What would signify the arrival of the next games gen 4 you?

[arron]

Same one I had in mind. Maybe crossed with the scene in the Matrix when Neo and Morph (out of Take Hart, with Tony Hart) are walking against the flow of the walking commuters.

I'm working on some code for my portfolio that does crowds and action within crowds (gunfire etc) so when you fire, the crowd react to it.

That's a good example as well. I'll have to incorporate it

[koworld]

Same one I had in mind. Maybe crossed with the scene in the Matrix when Neo and Morph (out of Take Hart, with Tony Hart) are walking against the flow of the walking commuters.

That's a good one as well. I'll have to incorporate it

I hope this is a real game you're actually writing and not just a drug-addled dream-game (a bit like Messaih).

[swith]

I want to see a game that includes some heart monitor that you clip to your knob or something so that, like, when your heart rate goes up the gaming environment changes, so in the end you have to learn to remain calm.

And i'd like to see an intelligent conversation algorythm so you can't make the game say 'I don't know how to WANK'. Well, you know what i mean.

[gravy]

Good spot, crowds of people are the next thing.

Luckily "the next thing" in terms of production techniques are piss easy to spot for real time graphics.

All you have to do is look at the latest pre-rendered CGI and understand that's exactly what you'll have to do real time in the next 3 years. Over the last few years crowds have been the thing in compuuter animatied movie sequences.

It'll be games next and we've got some very clever people working on exactly this.

I understand your enthusiam and point of view as seen from a big company
side

I say this .. I hope I won't end up in doing fiancial SW myself ...

And no, I am not making libs and algos to give tools to someone else to
make games, at this point I'd open a pub, sell good stuff to get some
beer money and code home for the fun of it

I hope I won't have to arrive at this anyway

Nah, it's what I have always wanted to see the stupid limitations that destory the immersive aspect of computer gaming. They're dissapearing bit by bit. Right now there are too many things in video games that are the shark from Jaws, the rubber suited Alien or the chroma key edging on Superman that make great entertainment jar.

Pre-rendered CGI is pretty much at the poinjt where it's possiblle to represent anything you want. It means we've been able to enjoy films such as LotR that if brought to screen 20 years ago would have fallen far short of the recently released set of films. Not because the script ro story would have been any worse but just becuase the viewer would had their immersion into the story constantly spoiled becuase of representational issues.

Once those barriers are down for games as well it means an incredible freedom to create worlds made from pure imagination that are believable and engaging for anyone, not just video game enthusiasts.

Games are not to get to a point where the representation mechanism can show worlds of a similar visual density to those that we encounter every day of our life and as such mean less abstraction for new players and a wider audience.

I'm am not advocating realism, hyper realism or stylism. I am more foccusing on the ability of the delivery mechanism (hardware + system software) to create dense and active environments that don't need a massive act of abstraction for the end user to connect with.

When that happens our nans, aunties and taxi cab drivers will all be able to take part in interactive digital play.

Right now it's a tiny niche and requires a lot more effort on the user to enjoy the world than should be neccesary.

[bloid]

I want to see a game that includes some heart monitor that you clip to your knob or something so that, like, when your heart rate goes up the gaming environment changes, so in the end you have to learn to remain calm.

And i'd like to see an intelligent conversation algorythm so you can't make the game say 'I don't know how to WANK'. Well, you know what i mean.

You watched that channel 4 thing on flashers didn't you?

Do you want the woman who shouts "no, I will not have disgusting sex thoughts" too?

Hehehehe...

Which reminds me... Proper, home teledildonics can only be a few years away "Fuck, Fuck, Revolution" anyone?

[Anders]

Proper, home teledildonics can only be a few years away "Fuck, Fuck, Revolution" anyone?

Ah, I believe the porn industry have sunk millions into trying to develop something like that and gotten pretty much nowhere, so it might be a while yet...

[Ely]

<CONTROVERSIAL MODE>

Here's something to add to the mix. Single Gaming Platform. I'm not saying it's a good idea or not but the consequences would be monumental i'd have thought.

Just look at CDs & DVDs. It doesn't matter if you have some crappy, cheap thing made in Korea by one-legged Dwarfs or a stupidly expensive Bang&Olufson machine made of Carbon Fibre and Titanium they still play the Media, no messing about having to have multiple machines under the Telly, no being pissed off cos GTA19 isn't available for the GameCircle or DreamPillow consoles. Makes you think it's only way to gain critical mass.

It's a shuddering thought but stil.............

</CONTROVERSIAL MODE>

[koworld]

<CONTROVERSIAL MODE>

Here's something to add to the mix. Single Gaming Platform. I'm not saying it's a good idea or not but the consequences would be monumental i'd have thought.

Just look at CDs & DVDs. It doesn't matter if you have some crappy, cheap thing made in Korea by one-legged Dwarfs or a stupidly expensive Bang&Olufson machine made of Carbon Fibre and Titanium they still play the Media, no messing about having to have multiple machines under the Telly, no being pissed off cos GTA19 isn't available for the GameCircle or DreamPillow consoles. Makes you think it's only way to gain critical mass.

It's a shuddering thought but stil.............

</CONTROVERSIAL MODE>

This is good stuff for bunging in a WotR article.

[bloid]

<CONTROVERSIAL MODE>

Here's something to add to the mix. Single Gaming Platform. I'm not saying it's a good idea or not but the consequences would be monumental i'd have thought.

Just look at CDs & DVDs. It doesn't matter if you have some crappy, cheap thing made in Korea by one-legged Dwarfs or a stupidly expensive Bang&Olufson machine made of Carbon Fibre and Titanium they still play the Media, no messing about having to have multiple machines under the Telly, no being pissed off cos GTA19 isn't available for the GameCircle or DreamPillow consoles. Makes you think it's only way to gain critical mass.

It's a shuddering thought but stil.............

</CONTROVERSIAL MODE>

It is strange how all other things CD players, TVs, etc all have to work to the lowest common denominator. Sure you can have your "Picture in Picture", and your "Shuffle", but at the end of the day, they have to display or reproduce something based on a standard that's at least 25 years old...

Would that work for games? The whole thing with games and consoles seems to be the appreciation of the new on the new, not the appreciation of the new on the old...

How long would a "standard" hold the games playing public...

[Ely]

This is good stuff for bunging in a WotR article.

I was thinking that as I typed it

[Kemper_Boyd]

<CONTROVERSIAL MODE>

Here's something to add to the mix. Single Gaming Platform. I'm not saying it's a good idea or not but the consequences would be monumental i'd have thought.

Just look at CDs & DVDs. It doesn't matter if you have some crappy, cheap thing made in Korea by one-legged Dwarfs or a stupidly expensive Bang&Olufson machine made of Carbon Fibre and Titanium they still play the Media, no messing about having to have multiple machines under the Telly, no being pissed off cos GTA19 isn't available for the GameCircle or DreamPillow consoles. Makes you think it's only way to gain critical mass.

It's a shuddering thought but stil.............

</CONTROVERSIAL MODE>

I just can't see it, audio and video have rather fixed needs, games
though can use huge amounts of tech. It'll be a long long time before
standardisation occurs, you really need to keep the platform for
10+ years to make it worthwhile. CDs have passed the 20 year
mark with no serious uptake of DVD-Audio/SACD/Multi-channel.
DVD's been around a while now, and it'll be 3-4 more years before
HD formats start to get serious uptake. The other thing that differs
is the way money is made, manufacturers of CD/DVD kit make
money off the players not the content, games tend to subsidise
the kit, a bit like mobiles which also keep leap-frogging one another.

Finally there's the issue of whether the platform is good enough,
CD is, DVD more or less is and HD should nail it, games good
enough? Not yet. There's miles to go IMHO.

Standardisation occurs in mature industries, music and film/TV
have a huge head start on games/computing/mobile telecoms.
A WAG would be 20 years or so.

[Ahchay]

I want that "Ooh, never seen that before" moment.

The one I had when I first saw Space Invaders.

The one I had when I realised that Day of the Tentacle could *only* be a videogame.

The one I had when I realised that Doom had no plot - and it didn't matter.

The one I had when I realised that Half-Life had a plot - and it still didn't matter.

Nothing to do with current-gen/next-gen/realism/surrealism/whatever. It's all about what the developers choose to do with it.

Cheers
Chris

[romanista]

Nothing changes, except the facial hair in john madden 2006 will be more realistic

[Orava]

With all the puff and hyperbole around games hardware right now, I was wondering what thing would make you say 'oh blimey, it's tomorrow today!'

It would be realistic physical behaviour of the virtual world.

E.g. if a building is made of bricks, it collapses as a heap of bricks if enough bricks are removed from the base. Explosions, bullet hits, crashing into buildings damage them in a realistic way - buildings lean or collapse, the roof falls in. Things creek and bend and can be pushed over, smashed.

This would probably mean constructing the world from millions of small objects, brinks, planks, nails etc and writing tons of stuff on how gravity, mortar, nails etc hold everything together.

My ideal game would set in a town filled with structures like this with no rules (expect natural, physical ones of course) and no goals. You could exist in it in perfectly normal way, go and look at things, buy and sell things, do work, build things, but obviously if you started to misbehave then you would attract attention.

Bit like in Elite, ie. you can trade peacefully or go on a mad killing spree - it is up to you.

Hmm.. this rant is probably a bit off-topic now (more like what sort of game would you like).

[arron]

It would be realistic physical behaviour of the virtual world.

E.g. if a building is made of bricks, it collapses as a heap of bricks if enough bricks are removed from the base. Explosions, bullet hits, crashing into buildings damage them in a realistic way - buildings lean or collapse, the roof falls in. Things creek and bend and can be pushed over, smashed.

This would probably mean constructing the world from millions of small objects, brinks, planks, nails etc and writing tons of stuff on how gravity, mortar, nails etc hold everything together.

My ideal game would set in a town filled with structures like this with no rules (expect natural, physical ones of course) and no goals. You could exist in it in perfectly normal way, go and look at things, buy and sell things, do work, build things, but obviously if you started to misbehave then you would attract attention.

Bit like in Elite, ie. you can trade peacefully or go on a mad killing spree - it is up to you.

Hmm.. this rant is probably a bit off-topic now (more like what sort of game would you like).

This was exactly the approach I had for a game I wrote on the Atari ST which never got finished in the end because Frontier came out. Frontier turned out to be a better implementation of what I hoped to achieve

I'm revisiting this along with destructable scenery/"soft-bodies" in my portfolio using dynamic generation of realistic objects, so you can blow up buildings and bring them down to ground level in real time. As a concept it may take a bit too much processor time to do in a fully blown game, but give it a while and hopefully technology will give sufficient oompf to allow it to be incorporated as a game mechanism. It makes content generation trickier (as I've been finding out) but you'd probably leave most of the details to the level design tool and let the computer generate it to prescribed limits set by the user.

Well, I'm planning to change to professional games development and I thought that by showing off my maths and physics skills in the context of games programming..then it might impress someone enough for them to give me a job..and perhaps a little more money