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The Save Anywhere of the Future?
June 6th 2005, 17:19 CEST by Hugin The videogame industry has come a long way since the original Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, and Quake. But it is still clearly learning how to explore and exploit the gameplay implications of 3 dimensional space. What I'm wondering is, is the next fundamental axis of gameplay going to be time? Max Payne (nee The Matrix) gave us bullet time. Prince of Persia allowed for the limited rewinding of events. The upcoming Sega combat racer Full Auto allows for a somewhat more expansive rewinding of time as well. And the gameplay of Timeshift seems to revolve entirely around the manipulation of time, speeding up, slowing down, reversing, and freezing. But instead of it being the twist or feature or gimmick of specific games, could this ability to control time in games slowly become a fairly standard feature, allowing players the ability to control and edit their play experiences as routinely as cheat codes and creative use of saves do now? Will developers ever feel comfortable giving players that much agency, given the impact time control could have on linearity, event scripting, environment destruction, player death, the sheer idea of cause and effect itself? Will players come to expect to be able to control their position in a game's temporal space as much as they expect to be able to control their position in the game's physical space? Will a game that unspools in unmodifiable linear time be as unthinkable (or as idiosyncratically ultra-hardcore oriented) as a current game with no ability to save? |
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I bet gman really sucks in bed. |
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We talked about some similar thing sin IRC. For my personal purposes, it's okay if it's relatively linear/scripted/story oriented, rather than all done out as technology/gameplay. However, I'd like to see what could be done on the technical/gameplay side to break down linearity and play with cause and effect. As far as paradox, again, I assume a sort of Groundhog Day-ish rubber reset. Shoot yoursef, fail the mission, bounce back to...dawn/the imagine chamber/whatever. |
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In terms of the overall question, you do it because it's potentially interesting. Since I'm not adeveloper or a programmer or anything of the sort, the effort involved is mostly irrelvant to me, so long as it isn't actually impossible. i.e, Moon Ponies bad, mere expense and tedium, fine. |
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#110 forgone I bet gman really sucks in bed. Why? Because I said this? Why go through all the trouble when you can just fake it and have the same end result? |
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World of Warcraft officially launched in China. The commercial launch of World of Warcraft follows a highly successful open beta period in China during which the game reached a peak concurrency - the total number of subscribers playing simultaneously - of more than 500,000 players. |
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And actually, I'd totally think about some mechanism where you could send your self or save yourself resources. Tools, information, ammo. I'd definitely put some elements like that into the game. |
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Day of the Tentacle did that pretty well. Well it beats going to the video store to rent the latest hardcore releases twice a week. - G-Man
222 lbs. 42 to go. |
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How can the player die but be alive later? Infinite probabilities, the player is straddling multiple universes, so in one reality he died, in another he lived, in another he not only lived but figured out something else. Now theres a thought, you script/proceduralise the event, much in the same way you splice together film footage, at the start you have a sequence of the player having to gain entry to the lobby, if you complete that by stealth, you get access to 'timeline' where probabilitys are opened up to you. So you sneak part 1, so the line shows part 2 with choices, run n gun, sneaky, mix it up, call in reinforcements, then you play through part 2 and so on and so forth. Multiple branches. but you make the maps cross/loop back, so that you hack a system later on, you can go back and replay an earlier section, so that it opens up a new possibility / door opened that was shut / guard not at his post. think of it like frames in a comic strip and then branch them out in trees... |
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I think the Timesplitters idea could be done in a fun way, but just controlling multiple people at the same time in different windows or whatever would be less fun than normal squad-based games. However, anything where time travel is involved would have to be totally linear, otherwise there would be logical flaws. You as a real person are playing the game in linear time, so when you play through the game the first time the things your future self does have to be defined by the developer. Maybe you don't see your actual self, and the snipers just fall over dead seemingly for no reason, or maybe what you see the first time is prescripted and the second time you're seeing a recording of your actual actions. Either way, you can't give the player any freedom or there will be logical paradoxes. After all, if you've gotten through the hallway somehow, why would you bother to go "back" and help your past self through the hallway? "I spent a year in Vancouver; now I have to kill a hooker and feed her to the pigs just to get going in the mornings." - Leslie Nassar
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You know, G-Man, a lot of what you talked about is immediately null and void just by implementing a few design limitations. Allow me to spec out a few ways that Hugin's idea could work, without the system being scripted, linear, or canned. First, you set your backstory/reason/whatever. For this example, we'll say that the player is a human who has adapted alien technology which allows him to exist in multiple timelines at the same time, and to arbitrarily split himself and do multiple things at the same time. Now you set a limit: depending on the amount of alien artifacts he's acquired, he can only exist two or three or four times simultaneously. Now you set a catch: only one path can be chosen as a base path. This can be chosen dynamically, but switching your base timeline will immediately dissipate your parallel timelines. Now you set an interaction rule: The base timeline cannot interfere with parallel timelines, else the parallel timeline is immediately cancelled. Let's see this system in action. Player is walking down a corridor, and is shot at by a sniper. This would kill the player, but, at that point the player can rewind and split in to parallel paths. Should he choose to leave his original state where he gets shot as a base path, he can then scout around (while his original self walks towards the sniper point), and perhaps find a way to take care of the sniper. When he's done, he cancels his current parallel timeline, and immediately regains control at the point where he would've been shot. The player can then watch his double take off and deal with the sniper, and walk down the hall without fear of dying. Now, had the player not gotten to the sniper in time, then the path he is currently on would become the base path. Alternately, should the player choose to have the point where he walked and got shot be an alternate path, he immediately takes control at the point of his choosing, and watches the parallel path guy walk to where he's going to be shot. Then the player can follow his alternate path, watching for the position of the sniper, and while the sniper prepares to fire at the parallel path, he can take out the sniper. Since the sniper was important to the parallel path, killing the sniper immediately dissipates the parallel path. Player can then continue as normal. What's interesting about this system is that potentially, if you die for any reason, but have a parallel path in progress, the game can jump you back to that path, and make it the base. So in this situation, we've offer two potential solutions. One where you essentially protect yourself (or use yourself as bait, depending on how you look at it), or one where you just deal with the sniper, which is almost as if you played linearly, except you don't have to deal with all the extra walking. The key to remember here is that the base path is always in control, and any parallel path (which is, in technical essence, a simple recording) is immediately cancelled, should you, as a base path, modify anything that would hinder or interrupt your parallel path, you will cause that parallel path to cease being. Videogames! Why waste good technology on science and medicine?
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Oh, and for the record, I have a feeling that what I described is probably similar to Blinx. Except, Blinx was just a bad game at the outset, before you even factored time manipulation in to the picture. Videogames! Why waste good technology on science and medicine?
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I'll be playing Blinx 2 tonight, so I'll let you know. Your description just sounds like H&D with infinite squadmates but with more way more technical tomfoolery than necessary to get to that result. |
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Call those 'other versions' of the player, "time echoes", since theyre the representation of possible events. |
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Time Echoes (TM) Like a tea-party of perverts, cosily insane.
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To the Patent Office, Robin! |
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Your description just sounds like H&D with infinite squadmates but with more way more technical tomfoolery than necessary to get to that result. So Half Life 2 is just Doom with more story, and way more technical tomfoolery. Honestly, you can't just distill everything down and say "it's just like" blah blah. If everyone in the game industry thought like you always do, there'd be fuck all for selection, and no game would ever deviate from the base inspiration. You buy a lot of clones, don't you? Videogames! Why waste good technology on science and medicine?
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I am willing to fund this venture if only to watch everyone's head explode over at GameFAQs. Well it beats going to the video store to rent the latest hardcore releases twice a week. - G-Man
222 lbs. 42 to go. |
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(laugh) Goddamn rights! I need to win the lottery. Videogames! Why waste good technology on science and medicine?
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Oh and we have to get Jean Claude Van Damme for voice / mocap work :P |
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you could just get some downsy french kid to do the voice acting. You've already tried the iPod, that smoothly transitions into trying the Mac Mini, and before you know it you're married to a man. Apple's master plan to make everything stylish wins. -- ChunkStyle
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leslie remember the good old days when u was a illegal australien lol "The people against Bush are REALLY against Bush." - G-Man on Creole Ned
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New UrkAC! Like a tea-party of perverts, cosily insane.
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While on the topic of webcomics, I'm letting everyone know that the latest PA gets 10 points for inverting the polarity and minus infinity points for inverting 'IP cache'. That is all. Isn't the world full of unemployed actors willing to do voice work in exchange for food or, you know, Heroin? "Do it with feeling this time, Cody, and I'll make the spiders in your brain go away!"
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Reversing, dammit! Isn't the world full of unemployed actors willing to do voice work in exchange for food or, you know, Heroin? "Do it with feeling this time, Cody, and I'll make the spiders in your brain go away!"
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Okay, so I've played a few hours of Blinx 2. First of all the aesthetic is weird. Think Starfox but with cats and pigs instead of foxes and frogs. Basically, furry anime space cadets or whatever. The levels are very Mario 64/Conker-esque - no logical setup, just crates and platforms and shit like that strewn around in an obstacle course formation. The basic gameplay is you run around and double jump your way along a linear path guided by lit up arrows. Littering the levels are all sorts of objects like barrels, crates and bombs that you suck up in your vacuum by holding down the right trigger. You use these objects as projectiles for your only weapon which is the same vacuum. Use left trigger to lock onto enemies and then right trigger to fire. There are also coins and medals and time travel ammo and doodads et cetera to collect as per genre law. The time travel aspect is hardly time travel at all. Instead you have a few time related tools that you use to solve really simple "puzzles." You hit the D-pad to select the time effect you want to use (but really only one is ever appropriate for any given circumstance and you'll know which one it is because the nearby enemies will only drop that type of time ammo) and you need time ammo or whatever to use that effect. There is pause which freezes all the nearby enemies and lets you uncover water from platforms by running around on them within the time limit (basically activating a switch). Then there is rewind, which is only used whenever you encounter a broken switch or bridge etc. (it rewinds time to before it was broken so you can activate it or cross it). There are also slow and fast forward functions which do what you would expect. And there is a bullet-time sort of thing that is triggered by the game for you and lets you either choose to slow time down so you can dodge stuff by pressing the analog stick in the direction of the displayed arrow (ala Shenmue) or pausing so you can avoid the obstacle entirely (during pause you can run around but everything else stops). Finally, if you die and have enough "retry" hearts you can do a PoP: Sand of Time thing where you rewind back to before you died. After using each time effect you have to wait 5 seconds while a counter counts down before you can use another one. The most relevant time effect to this discussion though is the record function which lets you record your actions for 10 seconds. So whatever you do for the next 10 seconds will be replayed in a ghost form which repeats exactly what you did. Basically, you use this to activate sets of switches which need to be pulled in tandem etc. (i.e. a substitute for co-op mode - which btw exists for Blinx 2 and is the only redeeming feature of that game imo). You can't interact with your ghost in any way and while you are recording you are invincible. There are also some space effects (i.e. warp tunnels, black holes etc.) in Blinx 2, because after all, the subtitle for the sequel is "masters of time and space" but you have to unlock all your powers and I couldn't bear to play long enough to get to the part where I get to play as the Tom Toms (the enemy pig-looking dudes who are the masters of space). The game itself isn't really bad, and it is pretty huge in scope. Eventually, you get to lead whole teams of AI controlled characters into battle with other teams etc. And there are multiplayer deathmatch modes etc. It is much better than the first Blinx which had a level time limit and worse controls and where you had to constantly be keeping track of what order you picked up time ammo in or else you'd be screwed etc. |
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'sup DKI(ID? |
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The game is basically two games in one because you play as the two different sides/races and they each have different powers and goals (the Tom Tom gang steals stuff and uses devices and space controls). The game also has item shops and crazy character customization ala City of Heroes (although it seems like complete overkill since the way your characters look hardly matters). |
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Then I went and had unprotected sex with 3 different women. Like a tea-party of perverts, cosily insane.
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Fucking cowboy. 404 - Funny not found
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Also, the music is horrible madness. It is like a non-stop furry rave in my head. |
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It is like a non-stop furry rave in my head. And that's a BAD thing? I didn't ask for a shrink, that must've been somebody else. Also, that pudding isn't mine. Also, I'm wearing this suit today because I had a very important meeting this morning. And I don't have a crying problem.
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Charles got what I was thinking exactly. I suppose I still need to work on those communication skills. |
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*I take back all my negative homo talk. I want to have G-Man's assbabies! Zep-- Not really, faggots! Inverted Mouse 4 Life, YO!
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*/\ Inverted Mouse 4 Life, YO!
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hey pc geeks; i have a box with 2 sata drives, 2 ide hard drives, and 1 dvd burner. the machine is now no longer detecting anything plugged into ide1 or ide2, but the sata drives still appear on ide0. why is it fucked? You've already tried the iPod, that smoothly transitions into trying the Mac Mini, and before you know it you're married to a man. Apple's master plan to make everything stylish wins. -- ChunkStyle
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I assume you took out the SATA entirely and tried to boot with either ide chain? |
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yes, and it still could not find the ide drives. i even edited the autoexec dot bat and config dot sys and recompiled my general protection fault. You've already tried the iPod, that smoothly transitions into trying the Mac Mini, and before you know it you're married to a man. Apple's master plan to make everything stylish wins. -- ChunkStyle
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Last time I had a problem like this I had to do a BIOS update on the motherboard. It was a Gigabyte that had RAID on both the IDE and SATA channels, and would only recognize the drives if I set them up as a RAID when I installed Windows... didn't see them as individual drives. After the BIOS update all was well. I also reinstalled DirectX, don't forget to try that either. Gawd wuz a dream of good gubmint.
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If you cannot boot with only a IDE in a chain(hopefully you have a bootable os on one of those), something funky with bios/ide ports/possibly master/slave settings or oddly enough , the cable. From that point I would have to drag my boyfriend online, as that is my limit at TSing hardware issues. That damn man can tell you why the computer beeps in different tones on a faliure boot. He drives me nuts! |
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#146 Leslie Nassar yes, and it still could not find the ide drives. i even edited the autoexec dot bat and config dot sys and recompiled my general protection fault. So try to boot with only one IDE device attached. Could be that one of them is faulting and causing problems for the others. Or check your BIOS and see if the IDE channels aren't set to None instead of auto or manually configured. The only thing that could possibly make me less frightening, is if someone made three movies about my childhood, pointing out how much of a retarded, non-threatening pussy I used to be.
Wait, someone already did that? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! - Darth Vader |
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*applause for Gunp01nt |
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all sata drives will (well should be) set for master. Check your ide drives, set the appropriate one for master and the other for slave, DONT use cable select, its asking for pain. ps, this post brought to you by the theme from The Rocketeer, a movie I wish I could get a hold of again because Im truly enjoying the music. |
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ps, this post brought to you by the theme from The Rocketeer, a movie I wish I could get a hold of again because Im truly enjoying the music. this movie? "Palpatine - Helps me Anakin, council r skript kiddies !" - Ds
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What's the point of even casting Lindsey Lohan if you're going to turn around and make her breasts smaller? "I spent a year in Vancouver; now I have to kill a hooker and feed her to the pigs just to get going in the mornings." - Leslie Nassar
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Not to mention, as was posted in the irc, she's gone all hollywood skinny. That's horrible. "Palpatine - Helps me Anakin, council r skript kiddies !" - Ds
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yes Matt, that Rocketeer movie ! always wondered why it didnt do better, its such a great sci fi concept, wonder if its being planned for an update/refresh... |
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#153 A better link. |
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leslie, you could also have a bad ide cable. When LP says he's bringing Armageddon, he brings fucking Armageddon. - Caryn, 6/01/2004
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#155 I just kinda meant they have it for sale, on DVD, for really cheap. You could wallow in the glory it is over and over. "Palpatine - Helps me Anakin, council r skript kiddies !" - Ds
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For Yot. (semi-NSFW) For we know that happiness that can only come from letting go of the impossible, embracing the possible, and telling people we’ve never met to go fuck themselves on the internets.
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