The current state of PC gaming and effects of consoles.

HangTime said:
What I tend to do is play games 6+ months after release, when they are cheaper, have been patched and potentially I'll have upgraded so better performance.
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Especially with Bethesda products. I don't know why anyone would buy it on release day when in a years time the modders will have had at it and fixed it.
 
PC sales are meagre, MW3 has 78,000 peak players on steam, there are 1 million online right now on the 360 version.

I've seen more than 2 million people on Black Ops at once on xbox live.
 
only thing that annoys me is the bs that people believe from the actual companies :(

ea is great activision isnt in most peoples eyes which is clever how ea pull this off.

as for the big releases they arnt as good as they should have been .

bf3 isnt the graphics monster or as beautiful as people like you to believe crysis 1 still looks better and in my op so does bfbc2 .

skyrim for me looks a straight port from console aswell . yes a lot will buy it but the graphics are pure xbox 360 shoddy isnt the word.

i guess its just to get them out for the best selling period of the year. wish some of these nabs would have a gamble and put something really great out.

its the same with films though at the moment hollywood wont make anythnig unless they know without a doubt it will make a profit .

i guess its the just how the buisnesses have come to operate and how the money is at the moment
 
Limenote said:
Would definitely agree that expectations have gone up, pc gamers want the best graphics, AI, modding options, grand multiplayer and free DLC for a comparative cheaper than console retail price.
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And thats the problem in a nut shell!!

You've only got to read the user reviews on say Amazon to see almost any new PC game getting critically slaughtered within hours of release.:mad:

If it's not the gameplay, its the graphics or DRM or Origin or something to have a moan about.

For the most part, this does not happen on the PS3, Xbox etc. where user reviews tend to be more forgiving as in general, expectations are lower.

So because of this, the Devs are left with an easy dilemma, earn more money from a far larger, more compliant console user base or pander to hyper critical PC users and charge less for the privilege.

If as a PC owner you expect more from your chosen game on the basis that your PC can do more, why would you expect to pay less for essentially a better quality experience:confused:

After all, the PC is just another competing format and not necessarily a profitable one when you factor in user base/piracy etc.

The question is, if Devs were prepared to produce separate game versions able to push our uber machines, would we as discerning PC users be prepared to pay console prices (or more) to play them??
 
IMO, games have improved at release in terms of playability. Perhaps though with some of the new additions like origin, it makes them a little more prone to bugs etc. I remember having so many problems trying to get bf1942 to work on my pc in the day, when it did though it was great!

They do seem to be rushing out games with not a lot of decent gameplay in them though these days, not enough character... just, oh another MW with updated graphics and different guns. Nothing groundbreaking!
 
PapaLazaru said:
PC games have always been buggy on release. Unlike consoles, where developers have a fixed point of hardware to deal with, the PC market has numerous variables to deal with.

It is part of the package as when it works, it is untouchable.
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I dunno, GP2, GP3 never crashed, no performance issues etc, however GP4 never even worked and they gave up after 1 patch!!

Also, GP2, GP3 and ICR2 had good AI while the likes of F12002, F12010, GT1, GT2, GT3, GT4, Forza3 and Forza4 have absolutely shocking AI (IE NONE)... Why is it, when PC's had like a max of 500mhz and 512mb of ram, the AI was great, yet now we have almost supercomputers yet racing games AI is TERRIBLE?!?
 
I can't believe people think it is worse today. Remember when your DOS games were buggy and how you were totally screwed? :p

One example (name of the game escapes me), the game didn't work on Sound Blaster compatible cards (something like 90%+ of the market!) and the dev had to mail out 3.5" disks with the patch on :p
 
Overlag said:
Why is it, when PC's had like a max of 500mhz and 512mb of ram, the AI was great, yet now we have almost supercomputers yet racing games AI is TERRIBLE?!?
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Probably because the games had simpler mechanics back then... even 8bit computers with 128k RAM had decent AI in racing games, because the actual games themselves were simpler. The simpler the game, the fewer situations the code has the cater for, and the fewer mistakes the AI can make.

The more detail we put into our games, the more physics, the more complex/detailed the tracks etc, the harder it will be for an AI to handle it. Also an AI is only as good as the algorithms it uses, being able to do calculations 10x as fast doesnt make AI 10x better if the calculations it is doing aren't the most effective ones.
 
HangTime said:
Probably because the games had simpler mechanics back then... even 8bit computers with 128k RAM had decent AI in racing games, because the actual games themselves were simpler. The simpler the game, the fewer situations the code has the cater for, and the fewer mistakes the AI can make.

The more detail we put into our games, the more physics, the more complex/detailed the tracks etc, the harder it will be for an AI to handle it. Also an AI is only as good as the algorithms it uses, being able to do calculations 10x as fast doesnt make AI 10x better if the calculations it is doing aren't the most effective ones.
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But AI has gone backwards, not stood still. GP2/3 and ICR2 days you could have a 100% (ie 78 laps at Monaco, 250laps on a oval or ICR2) race, and proper have fun with the AI, which would adjust its lines/weave to block you etc. Yes, they followed the line, but if there was another car there they wouldn't just drive into it etc.

Now days, the AI follows train tracks and DOES NOT DEVIATE, even if you are on the racing line in the way, it will drive right into you! Forza and GT series being a perfect example of train track computer cars (i wouldnt even call it AI), so i can only play these as timetrials against myself, Wow exciting! F12010 was just shocking, the AI was faked, and sometimes would teleport off into different locations. All these make for a terrible racing experience. But then all the developers talk about is racing online. I dont WANT to do that due to idiots that ruin it by cheating or crashing into people to make the biggest crashes as possible because its fun init?


So off from the racing games, and how about the Civilization series. Civ2, Civ3 had relatively good AI, yet Civ4 and especially Civ5 its absolutely rubbish. Again, WHY? :(
 
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Its funny when you consider console development from a patch standpoint they are dealing with a customer base using almost identical system specs (xbox, ps3) yet you still see problems come up with the finished product

Which sort of puts it into perspective for pc gaming, because theres so much customization in what people use, i guess they have a lot more to factor in

SWKOTOR and FF7 ports to PC from their console counterparts stick in mind as a couple of the worst I've seen in 10 years+

Most of team17's releases since they came out of hibernation have been equally poorly done and blatent console > pc ports without any real effort
 
A lot of the problems simply boils down to the publishers themselves.. Over the last 2 weeks, BF3, MW and Skyrim have all appeared.

How do I know this.? Well I've seen adverts for them... And what gets my goat is that those adverts DO NOT MENTION THE PC VERSION AT ALL

That to my mind is just plain wrong.
 
Honestly, i don't mind some console ports, but some do show clear signs of little care when ported.

Until the next generation of consoles is released, we won't see improvement in certain things.
 
Killerkebab said:
I can't believe people think it is worse today. Remember when your DOS games were buggy and how you were totally screwed? :p

One example (name of the game escapes me), the game didn't work on Sound Blaster compatible cards (something like 90%+ of the market!) and the dev had to mail out 3.5" disks with the patch on :p
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Don't forget the joy of rewriting your autoexec.bat and config.sys for pretty much every new game.
 
Strange that my experience of so called console ports seems to be different than everyone else here. Been playing PC games for almost 15 years and this is what I think.

  • Games are cheaper than they have ever been.
  • Games have far fewer bugs.
  • Games have slowly moved on in the AI stakes. [no where near what we all wanted, but the small levels of progress can be seen year on year]
  • Games have halted progress in the graphics stakes in the last three years compared with that years front runners (eg Crysis), but the overall volume or perhaps average level of good looking game releases has gone up.
  • Games are getting way too easy :(

So thats it. As always for me graphics are very nice, but not the be all and end all of gaming.
 
I remember having to trawl page after page of slow loading, pop up infested websites to get a patch for counter strike 1.4. Oh, and there were at least 17 different flavours, which if you got the wrong one.. You'd screw the whole installation.

Oh, and each one was 300MB on a 56kbps line. How fun :p
 
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