I was sure it had been announced. Never mind, I'll be playing it on PC anyway.
Which Pandora is referenced in your tag by the way? Boarderlands/Avatar?
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Kotaku Rumor: BioShock Infinite is troubled, having issues reaching vision, cut modes
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Which Pandora is referenced in your tag by the way? Boarderlands/Avatar?
Neuromancer
Member
Probably Pandora, Ohio
AgentChris
Member
It's probably somewhere in the back of Levine's brain.
I really can't stand this mentality(nor the 'fans') out there that suggests that nearly every damn game needs multiplayer of some sort. Game like these are better off if they just never focus on MP to begin with. Or, at least, not until the core game is near completion. The fact that they haven't dropped all MP modes yet, tells me that they'll be paddling upstream for a while longer, as they try to work out the core experience of the game. Get a clue already!
For games like these, where the campaign mode is the core focus, MP should never be developed in tandem, IMO. All it does is place unnecessary burden on the team and eats up precious time and resources that could have been invested in the core game. Furthermore, each - simultaneously developed - mode then fights for attention, time and resources.
Once the core game is nearing completion/completed, and the team is satisfied with the results, then and only then should they worry about additional/multiplayer modes. This was the design philosophy Rare employed for GoldenEye 007, and it worked out gloriously, because each mode got the developers' undivided attention, as any quality game should.
For games like these, where the campaign mode is the core focus, MP should never be developed in tandem, IMO. All it does is place unnecessary burden on the team and eats up precious time and resources that could have been invested in the core game. Furthermore, each - simultaneously developed - mode then fights for attention, time and resources.
Once the core game is nearing completion/completed, and the team is satisfied with the results, then and only then should they worry about additional/multiplayer modes. This was the design philosophy Rare employed for GoldenEye 007, and it worked out gloriously, because each mode got the developers' undivided attention, as any quality game should.
Goldeneye was a freak of nature
. A game based on a movie, by team that had never developed an FPS (some had never developed a game), and a last minute, non-approved multiplayer created in one month. That game was lightning in a bottle and to develop a game using that model is insane. There are times it doesn't work. It's obvious HL2's multiplayer was created after the single player. No time was put into it. No one played it after the first week. Thankfully CSS was there to pick it up.
I think the reason the multiplayer is so important is that this is a totally unique game. Can you imagine if Unreal didn't add multiplayer? It was a game that featured a strong single player but then transformed the series into a strong multiplayer. I would like the Infinite universe to transcend a six hour experience.
Longer single-player do not result in a better experience. I think the qualms that people have with other games that have multiplayer experiences is the fact that the features are lifted from other popular games. With sources we have ascertained that they were given resources to attempt something new in the multiplayer space.
As for how the game is in development it is really hard to say what features sets they should work on first or how resources were divvied up we don't know what would have resulted in a faster release and/or a better game. That is usually better asserted in a postmortem at least in public knowledge.
shrapnelmagnet
Member
In my experience, developing your core with Multiplayer first is ideal. Otherwise, certain systems you've built may not place nice when it's vs. another Human or whatever MP game mode you have in mind. At least, that's the RTS way.
The tough part is that you'll probably end up with two games anyway, so it can suck all 'round. Fighting for resources is never fun, as you mentioned.
I thought MP in GoldenEye was recently revealed to be sneaked in and that no upper management was aware until it was "completed".
legacyzero
Banned
Damn...
I have high hopes for this game, but news like this just makes it tough..
I have high hopes for this game, but news like this just makes it tough..
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Save developmental resources, Levine! Only make the 1999 Mode!
Either Infinite will get the job done or The Last Of Us will. Or both.
I imagine Half-Life 3 is going to be pushing the exact same thing too. Valve are so proud of Alyx, and rightly so, but we're a generation later, and an AI partner needs to make a significant leap, especially if Infinite and TLoU come through.
chixdiggit
Member
I really hope this turns out good. We need Fart of War to start flapping his gums.
Hawk269
Member
I thought BioShock 1 was good, 2 was more of the same. 3 looked interesting, but with the amount of time it has taken them so far and having to bring in more people, I have a feeling this game is doomed. They would have to sell a shit load to make up the cost to develop this game.
Muffdraul
Member
He's kinda pissed about all of the pessimism on display here. Have some fuckin' faith, you jackals.
HIGH DEF JEFF
Banned
It's all good..He'll be happy again after he watches and shares a bunch of youtube videos of overweight, socially awkward teenagers.
is this how coh 2 is working out? i remember reading in an interview something along the lines of the minutia of competitive balance taking a back seat to more experience driven mechanics and my heart sank.
heart of the swarm is looking like a slow pile up, i need an exit strategy.
According to what I've read, LMNO's problems were that they didn't really know what they wanted, the console restrictions held them back, and then DICE got them killed because of Mirror's Edge.
This is the comment I agree with the most on NeoGAF. I'd also recommend they maybe focus on making it PC-only, since Irrational's best work, like SWAT 4 and System Shock 2, was PC only. Half-joking, of course, but only half.
Goldenroad
Member
Dump it and just focus on the Vita. Focus!!!
I've read conflicting reports, but more than one was essentially that the team had been given an inordinate amount of time to build a playable demo, and struggled with making your interactions with the alien girl (not really an alien, but looking) varied enough, it was too contextual, so if the options were as dense as intended, the game was going to have to be exceptionally short. Then a second attempt was made a little later, no idea why that got canned though.
element
Member
While I agree that every game doesn't need "multiplayer", almost every game now needs some type of online mechanic. This online mechanic needs to retain the player as long as possible to maximise the window of full retail sales and limit resale. The longer a game can be held onto, the more limited the used stock is, and more likely that people will just buy a game new. More new games sold, the better for the developer and publisher.
This directly contradicts many successful developers now, including Bungie. Bungie creates the core to be MP first, and then builds SP from the core mechanics of MP. Not to mention in current games you have to deal with client/server. How do anims work in packet loss? How does latency interfere with player aim? Also there is core engine client/server (yes even in SP, there is a server), in how all these systems work. Many developers now build their game with these systems working in MP first, since it would be a HUGE undertaking to take code not built for any of these problems and THEN get it to work in a MP/Online environment.
Also using Goldeneye really is an invalid argument. Goldeneye was 15 to 20 people TOTAL. That is SP and MP. That is JUST the programming department for a current game. COD has three different companies working on Black Ops 2. What worked 15 years ago really doesn't apply today.
In the end, you really have no clue what you are talking about.
ii Stryker
Banned
not necessarily. I'm playing Dishonored and it has no online functionality but it does have infinite replayability. Same goes for a game like Skyrim. Making your gameplay more emergent and dynamic negates the need for online functionality.
this is simply just wrong. The MP of Halo:CE was tacked on. and every subsequent release of the Halo games Bungie has had TWO separate development teams, one for SP and one for MP and each team adjusts the mechanics to suit each of the game modes specifically.
In the end, you really have no clue what you are talking about.
I too am somewhat concerned with how the development of Bio Infinite has been going and am anxious to see/hear more about it in a few days.
Levine did say that they were going dark with the press when the delay was announced, but all the departures do leave me concerned.
element
Member
Skyrim has Steamworks on the PC. Which has helped the game sell extremely well on that platform. As games evolve being connected will become one of the major selling points.
You really missed everything I just said. Do you think Bungie supports two totally separate code branches for how the weapons work? How animations work? How physics work? How player damage is calculated? No. All this stuff is written for MP first as the failure cases for these systems are far more complex when taking network into consideration.
Building MP maps is totally different than building a code base that supports multiplayer/network gaming.
I worked at Microsoft during Halo and Halo 2. I worked with a number of the guys from Bungie. MP was NOT tacked on from an programming perspective in how the core systems work. While Bungie and countless other developer have multiple groups working on specific parts of the game, many of them use the same code base and assets with Call of Duty and BioShock 2 as an exception. Those two games that had separate asset and code branches, so each team could work 100% separate from the other (Hell Call of Duty is a totally separate executable). A possible fix to an issue in SP might not the best fix for a game that ALSO needs to work in MP. It is more cost effective to build your code base to work in MP first and add in special case code for items used in SP versus building a code base only focused on SP and then attempting to get it working in a network environment.
Skyrim would sell just as well without Steamworks. I bet most people don't even know what Steamworks is.
Muffdraul
Member
I'm sure things were different during Halo 2's development and beyond, but according to Bungie themselves, Halo 1's MP was almost literally tacked on at the last minute after the campaign was pretty much finished. It's basically down to your word against theirs.
Thank God.
element
Member
Again, building maps and game modes are totally different then building a code base that supports online/network play. The code base for Halo supported online/network play since the Mac version was build to support those systems. Code from the Mac version was refactored to work on/in the x86 environment.
I guess it also depends what you mean by last minute. The whole project was last minute. I do remember Halo LAN games around March of 2001 at Gamestock. Memory serves me right, they were working on SP issues up until they went to certification (as did many games on the Xbox launch).
You guys are really mixing up game logic (deathmatch, CTF, etc) and game code (client/server communication, server replication, game state, player position, animation handling, physics).
Muffdraul
Member
OK, OK. To be blunt I think the real issue is that it's almost as if you're talking about a topic most of us are familiar with, but using completely different jargon and lingo. Yeah, it makes sense that the company who made Marathon and Myth would automatically build connectivity infrastructure into their next project (which they slogged away on from 1998 to 2001... not exactly what I would call "last minute") under the assumption that it would include multiplayer when it shipped. But I still don't buy that they tuned and balanced the weapons, animations etc. specifically for multiplayer from day 1. Multiplayer simply wasn't the priority back then.
element
Member
Again, that isn't what I am saying. How a weapon works in code is defined to work in a server/client model. How does the game understand what animation is played? How does the game understand the player health? How does the game communicate with all the other dependent systems. This is the logic I am talking about, not that the shotgun does 15 hp of damage, but the fact that a gun even does damage, and when damage occurs that is communicated to the client correctly, and the appropriate animation is played.
This type of communication path for the game code is designed before a gun, animation, or level is really even built (well maybe a test map).