Gamenikki

Yes. I called this move into the *nix realm just about a year ago. Valve's foray into the *nix operating system's hardly comes at a surprise for several reasons. Currently several of the small independent developers that Valve distributes games for on Windows also have OSX and Linux clients available for their games. Sales of those OSX and Linux clients are sales that Valve could be making money off of, but isn't.

The move into OpenGL isn't a big surprise either. NCSoft and Paragon Studio's City of Heroes MMO has been making waves for it's new OpenGL  based Ultra Mode, implementing graphic features restricted by Microsoft to DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 across Windows NT5 (Xp), Windows NT6 (Vista / Win7), Apple OSX (via Cider), and Linux (via Cedega). Being able to bring the exact same graphical experience to the end-user, regardless of operating system is something that as a developer and a publisher, Valve can hardly turn down. With Windows XP still carrying an installed base best measured in millions, not to mention still growing in the netbook market, using a cross-platform graphics API is a smart move for developers and their publishers.

There are, however, some questions surrounding the release of the first *nix client, the OSX client, such as where's the Linux client? Valve's work on a Linux version of Steam has been described as one of the worst kept secrets in the games industry, as the background code to operate Steam natively on Linux has popped up before in the Windows client. The big question about Steam on Linux is when.

One of the possibilities on why the Linux client is not launching alongside the OSX client might be linked to licensing questions. While Valve's own games are being natively ported into the *nix system, many commercial OSX games published by Electronic Arts or NCSoft use Transgaming's Cider technology. Cider is generally licensed by Transgaming per game. The Linux analogue to Cider, Transgaming's Cedega technology, is not licensed per game. Rather, it's licensed per user with a subscription fee.  Ergo, in order for Valve's Steam Play system to work for many existing games built to use Cider / Cedega, Valve probably has to lock down a limited licensing agreement with Transgaming to either include Cedega derived game engines, or implement Cedega engines directly into the Steam system.  The first alternative would be to launch the *nix Steam clients with an anemic line-up of popular commercial games, something that could effectively kill the servicesfrom the start. The second alternative would be to require a Cedega subscription for Steam's Linux client, something many gamers might balk at, which again, could effectively kill the service before it gets started.

Another question surrounding the announcment of the first *nix games from Valve is whether or not Valve will be joining Khronos as a contributing member organization. Given that Valve is situated alongside with EA and Activision/Blizzard to give first hand insite into where gaming graphics need to go, there's little doubt that Valve's input into the future of OpenGL would be invaluable.

Valve's expansion outside the Windows world is a step many other publishers and developers should probably take note of. It's also possible that Steam's cross-platform native-code Source Engine could take on Epic's Unreal Engine juggernaut. While Unreal Engine 3 enjoys a large customer base with it's cross-platform potential, many developers report that each Operating System UE3 goes on requires some optimizations. The lure of reaching even more potential customers without having to make extensive per-operating-system optimizations could be one of Valve's best calling cards.

Source: Cityof Heroes Forums

Earlier today Paragon Studios detailed some of their future plans for the popular SuperHero MMORPG, City of Heroes. Issue 17, now titled Dark Mirror, will contain a new graphics mode purportedly based against OpenGL 3.0. According to developer Jesse Caceres, aka Ghost Falcon, the starting point for Ultra Mode graphics on the AMD side is a RadeonHD 4850. According to Matt Miller, aka Positron, the starting point on the Nvidia side is a 9800 GT / Geforce GTS 250. From early pictures and videos, Ultra Mode is set to answer the critics who claim that City of Hereos looks like a 5 year old game. In addition to Ultra Mode, Issue 17 also promises the following:

• New badges, new missions and new player emotes
• Epic Archetypes now available at level 20
• Improvements and additions to Mission Architect
• Enhancements to UI and game systems
• And more

Among the other announcements were pricings and a soft-date for the first retail expansion. Unlike City of Villains, which has been referred to by the development staff as an Expandalone, the upcoming Going Rogue will require that players already own a copy of City of Heroes. Since Going Rogue is an expansion, it carries expansion pricing, with the regular expansion carrying a cost of $30, and the Collectors Edition carrying a price of $40. Those who pre-order Going Rogue will receive early access to the new powersets Dual Pistols and Demon Summoning in March and April. Those who pre-order the Collectors Edition will receive a bonus item pack:

• Alpha- and Omega-themed auras
• Alpha and Omega themed costumed sets
• Four stance emotes
• The Shadowy Presence invisibility power

While we don't often comment on marketing hype, Going Rogue has gained a certain amount of expectation among fans of the Super Hero genre it's initial reveal resulted from a reported 3rd party marketing leak. Going Rogue was at one point expected to be a direct counter to the Cryptic title Marvel Universe Online, rebadged as Champions Online. Initial financial reports and actions from Infogrames / Atari, as well as Microsoft's silent kibosh on an Xbox 360 version, suggest that the super-hyped super-hero MMORPG was a complete flop. As a result City of Heroes only real competitor is expected to be Sony Online Entertainment's DC Universe Online. DCUO's planned 2010 release could make for an interesting summer for fans of the Super Hero genre.

This email popped out from Terry Makoden today and coincides with the release of the ATi RadeonHD 5750 and 5770 graphics cards. Unfortunately, we weren't on the short list of recipients of pre-release cards, so we can't really talk about the performance of AMD's new mainstream graphics cards. We can, however, talk a bit about OpenCL.

For those unfamiliar with OpenCL, it is the latest in a group of Open Application Interfaces from the Khronos Group. Most gamers would be familiar with Khronos due to OpenGL 2.0 ES, the Graphics API used across the Playstation 3, many recent x86 computer games, and most of the mobile gaming market (Iphone, Android, Blackberry). Where as OpenGL is the API to accelerate graphics, OpenCL is the API to accelerate... well, lets just post how Khronos says it:


What this basically means is that OpenCL could use the same code to leverage a graphics card processor to provide Physics Acceleration, or use a central processor to do the same thing. Now, this is actually big news for the gaming demographic. Right now there's only two vendors involved in Hardware Accelerated physics for gamers. Nvidia, who owns PhysX; and Intel, who owns Havok. Nvidia has a reputation for playing nasty with their products. Recently they went so far as to disable Anti-Alaising, which removes jagged edges from games, running atop anything but Nvidia Graphics cards, on the Windows version of Batman: Arkarm Ayslum. If you've got an Nvidia card that you're using to support PhysX, but you use an AMD Radeon or an Intel graphics card (those fortunante enough to have Larrabee samples... we don't yet), you'll find that recent updates from Nvidia disable PhysX if you've got any other GPU rendering the graphics.

On the other hand, Intel's not known for Graphics... yet. Larrabee, while basically an extension of the software rendering procedure / process Intel has been using for years, is reported by involved game developers as being a great mid-range solution. Next year could actually see Intel emerge as a viable graphics vendor for the average gamer... and given Nvidia's recent behavior, we at Gamenikki welcome Intel's involvement. Until Intel actually launches Larrabee though, game developers will find that hardware accelerated physics from Intel just isn't really in the cards. Havok FX, a variant developed to run on Graphics Processors, has reportedly been shelved.

OpenCL is basically a method around the landmine of hardware accelerated physics. Unlike PhysX, OpenCL should work on just about about GPU with an OpenCL driver, regardless of operating system, and in AMD's SKD release, any processor with SS3 support. That's virtually every AMD and Intel processor from the last 4 to 5 years. OpenCL can also switch back and forth between the graphics card or the central processor, or use an inactive graphics card. So if you've got a computer with say, an integrated graphics chip, and an add-in chip, a game could use OpenCL to leverage your weaker integrated chip for physics or other calculations, leaving the main graphics card free to render the graphics, and the central processor to handle everything else. The possibilities extend further that simply game physics, so it should be interesting to see what OpenCL is used for as developers get a hold of AMD's SDK.

Recently Nintendo released firmware update 4.2 for the Wii console. After installing this update on my own Wii, several of my games have abruptly ceased to work. Of the games I tested Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which was in the Wii at the time of the firmware upgrade, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Metroid Prime 3, Metroid Prime 2 (GCN), Metroid Prime (GCN), Super Paper Mario, Super Mario Galaxy, and Phantasy Star Online (GCN) are failing to read on my own console. It looks like I wasn't the only one either. Nintendo's tech support options are fairly obtuse, there's no place to file bug reports or ask questions directly. The tech-support forums though had more than a few entries over update 4.2 killing various features of the Wii console.  So if you've got a Wii, and you haven't updated to 4.2, you'll probably want to hold off.

Some would say the price reduction to the PlayStation 3 has been a long time coming, and a long time overdue. Sony has danced around the price-cut issue by stating that they were focused on being profitable, a line that has been greeted with skepticism by the community at-large. We didn't think the line made sense because Sony's, and Microsoft's, entire business model have traditionally based on selling the console for a loss and making profits on game licenses. The more platforms available for people to play on meant a wider selection of people available to buy any particular game. The demand for the PlayStation 3 has been there for a long time. Sony has a list of killer applications, ranging from Little Big Planet, to EchoChrome, to Uncharted. Even the upcoming Massive Action Game is drawing interest if the developers can straighten out the generic gameplay that has plagued early releases and beta tests.

The new version of the PS3, the Slim Model arriving in September has some changes from previous models of the PlayStation 3. Once again, backwards compatibility is gone. Now, as reported by Kotaku, Sony states the following:

"And it's not just like 50 or 60 percent. It's well into the 80 or 90 percentile range who are purchasing it for PS3 [games]. We do know that there are next gen consumers wanting to come over the the PS3. Most of those are consumers who have not utilized their PS2 for a little while and they're ready to jump into the PlayStation 3."

Like other Sony statements, this one we don't take at face value either. The reason consumers are purchasing PlayStation 3's for PlayStation 3 games is that a version of the PS3 that is backwards compatible with the PlayStation 2 system hasn't been on the market since the 60gb model was discontinued back in 2007. Most consumers know that the PS3 isn't, and hasn't been ,backwards compatible with the PS2 system for a long time. That hasn't stopped consumers from purchasing a PS3, and then finding out that it isn't backwards compatible at all. I think Sony would be better served by simply being honest about the situation with PS2 compatibility on PS3. Fact is, the PS2 itself is really cheap, at only $99. The PS2 is also sharing a games release schedule with the PlayStation Portable, with games such as the next Jak and Daxter scheduled to hit both platforms. With a large support infrastructure in place, it's cheaper for Sony to continue to support the PlayStation 2 as a separate platform.

Among other changes, previous versions of the PlayStation 3 platform contained 4 USB ports and a card reader. On recent models the number of USB ports dropped to 2, and the card reader disappeared. These aren't exactly big issues though. In my own experience my PS3 has worked well with several different USB card readers. One of the advantages to USB is that you can also string multiple devices using a hub. From a practical view, this allows Sony to lessen the amount of space needed for the console, and users who want to be able to play movies or music back from SD cards can still do so.

The largest change to the PS3 Slim model is the lack of a boot-loader for a user installed Linux Operating System. While you'll still be able to install a PowerPC linux on existing PS3 stock and previous models, future models won't have the dual boot-loader. Now keep in mind this is coming from the person who knocks points off modern computer game scores if they don't ship with a Linux client, or won't work under Cedega / WINE. The loss of an additional Operating System option to the PlayStation 3 is probably for the best. The reality is that running a non Sony rolled distribution on the PlayStation 3 is that there was no accelerated graphics support. Nvidia doesn't have an open-source strategy, so there's no documentation or specifications on the G80 graphics processor that forms the basis of the RSX. Nvidia's also refused to release a PowerPC Nvidia-GLX driver with RSX support. While I realize that accelerated graphics support might be lost on several readers, here's a quick way to demonstrate just how bad the Linux experience is on PlayStation. Download a Mepis Linux live CD. During the boot, select the VESA option. Once in the Live-CD, start browsing the web, typing, doing the stuff you'd normally do. Debian and Yellowdog Linux on PlayStation 3... are even slower.

While the use of a user-installed Linux was a major feature in the PlayStation 3's cap early, once reality set in, the picture wasn't so rosy. A Linux installed on a PlayStation 3 was good for one thing only. Data processing. The Cell processor is a monster when it comes to certain data operations, but really, you could get a laptop with a Cell processor installed from Toshiba, or you could just buy straight from IBM. Then there's IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer, which was the test case for pairing Opterons and Cells in the same system. If rumors are to be believed, IBM could be fielding a Socket AM3 Cell processor with a DDR3 memory controller by 2010. The lack of any GPU acceleration in a user-installed Linux meant that if you wanted to do something as simple as a watching a video, you'd be swapping back into the PS3's default Linux. Since Sony is primarily selling PS3's as home entertainment systems, why include a function that the target market isn't going to be able to use anyways due to a reticent and recalcitrant 3rd party vendor?

The new PS3 slim model, and the price drops, are welcome changes to the world of PlayStation 3. Will it be enough to drive Sony out of it's perceived 3rd place status? Time will tell.

Source: I16 Forum Announcement

A while ago on Blogger I wrote about some of the concerns I had with City of Heroes, it's lack of percieved direction, and about the rumors that villains and heroes would soon be able to cross over. When Going Rogue was actually announced, I feel silent though, and a short while after indirectly commented that I had invested another year's subscription into the game. Part of what changed my mind was the framing of the game itself. City of Heroes was gearing up for a radical transformation, and one that had been a long time coming since NCSoft had pulled the developers out of Cryptic's, and more importantly, Jack Emmert's hands.

Even at it's launch back in 2003, City of Heroes was unique among other MMO's for bridging the gaps between the casual and hardcore players. In recent times, the addition of level pacts once again broke new ground for the MMO genre. No other MMO would consider locking separate players into a single EXP gain. While City of Heroes had always been a story based MMO, the story had taken a back-seat to level grinding.

With the recent updates, it seems that Paragon Studios has come to terms with the level grinders and farmers, creating a team-matching system that eliminates the intrusiveness of farmers and level grinders in the rest of the game. At the same time, the system that minimizes the impact of the players that make the game unbearable to play, greatly aids the players that are wanting to experience the game's story content. The super-sidekicking move is a bold answer to several of the game's social issues... time will tell if it's enough of an answer.

Source : Phoronix

Back when we reviewed UT3, we gave it high marks for it's return to the classic hard-hitting gameplay, and the fact that unlike other games, it actually was a PC title... or it was at the time. Unfortunately for Epic, and publisher Midway, UT3 just didn't sell. Sales of the game didn't really take off until Steam launched UT3: Black, which basically consisted of an expansion pack. However, the launch of UT3: Black also happened to coincide with Cedega making UT3 playable on Linux. Draw your own conclusions... but from outside evidence, it seems that Midway and Epic seriously misjudged their targeted market for Unreal Tournament.

Fact is, one of the main reasons UT2k4 took off is that the Linux Client was included On-Disc, as well as the Unreal Editor and game building tools. Many of the independent developers behind the best mods didn't use Windows for their development platform, many having already ditched Microsoft's Legacy Operating Systems in favor of systems that favored programmers. While UT2k4 had loads of gameplay modifications like Metaball, and modifications that went on to become full games, like Damnation, the UT3 Make Something Unreal contest entries had nowhere near the amount of variety that previous contests had had.

When UT3 launched, many of the UT2k4 players I grouped with all said the same thing, we are going to wait for the Linux version. Our reasons varied from It'll be faster on the same hardware, to I just custom built an SLI rig and I don't want to pay Microsoft another $200 bucks, to I hate dual-booting, and so on. So... we didn't. A lot of people didn't.

Bean counters, I mean accountants, probably don't look at the situation quite the same as the people buying. I, and many other players, didn't buy because Epic didn't support our platform. Over the course of UT2k4, we thought it had been made clear to Epic and their publishers that their backbone players were not Window users. We were wrong. As Phoronix phrases the story, the *nix versions of UT3 might have been canceled because of the poor sales on Windows. What would have happened though if Epic had simply done as they pretty much promised and gotten the Linux client out... say when the Windows client launched? Would Linux gamers really have gone through the trouble of creating an open-sourced engine that could read UT3 content? Would games such as Warsow or Nexuiz grown their player bases as quickly?

When a 3rd party finally enabled me to play UT3 on my operating system, I bought it. Twice. I even have the receipts from both GoGamer and Steam.

While several publishers, and Microsoft, are hell-bent on saying there's no such thing as a Linux, or Mac for that matter, gamer, the sales of Unreal Tournament 3 clearly state we do exist, we are not going away, and if you don't support us, we can kill your business.

Source, as can probably be expected, is of course Phoronix.

The news itself isn't exactly surprising. For example, Nvidia has retired 3 sets of graphics processors so far, starting with the Geforce 2 and older cards in the .76 driver set, Geforce 2MX through Geforce 4 in the .96 driver set, and GeforceFX in the 173 driver set. Vendors retire older chips and provide minimal, or no updates, in order to to focus time and resources on products people are buying today. AMD's driver matrix supported chips almost 7 years old, an eternity in computer hardware, and well outside the expected 2 to 3 year life of an average Dell or HP home computer.

All R300-R500 GPU's, which is everything in the Radeon 9500 - 9800 series, Radeon x300 - Radeon x850 series, and Radeon x1300-x1950 series, will see their final supported release in the March edition of the Catalyst drivers. As of April, these drivers will no longer be maintained or included in the monthly Catalyst package. Direct benefits of the cut-off will mean a smaller driver size to download, although a 30mb to 50mb package isn't that big of a deal when dial-up providers are getting hard to find. Another benefit will be the ability to better optimize the driver against the newer Radeon hardware. The current driver architecture is still largely based on the designs ArtX made back when the Radeon 9700 first launched in 2002, so users of all RadeonHD cards might be looking at significant performance gains to be had as the driver will no longer have to support older cards.

The bad news for Windows users is that the cut-off date is well before Windows Vista Service Pack 2, aka Windows 7, hits. For the large part, R300-R500 gpu's will be almost unsupported on Microsoft's next platform, with only API changes to the March Vista driver.

The good news is that most Linux distributions will be in a position to continue supporting the older Radeon cards as long as the cards physically power up, with AMD's John Bridgman reporting that the documentation needed to achieve performance equal to the current proprietary driver is already available to driver developers.

With the cut-off date in mind, now seems like a good time to be looking at upgrades for existing ATi cards. A good case in point is the RadeonHD 4650. With a 600mhz clock speed, 32 textures, 320 shaders, and a street price of around $55 for a card with 512mb of 500mhz DDR2 video ram, it could seem like an attractive cross-grade against a Radeon x1900. Something like a x1900 AIW which only had a clock speed of 500mhz, 16 textures, 8 vertex shaders, 16 pixel shaders, and 256mb of 480mhz DDR2 video ram.

The chip hardware numbers don't tell the whole story though. The x1900 series, and for that matter the x1800 series, had a 256bit memory bus. The HD 4650 only has a 128bit memory bus. In addition, the x1900 and x1800 series of cards had a minimum of 12 Raster Operators (ROPS), where as the HD 4650 only has 8. The final numbers then stacking up...

R580: 90nm: 384million - Radeon x1900 AIW
8 vertex shaders : 16 rops / 16 textures / 16 pixel shaders
500mhz : 8000 MPixles / 8000 Mtexels / 256bits / 480mhz : 30.72 gb/s

R730Pro: 55nm: 514million - Radeon HD 4650
320* vertex shaders: 8 rops / 32 textures / 320* pixel shaders
600mhz : 4800 Mpixels / 19200 MTexels / 128bits / 500mhz: 16.00 gb/s

It's a close bet. Can the dominating texel power of the HD 4650 be enough to make up for the lack of pixel pushing power?

The short answer is no. Granted I am still in the middle of benchmarking the cards, but at resolutions of 1440*900 and 1280*1024, the HD 4650 just can't keep up with higher end cards from 2005 and 2006.

Core2 Duo @ 2.13ghz 2gb DDR2 800mhz 5,5,5,15 - x1900 AIW

Core2 Duo @ 2.13ghz 2gb DDR2 800mhz 5,5,5,15 - HD 4650 - DirectX 9

Core2 Duo @ 2.13ghz 2gb DDR2 800mhz 5,5,5,15 - HD 4650 - DirectX 10

Pentium 4 @ 3.00ghz 2gb DDR2 667mhz 4,4,4,12 - HD 4650 - DirectX 9

Pentium 4 @ 3.00ghz 2gb DDR2 667mhz 4,4,4,12 - HD 4650 - DirectX 10

However, what about 2 HD 4650's? One of the Intel motherboards we have is the D975X-bx motherboard, one of the first, if not the first, motherboard from Intel to support ATi's Crossfire technology. Lots of people have bought CrossFire motherboards since ATi introduced the technology in 2005, but it hasn't been until the HD 3x00 series that Crossfire has been practical. Can two low end cards perform better than a high end card from 2006? That's what we intend to find out, and hopefully before Windows 7 hits.

straight from icculus.org

We at Gamenikki.com like Prey, in fact Dave even gave it a 9/10 rating, and when it hit the $20 mark on Windows Steam back in 2007, we passed that along too.

In a long term view, Prey is a bit of disappointment in that the game has almost next to no AI at all. Like other games based on ID's Doom 3 engine, Prey never rose beyond the boo, ack, boom formula. However, in multiplayer? Prey still stands as one of the most imaginative multiplayer titles not involving Monolith.

Where the press release from Icculus really gets interesting though, is the specific mention of being able to use the Steam download files. As already revealed, Steam for x86 Linux is on the way, so there is a question whether or not Prey was ported in order to have yet another hardcore game ready for the launch of the Steam Linux client... Not to mention the rumor that UT3 on Linux is being held back for it's debut on Steam for Linux.

Give credit to Phoronix for breaking this story. It's been rumored for a while that Valve was porting Steam to the Linux platform, with many of the rumors being backed by job openings for Linux developers, Of course, one might be able to claim that Valve was simply bulking up the development teams that could take on Playstation 3 development after the comparative disasters of Valve releases on the Playstation 3 platform.

Now, with Left 4 Dead, it's no longer a rumor. Steam for Linux, x86 Linux, is coming. Speaking for myself? I think Valve finally got a handle on the object of selling a product... make sure it can reach the largest target audience possible.

Steam for Linux could be the tipping point for publishers such as EA and NCSoft that rely on cutting deals with the likes of Transgaming for Linux support, and shy away from simply coming out and saying their games are playable on the Linux x86 platform. Given that many gamers are perfectly fine with the Steam Digital Rights Management, since it actually works without getting in the way of owning the game, Valve is in a position to offer a secure enviroment for digital distribution that makes pretty much everybody happy.

And I? ... can't wait for it.

Source: BlackMesa

At 10 years old, Half-Life is still remembered as one of the defining first-person-shooters. Valve set the gold standard for a single player story that in the views of many, has yet to be surpassed on Windows or PC platforms, and surpassed only on console by Metroid Prime. To celebrate the launch of Half-Life 2, and to demonstrate the power of the Source Engine, Valve ported the original Half-Life to the Source Engine using the textures and shaders from Half-Life 2, but the character models and geometry from the original Half-Life. The result, well, wasn't exactly impressive. Outside of areas with lots of water, Valves Half-Life Source looked and felt like the original Half-Life.

Which, while not a bad thing, left many wishing for an upgrades similar to the ones that Counter Strike and Team Fortress got.

That's where the Black Mesa mod comes in, as it is a complete re-make of the original Half-Life, with every aspect re-done. As evidenced by the trailers, the story scenes are far more dramatic, such as the introduction to the pit monsters.

Here's hoping Valve hires the Black Mesa guys on to redo Blue-Shift and Opposing Force

Okay, this is an HTML test... nothing more... working on trying to embed images.

From Gamenikki Test

This posting is actually met with a bit of When did Sega become competent?. On top of the surprisingly good NiGHTS WiiMix, Sega's backing the jaw dropping Mad World, and now will be the first publisher to have downloadable content for a non WiiWare game. Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King I think holds the honor for the first WiiWare title with downloadable content.

On the other hand, Sega's move is a bit a of concern to history buffs. Phantasy Star Online was the first Gamecube game to go online, beating out both the Xbox and Playstation 2 consoles to online play. However, Phantasy Star Online was the only series of Gamecube games to go online. So, there's a bit of worry that history could repeat itself and Sega could be the only one with downloadable content games on retail Wii releases.

That being said, Samba De Amigo was one of our favorite games on the Dreamcast, so we were already looking forward to getting it for the Wii. Now we can also look forward to going broke buying all the extra songs for it.

Unfortunately, we don't have a system with crossfired RadeonHD 4x00 cards around... actually we don't have any systems with Radeon 4x00 around... So scratch giving the new crossfire support a run for it's money.

The new Anti-Aliasing filter, and the support for OverDrive though... those weren't exactly expected features, but we can get them tested.

My commentary is fairly limited, and is mostly comparison. At this stage in the launch of Tabula Rasa, when it went from closed to open beta, I was still filing reports about game crashes, graphical errors, broken missions, and exploitable bugs. With WarHammer Online, the closest thing I came to actually encountering a bug was on the login screen. If you logged into a different server than the one you had characters on, choosing your server with characters would take you right to the character creation screen, rather than the screen that shows your already created characters. That's really stretching the definition of a bug. Warhammer Online was easily the most polished MMO I've ever been involved in a beta test.

When I was playing Tabula Rasa I complained quite vocally about the move to promote PvP gaming. It was obvious that Tabula Rasa was a PvE game design, and forcing PvP mechanics broke not only the game balance, but also the experience of Tabula Rasa.

Warhammer Online though, seems to have accounted for Realm versus Realm content from the start. I remember sitting in a meeting with the Dark Age of Camelot devs at an E3 some years ago as they went over a brand new expansion and saying out loud, that looks a lot like Planetside, which I loved, and which has been one of the few MMO's to get Player versus Player combat right.

I wound up actually liking the teaming and world aspect against each other in Warhammer Online. The focus on Realm versus Realm over Player versus Player helps get the point across that Warhammer Online is a team game.

I liked the instanced RvR combat, and I liked the progression of the story. I couldn't say I really liked the rewards that players got for completing quests. There wasn't anything about the game that I just couldn't like, or couldn't find that wasn't well done. The move to cut content from the game just bare months ago shows the devs were serious about making every bit at launch, as good as it could be.

The game is so good, that I'm actually a bit worried for it. I think Activision / Blizzard has a serious problem on their hands. From a technical standpoint, Warhammer Online is simply a better game than World of Warcraft. I'd go so far as to say that WarHammer Online probably has a good idea of robbing WoW of a lot of it's player base.

Slight problem... the WoW playerbase is not exactly filled with people that are worth playing with, and everytime a WoW player shows up in City of Heroes, we get hours of entertainment talking about the clueless player in private global channels.

The upcoming Open Beta will actually be the test of how well WarHammer Online handles the people who shouldn't be playing MMO's... but do anyways.

In case you've had your eyes closed the past week, there's been a fuss made over sales of third party games on the Nintendo Wii console. Nintendo claims that third party games are profitable on the Wii, Microsoft claims third party games are not profitable. Nintendo gives out NPD sales data to show that third party games are profitable, Microsoft uses the same data to show that third party games are not profitable.

The problem is, neither of them are quite right, and neither of them are wrong. The Wii is profitable to third parties, but only specific third parties. Not everybody who makes a game on the Wii is going to break even, and most publishers are running for a world of hurt. A quick check of Nintendo's history reveals why,

Back in 1996 when Nintendo launched the N64 they tried to corner the market on quality games, specifically seeking out a Dream Team of developers to back the N64 with high quality titles. Nintendo's refusal to deal with smaller developers, their restrictive licenses, and various other non-compete factors all helped the N64 fall before the Sony Playstation, mostly as Sony pretty much gave a game license to anybody who wanted to develop for the Playstation. Coming off the heels of even more restrictive licensing and procedural behavior from the days of the SNES and NES, Nintendo effectively ruined all relations with many of the major 3rd party publishers. Even when Nintendo woke up to the fact that the Dream Team had been a lousy idea, and that they were in the last place in retail, it was too late. The damage had been done.

The Gamecube suffered from lackluster Playstation 2 and Xbox ports, and recieved placement on retail shelfs that didn't fit it's second place status in the three console competition. It didn't matter to publishers that the Gamecube was the second console to go broadband online after the Dreamcast. Publishers just wrote Gamecube online play as a non-factor before the console ever launched. It was no secret that development budgets for many publishers was heavily titled in favor of the Playstation brand, then the Xbox brand, then the Gamecube brand. Even when Nintendo did secure exclusive games, such as Tales of Symphonia, and the Capcom 5, sales of the games didn't turn out as expected. Granted, most of the Capcom 5 games were little more than tech demonstrations, it still didn't matter to the large publishers.

So, when the Wii launched, only one publisher was actually taking Nintendo seriously. Only one publisher was planning on fully supporting the Wii console. That publisher was UbiSoft. No other publisher, be it EA, Activision, Take2, Vivendi Universal,  and so on had any Wii exclusive plans. As far as the majority of the publishers were concerned, budgets were still allocated with the most amount of money going to the Playstation brand, the second largest amount going to the Xbox brand, and the least amount of money to the Wii brand.

Except, the publishers had guessed wrong. The Wii wasn't an also-ran. The Wii took off, and two years later is still running out of stock on a regular basis. There's no doubt that the Wii has been a sales phenomenon. Nintendo got the pricing right, they got a good selection of launch games, they got a good selection of advertisement, and they successfully hit the casual games market on the head.

So, the publishers responded, almost immediately diverting budgets from producing Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 titles to funding Wii development. The elite of the Japanese, American, and European developers started spouting off left and right about the crazy and wonderful ideas they had for games. The result left many publishers with their development and investment portfolios in a complete mess. It would take time for many of the projects to come to fruition. Existing production staff would have to be retrained, or completely new staff hired. Marketing budgets had to be shifted, and different demographics for ownership had to be accounted for.

To many publishers they couldn't wait 2 or 3 years to sort out getting games onto the Nintendo platform that they had no previous intention of supporting. There had to be games on the store shelfs to recoup just the costs lost in switching development streams so quickly.

So, the majority of publishers made their second collossul error. They went after the casual games market.

Lets put this in perspective. A former SCEE executive states that out of 100% of the games produced, only 30% actually turn the profit. The problem is, this definition of gaming includes stuff like Bejeweled and Pogo.com.  Stuff that not only doesn't appear on our radar, it's stuff that we just conviently sweep into a nearby rubbish bin. The fact is, the Casual Gaming market is one of the hardest markets to crack. Casual gamers don't see the need to buy a sequal to a game. One puzzle game is pretty much enough. There's no desire to upgrade the hardware on a regular basis. If the program works, it works. If it doesn't work, no big loss.

Nintendo, being the designers behind the Wii, and with a reputation for outstanding design quality, has nailed pretty much every casual game they have released. That's also why the original Brain Age game is selling better than it's sequel. The audience that Brain Age tapped into simply doesn't care about the latest and greatest title. The first game held more than enough content to satisfy their desires. The same goes for WiiFit. Sure, if only 40% of the people who buy a WiiFit continue to use it, that's still a higher continued use rate compared to traditional casual games.

Many of the major publishers then simply released simple and quick MiiTwo games. Seriously, just go look at the list of Wii Games currently available on Gamefly. There are three Bratz games listed there. Who on earth buys a Bratz game? There's three Spongebob games as well, and seriously, whose buying those games to begin with? Yes. There are some surprises in the junk games. Stuff like Dancing with the Stars. With it's TV background, you'd expect it to be junk, but it just isn't.

So, for the most part, it's not a big surprise that third party games aren't selling. It's not that we won't review them, but seriously, we can just look at the game and know it's not worth the cash.

The very real problem is that accountants don't understand the games industry, and many of the people running the major publishers, simply don't have the qualifications to be in their jobs. The fact is, a large amount of money generated in the console industry comes from the non-casual gamer. The semi-hardcore to the hardcore gamer is the one lining up to drop some cash on Mario Kart, or Jak and Daxter, or Ratchet and Clank, or Grand Theft Auto. Quality productions bring in the cash, and the list of quality productions on the Wii is just short.

The desire of many publishers to lock on and take the casual gaming crowd that has been lousy on repeat business before was a boneheaded idea. There also isn't a simple fix for the problem of third party games on Nintendo.

Third party developers are going to have to match the quality of Nintendo's first party offerings, and looking through our review history, that's averaging a 9.0 plus. Third party developers are going to have to the court the hardcore gamer. When a game is simply ported from the Playstation 2? Trust us, we can tell that. Games have to be built from the ground up. The motion control problems have to be fixed. Games like Alien Syndrome that hurt wrists to play have got to go. The stream of brand knockoffs has got to stop.

Publishers will need to take Nintendo seriously, as a platform for all ages. Not just for one that somehow ignores the male 12-40's something market. It's going to take time, and it's going to take money. Money and Time that many publisher may not actually have on hand.

So, what can we expect? A few more mergers looks likely, and more than likely there will be an abandonment of Microsoft technologies in the gaming sector. As publishers seek to cut costs, they'll lean on developers to write code that is platform neutral to begin with. Licensed technologies like the NT5 kernel and DirectX that don't work on anything other than a Microsoft platform will have to go. In it's place? Well, from the way things look with the Playstation 3, the future will be the Linux Kernel, GNU OS, OpenGL, and OpenAL. It's the only set of technologies that runs on a PC, runs on an Xbox 360, runs on a Playstation 3, runs on a Wii, runs on an iPhone, runs on a Playstation 2, runs on an Xbox, runs on a Gamecube, runs on anything you can name. That's going to be a cost factor that publishers aren't going to ignore, and it's a development factor that short of opening up the NT5 kernel and DirectX, Microsoft's never going to have an answer for.

That's why Microsoft is a factor in the sales of Nintendo's third party products. Microsoft has much more to lose than Nintendo when it comes to third parties. The massive exodus from paying licensees stands to put Microsoft's normal revenue streams at risk. The more vendors, and the more consumers, that Microsoft can bamboozle with statistics meddling, translates into more customers that can be fooled into continung to support the Microsoft Empire.

Now, my apologies if this sounds a bit ranty. As demonstrated, there's a lot of different factors affecting third party development which range from Nintendo's on history, to machinations of competitors fighting to justify their existence. Video gaming isn't going to go away, and it isn't going to die. A better way to put it is this: Publisher who choose to develop and publish games like Acclaim, are going to wind up like Acclaim. Everybody will be saying, Ack-it's-lame.

Reading over the reports from this E3 there are a couple of statements that just standout from Sony and Microsoft. It seems that Microsoft is convinced that the Wii is simply a niche product, and once Wii owners get tired of the Wii, they'll upgrade to a real console. Sony's Kaz Hirai used Gamesindustry.biz to wonder where the Xbox and the Gamecube were, focusing on the ten year life-span of the Playstation Consoles.

Well, lets deal with Kaz's statements first. Where are the Gamecube and the Xbox now anyways? Also, how did the Playstation suddenly get a 10-year lifespan? I seem to distinctly remember Nintendo wishing for a longer product cycle than Microsoft or Sony were giving their consoles. Answering the first question here answers the second.

Nintendo admitted that they made several mistakes with the N64. The limited cart space, the entire Dream Team developer fiasco, the marketing, and so on. Nintendo also admitted that their fanatic devotion to kid friendly games hurt their market opportunities later. Seriously, after Eternal Darkness, Conkers Bad Fur Day, Resident Evil, Killer 7, No More Heroes, and so on, why in the world is Apogee Software thinking they'll have content problems with Duke Nukem on DS?

Fact is, many developers and publishers are still living in the 90's, presuming that anything on Nintendo Platforms has to be ultimately kid friendly and sanitized. The Gamecube suffered from that perception. Despite being the second console to go broadband online, the Sega Dreamcast being the first, and despite having rather violent and vulgar games by both first and second party developers, Nintendo just couldn't shake its image of being a kid friendly, offline game console. The problem was further complicated by the perception that the Gamecube was the last place horse between the PS2 and Xbox, when year after year Microsoft kept filing corrections to the US's IRS that no, they hadn't actually sold more Xbox's than Gamecubes, and that Microsoft was the last place horse.

One of the major problems for the Gamecube was that many 3rd party developers never gave the console a fair shake, many having been legitimately burned by Nintendo directly over the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and N64 console platforms. For most of the 3rd party developers that ported games to the Gamecube, there was the constant problem of the different controller design. PS2 and Xbox games simply wouldn't work in the same manner on the Gamecube controller, and it was always obvious when a developer tried to shove a game with PS2 controls onto the Gamecube. Something always felt off.

The Wii then came along and complicated matters. It's ability to natively run Gamecube code, and near identical development enviroment made it easy for Gamecube developers to pick right up on Wii development. Then publishers and developers then made a mistake. The Wii wasn't another Gamecube. It wasn't the second place horse in a three horse race. It was the dominant console that is still for the most part, sold out. According to NPD, the Wii has officially taken the first place in number of consoles sold not just in the World, but in the US market. In the US market trying to find a Wii on the store shelves is a task involving camping out the store, and many Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 owners are upgrading to a Wii console. The Wii's success left much of the 3rd party development market scrambling to readjust their game plans to account for the Wii market. Several publishers have stated that their monetary allocations for development which used to be heavily geared towards the Xbox and Playstation brands has been re-worked to pay for larger amounts of Wii software.

Quite simply, going into the Wii's launch, very few publishers and developers outside of Nintendo and Ubisoft predicted that the Wii would be the run-away hit. To answer Kaz Hirai then, what happened to the Gamecube was simple. Third parties were never interested in the Gamecube to begin with, and committed very little in development resources. Many third parties had no long term plans for the Gamecube to begin with, and were already winding down Gamecube production plans and shifting their small budgets for Gamecube development to Wii development. Had developers and publishers been giving the Wii the same attention and long term plans as the Playstation 2, there's little doubt that Gamecube games would still be selling.

The Xbox is even simpler to explain. Microsoft dropped it and pushed developers and publishers to code for the Xbox 360 in a useless attempt to have a years head start on both Nintendo and Sony.

Many publishers have made no secret that they allocate their budgets according to whichever console has the greatest marketshare. As the Playstation and Playstation2 had much larger market shares than their competitors, the Playstation and Playstation 2 were granted larger amounts of development monies. Another factor to consider, and one Kaz Hirai conveniently forgets to talk about, is that Sony's business model for the launch of the Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 relied on the previous console continuing to move games out the door as developers got up to speed on the new console. Sony's business plan called for the Playstation and Playstation 2 consoles to continue to be profitable ventures 2 or 3 years after their new console launched in order to cover the costs of starting the new console up. The problem is, history isn't clear on whether or not that business model was intentional as the Playstation went into the Playstation 2. The Playstation went out on a blaze of titles such as FFIX and Dragon Warrior VII, which no doubt helped Sony survive until Devil May Cry dropped in 2001. While the model was clear with the move from Playstation 2 to Playstation 3, there is some argument that Sony really wanted a 5 year life-span for their consoles.

Alright, so the Gamecube and Xbox are gone because publishers and developers weren't prepared to support the Gamecube on a long term basis, and Microsoft wanted the Xbox out of the way so that all attention would be on the 360. The Playstation 2 is still around because this time Sony most certainly planned for the console to still be around.


So what about Microsoft's viewpoint that the Wii is simply a niche product? Now that the Wii has officially taken away first place in all markets from the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, it's hard to justify statements that the Wii is a niche product. Rather, Nintendo's managed to do what Sony and Microsoft have failed to do: Get non-gamers involved in gaming.

There, however, is an easier way to test whether or not a product is a fad, or just a niche product. Go get a newspaper and read the classified ads. See what products are available used, then go to the store. Check to see if the item is available in the store, and see if there is a price disparity.

Well, let me go ahead and save you the trouble of doing so. Yes. There is a used market for the Wii system. However, you can bet that somebody who is selling their Wii generally wants upwards of $300 for the console alone. In the US at least, finding a Wii on a store shelf, as already mentioned, isn't an easy task. The system is by and large still out of stock.

However, the Xbox 360 is different. Stores are piled high with Xbox 360's, and there is no used market. The reason why there is no used market is again, simple. The Xbox 360 is an unreliable peice of hardware. Microsoft is still having to deal with not just thousands, but hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Xbox 360 owners who have faced the Red Ring of Death. Most of the people I know won't touch a used Xbox 360 with a 10 foot pole, convinced that the owner is selling it because it's Red Ringed at least once.

The Playstation 3 is the only current console following the typical behavior of market conditions. Yes, there are Playstation 3's on the used market. However, you'll generally find that they are selling for a bit less than their retail new systems, and also generally have some use to them, and yet there's no concern about a massive hardware failure in store.

So, the out-of-stock Wii doesn't have a used market, which indicates that people are buying the console to keep the console. That's a problem for publishers and developers that are still trying to figure out the Wii's market. As we noted with Nintendo's E3 Press conference, the list of games was fairly short on stuff that would qualify for the hard-core gamers. This isn't to say that the Wii is short on hard-core games, but seriously, after Metroid Prime 3 there should have been a rush of FPS projects in development.

The good news for developers is that the Wii's extremely wide target audience, and lower development costs, means that just about any product can succeed at being profitable. The bad news is that many publishers and developers still haven't figured out that they should go ahead and release the hard-core games, people will buy them. Trust us. It's not a niche market. The Wii is not confined to the very young and very old, and yes, Microsoft is wrong, yet again. Seriously, after Vista, why is anybody giving Microsoft any credibility when it comes to saying anything?

There is also a very real concern that many publishers and developers are treating the Wii as a niche console and counting on Wii owners to cross-grade to another console at a future point. It seems that it has not occurred to Microsoft that such an event may not happen, and at this point probably will not happen. Well, I know this about Sony. Looking at their development plans and the number of 1st party exclusive titles on the way? Sony at least has thought about the possibility of the Wii not being a niche product and getting more exclusives, and Sony's already making sure they can compete.

Microsoft? Well. They can't compete in the mobile market. They couldn't compete on a legitimate level during the time between the launch of the Xbox and the launch of the Xbox 360. They can't compete in the desktop OS market, with all major US and Asian vendors launching Linux systems due to the consumer backlash on Vista. What makes anybody think that Microsoft will still be a competitor in the console market?

Speaking for myself? I think Microsoft needs to wake up and realize that dismissing other people's products as merely niche products with limited appeal, and expecting their own products to sell on the virtue of just being Microsoft products, is perhaps the worst business plan to have.

Since I did one for Nintendo, here's one for Sony. In all fairness, Sony has gotten better with the Playstation 3 over the past couple of years. Before the Playstation 3 was launched each Sony press conference was filled with moments that made gamers cringe, and created an un-natural desire to see if borrowing Gordon Freeman's crowbar was an available option during the convention.

Sony's appearently learned their lesson, with recent events much less overstated, and less announcements that inspire rage. The use of Blu-Ray as a default disc format is already proving to be a serious advantage for High-Resolution games. What was the number of Xbox 360 discs that would need to be used to port Metal Gear Solid 4? 7? 8? How much does an external Xbox 360 hard-drive cost if you need to repair it? How many have had to replace an Xbox 360? Yes, Sony got a lot right, but that doesn't mean that Sony still doesn't have any room to go. So, here's the questions that Sony didn't answer.

1: DVI support : When you consider that the Playstation 3 is a Linux computer, it's a little disappointing to find out that Sony's own Linux build will not support an HDMI to DVI adapter cable... Yet every PPC distribution you load yourself to the Playstation 3 itself... does. Which is a wonderful option if you solely intend to use Yellowdog, Fedora, Suse, or Debian only on your PS3. If you intend to have the best of both worlds and use both a full Linux Distribution and the Playstation3 as a gaming console, be prepared to shell out for a new monitor or TV. However it goes, adding DVI support would obviously just require a firmware update.

2: FireFox as a default Browser: Nintendo has Opera. Microsoft has IE. Sony has something on the PS3 that actually makes IE look good. Seriously, if the FireFox trademarks are a problem for Sony to use, there's a well known sanitized version from Debian called IceWeasel. With Sony's targeted market, not including FireFox as the Playstation 3's default browser is beginning to look a little silly, if not ludicrous.

3: PS2 backwards compatibility: Sony's pretty proud of the Playstation2. The aging console is still racking up sales and is still getting new releases. However, current models of Playstation 3 either have [b]NO[/b] PS2 support, or implement support through a software emulation. Hardware support for PS2 was dropped due to cost reasons. Sony wasn't exactly talkative on what the upcoming single model of Playstation3 would support. If some news sites are to be taken at face value, it's simply the existing 40gig model given a larger hard-drive.

4: Planetside: More of a personal sore point than anything else, Zipper's upcoming M.A.G. was nice, but all it did was simply cause a lot of former Planetside players to wonder if M.A.G. was simply a renamed Planetside 2, or if Sony has any intent of actually doing something with the Planetside property other than letting it die.

With Nintendo's press conference done and gone, the general assessment is that NIntendo chose to play the event in safe mode. What is possible more important than what was said, is what is not said. So here's my list of questions that Nintendo didn't address:

1: Gamers games: After the experience of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, it's almost bewildering that Nintendo didn't trot out new FPS games left and right. While I admit that Animal Crossing is a great game, it's hardly the hard-core old-school experience that many Wii gamers are looking for.

2: Memory Storage : With the WiiWare and Virtual Console libraries expanding on a weekly basis, the lack of any official word on a mass storage solution is a bit worrying. With an SD card reader and USB ports built right in to the Wii unit, the lack of being able to use those ports for games storage is quite puzzling. The obvious answer to the lack of external shortage is that Nintendo is worried about piracy concerns. Why nobody in Nintendo has thought about using a TrueCrypt based system to protect external media is a bit of a wonder.

3: Digital Output : By now everybody has gotten the point that the Wii is not a High Resolution console. It's targeted widescreen resolution of 720*480 isn't really stretching the limits of most High Resolution tv's out there. That being said, the lack of a VGA, DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort adapter is a bit confusing. Why Nintendo didn't chose to announce a digital connection solution, or even a VGA cable, is also a little worrying.

4: Wavebird 2 : In case it hasn't been noticed, Nintendo has pulled the Wavebird Gamecube controller from store.nintendo.com and scalpers are easily charging upwards of $80 for new Wavebirds on various online stores. Given the Wii's backwards compatibility with Gamecube games, and the ever growing library of WiiWare and Virtual console titles, now would seem like a good time to release an updated version of the Wavebird that is compatible with both the Wii's wireless connection system, and the wireless adapter for the Gamecube, and to finally add Rumble support into the Wavebird.

There still is some time left in the E3 Business Summit, so it's possible that Nintendo could pull a few rabbits out of their hats and answer some of the questions that people really wanted answered.

Probably a breach of protocol or something... anyways, it seems that a confirmed base troll in City of Heroes has been unmasked.

Basically a base troll is a person who joins a supergroup, then actively steals salvage, inspirations, enhancments, or other items from the supergroup, or goes out of their way to wreck, destroy, or dismantle a supergroup base. I've had a run-in with a base troll some time ago, with a player by the name of Blazing Kitty. However, identifying the accounts used by base trolls is generally a difficult proposition.

In the latest expansion to City of Hereos, however, the wall between local player names, and their global names has been removed. Now, it's not such a big deal to identify players such as Big Tricky and Crimson Lawyer as trolls and pursue their ejection from the game.

It seems that a dual-logger account has been confirmed as a base troll. Player accounts woodragon and GRAVTRAX were caught in the act of dismantling and deleting components and sections of a super-group base. At the time of the report in-game, the player was actively in the supergroup base editor removing components. It is believed that the named accounts belong to the same person.


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For those who wonder why it's important that trolls be actively named, might be interested in reading this editorial off site:

http://zerias.blogspot.com/2008/02/mmo-why-should-trolls-be-permanently.html