What games are you playing and why?

I have the theory that half of any modern game is bloated textures that most people never use. Now that games are being sold as digital only versions by more outlets than actual physical copies, this makes no sense. You should install an installer that runs a quick benchmark with the settings you choose and suggests the appropriate level of texture detail and other settings. Upon completion, it would then download only the textures you picked or approved.

That way if you run medium settings, you do not download the Low, High, Very High, or whatever other textures. If later on you decide you want to try them, the game should tell you that you have to download them first. (Duh!)

15GB for a game is happening because it has everything you could possibly need. And perhaps that is good for people who want to try every setting. But for those of us who know what settings we will use, it is a waste.

Like my system using the Very High detail settings in every game I play. It pains me to think of how much space and download time I waste for the low, medium and high textures... I never even try them.

 

I know that Skyrim did a LITTLE bit like that, with its separate high-quality texture pack. But probably, most companies just want to keep everything as simple as possible (for themselves, that is). Back when games were mostly distributed by physical media, that's kind of how it worked for most games. I understand that not everyone has equal access to fast internet, whether it's just not available, or it's a financial burden. But it's not an inconvenience for THEM, just for the consumer.

 

Sadly, what I saw of Skyrim was that only the very high texture pack was separate. You still required the other textures to install and play it.

To be fair, some of that was actually required. Despite what some people think, even running Skyrim with VH, you still actually *DID USE* some of the high and medium textures. But most people are utterly fooled. In fact, I would actually wager that most gamers cannot even see the difference except in a few situations. (Or if there is an extra bit of lag and texture pop.)

The idea is great, but sadly it introduces a possible technical error that would certainly happen when people make mods using one texture pack and the user lacks that pack. Right now, until they improve the way this sort of thing is handled, and the consumers pull their heads from their asses, business as usual is the best solution overall.

 

There are a few good texture packs created by the community, for most of the Bethesda rpgs in any case. Whether your goal is to have the best appearance possible, or to improve performance, usually your best bet is in one or more of them.

But I agree with you. That said, it's not people 'with their heads up their ass', just people acting in their own self-interest. It's not in your interest to have a fit over a long download (it takes a lot of energy to have a public hissy fit over what's only a minor inconvenience to the vast majority).

 

So the music, voice acting, etc. takes up bugger all room, then?

And it's in the customer's interest to have all the files there and then. Why? So they have the functionality. So you don't have to spend hours waiting for some more data to download if you want to try running higher textures, which can and will put people off your game.

And, like, where do you draw the line? Do you make the music optional? Game modes?

 

Thanks for this post. I bought AVWW 1 + 2 and I have played I think 30 mins. Loving it so far! The music when the game started up actually got me dancing through the room haha

 

AVWW is a bit weird, and the visuals are strange, but I do like it. Something a bit artsy about it. And yeah, the soundtracks are good.

Thanks to Mooms reminding me, today I did the majority (post-prologue thru end) of the third Blackwell title, Blackwell Convergence, and I found it fairly enjoyable and not too moon-logic-y (though hardly free of it).

Oh, wait. I started The Blackwell Deception. Um. I don't like the new art style, it looks like a cross between the earlier Blackwell titles and Adventure Time or even Sword & Sworcery, and it seems to take a step towards moon logic which bugs me a bit. And I'm not sure what's going on with the "box art". Looks bugger all like Rosa. But hey, I'll do it. And in plenty of time for the fifth.

 

I disable music in the vast majority of games I play. But I know I am the minority. Besides, several hours of good quality audio is no more than a gigaabyte. Less with good codecs.

I am not sure what side you are arguing for. (That makes it damned hard to argue against or agree with you.)

If I were making a game, the music, sound effects, voice acting, and different texture packs would all be separate. There would still be some crossover in textures. (It would be plainly stupid to have a low, medium, high, and very high version of something that is not going to look any different depending on the texture packs, and such things simply do happen.)

I would have the choice of what to install presented to the user after a tiny benchmark determines automatically what settings are best. That way even clueless nooblets can have appropriate options. And I would present a prompt with a appropriate option for such nooblets. Something like "Bugger off and give me what I need to play!" or "I paid for everything, Give it all now or else!.

This sort of thing really requires more thought and careful coding for the developer, and it may even backfire badly. But innovation must be attempted or we risk dwindling into a quagmire of mediocrity. In the event of a backfire, a hotfix patch could force a download of any missing resources as a solution. (After prompting the user that this is required and giving them time to move/uninstall as needed to make room if that is a concern.)

 

In other words, it's a pointless exercise in making life harder for yourself and everyone else in the name of saving a couple of gigabytes per game.

I, personally, have bigger issues with companies thinking it's okay to distribute 57 page PDF documents that take up a massive 900MB of my hard drive.

 

I certainly agree on the massive manuals. But I have never in my life seen one that big. They are doing something terribly wrong.

Keep in mind that some people use tiny SSDs for their gaming rigs. Mine is 80GB. So a 15GB install means I have to uninstall something. If I could install it in the 6GB free space I have without the features I will never use, I would not need to uninstall anything.

Some games are very poorly made, but not in the way many people think. They do not bundle the data files they have into an archive. Tiny sub-4k files still use 4k of space on a modern files system, or more if the cluster size is set larger. Those same files take the exact number of bytes they are if you use them in an uncompressed 7zip archive and put the tiny 7zip DLL into your game.

As and example, Borderlands 2 has several thousand files. Many of which waste a lot of space simply because they are not in an archive. (Gigabytes of space in reality.)

The problem is that if the next patch requires one of those files to be edited in any way, you have to extract the whole archive and apply the change and rearchive it.

Ultimately there is no perfect option.

 

I've been fooling around a bit with a game called 'A Rogue's Tale' . It's a graphical rogue-like that, in spite of its somewhat sadistic difficulty, is kind of addictive. There's a free demo here: http://rogue.epixx.org/index.html

If you do decide to give it a try, F1 is the help key (the most basic thing they left out of the on-line manual are the keyboard commands -- I found it by trial and error).

 

I have been playing Dead Island a lot in the past few weeks. But for the last week or so it has been mainly Legend of Grimrock. I would prefer randomized dungeons but I can play without them. Mods will extend my game and one of the makers of the game just released a mod they call Master Quest that is almost a sequel to the game. After I finish the basic game, I may just try out that.

 

My gamer-tastic boyfriend recently introduced me to the wonders of Command & Conquer (Generals/Zero Hour), so I've been trying to get the free time to play that. Other games which persistently pull me back in (sometimes after months of not playing) are Minecraft and Warcraft III –– I credit Warcraft III for my interest and love for 3D texturing, modeling, and animation. Minecraft really plays on my paranoia (e.g. when underground) but is addictively fun. We've also been playing Runescape, an old "free to play" browser MMO which has gone through a lot of changes. My kingdom for a downloadable Runescape client!!!

I've got a copy of Windows XP running with Boot Camp, so I've put NOX, Neverwinter Nights, and Warlords Battlecry III on it. I've tried to put Civ 5 and some other stuff on there, but lots of old games don't play nice with my relatively new Mac and Intel integrated graphics card. My kingdom also for a new graphics card. But I'm glad that being with this guy has gotten me into so many wonderful video games, some quite old but also quite good.

Anyone else play any of these old games? Any more? I love forums…… :3

 

Civ V is incredibly graphics intensive, that's why it won't be playing nice with an integrated card.

 

Well, if XP is used then I'm sure Civ III will work too.

I prefer V to IV. IV has a vile UI. It looks so half-assed.

 

BTW, there's another expansion on the way for Civ 5 -- http://www.actiontrip.com/news/civilization-v-a-brave-new-world-makes-an-entrance/032313_8

 

Yup. I can't wait. I doubt I'll play as any of the Civs included unless they're in line with what I like, though.

I'll probably be Spain, Russia or the Celts until I move on to Civ VI

 

BioShock Infinite. About an hour and a half into it. I'm loving it.

And now to force myself to go to bed.

 

Playing Minecraft now, on the map which is supposed to be a server for my friends (they are all busy with preparations for the upcoming holiday whereas I'm not [outside of my work, which this week makes me into a zombie-esque something only capable of automatic actions] and I wanted our village to have fortress-style walls with flanks), on hard difficulty and with a few mods (thaumcraft, some crop-and-food-adding mod, some more minor mods, and a rather sadistic monster-adding mod which adds a lot of Fun to the game).

So far it's been splendid. And Dwarf-Fortressy (my death count is close to the server's age in in-game days).