Porting From PC to Console Is Doing Things Backwards, Says Rage Dev

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

Just don't blame pirates when no PC player buys a console port

I can tell you right now I won't be purchasing it, yet have plans to play it.

id wants to play the backstabber game, well they can live by that path. Battlefield 3 is proof enough of just how much shit they are full of.

on the EA forums, i though DICE said they were developing BF3 with PCs on mind.
eh, atleast carmack is being honest. i'm not bothering getting the game anyway, not an iD fan.

 

[bombadilillo]

Just don't blame pirates when no PC player buys a console port

I can tell you right now I won't be purchasing it, yet have plans to play it.

id wants to play the backstabber game, well they can live by that path. Battlefield 3 is proof enough of just how much shit they are full of.

Me TOO! Gamefly baby.

In all seriousness I think its deliciously ironic that PC gamers get ports because the market is smaller, in effect less sales. How to pc gamers respond? By pirating the game because in "protest" which srinker the pc market leading to more ports.

Its hilarious to watch the downward spiral. Crysis: the bastion of PC glory and dominance. Crysis 2: console love on a bun.

 

[MadX]

Just don't blame pirates when no PC player buys a console port

I can tell you right now I won't be purchasing it, yet have plans to play it.

id wants to play the backstabber game, well they can live by that path. Battlefield 3 is proof enough of just how much shit they are full of.

on the EA forums, i though DICE said they were developing BF3 with PCs on mind.
eh, atleast carmack is being honest. i'm not bothering getting the game anyway, not an iD fan.

I think the point he was trying to make is that it's perfectly possible to make a game port to consoles from pc rather than the other way around.

 

[bombadilillo]

I thought he said the opposite?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/08/e3-2011-carmack-pcs-an-order-of-magnitude-more-powerful-than-consoles/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/08/e3-2011-why-rage-will-run-better-on-pc/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/08/e3-2011-our-john-carmack-interview-covers-rage-the-pc-and-gamma-corrected-anti-aliasing/

"?Now that we?re looking on PCs that have ten times the horsepower of the consoles I?m making a large change in my direction? he says. ?we should be focusing on building things efficiently on the PC and deploying on the consoles.?"

If you watch the whole interview he is very clear that PC's are 10x more powerful and its shocking how mediocre the difference is given that difference in hardware. Of course it will look better on PC, everything does. The difference is NOT EVEN CLOSE to what you would expect from 10x superior hardware.

It was a good interview he talked a lot aboiut development cycles and how shooting for top teir graphics can hamper your development.

 

[Jordi]

I don't have any problem with focusing on consoles as the primary platform. But unfortunately what this usually means is not "we will focus only one third of the energy on PCs", but "fuck PCs, you guys are getting a crappy port".

If you want to reduce the input, graphics and options - I guess it makes sense to work on the easy version first.

Actually, if you have any intention of doing both versions right, I think it is a lot better to develop primarily for PC (but with a controller). Basically the PC needs extra features/complexity and it is far easier to make a console version from a PC game than the other way around, because you can just fix most of the settings at whatever will work for that console.

The control scheme is a little different of course, so I understand they want to get that right on consoles first. However, I don't think there is any reason why they can't also keep the PC (and keyboard + mouse) into account when developing the game.

 

[Stickey Jackson]

I understand and respect that consoles heavily outweigh myself and other PC gamers when it comes to buying power, but (and this might be a little selfish), I can think of a good reason why porting from console to PC is a bad idea: It won't take advantage of what the PC has to offer.

I agree. I feel that from a graphics standpoint it would be advantageous to start by developing for the most powerful piece of hardware first, then tone down the effects for the less powerful pieces of hardware. In this case everybody wins as they're respective hardware is getting pushed to its limit. What we have now is the xbox being used as the lowest common denominator, and with all due respect after seeing dx11 textures and tessellations, the textures of a lazy console port just look ugly.

 

[Antari]

Thats really nice for them. I'm happy in not being their customer ever again.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

If you want to reduce the input, graphics and options - I guess it makes sense to work on the easy version first.

Then you can just do a half-hearted job on your port, still get some sales and keep your profits.

Funny, didn't Quake 4 bomb almost as badly as Dai-Katana?

You're a **** and I can't stand you.
Every one of your posts makes me want to hit you.
If I knew you in real life I would have hit you by now. You need somebody to hit you, really badly.

Your hatred tastes like the purest nectar.
And you're the one who keeps reading my posts.

 

[Maleek]

Goodbye ID...I enjoyed your quake & doom franchises but here is where our paths end after 20 years.

 

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

I find it ironic, because they are developing the game on a PC!

 

[Woodsey]

If you want to reduce the input, graphics and options - I guess it makes sense to work on the easy version first.

Then you can just do a half-hearted job on your port, still get some sales and keep your profits.

Funny, didn't Quake 4 bomb almost as badly as Dai-Katana?

You're a **** and I can't stand you.
Every one of your posts makes me want to hit you.
If I knew you in real life I would have hit you by now. You need somebody to hit you, really badly.

... wait, what? Also: bye bye.

Just don't blame pirates when no PC player buys a console port

I can tell you right now I won't be purchasing it, yet have plans to play it.

id wants to play the backstabber game, well they can live by that path. Battlefield 3 is proof enough of just how much shit they are full of.

on the EA forums, i though DICE said they were developing BF3 with PCs on mind.
eh, atleast carmack is being honest. i'm not bothering getting the game anyway, not an iD fan.

Its not Carmack saying it - in fact he said virtually the opposite in an interview recently.

It doesn't personally make much sense to me. I mean, yes, its a bigger market share, but surely its better to make something that is astounding and simply hold the console versions at lower settings, instead of trying to bolster things here and there at the end?

 

[SergejH]

I understand and respect that consoles heavily outweigh myself and other PC gamers when it comes to buying power, but (and this might be a little selfish), I can think of a good reason why porting from console to PC is a bad idea: It won't take advantage of what the PC has to offer.

While there have been a couple exceptions (Chronicles of Riddick being a good example), most of the console -> PC ports I've seen have a noticably different feel than a straight PC-developed title. For example, Mass Effect 2 has the spacebar do about five different functions, rather than allowing us to map all those functions to separate keys. Nothing gamebreaking, but frustrating nonetheless. What -is- aggravating is how low resolution the textures can be in the game, especially on characters. It looks fine on an HDTV, but it looks cringe-worthy on a PC.

If you develop a game for the console with plans to port it to PC later, what business incentive is there to optimize the port with better visuals and customizable controls to take advantage of modern PC's? I can't think of any, as most of your sales will be on console anyway. And that's my problem. If you're going to do multiplatform development, tailor the game to each platform and utilize each platform's strengths.

As far as i know, low resolution textures won`t be a problem in this case, thanks to their new engine (i think its TECH 5 or something), which can draw textures with HUGE resolution (is 128 000 x 128 000 pixels enough?) almost with no impact on memory requirements, which is problem in most console games. Also, this engine most probably like previous versions will be open-source and fully customizable even for regular guy like me And i doubt, that they release exact same versions on consoles and PC.

 

[Popido]

Ofc its easier.

Its pretty fucking annoying to start cutting your work to pieces once you have perfected it.

 

[Woodsey]

I understand and respect that consoles heavily outweigh myself and other PC gamers when it comes to buying power, but (and this might be a little selfish), I can think of a good reason why porting from console to PC is a bad idea: It won't take advantage of what the PC has to offer.

While there have been a couple exceptions (Chronicles of Riddick being a good example), most of the console -> PC ports I've seen have a noticably different feel than a straight PC-developed title. For example, Mass Effect 2 has the spacebar do about five different functions, rather than allowing us to map all those functions to separate keys. Nothing gamebreaking, but frustrating nonetheless. What -is- aggravating is how low resolution the textures can be in the game, especially on characters. It looks fine on an HDTV, but it looks cringe-worthy on a PC.

If you develop a game for the console with plans to port it to PC later, what business incentive is there to optimize the port with better visuals and customizable controls to take advantage of modern PC's? I can't think of any, as most of your sales will be on console anyway. And that's my problem. If you're going to do multiplatform development, tailor the game to each platform and utilize each platform's strengths.

As far as i know, low resolution textures won`t be a problem in this case, thanks to their new engine (i think its TECH 5 or something), which can draw textures with HUGE resolution (is 128 000 x 128 000 pixels enough?) almost with no impact on memory requirements, which is problem in most console games. Also, this engine most probably like previous versions will be open-source and fully customizable even for regular guy like me And i doubt, that they release exact same versions on consoles and PC.

Carmack said there's still not enough memory as he'd like, although I think they're pushing the texture resolutions to as high as they can. A decent PC from today though should be able to put out around 3 times as many pixels I believe he said.

There's a nice 20-minute interview on PCG, its really interesting. No idea what he's talking about sometimes, but he's great to listen to.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I don't have any problem with focusing on consoles as the primary platform. But unfortunately what this usually means is not "we will focus only one third of the energy on PCs", but "fuck PCs, you guys are getting a crappy port".

If you want to reduce the input, graphics and options - I guess it makes sense to work on the easy version first.

Actually, if you have any intention of doing both versions right, I think it is a lot better to develop primarily for PC (but with a controller). Basically the PC needs extra features/complexity and it is far easier to make a console version from a PC game than the other way around, because you can just fix most of the settings at whatever will work for that console.

I think a more sensible idea would be to develop a OS-free version first and then have separate teams to stretch the game to each machine's strengths. If you're doing a run and gun game, then you've already got most of the main keys detailed from the history of those games. (Right Trigger / Left Mouse for fire etc.)

Having played with both sets of controllers recently: it's more to do with making the controls comfortable, whatever the handset, and then adding in the option to change.

Seriously, missing out V-Sync in options is just plain laziness.

 

[Cipher1]

Well I guess if you plan on most of your sales being in the console market it makes sense to perfect it there first before moving on to others.

 

[synobal]

I imagine it's easier to some degree because you can leave the controller, stuff in the PC version, but you have to add the keyboard for it. I just hope they don't screw up and leave us the low resolution console graphics to play with. Let's face it with a PC port you're adding stuff, and a console port you're removing stuff. It's typically easier to add stuff than remove large chunks of a game.

 

[koroem]

I thought he said the opposite?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/08/e3-2011-carmack-pcs-an-order-of-magnitude-more-powerful-than-consoles/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/08/e3-2011-why-rage-will-run-better-on-pc/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/08/e3-2011-our-john-carmack-interview-covers-rage-the-pc-and-gamma-corrected-anti-aliasing/

"?Now that we?re looking on PCs that have ten times the horsepower of the consoles I?m making a large change in my direction? he says. ?we should be focusing on building things efficiently on the PC and deploying on the consoles.?"

Exactly? John Carmack > Todd Hollenshead

 

[dyre]

snip

You can't have played the game and say this. Pick any part of the game and the chances are it feels completely like it's been developed for a console. The inventory is list-based, the targeting is directional, there's hardly any meaningful customisation to speak of, it uses this shitty radial menu thingy, the combat is almost entirely a button mash...

And in case you haven't noticed, almost everyone who played the game on an Xbox controller said that it works better than the keyboard&mouse setup. Funny how that works, it's as if it was made for a controller...

Hmm, the problem might be that I've never played a console RPG. I thought the crappy inventory and radial menu were just bad design choices, not console catering

Though, a lot of PC fantasy/medieval RPGs have button mashing combat.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Damn this thread is vile...

id are a great developer and it's true that multiplatform shooters sell the most on 360, then PS3 and PC respectively, let them play to their strengths.

The amount of hate I see toward 'immature, dumb, console gamers' makes me wonder who are really the immature ones...

Spoiler

It's the elitists