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Author Topic: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.  (Read 3248 times)

Untelligent

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #15 on: September 12, 2008, 05:30:25 pm »

I wonder what FPS he gets on that thing...
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MuonDecay

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #16 on: September 12, 2008, 05:43:55 pm »

The good news is that Microsoft could never make a game as good as DF, even if they did make it with DX10 and if they put $10million into it, so there probably isn't anything to worry about. 

The only time I've ever had a lockup on my computer is when running Windows, the last time it did it almost farked up my hard drives and cd-rom, so I just axed windows.  Running a small jRPG game shouldn't have the possibility of totally farking up your hardware.  Formatting that partition was quite enjoyable.

Big companies do not care about games like DF. DF gameplay is way too much complex already, so they could spend millions of dollars on developing a game like this with fancy graphics, but it would not sell good, that is 100%. Most of the gamers dont care about complex/intelligent gameplay at all. Look at WoW, GTA or Sims for example...and the big developers know this..but its all good, at least DF won't have any competitors.  ;)

Large development entities like that are extremely risk-adverse. The majority of their investment is placed into the game equivalent of those brainless summer action movies: non-innovative, predictable games with a simplistic focus which are deliberately meant to appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

They do invest in games targeted at a smaller audience, as well as occasionally taking risks on major projects hoping to manage a blockbuster and/or help improve a subsidiary development house's reputation and further their own overall brand, however these are the rare exceptions. Having dividends to pay and investors to please, they focus primarily on repetitive, mediocre content with which they don't care about high quality or innovation, since the goal is simply to produce something which will return a reasonable profit to maintain a predictable return on their invested money.

For every project a major game developer/publisher puts to market which is allowed to be avant-garde, or is given extra time to be polished and perfected, or which is spared from the watering-down process meant to broaden the target audience, there are tons of barely-new cookie-cutter games whose purpose is simply to keep the money flowing.

I, clearly, hate the brainless games that result from this... but at the same time one should appreciate that these trite, mediocre games are the ones providing the funding behind the riskier, more outstanding games. This rarity of innovation and risk-taking within the major corporate entities does also maintain an opening in the industry for independent games (like DF) to establish their niche by taking greater risks and/or targeting a niche audience.

If EA was willing to take the same kinds of risks and make the same kind of design choices that small independent developers are, and use their substantive financial resources to do so, there would simply be little or no place for little projects like DF to be able to thrive.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2008, 05:47:01 pm by MuonDecay »
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Old School Gamer

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #17 on: September 12, 2008, 07:34:46 pm »

I agree with everything said.. just wanted to note I was being semi-ironic with my post, don't take it too seriously.  I know MS could never make a game as good as DF, and would never want to, that was kind of my point.

But one thing.. I don't think that it matters what kinds of games the big production houses churn out.  Indie gaming is hitting its stride and within 2-3 years there will be a good number of quality indie games out.  There are already several (space rangers 2, galactic civilizations 2, battle for wesnoth, DF, etc).

The reason for this is that the everyday joe kind of programmer now has the tools to make quality games much more easily than it has been in the past.  Part of the reason that MS released Vista was to try to once again pull the ability to make a game which is "competitive in the market" from the everyday programmer;  that's part of their overall strategy now.  Keep "upgrading" the design systems so that they're out of reach of programmers, and MS and its subsidiaries continue to make the only "good" games.

Luckily MS is very good at shooting themselves in the foot, with their monopolizing schemes.  Vista turned out to be a several billion (1trillion+?) dollar waste.  They put a ton of hours into making that piece of crap.

However, who gives a crap what MS does,  the good games will still be made.  There is no hard cap worldwide on the number of games that can be made per year or anything.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2008, 07:38:47 pm by Old School Gamer »
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Old School Gamer

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #18 on: September 12, 2008, 07:51:42 pm »

I just wanted to add, I'm not sure that the big publishing houses are making games anymore.  They're just sort of making graphical programs that you can interact with.  The difference being that actual games are actually fun to play for more than 15 minutes.

The real games that are being made are pretty much 90% created by indies, with about 10% being those games that the publishing houses managed to not totally fuck up.  This is of course just my opinion.  I've been gaming for 25+ years so it takes a great game to keep me playing now.
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Currently Playing:  DF, Galciv2, Eschelon Book 1, Helherron, Unreal World.

Currently Playing With: Linux.

Going to Buy: Warhammer Online, Space Rangers: Reloaded, Stardock's MoM Clone.

MuonDecay

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #19 on: September 12, 2008, 08:03:24 pm »

I just wanted to add, I'm not sure that the big publishing houses are making games anymore.  They're just sort of making graphical programs that you can interact with.  The difference being that actual games are actually fun to play for more than 15 minutes.

The real games that are being made are pretty much 90% created by indies, with about 10% being those games that the publishing houses managed to not totally fuck up.  This is of course just my opinion.  I've been gaming for 25+ years so it takes a great game to keep me playing now.

Well if you define games as being stimulating interactive experiences that you consider memorable and unique, then no they're not really making many games.

Also note that things may get much better for indie developers on the PC if major publishers continue to move their priorities over to console games. Some people make claims about this trend being able to kill PC gaming if it continues, but they're not keeping in mind that as the behemoth publishers lumber away, a lot of market share opens up for indie developers to sell their games.

Looking forward in the long run, this could reshape the who's-who of the PC gaming market and simply lead to the rise of new large studios from the ranks of the rising indies. It wouldn't be very dissimilar to the origins of many of the major PC development houses of the past that rose from humble beginnings.
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Dogman

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #20 on: September 12, 2008, 09:05:27 pm »

Calm down, no need to worry about the next version having a "Games for Windows" sticker on it. :P

No no, it would be an Xbox 360 exclusive for all the casual 'gamers'.
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Draco18s

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #21 on: September 12, 2008, 09:47:27 pm »

I had a whimsicle thought of making a short vid of me messing around with the DF window as if it was embedded in an MS Word document.  Lol.
(I could do it to, would take a few hours of messing with Nuke (it's a weapon of mass creation), but I could do it).
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TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #22 on: September 12, 2008, 10:10:20 pm »

Microsoft has a pretty good record on games... Outwars, Close Combat, Age of Empires... no need to get all hot and bothered.

I love the way the world map works as a background in the pic though. 
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Idiom

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #23 on: September 12, 2008, 11:31:05 pm »


Microsoft is watching.

Great. :-\
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Javewa

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #24 on: September 13, 2008, 01:28:31 am »

Actually, indie game-wise MS does good things.
First, they gave us C#, which is much easier to learn than brain damage causing C++. And now, there's XNA, a development framework for games in C# that makes 3D programming and game making even more accessible. And it's free.

XNA cuts down much work you'd usually have to invest into making a game from scratch. It also allows you to develop games for both, PC and Xbox 360 without much porting. You can even distribute your games via the Xbox Marketplace and get money from them.

But I've got to agree to anything else said about MS and major publisher with their cookie-cutter games.
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Krash

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #25 on: September 13, 2008, 04:43:48 am »

If you don't like it, don't play it.  It's that simple. 
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Tormy

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #26 on: September 13, 2008, 06:20:16 am »

The good news is that Microsoft could never make a game as good as DF, even if they did make it with DX10 and if they put $10million into it, so there probably isn't anything to worry about. 

The only time I've ever had a lockup on my computer is when running Windows, the last time it did it almost farked up my hard drives and cd-rom, so I just axed windows.  Running a small jRPG game shouldn't have the possibility of totally farking up your hardware.  Formatting that partition was quite enjoyable.

Big companies do not care about games like DF. DF gameplay is way too much complex already, so they could spend millions of dollars on developing a game like this with fancy graphics, but it would not sell good, that is 100%. Most of the gamers dont care about complex/intelligent gameplay at all. Look at WoW, GTA or Sims for example...and the big developers know this..but its all good, at least DF won't have any competitors.  ;)

Large development entities like that are extremely risk-adverse. The majority of their investment is placed into the game equivalent of those brainless summer action movies: non-innovative, predictable games with a simplistic focus which are deliberately meant to appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

Exactly..not that I complain about this or anything. Thankfully we have bigger developers like Stardock for example. Stardock won't release brainless, mediocre games ever. Im pretty sure that their upcoming MoM clone will be one of the best games ever.  8)
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Jay

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #27 on: September 13, 2008, 09:17:37 am »

Luckily MS is very good at shooting themselves in the foot, with their monopolizing schemes.  Vista turned out to be a several billion (1trillion+?) dollar waste.  They put a ton of hours into making that piece of crap.
This is the kind of sentiment I'm getting annoyed at.  Yes, it was horrible at launch.  Yes, it has its flaws.  But at this point, hardly any more then XP did at the same time period after ITS launch.  EVERYTHING is bound to have bugs at launch time.  Look at Halo, at Spore, at ANYTHING really.  DF, of course, has had 10 bug fix releases(or so) in the past 3 months.
As for the topic at hand, no, this isn't MS gaining interest in the game.  This is one guy working for them who happened to have his picture taken in front of a projection of a map made by it.  Of course, you've got to wonder why he had a DF map on a projector in the first place...
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Tormy

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #28 on: September 13, 2008, 10:27:42 am »


Luckily MS is very good at shooting themselves in the foot, with their monopolizing schemes.  Vista turned out to be a several billion (1trillion+?) dollar waste.  They put a ton of hours into making that piece of crap.

Its clear that you have no idea what you are talking about. Vista is excellent. It is much better than XP. I am using 64bit Vista for quite a long time now, and I had zero problems with it. Not a single crash/BSOD/system error. Even DOS games are running on it. The trick here is 1. you need a decent system to run Vista on it, 2. you must know how to install Vista properly. The system is much more stable and faster than XP if you do everything correctly.
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Draco18s

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Re: DF finds it's way into Microsoft offices.
« Reply #29 on: September 13, 2008, 11:03:54 am »

Stardock

Ugh.  People say there are DRM problems with Spore.  Apparently none of them have ever installed a Stardock game.  Worse than Steam it is (and I tolerate Steam only for the Orange Box: I saved $10 and could play Portal at 3am when it released).
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