Quake IV Confirmed For QuakeCon 119
Gamespot has the word that Quake IV will get some face time at QuakeCon this year. id CEO Hollenshead released the information at the Xbox Doom 3 launch event. From the article: "Over the past few years, PC game sales have either declined a little bit or stayed relatively flat, while console game sales have seen mostly double-digit growth. I don't know if we'll be releasing multiple SKUs at the same time, but as for PS3 and Xbox 2 and so on, yes, we will continue our development effort on the consoles."
Mouse and keyboards (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mouse and keyboards (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, that's just my opinion, and I wouldn't claim to speak for anyone else on the matter, but all the same I wouldn't be so sure that everyone playing FPS on consoles is in a rush to get a mouse and keyboard set up.
sweeet ... I can't wait to play the next Quake (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh, and by the way, consoles are for kids!
Re:Mouse and keyboards (Score:3, Interesting)
Thus the trackball would be for mouselook, the left analog stick would be for movement (like WASD, but more precise), and the shoulder buttons could be for fire, jump, etc.
Are you kidding???? (Score:4, Interesting)
> then a gamepad.
If you're NOT kidding, you're completely out of your mind.
Back in college, I had a group of non-CS-major friends who thought they were hot stuff on Goldeneye, for the N64. As I understand it, Goldeneye is STILL considered just about the best console FPS, and one of the best N64 games, ever released. I thought it was rather low-quality and pedestrian, myself. But whatever. A couple of them could even beat the game on "00 Level". Oooooo...
Eventually, I finally got them to come into the lab at night, and set up a Quake 2 deathmatch. For starters, only being able to play a game with just four people at a time, and being confined to one corner of the screen is lame. But I digress. I spanked them... even the "I finished Goldeneye on 00 Level" guys. And I don't just mean I won. I totally dominated. And on real FPSs, I was never really even that GOOD.... strictly average. But playing with those POS console controllers, and their associated crutches (cheats like auto-aim, for example) instilled so many bad habits into them that even the best were all but helpless against just an average "mouse and keyboard" player.
It'll be interesting to see if the xBox2 and PS3 versions of Q4 will be able to play on-line against the real version. Specifically, it'd be interesting to see the deathmatch kill stats between them. I'd bet good money that said stats would bear me out.
cya,
john
Re:Mouse and keyboards (Score:1, Interesting)
By and large, people playing console fpses on dual-analogue controllers do NOT play against people playing fpses on a mouse and keyboard. It doesn't matter that a PC player would beat you... you're never going to play him. There's a big imbalance in the PC gaming market; for years now, the fps scene has been about who has the best system, display, mouse etc. A mediocre player can improve their performance by upgrading their system. In the console arena, people are almost always playing on standard hardware.
I look through this thread at the number of "OMG consoles suck, my PC could 0wnz0r them and with my mouse and keyboard I COULD BEAT ANY CONSOLE PLAYER" replies. Part of me wonders how many of these posters are just afraid of a level playing field.
Re:Mouse and keyboards (Score:1, Interesting)
Simply put, "skill" in a game is the ability to perform well within the constraints of the game. Is Kasparov a poor chess player because he can only move the Bishops diagonally? I'm actually a PC fps player historically and while I've messed around with Halo 2 over Live, I don't consider myself particularly good at it. However, if you watch a few of the top-level Halo 2 players fighting, the level of skill is on a par with anything in the PC gaming world.
In many ways, console gaming will prove to be a better determinant of skill in the long run. On a console, everybody is forced to use the same hardware and input devices. On a PC, the player with the better (and usually more expensive) hardware will have an inate advantage, allowing a mediocre player with richer parents to beat a more skilled player on a basic system.
Re:Multiplayer? (Score:1, Interesting)
Basically, I wouldn't get your hopes up for Quake 4 to be the next big "competition" fps. I suspect that title will eventually go to either Halo 2 or a new version of Counter-Strike. My main hope for Quake 4's multiplayer is that it will actually give us a co-op mode.
About PC gaming... (Score:4, Interesting)
Its expensive for developers to release boxed games for Pc's thats true. But is not as much if they get rid of the box and provide it as downloadable content. Im not sure how efficient that method is. But it certainly is the less expensive choice for any developer (no royalties to pay, no publishing, no international/national orders shipping and handling, nothing! all they need is a pc port of their game , a cc handler and a download source, thats it) another cool detail is that since pc gaming is less populated it could actually be considered a "niche" of sorts.
The only actual problem with pc gaming I see now, is how video card manufacturers are basically self destroying a part of the market, most probably they are aware than their newer card prices are unreachable for almost any pc enthusiast. Yet, they try to set them as the industry "standard" news flash: you can only call it an standard if the majority of the population prefers it over alternatives. (I mean seriously why cant new games WORK with an ati 9200 ? or geforce mx,5200 cards? those are actually affordable cards and to my knowledge they are still available in a good ammount of pcs)