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Prince
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Feb 2006
time: 12:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Felch
I played the Braid demo, and it is pretty sweet. The different worlds had nifty little changes to the rules, and the levels had some clever puzzles. Not as sweet as Hardcore Deathmatches in Call of Duty though.
Geometry Wars is cool too, but the sequel seems to only add multiplayer. Is there more to it? |
An interesting article from the creator of Braid:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/ne...php?story=19748
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Asher
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President of the OT
and living in the TO
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Nov 1999
time: 07:40
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Yeah, a lot of developers got a kick out of it.
quote:
Independent designer Jonathan Blow's award-winning Braid made its Xbox Live Arcade debut just last week, but Blow says Microsoft's certification requirements might have impeded the game's final quality. |
There's a reason why Xbox 360 games aren't nearly as buggy as Playstation 3 games, and it's because there's a real set of certification process. Even if it's a shitty little XBLA game, it needs to meet standards.
It's kind of funny to a lot of people that this guy is *****ing about having to meet standards. The N+ developers -- who I have spoken to in person in Toronto -- mentioned much of the same: XBLA certification was far more rigorous than they anticipated. But they, unlike this guy, recognized the purpose of such a process and valued it, even if it did create "work" at the time, it resulted in an ultimately better game.
He also displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the new business model and spews bullshit himself (that he wouldn't "break even" with it), but at least he clarifies that he doesn't know **** about it except "what he's heard" from some people. 
You need to be very careful with gamasutra right now -- they seem to have an ever-increasing bias against consoles and the 360 in particular. Even the game developer had to post a reply (visible in the "update") because he didn't like the spin of the article, making him seem very negative to MS when he wasn't. When their own interviewees call them out on slanted articles, it should be a hint.
Last edited by Asher on 09-08-2008 at 06:03
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Prince
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Feb 2006
time: 12:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
What the **** is wrong with you? Seriously?
You just posted an article about how MS is overly concerned about the quality of games coming out on its service and has high standards which it forces developers to meet, and also says they can bend the rules to allow creative/innovative games to do things they find to be interesting -- but then you come out and say your "point" is this is all about maximizing profit and a quick cash grab? What the ****, seriously.
The article you posted directly contradicts your "point". |
""They removed some of the requirements for XBLA games, but there are still a lot of requirements, and I believe that, at least for a single-player game like my game, the vast majority of these requirements are unnecessary," he says.
"I put in a tremendous amount of work meeting all these requirements, when I could have put that work into the actual game, and made it even a little more polished, little bit better."
Blow says Microsoft's XBLA certification process is intended to ensure a standard of quality for all titles on the service -- "But I feel like it actually decreases the quality of games, because people spend so much of their energy on these things that users don't even really care about." - from the article I posted.
And yet again Asher you only go to prove your total lack of objectivity about anything to do with MS. You are your own worse enemy, I don't actually have to post anything - the PR bulls**t for MS just flows from your fingers like the bot you are(or nerve stapled MS employee you probably are  ).
It's quite sad you lack the ability to step back and see the wood for the trees, but it does give you a certain maniac charm, even if it means I've learnt to take anything you say with a pinch of salt in terms of it's objectivity.
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Prince
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Feb 2006
time: 12:40
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@ Dr.Spike,
yeah I've been looking around for more details on what exactly 'these things' are also. It seems unless you are an actual dev on XBLA it might be hard to find that info? It would be interesting to know the whole list mind you.
And even better to have a side by side comparison for PS3 and Wii also? That would clear things up very well.
The reference to single player makes me suspect that he had to develop systems for multiplayer even if they were never to be used?
I guess as it's all a fairly 'young' system it will get better(for Dev and MS alike) as time goes on and things get ironed out in the process.
At the end of the day MS wants devs to provide cheap content to improve the brand, so they would be foolish to push these guys away?
Last edited by El_Cid on 10-08-2008 at 19:33
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Asher
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President of the OT
and living in the TO
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Nov 1999
time: 07:40
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quote:
Originally posted by El_Cid
""They removed some of the requirements for XBLA games, but there are still a lot of requirements, and I believe that, at least for a single-player game like my game, the vast majority of these requirements are unnecessary," he says.
"I put in a tremendous amount of work meeting all these requirements, when I could have put that work into the actual game, and made it even a little more polished, little bit better."
Blow says Microsoft's XBLA certification process is intended to ensure a standard of quality for all titles on the service -- "But I feel like it actually decreases the quality of games, because people spend so much of their energy on these things that users don't even really care about." - from the article I posted.
And yet again Asher you only go to prove your total lack of objectivity about anything to do with MS. You are your own worse enemy, I don't actually have to post anything - the PR bulls**t for MS just flows from your fingers like the bot you are(or nerve stapled MS employee you probably are ).
It's quite sad you lack the ability to step back and see the wood for the trees, but it does give you a certain maniac charm, even if it means I've learnt to take anything you say with a pinch of salt in terms of it's objectivity. |
How the **** does MS' high standards for the games -- the exact same part of the article you quoted AGAIN says that -- mean MS is, and I quote:
quote:
It's about maximising profit for the manufacturer, as is the way of the world. I just wish they would come out and say it, and get rid of all the double talk. |
MS' standards here are not free -- MS spends extra money to put games through rigorous testing and ensuring they all meet a quality standard. If your quote was true, that all they care about is "maximizing profit", then they wouldn't fund a division to test for quality.
My God, I don't know what to do with you. You're approaching epic levels of stupidity for this forum, and that is saying something. You took an article that is all about MS having high quality standards and are attempting to use that to form the basis of an argument that MS only cares about making money and not quality games. Listen to yourself. Christ.
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Asher
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President of the OT
and living in the TO
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Nov 1999
time: 07:40
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quote:
Originally posted by El_Cid
@ Dr.Spike,
yeah I've been looking around for more details on what exactly 'these things' are also. It seems unless you are an actual dev on XBLA it might be hard to find that info? It would be interesting to know the whole list mind you.
And even better to have a side by side comparison for PS3 and Wii also? That would clear things up very well.
The reference to single player makes me suspect that he had to develop systems for multiplayer even if they were never to be used? |
That's an utterly retarded assumption -- why would MS force people to code multiplayer support in a singleplayer game when it is blindingly obvious from the finished game that there is no multiplayer?
MS has rigorous testing standards for games. They test them on SDTVs, HDTVs of different resolutions (dating back to the old 1080i CRTs). Sometimes it's hard to read text on the screen, for instance ,depending how these are implemented and scaled. If that is the case, MS has the developer implement a fix so it's readable on all TVs. This is in direct contrast to Sony, who openly say they don't care about users of 1080i TVs (even though Sony itself was the #1 manufacturer of said TVs back in the day), so most PS3 games don't support 1080i.
They also test for things such as compatibility with all in-game features that must be across all games: does the game work with the in-game custom soundtrack? When I hit the "guide" button, does it pause the single player game? Will it interfere with any other features of the in-game dash (friend messaging, other game invites, etc). A lot of game developers don't read the documentation and don't think of this stuff until they send it for certification, and then they realize it breaks a whole bunch of rules that need to be fixed in order for the game to be published. Otherwise it breaks other features of the system.
And perhaps less obviously, all game consoles have rigorous technical requirements, including Nintendo. This is increasingly important on the PS3 and 360 now as MS and Sony have discovered software emulation is the way to do backwards compatibility, so there are very defined ways to do certain features the developers need to follow to ensure it works on all future versions of the console in addition to future emulation. Again, these are all well documented but most XBLA developers, especially new ones, don't pay much attention to them and then they get their ass kicked in the certification process.
If you're an XNA developer, none of this applies to you. But XBLA games and disc-based Xbox games need to adhere to all of these requirements. This guy wasn't prepared for them and personally doesn't value the features (eg, custom soundtracks) but it is part of the platform for a consistent featureset and user experience. They were the ground rules before he even started developing. It's his fault if he didn't prepare for that from the start, sounds like he was just letting off steam. But they're good rules, they serve a purpose, and for **** sake, the purpose of these rules isn't to "maximize profits" -- how ****ing stupid are you. I still can't get over that.
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Deity
Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia - FUKCOV
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Dec 2000
time: 07:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
LOTM doesn't have a Wii and wouldn't know what it even looks like. He'll get a Wii in 2020 or so.
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LOL! I dont think Nikolai seriously thinks I have a Wii, I think he was just responding to the way you usually sound.
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Deity
Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia - FUKCOV
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Dec 2000
time: 07:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
asleep also curiously doesn't mention that this doesn't reflect current sales -- the data points are "at points in the console's lifecycle |
And why wouldnt that be relevant? I mean its hard to have good sales of 3rd party titles before your console is even released right?
I dont claim to know the answer. I admit to knowing nothing about the mysteries of consoles. I assume the wonderful people here who DO know, can explain how the Wii could have sold 3rd party SW before it was released.
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DarkCloud
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you are priceless sometimes Asher!
Only too bad it wasn't a part of the controller from the start...
