the state of PC gaming

[Dis]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You are wasting a lot of bandwidth there, diss.

how so?

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Jaguar
I think 2003 was rock bottom for PC games. In every other year, I can think of multiple games that were absolutely incredible. Even fairly recently there were some great games. 2002 brought us Warcraft III, Battlefield 1942, and Neverwinter Nights. However, I will grant you that none of them were spectacular. But they were three very well refined games from the three major genres. 2001 brought us Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Civ3, Black and White (included not because it was a great game, but because it was extremely original) Serious Sam, and Max Payne.

You're missing out great games really, you're just thinking of the 'big' products, released witha lot of hocus pocus and big bidgets. There's a lot of good games out there, but serious sam seriously rocked though

[Dis]

2003 had KOTOR. of course that was a port made in 2002

[Apocalypse]

KOTOR is incredibly overrated. All IE engine games are better than it, along with Fallout, Arcanum and Morrowind. The combat is incredibly meh and the voice acting was horrible much of the time. It has very little replay value, especially compared to other RPGs that Bioware and Black Isle released. That people put it on such a high pedistal is sad.

[Dis]

voice acting was pretty good imho

and combat was better than Morrowind- though you can say that about almost any game

[Apocalypse]

I'd never replay KOTOR because I miss the combat though.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Haven't you noticed that games have been creating CD-keys, etc?

And that's stupid. Even though it's tolerable stupidity.

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Haven't you noticed that the main people claiming that piracy 'isn't an issue' are the small-house developers, the people who don't make much money off games anyway and whose games aren't that popular? And whose games didn't cost amazing amounts of cash to make in the first place.

I don't see how that makes a difference. If piracy does hurt sales substantially, it will be right across the board. Just because smaller developers don't make much money off games anyway doesn't mean they don't depend on that income to survive. If they can't make money, it would be better for them to pursuit gainful activities elsewhere.

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Big-House developer companies have razor-thin profit margins.

And this is based on what?

Originally posted by DarkCloud
They need at least 1 hit a year and can only suffer at most one bomb a year. Their art development and programmers cost money. At the minimal, a programmer making 60,000 a year necessitates a game sells: ($40) [I'm assuming that the retailer skims $10 off the top at usual sales places] (40)(1500 games sold)= 60K... and that's not even taking into account advertising budgets and distribution shipping reqs... or the fact that usually teams of 6-10 programmers are at work, plus playtesters (paid hourly) AND art direction... and cleaning ladies for the work place (unless they're decentralized... but that increases development time usually) and probably a whole cadre of other items that I have forgotten.

There are several flaws right off the bat here. First of all, most game programmers don't get pay anywhere near $60,000 a year. Secondly, programmers and artists don't work full time on a project at a time, and certainly you don't need 6-10 programmers throughout the whole development cycle.

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Indeed, piracy costs the industry thousands if not tens of thousands of unsold games...

From what did you pull this?

Originally posted by DarkCloud
So don't tell me piracy doesn't hurt.

In conclusion, you haven't shown that to be the case.

[pg]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
That being said however, I'm pretty certain that the majority of 'gamers' who are the people who usually buy games, have systems at least with 1GhZ of power.

i wouldn't be so sure the majority have 1ghz+. if you have win98se and 500mhz you can do the vital functions most people want(internet/business software). the only reason for most people to have faster than 500mhz is games. lots of gamers get dropped from the hobby if they can't keep their computer up to date(i'm starting to feel it now w/ my pc). i know the counter strike survey is bias to counter strike players but there is still a large number of gamers(950k+) in the survery. look for yourself - http://steampowered.com/status/survey.html

the most interesting numbers are ram(30% have 128mb to 256mb) and a third have a gf mx card or worse(my gf1 ddr is faster than those). most people do have fast cpus now in that survey but lots is still unknown. if i had to guess i'd say the people that answered that survey are fairly hardcore judging from the fact 60% use 16bit color and at least 40% use 800*600 resolution or lower. 16bit color and 800*600 resolution or lower doesn't match up with the percentage of fast cpus.

Personally, of people I know, the slowest computer of someone who regularly plays games has 650 MhZ or so.

i think it'll be almost impossible to find believable numbers but i know i only have a 750mhz/gf1ddr/128mb ram but i did play civ3 and morrowind(barely playable for both). there probably are quite a bit of 1ghz+ pcs out there but if many of them have big bottle necks like celerons or no good 3d card or not enough ram or a ****ty sound card or mobo, etc so they will preform like **** regardless of their cpu speed(even more true if they are running xp right?).

and not all those games worked on all their computers (or at least they ran slow) However, I believe that this lack of purchasing games is because the new games are trashy rather than they don't work- since the only games that weren't returned or trashed were Serious Sam and Final Fantasy.

why are new games so badly programmed though? it's like a catch 22 you can't expect to sell tons of pc games if they aren't quality.

You mentioned that casual gamers can't keep up with people 'like me'... well, generally casual gamers never bought the type of games that 'people like me' play.

Casual games are like : Sim City, The Sims, civ II...

not like Empire Earth, Warcraft III, AFterlife, Age of Empires, Railroad Tycoon, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, etc.

you are totally wrong here. all those games you mention can't be classified into casual/hardcore they are just games. you can play wc3 casually or the sims hardcore. btw, did you just call afterlife hardcore?

afterlife picture...

Piracy is being blamed more than ever since it is now easy for 'casual' gamers to pirate.

this isn't really true. you could pirate stuff just as easy years ago via floppies or a 28.8k modem. i have a 28.8k modem now and i can pirate stuff if i choose to.

More things are being pirated now than ever before!
That's why it's being blamed more now.

i don't know if things are being pirated more now but even if piracy is on the rise i doubt it's such a signifant increase from a few years ago that it's the sole cause of the computer games industry shrinking so much.

If you can prove that to me, then I'll believe you. I'm pretty certain that publishers pay royalties. Although I could be wrong.

er? did you read the quote in my earlier post? that was quoted from brad wardwell himself so i think he knows the publishers didn't pay him(unless you think he's lying). i also got the 100k+ sold numbers from him but i'm too lazy to find a link(i think it was on the quarter to three message board).

Console games are also generally shorter and take less time to develop.

heh, lots of console games are also very long. i don't see how you can say they are generally shorter. some of the best selling console games offer practically unlimited play just like their pc counter parts.

at the end of the day quality pc games usually still sell well enough. really good games will always do good even if they are on pc. i'm not worried about the death of pc gaming. i'd rather have a 100 games to choose from all developed for 100k than 1 developed for 10mil. gameplay is what matters to me. i do like fancy graphics/sound but as long as the game is done well and playable thats what's important.

we've almost reached a ceiling for graphics anyways and sound has hit a ceiling. once graphics stop evolving at such a break neck pace it should be interesting to see what happens. the real death of pc gaming everyone is complaining about is the death of AAA super duper multimillion dollar pc games.

[pg]

Originally posted by Jaguar

1996 was definitely the year of computer gaming. Warcraft II, Civilization II, Diablo, Simcity 2000, Quake, Red Alert, Duke Nukem 3D...

1996 had even more than that...

Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars
Flight Unlimited
Descent II
Caesar II
MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries
Marathon 2: Durandal
Lords of the Realm II
Panzer General
Capitalism Plus
Chex Quest(this is a good game dammit!)
Conquest of the New World
Crusader: No Regret
Death Rally
The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall
Jane's Combat Simulations - AH-64D Longbow
Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares
Rebel Assault & X-Wing Collector's CD
SkyNET
Z

and those are just the games i recognized scanning through this -

http://mobygames.com/browse/games/b,1996/o,3/

it's somewhat interesting to look at the total number of games released each year. the total number of games for all platforms hasn't increased much since 1996(assuming they are all listed on that site). maybe the demand for game makers is greater than the ability to supply these people?

[Imran Siddiqui]

KOTOR is incredibly overrated. All IE engine games are better than it, along with Fallout, Arcanum and Morrowind. The combat is incredibly meh and the voice acting was horrible much of the time. It has very little replay value, especially compared to other RPGs that Bioware and Black Isle released. That people put it on such a high pedistal is sad.

I can say someone isn't really and RPGer . KOTOR had a better story than just about every Bioware and Black Isle game with the exception of, perhaps, Fallout. It was a very detailed story based on some great source material. Futhermore the combat was fun and the characters were top notch.

I'd say it's EASILY above Icewind Dale (1 and 2), Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 1, etc.

It is one of my favorite games of all time .

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by pg
heh, lots of console games are also very long. i don't see how you can say they are generally shorter. some of the best selling console games offer practically unlimited play just like their pc counter parts.

A lot of the big names ones are also very short. Like Metal Gear Solid II. Even some of the longer console RPGs are as long as the shorter PC RPGs. Most Final Fantasies are about the length of Fallout 2, and with Fallout 2 there is more of a reason to replay it.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

KOTOR is incredibly overrated. All IE engine games are better than it, along with Fallout, Arcanum and Morrowind. The combat is incredibly meh and the voice acting was horrible much of the time. It has very little replay value, especially compared to other RPGs that Bioware and Black Isle released. That people put it on such a high pedistal is sad.

I can say someone isn't really and RPGer . KOTOR had a better story than just about every Bioware and Black Isle game with the exception of, perhaps, Fallout. It was a very detailed story based on some great source material. Futhermore the combat was fun and the characters were top notch.

I'd say it's EASILY above Icewind Dale (1 and 2), Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 1, etc.

It is one of my favorite games of all time .

Bah.

Spoiler:

How is the story that good? Ooooo the main character has amnesia and a mysterious past. Like we haven't heard that before. We have two robots which are basically copies of two oher robots but with a personality change, but their still one dimensional. The others that were slightly more dimensional weren't that good either. It's not like the whiney ***** sidekick (not talking about Bastilla yet) hasn't been done before. And with Bastilla, I never really saw why she was being tempted by the dark side half the time. Usually characters seem to have some reason for that. Mission was just another whiny angst filled little girl with a run of the mill wookie.

The combat was especially poor. You can't even really move your characters around and there really isn't a reason to make characters with ranged weapons less likely to be able to get of the range of grenades. It's horribly linear too, aside from a choice of 4 things you pretty much half to do eventually anyway. Nearlly all the choices are good/evil which is too overdone in RPGs. Even the most involving dialog in the game doesn't compare to some of the IE Engine games.

It's an alright game, but if it came out at a time of more competition, things might be different.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

KOTOR is incredibly overrated. All IE engine games are better than it, along with Fallout, Arcanum and Morrowind. The combat is incredibly meh and the voice acting was horrible much of the time. It has very little replay value, especially compared to other RPGs that Bioware and Black Isle released. That people put it on such a high pedistal is sad.

I can say someone isn't really and RPGer . KOTOR had a better story than just about every Bioware and Black Isle game with the exception of, perhaps, Fallout. It was a very detailed story based on some great source material. Futhermore the combat was fun and the characters were top notch.

I'd say it's EASILY above Icewind Dale (1 and 2), Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 1, etc.

It is one of my favorite games of all time .

It's easy to knock KOTOR because it is a simplified version of the 3rd edition rules, and thus is seen by some as dumbed down. However, the characters and plot are much better than the more complex (rules wise) NWN, and the combat probably more fun.

[Apocalypse]

Well, NWN was pretty much of a letdown too, which is why I hadn't mentioned it in the comparisions.

[DrSpike]

I presume then you mean BG1 and BG2 as examples of the superior (to KOTOR) IE engine games. Many agree, but I can't comment until I get around to them. I have them both, so that's a start.