Gaming irks

[J0e Musashi]

Compared to the 360, the PS3 was the past even in 2006.

You aren't backing up a 360 though. You mean how the 360 didn't have built-in Wi-Fi and you couldn't change the HDD?

[Asura]

That's ?10.50 a year? Are you seriously not cool with that? Everybody else would be playing The Witcher 17 by then.

I think, J0e, it's what the always-online thing means for the game.

On the one hand, it suggests the game is always multiplayer, in the style of an MMO or something like Test Drive Unlimited, which some people simply don't want.

On the other hand, if it doesn't feature that kind of thing, then it makes the game worse for no consumer gain (for reasons that have already been discussed).

[MarioMark]

Your 6 year old kid trying to tell you how to do a part in a game before you've worked it out... and being right. :l

[gunrock]

[MENTION=2732]J0e Musashi[/MENTION], no I'm not. I know from past threads you are the kind of person who plays and then sells on; so thus less affected by servers being switched off, but when I buy a game with a single player campaign I have the expectation that provided the media is still readable and the hardware still working, it should still be playable as many years down the line as I like. Publishers and platform holders keep telling us in their EULAs that we are only buying a license to play the game on the hardware it is designed for and that we don't own the actual game, but nowhere do they tell us we only now only have that license for as long as they decree the servers stay up for.

[gunrock]

BTW I don't expect multilayer games to stay up - I don't play them and this is partly the reason why. But I do expect single player games to continue to work past the lifetime of popular interest in the game and after the platform it's on is obsoleted.

[randombs]

You aren't backing up a 360 though. You mean how the 360 didn't have built-in Wi-Fi and you couldn't change the HDD?

You mean the upgradable wifi that allowed me to keep with the times* unlike the wifi on my super slim which is still 54g like the original?

Agreed about the hard drive.

* which, for the 11n version, could overheat if connected to its proper port at the back

[randombs]

Fighting games like SF that don't give you the option to quickly restart the match in single player, instead dropping you off at the character select screen to then reload the very same match you were just in.

[fishbowlhead]

Cheap design tactics in games used to block the player off. Card board boxes, a small fence, invisible barriers or even the good old invincible shrub. All a massive wind up to me these days. I can understand it being used up to the ps2 to cut down on visible polygons and other wasted resources that the player doesn't really need to see. These days though we have enough power to make more cohesive worlds with more areas to explore, let the player explore.

[Jay]

That isn't my point. My point is that if you are connected to the Internet anyway, why does it matter? If for some 1984-style reason whereby somebody wasn't connected to the Internet at all times, then I could maybe see why they might want to have a little moan, but otherwise I would genuinely like to know what the problem is.

It's an unnecessary requirement. Whether everybody has internet or not isn't the point. Considering how unstable PSN is, for example, I'd be pretty pissed off if my single-player game was affected by the status of PSN.

[randombs]

It's quite sobering to think that we will soon have games we cannot play just because the servers are switched off. The hardware to play them will be easily available(or may even be current-gen) but they simply will not function without a mod chip or proxy server or something.

Speaking of mod chips, imagine using them just to play original games you bought before. Not even imports, let alone legal backups.

[Darwock]

We won't soon have them, we've already got them. In fact, it's been a few years now since Metal Gear Online got shut down. Warhawk lost all official ranked servers. Soul Calibur Lost Swords got switched off. Demons Souls too AFAIK (still playable offline, but not the experience it was). That's all just PS3 generation (and no doubt there are many more). Go back to the PS2 and just about every online game is surely extinct already.

[fishbowlhead]

We won't soon have them, we've already got them. In fact, it's been a few years now since Metal Gear Online got shut down. Warhawk lost all official ranked servers. Soul Calibur Lost Swords got switched off. Demons Souls too AFAIK (still playable offline, but not the experience it was). That's all just PS3 generation (and no doubt there are many more). Go back to the PS2 and just about every online game is surely extinct already.

My mate came back from travelling a few years back and found all the online games he was reading about and wanted to play were down and no longer playable. So this is happening already.

I can understand the devs position and the players, I dont think there will be an answer to the solution any time soon, if it costs money but isn't generating any it becomes a pretty simple business decision.

[eastyy]

Also i think due to licensing some games were unable to be bought ...i think it happened to Outrun, and Afterburner

[Asura]

My mate came back from travelling a few years back and found all the online games he was reading about and wanted to play were down and no longer playable. So this is happening already.

Although this can be a shame, usually online titles only shut down when there aren't enough people to keep them going anyway.

[eastyy]