Crysis may not be released in 2007

[Polish3d]

edit; Looks like an offical Nov release date's been announced!

 

[aCynic2]

Hmmm...

We complain they ship games early, read as not ready for public use.
We complain they ship games later then their projected date.
We want games that are graphically intense.
We complain when they are graphically intense, but boring to play.
We want games that are challenging.
We complain when they require too much brain work.

Hmmm...

 

[Polish3d]

The hell. Getting annoyed about games being delayed by years isn't anything I'm going to second-guess. The devs are the ones who project the release date. Oblivion's a great example. E3 footage shows super graphics and all kinds of cool AI. Game gets delayed 9 months and comes out with half the graphical quality and none of the cool AI. As for the remaining things you listed, rarely if ever have I seen someone complain about a game being too "brainy" or too unchallenging. You're just threadcrapping cause to you it feels good to be the snotty contrarian

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: Frackal
You're just threadcrapping cause to you it feels good to be the snotty contrarian

Not at all. I'm not going to whine about a game's release date when I have a life that requires tending to.

I have far greater ambitions than to play a hyped up game. For me, computers games are:

1. A diversion.
2. A business ambition.

I cannot devote a large emotional part to WAITING. You know what happens to those who wait? They get passed up.

I could say they are a way of life, but only in so much as studying and knowing what makes them fun for a large demographic.

I enjoy playing games alot, but it must take a backseat to work because that is what puts food in my belly and a roof over my head. And I'm almost always working. When I'm not at my paying job, I'm working on my first game title.

I have a lot to do besides waiting on someone else's game. That too spectator like, like...waiting.


You're going to buy the game regardless of the release date. You'll either like or you'll hate or you'll be meh. It doesn't matter at this point. They have your money already. I can tell just by your whining about its release date being pushed back.

I like the way Bruce Lee stated it:

The way to immortality is having a life worth living.

 

[Ackmed]

Hes right though. A game that is rushed out the door, and needs patches a plenty before it good, we complain about. A game that is delayed to make it better, we complain about. Im not saying you're complaining, but thats how it goes.

 

[novasatori]

The funny thing is I swear I read something near the end of 06 or beginning of 07 that said the game was delayed "indefinitely" which I interpreted as '08, and people were rumoring an '08 delay...

nothing to really complain about I don't think... I think the thing that PC gaming has taught me is to not get too excited, and be prepared to wait longer than expect or possible never even see a release.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: Frackal
"Why?: At this point, I'm not entirely certain that Crysis will be releasing this year. I've been asking for an answer for a while and no one really seems to know the release date. After hearing plenty of rumors about Crysis being pushed to November, we have yet to get a real response from the giant publisher. Even so, the game looks and plays great. It's got some framerate issues at the moment, but I've got an awesome computer and expect that I'll have a fantastic time running and gunning my way through jungles, frozen wastelands, and weightless space"

http://pc.ign.com/articles/808/808807p1.html



I'm going to blow a fuse. I am really becoming sick of PC gaming, and I mean fucking sick of it. Games are YEARS late and they still come out under-whelming. Let's hope this isn't the case here but I am an enthusiast whose patience is really being tested by so many repeated and chronic delays and disappointments. At least Bioshock is a sure bet for Aug though.

or so you hope...

 

[Aikouka]

If it's so easy to make deadlines with no problems on something so complex, why don't you just code it yourself .

 

[40sTheme]

Crysis has been said, by either Crytek or EA, that it is being released in Nov 07. I can't find where this was said offhand; I saw it on the incrysis forums. There was a link to something that was saying 'around the end of Nov'.

 

[imported_sushicide]

As long as it ships relatively bug free I'll be happy, I'm capable of occupying myself with other things until then.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

No game in recent memory comes out relatively bug free. When the game comes out there will be ppl bitching and complaining about it. I'm used to it. I'm a gamer. I don't expect a pristine work when a game comes out...it's what the industry has bludgeoned into me as modus operendi.

 

[bamacre]

I kinda agree with the OP.

But it wouldn't be such a big deal if there were more "good" games available. There are simply not enough "good" games out for the PC.

 

[m21s]

Lets not try and blow a fuse...

See my thread I posted earlier.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...077115&highlight_key=y

take a deep breathe and relax...

 

[Oyeve]

Hehe, Im still waiting for Duke Nukem (waiting) Forever!

I have plently of excellent games to play on the PC, I dont hold my breath for release days. I was shocked that Prey even came out. That was announced when a bunch of forum members were still in diapers!

 

[coloumb]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Hehe, Im still waiting for Duke Nukem (waiting) Forever!

I have plently of excellent games to play on the PC, I dont hold my breath for release days. I was shocked that Prey even came out. That was announced when a bunch of forum members were still in diapers!

I remember seeing a dinosaur running by my window the day Prey was announced...

So maybe there's hope for Duke as well [recent article said they are STILL working on it and they can see the light at the end of the tunnel]

 

[theprodigalrebel]

I agree with the OP. Look at Rockstar Games - everybody knows the GTA franchise will never die and we were all patiently waiting for an official announcement. They released the first trailer in late March 2007 and knowing them, the game WILL ship in October this year. That's perfect, in my opinion. Six months is plenty of time to build hype and let the marketing machine roll into high gear.

I am getting sick of this trend of hyping a video game and releasing new footage every month for two years.

->HL2 was announced in May 2003 with a September 2003 release date...didn't hit shelves until November 2004. Episodic gaming failed for Valve and instead of playing Half-Life 3 by now, we are stuck waiting for HL2:E2 which was originally supposed to have come out around January 2007.
->Doom 3 was first demoed at E3 2002 and didn't hit shelves until August 2004.
->Crysis has been in the spotlight since May 2006, IIRC. And now it's possible it will miss its Sep 07 release date?

Hype and generating media buzz is a good thing in times of big-budget games - but too much hype builds an obscene amount of expectations and as time goes on, people start expecting nothing less than a revolutionary AAA-title. End result? We get ***** games that aren't playable until a wave of patches are released.

Release a teaser. Three months later, release a truckload of gameplay footage and run demos for game journalists. Three months after that, a MP Beta/whatever. Three months after that, deliver a fully stable and optimized title. Nine months from Teaser->Retail product. Everybody wins.

 

[JBT]

I can wait. LOTRO is occupying most of my gaming time right this moment.

 

[lupi]

I'll be waiting for vid prices to come down anyway, so fine by me.

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel

->HL2 was announced in May 2003 with a September 2003 release date...didn't hit shelves until November 2004. Episodic gaming failed for Valve and instead of playing Half-Life 3 by now, we are stuck waiting for HL2:E2 which was originally supposed to have come out around January 2007.
->Doom 3 was first demoed at E3 2002 and didn't hit shelves until August 2004.
->Crysis has been in the spotlight since May 2006, IIRC. And now it's possible it will miss its Sep 07 release date?

There's a reason for that and it's not to keep you sitting by the phone eating ice cream like some female with no life of her own (but that's certainly how some people behave).

Game development is not easy. Even the simple ones aren't. All you people complaining need to delve into it, then you'll know. If you're a small development team, with little financial resource, you're contracting out a lot of work, but the programming side is still THE BIGGEST eater of time and resources. You add a feature you planned on from the start, but it doesn't work with the rest. It creates a cascade of bugs that need to be hunted down.

Don't blame them. They're giving you what you want.

You want the spectacular graphics, it takes development time.
You want it fast, you get it before it's ready.
You want it ready, you get it 1-2 years later than projected.

 

[Regs]

While I agree with your rational point of view aCynic2, I also think a video game coming out late does not affect the projected sales forecast of the game as much like other commercial products.

The only thing Crytek and their publisher have to worry about is if there are any other games like its kind all ready out when it's released. In this case, I don't think they have to worry too much. Their competition is of course the makers of the Unreal engine, Bioshock, HellGate London, and possibly one or two others.

 

[Zenoth]

I wonder when did the pressure from the public, the gamers, came from, regarding elements in games that we demand, or else we almost boy cut the "unfinished" game, or start to hate the developers for a decade or possibly forever (by majority).

According to my memory, during the NES / Mega Drive / SNES era, the public didn't pressure nor demanded upon the developers, we just collectively wished, perhaps, that some elements made it to a final product, or a sequel, but because internet and overall "mass emotions towards a game" wasn't as influential as it is today, then the developers could work relatively (and I do mean relatively, because even back then there must have been some pressure, sometimes at least) peacefully, calm, doing probably the best they could until the deadline arrived.

For example I can't recall even hoping for "good graphics" in A Link to the Past, I can't recall any hype build up around it except for the hundreds of images published in Nintendo Power each months. I don't recall wanting good graphics in Vectorman 2 either. But I loved both games, they were fun to play, and I never asked more than to be entertained for an hour or two with a friend or alone. And more importantly, I don't remember being frustrated back during that gaming era by endless delays. Well it must have happened, but it must have been occasional, and it surely wasn't for a period of a year or two, but more like one or two months, you guys remember ? The delays back then, when they did occur, weren't for very long.

Of course, back then developers didn't have to make life-like human faces, or produce photo-realistic textures, or make that explosion seem true.

I do remember though, when I think about it, that when the Nintendo 64 arrived, I myself, and also I remember, a few friends I played a lot of games with, started to talk more regularly about graphics and sounds and polygon counts in pretty much any games. I think it may have even started during the late period of the original PlayStation (around early to late 1998).

I also clearly remember when RareWare first published some comparison photos of actual photo shots they had taken on a trip at St-Petersburg in Russia for the making-of Goldeneye for the N64. They were proudly comparing real-life photos with in-game results, if I recall correctly, they were showing some exterior shots in the snow and some interior shots in the first Facility level. And I believe that in the exact same Nintendo Power issue (or perhaps one after or one before, but that's more like a detail), they also presented one of the first shots of Turok: Dinosaur hunter, and they spoke of it like a "next-generation" gaming in terms of graphics.

I can see where it started, when it started, and how it started, today, now that I think about it more deeply. Maybe that I forgot to mention a few things but I believe that hyping of a game, a "big budget", "next big thing" game started during the first N64 moments, or perhaps even during the late PS days (although it is still being played today, that I do know about, but I mean "en masse" as the standard of current Console or PC gaming technology).

As the media coverage became more centralized on gaming elements such as graphics, and as the internet grew bigger and started to preview games more frequently and as it started to present screen-shots YEARS in advance during the pre-Alpha development of a game, I think that's exactly when the public kind of followed the trend and it became natural over time, and today is more like a reflex, a normality to analyze and even judge a game based on the first impressions we can see and/or hear.

Now, today they announce a FPS, and we're like "heh, ok they announce it, but I wanna see it, screw the story line they just shown us and what the game was "about" nah I wanna see the graphics and THEN I will consider the story". We're mostly like that and we probably don't know it because we don't want to analyze our own analyzing of a game before it comes out ... we act arrogantly towards the developers nowadays, speaking as if we knew how stressful it must be to create a game in the current era of gaming, compared to how it must have been before.

I remember when S.T.A.L.K.E.R. kept being pushed back and so on, most of the gamers and EVEN a few "professional" reviewers mentioned that the graphics "could have been better", but they don't seem to realize that the game's engine was already 6 years-old, and that back in 2000 the games didn't look like Crysis ...

Today, when I look at Crysis, I see myself just looking at Half-Life 2, at Doom 3 and at Prey. I don't see a game, but a certain "future products with lots of promises behind it from its creators", and nothing more. I won't lie here, I was IMMENSELY hyped by Half-Life 2 just by looking at some of those famous E3 2002 and '03 video presentations. Oh boy what a mistake it was from me to even hope to see such A.I in action, like that Combined soldier that we ALL saw firing THROUGH the window of an abandoned building to get the main player because he just barricaded himself inside by pushing a washer against the door hoping to block the soldiers from entering. Heh ... yeah, today we ALL see and know that the A.I in H-L 2 is pretty much non-existent, except for standing there and shooting, or running at you blindly.

I remember when I first bought Doom 3. That one didn't hyped me as much as H-L 2 did, but that's because I didn't want to and I purposefully avoiding looking at preview screen shots, videos and written interviews. And then the result was quite decent. I didn't know what to expect, so the first time through was quite pleasing, but then it became boring because the game used triggers, scripted events and predictable A.I behaviors all the time, nothing was different, no randomization ... briefly said, it was just "yet another FPS for the masses, just yet another Big Mac at McDonalds".

Etc ... etc. I can't count the number of games that I have been disappointed by since the past ... hmmm, what, since the past decade or so, seriously. I think I could count on the fingers of both hands the games that I liked "back then" and still am playing to this very day. I could name a few, such as Age of Empires II, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Turok 2, Shadow Man, System Shock 2, Doom 2, Tiberian Sun, Blaster Master ... and a couple others.

The bottom line is this: Either a game of today's technology and features standards is being delayed or even released before its intended release date, it doesn't matter anymore to me, because I know that the risks of it being "yet another one like that one before it" is more than high and likely, but an almost guaranteed case.

 

[Fenixgoon]

well fwiw, according to inCrysis.com, Cevat Yerli said they WILL be releasing this year.

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
For example I can't recall even hoping for "good graphics" in A Link to the Past, I can't recall any hype build up around it except for the hundreds of images published in Nintendo Power each months. I don't recall wanting good graphics in Vectorman 2 either. But I loved both games, they were fun to play, and I never asked more than to be entertained for an hour or two with a friend or alone.

But you did. You made your wishes and opinions known by how you spent your money.

Of course, back then developers didn't have to make life-like human faces, or produce photo-realistic textures, or make that explosion seem true.

People want to see that and they pay for it, in more than just money. It requires longer development times to get it working right or even half-way decently.

We, the public, raise the bar by directing our money.

I can see where it started, when it started, and how it started, today, now that I think about it more deeply. Maybe that I forgot to mention a few things but I believe that hyping of a game, a "big budget", "next big thing" game started during the first N64 moments, or perhaps even during the late PS days (although it is still being played today, that I do know about, but I mean "en masse" as the standard of current Console or PC gaming technology).

It's the entertainment industy. It has the same parallels as the movie industry...

1. The profit margins are becoming increasingly marginal as the production costs soar.
2. You need to hype the product just to get people to take a look at it.
3. You need to increase the visual to keep their attention. People are extremely visual. The only sense that is stronger is the sense of smell. How do you put that in a game or movie?
4. Plot, scenery, dialog, etc, is all reduced to a formula.

Today, when I look at Crysis, I see myself just looking at Half-Life 2, at Doom 3 and at Prey. I don't see a game, but a certain "future products with lots of promises behind it from its creators", and nothing more.

I'm becoming more the "another FPS" or "another RTS" type. Few of them stand out. I played HL, was meh. Doom affected me more, so did F.E.A.R.

The industry is pushing out the same ole genre because it sells at a baseline. They're afraid to venture outside of that because the production costs could mean a huge loss if they don't get it right. FPSs and RTSs are the slasher and teen sex comedy of the game industry, respectively. They sell. They have a formula that makes getting it right much easier.

But they don't need to venture outside of it. Like in the movie industry, there is always a new generation that doesn't have the experience and are discovering for the first time what we've known for decades.

 

[m21s]

Do you people EVEN READ?!?

How many times do I have to post this link?

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...077115&highlight_key=y

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: m21s
Do you people EVEN READ?!?

How many times do I have to post this link?

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...077115&highlight_key=y

Sure I read, but I don't read anything by you.

Just j/k.