Blue Dragon will ship on 3 DVDs.

[Johnny_Physics]

I was wondering if we could return to the point london-boy made here.


Can any veterans (or young'uns for that matter) name a game in which the 'physical' game world was split across multiple disk, such that if you wanted to go back and forth between areas, you had to change disks?

Monkey Island 2 for the Amiga was a big offender when it came to this, you had to juggle 12 disks constantly if I remember it correctly.
It went something like this: Travel to the cemetary, insert disk 12, load... insert disk 8, load... insert playdisk, load...
Ok, area loaded and Guybrush stands on the edge of the screen, you take two steps forward and...
insert disk 11, load, insert disk 12, load... you see a bat fly away.
Insert playdisk, load...

I still played that game a lot, and if I can stand changing a disc every 12 seconds I think I can survive changing it every 12 hours in a modern game. But it would be nice if I didn't have to do it at all.

What was the max CDs a really popular game shipped on? I remember 5 or 6 for MYST (or was it II?), back in the day. . .

Phantasmagoria, seven CDs. I think there was a game that came on eleven CDs but I can't remember what the name was or if it was just something that was announced and never released.

 

[Diamond.G]

Can any veterans (or young'uns for that matter) name a game in which the 'physical' game world was split across multiple disk, such that if you wanted to go back and forth between areas, you had to change disks?

Myst (pic one I think they all did)
Baldur's Gate (I know the first one did, not sure about the second)
I am sure there were others

 

[nintenho]

I couldn't give a damn personally.

Would be HILARIOUS if sony tried to put this in some ad saying "Bluray makes games only on one disk for PS3 compared to 3 for 360".

Cause that would not change a damn mind.

 

[Acert93]

I couldn't give a damn personally.

Would be HILARIOUS if sony tried to put this in some ad saying "Bluray makes games only on one disk for PS3 compared to 3 for 360".

Cause that would not change a damn mind.

In an ironic "marketing BS" way this could be to MS's advantage. The very basic casual consumer doesn't know much. When they see, "Robust worlds with days of gameplay spanning 3 massive disks" they think "Whoa! 3 disks! That is like 3 games for one!"

 

[RobertR1]

In an ironic "marketing BS" way this could be to MS's advantage. The very basic casual consumer doesn't know much. When they see, "Robust worlds with days of gameplay spanning 3 massive disks" they think "Whoa! 3 disks! That is like 3 games for one!"

That is the exact principle behind having multi disc DVD's. The consumers feel like they're getting some extra for their money. Lots of 2Disc sets out there on a single layer DVD

 

[nintenho]

In an ironic "marketing BS" way this could be to MS's advantage. The very basic casual consumer doesn't know much. When they see, "Robust worlds with days of gameplay spanning 3 massive disks" they think "Whoa! 3 disks! That is like 3 games for one!"

Probably.

That is the exact principle behind having multi disc DVD's. The consumers feel like they're getting some extra for their money. Lots of 2Disc sets out there on a single layer DVD

Considering you're likely to change the disk a lot less often it's probably not going to bother people at all.

 

[Platon]

I can get up and go up in front of my TV and change the channel, but why should I do it when there's a remote control? And funny how you bring up FF7. Just because we swap disc in the past doesn't mean that we still have to do it now just IMO.

I still getting Blue-Dragon, but I just don't like this 3 DVD idea, not one bit. This isn't the PS1 Era anymore. So much for "compression" .

I really starting to like this Blu-Ray idea


Just IMO

That is not the same thing is it now, changing channels you might even do every few seconds, so yes that could be a bit annoying if you had to get of the couch every time, but for a game that is 35+ hours meaning that might have to change disc twice with like over 10 hours inbetween, I would imagine other annoyances like eating, drinking, sleeping comming in the way of the gameplay experience more, but what ever...

 

[Corwin_B]

Myst (pic one I think they all did)
Baldur's Gate (I know the first one did, not sure about the second)
I am sure there were others

Baldur's Gate was horrible in this regard, because of absolutely no overlapping between discs. Often, you would exit a map by mistake, have to switch CDs, load the new map, go back, and switch CDs back... That was painful. Still a great game, though.

Compared to that, having to switch CDs/DVDs a couple of times over the course of a game (FF7, RE:CV, RE4...) is a minor inconvenience.

 

[Platon]

This may be the wrong thread or off-topic, but I feel my question is somewhat related to the point under discussion here.

Do we need, or want, a bigger GTA game? With San Andreas, Rockstar proved they could do a massively sized game. But GTA-style games still seem to suffer from limited interactivity in certain respects. So shouldn't we go for a more interactive experience within a massive game environment? I think everyone is assuming that Rockstar is planning to outdo themselves and create something bigger than San Andreas, but I personally hope that they create a much more expansive, intimate, single city, and add more layers of complexity to the interactivity of the game world. Would disk space be an issue if this is the route they took? And I confess, this is coming from someone who dabbles in GTA games for momentary thrills, but has never managed to actually finish one.

I guess that will be the next step, just having big expensive cities might not cut it anymore, instead you might want to add more things to do and not just more room for gamers to run around in, yay I spent two hours just driving from point A to B just pick up a hooker and then 3 more hours to point C to get her to a client, how fun would that really be? I guess it depends what you could do with her, but still...

 

[rabidrabbit]

That is the exact principle behind having multi disc DVD's. The consumers feel like they're getting some extra for their money. Lots of 2Disc sets out there on a single layer DVD

That's true in DVD's and movies, because people know the capacity is limited.

Though, if for example LOTR extended editions had been available as the current four DVD's and a one or two disc HD-DVD/Blu-ray High Definition editions, which one do you think people would have chosen if they'd have a player capable of playing both formats (DVD and HD-format), even if they had no HD TV, or even if the movies in the HD-discs were still standard resolution and identical to the DVD, and both versions were as attractively packaged?

I think quite a many would choose the ones with less discs and no need for swapping in the middle of the movie. Or even if they made the mistake buying the version with more discs and more disc swapping, they'd think twice when faced with a similar choice the next time.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Easy solution to this discswapping issue:

1. Buy HDDVD Drive and connect to X360
2. Buy HDDVD Drive (1) and connect to X360
3. Insert disc 1 in X360 DVD drive
4. Insert disc 2 in HDDVD drive
5. Insert disc 3 in HDDVD (1) drive.

 

[pakotlar]

I'm not in any way trying to debate DVD vs BD, but I would like to point out the fact that a developer will work with what they have. Of course they'll target 4 - 9 GBs, if that's what they have to work with. But to claim that that alone is proof that something different could not or would not have been done with a different target size in mind (even with the same hardware), is a bit of a logical leap I think. DVD will have to be adequate for the next-gen GTA. On a related note, considering the transfer rate penalty hit taken with DVD9, DVD5 might have to adequate, given GTAs streaming nature. By the very necessities dictated by the situation, it is, of course, "adequate." The situation being missing a potentially huge portion of the gaming market.

Well considering that reading from a DVD9 @ 12x, even considering the hit from reading the 2nd layer, will be faster on average than PS3 bluray transfer rate, I don't think DVD9 streaming will be a limiting factor.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Phantasmagoria, seven CDs. I think there was a game that came on eleven CDs but I can't remember what the name was or if it was just something that was announced and never released.

I think the seguel to the game 7th quest called 11th hour actually had 11 CDs...
If I remember correctly.

 

[one]

Probably they should offer HDD install option like FF11, if the play time is over 40 hours it will be OK.

I couldn't give a damn personally.

Would be HILARIOUS if sony tried to put this in some ad saying "Bluray makes games only on one disk for PS3 compared to 3 for 360".

Cause that would not change a damn mind.

Eh, not enough. 50GB BD = 6 DVD discs for 360...

 

[AlNom]

Probably they should offer HDD install option like FF11, if the play time is over 40 hours it will be OK.

what do you mean? Even if you install the game files, you'd be switching the discs for the HD FMVs... Or do you mean copy over the FMVs?

 

[one]

what do you mean? Even if you install the game files, you'd be switching the discs for the HD FMVs... Or do you mean copy over the FMVs?

Is it confirmed that they are all FMVs? As he mentions 30GB uncompressed I thought it's something else (uncompressed FMV will be over 300GB).

 

[assen]

% of gamers where multi DVD games was the primary reason for not purchasing the Xbox 360......zero

Where mult-DVD games fall on the "what i hate about the 360" list.............right after detractor no. 3950, "It doesn't play VHS".

No, I think No. 3950 is "Activision's games are not rendered at 720p, but upscaled".

 

[pakotlar]

Probably they should offer HDD install option like FF11, if the play time is over 40 hours it will be OK.

Eh, not enough. 50GB BD = 6 DVD discs for 360...

I'd love to see access latency for a 2x drive reading a 50GB disc... About as much as I'd love working for the studio which was tasked with creating 50GB of game data.

edit: I have an idea. We could Megatexture earth in one 10^20 res file. And save it uncompressed.

 

[AlNom]

Is it confirmed that they are all FMVs? As he mentions 30GB uncompressed I thought it's something else (uncompressed FMV will be over 300GB).

hm... well that's the thing. No one knows how much of that are FMVs. (In fact, I don't recall where the FMV thing got started )

 

[deathkiller]

If it is like FF7-9 instaling would not help to reduce the disc changes unless is requiered. If you requiere the install the game probably would be reduced to 2 DVD (install dvd and game dvd (aka FMV DVD) son no disc change while playing) and would have lower load-times.