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Games Entertainment

The Future of PC Gaming 354

Posted by CmdrTaco from the upside-down-cars-explode dept.
Warrior-GS writes "GameSpy has two new articles up talking about the Future of PC Gaming. The first talks about the The Future of PC Game Engines, talking to Tim Sweeney, Chris Taylor, Stuart Moulder and others about everything from physics to lighting to AI. The second is an interview with Peter Molyneux about his areas of expertise and what lies ahead. The series will continue next month with a look at the Future of User Created Games and an interview with Warren Spector on PC Gaming's future."
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The Future of PC Gaming More

The Future of PC Gaming

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  • Warren Spector (Score:5, Funny)

    by Illuminati Member ( 541846 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:00PM (#4572821)
    Warren Spector is a true game innovator.
    Look at thief, system shock, ultima underworld, deus ex. I'm always for the lookout of his latest games.
    Thief 2 was especially heinous. I used to play that game for hours. My first wife eventually gave me the "you love that game or me" speech, and I ended up choosing the game. That divorce led me down the road to many other ones. Its sad really. But damn was that game fun!

    • Re:Warren Spector (Score:5, Funny)

      by CaffeineAddict2001 ( 518485 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:03PM (#4572846)
      When she told you "you love that game or me" you should have hit her over the head with a blackjack and dragged her out to the curb.

      • Re:Warren Spector (Score:5, Funny)

        by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron@@@thcnet...net> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:28PM (#4573075) Homepage
        That's too funny.

        Pro-Microsoft Comment: -1, troll
        Pro-Spousal Abuse Comment: 4, funny.
        • Better watch out, he might have some water arrows left. And when one comes sailing out of the darkness and shorts out your computer, you won't even react.
        • Maybe next time I will leave a disclaimer about how I in no way condone spousal abuse in any way.

          After all, we can't have people just telling jokes all willy nilly, somebody might find them funny and beat their wife!
        • You've obviously never played the game before, or if you have then you're taking this joke way too seriously.

          Try to refrain from posting knee-jerk reactions such as that unless you know what the original poster is talking about.
    • Warren Spector is a very smart man, with many fine accomplishments to his credit. I'm looking forward to his next projects quite eagerly.

      That said, his involvement with the first Ultima Underworld game was quite small (Origin's liaison with Looking Glass), and his involvement with Thief, while not actually nil, was extremely close to it. He had no involvement with Thief 2 at all. And, of course, there were a lot of other people who helped make all these projects happen.

      Warren's job includes talking to the press, so his name gets out there a lot, but if you actually pay attention to what he *says*, he's always trying to spread the credit around, because he *knows* that he tends to get way more than he deserves. Warren is indeed a true game innovator. But singling him out in this way is both misleading, and an insult to the dozens of other brilliant people who contributed to those games.

      Warren is certainly due a lot of credit. But you do him (and other readers) a disservice if you try and give him so much more credit than he is due.

      {This is an edited version of a post I've made before -- and doubtless will again.)

  • Games of the past (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Evil Adrian ( 253301 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:00PM (#4572822) Homepage
    Does anyone else miss 2D scrollers like Super Mario 3 or overhead adventure games like Gauntlet? I have grown so weary of 3D shooters, I wish somebody could offer a decent 2D game that engaged my brain.

    • Re:Games of the past (Score:5, Informative)

      by katarac ( 565789 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:03PM (#4572841)
      Get yourself a Gameboy Advanced. The Castlevania games, the Mario games, the zelda games, and the upcoming Metroid: Fusion! This is truely one of the best systems on the market right now, portable or not.

      • Re:Games of the past (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Pxtl ( 151020 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:25PM (#4573060) Homepage
        I have actually been really really freaking disappointed with the lineup for my gameboy advanced. There's really very little besides Pokemon clones and sidescrollers. I was hoping people would take better advantage of what is really a handheld LAN (finally you can conceal the screen from other players) to make some innovations. I want Spy VS Spy, and Metal Marines, and Metal Warriors, and Z, and StarCraft, and old flight sims and suchlike. The only games that even hold my interest on the GBA are the racing games and the FPS games. Even the puzzle games are kinda weak compared to some of the PC titles I've tried.

    • Re:Games of the past (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:06PM (#4572870)
      Does anyone else miss 2D scrollers like Super Mario 3

      Not really. Yes, at one time those games were great. Even when Sonic the Hedgehog came out in 1991--an awesome game--the genre was already getting stale and moldy. Then the thousand such games released in the next five years completely put the 2D scroller to bed.

      There's nothing wrong with 2D scrolling games, except that everyone was just following the path chosen by Miyamoto. If you're tired of the current crop of PC games because they're derivative, the last thing you want to do is wistfully remember the most derivative game era of all time.

      • Re:Games of the past (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Pxtl ( 151020 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:15PM (#4572951) Homepage
        I agree - in retrospect, the genre was never really explored. If you look very, very hard you can find a handful of real gems in 2d, but most were just Mario clones (good god, how many games involved jumping on the baddies?).

        For the last word in Mario - look up Jump'n'bump. Cute little bunnies stomp each other's heads and explode into bloodnguts.

        For 2d games - Liero (worms 1 on 1) and its clones - the original is still the best. NiL is its abandoned (and unfaithful) Linux online version. I hope someone will pick this back up.

        Abuse (and the open-source version, FrAbs) is the best thing out there for online 2d action - imagine a hyperfast Quake as a side-scroller. There is deathmatch, and FrAbs promises CTF soon.

        Metal Warriors - The rarest, most awesome title for the SNES - 1-on-1 deathmatch splitscreen sidescroller with really, really innovative robots.

        For the PC - Z - An RTS with a fresh approach to the genre - its paced more like an arcade game then an RTS. Scorched Earth - come on, this was just cool.

        There were a lot of really good platformers and side-scroll games right up until Super Mario came out. New innovations didn't arrive until the genre was dying, and then it was too late - 3d took its place.
    • yes! I was feeling nostalgic lately, so I got some Nintendo ROMS and old abandoned DOS games. The old Sierra series were good, perhaps better than some new games, and they weren't even 3d.
    • Try out Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project.

      And no, you're definitely not the only one who misses side scrollers. I'm waiting for a good Xevious (sp?) game.

    • Re:Games of the past (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ian Wolf ( 171633 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:11PM (#4572918) Homepage
      Not At All :)

      Then again, I kind of miss Karateka, but Stick Fighter [tamarasanimeforums.com] fixed that.

    • Best 2D side scroller ever. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron@@@thcnet...net> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:17PM (#4572980) Homepage
      Is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Nothing else comes close.
      • Single player is masturbation. The best side scrollers are Contra 3: the Alien Wars, Abuse, and LucasArts' Metal Warriors.
        • Heh, I was thinking about old side scrollers and I remembered some old Mickey Mouse side scroller for the NES that was the fucking shit. I'll have to try to find a rom of that.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • I've played others that handle like it in SP, but rarely with multiple vehicles, and never with multiplayer.

            For a behindview console game, Armored Core (PS and PS2) has much of the feel of MW (multiple chassis types, 1-on-1 action, excellent levels). Abuse (PC) or FrAbs (opensource Abuse) have a similar "side-scroller DM" gametype, but instead of switching vehicles you can only get leg replacements. Abuse handles like something of a hybrid between MW and Quake. You have to aim with the mouse though.
    • Here - maybe you'll re-enjoy this [thcnet.net] then, if you're that tired of 3D....

    • MK!!! (Score:4, Funny)

      by kingkade ( 584184 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:42PM (#4573211)
      Dont't forget the unbelievable funny Monkey Island 1 & 2 which were greatly written and sometimes ridiculously hard (how it the @#$@! was I to know you're suppose to use an actual *monkey* as a monkey wrench to shut off that valve by the waterfall to get at the secret passage behind it! arrgghh!).

      I remember good old Mario 1 with the negative world and Mario 2 with all those cool boss enemies! Mario 3 was probably the most popular game ever on NES...

      This may soud fruity but, you know a game is good when it leaves you with some cool memories of how cool and fun it was even if its through rose-tinted VR goggles...

    • Re:Games of the past (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bujoojoo ( 161227 )
      That begs the question: Is 3D really better?

      I for one like the 2D isometric view as in [insert almost any Blizzard game here], Ultima Online[original client], Crusader (anyone remember that one?) and the like.

      I think it looks much better graphically. For example, as in the city of Lut Gholein in Diablo II (anyone know if that is available for a background image?). 2D games also do not seem to 'skip' frames (sorry, I don't know the technical term).

      I also play 3D games, though not too many 'twitch' type games. Even though I like Neverwinter Nights a LOT, I notice that I play it in a... wait for it... iso point of view.

      So why 3D? Is it easier (ha ha) to code for than a similar 2D offering? Is it better visually? Perhaps not now, but maybe later? Will DirectX 9 help with that? What about for Linux?. Are there so many 3D shooters out there that the players are more involved in the gameplay rather than the scenery? Or, are we all just victims of technology for technologies' sake?

      I'd be interested in others thoughts on this...

      • Re:Games of the past (Score:3, Informative)

        by WNight ( 23683 )
        In many ways, yes, 3d is easier to code. In a 2d game you've limited it, to the point of needing to throw out your old artwork, to a single viewpoint. In a 3d game it costs a bit more to make models instead of 2d spites, but it means you've got a ton of flexibility.

        In a casual game of Everquest you might very well find that the isometric view is nicer. But nothing beats 1st person for immersion. Imagine wandering through a beatifully rendered forest, watching beams of light play through a light mist as the trees sway gently in the wind. You'll *never* get that in 2d games, Myst had awesome art but you couldn't look at any arbitrary thing. Once you've made your 3d world you can put a camera anywhere.

        Scenery is also easier in 3d, at least from a designer's point of view. Once you do a set of textures, and detail textures, for a tree for instance, and modelled a single one, you can permute it in a variety of ways and all of a sudden you've got a forest of unique trees. Not a seperate model file for each, or a collection of views from every angle, but one master and a few numbers describing the differences. Gamers don't need to see the exact same tree often enough to recognize it, or to have a bloated game from having twenty different models/spite collections for every simple thing.

        And then when you want, you project grid/hex lines on the ground, lock the camera at an overhead position, and you've got your 2d game.

        The reason 3d looks bad now is that models are fairly low polygon count. The models in Final Fantasy (the movie) were over half a million faces each, with a HUGE skin file. Models in Quake are 500-1000 faces with a small JPG for a skin. Maps are similarly low-detail. When the computational barriers are broken we'll see some tremendous looking games. Hopefully at some point it'll become ubiquitous enough that games will stop trying to sell the effects and concentrate on the gameplay again. (Hollywood is stuck in the same rut.)

    • Re:Games of the past (Score:4, Informative)

      by infiniti99 ( 219973 ) <justin@affinix.com> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:45PM (#4573241) Homepage
      Definitely..

      Over the last 6 months or so, my friends and I have been randomly revisiting old games. We just bought a bunch of used NES and SNES games at a nearby store. We even were able to beat Ghosts 'n Goblins, a game I had not played for 16 years (and was impossible back then).

      Other games we have been playing lately, instead of modern games:

      Kid Icarus
      Contra 3
      Street Fighter 2010 (sleeper NES game from capcom, it is NOT a fighting game)
      Ninja Gaiden
      Castlevania 1 & 3
      Crystalis (best NES game, IMO)
      Megaman 1-6
      The Gaurdian Legend
      Ultima: Quest of the Avatar (this one goes nearly forever)
      Super Mario all-stars
      Bionic Commando

      There are a lot of good old games, you just have to know what to look for. In my case, I had played all of these games in the past, so I remembered what was good. And contrary to what others may say about old games, I found these totally enjoyable in the present.

      For modern 2D, I recommend Marvel vs Capcom 2, an amazingly well-done 2D fighting game by capcom, such that it is still popular even after being around for nearly 3 years (and still has a tournament scene).

    • Re:Games of the past (Score:4, Funny)

      by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:45PM (#4573247)
      Does anyone else miss 2D scrollers like Super Mario 3 or overhead adventure games like Gauntlet?

      Not as much as I miss the great 1D games such as "Linear Boy" and "Lack of Dimension."

    • Re:Games of the past (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Triv ( 181010 )
      two words for ya: guardian legend [classicgaming.com]. Half overhead adventure game, half top scrolling fighter-type. Without a doubt, my all-time favorite NES game. Give it a whirl. :)

      Triv
    • FINALLY SOMEONE AGREES WITH ME!!!
      (sorry for shouting, i couldn't help but get excited)

      We've had this argument several times where I work and I always end up losing to "Super Mario 64 revolutionized 3 person gaming", or even worse "All games in the future will be multiplayer over the internet". For one, I would love to see a new Mario-esque background scrolling 2D game. It is one of the reasons that I refuse to give up my 8-bit Nintendo (although I just might get a GBA to get to play some of those games again).

      Does anyone know of any game-port-->nintendo controller adapters that I can use for Nesticle or other emulators?
    • I would kill for a new 2D platform-shooter in the spirit of the greats such as Turrican and Turrican 2.

      God, I miss my old Amiga500... Even today's gigahertz-chomping, T&L, multitextured, 5.1 surround sound games don't quite capture the pure *fun* of the old classics.

      Dammit, now I'm getting all nostalgic.

  • The Future (Score:5, Funny)

    by CySurflex ( 564206 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:04PM (#4572852)
    If we'd believe what senator Lieberman is telling us, the future gaming will affect society in such a profound way that people will go around beating up hookers with baseball bats, dressing up as counter terrorists and shooting chickens, and really really cleavagy babes will be playing beach volleyball. (oh wait a minute, the last one does happen, just not to me)

    Or maybe games will just look prettier and have a higher framerate....but who knows.

  • Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay (Score:5, Insightful)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <<remove_spam>jus ... am>gmail DOT com> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:04PM (#4572853) Homepage
    Not to restate the obvious, but gameplay is more than incredibly high polygon counts and surround sound. Or bad actors with thinly written scripts. Remember the early CD-ROM games with 600MB of video and audio and a 20MB game engine? Yikes.

    Some of the best games I have ever played ran in 64k of RAM (not to date myself). M.U.L.E., Raid on Bungling Bay, the Bard's Tale, 7 Cities of Gold, Archon to name a few. With a 16-color palette and sounds that consisted of bleeps and blarts. Games that combined the action of the arcade with a compelling theme to keep you coming back.
    • I wholeheartedly agree. The only new game that's held my interest is Unreal Tournament, and that's only by virtue of the ludicrous amount of mutators available to turn the game upside down. Otherwise, pretty everything I play is old games designed for a P200. I still insist BattleZone I, Abuse, and Z are the greates games ever made.
  • "Intel & Gamespy present the future of PC gaming"

    How biased an article can you get?

    Intel, the leader in PC processors (Remember X-Box2 is gonna have AMD) & gamespy, the leader (or something) in PC Platform Online Gaming (Not that there actually is console online gaming at the moment, but hey...)

    And all the info this article gives is pretty obvious and known quite long:

    "I think the trend is going more towards buy than build," says Joanna Alexander

    It does however go into how graphics in games will be sent to you're screen, but that is (obviously) not a PC-exclusive thing.

    • Re:Just look at the title of the article.! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Flamerule ( 467257 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:38PM (#4573185)
      What's your problem, buddy?
      How biased an article can you get?
      Hm, you mean the article titled "The Future of PC Gaming" is biased toward talking about PC games? Who'da thunk it? Jesus.
      And all the info this article gives is pretty obvious and known quite long:
      "I think the trend is going more towards buy than build," says Joanna Alexander
      Uh, you didn't mention the context of that quote... it was in reference to developers preferring to buy game engines from other companies, rather than developing their own in-house engines. I don't know how obvious that is; I certainly don't see what your problem with it is.
      It does however go into how graphics in games will be sent to you're screen, but that is (obviously) not a PC-exclusive thing.
      Uh, no, it doesn't talk about that at all. It discusses: the state of game engines; the need for more rendering passes over polygons, instead of just generating more polygons; more realistic physics models; and AI.

      What a whacked-out post. Who modded that up to 4?

  • What they really need to look for in the future. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Midwedge ( 617806 ) <<midwedge> <at> <yahoo.com>> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:07PM (#4572881)
    Is not improving the engine (MORE POLYS! SMARTER POLYS!) but improving (or even bothering to make) a story. It's like UT2002, sure it looks great, but is there a story? I haven't seen it if there is.

    Someday devs will figure out fun gameplay and story is more important than how many polys you have...
    • Someday devs will figure out fun gameplay and story is more important than how many polys you have...

      I would claim that so-called "story" elements have been the driving factor in the decline of gameplay in the last ten years. "Let the player do what he wants and have a lot of fun" and "Force the player to follow the story a designer has laid out for him" are conflicting goals.

      I've come to realize that the cry of "Story! Story! Story!" is the first sign that a gamer is growing out of his or her favority genre.
    • UT2003 is a multiplayer frag game. They don't focus on story, because you're making your own - you don't want to hear the same story over and over again. The SP ladder was included just for training and so they could say that they have an SP game.

      Story is only really necessary for SP/Coop games. Did anyone care about the story of Team Fortress? Would it really have been any better with one?

      Leave story to the adventure games (like Unreal 2). Multiplayer is about the people - not the writers.
    • I think you're on to something. I just bought NHL2003 and the story sucks. Then I downloaded Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit2 Demo, and there is no story there either! WTF! These devs need to get a clue.

      The point of UT2003 isn't the story. UT has never been about story, its not supposed to be. If I want story, I fire up Neverwinter or Alone in the Dark. If I want fast-action online competition I fire up UT or Battlefield. Nobody ever seems to gripe about the story in NHL2003 or Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. Frankly, I find the gameplay in all of them to be top-notch. I just don't have much free-time for an involved story based game.
    • Next you'll be complaining that Madden 2003 doesn't have a story either. You are kinda missing the point here.

  • My predictions on the future of PC gaming (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:08PM (#4572882) Homepage Journal

    1)Blizzard releases hugely popular sequel to warcraft called "Accounts payable vs. Accounts receivable." Instead of micromanaging farms and peasants, you get to micromanage a fiscal budget! Hooray!

    2)Doom and Quake series merge to produce DoomQuake, which comes with a free black trench coat. John Carmack proclaims it "my greatest work yet." It requires a $500 "GPU"/space heater, yet still manages to break PC game sales records.

    3)SimSims. Take the exciting role of a person who does nothing but play the Sims all day! He always makes sure his Sims get to the bathroom on time...but did you make sure that he got to the bathroom in time?

  • Mmmmm...new game engine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:08PM (#4572886) Homepage
    What are the game producers going to do when they finally get to the point where the games look like real life, but still have the entertainment value of the movie "Glitter" or "It's Pat"?

    An exquisitely rendered turd is still a turd.

    • We've already reached the stage where graphics are more important than entertainment value. Unfortunately.
    • An exquisitely rendered turd is still a turd.

      Where's the screenshot?
    • What are the game producers going to do when they finally get to the point where the games look like real life, but still have the entertainment value of the movie "Glitter" or "It's Pat"?
      When that happens, the game industry will be almost indistinguishable from Hollywood. There will be little technological advancement, and most publishers will churn out derivative, mass-market gaming pablum identical to what has come before it.

      Guys like Warren Spector, Peter Molyneux and Sid Meier will continue to make fantastic and innovative "art-house" games, which will be enjoyed by all those in the know, but most of the market will consist of soulless copycat releases.

      • It's tough to bash someone with so much clout and commercial success, but Peter Molyneux does *not* make fantastic games. He comes up with great concepts that are fun for a little bit, until you realize that your entire function as a player is basically housekeeping. Populous had me hooked for a few levels, and then it got boooooring. Same with Black and White.

        He just *isn't* the visionary that everyone claims him to be. I mean, just look at his interview: "More AI. More graphics. More sound." Yeah, those are some pretty bold predictions. The real visionaries would be the ones that take Molyneux's ideas and turn them into a real game.

        --Jeremy
  • None other than virtual reality! Anyone remember the SNL skit about virtual books? This guy puts on a VR headset, and you think it'll be living the book, when in fact it is a simulation of reading a book, the graphics look poor, and only about 4 words fit on a page... ;)

    Seriously though, I know the Holodeck doesn't make for good Star Trek episodes, but how many of you Slashdotters wouldn't LOVE to game in that manner. Totally escaping reality, you could experience any aspect of life that you wanted, consequence free. I'm very sure that would cause widespread peace of mind and mental health, because people would have an easy way to vent any destructive urges in a non-destructive manner. Hopefully, I'll be able to see stuff like this in my lifetime (I am about to turn 21), but perhaps I'd only see the humble starts of true "Holodeck" type technology.

    A game that mirrors reality to exacting detail, where the only limits are those of your own imagination-- THAT'S what I want! Hurry up, developers! ;)

    • Re:What I'd like to see... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Ian Wolf ( 171633 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:44PM (#4573234) Homepage
      The Holodeck would be the death of civilization as we know it.

      Seriously can you imagine an even greater scourge? Who the hell would leave? Sure, I'd like to think that my first foray would be to play baseball with 17 hall of famers, to drive through the streets of Monte Carlo for McLaren, or even storm a 747 widebody with an MP5 and a couple of flashbangs, but we all know that the first thing booted up on 90% of all holodecks would be "A Night with Jenna Jameson".

  • The future conan? (Score:5, Funny)

    by CaffeineAddict2001 ( 518485 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:10PM (#4572909)
    The future andy.

    IN THE YEEEEEAR 2000!!!!!!!!

    In the year 2000 robots will do 80% of our housework. But we will do 90% of theirs.

  • Lighting and shadows (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phorm ( 591458 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:11PM (#4572915) Journal
    For those who haven't heard of it, I recently picked up an older game called "Nocturne." The gameplay was clunky, and the storyline at times annoying, but the lighting effects were quite awesome for its time. In fact, in comparison to some games I've played today, the lighting is quite superior.

    From what I've read up on the game, all scenes are rendered from complete darkness. This means that only the point and spot light sources exist (no ambient). Shadows in the game are incredible. If an object passes in front of a light, the shadow blocks it.
    While some newer games have good shadow effects, having a realistic shadow that follows the characters movement (in the game, your character has a trenchcoat which swishes around, making the shadow move too) is extremely cool in comparison to the often used "dark blob" shadow effects in many games. I'm hoping Doom 3 uses these "dark and sinister" effects too. It would be extremely cool to be able to site who is coming around the corner by their shadow cast on the wall or ground.

    In short, polygons and texture rendering play a great part in detail, but realistic light and shadow rendering make scenes much more lifelike.
  • The "engines" article talks about 20 passes per polygon and so on. Great! But the majority of machines being sold by Gateway and Dell are not even T&L equipped cards. We're talking pre-Radeon era ATI cards. Now you have people buying awesome, awesome machines with 1.8 GIGAhertz at the very bottom end, systems that John Carmack and Tim Sweeney couldn't have imagined ten years ago, but only the hardcore gaming types are bothering to get the $200-$400 video cards that games like Doom 3 are going to require. For Carmack it might work, but for everyone else it isn't worth three years and millions of dollars to develop a PC game that ends up selling 20,000 copies. That's a pretty realistic number these days.

    • Doom/Quake bad examples of retail products (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AHumbleOpinion ( 546848 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:43PM (#4573225) Homepage
      The Doom and Quake series of games are not good examples of retail products. Selling boxes at retail is only part, it may even be the smaller part, of the income. Licensing the engines found in these games is the other part of the income. These games are partly "advertisements" for the engine. That is how they can get away with such high system requirements. The requirements won't seem so steep by the time the products based on a licensed Doom III engine appear.

  • not going away (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ramzak2k ( 596734 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:21PM (#4573013)
    i was surprised that none of the gaming gurus had anything negative to say about PC losing out as the gaming platform like this earlier slashdot article [slashdot.org].

    PCs have so far been one step ahead of consoles in terms of hardware/processing power, hope those innovations (like AI, ability to use more polygons etc) hit the PCs before consoles.

  • Polys are overrated (Score:4, Interesting)

    by YAN3D ( 552691 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:22PM (#4573027)

    A video card's ability to crunch polygons is not as important as it used to be. What is important is what you can do with those polygons. Polygons are just a medium to deliver your textures, lighting effects and shaders. Particle effects are also a staple in modern video games.These are the things that will be improved in future game engines. Imagine a game engine with full global illumination (not faked)

    If you remember, virtua fighter had more polygons per charachter than virtua fighter 2. Virtua fighter 2 looked so much better because it acually had textures instead of just flat shaded polygons.

  • .. the past of gaming. When I my brother moved back closer to me and I got his setup with a computer I introduced him to the "hottest" game of the time. DOOM and DOOM II. Of course at the same time I was playing Unreal, but I wanted him to have the same experiences and appreciation that I have for modern games. Also I needed a head start, that bastard learns to damn fast... Anyway, after he mastered DOOM, HEXEN, Betrayal at Krondor, and a few other classics, I let him in on the magic of Unreal and we have played more matches of UT than I can count now. He would not have been so good if he didn't know where all of the things we take for granted came from. He isn't awed by just graphics, he enjoys story, gameplay and originality as well.

  • Ah yes, Gamespy. That lovely little company that is so desperately trying to spread it's vile disease all over online gaming, trying to force all us online gamers to use their appalingly poor connection services. Those people are just as guilty as monopolizing as Microsoft, except it actually worked out for Microsoft...

    Secondly, that Peter Molyneux is a comedian. Black and White 2? Since when do you create sequels to horribly flopped games? I have yet to meet anyone IRL or on IRC who has played B&W and liked it still after 2 weeks. Oh, and before people start yelling at me; being horribly overhyped is NOT a definition of a succesful game. (Daikatana anyone?)

    • I agree with your first point. Gamespy is turning out to be a bad thing.

      OTOH, your Peter Molyneux-bashing is a bit tiresome.

      Since when do you create sequels to horribly flopped games?
      Pretty hard to call Black & White a flop... a brief Google search netted me this page [xengamers.com], which notes that B&W sold > 2 million units worldwide. As far as the game itself... I've come back to it several times since it was released, and I always get bored after a couple weeks of playing it. But I like it; and I know many other people who liked it as well.

      As usual, the fact that your circle of friends didn't like B&W is pretty poor evidence for it being a bad game.

      Oh, and before people start yelling at me; being horribly overhyped is NOT a definition of a succesful game. (Daikatana anyone?)
      Daikatana wasn't a "successful game" because it sucked ass. It would have sucked ass even if Romero hadn't hyped it to the moon for ~4 years.

  • Given the trend. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:25PM (#4573053)
    Given the current trend of releasing a game engine without much of a gain included (Morowind, Neverwinter Nites, Dungeon Siege), with the expectation that people paying for the product will finish it. I predict the in the future you'll just get a copy of GCC and some artwork when you purchase a game. The game developers will cover their asses by sticking a "some assembly (ASM) required" sticker on the box.
  • if you ask me games were better off in a simpler time... i can never seem to replace the excitement i got when i first saw a naked girl in a video game back in good old "colonel clusters last stand" for the atari. actually i think it was the first and last naked girl i've ever seen, or likeness of one even... hey, she had nice breasts... a whole 4 bit, errr a-cup? who needs grand theft auto 3! /paul

  • One problem about self-improving game AI (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sielwolf ( 246764 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:29PM (#4573087) Homepage Journal
    One big problem is that we want opponents to learn "online" but how many of us are willing to deal with the long learning curves of a lot of AI? Most people want to 1. sit down at a game 2. be challenged 3. maybe see the opponent due something new.

    But to do something new would probably require a lot of trial and failure... and a lot of moments where users will think "damn, this thing has gotten stupider!"

    So then you can enforce a baseline behavior... which is more static, more predictable and basically where AI is now (lots of scripting, etc).

    I guess the best solution would be for developers to come up with a dozen or so strategies and a system for switching/blending between them. Heck, maybe even have the developers run improvements and then upload them to all the users.

    Of course "meat" opponents online do that already: they're called gaming forums. The ability of a person to come up with a great strategy and then propogate it to everyone else online may be the most difficult thing to implement in any game AI.
  • What I'm wondering about is when we'll see environments that are far most plastic -- ie, reactive to the weapons/tools used in the games.

    For example, why can't I blow a hole in a door or a wall? Why don't wooden materials in a game start on fire (and continue burning, causing health damage) when exposed to explosive or flame weapons? Shouldn't continued exposure to explosive or high-powered weapons cause some buildings to collapse entirely?

    While an obvious reason not to is it wouldeliminate the find-the-switch-to-open-the-door trivial puzzles, think of it as adding dimension to the game -- sure, blow the door open but you might get killed when the ceiling collapses.

    I've been playing a lot of MOH:AA, and even some of the demo levels like Stalingrad would be more interesting if repeated RPG strikes blew walls over, if grenades blew open the floor, heavy machine gun rounds went through walls, and so on.

    Most games have some trivial things you can "destroy" (boarded up windows, glass panes), but the basic architecture/structures are totally impervious, which strikes me as the single most unrealistic aspect.

    I've never understood this, either -- if I can move to one side of a wall or the other, why does the wall have to be permanent?

    My other gripe is with health, which should be more easily fixed. I think health should have two components -- an overall 'health' aspect which should gradually go down, and a 'current stamina' value which should quickly go down during rapid movement, climbing, firing of big weapons, but recharge by stopping and doing nothing. The stamina value should impact the health value, as well as how fast you can run, accurately shoot, etc.

    I'm not the most exposed gamer, so I only know by the games I've played, but the simple health metrics and static environments have always surprised me.
    • Red Faction has fully mutable terrain. Many realism games separate stamina from health. You're whining for things that exists. The point is these things are more work, which might make the game more expensive. I really dont' care about mutable terrain unless you're maknig a WORMS/scorched earth game. To me thats bells & whistles - less so then graphics, but still just toys compared to the main game.
      • Red Faction has fully mutable terrain. Many realism games separate stamina from health. You're whining for things that exists. The point is these things are more work, which might make the game more expensive. I really dont' care about mutable terrain unless you're maknig a WORMS/scorched earth game. To me thats bells & whistles - less so then graphics, but still just toys compared to the main game

        Not entirely; it has patches of mutable terrain -- but not all of the terrain is mutable. They tend to keep the areas which can be modified both small (to reduce the amount of processing required when updating the map), and -- and this is the important part -- they put them where they think you'll try to do the most modifications. :-)

        Si
    • Reactive environments (aka deformable terrain) are fairly difficult to achieve. Recent games have begun to attempt this (Red Faction, I believe), but it's going to take a fair amount of reinventing the technology. This has to do with how BSP's (the 3D map of the environment) work, and that the whole thing would have to be rebuilt any time something was changed (imagine having to wait for the map to reload every time you launched a rocket). Most 3D engines rely on being able to pre-compute where everything in the map is, to cut down on rendering time once the action starts (allowing for higher FPS). Maybe someone who played Red Faction can relate how successful they were with addressing these problems. Further adding to the complexity is that now you have to account for building physics. When you blow away that wall, does the roof come down? How much wall needs to be present before the whole thing collapses? How much building has to be added to each map (that you normally wouldn't see) to accomodate possible destruction? All of this greatly increases processing overhead.

  • Advanced graphics != good graphics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by weird mehgny ( 549321 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:35PM (#4573155)

    It has become common belief that the better tech, the better graphics. It's simply not true. There's much more than a technological aspect of graphics in games, there's also something called aesthetics.

    SNES era games come to mind. Games like Zelda 3 and Super Metroid had wonderful graphics - they are in low resolution and in few colors when compared to today's games, but the design work is excellent.

    I have no doubts that DOOM 3, for example, will have a great combination of technology and design. My point is just that graphics aren't bad just because they're old!

  • waiting for that killer app (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DenOfEarth ( 162699 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:35PM (#4573156) Homepage
    The great things is, that there are those people out there that understand that some people play games for the same reasons some people play soccer; the gameplay is basically the same, but every encounter is different, and even greater (for me ;) are those people that understand that some of us will want to play a game for the same reason that we want to read a book or watch a movie (Halo, anyone).

    So, considering this, those guys who are building better and better engines are actually going to be helping out both of the above types of game developer, and surely more as well.

    I am waiting for the day in the not-so-distant future, where someone releases a game with a story and characters compelling enough (decent engine too) that it causes the larger audience of people to realize that games aren't just for kids. The next thing after that is Sex in games. Wait, that's here already, but wait until it gets even more real.

  • I used to play a lot of computer and console games but I got pretty bored of the same old thing again and again. Rarely there would be a true gem that I would play even after completing it, e.g. Diablo 2.

    Nowadays I tend to play Go (The oriental board game) a lot. I am kind of addicted to it. I am still so rubbish that GnuGo can whip my ass on its max difficulty setting, but it's still fun playing against other people on the internet.

    I have found something in Go that I couldn't find in any computer game, but still lacking is the eye-candy you get with modern games. Sometimes I have to get the latest 3d shooter and play it for a bit just to watch shiny things rotate.

    graspee

  • Good ol' Days Syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @02:55PM (#4573327) Homepage Journal
    I'm already seeing a bunch of messages talking about the games they used to play in the past and how great they were. There seems to be an equal amount of posts complaining about what their vision of the future should be.

    Funny thing is that I've seen these same articles and the same reactions for over twenty years know. Ever since Bill Kunkel et al started the first video game magazine, there always has been articles with a prognostication about the future of gaming and how crappy the games of today are.

    It seems that the future articles state that: the games will be bigger, faster, have more features and be more realistic and interactive. The complaints seem to be the games of today lack innovation, have no plot or substance and have poor quality. The best articles have a up-and-coming game designer revealing the latest and greatest and a wily veteran designer with a "return to the basics" mantra.

    Do yourself a favor. Next time you see an article with the "Future of Gaming!" title, just read the above paragraph which will sum it all up neatly for you and you've saved ten minutes of your life that you can now apply to playing Vice City.

  • Future of game engines??? -- Raytracing (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In this article they talk about doing multiple passes, and simulating lighting.

    Forget this unified lighting model
    When are we going to have some real-time raytracing engine and have true lighting?
  • That's when they introduce Virtual Real Reality. (VRR for short) Picture yourself with a virtual gun and wearing one of those headgears were you see the virtual reality you're in... you see a bad guy, you shoot with your virtual gun at him... gosh, you missed... now the bad guy shoots back at you with the real gun attached to your computer...

    I bet parents and politicians will try to spoil the fun by banning VRR... they'll cry out that there are too many teenagers who gets shot infront of the computer or that there are too many bullet holes in the walls. Geez... let the kids have some fun!!

  • Games or Pornography? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cerebralsugar ( 203167 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @03:10PM (#4573536)
    This reminds me of an odd college lecture...

    I had a PC achitecture class at my college. When we got to the history of video adapters, our professor explained in graphic detail how each successive graphics adapter (mono to cga to ega to vga) was pushed along by the need for more detail in pornography!

    He pointed out how EGA looked lousy, and 256 color VGA was bad for round things with light, such as women's stomach's or breasts. He was pretty into this explanation. He wasn't kidding! This class had about an equal number of men and women.

    I would have thought desktop publishing or gaming or something like that would have pushed graphics adapters along. So, maybe based on my professors great theory, maybe its not the gamers that are pushing on realtime rendered 3d graphics, but maybe the porn-mongers. And all this time I thought it was quake upping the odds!

    Of course, if you listen to liebermen games such as GTA3 are supposedly pornography.... Maybe I highly realistic, pornographic 3D will be the killer app to get a GPU into every home. ;)

    • Re:Games or Pornography? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mac Degger ( 576336 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:14PM (#4574577) Journal
      Duh! What do you think made the printing press so widespread...the bible? No, pornographic prints. That also what pushed pricture tech. And photography. Why do you think video recorders did so well? Porn! More to the point, porn at home instead of seedy bookstores/cinema's. And what financed those huge pipes for the internet? Sure, Darpa started it, but the pron biz made it economical. Porn has pushed all forms of communications technology. It's just that society is too prude to admit it most of the time.

      BTW, this is a serious post, it's not meant to be funny.
  • http://www.the-underdogs.org/ is a great web site that hosts hundreds of the games of yester-year. So go ahead and get the timeless classics like the original Civilization, Pizza Tycoon, Defender of the Crown, Populous, Lords of the Realm, Ultima, System Shock, Eye of the Beholder, Master of Magic, X-Com...to name just a few :)

  • The Future of Tech Journalism!!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @03:39PM (#4573790) Journal
    This article is about the future of tech journalism. Notice the byline at the end? "This article is the editorial opnion of gamespy network. Sponsored by the Intel Pentium 4"

    Obviously, it was a well written and insightful article. And it was about all the reasons that new games will need bigger and faster processors. And Intel paid Gamespy to write it. Interesting, not wrong.

  • Why do all games revolve around A physics engine? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladv AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @03:56PM (#4573941) Homepage
    All the "future of gaming" articles I'm constantly seeing are about improving the physics models in games and creating more realistic graphics and actions?

    Civilization 3 is an extremely popular game with no physics or highly advanced graphics engine, just some nice animated units that entertain you while your conquering Egyptians.

    Heroes of Might and Magic is also a very popular game that also does not require physics, and barely has any animation.

    Diablo 2 is unimaginably popular and their physics consists model consists of pushing you in the opposite direction when you get "knocked back" and all the characters/monsters die in roughly the same way with similar animations.

    I'm not sure about Warcraft 3 but I can't imagine it requires a sophisticated engine that makes the goblins blow up in just the right way.

    This is self-serving tripe about first person shooters. There are dozens of genres out there that don't require physics engines to make their games the absolute best. Hell I just want a game that doesn't crash or contain so many damn gameplay bugs; can we have an article about the future of better QA processes please?

  • Dedicated AI (Score:3, Interesting)

    by limekiller4 ( 451497 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @04:27PM (#4574193) Homepage
    On page three [gamespy.com] of the GameSpy article, they get into AI a bit. I wonder if we're ever going to have AI cards like we do now with nics and graphics cards.

    Why not? Why not have a whole processor dedicated specifically to the type of algorithmic applications that AI requires?
    • With dedicated video cards and dedicated sound cards, it looks as if we already have a dedicated AI card - its called the motherboard. Asus and Abit make excellent AI cards :-)

  • The best games the last few years (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Multiple Sanchez ( 16336 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @04:28PM (#4574198)
    Are the most immersive. Think Zelda 64. Think GTA3. These are games with a lot of action and a lot of attention to detail. The designers made it entirely entertaining to do nothing more than explore the landscape all day long. The attention to every detail is there in some of our other favorites, too... Space Quest I-III spring to mind, not to mention the Z-word, Zork. Even the abstract, near-wordless Out of This World [mobygames.com] -- a game I'd happily spend hours arguing is the most entertaining game of the last twenty years -- had this quality, full of the little details in the periphery that made playing the game such a successful escapist fantasy.

  • Game engines are great and all. . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mntgomery ( 620581 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:17PM (#4574607)
    but good games require more innovation than anything. EverQuest has a pretty crappy game engine, for instance, but the innovative gameplay has captured poor souls for years.

    Granted, a good game engine goes further than just putting pixels on the screen, but the future of gaming doesn't rest in the ability of programmers to design wonderful new game engines. It lies in the creativity of the designers to take gaming in directions its never gone before.

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