Onlive

[Armacalypse]

I can't see how this is anything more than a DRM pipe dream. Even if it would work for games that require any amount of "twitch" (by far the majority of games), it would probably not be any better for the consumer at all than the current system.

You don't want to buy a 800$ computer? Buy a console. Sure, you can't play any game on a Xbox 360, but you won't be able to play any game with the cloud computing service you have chosen either, since those services will also inevitably pay for exclusive games. It's also got the same limitations to modding.

Besides, all that you would gain from using cloud computing is that you could play games like Crysis on very high settings with poor frame rate and resolution. I doubt even most console gamers are such graphic whores as to like it. The money lies in the Wii anyway.

 

[Xi]

To the people saying it won't work, it has already been demoed to work. Also, it's currently in Beta. So it's not fake, or a hoax. As far as having to be rich to use the service, that's ridiculous too. It actually lowers the cost to play games. Sure it might put a stop to your piracy tactics, but the trade off is that the games will run well.

Anyway, I think the main interest I have in it is that it essentially makes PC the most powerful platform as PC games could be designed to use the best video cards, CPUs, and tons of RAM. This opens up the door to less restrictive design, even if that designs means tech versus gameplay, but you never know what to expect from a complete shift like this.

The real nice thing is that money can be spent on games versus a computer to play the games. Games will be immediately available without having to leave your house, download them, or anything, and your account will maintain access to them for a small fee.

Being skeptical is jut fine too. However, its a real project do for a real release very soon. My guess is that it gets pushed to 2010 though. I remember contemplating an idea like this back in early 2000. So I can't say I didn't see this coming.

Also, they essentially have the funding to complete the job, the backing of the major publishers(Console or not) and some very interesting people behind the scenes of the project.

If it's a hoax, it's an expensive hoax perpetrated by some very successful industry people. Go figure?

 

[baronjohn]

To the people saying it won't work, it has already been demoed to work. Also, it's currently in Beta. So it's not fake, or a hoax.

I once attended the demo of a Zero Point Energy Device. It produced electricity and it wasn't plugged into anything. It seemed to work. Later it turned out that it had a battery inside. Go figure.

Cloud gaming (?) is only a bit more plausible than that. So until I see it personally, it's bullshit.

 

[Armacalypse]

To the people saying it won't work, it has already been demoed to work. Also, it's currently in Beta. So it's not fake, or a hoax.

I once attended the demo of a Zero Point Energy Device. It produced electricity and it wasn't plugged into anything. It seemed to work. Later it turned out that it had a battery inside. Go figure.

Cloud gaming (?) is only a bit more plausible than that. So until I see it personally, it's bullshit.

Yeah, it they have shown cloud computing almost in the same way they showed you the Zero Point Energy Device. The demos seem to have been very close to the computer cluster and with few players at the same time.

The only way this seems to be able to work is if it's a niche market in the center of large cities with very good broadband infrastructure. It will be very far from replacing any computers or consoles. Also, how will it really make hardware costs that much cheaper? If Intel, Nvidia and AMD have less costumers buying from them, won't they just charge extreme sums for the equipment the computer clusters use instead?

 

[Kraszu]

Being skeptical is jut fine too. However, its a real project do for a real release very soon. My guess is that it gets pushed to 2010 though. I remember contemplating an idea like this back in early 2000. So I can't say I didn't see this coming.

And you still don't know what latency is, and that it is irrelevant to how many mbs you have?

To the people saying it won't work, it has already been demoed to work.

How it was demoed to show that latency is not a problem where was the server? It is impossible to see when they cloud computer is actually located when you have access to a screen and a gamepad.

Also, it's currently in Beta. So it's not fake, or a hoax. As far as having to be rich to use the service, that's ridiculous too. It actually lowers the cost to play games. Sure it might put a stop to your piracy tactics, but the trade off is that the games will run well.

It does? The monthly fee will ad up to a good PC that will be able to play games with much better resolutions then they video stream offers.

Anyway, I think the main interest I have in it is that it essentially makes PC the most powerful platform as PC games could be designed to use the best video cards, CPUs, and tons of RAM. This opens up the door to less restrictive design, even if that designs means tech versus gameplay, but you never know what to expect from a complete shift like this.

Even if it would work, and be somehow economically viable to have so much servers to give decent latency then it will still be limited in rich.

The real nice thing is that money can be spent on games versus a computer to play the games.

Who will pay monthly fees then?

Games will be immediately available without having to leave your house, download them, or anything, and your account will maintain access to them for a small fee.

They had speculated for it to be about 20$ that is 240$/year=600$PC every 2.5 years.

 

[MetalCraze]

it has already been demoed to work

Natal was demoed too. And that Sony controller for PS3 back in 2005 which recognized your voice and they even showed a game where you control a team with your voice and they even react to your face changes.
It's a hoax - it is impossible and won't be. Again how would anyone setup a cluster with a power of millions of highest-end PCs? Nobody has so much money or technological means to do so. Or how are they going to transfer gigashitloads of data faster than optic fiber can?

Don't be naive.

 

[Shannow]

It's science. Computer science. It just works.















































































Not.

 

[Lockkaliber]

As I said, I'm getting some real gizmondo-vibes from this.

Something like a ponzi-scam.

 

[J1M]

To the people saying it won't work, it has already been demoed to work. Also, it's currently in Beta. So it's not fake, or a hoax. As far as having to be rich to use the service, that's ridiculous too. It actually lowers the cost to play games. Sure it might put a stop to your piracy tactics, but the trade off is that the games will run well.

That demo was done under very controlled conditions with the server machines literally right next to the clients. All you saw a demo of was the ability to push streaming video across what was essentially a LAN.

 

[phanboy_iv]

To the people saying it won't work, it has already been demoed to work. Also, it's currently in Beta. So it's not fake, or a hoax. As far as having to be rich to use the service, that's ridiculous too. It actually lowers the cost to play games. Sure it might put a stop to your piracy tactics, but the trade off is that the games will run well.

That demo was done under very controlled conditions with the server machines literally right next to the clients. All you saw a demo of was the ability to push streaming video across what was essentially a LAN.

Yes. The only demos so far have been under highly controlled and unrealistic situations.

So to summarize the facts:

1. It hasn't been shown to work in a real-world situation.
2. There's a huge amount of evidence that it's impossible to do this effectively with current tech.

Hence, doomed fakery.

 

[MetalCraze]

It's a great excuse for forcing another crappy DRM on us though. You see to play those games you'll actually have to buy a special OnLive-exclusive hardware - their own modem (which of course will connect only to their servers).
If they indeed will go for MMO-like servers where all that player has is a bunch of textures and models on his PC - you can get a picture of OnLive - a moneybag dream-come-true DRM.
Remember EA already announced a game (forgot the name) where it is a requirement to stay online always - they even said they did this to avoid putting DRM into the game lol. I think they are just testing waters.

 

[Twinkle]

C&C 4.

Battleforge did it already.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

This can be great with some concept like GOG, where you even dont have to install older games and they just work (with a huge list of classics).

But for next-gen i see hardware problems. Its not immpossible, but you'll never know how much to invest - if you get too much hardware, its costly, if you get too little - users will be pissed off.

Also they need to have the ressources for peak hours - weekends, latenights. Thats too costly - one of the reasons amazon is offering their cloud resources for rent now.
(They have enough ressources to handle christmas storm - but its only once a year, so its sucks to have it the rest of the year.)

 

[Xi]

http://blog.onlive.com/

So we're all questioning the quality of such a service. How can it possibly over come the latency issues? Well, it may struggle with latency for a while, but eventually network technology catches up. Even with a 200-500ms latency, the experience would be about as good as using a computer directly. Slight delays here and there, nothing an MMO gamer hasn't experienced, but very similar. I think under the same latency premise many people have raised MMORPGs shouldn't work, but they do.

Anyway, gonna cross my fingers for something like this. Hoping it will push through. The current industry is a joke and needs something like this to alter how it operates. Less publisher control, more design control. That's what I see.

To all the people that will be pissed about the anti-piracy trend it obviously would have, suck it up. You didn't expect to keep using software for free, forever did you? Higher quality, higher control, better games. Lol, something like that.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Even with a 200-500ms latency, the experience would be about as good as using a computer directly.

Apparently not only quick post count increase causes shit-for-brains.

 

[Xi]

Even with a 200-500ms latency, the experience would be about as good as using a computer directly.

Apparently not only quick post count increase causes shit-for-brains.

You tell the 10 Million plus MMO gamers that their 200-500ms average latency isn't good enough to enjoy the experience. The truth is that it's fine. Over time, latency will decrease from new tech anyway. So even with a rough start, this is coming.

 

[MetalCraze]

Even with a 200-500ms latency, the experience would be about as good as using a computer directly.

Haha do you even know what a hugeass lag 200ms is? Imagine you want to target a guy over there - you move your mouse and it reacts only 1/5 sec later and the guy already jumped into the other place. Not mentioning that the framerate will be 5 frames per second when you want to transfer an actual image. And you need to show 60 fps for it be just as good as having it all on PC - that, my friend, will require at least ~15ms lag. Which is impossible.

Slight delays here and there, nothing an MMO gamer hasn't experienced, but very similar.

You are not forgetting that they bullshit that they will transfer an actual image in real-time, right?
And even thinking that this will be just a perma-online DRM without any mythical superclusters processing video - why should I experience my game as the same laggy crap happening in MMOs just because EA wants this DRM?

In that post you started to sound like some retarded new DRM apologist - shit if there are such naive sheeple even on the Codex - this will work out for EA good.

 

[Kraszu]

Even with a 200-500ms latency, the experience would be about as good as using a computer directly.

Apparently not only quick post count increase causes shit-for-brains.

You tell the 10 Million plus MMO gamers that their 200-500ms average latency isn't good enough to enjoy the experience. The truth is that it's fine. Over time, latency will decrease from new tech anyway. So even with a rough start, this is coming.

You don't understand, that will not be internet latency but INPUT LATENCY, every time you move mouse you will have a delay of those actions not just monsters/other players that change they position a little chaotic but your own controls will work that way. That technology is limited by the speed of light, and that can't be solved. I would not expert shift to quantum teleportation anytime soon either. Better lines that work close to speed of light (I mean making the data go with the fastest close to direct line route to the server) will still give to much INPUT latency or there would have to be unrealistic amount of servers. Also it would limit online play since you would already have INPUT latency so adding internet latency to connect to other server would be horrible.

 

[Shannow]

Even with a 200-500ms latency, the experience would be about as good as using a computer directly.

Apparently not only quick post count increase causes shit-for-brains.

You tell the 10 Million plus MMO gamers that their 200-500ms average latency isn't good enough to enjoy the experience. The truth is that it's fine. Over time, latency will decrease from new tech anyway. So even with a rough start, this is coming.

Only with mmos we are talking about latency affecting small information packages. What you are comparing that to is huge packages.
MMO now: game engine on the user's hardware. Sent packages are quite small and still lag is a bitch even with broadband.
Onlive in Xi's future: Game engine is on server cluster. Packages are not only significantly larger making lag the new Bloom, gaming industry needs server cluster whose computing power can compare to all the computing power of all gamers as if they had the hardware at home.

And while your smugness about anti-piracy is cute, you seem to fail to get that from a consumer point a system where you buy a game once in a while and pirate the rest is a lot more attractive than one where you have to buy everything. Reason would suggest that the system the consumer likes best is the system that will prove "victorious".

 

[phanboy_iv]

To all the people that will be pissed about the anti-piracy trend it obviously would have, suck it up. You didn't expect to keep using software for free, forever did you? Higher quality, higher control, better games. Lol, something like that.

Way to make stupid generalizations. I buy all my games. It's the principle of paying for something that I don't get to keep and don't get to sell and don't get access to unless I go through Corporation X that bugs me.

 

[MetalCraze]

Don't forget that not only this DRM will still force the user to have his PC rendering all the visual/audio stuff (while Onlive will just do math calculations - at best)because it's technically impossible to have it otherwise - but this will be a great excuse for EA/Microsoft to charge hugeass monthly fees to play games so they could maintain their DRM servers.

But really I can't believe Xi can't see a difference between MMOs which do not require any reaction-based input (and those that do are a pain in the ass to play when it is based on reaction at 170-200ms - try playing DDO with such ping) and all rendering is done on end-users PC and cloud-computing where everything being rendered on some mythical supercluster and sent back to user's PC with a speed faster than the speed of light requiring only controller input - especially when it is a real-time reaction-based game like every single action game (shooters, slashers etc), every single racing game. I don't even dare to compare budgets required.

 

[Xi]

And while your smugness about anti-piracy is cute, you seem to fail to get that from a consumer point a system where you buy a game once in a while and pirate the rest is a lot more attractive than one where you have to buy everything. Reason would suggest that the system the consumer likes best is the system that will prove "victorious".

Piracy punishes developers for trying out new design concepts. It forces them to narrowly view game design as a means to an end. Whatever is historically,statistically most likely to sell is what is created, ad infinitum. Without doing whatever is possible to recoup development costs, studios risk going out of business and publishers risk shutting down.

Conversely, not attempting to try out new designs promotes piracy as people are tired of paying for the same experience, ad infinitum. So you have a paradox where the system is stuck in a degenerated state simply because people have the choice to not pay for an experience, even if they enjoy the experience and play it for a long time (You're all guilty).

Will Onlive fix this problem? Hard to say, but it certainly may have an impact. Arguing that doing the same thing over and over, while expecting some type of change, is utterly insane. You have to be open to trying out new solutions and then tackling the problems that come, even as a gamer.

Anyway, I probably seem too pro-onlive, and I'm not, I just see it as a better solution to the problems of the current system than any other solutions I've seen talked about. With the eradication for the possibility of piracy, piracy can no longer be an excuse for bad game design. If game development continues to be unappealing to me, then I will simply stop playing games, forever. Fuck it, I rarely play them now a days. I simply find little joy in it, and look to life for better uses of my time. That said, I would love to play a game that I could actually enjoy. It's just a difficult thing for me to do given the current state of the industry.

Let Onlive have its day, and when it fails or succeeds, bash or promote it all you want. Until then, claiming it's impossible is just as stupid as claiming that people will never be able to fly, or that all the tech around us is impossible. The truth is, anything is possible, even if such possibilities don't fit into our own pre-conceived notions for how such things can be made possible. Using the defying principles for the possibilities of current tech as a reason to not believe that onlive is possible, is utterly stupid and shows one's inability to creatively think in an analytical manner. All things are possible in some form or another. You just have to be able to dream up a solution.

/shrug

 

[MetalCraze]

claiming it's impossible is just as stupid as claiming that people will never be able to fly

Show me at least a single flying human and I will stop calling OnLive a hoax forever.

 

[Armacalypse]

Even with a 200-500ms latency, the experience would be about as good as using a computer directly.

Apparently not only quick post count increase causes shit-for-brains.

You tell the 10 Million plus MMO gamers that their 200-500ms average latency isn't good enough to enjoy the experience. The truth is that it's fine. Over time, latency will decrease from new tech anyway. So even with a rough start, this is coming.

You really need to know atleast the very basics of gaming related technology before starting a thread about something as revolutionary/fake as Onlive. Even people strictly into turn based gaming won't accept what essentially gives your monitor 200-500ms delay, and people into action games won't accept delay 10 times lower than that.

 

[Shannow]

Piracy punishes developers for trying out new design concepts. It forces them to narrowly view game design as a means to an end. Whatever is historically,statistically most likely to sell is what is created, ad infinitum. Without doing whatever is possible to recoup development costs, studios risk going out of business and publishers risk shutting down.

Conversely, not attempting to try out new designs promotes piracy as people are tired of paying for the same experience, ad infinitum. So you have a paradox where the system is stuck in a degenerated state simply because people have the choice to not pay for an experience, even if they enjoy the experience and play it for a long time (You're all guilty)

That is actually a quite good point although I disagree (as the whole comment was your best yet although you had no answers to the technical impossibilities). But you are seeing it too one sided. The first postulate is simply false. Wanting to make money and lots of it narrows down game design. And the paradoxon only exists in developer's and publisher's minds. They narrow down their design themselves. There is absolutely no proof that new concepts are destined to fail financially. In fact, the wii suggests otherwise. Regurgitating the same shit is just as risky as trying something new. Devs and pubs just don't seem to get that. But back to the first point: maximising profits. Can be done in many more ways than just by targeting piracy. Piracy is one factor out of many that affect profits (budget, engines, quality, projected profits, management, PR, DLC, expansions, sequels, genre, design, price, online, image, DRM, etc, etc). Any and all of them can affect sales and profits. In fact, fighting piracy directly adversely affects other factors that would have increased sales. Many of those factors change from game to game. Decreasing piracy through DRM or increasing the price through DLC might increase profits for one game and might make another crash and burn. So you are back at having to take a risk. Piracy is something the industry knows about. Something they can take into account when planing the game and the other factors. Blaming the failure of your game on piracy is like blaming the rain for getting you wet although you had the correct weather report. So yes, "we are all guilty". Pirates, devs, pubs and even legit consumers.