General Chat

They are pretty weird/cool. I had no idea those sort of creatures existed.

Thanks for the link!

this one reminds me of Sagas of Ryzom a little.
http://alexkorol.home.comcast.net/references/fish/chimaera_pup.jpg

That's some freaky shit. I'm jsut really of fish, for Biology we cut one open and ours was infested with still live Intestinal Worms. Never gonna eat fish again.

I was wondering what 'fish sticks' were made out of.

Cool great link. Funnily enough I'm currently doing the Sumea model comp based on a survival horror fish, so yeah, that helped me out a lot.

I'll post up my progress sooner or later.

One that I heard of earlier this year, was the FCC's attempt at BPL (Broadband over Power Lines). Although not as fast as the Japanese experiment, it would be far more accessable. If you have a computer, you could have Broadband :)

http://www.eei.org/magazine/editorial_content/nonav_stories/2004-03-01-…
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2004-03-03-plugin-net…
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/bpl7.htm

It sounds nice, but will internet routers/servers etc. meet the demand of 10Gb connections :P Packetloss and latency could explode!
CYer, Blitz

of course in australia most of us will have only just upgraded to broadband cos telstra, etc have decided to stop ripping us off with outrages prices and moved on to extort the 10gbit hopefuls instead...

quote:Originally posted by LiveWire

of course in australia most of us will have only just upgraded to broadband cos telstra, etc have decided to stop ripping us off with outrages prices and moved on to extort the 10gbit hopefuls instead...

Add to that they will have also decided to actually provide broadband access to most areas around capital cities.

Japan is sort of lucky considering they have a huge amount of people over a small area. They can afford to lay fibre optic cables all over the country. Australia telecommunication network is antiquated to say the least. Actually, of all the first world countries I would bet we have the worst.

You can post anything you like in the general section (this section).. if it's anything remotely to do with the local game industry or education, then it should go in the Australian and New Zealand Industry and Education section.. the other sections are pretty easy to see what goes in there.

Web game disussions are most definately welcomed.. [:)]

Yes yes tbag! I would be interesting in sampling the 'gmail'
please give one up for me! :D

cheers[8]

Sounds like an offer too good to miss!
I would be very happy to take one off your hands :)

sounds good to me, id like one thanks tbag :)

I've got one lying around too...

EDIT: Actually I've got at least 6 invites to go, it seems that GMail is handing them out quite quickly now...

Yeah, i have 6 now [:)]. Anyone want one?

Oh and Me109 and redwyre, check your private messages, or pm me and tell me your first and last name and a non-hotmail, non-yahoo and non-aol email and i can give you your invite [:)].

now that im all Gmailed up, how do i know if i have invites to give?

Under the green box table thing that says Labels. There should something like 'Invite 6 friends to gmail!'. It takes a few days until you get some though [:p].

if you have some left i'd be up for an account, although i might not have been here long enough, so dont bother if you dont want to.
thanks

Nah, your fine for an invite, im referring to people with like 1 or 2 posts [:p].

Check your private messages!

anyone else want invites, ive got some to give away

yeah, i have 6 sitting here still [:p].

Same, I have 6 still...

I guess this might be the way that they're distributing GMail ?

You know you can just post direct links to the invites for the public to take [:)]. You just send yourself the invite and for name and last name just put in anything like 'blank/blank' then just put the link up here and anyone who clicks on it can have it.

Heres one i did as an example, anyone can feel free to take it (Lets see how long it takes someone to claim it, chances are they will find it on Google [:p]) http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b0674d80f5-f52adbeb60-5953e382dc

I took it. [:D] Thanks...

Heh, i was wondering why the email had such a similiar name to yours [:p].

I couldn't register for Souri@gmail.com [:(!] .. Where do these Souri people come from. I wanted to register souri.com 6 years ago, and I've been waiting for that guy to give up his small homepage (which he hardly updates) ever since... [:(!]

I never really had any trouble with Pantmonger. Forum names, e-mail was all avalable, Pantmonger.com was not taken. Just lucky I guess..[:p]

Pantmonger

I occasionally have trouble with getting tbag, but generally it isnt taken [:)].

Souri, the reason why you couldn't register is there is a 8 char limit for the email address. If anyone else needs some invites, just let me know, I have a metric buttload as well.

Actually there isn't... I got Daemin@gmail.com....a friend got Meekys@gmail.com, all under 8 characters...

Unless the limit was imposed within the last week or so?

And yeah, I've got about 12 invites to give away if people are interested - which they don't seem to be.

I think the lack of interest is generated by the seeming pointlessness of having a gig of e-mail space. I just don?t get it, Yahooo recently upgraded their free service to 100meg of storage and my usage bar reminds me that, on average, I am using 4% of my available space. Hence the only difference a g-mail account would make for me is that percentage would become 0.4% of available space. Whoooo Hoooo Im living large now. :P

Pantmonger

Well damn, one of my friends said he couldn't get his name because of the character length. Maybe the char length is something like 6 chars or maybe I'm smoking crack :)

Pantmonger, the benefit of the gmail account for me is that at least right now, the bad boy is spam free! I don't know if I'll ever use a fat gig of email space, but all I know is that I'm lazy when it comes to deleting emails so I won't hit my limit anytime soon.

pants, its usefull when i want to have large files sent/received basicly.
That and im tempted to test if i sent a HTML file to myself then registered for a free domain if thatd work XP

I love how you can report an email as spam - I mean, that should've been an option in Hotmail and other free web based email services years ago to curb the spam problem...

I'm ditching my hotmail account after 7 or so years of use once I can find out a way to save all my emails. I've got tonnes of stuff I don't wanna lose, like the email I got from Spike Media (once Australia's biggest and famous design company) from the then co-founder/creative director asking me for an interview/job. [:D] (I found work somewhere else which had a lot of ex-Spike employees and they told me that working there wasn't too good).

Hotmail has a measley 2mbs for all your emails, and that includes all the spam that gets caught and put in trash. It's been a tough time trying to stay under 100% capacity, let me tell you. Especially when a friend sends a 100k picture attachment from time to time [V]

Souri: Forward those emails to your gmail account then...

So far I've only ever found one spam in my "spam" folder on GMail, which I thought it was very good as it filtered it for me etc.

Also I heard on TripleJ that there was a review of GMail on it yesterday (the 22nd of September).

Souri, I know with Yahoo, you can "Archive" messages. Which means it allows you to download a file which can then be opened by various email clients (outlook and such). Seeing as Hotmail is a microsoft product, you would think they would have the same sort of thing on their end. Anyway, it's an idea to look into :)

instead of making a new topic, ill just revive this one to say ive got a heap of gmail invites to go out to anyone who wants, just give us a yell

Gmail Invites = (Number of GMail Accounts Owned) * 50

(I've got about 3 accounts at the moment.)

In regards to spam, you can expect to get spam in your inbox. Im sure if you actually read it, you really do ask for it when you sign into hotmail....

it is said in the .Net privacy statement

"If your .NET Passport was registered in an MSN domain (e.g. you have an @hotmail.com, @WebTV.net, or @msn.com e-mail account), then MSN, the provider of those e-mail services and the sponsor of those domains, will receive the profile information at the time of registration and will receive updates to your profile information whenever you sign in to an MSN site or service."

So technically its not a "problem" because microsoft is getting sponsored by these third parties and doesnt really give a damn about your hotmail because they are getting heaps of new account signups each day (whats one less gonna mean to them?).

In regards to gmail, i have about 50 invites [:)]

I know I havent been here long, but I wouldnt mind a gmail invite, sort of need the space to transfer some files from my computer in melbourne to me here in brisbane, I know I could just ask someone to burn them but they are all emails and I sort of need to get to them, very important.

So if anyone feels like to give me one it would be appreciated alot thanx

I didn't watch it, but I'm going to take a wild stab at guessing: call to duty?

yup, call of duty

That's what I thought...

thanx guys, i haven't playe CoD, my computer can't take it, but it looks mad.

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/heyl/s_24…

ummm.. does that mean some photoshop artist is going to paint them or they are going to get stand-ins? [?]

Seems kind of ridiculous but any publicity is good publicity, I guess.

ok um that is a good point

aahhhhhh!!! great im goin insane (thanks alot) :P

I guess someone will eventually post an answer id most probably guess a photoshop creation

I guess ur sorta right any publicity helps but only if it wont be helping the side trying to sensor games.

lol that just seems obsured, i mean i wonder how the poor guy making the bloodrayne model feels, i know id sure feel like a damn twit. The stats from the article rahnem posted do show reason enough for it to happen, itd be damn good advertising.

theyll probably all have to make nude cheats for their next games now -_-

yea you'd have to have no shame to be doing this to a game character he must be gettin paid well

Im guessing the company's profits will jump up a few notches after this stunt especialy with bloodrayne 2 being released in october aswell.

saw ur stuff on deviant moonunit, kool stuffs

wat a coincidence october is also when the next mortal kombat game is being released

quote:Originally posted by racrevel

saw ur stuff on deviant moonunit, kool stuffs

ta, but i hardly update that thing anymore.
coincidence, no i dont think so ;) (yes i know you konw that)

The Uncanny Valley!

Stumbling around a fair few 3d forums over the years, I've seen quite a lot of nude female models, and none of them are really "quite right". Some of the best attempts (Steven Stahlberg created the first 3d model model to advertise/wear fashion labels, or the models created by [url="http://www.3dyanimacion.com/entrevistas/entrevistas.cfm?link=fcortinaeng"]Francisco Cortina[/url] (Final Fantasy, Animatrix)) are nice, but they're easily noticable as CG characters.

I think the idea of having CG game characters as playboy models is pretty strange. No attempts so far are anywhere close to the real thing, and with a magazine full of real females, the CG attempts are just going to end up looking quite odd.

I remember stumbling on some website which I actually still have bookmarked. "Miss Digital World is the first ever virtual beauty contest".. http://www.missdigitalworld.com/ . Oh man, is that a freak show. The Uncanny Valley article rings so true when you visit that site.

sad, oh so very sad...

Is there going to be a corresponding nude Mario in Playgirl?
I think it would work, since he looks like a 70s porn star already ;)
'Zis is why zey call me SUPER Mario'

That is getting a little too ridiculous! (>_<)

quote:Is there going to be a corresponding nude Mario in Playgirl?
I think it would work, since he looks like a 70s porn star already ;)
'Zis is why zey call me SUPER Mario'
hahahahaha, that's awsome

ba ha ha 10 points for cube

Yeah, I'm sure the ladies would appreciate a rendered version of a hairy overweight Italian plumber. [:p]

It?s true that the potential cost to develop next-gen games is alarming and could possibly have a negative effect on both smaller developers and consumers, but on the other hand, maybe next-gen game development could cause ?new growth? in the industry (to use their forestry analogy) in the form of small outsourcing studios.

If there?s a stronger demand for large and time-consuming game assets, then surely there will be room for outsourcing studios to emerge to meet that demand?

I don?t think the future of game dev looks scary, just different.

I think the PSP and DS are good places for smaller companies to get there roots if the outlay is too high for next gen.
Can't see it being too much of an impact for the smaller companies, as there are those avenues for them to get a foothold.

Its the mid to larger ones who attempt next gen that could be in threat, if you shell out alot on a next gen title and it doesn't pay off you could be in for a world of hurt.

I mean, consider the amount of WWII games out there at the moment. I'm sure someone could make a lot of money by creating a large set of high quality models and textures of WW2 planes, guns, tanks, building etc and selling them to developers. Realism type games would be much easier to tackle as the art assets are based on something that already exists.

Futuristic or Fantasy games would be far more difficult as they require far more unique assets.

EA should probably get a group of high poly modellers and texture artists to wail away at reusable art asset for there developers to use. In a similar fashion as their buy out of renderware and crytech.

Even Id said they were going to reuse assets from doom 3, and why wouldn't they. It will cut the production of their next game in half.

High polygon art assets need not be as disposable as the current use low poly models, which need to be upgraded in parallel with technology.

The fact the the cost of the production of the next gen consoles is high is not wat actually scares me. it's the retail price thats gonna scare me, I was lucky to get an xbox within the firt year of release and untill halfway through septemper somtime im stuck on this crappy little 400mhz pc :(, though (palantir) was right when he said it might open up new smaller developers but most will last as much as one game before the larger companys chrush them like tiny crushable things...

i guess this is enough comment from me before u start throwing things.

I admit that as a programmer, emergent technology gives me a slight chill in the vitals, especially since as a teenager I was just finishing writing my first 8-bit game when the market crashed and went 16-bit. I guess with things as they are now there will always be the niche market (as with the film industry) which may be where smaller companies will thrive. There is that case with the film 'Independence Day' where the graphics were done by a small graphics company.

Does anyone remember the T.V commercial for Final Fantasy VII in Australia? They touted that over 200 (or was it 300?) programmers and artists worked on that game. And that was released on the PSX back in 1997! Does anyone know how many copies that game sold?

I've always wondered how Square fares with game sales considering the huge production costs that each of their games require. If there's a company that isn't worried about escalating development costs, it would be Square-Enix. They've been doing huge productions years ago! Their titles are of extremely polished quality - they've set the standard in all areas (art, soundtrack, story), and also have captured a large dedicated fanbase (females included) that will keep on buying their games, meaning that they should guarantee a good return...

I bet Square-Enix have an unbelievably huge archive of detailed assets (character models and animation, architecture, textures etc) from all their past games and the Final Fantasy movie!

Although the point of the article was that orginality is stifled, and we're getting sequels of sequels, of which Square-Enix is an example of, along with EA.

Retail prices - yeh, it's gonna be tough for a consumer to pay for a game that costs over a hundred bucks.. something has gotta give.

Well, considering all FF games were pre-rendered, square now have one of the best pool of 3D artists in the world. It still amazes me that they can have such a huge team and still make large wads of cash.

Unfortunatly sequels do make economic sence in the game industry, even more so than the movie industry.

Ok, just tacking onto this thread about escalating costs with something related...

Gamebiz.com has reported and confirmed that the [url="http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=4534"]Playstation 3 *will* use Blue-Ray discs[/url]. Explained in the article, "Blu-Ray disc technology, an evolution of the DVD format which provides six times more storage space than conventional DVD discs."

*cracks whip at content-creating artists to fill up that disc*

as far as I'm concerned, physics, chemistry and biology are a waste of time if you want to be a 3d artist,Maybe if you were doing some programming as well physics would be usefull, learning all those formulas. may I suggest you take an art class and learn how to draw and sculpt, that would be much more beneficial. Maybe even a graphic design class. What other electives do you have to choose from?
Is there any computer related design classes?

When I first learnt of the AIE, CIT said that you needed an major in Maths and English. That was it. I studied those in College, hating nearly every minute of it. When I actually went to enrole at the AIE, I found that I wasted two majors as they didnt need any pre recs. Decide where you would like to study 3D animation and see what their pre recs are. Most will probably just want a portfolio showcasing what Art you do have.

to me it depends on your definition of 3d artist.

i mean, think about procedurally grown models, you could call that art, but it would take a shitload of maths.

knowing the tools with which you construct your art requires maths.
i love maths so im bias.

really to me i could be the programmer of a 3d engine and call it art, and then would i not be a 3d artist?

sorry about the convolution of the idea's

i believe if you want any programming involved in your art then go the whole hog with maths.
if you dont plan on doing any programming then like fluffy cat food said take art and design cources and dont worry about maths and phisics..

just a side note: everything you learn will in some way influence your artwork so whatever you choose you can make art out of it!.

You need to possibly consider what degree(if any you might be interested in one that is).

The greatest skill a 3D artist can have is the ability to draw, so if you do intend do maths and chem or whatever try doing a life drawing class somewhere.

If your school offers Media Studies, then that would also be good, Photograhpy, Studio Art, Art, Graphic Design, (orthographic) and understanding perspective etc.

Many uni courses that I know, want a 20+ average in English and do require basic maths if your not going to do programing, if you intend to move into progamming then Math Methods definetly.

Otherwise, choose subjects that you know you're going to enjoy and will get high grades in, as these will add to your enter score.

Check out some courses/degrees that are offered where you live or where you want to go and see the requirements there.

Good Luck!

Almost all the 3D courses in Victoria at a university, that doesn't require a folio ask for Maths Methods. Multimedia Systems at RMIT, Multimedia(games and Interactive) at swinburne, Game Developement at Monash. So i think you should do methods, cos it does keep a lot of doors open. But as for the others, i dont think you need them for 3d, but if you are good at it then do it.

I am in year 12 next year as well and the subjects i chose were Methods, English, Chem, Bio and Info Systems. But that is cos i am good at them or like them (dont want to be up myself).

This has helped me a lot, thankaz to everyone, I will post my Electives of what I am doing this Friday. Most likely I will do General Maths, but I really want to do Maths Methods, but not sure if I can handle it.

People over estimate how much maths and maths methods are needed, my advice to you is to seek out someone who has the right information, our school has a careers counsilor (sp?) if you dont have acess to someone like that there are various books availible to schools which detail all the pre-requisits for courses at pretty much every universitys and tafes (yes they are fat books :P ) and have a look through that. Personally im headed for bachelor of multimedia at swindburne, a course which has no maths pre-req. Though i would say if your going along the art stream be sure to include fine arts in there, it might not be modelling but itll teach you some basics like colour theory and so on.

Depends on what kind of artist you want to be :) If you just want to use image manipulation, modeling and animation packages then perhaps it's not so important.
But computers and software are all full of maths and logic.
And games are full of maths and physics.

ACAT in the good old days :) used to make the musicians and artists learn very heavy maths indeed, the idea being that if the computer is your medium of choice you should get good at it. NB this is completely different from getting good at using Logic/CoolEdit/Maya/Max/etc.

ACAT were aiming at broad education rather than tech training (and BTW I think what ACAT have become is pretty crap).

Bottom line is have a good long think about where you would like to end up, and what kind of art you would like to make. And remember there are bridging courses if you make the wrong choice.

---
The day that Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck will be the day they start making vacuum cleaners...

Sorry for that late information, but I was abcent due to my internet not working. Anyways, The subjects I choose for V.C.E where:

English Studio Arts-General Studio Arts-Multimedia Art I.T Programming 3&4
and Mathematics General.

The guy said I wouldn't cope in Mathematics Methods, due to poor results for Semester 1 this Year. Anyways, there they are, I hope I do good next year.

WTF is this person talking about? Asking them to give a better description of the problem would be a good start. There are numerous other channels on irc.uq.edu.au.

Off the top of my head, if this person is not actively using an IRC client, their computer is compromised and the virus thingy is connecting to the IRC server so that it can sit in a channel with all the other infected computers awaiting commands. Also known as a botnet. In this case they should immediately contact the administrators of the server.

There is a possibility that your PC could have been infected by some type of spyware. Install some kind of spyware cleaning software if you can. I had a similar problem before. At the end I had to format my HD.

if you are using Internet Exploder...i mean Explorer the font size might have magically changed on you...as it does...*cough* Microsoft *cough*

go to the View menu and find the Text Size item...and change it...

if this ain't the prblem then, beats me...[xx(]

If you accidently hold Ctrl and roll the mouse wheel it also changes that setting, try it an see!

If you purposefully hold down Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel it does it too!

(Firefox as well!)

thanks guys worked a charm

Ciao, how you find something good in the rest of your life.

quote:Originally posted by Maitrek

I think I'll leave that to people who actually like the way games are.

If we liked games the way they were our work would be done wouldn't it!

Good luck.

good to see you concentrating on your studies there, maths is sooo good.

good luck :)

Alright slacker, instead of actually asking people you just post here and hope for responses?

quote:preferably someone who was around before it came out. Anyone know when max first came out? I think it was like 1990? Ask JI Styles- he used v1 for DOS.....

quote:1. Have you used it before?Before it was out? No it wasn't out.....

quote:2. Where did/do you use it?At the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE).

quote:3. What did/do you use it for?
Building 3D environments, characters, etc.
quote:4. What did you use before it was around?Photoshop

quote:5. How has it helped you complete your work?
It makes things in 3D not just 2D which means that stuff I make you can shoot in the side, from above or in the old front and back.
quote:6. Has it helped you, or has it been you a headache for numerous reasons?It is my most important bit of software I have used ever, but when it crashes I let it know what I think about its makers.

quote:7. What training did you receive for the use of 3D Studio Max?Dip Computer Games Development at the AIE

quote:8. Were any people you know of made redundant when it was introduced?No. I didn't know many 2D artists at the time and the ones I do are happily working away still.....

quote:Last of all, thankyou if you manage to fill out some or even all of it.
No, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a smartass.

1. Have you used it before?

Have I used 3d Studio Max before? yes [:)]

2. Where did/do you use it?

Home

3. What did/do you use it for?

Personal use

4. What did you use before it was around?

Imagine, Lightwave on the Amiga

5. How has it helped you complete your work?

I haven't used it for any work at all, but it is a useful and powerful application with lots of support.

6. Has it helped you, or has it been you a headache for numerous reasons?

The learning curve is pretty steep. Understanding the GUI and how Max does things takes some getting use to when you just start. There's always a constant learning when using Max.

7. What training did you receive for the use of 3D Studio Max?

None

8. Were any people you know of made redundant when it was introduced?

Nope

Thankyou for responding Souri. To MutantFork, did you ever think that maybe I didn't personally know anyone who has used 3D Studio Max.
quote:Alright slacker, instead of actually asking people you just post here and hope for responses?

Aren't I asking people anyway, maybe not directly, but I am still asking them
quote:No, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a smartass.No worries, it always brightens my day when I can help someone.

Probably Starcraft or Total Annihilation (not Kingdoms). I liked the orginal C&C, but wasn't too much of a fan for the others. I don't know if it really counts, but the original (er.. well remade :P) Battlezone was cool.

I think my vote would either go to AOE2 (age of kings) or warcraft three, they both have their ups and downs so im not sure which i prefer.

My favourite RTS is definately Total Annihilation. The singleplayer was nothing mindblowing and the AI sucked, but multiplayer was always a blast. There was something about building hundreds of robots and just laying waste to the enemy that was simply satifying. Nukes, planes, hovercraft, gigantic robots, tanks, battleships, massive long range cannons, what more do you need?

I still play TA multiplayer with mates all the time, its always a blast. I also enjoy the Warcraft series, never really got into C&C, and Starcraft I didn't mind. Age of Empires I cannot get into, it bores me!

I'm going to stick with Blizzard and throw my vote towards Warcraft 3. I probably would of gotten into Starcraft but at the time where I had my chance to I was to much of a gun happy shot everything on the screen. So Warcraft gets my vote and I'm sure when StarCraft 2 comes out I'll jump into that.

Age of Mytholgoy and the Titans expansion by far my favourite/s...

Impossible Creatures is very original but not the best RTS around...

AOE2 for single player and some multiplayer, cos it was just awsome.

Red Alert 2 for multiplayer (single player kinda sucks). it was just a great game for cheap tactics and so many stradegies. and fun from both ends of the battle, that is to be winning or losing (in a crazy sort of way).

Warcraft 2 for me.
Warcraft 3 sucked the big phooey, too easy to hack the play systems and make yourself unbeatable.

Looking forward to Dawn of War!!!

Starcraft- cannot be beaten, coming in a close second warcraft 2 then total annihilation

honourable mentions in no particular order, dune 2, war3, c&c, red alert 2- although none of my friends wanted to play ra2 with me, :( i always kicked there ass too much.[:o)]

jeremy soule is a kick ass composer, the music for total annihilation was soooooooo good i would listen to it in the cd player all the time.

and i have always hated any of the "age of" games.:exit[8)]

Personally I like Generals ZH. It may not have the depth like AOE2 but I was able to develop and implement tactical supremacy in multiplayer simply because I understood military strategy and ZH was the closest game to realistic units and fun too. It is extremely one sided if you undertood technical factions

But still ZH is flawed in AI particularly path finding. seriously no game OUT there has a good traffic management system.

I thinking of creating a new post on flaws and possible solutions to many of the RTS games.

Oh yes, technology will give the weapons of war, man will give the art of war.

TA is still good, though Warcraft3 is good too, even better now with the limited units I think. Although we've been playing a lot of Generals lately, and especially Zero Hour. Though Zero Hour has some major flaws in its network or AI code that it slows down the game a lot when you're playing a large multiplayer game.

Can't believe noone has mentioned " Commandos 2 " Best RTS, I Swear, so awsome. Also C & C Red Aleart.

I would have to say Warcraft 3 as well, i just loved it, the cut scenes were worth the 80 bucks by itself.

(yes, old topic) I put my vote towards Starcraft [:D]

Has anyone seen the preview movies of that Lord of the Rings RTS game? The artwork, aimation, music/atmosphere etc is unbelievable.. I didn't think 3D graphics in RTS games could ever match something that was already well done in 2d, but I've changed my mind after seeing that game..

Well, imagine what I'm going to say :) Yuri's Revenge baby! Hehe, it will always hold a special place in my heart...

The blizzard style never sat well with me, sure I played them, but my true love was always the C&C universe... it's a shame we screwed up Generals by trying to "do what blizzard did." Ah well, we'll see how the team goes with the Battle for Middle earth, at E3 it looked fantastic!

BFME looks amazing, i cant wait to play!

Defaintly Warcraft 3 TFT. If any of you play on battle.net come hang out in channel sumea [:D]

i'm currently in the closed beta for warhammer dawn of war,

and i can say without any doubt that it kicks the sweet ass off all other rts, the comand systems and tek trees, dropships and units rock,
oh and the graphics and animations are unrivaled, and its just the closed beta.- can't wait for the actual game.

your in that beta? damn you! *shakes fist*
ive been waiting for a good warhammer 40k RTS for ages, all the warhammer computer games before-hand have been lousy. I hope they release a add on later with tyranids though :(

they should have a addon for each and every team, imagine playing that online on a massive campain style map .

because its dropship baced players can join a multiplayer game whenever they want.

it would be compleatly awsome to have a massive server running an open territory of maps all linked together.

I feel embarrassed and ashamed that I haven't played Warcraft 3 for more than probably 10 minutes [:(]

I've just downloaded 5 episodes of "Inside the Battle", where the producers and game designers talk through elements of Battle for Middle Earth. Just to re-iterate again, it rocks [:)].

I watched a couple of those Souri, having worked with Skaggs, I can't help but cringe every time he opens his mouth. Yes the game looks good, and yes I have friends till on the team, but that man... senior Skaggs, has to be the devil reincarnated! It's just amazing how he's able to take the most basic thing (example, emotion in games, which has been the goal of games since the dawn of games) and how he spouts off about how he's responsible for everything. What the rest of the team does what? sit on their ass? Ah well, just had to rant :) On the other hand, I'll be sure to score a copy when it comes out. Although I'll probably be ordering it from canada or something... man game prices are high here!

hey souri, where did you download them from?

I get them from http://www.gamearena.com.au ... go to the files section, select movies, and do a search for 'Inside' or 'Battle'.. They're pretty large (around 150mbs each), but if you're on Telstra cable, you should get them pretty quick. Just a few minutes for me. Definately worth having a look if you love the movies. There's a few flybys of some of the huge cities and towns you'll recognise from there, and the atmosphere, music, and action is awesome. It pretty much feels like the movie.

quote:Originally posted by DaMunkee

On the other hand, I'll be sure to score a copy when it comes out. Although I'll probably be ordering it from canada or something... man game prices are high here!
**Tell me about it!!** From an old post about Unreal Tournament 2004 - it cost $39US (at Amazon or ebgames in America). I did a quick conversion to our currency at that time which made it about $52 AUS.. Not bad, I thought! But add distribution costs, retailers cut etc, and it was available at our stores for $100 AUS!

We tend to get screwed over a little bit with games. The only problem is trying to find a decent cheap USA gamestore that ships international without insane shipping rates.

I wish Lik-Sang.com stocked PC games, those guys are great from previous experience.

http://www.cd-wow.biz/

free shipping anywhere in the world. Games,CD's and DVD's. Pretty good.

Netstorm!!! It was seriously awesome, and had the most awesome online community as well, unfortunately it didn't do too well. In my opinion one of the better and more unique rts games out there

How about Pokemon? It was kind of realtime [:p].

Meh. Original Wolfenstein looked as good.

All the interior and city shots look very cool, but the wilderness ones don't excite me one bit :(

im a bit of a unreal fanboy so im liking this but i gotta say, the new pics appear to be mostly pics of the enviroments weve allready seen with characters in em that weve allready seen, that and there mag scans so there not particulary great quality (and you cant appreciate the awesome detail aswell etc). Im still lookin forward to some more media though :P

EDIT: hey look 1111 posts :P

What the?? There was one character that is 2 million polys??? Is that an in game character? Geeze it looks amazing, if they're all real time rendered in game shots I wonder what kind of mega computer we're all gonna need to run that...

the high res model the normal map would have come from is what the 2 million will be. whereas the actual number would be down around normal size. i know a lot of people are no that fond of the bright glowing highlights and deep dark shadows but i really think it gives a nice fantasy feel. Can't wait for it's release as it looks very promising, long time off though, as i think they are aiming for the next gen consoles.

I must admit the pics look nice but whats with the queer advertisements? I got a few *ahem* adult advertisements down the bottom.

You magnificent misleading bastard!

rather then make a new topic i figured id just dig up a related old one to show this new pic, because we all love our comparison shots. its the evolution of malcom from the Unreal Tournament series

[img]http://oceaniaut.com/images/potd/4157576511187_malcom.jpg[/img]

The first one is clearly the best :p, the last one looks to much "Mike Tyson Ear Muncher" and less "I'm in a tournament where if you loose you die"

Hehe yeah I think a good caption for the last one would be "You want me to what? fight someone? man you crazy?"

The Engine 3 model looks nice and all, but I think all those snazzy polygons/normal mapping/details etc will be mostly unappreciated, especially if they go with the direction of huge landscape battles/the Onslaught mode.. all the people you tend to see are either dots, or jumping around strafing like crazy trying to kill you..! It's all a blur to me. [:D]

Since we're talking about Unreal, I gotta say, it's the best $100 I've ever spent on a game. The incredible community bonus maps, the recent patch that gives extra official maps and vehicles, and all the brilliant user created maps (there are some absolute gems out there) and mods as well.. It's a game that keeps on giving [:)]
The new vehicles are nice, and they're definately a step in the right direction, I reckon. Rather than new vehicles with different firing modes/speed/armour, they're totally different beasts that bring in different types of gameplay to the mix.. (the defensive vehicle, the one that mortars targets etc).. I want more of that kinda stuff!

My UT2k4 directory is breaking the 10 gig barrier >.<

Epic have always been nice and generous with their UT franchise as far as releasing extra content etc. goes. Just one of the reasons i am an EPIC FANBOY!
CYer, Blitz

cheers for posting that dude.......

do you use xsi? i have been learning it for only a little while...

but have been considering very soon moving across to it.....

i will most likely take advantage of the HL2 utilities....

not sure though . . .

no i dont use it, but have always thought it to be a good program, both for games and animatons, compositing etc. It does support some pretty high quality games, you mentioned hl2, but the onimusha series and prince of persia used it as well.

I actually got the news in my email from their newsletter or some random guy:

Hi,

I am emailing you to confirm that our price for XSI Foundation $795 incGST. This includes the Training DVD's also.
We also have XSI essentials @ $3150 inc GST
and XSI Advanced @ $10,995 inc GST.
We have ordered in quite a few seats of XSI Foundation so the faster you want it the earlier you will want to place your order to beat the rush.

tbag does that peroson from the email hav a web addy?

$800 is a good carrot, tho i think i read somewhere that one of the limitations is that it can smooth models (by smooth i mean what meshsmooth does in max) ne one kno if thats right?

the only aussie reseller i know of is at this address
[url]http://www.softimage.com.au[/url]

conundrum posted the website which emailed me http://www.softimage.com.au

Go to www.xenon3d.com.au Erik will look after you :)

so to get intouch with Erik do i use info@xenon3d.com.au or do i hav to ring 1 of their locations ... pitty ya cant buy stuff thru their site

Yes, use the info email address and make it attention to Erik.

Your motherboard will need to be able to adjust clock multipliers and FSB. Best bet is to query google, there should be plenty of tutorials out there. Don't expect massive increases though, maybe 100Mhz at best? Not sure how those celeron hold up. The old 300A Celerons were the first good overclocking chip, you could get those things up to around 450Mhz.

The Celeron 566A overclocks well, I ran one at 850 for quite a while without any problems other than a bigger CPU fan required. The details of exaclty how to do it will depend on your motherboard and I can't really help you there.

I often wonder if 'overclocking' was cynically developed as a way of shifting replacement graphics cards; you invalidate your warrantee by doing it. The amount of graphics cards I've burnt out...

An overclocked Celeron 300A was what I had for a couple of years... I got pretty good mileage out of it [:)]

I generally use Adobe Acrobat (not the reader) for creating PDFs, but unfortunately it's not free.

There is a website that has free conversion service (DOC, RTF, XLS, PPT, TXT to pdf) and its free :

http://www.gobcl.com/convert_pdf2.asp

but it will only convert files that are 2MB or smaller.

There are plenty of websites that will create PDFs for free, but you can also get ghostscript and some other GNU programs that do the same things. Or the other option is to use Mac OS X as the printing services there allow you to print to PDF.

OpenOffice can export to pdf

yeah dunno.. we use renderware.. and well its a great crossplatform middleware.. it's interesting the position that EA are taking. In most cases the publisher always required the rights (pays for) the engine being used by the developer.. I guess this means that EA will tell prospective developers... use this (renderware) or forget about getting published with us....

yeah dunno... interesting development thou

damn, i hope EA dosent get manipulative on renderware users (burnout btw, is a top game).

Didn't they just by out crytech (farcry) not long ago? EA seems to be assaulting the middleware market head on.

Next stop, Havok!

< WARNING - RAVING LOONI - UP LATE WITH NOTHING TO DO!! >

I think its all good for the industry - the games industry itself is still growing - although massive compared to other industries, it has only just reached 50% of the population (USA and Japan are pretty much 50%). Considering the number 'un-developed' countries with massive populations and growing economies, the game industry is set for a fairly considerable long growth period. What this all means, is that there is a huge amount of room for competition and wrangling of things like middleware to try and gain market share. For big companies like EA, having common development platforms is a necessary evil, but for the huge number of other developers this is not an issue - while they are competitve, and especially if they seek niche markets or untapped markets (see below).

I dont agree all big publsihers are doing well either. The high majority are having very bad first quarters this year. EA and Activision being the exception rather than the norm.

As for developers, I think the focus needs to remain on creating great and _innovative_ games. The underlying development system should not be the critical problem - there is alot more available than Renderware and I think developers like CryTek that 'pop-up' with great development systems will always be around. Especially while there is demand for it.

I also doubt EA will bother with Havok since Renderware has MathEngine - you never know though, they could be on a buying spree.

To be honest the thing that concerns me the most about the games industry at the moment are the developers themselves - I talk with many developers and I really worry that developers are starting to get a little burrowed down in developing games that have little or no target audience. For example, MMO's and FPS while they seem like a great idea to develop for, the market statistics in the US should put a chill up any developers spine. MMO's represent only 7% of online gaming sales.. while Cards/Puzzle games are 52%!!! of online games sold. And FPS is a genre that also has a relatively small sales target audience (approx 12%) and it is jammed packed with competition. Few people even realise that in units sold there were only four FPS that made the top twenty games sold for last year (July2003-July2004). And only one made the top ten sales (Call of Duty at number 8). While the rest were RTS (Sims, Tycoons series and Warcraft etc). Amazingly, Sims superstar made number one with only six months of sales?!!

The point is, that the FPS market is a smallish market and with the large number of competitors in that market, making money on a title that can cost in-excess of 5 million dollars is going to be very difficult.

I would like to see games developers start to really tackle the known audiences, challenge them with games that are full of innovation and understanding of their audience - female audience? when was the last time you saw your Mum play a FPS. Its great to make a game and be happy that you completed it, but its so much the better if multitudes of others like it too..

Surely the Sims isnt going to be the number one title for the entire decade - its looking that way though. Anyone seen Sims 2.. there goes the next 5 years..

quote:there is alot more available than Renderware and I think developers like CryTek that 'pop-up' with great development systems will always be around. Especially while there is demand for it.

I'm not sure about that. Apart from Auran, I don't know of any Aussie Game Developers who are writing their own engine. It costs tens of millions of dollars to develop an engine if its going to compete with the likes of Unreal, Crytek, Doom3, HL2, etc. Why bother -save time and money and just licence it. I know Micro Forte spent millions and 6 years getting Bigworld to where it is now.

Nothing is going to "pop-up" without big bucks. Renderware is all the more important with its support of the consoles as well as PC. I don't think we're going to see too many more game engine developers entering the market and seriously challenging the current heavyweights in the near future. The demand from publishers is always going to be for better looking games -Is Sony or Xbox really going to let a developer make a game for its next-gen consoles that just looks ok? Developers will have enough to do without writing the engine from scratch.

I'm pretty sure that there are a number of Aussie Game Developers who are using Renderware - Blue Tongue, Atari, Bullant(?) who would be concerned about EA's intentions.

quote:Apart from Auran, I don't know of any Aussie Game Developers who are writing their own engine. It costs tens of millions of dollars to develop an engine

Ratbag have their own engine. Tens of millions is probably out by around an order of magnitude too. A few experienced coders could knock up something in a few months. Most of the effort is in the coding on the game-side. Although whether you class the tool chain as part of the engine or game is also another thing, because there's a fair bit of work involved in writing good tools.

"Rumor has it that new details on the Criterion deal emerged in EA's quarterly 10-Q filing.

The filing revealed that EA purchased Criterion for only $48 million which is a very low price for the RenderWare technology which has a self-proclaimed 85% market share and boasts around 250 employees working in multiple locations around the globe. Estimates show that well over $2.0 billion worth of games using the software have shipped worldwide."

[url="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=dev&aid=3917"]Gameindustry.biz[/url]..

quote:Tens of millions is probably out by around an order of magnitude too.I said this in realtion to developing an engine that could complete with unreal2, doom3, HL2, etc. No some backyard job whipped up in a couple of months. I know a guy that built his own graphics engine in three days with very little sleep but the question is - is it any good? Can it run on a console? Can it run on a range of computers? Is it stable?

quote:Most of the effort is in the coding on the game-side. Do you mean coding gameplay? Most engines like renderware don't just come with a graphics engine. They also have (integrated or add-on) modules for sound, AI, physics, and networking. These take a hell of a lot of time to code and often are central to the gameplay.

quote:Although whether you class the tool chain as part of the engine or game is also another thing, because there's a fair bit of work involved in writing good tools.Yes there is. That is why all the game engines I listed have support for mapping tools and plug-ins for major 3d packages. In Renderware's case that have one of the most sophisticated 3dsmax exporters that I have ever seen.

Renderware is not cheap and if you could knock up a good engine in a couple of months then don't you think that's what every developer would do?

Here is my 2 cents:

Buying middleware companies, in my view, makes better sense than buying developers. Middleware is a more long-term tangible asset when compared to a game development company. Bullfrog, origin, 2015 and Legend are among a list of developers that quickly disintegrated after being purchased by publishers. Usually a key group of the development crew breaks off and creates the next best thing like ion storm, infinity ward, lionhead etc. When you buy a games company you are buying the employees, and when the employees leave because they don't like the new management what do you have?

When you buy middleware on the other hand you are also buying an entrenched group of clients who know the toolset. It would cost them many $10000 of dollars to switch to a competitors engine. Therefore they secure a long-term market.

48 mill is actually quite a lot if renderware is a private company. I'm sure the former CEO is laughing all the way to the bank.

To mutant_fork and co.

While there is a perception that engines cost "millions" to develop this is not always the case. What you are mainly referring to is asset generation - 70-80% of all development time/costs is chewed up in asset generation. Code generation is a small portion of product development, and of that portion the majority of code development is chasing bugs. Now, with engines like Unreal and Quake and such, they have 'cost' millions to build because they have had to continually re-integrate new systems (gfx, phys, ai etc) from an original system that _WASNT_ originally designed for them. Its simple engineering - you design it well, it goes together well. This is why bug chasing is such a huge portion of game coding, in fact any coding (see Google for references :-).

So comparing engines that are feature rich - _not_ content rich, there are many that are well below your millions estimate. One I commonly mention and I wish people would seriously look at is Nebula - it is free, was developed by a very small team (2 programmers), but released it to the community and it has grown quite huge in features - certainly comparable to any of the 200K+ engines. I have used Renderware, Unreal , and a number of in house engines (all of high quality) and Nebula ranks well - and imho is far superior in design to any of them. Also Orge is a good GPL engine too. Community based projects like these are good examples of how developers can reduce their costs by buying/developing technology for their game.

In fact, just Google sometime for "3D Game Engines" and you'll see what I mean, there is an abundance of development in this area - sure they are not all Unreal Engines, or Renderware, but there are many that are low budget, and growing (in features, not cost) - these are the 'popping up' engines I refer to. Who knows, in that search list may be the next CryTek.

With proper design and a decent knowledge base, as single coder in a year can develop a high quality engine. I know of a few in-house engines that were developed by one or two developers within the company in a short time period. Cross platform also, is not as critical as you make out - designed well an engine can be made to be quite easily portable - it all comes down to proper design. I have been lucky enough to work on a couple of PS2 titles and PC titles, and both of which shared codebases across platforms - and both were in house engines developed rapidly for PS2 and PC.

Renderware is a good package - but there is no need to put it on a pedastal and assume it is the best. In fact after using it I thought it was quite 'messy' in design terms, and quite difficult to implement externally developed features. Renderware is an off-the-shelf solution for 'generic' titles, and thats great, but it is hardly the best. Even Unreal engine - ask any Unreal engine developer about the wonderful entity system or, the ammunition object that embeds particle emitters - its not pretty. Just because these engines cost alot, does not necessarily mean they are good, or the best.

There are also commercial engines that are available, that people just dont know about:
- Insanity3D (used in Mafia and H&D2)
http://www.lonelycatgames.com/insanity3d/index.htm
- Multigen Vega Prime (used heavily in Mil sims)
http://www.multigen.com/products/runtime/vega_prime/index.shtml
- List of others for people to peruse..
http://fraktali.849pm.com/graphengines.html

But getting back to my point - which was: there are many other solutions than Renderware, and that while engines are in demand (which they obviously are) you will get people making them and selling them.
I even hope to have mine included in that, in the near future :-) .. the whole argument is a little pointless, since as my rant said, I doubt very much that EA's purchase will change alot at all - its not going to stop the developers popping up with a new engine and selling it. In fact it probably will provide more incentive for companies to do so - 40 odd million to make an engine, sounds like a pretty tidy incentive to me.. dont you think so?

EA only buy companies when it's a shortcut into a market, genre or technology that they're not already market leaders in. Look at the history of them buying Distinctive in Canada, Maxis and Westwood.

I think EA will probably be far less bothered about the current Renderware technology and much more interested in the technology that they've been developing for the emerging platforms. Everyone knows that EA spent loads of money on their launch PS2 titles and didn't make the sales back to cover the cost (but let's face it who did?) So they're actually being pretty astute at buying into middleware for the future rather than necessarily the present. They're spreading the cost of PS3 and Xbox 2 titles by owning the middleware, because lots of other developers will be sharing that cost with their Renderware licenses.

EA may well insist that their independant developers use Renderware in future, but they've never been against paying to provide a developer with technology before. They spent $1M buying in the Quake engine for the first Harry Potter PC game. Having been in meetings with them I know they're far more interested in the creativity and artistic talent of a team; they're view is that you can buy in technology if you need it - hence the Quake engine...

Has EA also bought Eidos?

i still say there gonna target it at kids, regardless of wether or not transformers is enjoyed by adults.

has anyone seen that music clip of the transformers theme, and they use footage from the trandformers game. looks pretty kool.

Has everyone seen this live transformers animation?
[url]http://www.botcollector.com/ComShowCase1.htm[/url]

I'm sure the movie will be aimed at the youngings, but given the effects, I'm sure it will be a very cool flick! [:D] Just hope we don't have to wait very long.

heh page launches but video is a dead link -_-

eh, bummer. Um, try a search for VW transformer animation or something. It must still be around - it's pretty famous with the 'formers lovers. Definately worth having a look for.

If its not G1 I will be quite dissapointed.

quote:Originally posted by Skribble

has anyone seen that music clip of the transformers theme, and they use footage from the trandformers game. looks pretty kool.

Yeah, its by Reguiritator (hope I spelt it correctly)
Pretty cool.

OSCAR winner Steven Spielberg will bring one of the toy phenomenons of the 1980s to the big screen - generating a booming adult collectors market for the robots known as Transformers. The director has announced he will follow next year's The War of the Worlds with a live-action tale of the mechanical heroes who disguise themselves as cars, trucks and jets. [url="http://entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,11795716%255E…"]link[/url].. [:0]

god-damn, steven spielberg

any money he'll cast Tom 'I wish i could act half as well as billy shatner' Cruise as optimus prime or something.

No doubt he'll fluff a perfectly good script up with idealistic, flag waving crap.

and another thing!!

'oscar winner'

what a bunch of crap. i mean yeah he won one, but so did that wanker michael moore
blaahhbhhl

SB - Settle down there sparky :) I'm just upset that it wont have Leonard Nimoy as Galavatron :`( (as it is G1). It would be great to have the whole original cast of Star Trek doing the voice acting :p

if my little HL2 card that i got with my ATI radeon allows me acess to it, then yes

I have the voucher as well, so I'll be having a look when it's available. From what I've read and seen, CS: Source is still basically the same game, so I won't be playing it too much.

btw, don't you mean August, not April? [:)]

Heh, he probably means April 2005, given how long Valve take to do anything

I wish I had bought a video card with a free Doom 3 voucher instead really, I really dislike steam and the whole system. Reeks of American corporationism that removes all power from the consumer. *sigh*...

August 10th sorry. I screwed up, i never really learnt my months of the year [:p].

As for Steam, the more i use it the crappier it gets, and i for some reason it refuses my CD key, when it is from the proper premier pack which i purchased. However, i have heard many stories of Steam refusing CD keys even from newly purchased copies. And Valve, like the dogs they are, refuse to give you a new CD key even if you have proof.

As for my copy of CS:S, my friend cant remember his steam login and secret answer. Hold your flaming at me, its not pirating. Its simply me using his account to gain access to a beta which is freely downloadable and i dont see how that is illegal [:)]. But since he has forgotten his account, it looks like it is upto me to purchase a copy of CS:CZ if i want a copy of CS:S...

You know, I haven't had any of the Steam problems that I've read about elsewhere. It has worked flawlessly for me. It logs in ok, updates itself and gets me in online games fine, with no annoyances whatsoever...

The only problem I have with Valve is that the gfx card I bought for their game still hasn't been released yet, and I need to upgrade it already to play Doom 3 which is coming in a week. [:D] Well done Valve.

lol souri!
my steam thing works fine also

Anyone try Steam last night? It seemed to be down for several people I know, and since my login ticket had expired I couldn't even get in to offline mode to test a map. Steam, an automated update and patching system was an excellent idea, it's a pity they got carried away by adding skins, friends, mini games and so much bloat without concentrating on making the basic system as stable as possible.

I think it is because they tried to rollout a huge service to a lot of customers right from the start that things got screwy quickly. In the end they might not make any money from this venture, infact they could go broke, but the next two or three schemes like this after them will probably succeed...

i was playing steam just earlier (day of defeat, lotsa fun) and no worries. I know theres some excess bits and peices that you probably dont need and all the rest of it but steam is effective for me.

Steam is Crap, made fully Cablers, can't do shit with 56ker, also, Counter Strike : Condition Zero was made so you can't even play LAN without that crap Steam, fully crap, so crap, that I need to take a crap now.

Apparently the system has been suffering from DDOS attacks recently, though that could always be a cunning cover story.

Oh, I agree that 56k users are screwed.. also the licensing fees for internet cafe's to play Valve's games are attrocious.

Steam was the main reason i stopped playing CS and got turned of the whole Valve thing. It's also why im looking forward more to Doom 3 than HL2.

Just remember I saw CSS Video Ages Ago, looks so leet. You can grab a Copy of the Video Clip from the Magazine called " PC Power Play ". Anyways, to me it seems they are playing the map " CS_Aztec " anyways, looks really good, graphics, sound, Game Play looks the same though. Reading the magazine, and the Developer said " One room in CSS will contain the same amount of Polygons a Whole Map in CS Would Have " Now that is nice.

[url="http://www.csnation.net/comments.php?id=7412"]CS:Source beta delayed[/url] ... I mean, seriously... does anyone even think Valve is capable of sticking to release date at all.

dosent valve run steam more or less independantly (ie, theres no publisher business like when you release something in a box on a shelf)? so why not make realistic realese dates (ie make them later then you think they need to be, better to be under then over) instead the disapointment. Or is CSS getting released commerically aswell?

Actually, i saw someone comment on that stating that they probably are too busy playing Doom III to be bothered to release anything.

It wouldnt suprise me if they were though, it gives them a chance to steal ideas from Doom III [:p].

It's hardly surprising that CS:Source is the same as the old CS, except for a visual audio upgrade. If valve changed so much as one bit the CS community would castrate them. Thats what CS2 is for.

I just pre-downloaded CS: Source, i have to wait around 30 hours or so to play it though... but im happy i've got it mainly because it will help determine how well i can run Half-Life 2 [:)].

Anyone pre-downloaded their copy yet?

you mean its availible on steam now?

Yep i've got it [:)]

tried to get it a few times, it crashed steam -_-

edit: now steam refuses to load entirely, boy i love that program

I've downloaded it as well.. can't play it yet though. [:o)]

Yeah, still awhile to go until we can play it... we should have a Sumea tournament for those with the beta since there will be only a few of us [;)].

It's in my playlist now. [}:)]

i think steam is holding a grudge against me, i got the game pre loaded now but it refuses to boot up. Just says "preparing to play..." for ever >:(

Yeah same thing for me MoonUnit... i think its just Valves servers are taking a major hammering, get off Steam you Americans let the rest of the world play! [:p].

Dont worry, the coffee wont hold out forever...

UPDATE: Now i am being told only 68% of the beta has been completed, the pre-load doesnt load the whole thing, there is still another 80-100 meg to download. I've gotta wait for another hour or so now due too the laggy servers.

yeah i got a updating thing pop up eventually, which told me that the servers were too busy 20-30% later. after doing that 20-30% again i was told that the game was un-availibe, not to mention the updating thing is totally maxing out my CPU before it decides to stop.

EDIT: tried again, disconnected again, tried again, tried to play some UT2k4 whilst waiting, UT2k4 crashed computer disconnected again

this is getting rediculous -_-

I just played it for about 20 minutes, pretty damn cool.

I can run it at 30 FPS a second on high settings with x2 Anti-Aliasing (I was playing with 32 players) and i have a GeXCube Radeon 9600XT Extreme [:)] so this shows that nearly any graphics card can run it very nicely.

My whole system specs are:
AMD Athlon XP 2800+,
1024 DDR 400mhz Kingston and the video card mentioned above, nothing is overclocked either [:)].

Looks like im set for Half-Life 2 [:)].

This sounds like a Serva to me.

quote:Originally posted by codyalday


This sounds like a Serva to me.

I must be getting too old... whats a "Serva" ?

I think my $80 should be worthy of a game decent enough that it can keep me amused for hours on end, or a game that is pretty looking and long, like Half-Life 2 etc... [:p]

I would say that $80 pays for about the time it takes to like you say Zaph, paint the nose texture on a single character.

An interesting way of looking at things for sure - makes one think, there better be alot of $80 to pay for your final product [:D]

Then from a consumer perspective like anything you pay money for, you expect it to work! whether its a BBQ or a computer game. The trouble is with games is that ots not expected to simply work, but to be excellent and the best at what it does.

If you think about that for a second its a big ask, and a huge challenge in itself.

From a consumer?s point of view, I feel that a game needs to either give me about a week of solid addiction (as in something so fun that I can?t stop playing it, but finish it about a week later ? like Max Payne for example), or a few months of occasional but continually fun game play (as in something that?s fun to spend a few hours a week playing over several months ? like a Final Fantasy type game). If I buy a game and either don?t get completely addicted or don?t come back every now and again, I think the game was a failure.

From a developers point of view, well, I don?t really understand where your coming from (obviously I?ve never worked in the industry). I suppose working all day every day on a game would make me feel like the game should be sold for about $10000 a copy?

Consumers/gamers want a heck of a lot for their $80, especially if it's a PC game. I guess what I want out of my $80 is at least over 15 hours of an enjoyable single player game, a great engine, fantastic art, online multiplayer modes, and modability.. That is quite a lot, and it sure as heck is going to be tough to offer all that with nextgen games at the same price, but that seems to be where the bar is at the moment..

As for where my $80 went, I'm sure most of it went straight into the pockets of the publisher and the retailer, and maybe a tiny sum to the developer [;)] I'm sure it probably did pay for something really small like texturing a nose.

sigh, i miss late night poker already [:(]

Awwwwtt!! I was unpacking my bag to miss THAT!?! *cries*

quote:Originally posted by Triton

sigh, i miss late night poker already [:(]

Same, but they did put some very cool on, it was so good. It has been so long.

Great movie, second part is the best though.
Yeah i miss poker to.. Championships were mad [8D]

It doesn't matter i got the evangelion box set :P

Most JB HIFI stores have a sizeable anime collection.

im not entirely sure of the location other then its on the road beside windsor station on the sandringham line, but theres a shop called "alternate worlds" that does animie, but they mostly do the manga (ie. comics not animated) (look em up in the phone book).

Do JB hifis have a collection, i've been to heaps maybe i don't really pay attention to it as i usually go for music. And my mate told me of a place called animezone in box hill which is closer and prolly the one i'll go to.

Well, I've only been to a couple JB stores in Melbourne but some of the ones here in Brisbane (City, Indooroopilly) have their own Anime section with hundreds of titles.

So far I've seen reasonable collections these stores (Given this is in Adelaide, but it should apply to the same branded stores elsewhere in Australia) JB-HiFi - they have a pretty damn large and decent collection, check around a few stores to get the whole range available, Borders (smallish collection in the DVD section), then check the department stores, since they usually have some of the more popular ones in stock.

I was buying anime all at the start of the year, but right now I forgot most of the decent places due to lack of funds. :-(

Thank you for finally changing your avatar Bullet. Arucard is much better than Snoop :p

JB does have a fairly decent collection. The one in Canberra has become less stocked over the years though :( The other thing I noticed about JB, is that their boxed sets are often very cheap, but their singular ones are often more expensive than most places.

EzyDVD can often have some good ones (The only place that had Excel Saga 1-5).

Always check out the major chains. BigW, Kmart, Target, etc. They don't have great collections, but you can often get them quite cheap.

If you don't mind online purchasing, then The Cartoon Gallery (www.cartoongallery.com.au) up in Sydney is quite good. Their postage is really good. Just stay away from their imports. They are very expensive. They also get in some very cool releases of the Syudio Ghibli titles straight from Japan (Tonari no Totoro). They are very expensive (AUS$120), but no more than getting them from Ebay.

If you are after imports, then go to DVD Pacific (www.dvdpacific.com). Their prices are good and their shipping is also decent. The only problem is that their search engine blows. Make sure you use exact titles.

You can of course use Ebay as well. You can often score some really rare DVDs from there (American tinned version of Akira :) ).

quote:Thank you for finally changing your avatar Bullet. Arucard is much better than Snoop

LOL, yeah Hellsing's another one im looking for. He would kick snoops arse as well. Anyway, it's box sets im mainly after as well. I haven't really bought many before so in animes how many would you usually get on a DVD and in a box set.

JB Hifi is really good for cheap popular anime, and they are genearlly ok for box sets of less popular anime too.
Is full metal alchemist available in australia yet?
Anyway, to check for available titles (or buy online) try www.madman.com.au since they do basically all australian anime releases. Pretty much any non-imported anime dvd in australia is made by them. Check out their forum for news on coming releases etc. too. Their prices aren't fantastic, they are normal RRP, but they do have everything :)
Electronics Boutique also have a reasonable selection of anime (depending on which store), and usually have slightly better than retail prices, but not always.
CYer, Blitz

Bullet - Helsing is really cool. Not as much action as the trailer leads you to believe, but it is still great. I just hope they do another run of it. There are some things I would really like to know.

that pretty interesting. theres a few online titles which are basicly "grab proven formulae + online" which i never thought would do so well, even so "the sims onine" is a game that i thought would have skyrocketed (i mean its like the most sucessful PC game ever, i think a lot of people had that expectation) but its down the bottom of the graph aswell.

ha! I was looking at the exact same graph last week when someone asked me for some MMOG stats. I would be very interested to see beta signups as well...

Also... when do they cut the plug? PlanetSide seems to have <10000 subscribers and decreasing...

Erm, on that graph planetside looks around about 60,000. You're not getting it confused with the realm online line are you? :P Those line graphs are a confusing mess!
I'm particularly amazed at the success of FFXI considering that (correct me if i'm wrong) it's a console game (?) Goes to show that MMOG's are viable on the consoles.
Also interesting is that almost all the games on that chart, except FFXI and ragnarok online seem to be losing subscribers or plateuing in the last 6 months or so of the graph, perhaps some other big game (dunno what) was released than that everybody moved over too :P (slightly interesting is that FFXI and ragnarok both seem to be games aimed at more at the asian market...?).
CYer,Blitz

You are half wrong Blitz. FFXI is both PS2 and PC. It was Square's attempt to make a MMORPG reach out to as many people as pos.

When FFXI starts to get the same amount of users and surpase Ultima, the Ultima numbers seem to drop. I would like to know if this is due to Ultima subscribers going over to FFXI.

It doesn't suprise me that a lot aren't doing too well. THere are a lot there, and they are all competing in an area that is really difficult to do well in. Plus. How many of them are really that different to the others?

That graph is linear, so either FFXI is causing alot of people to subscribe to multiple MMOGs (unlikely given how many hours these addicts spend on a game) or alternatively, it's exploring/exploiting a slightly different demographic (draw your own conclusions).

The decreases of the past few months as shown on teh graph could be for two reasons that I could think of, either people are getting tired of those games and abandoning them, figuring that they might have a life outside of the game, or that there is so much choice now that communities of gamers can't decide which game to play. Thus only the newest ones are gaining members.

Of course we much remember that World of Warcraft is still due out, and I know many of my friends are eagerly anticipating it, so that could be people saving up money for WoW? Still, I guess we'll have to wait, or let some company to do some expensive market research.

I would say that FFXI is targeting a very different market to most of the MMOG's on that list.

Last time I read about subscribers to MMOG's Lineage had the biggest account sales of any MMOG with well over 1 million accounts. As I understood most of the asian market (and cross-over market MMOG's) had quite a high subscriber rate compared to the western market MMOG's. Of note would be Lineage, Lineage 2, FFXI, and City of Heroes.

It?s interesting to see the strong and steady growth of EQ. I wonder when both WoW and EQ2 are out, will they be the main 2 left standing? I know quite a few people hanging for those 2 ? the big guns of the MMOG games, and if there is only a finite market, maybe these 2 games will end up holding most of the community.

Given the success of EverQuest, EQ2 will surely be hugely popular.

Personally I?m hanging out for GuildWars ? a MMOG that lets you have a life!

I played UO with friends years ago when it first came out, however I can say that I would rather have a job (Employers listening?) and have a real life rather than be playing one in an mmog. :-)

I feel sorry for WWII Online.. Poor guys! At least their subscriptions are consistant [:)] That one expansion pack did nothing to boost subscriptions! A lot of the new MMOGs have under 50,000 subscriptions, that would obviously mean under 50,000 retail copies sold. Considering that MMOGs have a much larger budget than most commercial games, selling/getting only 50,000 copies/subscriptions must be a considerable failure (I think I read somewhere that the average commerical game needs to sell at least 250,000 copies to break even). Subscriptions would be the slow way to pay off the monthly server and maintenance costs, and maybe recoup some of the development costs too. I bet they're doing it tough though.

Hah - I gave up feeling sorry for developers, if they want to make a game that is in a flooded market and then they don't do a good enough job then they sorta get what they deserve. (of course, it's worth noting how *few* sales have to be made for a publisher to break even). A bit less publisher-induced shaft-taking would be nice tho.

Having said that, from what I've seen WWII online should be doing better than it is. It was let down by bad marketing and/or market assessment early in the project's lifecycle.

I think the stigma of having the WW2 game released with many bugs has affected its subscription rate. Although there have been many WW2 games released that have been of very good quality, such as Call of Duty, and the Medal of Honor series (well not all of them). So that might have something to do with it not doing so well?

Check out the new site with updated graphs of MMORPG subscriptions (includes World of Warcraft, Everquest 2 etc).

http://www.mmogchart.com/

Yes, this is an old thread indeed [;)]. Version 20.0 of the very informative [url="http://www.mmogchart.com"]MMOG Chart is up[/url], and all I can say is WoW... And I'm referring to World of Warcraft there. [:o]

[url="http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart7.html"]50.6% market share of the entire MMOG market[/url]

... and the number of active subscriptions compared to other competing titles? [url="http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart1.html"]Well, the graph says it all[/url]

Auran might be interested in seeing that the social MMOG genre [url="http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart8.html"]is at a low 2.1%[/url]. I reckon there's plenty of growth potential there, especially when the main contenders are There and Second Life, which are pretty poor titles I reckon.

That?s amazing. But I?m guessing that mmorpg?s that don?t require continued subscriptions such as Guild Wars don?t make it into the graph, regardless of popularity?

[url="http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart8.html"]and here is what I find stupid[/url]
92.6 of the market is made up of Fantasy RPGs! Come on people, how about a bit of creativity!

It would be great if capable developers had access to the funds necessary to explore those untouched markets but unfortunately many don't. Those that do have the resources, risk an expensive gamble on something that could break them much easier than it could make them.

Livewire: Its so easy to sit back and point the finger at where others lack. Its infinately harder to get to a position where you can finally have a stab at trying to rectify that lack of creativity, in which case IMO you would then only to find that you first need to ensure your future so you can maintain a good number of stabs at 'creativity' which probably means churning out something of 'similar' ilk to begin with. I think Angel pretty much has hit the nail on the head with her reply, I guess im just reinforcing that fact.

Having said that though - there are 25 Odd MMOG's in development due for release before 2008 and many of those are exploring new genres, so I guess time will tell. [:D]

The only regret I have from looking at those charts is not buying Blizzard Shares before WOW was unleashed!

hazard: oh i totaly understand, I was just having a one line bitch the number of fantasy themed MMOs. Shallow I know, but I wasn't looking to star ta serious converstation on the topic [:D]

Your comments about Eve Online are undeversed, in part because the information in the graph is so out of date - it's over 2 years old in fact. Eve Online has been a slow burner - slow to start, slow to grow but has spiked in the last 6months and continues to grow albeit from a low base. Players of Eve online tend to be loyal and CCP are very dedicated to their community.

So while the graph is interesting it says absolutely nothing about the current state of the MMOG market.