Sammael
Liturgist
So, Feargus, whom did the FO
oS team talk to? I am not flaming, I am genuinely interested.
oS team talk to? I am not flaming, I am genuinely interested.
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Game News Puuk dishes out THE TRUTH about Fallout 3
- Thread starter Spazmo
- Start date
chrisbeddoes
Erudite
I think that the lyrics of this song by Toni Braxton are appropriate to describe the communication lies sorry lines between the FOOS and the BIS team.
My oh my
How can this be there he goes
Talking in his sleep
By and by
He will connive does he know
He's talking in his sleep
The affair okay
He's corrupt
What do I do, what do I say
I feel ashimed, embarrassed, fatigued
Such a petty crime of sexual indiscretion
At night when he lays down
How I wish I could not hear the sound
But I could
On the things that he said
My oh my
How can this be
There he goes talking in his sleep,
By and by
He will connive does he know
He's talkimg in his sleep
Adultery that's what the call it
When you're married
Tell me something
Why is it that the man are forgiven and the women aren't?
I don't know may be, may be I should forgive him
May be I'm over - reacting what do you think... not!
The promisse he made
Said we'll be together for always
He's such a liar
Then he calls out her name
My oh my
How can this be
There he goes talking in his sleep
By and by
He will connive does he know
He's talking in his sleep
Guilty secrets
They are haunting my life
And he doesn't even know that I know
Can you hear him
The promisses he makes
Said we'll be together for always
He's such a liar
Then he goes out to burn me
My oh my
How can this be
There he goes talking in his sleep
By and by
He will connive does he know
He's talking in his sleep
OS and the BIS team.My oh my
How can this be there he goes
Talking in his sleep
By and by
He will connive does he know
He's talking in his sleep
The affair okay
He's corrupt
What do I do, what do I say
I feel ashimed, embarrassed, fatigued
Such a petty crime of sexual indiscretion
At night when he lays down
How I wish I could not hear the sound
But I could
On the things that he said
My oh my
How can this be
There he goes talking in his sleep,
By and by
He will connive does he know
He's talkimg in his sleep
Adultery that's what the call it
When you're married
Tell me something
Why is it that the man are forgiven and the women aren't?
I don't know may be, may be I should forgive him
May be I'm over - reacting what do you think... not!
The promisse he made
Said we'll be together for always
He's such a liar
Then he calls out her name
My oh my
How can this be
There he goes talking in his sleep
By and by
He will connive does he know
He's talking in his sleep
Guilty secrets
They are haunting my life
And he doesn't even know that I know
Can you hear him
The promisses he makes
Said we'll be together for always
He's such a liar
Then he goes out to burn me
My oh my
How can this be
There he goes talking in his sleep
By and by
He will connive does he know
He's talking in his sleep
Spazmo
Erudite
In all fairness, I'm absolutely sure the accounting department was able to provide some really helpful constructive criticism for the FOBOS team.
Volourn said:
That'd probably be because the importantest part of the news isn't that no one ever talked to the BIS team working on Van Buren, but that Darth Molitor was pulling members from Van Buren to work on Fallout Enforcer - then cancelled Van Buren because it was going to take longer.
Spazmo
Erudite
Wait--I think I've sussed this one out. You see, it's the BISers who were yanked from FO3 onto FOBOS who were talked to about it and approved it! The only problem is that once confronted with the idea of having to work on such a horror, they were left in such a state of shock and disillusionment that all they could do was mutter "yeah, thongs, that's real Fallouty..." when prompted to. See? No spin doctoring at all!
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2002
- Messages
- 28,359
Yeah, but would you buy it? You're still talking $400 MORE than a console. Someone who's scrabbing over that amount of money (IE: the type of person who buys a $600 machine) is looking art buying a PC to work with or they're clueless and are better off having a console as well. For starters, console games always work. I've never had an issue getting a new, or even an old (picked up at the pawnbroker for $10) game to work on the console it was meant to play for. I try to play Hexen II on a computer now? Oh boy do I have some fun. Hell, I even have to copy the Fallout 1 CD onto the hard-drive and run the install from there because there's some funky thing that happens when I try to run the install from the CD.Vault Dweller said:
... but I bet it can't play any decent PC games. That's your problem right there. I've got a P4 2.4 Gig with 1 gig of RAM which is pretty much STANDARD today. Hands down it can beat the X-Box or PS-2. Thing is, it cost me about $1,500 (including Windows XP Home and not including the TV tuner card etc..) and I can't play games like Morrowind with full partikle affekts!1! without some major slowdowns at times. PC games chew more power by default. That's because they're better (GTA 3 on PC had higher texture quality etc) and need more power.Otaku_Hanzo said:
The major issue I think however, is sheer number of games. Take a look at your PC store. How many games ranging from crap to fantastic are there on the shelves? The number of PC games is in the thousands per year. That's a lot of choices people have to make. A console by comparison has about 200 games. Sure, that's a lot, but it's a lot less than your average PC. Now take in the fact that any PC game works on any PC (well, it's supposed to for arguments sake). Console games though, only work on that console. When a new console comes out, the market is wiped clean. N64 doesn't play SNES games and so on. Every 2 years the market is rebooted. You can no longer get the old console (except in the pawnbrokers if you're lucky) so you have to buy the new one. And people do. That's why people lined up for the X-Box when it came out at $700 AUS even when Halo was the only game going for it. Of course, Sony changed this with the PS2 playing PS1 games. I'm not sure how long or if that will last though.
At the end of the day though, it's probably like Beta vs VHS. You can argue which one is "better" until the sun shines out your arse. It doesn't change what people buy.
As for the FOBOS / BiS stuff. Me thinks it's time to update a certain article (which is being linked to from everywhere. Heh.).
Vault Dweller
Commissar, Red Star Studio
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2003
- Messages
- 28,035
The choice of PC vs console is not as simple as 200 vs 500-600. Here is how I see it:DarkUnderlord said:
Console is a toy nothing more, PC offers emails, chats, web browsing, info access, job hunting, free games, cheaper online shopping, word and excel, self-learning and work tool, etc. Buying a console for your kid doesn't mean that you are done wasting money, you'd have to buy a PC too because your kid would like to email and chat with friends like all the kewl kids, so it's cheaper to buy a $600 PC then to buy a $200 console AND a PC 6 months later. Like I mentioned before, one console doesn't play all games. Can you play Mario on Xbox? Halo on PS2, Zelda on Xbox, Metroid Prime on PS2, KOTOR on Gamecube, etc? I don't play console games myself so I have no idea if this info is correct, I got this info from a quick trip to EB website.
Check PriceWatch and see what kinda system 500 can buy. P4 1.8 or 2.0 with 256RAM, 10G HD and 32 MB video and integrated sound. It won't run MW at its full of particle effects glory and it won't run KOTOR with sound but you'd be able to play them just fine. For the record I played MW on P4 1.6 with 256RAM myself, and it was fine. I could not get this uber kewl water effect that everyone was talking about but the rest was fine without any slowdowns.
Spazmo
Erudite
Hell, I ran KOTOR on a 900 MHz box with 256 SDRAM and it ran beautifully.
Otaku_Hanzo
Erudite
DarkUnderlord said:
Did you build that computer from scratch, or buy it pre-assembled from some retail store/site? I guarantee you I can build a computer that would run Morrowind beautifully for around $600 or so. And it would be 100% legit. It's not too hard to imagine once you start surfing the net for computer parts and see just how many bargains you can get out there. If you are not afraid to order something from the internet, and you have the know-how (or know someone who does), you can have yourself a kick ass system for a decent price. Now, granted, in order to run some of the newer stuff coming out, I would have to spend a bit more, but I'm still in the $800 price range, easily. Do some price checking online and you'll see. Pricewatch is a good place to start.
Edit: Okay, maybe it wouldn't run Morrowind beautifully, but it would still run it well enough to make it playable. You just wouldn't be able to have all the bells and whistles activated. It would still look nice though.
axel
Liturgist
DarkUnderlord said:
No one put a gun to your head and made you install Windows XP. If you're still running windows 98 you shouldn't have any problems with those games (to my knowledge anyways)
DU said:
We're not talking about Austrailian koala pelts though. $600 USD is quite enough to buy a top of the line rig. Particularly if you already have a moniter (and hey, you have to buy a tv to get your console to work too don't you?)
Also, a gig of ram is not STANDARD!!12ONEUNO Between 256 - 512 is standard really. Ram is dirt cheap nowadays though.
Otaku_Hanzo
Erudite
axel said:
One thing I did was partition about 5 gigs of my HD and installed Windows ME on it. That allows me to play some of the old games that won't run under XP on my main system. I do have a computer exclusively meant for older titles, but sometimes I don't wanna have to fire it up.
Seven
Erudite
This isn't a question of memory or processor. You can get very good performance from a lower speed processor and 256 rams. However, what affects graphic effects primarily is the video card: buying a prebuilt system usually means you get a stock card. They advertise nice big numbers in terms of processor speed and memory because this is stuff everyday smucks recognize; they then screw you with shit motherboards, shit sound cards and shit video cards. I wouldn't be surprised if they stuck you with an onboard video card.
Sol Invictus
Erudite
1,500 for that sounds like a total ripoff.
I could build one for 800.
I could build one for 800.
Feargus Urquhart
Obsidian Entertainment
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2003
- Messages
- 31
Couple Things...
On the Dev part of this thread: In general, dev hardware should now be bought for the programmers, designers, one for the producer, one for each QA person that will be on the project, and one or two for the artists. For a medium sized team that has about 6 programmers, a producer, three designers and two for the artists - this equates to 12 or $120,000. That doesn't include anything for QA, random other pieces of console hardware and the special PS2 submission DVDs that cost $50 a pop or did a while back - and you had to submit 8 or 10 copies of the game. Some projects could have as many as 10 to 15 programmers on them, so the actual dev system cost can pretty high.
On development costs - it all comes down to time and money. Most developers in So. Cal charge between $9K and $11K per man-month. For a twenty person team that is between $180K and $220K per month - so $3M gets you between 13 and 16 months. That's doable, but most people would tell you it was a little on the low side for time. One thing to note here is that I am quoting a twenty person team - that's my assumption. If I was told to get a Fallout project done in 18 months with a 10 person team then that would become the assumption and the budget would become $1.8M. They would be different types of games though both in scope and direction.
Now for FOBOS - I'm not sure, I never talked to them much about it. Most of the interaction between BIS and DM over the project had to do with us providing them information and assets - not opinions. It was something of a political mine field - one which most of us just avoided.
On the Dev part of this thread: In general, dev hardware should now be bought for the programmers, designers, one for the producer, one for each QA person that will be on the project, and one or two for the artists. For a medium sized team that has about 6 programmers, a producer, three designers and two for the artists - this equates to 12 or $120,000. That doesn't include anything for QA, random other pieces of console hardware and the special PS2 submission DVDs that cost $50 a pop or did a while back - and you had to submit 8 or 10 copies of the game. Some projects could have as many as 10 to 15 programmers on them, so the actual dev system cost can pretty high.
On development costs - it all comes down to time and money. Most developers in So. Cal charge between $9K and $11K per man-month. For a twenty person team that is between $180K and $220K per month - so $3M gets you between 13 and 16 months. That's doable, but most people would tell you it was a little on the low side for time. One thing to note here is that I am quoting a twenty person team - that's my assumption. If I was told to get a Fallout project done in 18 months with a 10 person team then that would become the assumption and the budget would become $1.8M. They would be different types of games though both in scope and direction.
Now for FOBOS - I'm not sure, I never talked to them much about it. Most of the interaction between BIS and DM over the project had to do with us providing them information and assets - not opinions. It was something of a political mine field - one which most of us just avoided.
Rosh
Erudite
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2002
- Messages
- 1,775
Feargus, I think someone needs to go to hardware econimics. Not everyone needs the 21" >100 lbs monitor at their station like I have on the way to me, where the monitor itself needs to be calibrated to the video card you're using for perfect display. You save a lot of money by putting what needs to be put where it needs to be, as apropos as possible.
I think it runs along the same reason why RAM is getting out of hand. When memory was such a small amount, either you did it well or it wouldn't run. Now that memory is "cheaper" and "more pelntiful", a lot of developers don't bother to make sure that their work has little memory leaks in it compared to what was done before. Therefore the amount of RAM needed due to that poorly QA'd work would be much higher.
Now instead of being a small developer and having to do with what you have to, you look at your available money and look at what all you can buy, but someone is seriously not bothering to worry about efficiency. So therefore you have a money leak problem.
I think it runs along the same reason why RAM is getting out of hand. When memory was such a small amount, either you did it well or it wouldn't run. Now that memory is "cheaper" and "more pelntiful", a lot of developers don't bother to make sure that their work has little memory leaks in it compared to what was done before. Therefore the amount of RAM needed due to that poorly QA'd work would be much higher.
Now instead of being a small developer and having to do with what you have to, you look at your available money and look at what all you can buy, but someone is seriously not bothering to worry about efficiency. So therefore you have a money leak problem.
Vault Dweller said:
You forgot unlimted access to Porn, BTW
and secondly *when* exactly did it become *cool* for anyone older than 16 to own advocate consoles?
That's serious question, as I somehow overlooked when functional morons everywhere stopped using PC's in favor of Consoles?
Is it because their parents bought Web TV?
or where those Video Professor disks just too complicated?
Re: Couple Things...
Fair enough...I mean we could do the numbers back and forth for whom gets what but yes, its entirely feasible for those costs to get up there. I come from the camp that only leads ( most major games the past year had upwards of 2 to 3 leads with 4 - 8 'supplemental' coders ) really need the kits and artists using emulation, or sharing, and don't know about the QA's but either way( short of the special dev box's which are cheap )
11k per man month eh? Them's some nice salaries. Hell I'd only pay for that kind of help if the work was absolutely stellar and efficient....4k - 5k on a team of artists for example is plenty. I mean really, you look at the shit thats getting produced today and thats still way to f'in much IMHO. We have killer talent on UXO and its not hitting 11k ( this is minus programmer costs ).
Cheers
Feargus Urquhart said:
Fair enough...I mean we could do the numbers back and forth for whom gets what but yes, its entirely feasible for those costs to get up there. I come from the camp that only leads ( most major games the past year had upwards of 2 to 3 leads with 4 - 8 'supplemental' coders ) really need the kits and artists using emulation, or sharing, and don't know about the QA's but either way( short of the special dev box's which are cheap )
Yikes, apparentlly that cost of living swell I hear is true.Feargus Urquhart said:
11k per man month eh? Them's some nice salaries. Hell I'd only pay for that kind of help if the work was absolutely stellar and efficient....4k - 5k on a team of artists for example is plenty. I mean really, you look at the shit thats getting produced today and thats still way to f'in much IMHO. We have killer talent on UXO and its not hitting 11k ( this is minus programmer costs ).Cheers
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2002
- Messages
- 28,359
Nope, tried that. Win '98 kept telling me I had a corrupt user.exe (which I didn't by the way, just seemed to not like an OMG faster machine. In fact I'm convinced it's some kind of Mirosoft deliberate bug to make me buy the latest OS... Well, either that or install Unix). There's a point where I give up and just buy the latest version.axel said:
Incidentally I have to do the copy --> install thing for Fallout on Win 98 too. Never figured out why really.
I'm not just saying this to you, this is to everyone. My point is, I have a console. A Nintendo 64. I've got 6 computers floating about this place (486, P200, P800, P2.4G, 486 Laptop and my always loveable Atari Lynx) and I still have a console. It doesn't matter that I've got a 486 with Doom, Doom 2 and the other Doom stuff still on it, the fact is I also bought Doom 64. I even got Hexen 64. That's not Hexen II 64 by the way, that's pure original Hexen, ring the bell on the first level, 64. It's a Nintendo 64, released 2 years ago in the day of the Pentium, and I bought a game that requires nothing more than a 286 to run.axel said:
It's not a matter of being able to post on internet forums with my computer or being able to use IRC, play internet games, play better games, have better graphics etc... I know all of that. I know the machine I'm sitting on right now could spank the N64 back to the Stone Age. My point is, I *bought* a Nintendo 64. I ignored the fact that I could get better games on a PC, I ignored the better everything on the PC and *bought* a Nintendo 64. That's my point. Regardless of how you want to swing it, people buy consoles. People buy (if we go by the statistics posted in this thread) MORE consoles than they buy PCs. They buy MORE console games then they buy PC games. I don't think a developer cares if those 5 Million units are bought by Blockbuster or by 5 million pimply faced kids, the point is, they sell. I don't know why they sell (never really figured out why I got the N64 either) but they do.
Hell, maybe it's a collectors thing? I mean I can buy every game that exists for the N64 and "complete" the collection. I could never afford to do that for the PC (especially when compared with N64 games which are going for $10 in pawnbrokers now). I dunno. Maybe I was suckered in by advertising. Maybe I was just stupid. The point is, I bought a Nintendo 64. An old, slow, not-really-a-computer-system system that has a bunch of games that'll run quite adequately on my 486. Regardless of the arguments against it, I bought it and still continue to buy games for it when I see them.
Yup. Your hokey little company just can't cut it with one of the big boys Steve.EvoG said:
Re: Couple Things...
I suspect saying "Hi" while walking passed one of the Fallout Enforcer developers at the water cooler counts as creative support.
Feargus Urquhart said:
I suspect saying "Hi" while walking passed one of the Fallout Enforcer developers at the water cooler counts as creative support.
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