Positron's Latest Mini Interview

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe GR will make up the the abysmal dissapointments that were i15 and the forthcoming i16.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you share the full details of I16 with us please?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe GR will make up the the abysmal dissapointments that were i15 and the forthcoming i16.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you share the full details of I16 with us please?

[/ QUOTE ]

yes i can

[ QUOTE ]
No, you NEED new graphics to sell a game as computers nowadays are getting more powerful. Even the cheap ones can outperform the ones of 2 years ago by miles.

[/ QUOTE ]
Untrue to many, in fact probably the majority of people who buy games buy it based on what the game is and does, not on what it looks like. Other wise everyone who played games would have the best PC money could buy or restrict themselves to console titles.

[ QUOTE ]
I want a graphical overhaul, and the advantages of it from a business point of view shouldn't be overlooked.

Yes i agree adding new content is always a good way to go, but it CANNOT hurt adding better graphics, whilst keeping the minimum requirements the same. There is absolutely no reason for you not to want a gfx revamp.

[/ QUOTE ]
With the level of the change you feel the game needs you could not have a single client that would run the existing graphics and the 'improved' graphics. And whilst I see your view, I'd much rather have a single client and more content with perhaps a small incremental upgrade to graphics than go the whole hog for something that only a few people care about.

[ QUOTE ]
Graphics are the 1st thing people see in a game. When they watch the videos, see the screenshots, there is nothing more foremost to advertise a game with than graphics.

[/ QUOTE ]
Conveniently bringing me back to my thoughts on the horrible look that CO currently has, I certainly wouldn't buy it based on the screen shots I have seen. Yet if the people I know who are in the beta all told me that graphics aside the game was amazing I might be tempted anyway. Because for advertisements I'd say word of mouth is far more important than looks any day. And I can think of several games that look awesome but are totally pants.

[ QUOTE ]
CoX is dated in that aspic. CO is different because the cell shaded comic book style is intentional.

[/ QUOTE ]
CoH has its own style, changing it to match a competitor won't make CoH better regardless of how good or bad said competitor looks. Worse people who have a choice of games aren't going to say lets buy the old game as it looks the same.

Let CoH have its own style, which was the point I was trying to make.

What this game needs is new stuff to do, that should be the priority and sod grafx upgrades, unless they can develop both at once, in which case good.

But if one has to come before the other, add some content.

@Pyro, before people can play a game (quite obviously because it hasn't been released for example) You're not going to know how the gameplay features perform, compared to how they've been advertised.

Graphics are the first thing people see in a game.

And you quite obviously didn't read my point on the graphics updates. I said the minimum requirements WOULD NOT change, so people with their £1.99 computers can still run the game. The gfx bar would be able to be slid more to the right, but the left would stay the same.

I hope that's cleared that up for you. And CoX doesn't have it's own style. The graphics are just standard game textures that are nothing special. Look at any adventure game and you'd see similar textures plastered over every cave and what have you.

And @Londoner, of course they can develop graphics updates and work on content at once. They're a game development studio, and they know how to develop games. You don't focus an entire studio on 1 thing.

You have different departments working on different aspects of the game. Just a broad example, art department for designing textures and meshes for new objects and stuff, sound design for creating the amazing SFX, and the game designers who are the creative geniuses telling the different departments what to create.

[ QUOTE ]
And you quite obviously didn't read my point on the graphics updates. I said the minimum requirements WOULD NOT change, so people with their £1.99 computers can still run the game. The gfx bar would be able to be slid more to the right, but the left would stay the same.

[/ QUOTE ]
Just as you so obviously don't read mine.

To have the sort of features that you seem to think are necessary for a game to be any good added to this game you would need an entirely new client. And for those of us who don't have the best PCs the new client would be too much. So you would need two clients one with all the candy and one without.

While I know it has been done in EVE, they have reverted to one client possibly because keeping two clients up to date and 'bug free' is most likely exponentially harder than a single client.

While you would obviously prefer that the devs spend as much time as possible on something to make the game look pretty. Adding content would be liked by the majority and would go down far better than adding a whole chunk of code that only a minority need or want.

[ QUOTE ]
I hope that's cleared that up for you. And CoX doesn't have it's own style. The graphics are just standard game textures that are nothing special. Look at any adventure game and you'd see similar textures plastered over every cave and what have you.

[/ QUOTE ]
But if you follow that rule through nor do most other games, CO included. Should we still be so needful of another game's look?

[ QUOTE ]
And @Londoner, of course they can develop graphics updates and work on content at once. They're a game development studio, and they know how to develop games. You don't focus an entire studio on 1 thing.

You have different departments working on different aspects of the game. Just a broad example, art department for designing textures and meshes for new objects and stuff, sound design for creating the amazing SFX, and the game designers who are the creative geniuses telling the different departments what to create.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldnt over estimates this paticular company's ability to do anything i were you.

@Pyro, wrong. You wouldn't need a new client to update the gfx in CoX, where you get the knwowedge to make a claim like that I don't know (if you're actually a pro games designer then i apologise)

and @Londoner, I guess if that's how you see paragon studio's development skill then fair enough. I however happen to have a little confidence in them >.>

Yeah... that confidence tends to wear off a little after you've been around as long as Londoner has... and to be honest, I too am getting tired of the "there's awesome stuff coming around the corner, but we can't talk about it" stance and then getting slapped with a wet rag every time a issue comes out. At least I have been for the past 3 Issues (ok, 2 issues and a glorified patch).

But it's awesome that there still are people who get excited about the game and still have confidence in the development studio. They're the ones who are going to keep it running. Kudos to you.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And @Londoner, of course they can develop graphics updates and work on content at once. They're a game development studio, and they know how to develop games. You don't focus an entire studio on 1 thing.

You have different departments working on different aspects of the game. Just a broad example, art department for designing textures and meshes for new objects and stuff, sound design for creating the amazing SFX, and the game designers who are the creative geniuses telling the different departments what to create.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldnt over estimates this paticular company's ability to do anything i were you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Going Rogue will be amazing

I'm going on experience of many games over many years (some of which have been looked at from a API stand point mainly dx7 -> dx8, while here I think we're talking dx9 -> dx10). Sure it may be possible, but if it is possible to change the client enough to do what you want it to do without changing it enough to keep the current minimum specs what they are then that is almost certainly going to be a lot more work than just giving us a new upgraded client.

Or the changes will be fairly incremental as anyone expects with most games, and I guess not what you want.

So no I'm not a games developer, though at one time it was where I wanted to go... didn't happen. And from what limited development experience I have, which if six or more years out of date, I think that the idea of just adding to an existing client to dramatically improve the graphics without changing the base specification is if not impossible at least improbable and certainly a hell of a lot of extra work. And while yes development teams will have different teams doing different things at different times, adding a huge work load for one team would bleed off into other areas thus slowing lots of areas down.

Lastly, I'm not actually against the idea of graphics updates, I just don't think that its needed in preference over other areas of the game. And certainly not to the level you are advocating.

But we're both getting rather off topic here, if there is anything we both need to say I reckon we should move to PM or something...

[ QUOTE ]

But we're both getting rather off topic here, if there is anything we both need to say I reckon we should move to PM or something...

[/ QUOTE ]

You're not - Positron said in this mini interview that they're doing something with the graphics to keep it level or ahead of CO and DCUO, so a graphics discussion is totally ok

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

But we're both getting rather off topic here, if there is anything we both need to say I reckon we should move to PM or something...

[/ QUOTE ]

You're not - Positron ssaid in this mini interview that they're doing something with the graphics to keep it level or ahead of CO and DCUO, so a graphics discussion is totally ok

[/ QUOTE ]
Care to read either the interview or my fist post again?

He doesn't actually say that they are going to do anything to the graphics just that they have something that will let them compete. I agree it will probably be some form of graphics upgrade, that is the implication but not a move to cel shading, nor the massive overhaul that Razor wants.

Speculation is what these forums demand, but me arguing the toss with Razor is getting a bit pointless. This is the 2nd thread and I doubt he will see my side fully or me his. We're both fairly entrenched in our views so going to PM is far saner than just having a long argument in public.

I suspect that we'll see a graphics update for GR or I16.

They have longer to work on GR now, since CO put its launch date back, and I'm thinking that what we might see is a shift from the current bespoke Cryptic Engine to the Crysis engine that runs Aion.

What we do know is that the current engine is way more capable than current use suggests but the Devs (rightly so IMO) tend to keep the game playable on older machines, to maximise their audience. However with CO imminent they may choose to bite a bullet and give the world a coat of paint.

One thing I've noticed in recent interviews, is that Matt Miller has seemingly lost the habit of leaving false paper trails in his clues. Now he just says "I can't talk about that." Also missing from his vocab is "Soon" so I'm guessing the "Marketing" team at PS have smacked his rotund behind and told him not to be so naughty.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Coat of paint yes, whole new engine no...

At least I hope so, two of the three machines I run will not cope with the crysis engine and as most of my fun in the game ATM is from triple boxing a move that far away from the current engine remove me from the game.

I really dont get what im missing sometimes... so many people are so disappointed with the issues being released. Yet we know for definate that we have atleast two giant features maybe three in the mix that as far as i was concerned everyone wanted :S

Power customization (assumed but come on... what more do you need?)
GR - several zones and potentially more content than you could shake a stick at?
Large graphics update

All of which are scheduled to come within the year into early 2010? granted we have no sturdy information but when did any mmo company give straight up answers especially with competition in the midst...

I think people have three issues:

1)The devs have been promising great things for well over a year now, and for the most part its been rumour and supposition, people like some hard facts.

2)A lot of people were disappointed with MA which was listed as a 'big' issue, now we're told that the next few issues are going to be 'big' and having looked at the last few 'big' issues we're being a little wary.

3)While Powers Customisation has been asked for since day one by an awful lot of people it isn't actually going to change anything other than the actual colour/animation (I hope) of powers. It isn't content. While it may be a huge amount of work to produce what most people, including myself, seem to want is actual things to do.

[ QUOTE ]
Power customization (assumed but come on... what more do you need?)


[/ QUOTE ]

Does nothing for a lot of people, its nothing new to do.

[ QUOTE ]

GR - several zones and potentially more content than you could shake a stick at?


[/ QUOTE ]

Sooner the better, it's all that is keeping a lot of people i know playing.

[ QUOTE ]

Large graphics update

[/ QUOTE ]

Im all for this but it means jack [censored] to a lot of people that havent got the PC for it.

Also over the years all the "soon" and "big things" have eroded peoples enthusiasm.

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

GR - several zones and potentially more content than you could shake a stick at?


[/ QUOTE ]

Sooner the better, it's all that is keeping a lot of people i know playing.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think it'll be this year - in time for the holidays probably.

Its more to do with the fact that the RWZ revamp was the large content issue we've had. All the others since have been QOL changes which do make life much easier we all know, but it has been almost 2 years since we've had a good content issue.

Ouroboros was a missed ship now imo, there was a LOT of hype over the time travel and coming storm and it looks like we wont even see it until at least issue 19 imo [another year away?]. The MA changes have made finding the good missions easier but it'll never replace "real content" as such.

People want huge large bulks of content with different tilesets/tactics needed.
A large community event like the old hamidon and mothership raids.
An actual challenge mode put into the game.

^ Pretty much everything Damz says, really. I lots my enthusiasm months ago. I now tend to let my sub lapse for a few weeks at a time, before I feel like I want to post on here again, and in fact, I even post a LOT less than I used too. But I don't play. I haven't played a mission since 4 days after the launch of the MA, and that was an MA mission...

All because, really, there's been nothing really NEW to do for absolute ages. All the missions are just variations of the same theme. You do them a couple of times, and then it's "Yeah, next!". What we really need is a new mechanic to the game, something to get people interested. Depending on how they go about doing this going rogue business, it MAY rekindle my old enthusiasm.

Power customisation? That's pretty neat, but it's not new content or a new game mechanic. If i16 doesn't contain anything more than that, a lot of people will, once again, take another break.

[ QUOTE ]
No, you NEED new graphics to sell a game as computers nowadays are getting more powerful. Even the cheap ones can outperform the ones of 2 years ago by miles.

[/ QUOTE ]
right.....
starcraft is a very old game from 98, but the gameplay is still today overthrowing every attempt on making something simulair.
but like you would already know, the game is entirely 2d with pixel characters.
no special 3d effects, no bumping effects and even a pentium 200 can play it.

you're just diluting your self, or maybe just to young to see how it was back in the day's.

Here's an example of running "modern" software on obsolete hardware.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v7cFGneuaw

Try not to faint, folks.

Thanks FFM, last few days iv been having mad urges to get the classes like monkey island/final fantasy and cruise for a corpse out to play and that didnt help!

Kudos for living as long as he did though, i would've quit after the first purple monster.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No, you NEED new graphics to sell a game as computers nowadays are getting more powerful. Even the cheap ones can outperform the ones of 2 years ago by miles.

[/ QUOTE ]
right.....
starcraft is a very old game from 98, but the gameplay is still today overthrowing every attempt on making something simulair.
but like you would already know, the game is entirely 2d with pixel characters.
no special 3d effects, no bumping effects and even a pentium 200 can play it.

you're just diluting your self, or maybe just to young to see how it was back in the day's.

[/ QUOTE ]
The last decent RPG (IMO) or maybe the last one I enjoyed enough to replay and replay over a period of years (17 or so years) is Ultima VII, which when I first bought it I could barely run on my 486sx-25.

Hell the fact that people actually use things like DOS-Box or Exult (or even MAME) is not because everyone runs obsolete systems or because many of the really old games are abandoned but because many of the old games are still superior to modern games in everything but graphics and sound.