Printable View
No you couldn't. I'm talking about running 10,000 unique instances of the game, which includes rendering and compressing the display for each client, not just serving multiplayer games for 10,000 clients.Quote:
Originally Posted by Othello Harrington
Precisely why I'm such a fan of all such games at least having an offline mode, or your standard offline game with optional online components. The "normal" games will play just fine, provided you have a working console.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
I could have sworn there was an edit. In any event, this is why I don't buy online-only games. If you like them, that's great. But I don't. And this is why OnLive clearly isn't geared towards me. I'm not saying it has no way of being successful... just that I don't plan on contributing to that success.Quote:
There was no such edit. I meant multiplayer shooters and shit. You own the real copy, but it's a doorstop if the Live service no longer exists. Same with Phantasy Star Online, any MMO...
Oh boy, I love gamers. We're the most negative people on the planet. Some cool new technology comes along and 75% of gamers poo-poo it before they've even tried it (or even read impressions). Why is nerd culture so damn negative? That's a larger issue I could get into, but I won't, and I'll just say the reaction to this service is a perfect example.
For the record, I think this sounds very very cool (even though I'm an HDTV whore and this streaming video probably won't satisfy me).
EDIT: I also agree with KOF about playing what I want to play today and not tomorrow. I've sold off nearly my entire game collection. There was a time I cared about physical copies and displaying my collection, but that time for me has long since passed. As it is now, I buy a game, beat and sell it. Anyway to give me that same experience easier and cheaper I'm all for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Othello Harrington
No, most people aren't poopooing it
You have PBMax, Shin John and KBuchanan. I am trying VERY hard to find another thing they have in common that goes against a lot of this board...oh wait, I found one.
Anyway, this is the future, period. Even if it doesn't take off this time.
Very solid impressions of OnLive from GDC. It pretty much covers most of the negative topics that can/will effect this type of service. Slight latency and compression issues, but still really impressive technology. I for one am still really excited to see a service like this, like Joust mentioned above that this type of service will be huge in the future even if OnLive doesn't succeed. It's not going to be an online gaming replacement, obviously, but something like this is going to be an outstanding option for people who want Netflix style gaming without the physical media or HD space required for digital distribution.
There's a huge difference between Netflix (which I *love*) and this. I don't know if you've managed to try Super Mario Bros with ~100ms of latency but Jesus Christ is that shit distracting. And lets be honest; no amount of clever predictive code can determine exactly when a player will decide to jump on a goomba. And no ultra-fast encoding process can shave off the delay between when a button is pressed and the result is finally transmitted back to the player.
I could see myself using something like this for demos. The internet has a long way to go before this becomes a viable replacement for actual consoles/PCs.
I more meant in the sense that it will most likely be a rental style system that you can use when you want to play something but don't want to pay full price or feel the need to own a game.Quote:
Originally Posted by epmode
When you've coded a network engine for a commercial game come talk to me. Until then it's safe to assume I know more about this topic than you, so you can drop the "I'm smarter than you" BS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
The hardest thing about creating a network game -- even a turn based game -- is keeping all of the players in sync. This is the issue that you are completely avoiding, and perhaps don't understand.
Thinking that the server can just send out video, receive control inputs, process the inputs, and dump another frame of video to all players without consideration for timing issues is naive. Internet latency, server and local bandwidth fluctuations, server video encoding delays, local video decoding delays, or input upload delays for any player would throw the game out of sync.
Either the server or the game itself is going to have to have software systems that ensure that the game stays in sync. Both of those options would add additional overhead.
I have no doubt this system will have its uses -- it may just be world's most complicated casual games portal. But I have serious doubts this can work for fast paced action games using the Internet infrastructure that's in place today, unless laggy games with video compression artifacts are your idea of fun.
Is banging your mom against TNL rules?Quote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams