Gears of War 2

[Nembot]

I wanted to unleash the wrath of Nembot, but it`s late and I`m tired so you have been spared, maybe tomorrow.

Aslong as my arse faces south, GoW2 will be benchmark that ALL games will be measured by come November 08 in the same way as GoW raised the bar on its release 18 months ago.

In the 18 months since the original GoW, few have even come close to it in terms of graphics, gameplay and from a multiplayer perspective the its list of rivals is even fewer. I still play this game in multiplayer to this day, the only other multiplayer games that I`ve played solidly for over 12 months have been PC FPS games.

Sure, GoW multiplayer has some slight issues with its balancing, but melee, chainsaw, sniper, whatever can all be countered unless you have the hand eye co-ordination of Stephen Hawking. Try and chainsaw me and I will kill you. Try and pistol whip me and I will kill you again. My only nemesis on GoW is the lag and the lobby system, none of which can be seen in teh GoW2 video.

Everybody is a critic these days, when you`re not playing games you`re probably wowing your friends with your ability to taste 10 different types of grape like Oz Clarke with a £4.99 bottle of Jacob`s Creek and then send it back because it`s corked.

The fact that Dom`s hair is parted on the other side of his head doesn`t make GoW2 a bad game 6 months before it`s due to be released, nor does the fact that nobody jumps in when you chainsaw an enemy. The emphasis is you and the enemy in close quarters combat, you look the bastard in the eye as you make his insides spill out on the floor. Why would I want someone joining in?

The game isn`t finished yet and I reckon you should probably leave the increasingly popular cybersport of "Nitpicking" until you have seen more than 30 seconds of the game. This game will be quality and Dom`s parting aside, it will be the best game on the 360 not to mention this current generation come Novemember 08.

Consider yourselves told.

Edit by charlesr: removed efforts at bypassing the swear filter. Consider yourself told.

[ezee ryder]

I don't think anyone is doubting it will be a good game mate. People (myself included) were just pointing out a few glaring AI issues and they were discussed pretty fairly by everyone involved.

[Matt]

Wow @ The Nembot.

Sorry mate, some decent constructive discussion on this site is a good thing. It's better than the usual hyperbole that has blighted many of the preview threads the last few years. I've enjoyed discussing these issues, we've had a few decent posters expressing thoughtful and insightful opinions and insights. Coming down on people just because they dare, you know, question something, is an odd thing to do.

IMO of course.

As you say, you must be tired because you're clearly confused over plenty of things. "No lag in the GOW2 video". Well yeah, because it's the single player game, hence no lag! Plus what most people call lag is actually latency. And latency blights all Live games so it's a fair bet it will rear it's head in Gears 2, despite the fact Epic have more online gaming experience that most devs.

"Lag" in singleplayer games is actually dropped frames, and Epic wouldn't release a video with 30fps dropping to 20fps every so often - so no "lag" in the video

Game unfinished? Well of course it is. Though I'd hazard a guess that most of the work left is art and assets, given it's building on the original code base. The question remains though, why have Epic put such glaring issues in the video?

It's all well and good to be falling over yourself getting all worked up and excited over a preview trailer. That's great. However some people evidently like to discuss these in depth, look beyond the Cliffy B soundbites, and question some of what has been shown. That's a good thing! It's what all decent editorial staff do with previews. If you tell me it's the greatest thing ever, then show me something that actually isn't [though may well be, as you say it's 6 months away], do I blindly take your word for it or do I look at the evidence as it currently stands?

I see no-one saying Gears2 is a bad game. At worse, I'd say it'll be more of the same - and that's not a bad thing at all, I must have put a thousand hours in to that bloody game online! What we're discussing are apparent flaws that may well not elevate Gears 2 to the Even Greater The Gears 1 Game we hope it will become.

BTW, Gears has more than "some slight balancing issues". Obviously you have the ability to counter every balancing issue in the game though.

For me, Gears1 is like GTA4 - it's so close to absolute greatness it's painful, it's a tantalising glimpse of what could have been. "If only". Ultimately though all these things are subjective. What's good for the Goose may not be good for the Gander.

You're the Goose in that analogy BTW

The fact we're discussing these things in such minute detail shows how much we care about this game.

[Morph]

at the end of day no game is free from any kind of issue or flaw and if there was a game that was flawless there may be no need to have a sequel in the first place. I think what it comes down to is the fact that many people over look flaws sometimes without even realising but thats because what is there is so good. I'm sure Epic will try to correct as many of these issues as possible I mean people complain about them all the time on Epic's own forum but some things are too difficult to correct and some just can't be corrected - latency. Its not the developers fault all the time.

[Matt]

at the end of day no game is free from any kind of issue or flaw and if there was a game that was flawless there may be no need to have a sequel in the first place.

I don't necessarily agree with that. If a game was perfect, it would just be easier to pump out a sequel as you'd just need new assets and levels, no additional code

Regarding Latency and Epic being unable to fix it, that is an interesting point. Coming from a PC background, I've hosted a 10 player UT2004 server, with an additiona 22 bots, on my home PC, and the players have had no real latency - of course there was some, but usually sub 60ms, and all was very playable, the host having no advantage (60ms for me is a tiny, tiny advantage at best, under 100ms hitscan weapons don't usually have to be lead). I've done this with plenty of other PC games.

Yet on Live, even 1 on 1, the fabled "host advantage" kicks in. I'm sure we've all heard of the "host shotgun" before, which is just idiotic. Do people really believe put code in the game making the host's shotgun more powerful than the clients? Of course not. There are even people out there who believe if you are on the host's team, you can press a sequence of buttons to get the host shotgun! Yes, Live is full of geniuses. What's happening is Live is causing the issue. It's not that the host has an advantage, the host is playing the game Epic intended. The clients have a disadvantage.

But I digress....

My point is there is a clear issue with Live that adds latency to games. Live games don't give you a number, only a silly coloured bar to indicate latency. That by itself doesn't fill me with confidence, I want a proper number. What does a full green bar indicate? <50ms latency? <500ms latency? Who knows. I think it's something around 250ms, which would have been OK latency back in the Quake World era but these days is bad.

People will be jumping up and down now going on about how it's the fault of ISPs with the poor upload. Yes that is a factor. But if I can host a relatively latency free PC game on my home PC, why can't I do it on the 360? And it's not just me, I've never played a Live game where latency isn't present.

Live is so dodgy, I used to play against people who, in EVERY game, would take twice as many shots to kill as every one else. One person in particular, in every game. You could stand behind him and empty a clip, sometimes it wouldn't kill him - and no, he never hosted!

S I don't think Epic can really do much about this. Gears on the PC has none of these issues. I'm convinced the problem is Live itself.

[Nembot]

Consider yourselves told.

Edit by charlesr: removed efforts at bypassing the swear filter. Consider yourself told.

Good one Charles, laugh I nearly did, but imitation is the highest form of flattery after all.

[chopemon]

If anyone is after them, sellers on ebay have started getting stock of the Gears action figures. I just bought a set of four (Marcus, Cole, drone, sniper drone) for ?45 shipped from the states. Considering their retail price at the end of the month here is ?12, its a good deal

[EvilBoris]

And it's not just me, I've never played a Live game where latency isn't present.
I don't think Epic can really do much about this. Gears on the PC doesn't issues. I'm convinced the problem is Live itself.

Gears on PC runs through LIVE does it not? All the other Windows LIVE titles I've played use the exact same ports as the 360. PC titles are flexible enough for the developers to adjust various parameters that reduce the appearance of lag or latency at the expense of performane, which the developers can just assume can be rectified with a faster machine.
I imagine it is pretty tricky with a console game as the users won't accept that the multiplayer mode looks significantly worse than singleplayer and you can't leave it in the users hands and say "buy more ram!"

The obvious solution would be to have dedicated servers for the games, but try and work out just how many machines you'd need to have to support a title like Gears and you'll be able to understand why companies aren't prepared to do it like that.

[Matt]

Live is used on Gears PC, but I don't know how it all works. I'd really like a dev to let me know just what XBox Live requires for online play.

I don't think the Live Latency issue is anything to do with the 360's performance. I have my theories, but no way to investigate them further to get to bottom of it.

The fact is, for me, Live is pretty unplayable. I just can't cope with the latency, given I can play the same game on the PC (again with no dedicated server) and have a perfect online experience.

I think people are blinded by Live because it's just so easy to use - the voice, joining game, etc are brilliant. However the fundamental use of Live, the gaming itself, doesn't work as well as it should.

As for the cost of dedicated servers, well PCs have coped that way, there's obviously a business model that supports it.

[MattyD]

How can you blame Xbox Live for lag when it doesn't play any part in the gameplay? All Xbox Live does is set up the games, match IP addresses etc. None of the gameplay data is routed through any Microsoft server at all AFAIK as all games are peer-to-peer.

It seems to me like you're just trying to find reasons to whale on Microsoft because of the hardware issues you've had recently.

[Matt]

The fact is, Live introduces latency in games. Same ISP, same router, same game, same host, but on a PC the lag goes away. There must be a reason for this.

I believe Live must be doing something. I don't know why, or how. I have ideas what is going on, but I'd need technical documents for Live, and ideally a dev station to work it all out - and I don't imagine MS will give me access to either

I know it's not only me who has seen these issues with Live. Something is going on, and it is a shame because the system is a great idea.

BTW my hardware issues with the 360 aren't just recent, they go back to 6 months or so after launch. But that's another debate entirely. Here, I'm saying Live isn't all it's cracked up to be, and it'd be great to get some input from devs.

Never, ever put it beyond MS to wrap something up so much in proprietary bloat that it kills performance. For example, the header in any Office file is atrocious! For all I know, MS are padding out the packages for some reason and that's responsible. I don't know.

There's either a problem with Live, or there's a problem with every developer not being able to handle online latency. And given Epics track record and experience with online gaming, I don't think it's them.

[Nembot]

How can you blame Xbox Live for lag when it doesn't play any part in the gameplay? All Xbox Live does is set up the games, match IP addresses etc. None of the gameplay data is routed through any Microsoft server at all AFAIK as all games are peer-to-peer.

That`s the way I understood it too. It is similar when you host a match on your PC using it a s a server, you of course will be buzzing with your zero ping but as the game fills up they will suffer, exactly the same as LIVE.

As has been mentioned, the only way to fix this would be to have dedicated servers. If M$ created some kind of "Platinum" account that gives you access to dedicated servers I`d gladly pay extra on my subscription. At worst I`d love to see a filter option incorperated into LIVE games where you can choose the location of the game you want to join.

When I used to play FPS games on the PC I used All Seeing Eye to find my games and I had the filter set so that only UK servers would come up. I`d never play a game unless it was under 30 ping, playing some fella in the states on LIVE it`s bound to be 100+ ping.

[Gerry Helmet]

I've never played Gears or any 360 game on the PC but latency only becomes a real issues when games have insta kill weapons like a shotgun or in Halo the sword. I highly doubt that there is no Host advantage on the PC or on any online game where with certain weapons milliseconds can make all the difference.

I have played a ton of old PC games and they all had their own lag/latency problems. Sorry but your cluctching some imaginary straws with this one

You need both the Specs for live and someone to translate the specs ?

Jesus wept !

[EvilBoris]

I nice alternative if MS aren't prepared to fork out for dedicated servers would be for the games to feature a dedicated server mode (ala some of the old Ubi Xbox titles) but I imagine MS are against encouraging people leaving their 360's running 24/7 considering the machine's track record.

I still believe the main reason for ****ty games are people who haven't got decent enough/incompatible networking hardware or haven't got it set up correctly, which to be quite honest is a nightmare.
I do sometimes wonder if the exclusion of built in wireless networking was a deliberate move to keep LIVE more stable. The second you get a wireless connection in there you are addding yet more latency, especially ontop of duff freebie routers etc.

[Matt]

I'm only calling it as I've seen it. I host PC games, up to a certain sensible size, and there's little apparent latency. Host a Live game, and people suffer from latency. Reverse the tests so someone else is hosting, same thing. It doesn't help that a lot of people don't know the different between lag and latency.

Here's a quick test - next time you play Gears online, select the shotgun, point it at the floor, and shoot. It's a hitscan weapon, so the impact on the floor should be instant. With Live, sometimes it's near enough, other times in the same game it can jump up.

And I'm talking local, UK based gaming as well, not connecting to someone abroad.

GerryHelmet, as I said, once ping is below 50ms or so, you no longer have to lead a target at all with hitscan weapons, so to all intents and purposes you're playing "realtime" with no discernible latency.

I know everyone loves Live, and it's not a good idea to talk ill of it. However I maintain that something is not right on the gaming side of it. Live is probably doing a lot of monitoring of your online game as it's taking place, maybe that is contributing to the latency as additional information is getting sent to MS every second or whatever. I did think the voice chat may be to blame, but I've run PC servers at home with a TeamSpeak server as well and that didn't add any real latency to games.

Only way I'd believe otherwise is if a dev on here can confirm that Live doesn't pad packets and confirms the link is direct to the server with no diversions. Though if the packets were padded, that would most likely case lag rather than latency.