The Dark Souls PC version controversy.

[BloatedGuppy]

I must admit even though I have an good PC and like playing Shogun 2, BF3 and The Witcher 2 at max (albeit at 1600x1050 resolution) and have played so called "horrible PC ports"

I haven't been doing this for very long though.

I only got this PC about July 2011. I haven't been playing long enough to determine alot of differences and more importantly just don't care as long as the gameplay is good. Again I respect your standards, I don't share them though.

I am not saying my way is correct I am just saying "Is it really so black and white, is it a shit port or the exact same game?" And if you have a Xbox 360 pad, a HDTV and a HDMI cable and the ability to hook them all together couldn't you make that experience the exact same? Forgive me if I am being ignorant although I am open to hearing you out.

You seem like a nice reasonable person to me and I hope to have a more fruitful discussion with you.

I don't have a 360 pad for my PC. I do have a 360, mind you, but I prefer to do the majority of my gaming on the PC, most particularly RPGs. So while I wouldn't have looked at Dark Souls sideways as an XBox title, I would've considered buying a (proper) PC port that at least gave cursory consideration to the reasons people use the PC as their primary gaming platform.

I'm no graphics horse, I happily retro game all the time. I *do* have an issue playing current generation games with ugly textures though. I'd rather play a game like To The Moon, with a particular art style, then play a game that looks shabby because of low quality textures or crummy resolution issues. It's amazing how BAD that can make something look. RPS went on about it at length when talking about the Darksiders 2 port.

Here's what happened. A group of people identified themselves to From Software and let them know there was a market for their game on the PC. From, or Namco or whoever the fuck holds their leash, decided the market was large enough to justify the cost of a port. This kind of thing happens in business all the time. When a business wants to expand into a new market they often try to put their best foot forward. They'll do loss leaders, they'll drop tons on marketing...anything they can do to establish a foothold and give themselves new opportunities for new revenue streams. Yet, when the same thing happens here in the gaming world, it seems to be expected that they'll just half-ass it and give us any old thing, and that we should be DELIGHTED to get it. As if they were doing us a favor by giving us a toy to play with, as opposed to it being us doing them a favor by buying their product, which is the entire reason businesses exist in the first place. It's such a strange narrative. The gamer is like a character in a Dickens novel, holding up a bowl in tremulous hands, begging for another scoop of porridge. And if they don't act humble or contrite and shower the developer/publisher with thanks for DEIGNING to offer us the fruits of their endeavors, we're meant to be entitled little kids.

Now apply that narrative to ANY other business, and think about how ludicrous it sounds.

 

[burningdragoon]

but hey
I also wouldn't want it because the Wii version looked shitty, but that's a different point

I dont want Dark Soul. Judging by PC standards. It looks shitty. Just like the standards you are now applying to the Wii > Xbox.

Except I didn't say the Wii version looked shitty by 360 standards, I said it looked shitty. If you'd like to know some Wii games that I wouldn't mind seeing ported to 360/PS3 even though they look shitty by PS3/360/PC standards, I can do that as well.

So you dont have any standards or you just have THE standards?

You didn't judge it by the standards of the 360, just universal standards of graphics? As defined by you? and your preference for Xbox360? I rest my case.

Or maybe I judge games on more than just graphics? If anything, I would judge a game based on it's original home. In Dark Souls' case, PS3. In Force Unleased's case, 360. Then I take those standards, and expect ports to lesser systems to be worse and ports to equal to or better systems to be at best equal (out of the box at least).

(and as a sidenote, I've been spending the past month-ish playing games from the N64/PS1 generation, so no, I don't have a preference to 360. I have a preference to things I like)

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Or maybe I judge games on more than just graphics?

Who says anyone is judging it on graphics alone? Is it fair to take graphics into account at all? Or is the visual presentation of a game completely irrelevant?

 

[thesilentman]

It was as simple as editing a line in the .ini folder with Windows Wordpad.

No it wasn't.

He had been planning this for weeks and had done a few tests prior to this. The fact that he did it without the source code in such short time is still amazing and shows how fucking lazy FS really were.

How difficult was it? Can someone give me the technical details? A link? Something?

OT-

All I've been hearing from PC gamers about Dark souls is constant whining, "Boo hoo, it's 30 fps, it's unplayable!"

Seriously, some people just need to grow up. It's not some god damned conspiracy to sabotage PC gaming, and it sounds crazy if you think it is. It's just 30 fps, console players deal with it all the time, we don't gush tears of blood when something doesn't come in 60 fps.

This pisses me off to no end, I'm an actual Dark Souls fan, and these people balling their eyes out after From Software took the time to actually MAKE a port for them, after thousands of petitions saying "We want the game! We'll play it! WE PROMISE!" has the potential to ruin From Software's reputation and finances for the rest of us.

I seriously hope that, if this continues, the PC wont see another port for a Souls game again, I think all the crying has proven they just plain don't deserve it.

Er, there is a problem. The PC gamer's idea of standard quality is not 30 FPS and 1024x720 resolution. It's 60 FPS and blah, blah, blah. I bailed on console!Dark Souls for PC so I could have a more personal experience with it. I personally agree with you that the elitists should stop whining[footnote]I see where they're coming from, but as far as I can tell, Dark Souls was renowned for its atmosphere and other things that were not technical at all.[/footnote], but I don't agree with saying FROM should never touch the PC again. Steam has proved that indie, non-graphically challenging games have a place in PC gaming.

Now, the Linux topic!

snip

Gabe also called the PS3 a distar, and now he's multiplatforming with it, we can't hold him accountable for those words.(we can but you know what I mean)

and:


1)where does it say that valve is working on making the entire game libary compatible?

2)I was being sarcastic about the whole frames thing.

And here's the biggest thing:

Windows currently owns 92.23% of the desktop PC market, and linux is only 1.05%, valve will not migrate to linux, they might make it multiplatform but it will never be their main platform and you can't know maybe windows will drop the 30% from sales, thing is we can't have the answers now, right now neither of us can be proven wrong/right because we are talking about the future.

And as he mentioned in one of the articles I posted (I am guessing you didn't even glance at either) was that the reason for this is that there's not enough support for games there. The gamers will follow the games. That's why people buy consoles, I think that can make people change to a free OS.

The reason he said the PS3 was a disaster was that it was very restrictive and wouldn't let them work with the degree of freedom they get on the PC platform, just compare the console version of Team Fortress 2 to the PC version if you don't believe me. However Sony and Valve worked things out and became a little less restrictive while the Xbox 360 became more restrictive. He has more recently said that MicroSoft need to lower their restrictions and make things more open.


Now you have made one point about money and that most people use Windows. However there aren't that many using Windows 8, and the number probably wont grow very quickly. They wont lose much by not working with Windows 8. If they also announce that all newer games from Valve will be functional with Linux then there are a lot who are willing to change because of that.

You have mentioned one reason why this is laughably unrealistic using money. I have mentioned money, politics and performance. I can see how you think it wont happen, but do you honestly think it's laughably unrealistic?

Considering that Gaben is kind of overreacting due to Metro Store, he chose Linux[footnote]Ubuntu, really. Why? I got nothing.[/footnote] as a fallback option in case Steam loses its 'monopoly'[footnote]Besides the laughable service called Origin and GoG.[/footnote].

 

[WindKnight]

The amateur isn't paid by me. They are. If a guy who isn't even paid can do a better job than them in 23 min. They didn't do a good enough job.

Fair enough and I concede that this is most likely true.
But I still think that as long as the game is playable and has a way to be played and enjoyed it is a good port by my standards.
I appreciate that you have a different idea on what you want.
But I really do believe that changing the game significantly is not needed because if you wanted to play the same game you would buy this game.
But you might want the super deluxe edition for PC just cause its PC and I don't agree with that.
Question would you buy this on Console? Since its obviously better there.
Or do you own it already?
Just curious is all.

This is very much my view. I used to game on pc, and was more focused on just having games run and be playable than wanting the graphics to THA BEST EVAR!!!!! (this led to my other thread being confused about the whole 60fps thing).

the fact that (a) this became more work than its worth (gave in and bought a few games on steam in a sale, and I can't play one of them online because my modem doesn't auto connect - seriously, the only reason the game will not let me online is because my modem has to manually connect each time I start up) and (b) I saw more games I wanted top play on console than on pc is what prompted my switch.

Besides, I'm more likely to gush about how Beyond Good and Evil, Limbo or Blazblue looks than Many big name titles.

 

[Darkmantle]

I've said it before, and I will say it again. I hope FS learns from this, and never releases in the PC again. No sense trying to appease some people, especially when you've gone out of your way to try and give them what they want, and they throw it back in your face.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I've said it before, and I will say it again. I hope FS learns from this, and never releases in the PC again. No sense trying to appease some people, especially when you've gone out of your way to try and give them what they want, and they throw it back in your face.

Those noble souls. Going out of their way to sell us copies of their game. Why, it's practically a charitable donation. They should see if they can get a tax break for that.

 

[GAunderrated]

I would have rather had the developers do it right or don't do it at all. I'm tired of being disappointed. It took half a decade for PC gamers to accept the sub par 60 FPS so now they are trying to push 30 FPS on us. Really when you look at the past 5 years how backwards we are going its getting kinda sad.

Another game I was eager to buy new now gets to be ignored. Won't get mad if FS doesn't want my money.

 

[GAunderrated]

I've said it before, and I will say it again. I hope FS learns from this, and never releases in the PC again. No sense trying to appease some people, especially when you've gone out of your way to try and give them what they want, and they throw it back in your face.

People threw it back in their faces because they didn't get what they wanted. They wanted Dark Souls to feel like a PC experience, not a sluggish port. It's akin to telling your kid you are going to take them out to eat somewhere special for their birhday, and when that birthday comes you take them to mcdonalds. Hey its still food but its very cheap and crap food.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It's akin to telling your kid you are going to take them out to eat somewhere special for their birhday, and when that birthday comes you take them to mcdonalds. Hey its still food but its very cheap and crap food.

Bad example man. Kids LOVE McDonalds.

It's like telling your WIFE you're going to eat somewhere special for her birthday...

 

[Ildanach]

Spoiler

I must admit even though I have an good PC and like playing Shogun 2, BF3 and The Witcher 2 at max (albeit at 1600x1050 resolution) and have played so called "horrible PC ports"

I haven't been doing this for very long though.

I only got this PC about July 2011. I haven't been playing long enough to determine alot of differences and more importantly just don't care as long as the gameplay is good. Again I respect your standards, I don't share them though.

I am not saying my way is correct I am just saying "Is it really so black and white, is it a shit port or the exact same game?" And if you have a Xbox 360 pad, a HDTV and a HDMI cable and the ability to hook them all together couldn't you make that experience the exact same? Forgive me if I am being ignorant although I am open to hearing you out.

You seem like a nice reasonable person to me and I hope to have a more fruitful discussion with you.

I don't have a 360 pad for my PC. I do have a 360, mind you, but I prefer to do the majority of my gaming on the PC, most particularly RPGs. So while I wouldn't have looked at Dark Souls sideways as an XBox title, I would've considered buying a (proper) PC port that at least gave cursory consideration to the reasons people use the PC as their primary gaming platform.

I'm no graphics horse, I happily retro game all the time. I *do* have an issue playing current generation games with ugly textures though. I'd rather play a game like To The Moon, with a particular art style, then play a game that looks shabby because of low quality textures or crummy resolution issues. It's amazing how BAD that can make something look. RPS went on about it at length when talking about the Darksiders 2 port.

Here's what happened. A group of people identified themselves to From Software and let them know there was a market for their game on the PC. From, or Namco or whoever the fuck holds their leash, decided the market was large enough to justify the cost of a port. This kind of thing happens in business all the time. When a business wants to expand into a new market they often try to put their best foot forward. They'll do loss leaders, they'll drop tons on marketing...anything they can do to establish a foothold and give themselves new opportunities for new revenue streams. Yet, when the same thing happens here in the gaming world, it seems to be expected that they'll just half-ass it and give us any old thing, and that we should be DELIGHTED to get it. As if they were doing us a favor by giving us a toy to play with, as opposed to it being us doing them a favor by buying their product, which is the entire reason businesses exist in the first place. It's such a strange narrative. The gamer is like a character in a Dickens novel, holding up a bowl in tremulous hands, begging for another scoop of porridge. And if they don't act humble or contrite and shower the developer/publisher with thanks for DEIGNING to buy the fruits of their endeavors, we're meant to be entitled little kids.

Now apply that narrative to ANY other business, and think about how ludicrous it sounds.

Quotes spoiler'd for space reasons.

The Darksiders 2 port to be honest only infuriates me because of the pixelated Death in the menu screen, now I can understand that!
And if thats all you see when you look at ports like Darksiders 2 and Dark Souls.
I repeat I do not blame you for not liking them. I applaud you for knowing what you like and sticking to it.

And yes expanding into a new market they should have bells and whistled it up a bit.
It would have appeased people and made them a lot of money maybe enough to cover that theoretical expensive port.
But all I am really arguing is they didn't even have you to begin with because the devs probably thought that all gamers wanted was the same game playable on a different machine to the one they didn't have. (Ps3/X360)
Again I am trying not to sound like I am insulting you but if you didn't really want it unless it was a good PC port with new features ie more graphics options whatever.
They seem to be ignoring your demographic because they probably aren't aware it exists.
Remember that their PC games run on notebooks are usually have some porn in it and have no graphics options.

I just want to propose an idea I have had for awhile on ports and how I saw this as a gamer who likes both systems and will at least be getting Dark Souls on Ps3 sometime when I have scrimped and saved for 10 weeks.

 

[GAunderrated]

It's akin to telling your kid you are going to take them out to eat somewhere special for their birhday, and when that birthday comes you take them to mcdonalds. Hey its still food but its very cheap and crap food.

Bad example man. Kids LOVE McDonalds.

It's like telling your WIFE you're going to eat somewhere special for her birthday...

Depends on the kids, I have nephews who were raised with real home cooked meals and tried MD when they were 5 and got sick from it and will never try it again. While I have also had friends who fed their kids MD since they were 2 and love it. Of course she never cooks for her kids so she always buy's out. In my example I was using kids I know that haven't been a victim of lazy parenting.

 

[Zipa]

All I've been hearing from PC gamers about Dark souls is constant whining, "Boo hoo, it's 30 fps, it's unplayable!"

Seriously, some people just need to grow up. It's not some god damned conspiracy to sabotage PC gaming, and it sounds crazy if you think it is. It's just 30 fps, console players deal with it all the time, we don't gush tears of blood when something doesn't come in 60 fps.

This pisses me off to no end, I'm an actual Dark Souls fan, and these people balling their eyes out after From Software took the time to actually MAKE a port for them, after thousands of petitions saying "We want the game! We'll play it! WE PROMISE!" has the potential to ruin From Software's reputation and finances for the rest of us.

I seriously hope that, if this continues, the PC wont see another port for a Souls game again, I think all the crying has proven they just plain don't deserve it.

I hate to be rude but maybe you should do some research into why PC games and 30 FPS are not a good thing before having a go at PC gamers.

TVs use something called interlaced video, this is effectively doubling your frame rate. (So 30fps console game is displayed in 60fps )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlaced_video

Modern PC monitors (the last 30 years or so ) use progressive scanning which does not double your frame rates and is completely different technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_scan

Plus if this guy really did get the game running at proper resolutions and FPS on PC that easily the developer is either really lazy , really stupid or thinks that the PC audience are not worth their time and effort.

 

[Darkmantle]

I've said it before, and I will say it again. I hope FS learns from this, and never releases in the PC again. No sense trying to appease some people, especially when you've gone out of your way to try and give them what they want, and they throw it back in your face.

Those noble souls. Going out of their way to sell us copies of their game. Why, it's practically a charitable donation. They should see if they can get a tax break for that.

PC gamers: "We want a PC port!!!"

FS: "guys, we don't know how to make a PC port"

PC gamers: "But we really want it!"

FS: "Okay... But it might not be the greatest..."

sometime later

PC gamers: "WHAT 30 FPS! WHAT IS THIS BETRAYAL! FUCK YOU FS! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE! YOU HATE US!"


Basically the situation right there. They gave you the port you asked for, to the best of their ability, and you turn around and throw it in their faces. What did you expect from a developer who TOLD you that they were not good at PC ports. If I was in their shoes, my response would be "I tried my best, you don't like it? Fuck you".

 

[Darkmantle]

I've said it before, and I will say it again. I hope FS learns from this, and never releases in the PC again. No sense trying to appease some people, especially when you've gone out of your way to try and give them what they want, and they throw it back in your face.

People threw it back in their faces because they didn't get what they wanted. They wanted Dark Souls to feel like a PC experience, not a sluggish port. It's akin to telling your kid you are going to take them out to eat somewhere special for their birhday, and when that birthday comes you take them to mcdonalds. Hey its still food but its very cheap and crap food.

No it isn't akin to that. The developers told you what to expect, they were very upfront about their inexperience.

If you want to use your ridiculous example, it's more akin to a very poor father taking his kid to McDonald's, because it's all he can do, and the kid bitching he didn't get to go to a 5 star restaurant.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Basically the situation right there. They gave you the port you asked for, to the best of their ability, and you turn around and throw it in their faces. What did you expect from a developer who TOLD you that they were not good at PC ports. If I was in their shoes, my response would be "I tried my best, you don't like it? Fuck you".

You'd be an AMAZING businessman. I want to hire you and make you my head of public relations.

That's a really good summary of the response of PC Gamers, too. I also like to put imaginary, spazzy words in the mouths of my opponents. It makes it easier for me to hand wave them as ridiculous cartoons.

No it isn't akin to that. The developers told you what to expect, they were very upfront about their inexperience.

I don't understand this logic. So what? So what if they warned people? If the end product is bad, why is it NOT ALRIGHT to say "that's bad", and not buy it? Without this "wakka wakka entitled crybabies" narrative kicking in? Do we just have to buy it then, whether or not we like the look of it? "Oh gosh, that...didn't turn out well, did it? It looks really bad. Well, you DID warn me! Here's my money!".

What a curious interpretation of the customer/business dynamic.

 

[Ildanach]

The amateur isn't paid by me. They are. If a guy who isn't even paid can do a better job than them in 23 min. They didn't do a good enough job.

Fair enough and I concede that this is most likely true.
But I still think that as long as the game is playable and has a way to be played and enjoyed it is a good port by my standards.
I appreciate that you have a different idea on what you want.
But I really do believe that changing the game significantly is not needed because if you wanted to play the same game you would buy this game.
But you might want the super deluxe edition for PC just cause its PC and I don't agree with that.
Question would you buy this on Console? Since its obviously better there.
Or do you own it already?
Just curious is all.

I dont want the super Delux PC Edition. I want the PC Edition.

The one that is judge by the standards of other games on my system. And it fails it. It doesn't matter that it was originally for an xbox/Ps3. I am not buying it for an Xbox. I am buying it for a PC. And they will have to compete on that lvl.

The thing is I asked would you buy it for console if you didn't like the game in the first place why buy the port or is it a case of I only play on PC?
I am just confused as to why people might consider buying the game on PC just because its on PC.
I migrate to whatever platform is needed if I like the game enough.
And I take the game for the games merits not the platforms merits.
I understand that other people are different, and this is all preferenced based.
I am just proposing the preference that ports should be the same game across the board. Exclusives are exclusives because they make the system work for its owner and should be treated as such.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

I've said it before, and I will say it again. I hope FS learns from this, and never releases in the PC again. No sense trying to appease some people, especially when you've gone out of your way to try and give them what they want, and they throw it back in your face.

Perhaps yes,they should never bother with PC again if they are about to keep doing the same mistakes over and over with every game they release on the platform,and carry one game's problems (Ninja Blade) to the next one (Dark Souls).

No sense for costumers buying things that doesn't work as they are supposed,especially after they informed the developer in the past about what these mistakes were and why they were mistakes,and the developer years later still is so stubborn to keep porting games the same way and replicating the exact same technical issues again and again,even if last time they did their game averaged 6 out of 10 in press's reviews.

Do yourself a favour and search on Google "Ninja Blade PC port".

The exact same issues Ninja Blade had in 2009 that made the game to score 6/10 average are replicated on Dark Souls,like nobody told them in the past that these issues broke their game.
And it's even more ironic that back in 2009 a "modder" fixed Ninja Blade's resolution problem by just changing a line on the .ini file of the game with wordpad.
History repeats itself like From Software didn't learnt anything from Ninja Blade,pretending it never existed.

 

[Comic Sans]

It needs Games For Windows Live. That not the graphics is the real controversy. The game could be the most spectacular looking PC game to have been released in the last 10 years with a control scheme perfectly made for the keyboard and mouse yet still be a shit buggy game because of GFWL.
This game needs to flop and From Software should be ashamed for giving us such a have assed port. If they were not gonna do a port right they should have ignored the requests for one. And a big part of getting it right is not using GFWL. Ever. The only thing it is better than is Orgin.

At least Origin works properly. The first time I tried using Games for Windows Live, I needed help from tech support just to get it working, since default Windows programs on my laptop were stopping it from even launching. I'll still get GFWL games from time to time, but I'm VERY careful about dealing with it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I am just proposing the preference that ports should be the same game across the board.

Yeah, right... and what happens when the game is one of the now-rare PC to console ports?