This week’s Gaming Podcast gets down and dirty, with plenty of AAAA goodness. The Darkness II contest is still going on this week, and winners will be announced next week.
In the meantime:
All that, plus Reader Feedback.
The question of the day, “Do HD graphics matter to gamers?” If you’re currently rolling with a PS3 or Xbox 360 and you’ve got HDMI and or sweet component cables you’re probably saying, “duh, of course they do.” What about everyone else, those Wii consoles for instance, there are so many of those. What about gamers that do not know what HDMI means?
Let’s face it, an estimated 21-million people are still using over the air TV broadcast signal and a large portion of those think that their TV is high definition because it doesn’t have an analog dial anymore. Recent Nielson ratings are showing most gamers are still pushing PS2 hardware, which isn’t high definition.
In the US, HDTV sales only reach 25-30% of the population. Couple this with the fact that one in five HDTV owners can’t tell the difference between standard definition and high definition content and you’ve got roughly 20% of the population utilizing HD. Looking at the number of gaming consoles out there and the rate of uptake, it’s clear that a large majority of gamers are not using HD resolutions for their gaming needs. (loot-ninja)
We’d like to think 1080p looks much different than 480p but some people don’t seem to notice because, honestly, they just don’t care. We’d also like to think a PlayStation 3 buyer would be aware of the HD content and already have equipment at home to take advantage of the system. Although there are no solid facts to state otherwise, there must be a group of individuals that have purchased a PlayStation 3 and are rolling with SDTV (ghetto).
High definition graphics matter to people who want a true HD experience. Wii gamers don’t care about high definition because they’re focused on the game play environment or are just following the wave of hype and desire to own the infamous white box. The Xbox 360 gamers may go either way, a gamer wants to own the system because they can get a lot of cool new games for it secondary to the HD experience. The hot games just don’t get designed on the Xbox classic or PS2 anymore. We’d presume a PS3 gamer really wants to play a high definition game because the cost of the console is more and you’re getting a Blu-ray player all bundled into one.
HD graphics matter to us, we see the difference, respect the detail and use the HD portion of the console as an excuse for paying so much for the technology. The United States, as a whole, isn’t fully ready or equipped (mentally) for a full HD experience. When will they be prepared to experience high definition at its fullest?
My guess, five years after Nintendo makes the transition to 1080p. Nintendo is capitalizing on the “average Joe” and the average consumer is still catching up on the high definition. Hell, many gamers are still playing the dial-up game!
Maybe we need to start a new government funded orgnization: The No HD Left Behind Act. Everyone should be in HD.
Now that Blizzard feels their engine is solid, it’s time to move on to creating content for the full game. Jay Wilson, Diablo 3‘s lead designer, says the game engine is in an advance stage of completion and much of the art team has moved onto Act 2. Don’t read into that, he said game engine.
Blizzard is obviously not hurting for money, given the success of World of Warcraft and they’ve always taken their time with projects to make them solid products. Blizzard’s name is on the line and they’re brand consists of three major franchises: Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. When you produce so few games you’re expected to do them perfectly.
How do they do it? As Wilson says, “If we haven’t rebuilt something five times it really doesn’t deserve to be shipped. That’s pretty much our policy.” (eurogamer) While a game engine is the foundation for a great game experience, the content is king. Blizzard is deep in the mire of content production so, although the engine might be solid, the final product is probably still far from complete.
End result, expect a high quality product once again from Blizzard.
Diablo 3 Lead Designer Jay Wilson sat down with Multiplayer Blog to explain how the health system works in Diablo 3 and how it differs from Diablo 2. In short, you can’t add a new feature without removing an old one, in this case we’re talking about health potions.
The goal is to broaden the Diablo audience to more than just the hardcore fans. Lets be honest with ourselves, the health potion system was way too far out of control (broken?) By mid-game or earlier, half the character inventory was full of potions and you might have just purchased shares in the potion selling company with all the spending you’ve done there. The health potion system created the infinitely powerful character, in essence, by making them immortal.
Activision Blizzard has learned a bit about their success with broad audiences in games like World of Warcraft, which has surpassed game sales over Diablo 2, their most successful game title. What they’ve decided to do in this release of Diablo is to limit the characters ability to heal and make them “mortal” again, requiring the player to use strategy, tactics and skills to defeat enemies. Rather than charging forward pressing “1” then “2” then “3” and the other hot keys for potions, you’ll be forced to back away during strong stomp attacks, mind your enemies special attacks and defend yourself.
“One of the things that happened in ‘Diablo II’,” Wilson continued, “was the player was faster than most of the monsters and had pretty much infinite health because they would just pop as many potions as they wanted. So when you have a player who has more mobility, more health and endless power, essentially the only thing you can really do to challenge [the players] is to kill them… by just spiking the difficulty.” (multiplayer blog)
Gating the users ability to heal is a classic RPG/Adventure game mechanism for changing the playing field in terms of difficulty. You can make a game with weaker enemies in abundance and still cause you harm, take a look back at Gauntlet in the arcade for an example of this method. You can build challenging enemy styles and dungeon traps to cause the player to mind their step, look at the classic Zelda series and some of their crazy enemies. A great example is the Darknuts from The Legend of Zelda, it was a small knight that could only be attacked from behind but had a sharp little dagger if you bumped them from the front. You had to use tactics to wipe out a full room of Darknuts.
Activision Blizzard will now have the option to create some fancy enemies with challenging special abilities that do not involve insta-kill upon contact battle tactics. You control a super hero character, not an immortal; there should be some challenge besides hacking and slashing through mobs of enemies. Wilson went on to say, “We can make a monster that affects your mobility, we can make a monster that has different kinds of attacks that are dangerous to you and that you actually have to avoid. And so it makes the combat a lot more interesting.”
One of the criticisms to the Diablo franchise has always been the “click fest” of battle. You sit still and click on enemies until everyone is dead. Perhaps, without having infinite potions you’ll be challenged to use your brain on occasion, like a real RPG and have more creative use of your money rather than investing a half-billion into the potion vendors.
Where does that lead the hardcore Diablo fans? Activision Blizzard hopes they’ll see a title with a lot more depth, a new style of challenge and a long term appeal.
Paul is back!
@Analyst predicts 66M iPad sales in 2012
The nasty thing about extrapolating numbers to make predictions can fail. I mean Sony Vita sold ok initially, then to simply drop rock bottom immediately after.
Oh man, I sure loved Paul’s comment with Harry Potter 🙂
Ah, you gotta love the planned obsolescence. As for PC games, you get better graphics for the extra performance requests.
@Diablo III gets May 15 release date
It makes no sense to delay the launch for Russia. It will not increase sales in Russia or anywhere else. I say that 3-4 days after Diablo 3 gets released in US, pirated copies will show up on torrents sites.
@Next gen console launch titles will probably use Unreal Engine 3
Well, the rendering can be expanded to cope with DX11 hardware. As far as I know, it can already cope with it (Aliens vs. Predator 2010).
As for it being the only game engine, it implies that only Epic is aware of the API for the new consoles. Careful there with the statements, Epic …
@ looking for executive producer to work on an “AAAA” Xbox title
I think they simply need a fresh idea … the team that produced Halo would do the job just fine … oh wait! They dismissed them a while ago. Smart move!
Lol, Paul, that was a great interpretation. Hmm … maybe I’ll start roleplaying my comments 😛
Family show, right… You can bleep out as many swear words as you like, this will never be a family show.
Well, there weren’t any interesting news stories this week, so I’m not going to comment on them.
Paul, you should read Reader Feedback comically more often! And I do agree that the Flying Beetle in Skyward Sword is a great item because you can use it to scout pretty much everywhere. I also think that Koloktos (the one with the six hands and huge scimitars) is the best boss in the game.
@Episode 255 comment: The theater was sort of packed, and my roommate sat in front of me with the other half of our party. He sort of deserved the head kick, though, so it’s all good.
@iPad Sales: I had an iPad 1 at my last job and liked having it around to browse the Web and look at other content on the couch. But since I had to give it back (the company folded), I haven’t missed it. Only the money I spent for The Daily (peeyoo).
@Unreal: I get the Game Developer trade publication, and Unreal always has an advertorial touting its wares. If it looks good and is easy to develop with, why not?
Thanks for another damn good fucking family show, fo shizzle.
hmm i dont know if my friends dragged me to the movies to see something like alvin and the chipmunks i might have another reason to kick there ass in the theater .
oh forgot to mention last week either version is fine.
also i never got the reasoning behind the serah palin movie. she lost the race but the celebrate her as a great victor? i guess you just do things diffrently in america
oh i forgot to mention that the mgs2 ending was scary because it became alot like eternal darkness on the gamecube but it came so out of left field in what was a normal game up until that point.
66M iPad Sales in 2012? – I wrote something maybe too evil for this show regarding this news piece, so I’ll just say this. I don’t like Apple and I like Paul just a little bit more now that he has shown his hate for Apple as well. I like ya Paul, stay classy.
AAAA Title by Microsoft – Why? Why would Microsoft claim to have a AAAA title? Doesn’t that just completely destroy the point of the game rating system. Now KOEI is going to announce they have a AAAAAAAAAAA title: Dynasty Warriors 231. I’d like to believe all developers/publishers think highly of there games, but it seems sorta cocky to go off of the scale because you believe this game is better than any other title ever put out, and does not deserve the lowly “AAA” spot. But that’s just what it seems like to me.
As always guys keep up the good work. Hope you all are doing well, can’t wait for the next episode.
(to Paul to read, and please in british accent, if possible, of course)
as an answer to the previous podcast, one shall improve his english skillz, i mean, proficiency!
@66 million iPads sales in 2012
those poor bastards, wasting their money in an overcharged piece of eletronic equipament that shall not bring any major improvement over the previous iPad
@Diablo III 15th of may
One shall not leave the presence of one’s personal computer while one’s equipament still works (not fry out into oblivion)
@AAAA microsoft title
thou shall be amusing to see such game when announced right after Call of Duty, n00b warfare 4 (let’s hope CoD just die now, before that happens).
Mr. Nowak, is this better (insert trollface)
one hopes the TD gaming podcast trio (hopefully) understands this message as a form of entertainment, or if you gentlemen prefer, a joke
always wishing the best!!!
*@beggining: “*for* Paul to read…”
and i mean hopefully a trio, not hopefully understand