Things you might not know about Starcraft 2 (Another Blizzard whine thread)

[Quirel]

I've always said the best DRM is a large download size

We're on to something here!

[hyde]

We're on to something here!

Nerd moment: Blu Ray was cracked a long time ago. Many of the discs or movies do not even fill up the entire disc, but they add in random filler data to fill it all up. Or the sound takes up half the disc.. (uncompressed sound)

You can download 1080P rips of blu-ray which size in anywhere from 5 to 10 GB with audio at 1GB (compressed).


Blizzard sort of has it right.

B.net 2.0 , Games are hosted on Battle.net machines, and no LAN. I hate to say it but I think its a fair compromise given the scope of the gaming landscape.
Look around and tell me how many dedicated PC developers are still out here.
Besides MMO, every PC game besides RTS are built natively as a XBOX360 game. Or ported.

Really the only two I can think of are VALVE games and Blizzard...
The rest of the indie PC FPS devs have jumped the 360/PS3 boat due to $$.
EPIC/Infinity Ward are great examples.

[ArcherofAiur]

this went in the wrong thread

[Dragoonx]

Nerd moment: Blu Ray was cracked a long time ago. Many of the discs or movies do not even fill up the entire disc, but they add in random filler data to fill it all up. Or the sound takes up half the disc.. (uncompressed sound)

You can download 1080P rips of blu-ray which size in anywhere from 5 to 10 GB with audio at 1GB (compressed).


Blizzard sort of has it right.

B.net 2.0 , Games are hosted on Battle.net machines, and no LAN. I hate to say it but I think its a fair compromise given the scope of the gaming landscape.
Look around and tell me how many dedicated PC developers are still out here.
Besides MMO, every PC game besides RTS are built natively as a XBOX360 game. Or ported.

Really the only two I can think of are VALVE games and Blizzard...
The rest of the indie PC FPS devs have jumped the 360/PS3 boat due to $$.
EPIC/Infinity Ward are great examples.

Hmm I'm guessing Relic would be up there too. Can't think of others.

[Quirel]

Nerd moment: Blu Ray was cracked a long time ago. Many of the discs or movies do not even fill up the entire disc, but they add in random filler data to fill it all up. Or the sound takes up half the disc.. (uncompressed sound)

You can download 1080P rips of blu-ray which size in anywhere from 5 to 10 GB with audio at 1GB (compressed).

I was thinking about hash filler, but I was also thinking of randomly generated textures for the models in-game, which might not increase the loading time or the processor speed needed, but could easily be expanded to fill much of the disk.

Anyhow, I heard that Whatsisname, the guy who did the Metal Gear series, filled up a Blu-Ray disc and complained that he didn't have enough room.

From Wikipedia

Guns of the Patriots is the first PS3 game that uses a full 50GB dual layer Blu-ray Disc even with the use of file compression.

[Dragoonx]

MGS4 used uncompressed Audio and video though.

[Quirel]

Yeah, well, it's a start, hein?

[Dragoonx]

Yeah, well, it's a start, hein?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. Storage usage is growing far more exponentially than Broadband speeds in the typical American home. However I hear Europe has some nice speeds. *Shrug*

[Pandonetho]

lol

about the MW2 steam group, I was in it and I was like wtf when I saw half of people playing it, yet I didn't buy it

Yeah, so good luck with your little boycott group. Let's see exactly what your 45 boycotters are capable of.

[Blackdogkt]

I must say I can't believe I and other people havent used XBL and PSN as examples for the anti-B.Net peeps.

If XBL and PSN (mostly XBL since it came first although i think PSN is now going to redefine the online services since pretty much everything you need is free and the premium addition will be basically bonus content not absolutely NEEDED to enjoy the games). These 2 services are huge successes and no one complains. Welcome to the 21st century. Heck, PS3 is the best anti-piracy machine who the hell is going to download 30-50 GB games? Yeah that's right blu-ray just pwned you.

As soon as PC's give up DVD's in favor of BR (which is going to be soon, DVD's are going to start being phased out since BR's are growing and have been equal to and above DVD sales now) people will start QQ'ing because then PC games will be uncompressed and be 30-50 GB themselves.

I agree with what you say about piracy prevention in regards to download size.
I strongly disagree that a system that's based on a console is fit to be ported over to the PC without major redesign, otherwise it simply won't do justice to the PC's increased capabilities.

The reason console systems are automated is because they lack keyboards and mice. The PC has all the peripherals to give you a broader experience, there's no need to restrict anything, from the interface down to the actual gameplay.

This is not "welcome to the 21st century", it's "welcome to the age where the inferior platforms drive software development at the expense of the superior ones". After all, if we wanted Xbox Live we'd be playing on an Xbox, not a PC

Of course this is all a bit broader than our current topic and may warrant a separate thread. In any case if there's anything that will manage to kill PC gaming, i have a feeling it's going to be the "consolification" of it all (from developmnet all the way to interface and gameplay) and not piracy.

I so would be willing to buy more games if they came in those fancy boxes and had printed manuals, like it was in the ages of yore. Now i don't, so i simply bypass a lot of them (not pirate, but bypass altogether, as in "i'm not even interested enough to pirate your game") and it's not the fault of pirates. It's the fault of greedy people who don't think long term and are only interested in cashing in quickly via a combination of short gameplay duration, axed functionality that gets added in later with a price-tag, DLCs, micropayments, DRM, less than stellar packaging and increased prices in comparison to what they offer.
Well, too bad for them, because unless they are in a genre where most people don't pay attention to such things (mainly a part of the action gamers, they are used to small storyline arcs so a lot of them don't mind much), the rest of their potential customers are taking notice and turning their backs on them.

This last paragraph is not directed at SC2 obviously, since we know it's not a game with a short gameplay span, it's directed at the trend we see in the market during the last few years. I think it's not a coincidence that models like these became prevalent after the widespread proliferation of consoles, especially since many people own both consoles and PCs. So no, i don't think that console distribution models are the way of the future and even if they are, i don't think they are better just because they are newer.

I want my PC to be a PC and the software that runs on it should be able to utilize all of its potential. And part of being a PC user is having the option to look under the hood and tinker with stuff, it's not a washing machine where you just press a couple of buttons and let it do its thing.