PC gamers can finally own console gamers with M$ Live!

[jjones]

If UT2007 integrates PC and console players, it will be fun owning the console players for a while, but beating up on weaker players gets old. On the other hand, from everything I've heard about the infantile console community, I can't say I'm really looking forward to it them joining up with the PC community.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: PimpJuice

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
:thumbsdown:

Keep the normal people segregated from nerds. I dont want their community.

Fixed.

Guy on a PC forum, participating in a PC versus console argument... calling someone a nerd.... hmmmm

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: LanceM
Unless we see a 360 kb/mouse, I think this is a bad idea.

Not that I'm against consoles, because I probably play my consoles more than I play PC games. Neither one is more fun than the other, but the control on a console is definitely at a disadvantage (in an FPS or RTS, at least).

You do know that the 360 has USB ports on it, right? It's up to game developers to support a mouse and keyboard.

 

[Raduque]

Wow look at all the PC fanboys coming out of the woodworks today! :thumbsdown:

Shadowrun is the only game that's currently announced for both Xbox360 and PC that'll let you play crossplatform, afaik.

And for the guy who said that a mouse is faster, at the highest sensitivity and speed for the right thumbstick, PD0 look is faster then most games I've tested against on PC (UT2k4, JK:JA, but probably others, too).

Oh yes, before you call me a console fanboy, I have a fairly decent gaming rig(that I'm upgrading after I move), plus a decent gaming laptop.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: jjones
If UT2007 integrates PC and console players, it will be fun owning the console players for a while, but beating up on weaker players gets old. On the other hand, from everything I've heard about the infantile console community, I can't say I'm really looking forward to it them joining up with the PC community.

There are just as many jerks and immature children on pc games as there are on console games.

 

[ryan256]

Originally posted by: FreshPrince
I'm a HUGE supporter of the UT franchise and I hope we can play it with PC, MAC, xbox, PS3, and wii...all on the same network.

LMAO... PC, MAC, PS3, Xbox, and Wii all on the same network!? Over MS, $ony, and Nintendo's dead bodies! I admit it would be cool but dream on.

 

[sygyzy]

Originally posted by: FreshPrince
link
you know how console gamers always make fun of PC gamers and think their skillz are far better than ours?

Uh no. I have never seen a console gamer say they are better than their PC counterparts.

 

[buzzsaw13]

Originally posted by: PimpJuice
the difference between the two is that console players dont care about "being the pwner" or whatever you guys like to say. Most of you only play on your computer cause your still at moms house and can only play once she goes to bed.

Real men have jobs, big screen tvs and consoles to play while their girlfriends are sitting next to them watching whatever on the split screen. Good luck finding a girl to sit next to you on your freaking computer.

Good luck to you finding a girl period.

Like you said, real men have jobs, and have better things to do than play video games.

 

[mobobuff]

Yeah, all console FPS games come with either an automatic aimbot, or VERY large hitboxes. I imagine those would be disabled in online play? Even if they weren't, PC users would still be owning all of the console players. I can just picture it, a kid on a PS3 biting his lip and trying to aim real hard to hit a shock combo while standing still... only to be HEADSHOT!'d by a PC user with a lightning rifle half way across the map.

Eventually all the console users will get fed up and only join non-mixed servers, but the PC users will chase them around to different servers, until console users will be forced to create private servers where they won't get beat up by the big kids.

 

[FreshPrince]

Originally posted by: ryan256

Originally posted by: FreshPrince
I'm a HUGE supporter of the UT franchise and I hope we can play it with PC, MAC, xbox, PS3, and wii...all on the same network.

LMAO... PC, MAC, PS3, Xbox, and Wii all on the same network!? Over MS, $ony, and Nintendo's dead bodies! I admit it would be cool but dream on.

game developers should have the say of which system they want to program for, not the console vendors..

 

[Queasy]

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning running on 360 and PC simulatneously

LOS ANGELES--Tucked away behind Sony's gigantic West Hall stand at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo is a Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning booth belonging to Mythic Entertainment. Visitors to the booth are being invited to get hands-on with the upcoming massively multiplayer online game, where they can check out one of the game's areas on live servers and play alongside members of the development team who are playing from the company's Virginia headquarters.

What none of these players have realized, though, is that one of the "green-skins" questing alongside them is being controlled by a player not armed with a mouse and keyboard, but with a wireless Xbox 360 controller. That player is in a closely guarded room to the rear of Mythic's booth.

To be clear, Mythic is not announcing an Xbox 360 version of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, but in what was purportedly a period of only six weeks, the developer has managed to get its game up and running on Microsoft's new console simply to prove that it can be done. Given the content of Bill Gates' "Live everywhere" speech at Microsoft's pre-E3 conference, it seems that Mythic's timing could hardly have been better. To quote one of Mythic's senior staffers, "What Microsoft is talking about, here is a company that's doing it."

We had an opportunity to see the PC and Xbox 360 versions of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning running alongside each other, and although the console demo lacked any kind of user interface, its widescreen, high-definition visuals were practically indistinguishable from those on the PC. Furthermore, the character on the Xbox 360 was interacting with PC players, and if it wasn't for the fact that one of the games was running on a huge TV rather than a monitor, it would be difficult to tell them apart.

Mythic says the work done optimizing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning for the Xbox 360 made the development team realize that they could use similar techniques in the PC game. So what started out as an experiment to get an MMO game running on a console has actually resulted in some improvements for the PC version.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is currently scheduled for release on the PC in the fall of 2007. Whether or not the game will ever see a release on the Xbox 360 or any other console remains to be seen, but one thing is certain--it's definitely a possibility.

 

[RagingBITCH]

http://gamesfirst.com/?id=1286

Ending the Battle Between Keyboard and Controller:

"Originally, we thought the PC would destroy the Xbox controller," said Bill Gross, a Software Test Engineer working on Shadowrun, the premiere Live Anywhere title for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. "But it didn't."

For years now there's been a debate about whether a console controller could ever compete with a PC's keyboard and mouse combination. With the upcoming release of Live Anywhere, which puts Xbox 360 and Windows Vista players against one another, we've got a new source of information to help end the debate.

Shadowrun, developed by FASA and published by Microsoft, will be Live Anywhere's premier game, launching at the same time as Vista in an effort to push the new multiplayer platform. It's a fast-paced twitch FPS similar to Counterstrike, and an ideal example of how controls have to be tweaked in order to balance out gameplay.

Balancing the gameplay between the two systems took a lot of trial and error. And contradictory to what most gamers would expect, the keyboard and mouse didn't dominate. In fact, it lost. Repeatedly.

"There will always be people that say the keyboard is better," Gross said during an interview on the floor of E3 2006. "In our game, we've found that's not the case. When we first started testing it, the keyboard tended to have an advantage in long distance combat, and the controller had an advantage in close combat. You could do things quicker on the controller (than the keyboard)."

Were the PC players just inexperienced? In most forums, people will argue that the keyboard and mouse combination is more efficient than the console controller, yet FASA's experience developing Shadowrun suggests otherwise.

"These were good, experienced Halo and Counterstrike players," Gross said when I suggested that maybe the PC team just wasn't up to par. "Some of these guys have held their own against Fatal1ty on the PC, and we put them against some pretty average console players."

Even with a mismatch of skill in favor of the PC, the keyboard and mouse combination consistently lost to the Xbox 360 controller. FASA's solution, of course, was to immediately start balancing out the game.

"We've been playing with the settings," said Gross. "We turned on magnetism (on the PC), some auto-aim. We adjusted the settings on the Xbox 360 to balance it out."

Over time, the numbers came back into balance, and control style became less important. Now, the FASA testing team plays every day, and no one is winning more than the others.

"Whatever you prefer, you're going to do well," Gross pointed out. "There will be no advantage."

Still, it's interesting to note that the premier title designed to pit PC and Xbox users against each other showed that the Xbox 360 controller was actually better than the keyboard and mouse in their first tests.

Of course, a great deal depends on how the two systems are configured. For example, if auto-aim is turned on for the Xbox 360 and not for the PC, that would make a substantial difference.

For future strategies, though, if the Xbox controller is better at close combat and the mouse and keyboard are better at a distance, perhaps performance will be partially based on level size; knowing your game means playing on the levels that favor your controller.

Live Anywhere casts an interesting new light on a debate that's been raging for some time.

Another interesting note, display resolution doesn't seem to impact success, either. Unless you're utilizing a high definition TV, which only has a market penetration of about 20%, PC users will have more exact detail and pixel-per-pixel display accuracy than their home console counterparts. The average TV user will have an image that's extremely anti-aliased. Luckily, the difference doesn't seem to impact how well you play, and doesn't award an advantage to either system.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Nice article there.

Thats what my opinion has been. The only reason a mouse and keyboard dominates is because of game mechanics. So many games were designed around it versus a console controller (even Halo was originally designed with mouse and keyboard in mind more), that the mechanics of the game favor it for control.

I knew that if a developer worked hard enough, that they could do a good job of balancing it so that one control doesn't offer a significant advantage (without tradeoffs) over the other. This makes it so that your knowledge/skill of the game is what gives you the advantage.

Of course only time will tell if its a good game or not, but lets hope it is.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
Nice article there.

Thats what my opinion has been. The only reason a mouse and keyboard dominates is because of game mechanics. So many games were designed around it versus a console controller (even Halo was originally designed with mouse and keyboard in mind more), that the mechanics of the game favor it for control.

I knew that if a developer worked hard enough, that they could do a good job of balancing it so that one control doesn't offer a significant advantage (without tradeoffs) over the other. This makes it so that your knowledge/skill of the game is what gives you the advantage.

Of course only time will tell if its a good game or not, but lets hope it is.

Yea. That and people instantly assume all games are FPS that people play online. Seriously, there are other game genres.

 

[KarmaPolice]

This is where you are wrong. Its not even the fact that you can be very fast with the mouse...its that you can be VERY accurate.

I play CS1.6 still(I know its old..but its a great game..I always play new games but Iwill always come back to this). My mouse speed is set to 1.4...I have a HUGE mouse pad, it takes me an entire swipe of the mouse accross the mouse pad to make a 180 degree turn. I can do that in less then a second...but at the same time I can aim with crazy accuracy because my sensetivity is so low. The mouse allows you to have both speed and accuracy that a thumbstick just cant provide.

I have played HALO against some pretty damn good people(sponsored folks that go to Texas to compete for money). Needless to say I get owned by them, but I can say hands down that if I had a mouse and a keyboard I could pwn each and every one of them(of course i would need to brush up on my spawn and item times)

 

[joshw10]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: LanceM
Unless we see a 360 kb/mouse, I think this is a bad idea.

Not that I'm against consoles, because I probably play my consoles more than I play PC games. Neither one is more fun than the other, but the control on a console is definitely at a disadvantage (in an FPS or RTS, at least).

You do know that the 360 has USB ports on it, right? It's up to game developers to support a mouse and keyboard.

I think Microsoft intentionally disabled the possibility of using a keyboard or mouse on the original XBox. They didnt want the unit to be seen as a cheap PC for your TV that also plays games. Now that it's been successful, they loosened up the rules on the XBox 360 and are allowing limited keyboard support but for text chat only, not gameplay. Still no mouse.....

I dont own an XBox so i could be wrong about all of this. But I can't imagine playing FPS type games without a mouse, and those seem to be the best games for XBox, so that's really what's holding me back.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: tranceport
auto-aim can be disabled on most console games.

They should be disabled for online play..

Honestly though.. They can keep the aimbot. They'll still get owned.

Yep, theres no beating the speed and accuracy of a mouse.

if only someone would fix the clunky keyboard (analog control is desired to go along with the mouse)

 

[KarmaPolice]

Of course if you play on the PC...no mouse accel is a must