EIF 2007: Xbox 360 Unreal Tournament III to get fewer maps? Options

[masterdave]

will they include a dedicated server thingy, like there was for the original unreal for the xbox?

This post has been edited by masterdave: Aug 15 2007, 08:12 PM

[DeMoN_DARREN]

I hate the way all you people think its acceptable to have 2 discs. I wish only to visit my console once to insert a disc, and not again. Epic understands this and will remove some maps to allow me to be more comfortable yeeeeeeeah

[qifanxi]

I wish only to visit my console once to insert a disc, and not again.

I guess your gaming library isn't too diverse, eh? Seriously though, what's the big deal? Getting off your ass once in a while might be good for your health.

[ProfDrMorph]

I'm starting to love Mark Rein.. it's a great change from the politically correct sales speak they like to neuter us all with.

There are limitations to everything. It doesn't mean you have to buy something else, or shoot the messenger.

And just because he says "compress some things" doesn't mean everything isn't already compressed. They are a first class studio, I'm sure they know they can account for every single megabyte. It just means something might need FURTHER compression to fit. Sound samples, etc..

-dp

I know my first post in this thread was quite long. So here's a short summary: Epic's previous game use virtually no compression at all! So it's quite realistic their current games do so, too.

[tx81]

has everyone forgottten how they distributed the halo map pack? they could easily bundle a map cd with the game.. but for the maps to be installed on the hd not be played of the disc basicallyt you buy the game install the maps then just play the first disc campain and maps that would come there and the other maps of the hd

This post has been edited by tx81: Aug 16 2007, 01:51 AM

[ludacrisvp]

Imagine that games could use 2 discs. That would be awesome.

Oh, wait...

The console goes to dashboard when you eject the disc, that sounds real effective to me.
"I want to play on CTF-FaceClassic guys, but I can't because I don't have a HDD so I can't download the map" - 360 core owner
"I want to play on it as well but I never installed my extra content add-on disc to my HDD" - 360 Pro/Premium/Elite owner
-or-
"I want to play on it too but its on the other disc let me reload the game so I can chose an add-on map to play" - 360 owner if there is not an option to install the maps to HDD or if you don't have one.
-or-
"I want to play on every map and I have no issues at all." - PS3 owner the map loads from the disc no swapping required or being a disc jockey to install all the add-on content or if a user mod is played it just downloads the needed files automatically to your built in HDD (similar to PC mods are in UT and 2003/2004) and then you connect to the match.

Oh and compression is not always the right answer, no matter how well something is compressed it WILL lose quality.

The mouse and keyboard is not supported by the 360 so that there will always be a level playing field, you can buy a device that will allow you to connect a mouse and keyboard and PlayStation style controller.

PC won't be missing any maps at all, there is more available space on a DVD formatted for computers than there is for the 360. PC users are also used to installing games on multiple CDs and DVDs, once the install is done they only need the one play disc and all the needed info is stored on the HDD.

M$ shot themselves in the foot by not making a HDD standard on the console. If there was one on every console like the xbox1 and the ps3 epic would have just had the maps uncompressed to the HDD and this issue would not be here.

[ProfDrMorph]

Oh and compression is not always the right answer, no matter how well something is compressed it WILL lose quality.

You're actually wrong about that. There are quite a few algorithms which are designed to compress data without any loss. Just think about ZIP/RAR/other-archive-formats. They compress whatever files you put into them using those kind of algorithms.

[ludacrisvp]

You are not very bright are you?
Can you find me an image format that is compressed and that Epic will use that is both secure and is lossless that will have its use be justified?
Since everyone seems to complain about loading times, having more compression will increase this load time no matter what system it is being run on.
We have no control over what they choose to use in their game, so this is utterly pointless.

[ProfDrMorph]

You are not very bright are you?
Can you find me an image format that is compressed and that Epic will use that is both secure and is lossless that will have its use be justified?
Since everyone seems to complain about loading times, having more compression will increase this load time no matter what system it is being run on.
We have no control over what they choose to use in their game, so this is utterly pointless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gzip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bzip2
The first one is a format specifically for compressing images. And despite the first paragraph on Wikipedia it supports an alpha channel and thus 32-bit images. It's also important to know that the color space limitation is irrelevant for games because only RGB is used for textures. Other color spaces are only used for prerendered movies (usually YV12).

gzip and bzip2 are lossless general purpose compression algorithms. This means you can compress ANY kind of data using those programs. Actually PNG (first link) uses the same algorithms as gzip does plus some additional stuff specifically for images.

All these programs are availible as free libraries which can easily be included by a professional programmer into his program. Those libraries aren't even GPL-licensed (meaning whoever uses them needs to publish the source code to his program) but use a BSD-style license. This means: no fee needs to be paid, no source code needs to be published, you don't even have to offer the possibility to replace the libraries with other compatible versions (the LGPL license requires this last part). It can't get any more "free" than that!

I DO know what I'm talking about!