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[plagiarize]

But what's the point of a capable engine when it's not being used?

Here's the "quad core" Intel video, multiple times they paint of a picture of a large seamless map ( Not as in a huge sandbox environment )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fqb5VRtTL8 and even at 2:15 he says "In a huge, seamless and dynamic game world" - That is nothing like the game is today, it's way more linear and there's no real "open" feel.

Driving was also originally meant as a core way to get around the place, as far as I recall, now it's just tiny sequences.

forgive me for not rewatching the original video again.

you still cover some fairly large distances when driving. the open world didn't fit the game design ultimately. they didn't change it because the 360 couldn't do open world games. that'd be a ridiculous suggestion, because there's a bunch of such games on the 360.

the benefit of them having developed it as an open world engine first is that the game, while linear, has some huge levels with massive draw distances that wouldn't likely have been possible if they'd been thinking 'linear game' in the first place.

you take a linear path from the crashed car to the gas station in the first level, say, and you take a linear path from the cabin in the national park, through the national park, to the cable car, up the top of the mountain... but you can see pretty much all of that path from certain vantage points... and take away the barriers and you have an engine that's clearly pushing large open worlds, even if you have to take linear paths through them.

the engine is being used... just not for the game design it was originally intended. personally i think the only real way the game was hampered through it's design process going via open world to more linear design, was in pushing the 360 more than it needed to and ultimately leaving us with a final product with low image quality and some performance issues.

but then the PC version is going to fix that. the engine is great. the vistas in the game are breath taking.

the tech is being used.

 

[Fox318]

Unfortunately Remedy is not planning to release the mod tools. The tools are a lot more complex than they were with the Max Payne games, and are based on many 3rd party commercial tools like Autodesk 3d studio max. Additionally they have been integrated to work with our Perforce asset repository and other internal services, and removing and re-implementing these features would be a lot of work.

How the mighty have fallen.

They should have released it for PC at the time or not at all.

 

[Sethos]

you take a linear path from the crashed car to the gas station in the first level, say, and you take a linear path from the cabin in the national park, through the national park, to the cable car, up the top of the mountain... but you can see pretty much all of that path from certain vantage points... and take away the barriers and you have an engine that's clearly pushing large open worlds, even if you have to take linear paths through them.

A ton of simple backdrops, 2D effects and cheap ranged assets does not make an open world. It's easy to make a pretty view that doesn't require much rendering power, doesn't make it an open world game that just happens to be blocked off.

 

[subversus]

I was also wondering why people are still upset with Remedy. Maybe I'm seeing the whole picture here, but are people saying that Remedy never should have agreed to have the game published by Microsoft?

Seems like Microsoft are the only ones to really be mad at here, but I'm probably missing something.

I do think charging $60 would be a bad move.

One journalist I know (on the internet only though) visited Remedy one or two months before the release and he said that studio boss or the lead writer (forgot who exactly) told him that "comfy couch" had nothing to do with the real reason why it wasn't released on PC but the journalist refused to say why because this discussion was online.

 

[subversus]

A ton of simple backdrops, 2D effects and cheap ranged assets does not make an open world. It's easy to make a pretty view that doesn't require much rendering power, doesn't make it an open world game that just happens to be blocked off.

yeah. totally

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OWd8AdrajY

 

[angular graphics]

How the mighty have fallen.

Hypothetically, releasing something like our WorldEditor would not be a small feat in itself, and the two biggest reasons are that there are some 3rd party license issues that may make it expensive or difficult (as one example needign to rip out the xbox360 libraries etc.), and it's pretty heavily integrated to our network and version control database.

It also needs assets (objects, textures etc.) in a different format than what the game eats (game only loads "memory images", i.e. pre-processed platform-specific assets). So to be able to mod anything we'd need to release our library of raw textures 3D meshes, sounds, and so on. We're talking about 100+GB of data.

That would make it impractical. Not impossible, but impractical. And thus somewhat improbable.

Sounds like a good enough reason to me.

They should have released it for PC at the time or not at all.

How about no?

 

[plagiarize]

A ton of simple backdrops, 2D effects and cheap ranged assets does not make an open world. It's easy to make a pretty view that doesn't require much rendering power, doesn't make it an open world game that just happens to be blocked off.

you aren't listening to me then. you see shit way way off in the distance, with lots of shit in between, and then without loading, you walk past all that shit inbetween to reach the shit way way off in the distance.

Alan Wake's levels are huge compared to most every other game out there. i'm not talking about pretty views that you don't then walk through. i'm talking about stuff you see, that you then explore.

 

[Thoraxes]

Alan Wake PC is a Remedy self-published title.

So, does this mean without a good digital distribution service that this wouldn't have happened for PC at all?

 

[IcyRhythms]

can't wait

 

[nomis]

The assets and lighting in the 360 version looked so good, but were let down by blurriness and jaggies. Can't wait to play this in proper resolution.

 

[goodfella]

Hope they do something about the textures. Alan Wakes only good quality was it's lighting.

The story, the gameplay and graphics were absolutely terrible imo.

Well if you think that, I don't think better textures are going to help.

 

[nelsonroyale]

I will very likely pick this up, for the right price

 

[Sethos]

yeah. totally

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OWd8AdrajY

You do know the game has been out for quite some time and I've actually played it. Can we stop pretending that everything isn't just clever rendering techniques and it's just the raw power of the 360 just brute force rendering massive vistas that are all in super high quality during gameplay? Find a 'pretty' spot while playing and you can spot the super low quality assets, the low quality textures that make up a lot of terrain and all the low poly models made even worse by the LOD switching / streaming oh and the blurring to avoid rendering it. You can spot that shit straight away and it doesn't look flattering whatsoever. The 360 would probably catch fire if it had to render the Intel demonstration at a normal PC resolution.

They created the perfect illusion of an "open world" and people seem to believe it.

 

[kuYuri]

It's funny, I remember around summer 2011 contemplating what an Alan Wake PC port would be like and this is literally everything I imagined it to be, except I fully expected GFWL over Steamworks, but hey, it works out for the better.

Sounds like Remedy is putting the effort to make this a great port.

 

[Corky]

Played it on 360, loved it other than the later vomit inducing end game. Going to buy the crap out of it on pc can't wait.

 

[The English Conquistador]

Well if you think that, I don't think better textures are going to help.

You're likely to be right.

I remember when certain people on the gametrailer forums were saying it had the greatest gaming story ever.

Lol.

 

[derFeef]

Oh good we are back to "why isn't this open world, like we saw in a protoype video" debate.
Simple answer: Because it is a better game without the open world aspect.

 

[plagiarize]

Oh good we are back to "why isn't this open world, like we saw in a protoype video" debate.
Simple answer: Because it is a better game without the open world aspect.

Pretty much.

 

[Caesar III]

DX10, 360 controller, 3D NVision etc sounds good to me. I hope the game is good.

 

[DieH@rd]

Oh good we are back to "why isn't this open world, like we saw in a protoype video" debate.
Simple answer: Because it is a better game without the open world aspect.

And it has the benefit of real crapton of assets that were generated for that open world game. Tons of varied environments and set pieces and insane amounts of assets everywhere.

 

[NBtoaster]

Essentially this. Is the lighting that intensive that it would require a quad-core?

Consider what the 360 has to do to be able to run it. 544p, and huge amounts of screen tearing.

Plus the lighting and other things like shadows will probably be much higher precision than on 360.

 

[Technosteve]

i need to go look in the gaf archives and figure out how hyped i was at the time of the Intel developer conference and they demo'd the game on core 2 quad chips.

needless to say, day one perch double dipping etc etc etc.

 

[Quicksilver4648]

I lol'd when I read that Alan Wake PC is going to be fully Steamworks integrated. I guess this is what Microsoft deserves after refusing to make a PC version on their own. At least with this being a self-published title Remedy will be getting a larger portion of the sales (hopefully) since there wont be any packaging and shipping needs. I am not unsure if I should purchase this game again. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice playing Alan Wake over again in vastly better visuals. But, I already did beat it completely on Xbox 360 (1500/1500 gs) so I don't think I would get much value out of it. I think I just convinced myself to wait till the Steam summer sale.

 

[Deadbeat]

They still wont say the price.

 

[Stumpokapow]

So, pricing I feel like this is the best strategy:
- Launch at $39.99, 15% off for pre-orders / launch purchases
- Drop to $29.99 at beginning of Steam summer sale, featured for $14.99. Price remains $29.99 after sale
- Subsequent sales price $14.99, or $7.49 when featured.
- Eventually, maybe a year or so out, drop to $19.99 permanently.

 

[Sportbilly]

So, pricing I feel like this is the best strategy:
- Launch at $39.99, 15% off for pre-orders / launch purchases
- Drop to $29.99 at beginning of Steam summer sale, featured for $14.99. Price remains $29.99 after sale
- Subsequent sales price $14.99, or $7.49 when featured.
- Eventually, maybe a year or so out, drop to $19.99 permanently.

Would.

 

[Jtrizzy]

People were super hyped about that demo around here. I just watched it again (only about 5 minutes long) and it's still pretty awesome. It certainly looks like a beautiful and can see why people are disappointed, but at the same time it really doesn't make sense to make a Twin Peaks episodic style game in an open world.

 

[Deadbeat]

So, pricing I feel like this is the best strategy:
- Launch at $39.99, 15% off for pre-orders / launch purchases
- Drop to $29.99 at beginning of Steam summer sale, featured for $14.99. Price remains $29.99 after sale
- Subsequent sales price $14.99, or $7.49 when featured.
- Eventually, maybe a year or so out, drop to $19.99 permanently.

You can get the XBLive download version for 10 dollars.

edit: If they are going to release it for $40 its cheaper in the end to get it on the 360 even factoring in the DLC. Its a straight port so whats the point? Its got to be competitive in price.

 

[Imbarkus]

http://forum.alanwake.com/showthread.php?t=7667

Is Alan Wake going to use Games for Windows Live?

Games for Windows Live will not be used; we will be fully supporting the Steam platform.

Who is the publisher?

Alan Wake PC is a Remedy self-published title.

What features will be available on Steam?

The game will run using Steamworks, allowing for syncing of settings and save games to the Steam Cloud platform. Steam achievements will also be featured in the game.

Will the DLC Episodes be included in the game?

Both The Signal and The Writer DLCs will be available on Steam and are included in all copies of the game.

Boiled down to the good news that matters to me!

 

[derFeef]

I lol'd when I read that Alan Wake PC is going to be fully Steamworks integrated. I guess this is what Microsoft deserves after refusing to make a PC version on their own. At least with this being a self-published title Remedy will be getting a larger portion of the sales (hopefully) since there wont be any packaging and shipping needs. I am not unsure if I should purchase this game again. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice playing Alan Wake over again in vastly better visuals. But, I already did beat it completely on Xbox 360 (1500/1500 gs) so I don't think I would get much value out of it. I think I just convinced myself to wait till the Steam summer sale.

Huh. MS greenlighted them the PC version so to say. And I guess if people like it on PC and they holded out for the 360 version (we see some reasons for that in this thread) - they may be considering buying American Nightmare on XBLA and AW2 down the line. There is nothing bad about the PC release for Microsoft.

So, pricing I feel like this is the best strategy:
- Launch at $39.99, 15% off for pre-orders / launch purchases
- Drop to $29.99 at beginning of Steam summer sale, featured for $14.99. Price remains $29.99 after sale
- Subsequent sales price $14.99, or $7.49 when featured.
- Eventually, maybe a year or so out, drop to $19.99 permanently.

This is what I think as well. I am not getting the " 40 bucks is too expensive" sentiment as it is pretty much a new release for PC. Making it cheaper way faster is the right strategy.

 

[Sportbilly]

You can get the XBLive download version for 10 dollars.

edit: If they are going to release it for $40 its cheaper in the end to get it on the 360 even factoring in the DLC. Its a straight port so whats the point? Its got to be competitive in price.

I'd have to buy a 360 though...

 

[tci]

Essentially this. Is the lighting that intensive that it would require a quad-core?

Doubt that. I remember them showing of the games physics in 2004/5. If I remember correctly they said it was thanks to the dual core architecture. Did they remove the tornado with physics interaction from the game?

I will only consider this if the port is good. This was once the most technological games out there.

 

[JaseC]

Nice to see the DLC episodes will be included.

Hope they do something about the textures. Alan Wakes only good quality was it's lighting.

The story, the gameplay and graphics were absolutely terrible imo.

The textures are fine, as evidenced by the X360 bullshots and large leap in asset quality between in-game and cutscene. It's the SD-like resolution that ruined the textures rather than a lack of inherent detail.

 

[krameriffic]

You know, this game actually looked interesting to me on consoles. Might give it a look see after some reliable people give impressions on the quality of the port.

 

[Portugeezer]

Better be cheap, no $50 full price for old ass game which should have launched on PC too.

 

[Jtrizzy]

Yeah $40 would be ok. I really hope they don't think $60 is though, just because they are throwing in the DLC.

 

[tci]

Here's the tech demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gnWEYxks-Q

Seems the quad core is vital for the lightning. You also se the tornado with physics interactions towards the end.

 

[IcyRhythms]

Why would you get a vastly inferior version on 360 to save a few dollars?

I mean, we're talking about native 1080p and higher, 60 frames per second, along with DX10 and everything that comes with it.

I'm all over this version and always knew it would release on PC, despite MS's bs.

 

[tci]

Remember this?
"Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen. We ultimately realised that the most compelling way to experience "Alan Wake" was on the Xbox 360 platform, so we focused on making it an Xbox 360 exclusive. Both Microsoft and Remedy have long histories in PC game development. This decision was about matching this specific game to the right platform." said a Microsoft spokesperson"

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=387561

 

[JaseC]

Why would you get a vastly inferior version on 360 to save a few dollars?

I mean, we're talking about native 1080p and higher, 60 frames per second, along with DX10 and everything that comes with it.

I'm all over this version and always knew it would release on PC, despite MS's bs.

The renderer is still DX9, it's just that no cards that support nothing more than DX9 are powerful enough to run the game at a satisfactory level.

 

[IcyRhythms]

Remember this?
"Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen. We ultimately realised that the most compelling way to experience "Alan Wake" was on the Xbox 360 platform, so we focused on making it an Xbox 360 exclusive. Both Microsoft and Remedy have long histories in PC game development. This decision was about matching this specific game to the right platform." said a Microsoft spokesperson"

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=387561

Yep, and I never believed a word of it.

 

[IcyRhythms]

The renderer is still DX9, it's just that no cards that support nothing more than DX9 are powerful enough to run the game at a satisfactory level.

Fair enough and that's my mistake. Either way, still inferior and the PC version will be worth the wait, I'm sure of that.

 

[JaseC]

Fair enough and that's my mistake. Either way, still inferior and the PC version will be worth the wait, I'm sure of that.

To be fair, it isn't mentioned in the FAQ; and, yeah, there's no denying the PC version will come out on top.

 

[Easy_D]

Yep, and I never believed a word of it.

Yeah, it was more like. "Microsoft paid us a large amount of cash to make it a 360 exclusive for a good while so here's this excuse we made up to justify the decision"

 

[derFeef]

Yeah, it was more like. "Microsoft paid us a large amount of cash to make it a 360 exclusive for a good while so here's this excuse we made up to justify the decision"

Or "MS financed and made this game even possible"

 

[nomis]

You're likely to be right.

I remember when certain people on the gametrailer forums were saying it had the greatest gaming story ever.

Lol.

Ummmm, in the pantheon of videogame stories, there isn't exactly a high bar to be considered among. The plot in Alan Wake IS one of the very best.

 

[Easy_D]

Or "MS financed and made this game even possible"

Well, uh, yeah. I suppose! But Microsoft is still responsible, the intention was to release it on PC all along right? There must have been some kind of reason for it to become an exclusive.

 

[tci]

Well, uh, yeah. I suppose! But Microsoft is still responsible, the intention was to release it on PC all along right? There must have been some kind of reason for it to become an exclusive.

Just like Halo, to push hardware.

 

[derFeef]

Well, uh, yeah. I suppose! But Microsoft is still responsible, the intention was to release it on PC all along right? There must have been some kind of reason for it to become an exclusive.

Of course, but calling it an excuse is weird. I will give you that though - Remedy is not always the best when it comes to PR talk.

 

[Hawk269]

I only played till the half way point of this game on 360 and other things came up and I never finished it. However, I thought it looked amazing on the 360 even though it was running at sub-hd resolution...so I can imagine how good it will look on the PC with all the added bells and whistles and 1080p output.