. But to play the games you mention, you still need to download them in thier entirety first, and then install them.
Last time I played Guild Wars I downloaded a 50 kb executable and streamed content as I entered new areas. Makes me wonder if you've even tried the game.
Parent
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WoW also has a small executable client that streams content as you play. Sadly, it's quite laggy as you enter new areas, and doesn't seem to remember old areas though. :(
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If you like the methods of one big download with Guild Wars, adding the switch " -image" to the end of the string pointing to gw.exe in the shortcut will download the current versions of every area including the core PvE areas, the expansion PvE areas, and all of the PvP areas. Expect to download several gigabytes of files, which end up in one big file, bad for FAT32 user potentially.
Do game mods work? (Score:2)
like this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome:_Total_Realism [wikipedia.org]
or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Barbarorum [wikipedia.org]
It seems rather simple to me. (Score:2)
Have you ever tried to run a Virtual Machine with off a Drive Image on a Remote Network location. It does work.
Do I own the games? (Score:3, Interesting)
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need both sides (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting, but we need both sides of the story: what does NOD think?
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Kane would tell you, but he's not Abel.
This isn't new (Score:3, Insightful)
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Yeah, my understanding is that steam was originally designed to work like this.
In reality, games released on Steam do not use this functionality because the user experience is not what people expect. People would rather queue up a game and come back later to play than start playing immediately and experience random pauses during play.
One of the early games (rag doll kung fu) took advantage of this by loading low res cut scenes with the game, and then downloading high-res in the background:
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Old idea (Score:2)
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Great, 32 bit only (Score:4, Informative)
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How is this... (Score:2)
any different from what Gametap has been doing for quite some time now. In fact I had to go fiddling around in the settings to turn it off to make sure when I've 'downloaded' a game it's really fully downloaded so I wont get hit with some very annoying lag in certain cut-scenes as they'd be 'dynamically loading' from the servers just as they were supposed to be playing. I'm more than happy to just wait an extra few minutes to get everything local rather than bother with this type of thing.
GameTap does this, and it sucks (Score:2)
When you download a game with GameTap, they give you two options: download the whole game, or just the bare minimum. I was playing on a laptop with low free space, so I tried the later.
If you select the bare minimum, then it leaves a bunch of graphic and sound assets, etc. on their servers, and adds a layer to the game that fetches those assets the first time they're requested. The thing is, it takes several seconds to fetch something from the server, and the game you're playing is inevitably designed wit
A service tailor-made for the worst cases... (Score:2)
... of ADD! These impatient downloaders would be the people who quaff an entire bottle of Ritalin every day and still feel under-medicated, so they augment it with an IV drip of black coffee. Hold the cream and sugar, please.
Re:A service tailor-made for the worst cases... (Score:4, Funny)
I have ADD, you insens... Oooh, shiny...!
Parent
How to do this on Linux/Unix (Score:2)
Run a caching NFS client and mount the remote game server as a filesystem. There are already a dozen shell scripts and utilities out there to preload stuff for booting big servers over NFS. (like if you use NFS for static website data or DNS or nntp)
Welcome to 1996 people.
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Because an NFS client knows exactly what file will be read next before it's opened, right?
Any ideas on the DRM scheme used? (Score:2)
I assume this means its there...DRM, that is. From the AWOMO terms and conditions...
"The term "Game Software" includes the software included in this game, the associated media, any software associated with the online mode of the game, any printed materials, and any online or electronic documentation, and any and all copies and derivative works of such software and materials."
Possibly a good idea, once I know what I am getting along with the games, but until then, i
Sounds like Mr. Movie on Spaceballs... (Score:2)
Sounds like the Mr. Movie on Spaceballs where the new movie comes out before they are done filming it...
Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at?... When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: Now, You're looking at now sir...Everything that happens now is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed it.
Dark Helmet:When.
Colonel Sandurz:Just now... We're at now now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then?
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: No
The 90's called (Score:2)
They want their Unreal Tournament back.
Basically it's possible with a lot of games. I've had games before where part of a level was defective (scratched CD). The game would play until a certain point, some games would allow you to just replace the bad or non-existent level file with another level file. There were also some games you would have to switch floppy's or CD's to play further levels.
It's a simple trick, nothing innovative. Just because it's done 'over the internet' doesn't make it new.
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Are you a subscriber? (Score:2)
One of the subscriber plums is letting you see articles when they are queued to be published but before they appear on the live frontpage. They show up in red, with a date of "the mysterious future." Are you a subscriber with no-ads turned on for the frontpage?
I don't buy it (Score:2)
You never had a genuine Hayes 2400 baud modem! You bought a knock-off, white box, ISA card of dubious origins with a speaker on it. You had a Hayes compatible 2400 baud modem like the rest of us, and you know it because you could probably recite the connection string that you needed to get it to work at "full speed" (read: 'bout 2kbit).
Admit it!
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Hayes Smartmodem 2400 here! It made chrome and blank household appliances cool way before the kitchen style fad kicked in. Still have it some place too.. (/oldfart)