*spin-off* Bungie's Past Decisions

[Acert93]

Okay, but you didn't really answer my question. You want ODST to have fancy new eyecandy, but you're saying it's even more constrained (in time and money) than Halo 3 was.

I know most of you don't bother to actually read my posts, but I answered this question even before you asked it in the first sentance of my post:

I don't think ODST will entail any significant graphical upgrades

That was in the first sentance. Everything else was a hypothetical based on a 2 year cycle seen in other games on the platform and based on the performance seen in the game itself.

How will they fit this new stuff in? If they could just 'optimize' their engine wouldn't they have done it for Halo 3, get rid of a few of the trade-offs that are sticking points for so many people?

The same reason Gears of War 1 didn't include everything from Gears of Wars 2? The same reason PGR3 didn't include all the stuff from PGR4? Resistance, Uncharted, so forth and so on...

So my question is are some of you argueing that Halo 3 is some pinnacle dead end that could not be surpassed or built upon? Because it seems as if the counter position is that Bungie is at some dead end on their first next gen title.

 

[obonicus]

I know most of you don't bother to actually read my posts, but I answered this question even before you asked it in the first sentance of my post:

That was in the first sentance. Everything else was a hypothetical based on a 2 year cycle seen in other games on the platform and based on the performance seen in the game itself.

These aren't compatible statements, you know. 'There are no significant graphical upgrades, except for the upgrades on this list. So I can't speak about any graphical upgrades, because other than one or two from this list, there won't be any.'

The same reason Gears of War 1 didn't include everything from Gears of Wars 2? The same reason PGR3 didn't include all the stuff from PGR4? Resistance, Uncharted, so forth and so on...

So my question is are some of you argueing that Halo 3 is some pinnacle dead end that could not be surpassed or built upon? Because it seems as if the counter position is that Bungie is at some dead end on their first next gen title.

Gears and Uncharted didn't run at less than 720p. That's what I mean about tradeoffs. Doesn't that imply some sort of bottleneck, since Halo 3 runs at 30fps with no AA as well? Certainly, Bungie thought it was a big deal, since they were showing game screens at 720p. Do they have legroom to improve the engine, considering, as you've said, that they're even more constrained for this title? And if they do, would they add more eye-candy in lieu of returning to 720p?

 

[P on the rocks]

Halo 3 maintains a solid framerate for me at almost all times. Granted I don't play much 4 player splitscreen but with 2 players it's damn stable.

I was talking about a single player in a multiplayer map where nothing is happening. No splitscreen.

And although I haven't seen it with your configuration and I can't say for sure, I doubt that it maintains a solid framerate for you. I have played the game at different resolutions with different video-cables and different displays on different consoles. I have played the multiplayer beta given away with Crackdown and the full game and the game drops frames almost constantly everywhere. I see it and my friends see it as well. It's not even a constant drop in framerate when the heat is on. It drops single frames here and there regardless of what's going on and it is extremely irritating.

I will try playing it with a SDTV resolution and in 50Hz mode just in case.

 

[DrJay24]

Gears and Uncharted didn't run at less than 720p. That's what I mean about tradeoffs. Doesn't that imply some sort of bottleneck, since Halo 3 runs at 30fps with no AA as well? Certainly, Bungie thought it was a big deal, since they were showing game screens at 720p. Do they have legroom to improve the engine, considering, as you've said, that they're even more constrained for this title? And if they do, would they add more eye-candy in lieu of returning to 720p?

I thought the 640P was due to the two frame buffers for their HDR method. I would assume they could do 720P 2x AA with FP10 easy enough. I always thought the frame rate was solid, but the IQ was poor.

Too bad you cannot chose these options in a menu, kind of a PC thing I guess.

 

[homerdog]

I was talking about a single player in a multiplayer map where nothing is happening. No splitscreen.

And although I haven't seen it with your configuration and I can't say for sure, I doubt that it maintains a solid framerate for you. I have played the game at different resolutions with different video-cables and different displays on different consoles. I have played the multiplayer beta given away with Crackdown and the full game and the game drops frames almost constantly everywhere. I see it and my friends see it as well. It's not even a constant drop in framerate when the heat is on. It drops single frames here and there regardless of what's going on and it is extremely irritating.

I will try playing it with a SDTV resolution and in 50Hz mode just in case.

Oh well I guess there's no point in debating unless grandmaster gets involved.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Remember the days when the Halo series was pretty much the best looking console game?

No. To my (then) untrained eyes, Halo didn't look significantly better than any recent FPS I'd already played. When Halo 2 came out, well...I thought there were lots of better-looking games, even if Halo 2 might have won a "count the effects" contest vis-a-vis other titles, and even though by that time, I was aware of what bump mapping was and could spot it.

I wasn't that impressed by Halo 3. Again, you can play "count the effects," but overall, it didn't feel like a big leap over Halo 2...and I still think the pre-Flood areas of Halo 1 have the best map design. Sure, you can see it if you play them back to back, but with the 3-year gap I had, I didn't notice it the way I noticed, say, the leap from Goldeneye to Timesplitters 2.

 

[DrJay24]

No. To my (then) untrained eyes, Halo didn't look significantly better than any recent FPS I'd already played.

On a console? I think Halo looked and played great, Halo 2 was a mess in comparison, hey pushed the Xbox too far.

 

[homerdog]

No. To my (then) untrained eyes, Halo didn't look significantly better than any recent FPS I'd already played.

Hmm I recall Halo:CE being the best looking console shooter at the time. Understandable since it was the only shooter on the most powerful console.

But this argument has no merit because nobody can be wrong about which game they think looks best.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Halo was a great looking game for it's time, I was especially impressed by the bumpmapping, it was a cool new effect. It's just too bad I think the game itself isn't that impressive, the graphics were though.

 

[AlNom]

Let's stick to the engine please...

 

[fearsomepirate]

On a console? I think Halo looked and played great, Halo 2 was a mess in comparison, hey pushed the Xbox too far.

Well, like I said...I wasn't predisposed to notice bump-mapping, since I had no idea what the effect was or what I would have been looking for. It wasn't until I started reading about Doom 3 that I noticed Halo had bump maps. I just thought Halo was a lot of garish colors (I have always disliked purple on green) and blocky, featureless terrain outdoors, nondescript hallways indoors, and that it was often too hard to see. I was pretty impressed by two things: the flashlight, and the fairly wide-open areas (although I had already played Serious Sam on my PC by this time).

I mean, it's all in the eye of the beholder. I've been hard to impress ever since Unreal 1.

 

[scently]

I really do not understand it when u guys say that bungie are time constrained. I would think that halo odst is not the only project they have in development and as such their engine development should be ongoing.

 

[BadTB25]

What they mean is when ODST was announced they stated that they had just started the development of the title. That statement taken with the announcement that it will be out this year with a smaller team than Halo 3 leads us to believe that they are time constrained.

Most big titles take in excess of 2 years from the start of development. Some big budget titles have been in development for almost 4 years according to some forum post.

 

[obonicus]

What they mean is when ODST was announced they stated that they had just started the development of the title. That statement taken with the announcement that it will be out this year with a smaller team than Halo 3 leads us to believe that they are time constrained.

Most big titles take in excess of 2 years from the start of development. Some big budget titles have been in development for almost 4 years according to some forum post.

To go a bit OT, though, if this is actually true, then I expect MS to have a slew of first-party titles announced by the time E3 rolls by. Because otherwise it seems like they got to around E3 2008 (I'm guessing that Bungie's delayed unveiling was ODST), went 'oh, **** we need a title for next year! Bungie, are you free?' and that doesn't make much sense.

 

[scently]

What they mean is when ODST was announced they stated that they had just started the development of the title. That statement taken with the announcement that it will be out this year with a smaller team than Halo 3 leads us to believe that they are time constrained.

Most big titles take in excess of 2 years from the start of development. Some big budget titles have been in development for almost 4 years according to some forum post.

What i mean is that they might not be time constrained when it comes to engine progression as i would think that bungie would have started to improve on their engine before the annoucement of ODST as it is improbable that it is their only project in development. So what i am saying is that engine-wise i do not think that they are time-constrained.

 

[BadTB25]

What i mean is that they might not be time constrained when it comes to engine progression as i would think that bungie would have started to improve on their engine before the annoucement of ODST as it is improbable that it is their only project in development. So what i am saying is that engine-wise i do not think that they are time-constrained.

OK, gotcha.

 

[scently]

OK, gotcha.

HA HA very funny

 

[Akumajou]

CryEngine 3 is 2010. Halo 3 was 2007.

Halo 3 focused more on pleasing what was established in Halo 2 by adding on to it, most of the video games on XBox 360 since 2006 have dropped 4 player splitscreen engines because mostly everybody who games with "friends" on XBox live barely do those Lan parties that helped establish Halo 1 and Halo 2... unless you really have a big tv and don't mind squinting

 

[fearsomepirate]

unless you really have a big tv and don't mind squinting

Or if you have friends in real life, not just the Internet. Halo 3 >>>>> Nearly every other FPS because you can have a couple friends over and all--get this--jump on Live together. You can like, call up your friend, and instead of him saying, "Sorry, I'm playing Halo tonight, forget it," he can say, "Yeah, I'm playing Halo tonight, come on over." It's freaking awesome, and the fact that most games don't do this show how ignorant developers are of social dynamics.

 

[TrungGap]

Or if you have friends in real life, not just the Internet. Halo 3 >>>>> Nearly every other FPS because you can have a couple friends over and all--get this--jump on Live together. You can like, call up your friend, and instead of him saying, "Sorry, I'm playing Halo tonight, forget it," he can say, "Yeah, I'm playing Halo tonight, come on over." It's freaking awesome, and the fact that most games don't do this show how ignorant developers are of social dynamics.

God, this is one of the reasons I love Halo and LIVE. They both compliment each other very well. When my friends drop by (impromptu) we just fire up Halo split screen...don't have to worry about have extra LCD or whatnot. During weekdays we just meet up on LIVE. Jumping in and out of games isn't perfect, but much better than most games.