CliffyB: Epic Must "Drag" the Industry Into the Next Generation

[shintakie10]

We'll see. For each console generation, as the tech became better the cost to make games rose and rose. Hopefully it won't happen again, but I'm still a bit skeptical.

If costs don't rise, hopefully then developers can put more money into hiring decent writers. Because story and writing is an area games seriously need improvement in.

Part of the issue is that huge portions of gamin costs ends up gettin thrown into advertisement. Best example ever of that? ToR had a massive budget and nearly half of said budget was marketin. That is wasteful spendin no matter how you look at it.

Publishers seem to never be able to find a sweet spot when it comes to advertisin. They overspend on products that, frankly, don't stand a chance in hell (Homefront) or underspend on products that actually could have been great if there was some actual marketin for the game.

Also, new hardware can, if used correctly, cut down on costs due to not havin to deal with all the really retarded workarounds that game devs have to contend with now in order to make a decent lookin game.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Will someone please punch this moron in the face for me? It's frustrating how stupid Cliffy B is. He lowers the IQ of everyone who's in the same time zone with him.

No we don't want it. What we want is better gameplay and better writing. And no more Hollywood bullshit and hand holding. No more $100 million advertisement campaigns. Money that could have gone into developing the actual game. We want video games not animated movies with button mashing between scenes you dumb fuck!

 

[josemlopes]

I'd just like to remind people that this is the same person who thought that Fatal Frame - a horror game - needed a multiplayer aspect.

We can handle the next generation just fine without him.

What, like co-op? Wasn't there twin sisters or something like that? It's not like he said it needed team deathmatch or something.

You do understand that merely adding a second person would kill the horror? A major aspect is the feeling of being all alone. It's why teaming you up with an AI partner in horror games is also almost universally stupid.

Actually horror with 2 players is possible
PS: If you watched the 7th video there is a very cool example of horror with 3 people (one of them being an enemy type of character, kind of a puppet master)



Having said that

Spoiler

Gotta love that video


OT: The thing that I am most worried with is the budget, from those leaked pics of UE4 they show a lot of detailed stuff, not just better textures and effects. While I do like the idea of having better visuals I would rather not pay more for them. I would prefer an engine that can render things like destruction and multiple AI's, stuff that relies on coding instead of having an ultra detailed barrel, an ultra detailed chair, an ultra detailed pencil, etc...

 

[Vigormortis]

I'd just like to remind people that this is the same person who thought that Fatal Frame - a horror game - needed a multiplayer aspect.

We can handle the next generation just fine without him.

Say what you like about him, but Epic has been ahead of the game on graphics more times than I can count.

It's usually a race between Epic Games and Crytek when it comes to engine tech.

Though, both companies tend to fail miserably when it comes to crafting engines that can render believable characters; let alone animate them in a way that doesn't make them look like burlap sacks stuffed with rice. [ looking at you Unreal Engine 3 ]

Well, fail at that AND at actually making decent games anymore. Frankly, they should both just go to pure tech development.

It's not MUST it's want to. And why do we need another generation so soon anyway?

Because if you don't change the hardware for something long enough, technology and ambitions go higher but are capped because of the hardware their using.

But HAVE they capped it? It doesn't seem like we're close enough to justify another jump.

They most assuredly HAVE "capped it". At this point, the current generation of consoles are stifling game development. And I don't just mean graphically.

The limitations of the current gen CPUs make it hard for developers to make any real leaps forward in AI, physics, animation, etc, etc.

As little interest as I have in consoles anymore even I can see that they need an upgrade.

 

[Lordmarkus]

Ah, lovely! So much joyous, mindless hate! Love it!

You do realise that this is the escapist forums right?

TBH I agree with him, an unreal engine 4 is almost overdue, as soon as MS gets on to announcing their next console I would hope that developers are making games with way more futuristic tech, because I do think that some of the games made in the U3 engine are beginning to look more than a little bit dated.

I mean Gears 3 is still gorgeous and all, but I would love to see what they can do with the sort of tech from that samaritan video (cannae find it at the moment, but I figure most of you will know which one I mean)

Oh and I gotta say, the hate that he is getting for this is kinda impressive, I usually expect it when there is an announcement of a new first person shooter that isn't made by valve, or if EA or Activision say anything, Im kinda surprised CliffyB has managed to reach the heady levels of hate you guys normally reserve for... well everyone else in the gaming world

I thought I should be used to it after 3 years but the Escapist community never cease to surprise me. The level of cynisim is astounding, even with the Escapist's standard. I like CliffyB's style. I hate his attitude and arrogance when it comes to PC gaming but overall, the man is a living legend. The amount of outrage he's stirring amoung the neckbeards is just an added bonus.

In the end, I'm all for Cliff's incentive to drag the industry into the next generation. We won't have new "real" nextgen console before 2013 and then this generation have been dragging on for 8 fucking years! Double than the gap between the original Xbox and the 360. Double!

While I can blame the flux of corridor shooters as much on close-minded masses as inept developers targeting those masses as the nowadays pathetic hardware in our consoles, it would be great to have new ambitious titles that isn't corridor-cutscene-corridor. More RAM and processing power for developers is a GOOD thing. Let's just hope they take advantage of it.

Captcha: Murphy's law. "Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"." Well that explains this thread perfectly!

 

[antigodoflife]

Am I the only person who doesn't want Cliffy B to be the one to advance gaming?

 

[Vigormortis]

big 'ole snippy snip

That vid isn't show-casing Unreal Engine 4, by the way. That's an upgrade to Unreal Engine 3. Just pointing that out. But anyway...

I'd actually love to see an engine designed by the animators and particle effects designers of Valve, the light-sourcing and texture design teams from Epic and id, the sound engineers from DICE, and the shader and modelling teams from Crytek.

Now THAT would be an incredible engine.

 

[LGC Pominator]

I thought I should be used to it after 3 years but the Escapist community never cease to surprise me. The level of cynisim is astounding, even with the Escapist's standard. I like CliffyB's style. I hate his attitude and arrogance when it comes to PC gaming but overall, the man is a living legend. The amount of outrage he's stirring amoung the neckbeards is just an added bonus.

I gotta be honest with you, as much as his attitude towards PC gaming and PC gamers can be grating, they don't help their cause by... well acting like PC gamers, in fact all things considered, it is a vicious cycle:
1: Developers makes game
2: Game makes more money on console due to larger user base
3: Developer shifts attention to console market to gain goodwill and attention from this user base
4: PC crowd feels jilted, stops buying games, say that everything is being "dumbed down for console-tards"
5: Developer thinks: well those guys are arseholes, lets not focus on them at all next time
6: PC has lost another developer almost entirely
7: Developer has lost nothing of value, already gained massive following on console due to frequently turning out games that are very good and very successful on those platforms.

So the real losers here are the few decent PC gamers out there, who enjoyed the developers games on PC, and still bought their games when they were released for PC, because lets face it the "PC GAMING IS GOD!" crowd don't care, they stopped caring after stage 5, at which point the damage had already been done.

So yeah, CliffyB is kind of an arse, and he certainly has an ego, but compared to the people giving him shit, he is legendary.

And I certainly agree with you, one would almost be hardened to the attitude of the community here, but it is almost always astounding to me how hateful they can be when their feelings are hurt by someone... or they disagree with someone's point... or someone that isn't in the "indie" crowd makes an announcement... or a news story doesn't fellate valve... or someone mentions enjoying a certain popular first person shooter series... or someone mentions that they aren't much of a fan of minecraft or half life... or a console announcement is made... or... or.... or... screw it it is 2 o clock in the morning, I am hyped up on coffee, I have an exam in the morning, I think Im gonna go for a run.

 

[BlackStar42]

"They need to damn near render Avatar in real time, because I want it and gamers want it-even if they don't know they want it."

Don't presume to tell me what I do and do not want, you arrogant prick. Just because you had a hit with the Gears trilogy doesn't mean you get to lecture me.

 

[Syzygy23]

No.

Go away Cliffy B.

All you are good for is writing homo-erotic ship-fic of your own characters on an old CRT computer monitor in an un-air conditioned 1970s mobile home in the middle of the Nevada Desert, where you rage at people with baseless aggression on the internet after people call you gay for posting your ship-fics.

 

[LGC Pominator]

And I certainly agree with you, one would almost be hardened to the attitude of the community here, but it is almost always astounding to me how hateful they can be when their feelings are hurt by someone... or they disagree with someone's point...

But it doesn't matter if we disagree with Cliffy B's point. He knows better than us. He said as much himself.

you make a good point, his ego is kind of annoying, but then again, is he wrong?
I mean I didn't realise that the one thing I have always wanted in life was an assault rifle that had a chainsaw on the end, but then the first Gears game came out and I was like "so THATS what I have wanted since the day I was born! THANKS CLIFF!"

 

[Harker067]

His actualy idea was "Another multiplayer idea from Bleszinski: "What if I had a Fatal Frame where anonymous people could join my game and be ghosts and try to scare the crap out of me, and then I rate how well they scared me?" Basically a fancy hide and go seek.

Source?

http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/170144/what_if_cliff_ran_the_world.php?page=2

Thanks Buretsu. I should have linked to the source in my original post. In my defense you can find the source in 10s by copy pasting a chunk of my quote into google. Google is your friend people .

Honestly, what he's saying isn't that bad. If it's handled well, it could make a game much more dynamic. Once you've been through Amnesia once, it gets progressively less scary because you know where the monsters are, where the scares are and what is going to happen. Having an experience that changes every time would be the shit and add tremendously to the game's replay value.

And if people actually read what he said, they'd stop giving themselves rectal exams with their heads and realize he's saying that you don't tack on the multiplayer as an afterthought, but rather make it a part of the production from the start. Thus you don't waste time on making two separate things on their own. Instead, you make a big thing and then section stuff from it so that multi can influence single and single can influence multi. This is all assuming it's positive, but it would be a good step toward innovating shit.

For the record I'm not necessarily opposed to his idea though I am skeptical of the outcome. I just thought I'd google the mans views for more context since people brought it up. I do agree that multiplayer really does need to be well thought out from the start if you are going to add it to the game.

Also Unreal was an awesome game one of my favorite FPSes I keep going back to. So you take that back Andy!!!

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

Cliffy can start by pricing games lower. Like Jim said. Because Jim said so.

 

[LGC Pominator]

And I certainly agree with you, one would almost be hardened to the attitude of the community here, but it is almost always astounding to me how hateful they can be when their feelings are hurt by someone... or they disagree with someone's point...

But it doesn't matter if we disagree with Cliffy B's point. He knows better than us. He said as much himself.

you make a good point, his ego is kind of annoying, but then again, is he wrong?
I mean I didn't realise that the one thing I have always wanted in life was an assault rifle that had a chainsaw on the end, but then the first Gears game came out and I was like "so THATS what I have wanted since the day I was born! THANKS CLIFF!"

So you didn't know you wanted a bigger penis?

Anyway, I don't agree with Cliffy B's view of the future as awesome looking games with a focus on multiplayer. I have nothing against moving towards the future and a new generation, but I don't think Epic should be at the forefront. Graphical advances are all well and good, but we're at a point where they can't get much better without being complete system hogs, and non-visual aspects of games should be the focus of advancement instead.

My cock aside, I agree with you that multiplayer should not always be the focus, I love the Gears 3 multiplayer, and the original Unreal Tournament was fantastic, but I think narrative is incredibly important, which is why I have actually racked up more hours in Gears 3 Co Op and single player than the multiplayer, because I just love the story.

With regard to who should be leading us into the next generation, Epic and Ubisoft are pretty close to the top of my list, I love pretty much all of their games, and if Unreal engine 4 sets the standard and they are making more games and more good games as a result of that, then I would be very happy, it would certainly be a preferable turn of events to the idea of EA or Activision leading the charge, because, as much as I am happy to call out this community for whining, I hate EA for their online pass bull* and Activision aren't exactly on my christmas card list either (primarily for them dumping brutal legend partway into development, causing the game that got released (yes I know by EA in the end) to be much less than it could have been).


Ubisoft make some of my favourite games, and I believe that all of them run UE3 so them or Epic themselves being the publishers at the head of the pack would be fine by me.

 

[Narcogen]

Every time someone says something stupid like "do we need a new generation SO SOON" in threads like these AFTER 8-9 YEARS I want to faceplant my head against a wall..

If you think 7 years is actually 8 or 9, I suppose you might be banging your head against a wall. You might want to stop, I don't think that's good for you.

The Xbox 360 launched in Fall 2005. That's six and a half years ago, 30% less than you claim. It was also only four years after the launch of the original Xbox, which came late that generation.

The PS2 came out in 2000. The PS3 came out in 2006, although the PS2 continued to sell strongly for quite awhile after that (unlike the original Xbox).

The last cycle was shorter than usual for Microsoft because they came last. They launched earlier than Sony this generation, and are more inclined to milk the generation as long as they can, as profits come in the end, not in the beginning.

We're barely overdue, if we are. And if we are "overdue" it is more likely an indication that at the console price point, we're approaching the limit of diminishing returns in terms of what can usefully be produced and sold for a $60 price point. Go ahead and push the next generation to start now and we'll likely see a move to a standard price point of $70 or higher.