HorrorScope wrote on Oct 26, 2013, 19:07:

Simon Says wrote on Oct 26, 2013, 18:00:
+1, 199x to 2005 was PC gaming's golden age.

It wasn't bad, but it was a lot more niche. To me I feel the last few years has been it's pinnacle to this point. I think Digital Distribution/Indy has really added to the experience. Even though early on, Indy was alsmot all you had in the PC genre.

Pinnacle my ass, diablo 3 has SINGLE PLAYER LAG for fuck sakes. Both starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. Among the biggest games on PC were the most unerwhelming sequels of all time. Gaming majorly changed by shift to console morons. The influx of low intelligent idiots really dumbed down gaming to chimp level. HOLY FUCK.

My god, you can pick up any console shooter and point out right away how Unreal 2004 or Quake 3 is superior even in 2013 for fuck sakes! That's beyond travesty.

While PC gaming has gotten 'slightly' better. Deus Ex HR wasn't too bad, I enjoy getting dark souls ported and darksiders 1 to PC. The problem is developers are just so shit now. Just lazy bastards with no skills, they can't even get fucking diablo 3 right.

While Path of exile is probably one of the first games with that oldschool PC feel in a long time it's fucking F2P!! God I hate where morons giving money to game devs doing this shit to us is taking us.

Such low intelligent people and kids now infest gaming and it sucks. They turned valve cocksucking gabe into a billionaire paying for DRM crapware that is steam. All the multiplayer functionality of what could have been decent-to-great PC games like Saints row 3 are now infested with steam crapware. Same with supreme commander 2.

This is night and day away from the awesome shit we had going on with dedicated servers back in the day with quake and UT. Custom levels, mutators, level editors, grappling hooks, Rocket Arena.

Jesus fucking christ I still get teary eyed every time I look at modern gaming desert landscape.

While there is some 'green grass' in the PC gaming desert... the kinds of shit that is now growing in the desert is mostly barely passable dumbed down console games.

There's nothing truly and fully PC about most PC games now-a-days and that sucks hardcore.

Rubbish article, the PC saved the PC by being the only driver for ongoing desktop CPU and GPU development and investment.
Consoles don't support either, they are a snapshot of the past from the day they are released until they are superceded.

Now is my cunning plan revealed!
See all my arguments in one handy collection! :-)

HorrorScope wrote on Oct 26, 2013, 19:07:

Simon Says wrote on Oct 26, 2013, 18:00:
+1, 199x to 2005 was PC gaming's golden age.

It wasn't bad, but it was a lot more niche. To me I feel the last few years has been it's pinnacle to this point. I think Digital Distribution/Indy has really added to the experience. Even though early on, Indy was alsmot all you had in the PC genre.

I'm having really tough times nowadays... A few years ago it wasn't too bad still, but it really felt like a constant downhill since 2003-2005. Heck I'm even forced to pirate games ever since they all went origin/digital/steam on us :/. I can't afford to install the damn games, even when I have the DVD, gigs+ mandatory updates or the game wont start thing totally kill my bandwidth budgets ( only mobile/4g/LTE reaches here and even then, DSL/cable caps are absolute joke ranging from 15gb to 80gb ).

If I want to still be legit, I need to find a boxed copy, which right now, is a P.I.T.A., make sure it isn't steam install, then take my PC, drive 20 miles to my nearest buddy who happens to work for a PC repair shop with the only uncapped internet inside a 100 miles radius, ask him gently to hook up my PC to the network, install the game, mandatory auto update it, then I'm also mostly forced to put some kind of crack on it so it won't bug me ever again with a goddamn mandatory update or the game won't start kinda thing. I used to love modding games or playing mods, but right now they're mostly distributed through steam, and sometimes even when they're not, I need the latest version, which I don't have 90% of the time cause it would again cost me a fortune in overcharges. When I need to reinstall windows it's a total downer. For steam, I just can't and I have to pirate it by asking the same buddy, or anyone else with still some bandwidth budget to spare, to download it for me from piratebay or whatever.

Now that's not what I call good times... So much that I mostly don't even bother now.

ISPs/developers need to get their act together or it'll all go to hell. Mandatory updates to play are UNACCEPTABLE. You have the box, you should be able to play right out of the box with a simple "phone home once" scheme. Now if I could only actually download old style redistributable patches that I could archive on a local drive, that wouldn't be so bad, but no... :/ I really cross my fingers for anyone still on unlimited, to stay unlimited.

And mind you that's only pre-play, I didn't even launch the damn game yet...

This comment was edited on Oct 26, 2013, 23:08.

Simon Says wrote on Oct 26, 2013, 18:00:
+1, 199x to 2005 was PC gaming's golden age.

It wasn't bad, but it was a lot more niche. To me I feel the last few years has been it's pinnacle to this point. I think Digital Distribution/Indy has really added to the experience. Even though early on, Indy was alsmot all you had in the PC genre.

Axis wrote on Oct 26, 2013, 11:35:
The 'consoles saved PC article' is hilarious. The guy obviously bought into the "PC IS DYING fad the last 5 years and realizes now how stupid he sounded.

I'll take his quote since he wanted me to:

But I'd ask anyone who was gaming on the PC in 199X-2005 to think about the type of games they played, and the number of games they owned, then compare that to how they play in 2013.

We were too busy clanning in the online explosion of Quake, Tribes, UT, CS.
We were too busy MMOing in the online explosion of EQ, AO, Wow, DAOC, Diablo2.
We were too immersed by the evolving hardware like true 3d of voodoo3d, SLI, true positional audio of A3d and soundblaster.
We were too enamored by the quality and pure fun of SO MANY games that came out like Civilization, Baldurs Gate, Duke Nukem, Sims (hate to admit this one), Half Life, Dungeon Keeper, Fallout, Deus Ex, Morrowind, Starcraft, Ultima, KOTOR, Planescape, System Shock, on and on.

While consoles were starved for titles and pulling in the noobs (who had no idea how to 'PC) that would usher in an explosion of half-assed mediocre games (with an occasional gem), stifled innovation, crappy controls, locked frames, overpriced DLCS... and these consolites having mom and dad buy buy buy -- while pulling down the entire quality of gaming and expectations across all platforms up until Indies opened up more mainstream eyes and brought expectations back up, with PC leading the way.. like ALWAYS.

How's that Luke Plunkett? That's the answer for you. There is no other unless you lived under a rock.

+1, 199x to 2005 was PC gaming's golden age.

Creston wrote on Oct 26, 2013, 12:26:
You guys realize that Plunkett is Kotaku's biggest troll author, and he's just writing this kind of bullshit to get hits on his shitty employer's shitty website, right?

No. But then again I was just responding to others theories. Sounds like its best if I don't know his name, so please don't advertise it. You're feeding to.

You guys realize that Plunkett is Kotaku's biggest troll author, and he's just writing this kind of bullshit to get hits on his shitty employer's shitty website, right?

The internet saved PC gaming.

To me that is more accurate than any other theory thrown out here. Without it so many features/benefits and games needing it wouldn't exist, making the console a much closer competitor. But since it happened, the PC survived well not only because of performance but because being a PC gamer is also a social thing, and alt-tab'ing to Blue's is at worst a big subconscious win for PC gamers.

No wonder the new consoles are dedicating a lot of O/S resources to things outside of gaming, because PC gamers if they know it or not, like to do many things outside of gaming. The more you do on the PC is the reason why you stay on the PC, hence a market, hence how it survives.

I've learned a lot living on this device since forever now, gave me an education, which turned into a career. I like the tinkering mentality behind being a pc gamer, if you don't have that... you might as well be on a console.

Happy for a reliable O/S.
Happy for digital distribution, it eventually did reduce cost.

The 'consoles saved PC article' is hilarious. The guy obviously bought into the "PC IS DYING fad the last 5 years and realizes now how stupid he sounded.

I'll take his quote since he wanted me to:

But I'd ask anyone who was gaming on the PC in 199X-2005 to think about the type of games they played, and the number of games they owned, then compare that to how they play in 2013.

We were too busy clanning in the online explosion of Quake, Tribes, UT, CS.
We were too busy MMOing in the online explosion of EQ, AO, Wow, DAOC, Diablo2.
We were too immersed by the evolving hardware like true 3d of voodoo3d, SLI, true positional audio of A3d and soundblaster.
We were too enamored by the quality and pure fun of SO MANY games that came out like Civilization, Baldurs Gate, Duke Nukem, Sims (hate to admit this one), Half Life, Dungeon Keeper, Fallout, Deus Ex, Morrowind, Starcraft, Ultima, KOTOR, Planescape, System Shock, on and on.

While consoles were starved for titles and pulling in the noobs (who had no idea how to 'PC) that would usher in an explosion of half-assed mediocre games (with an occasional gem), stifled innovation, crappy controls, locked frames, overpriced DLCS... and these consolites having mom and dad buy buy buy -- while pulling down the entire quality of gaming and expectations across all platforms up until Indies opened up more mainstream eyes and brought expectations back up, with PC leading the way.. like ALWAYS.

How's that Luke Plunkett? That's the answer for you. There is no other unless you lived under a rock.

Digitalfiend wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 22:54:

Most dedicated PC games were playing to a niche audience, and those that weren't would see their sales plundered by piracy.

I had to stop reading after that sentence. So mainstream PC titles were pirated to the point of hurting sales and yet the same titles pirated on consoles had no impact? Give me a break! Furthermore, I'd love to see some facts/numbers to back up this statement.

Sensationalized tripe as usual...

Due to the fact that you had to install custom ROMs to run pirated console software, yeah, there was a lot more piracy on PC than console. See this article, for example:

Looking at torrent data for the same games on PC vs. XBox 360 vs. PS3, we saw that the number of downloads of the PC version is often five or ten times higher than the console versions. The number of individual active torrents for the console versions were also noticeably lower; in some cases there were no PS3 torrents at all for certain games.

That's part of the reason why so many dev shops were developing for console 2005-2010: they thought they could get more sales due to a large install base, higher prices, and lower piracy rates. Luckily, there remained a large PC gamer install base, so it made financial sense for solid core of PC-only devs (like Valve) to continue to make games, as well as for console devs to port things over to PC. The rise of Steam provided an inexpensive, reliable digital download alternative to torrenting, further increasing sales. The metoric rise of Steam, D2D, GoG, and even Origin and Gamefly show that there was an untapped market for digital. Why bother with torrents and risk malware when for $5 or $10 you can completely avoid the issue?

Frijoles wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 23:03:

The Half Elf wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 21:20:
Auditory Clues on objects that don't make noise? When's the last time a gun made noise without being fired?

I believe he's referring to the pickup noise, not the firing noise. I don't actually recall a different noise in Quake 3. Just that chk-CHK sound on pickup. I should load up Quake Live and check.

Many of the powerups had unique sounds like Quad, regen and haste lets not forget. Many people may have went further and put custom sounds on weapons in modded games probably.

I had quad/powerups on timers when I used to play in clans back in the day.

I'd argue the value of console games on PC is simply that it reduces the demand of the consoles themselves - it's easier to be exclusively a PC gamer now than ever before, and with that locked-in audience comes a market that developers have to at least pay cursory attention to. Yes, a lot of console ports are pretty shoddy, unoptimized dross that insult the average person's intelligence (realizing the average person probably lacks intelligence of any substantial sort), but it doesn't change the fact that they go a long ways to making the consoles superfluous.

ColoradoHoudini wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 21:15:
Simon- I agree.

It seems like a lot of FPS's have had the strategy taken out in favor of getting people into combat ASAP, die, respawn, rush, don't think.. go in guns blazing.. rinse, repeat.
Then give so many side items, it's a carnival of shiny objects for every ADD-having nitwit kid.

Remember where CoD made it's bones.. where would the Xbox be if not for Bungie jumping ship? Remember how on the PC, BF set the standard..that CoD etc.. copied.. and then put onto a console. Remember how Quake and UT paved the way for games like Halo and Killzone..and remember those hallmark games all started on the PC.
(I guess what i'm saying there is I wish devs gave us back creative control of our FPSs..which is unrelated but in my head, I was on a roll)

Actually, you got me thinking, Hard Reset tried to get back on track a while back, but kinda failed as it was pretty much on rails and maps were totally dumbed down with heaps of scripted stuff going on. It was still way better than most mainstream crap tho.

The Half Elf wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 21:20:

Simon Says wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 21:03:

jdreyer wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 20:13:
Console Games Have Helped Save The PC.

Well, I'd say that ports of console games then made available via digital distribution "saved" the PC.

But at what price? Massive dumbization of FPS games for once. I can't recall the last FPS that was worth it post Q3A and UT tbh, especially for MP. They removed so many stuff it's mind boggling.

-Proprietary sounds for each items picked up, giving auditory clues to whereabouts. ( That's something I mastered at Q3A and it gave me a HUGE advantage )
-Complex maps.
-Health packs.
-NO FUCKING EXPANDING CROSSHAIRS.
-Maps sometimes better suited for some kind of weapons, rockets for closed environments/corridors, then sometimes for others, like rails for open world, etc.
-Choices of where to go next where of prime importance. Counterstrike then implement the "it's mostly get to the front, spray and pray the crosshair expansion is mercifull and nets you more hits than misses" gameplay. Somewhat alleviated today by the gunsights.
-Back then it was furious fast paced and you actually had to have reflexes and strategies. I can't remember how many times outsmarting my opponent while being more accurate than the other guy saved my ass because of guns reload time and some things like grenade launcher/corner flight time calculations and strike while between shots kind of thing.

Right now it's all CoD Clones crap. I can't bear to even look at someone else playing.

And that only 1 example for only FPS games... Really.

Um you can't call console FPS games dumb, then say Quake 3 Arena was better when all you had to do was jump and shoot, same with UT. Auditory Clues on objects that don't make noise? When's the last time a gun made noise without being fired?

I'm sorry Simon but your post is full of so many holes it might as well be a screen door on a submarine.

Then you can't graps the curse of mainstream. It's that curse of moneymaking, of dumbing down stuff. Happens for music styles, happens for lots of other stuff and it seems videogames styles aren't immune to shareholders either... Frankly nowadays, I don't think anything is immune to them anymore.

Oh and of course...

*hint* games aren't REALITY, they're 'games' *hint*

I rest my case.

This comment was edited on Oct 26, 2013, 01:31.

Rea1One wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 23:06:
Hopefully Ouya 2.0 skips over Tegra 4 and goes with Tegra 5.

Or, better yet, some mobile SoC with a halfway-decent GPU (the Adreno 330 in Snapdragon 800 is about 35% faster than the GeForce in Tegra 4, and the PowerVR G6430 in Apple's A7 is about 80% faster)...

Hopefully Ouya 2.0 skips over Tegra 4 and goes with Tegra 5.

The Half Elf wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 21:20:
Auditory Clues on objects that don't make noise? When's the last time a gun made noise without being fired?

I believe he's referring to the pickup noise, not the firing noise. I don't actually recall a different noise in Quake 3. Just that chk-CHK sound on pickup. I should load up Quake Live and check.

Most dedicated PC games were playing to a niche audience, and those that weren't would see their sales plundered by piracy.

I had to stop reading after that sentence. So mainstream PC titles were pirated to the point of hurting sales and yet the same titles pirated on consoles had no impact? Give me a break! Furthermore, I'd love to see some facts/numbers to back up this statement.

Sensationalized tripe as usual...

The problem wasn't that the "PC" needed saving, many storms hit the game industry. The relentless advancement of CPU and GPU power pushed developers out of the PC market. Let's just say this right now... game dev costs forced game developers to go to consoles. Not the other way around. Now that consoles have caught up to PC's enough ports become feasable because consoles use PC 3D accelerator hardware.

The exact opposite is really true, PC gaming saved console gaming by giving birth to high end technology that now exists in consoles. So "PC Gaming" really saved itself by spawning companies like nvidia, 3dfx, amd, etc.

Note this next round of consoles are basically PC's other than the operating system.

They have it wrong. PC's actually saved gaming from the mess of shitty proprietary console hardware.

Take that bitches!

This comment was edited on Oct 25, 2013, 21:40.

Simon Says wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 21:03:

jdreyer wrote on Oct 25, 2013, 20:13:
Console Games Have Helped Save The PC.

Well, I'd say that ports of console games then made available via digital distribution "saved" the PC.

But at what price? Massive dumbization of FPS games for once. I can't recall the last FPS that was worth it post Q3A and UT tbh, especially for MP. They removed so many stuff it's mind boggling.

-Proprietary sounds for each items picked up, giving auditory clues to whereabouts. ( That's something I mastered at Q3A and it gave me a HUGE advantage )
-Complex maps.
-Health packs.
-NO FUCKING EXPANDING CROSSHAIRS.
-Maps sometimes better suited for some kind of weapons, rockets for closed environments/corridors, then sometimes for others, like rails for open world, etc.
-Choices of where to go next where of prime importance. Counterstrike then implement the "it's mostly get to the front, spray and pray the crosshair expansion is mercifull and nets you more hits than misses" gameplay. Somewhat alleviated today by the gunsights.
-Back then it was furious fast paced and you actually had to have reflexes and strategies. I can't remember how many times outsmarting my opponent while being more accurate than the other guy saved my ass because of guns reload time and some things like grenade launcher/corner flight time calculations and strike while between shots kind of thing.

Right now it's all CoD Clones crap. I can't bear to even look at someone else playing.

And that only 1 example for only FPS games... Really.

Um you can't call console FPS games dumb, then say Quake 3 Arena was better when all you had to do was jump and shoot, same with UT. Auditory Clues on objects that don't make noise? When's the last time a gun made noise without being fired?

I'm sorry Simon but your post is full of so many holes it might as well be a screen door on a submarine.