Warhawk Beta - May 24 (registration open!)

[inefficient]

I just hope you don't have to use the FPS mode a lot. Would much prefer to fly or drive.

Is there any way to coordinate attacks? Like have air support or ground strafing so ground units controlled by teammates could advance?

Or have ground units point laser guidance systems so that air-to-ground missiles could be guided?

Or have strategies to take out air units on the ground before they could take off or knock out runways?

There is no FPS mode. It's always 3rd person whether your in a vehicle or on foot.

Use the voice chat to coordinate attacks with your team. There is also a "binoculars" item pick up that allows you to call in artillery strikes, ala Enemy Territory. You'll see this green laser painting a target and after a few seconds, the shells start pouring down.

There are no runways because all the aircraft are VTOL.

 

[Todd33]

Finally, the local multiplayer aspect of the game. If your mates come round, there’s more than one way to enjoy Warhawk together. Firstly, you can have a local split screen multiplayer battle against each other. If you don’t fancy that, then you can have an online game against others – and there’s no passing the controller round every round, you can actually play 4 player split screen online. Then there’s the LAN option. If you’re lucky enough to have a few friends who own PS3’s then set up a local network and connect them all together. A great feature of the disc based version is the ability to play the game on a number of PS3s at the same time using only one disc – perfect for LAN parties.

Warhawk is extremely easy to get into and you’ll be addicted in minutes. The gameplay has the aspects that keep PC gamers playing the same game for years; the graphics are great; and for me, it will be a must buy when it comes out later this month.

http://threespeech.com/blog/?p=524

 

[kyleb]

Oh, wow, when they said the game supports splitscreen I just figured they meant two player and never even imagined 4 player support. Looks like this might force me into buying two more Sixaxis controllers instead of holding out for the Touchsense versions to arrive.

 

[expletive]

If i buy the disc version, will it be required to be in the drive when i play or will i have a serial # that i can use to register and then install the game? Not having to have the disc in the drive is a big selling point for a game like this since its the kind of game youll probably get random invites for. Playing Heavenly sword and being able to jump into a warhawk game without getting up is something id like to be able to do and would make the disc version much less attractive...

 

[Todd33]

If i buy the disc version, will it be required to be in the drive when i play or will i have a serial # that i can use to register and then install the game? Not having to have the disc in the drive is a big selling point for a game like this since its the kind of game youll probably get random invites for. Playing Heavenly sword and being able to jump into a warhawk game without getting up is something id like to be able to do and would make the disc version much less attractive...

I have the same concerns and from what I have read on other forums the disc needs to be in but data is cached on the HD to make the loads equivalent to the PSN version. I'll be getting the PSN version just so I can jump into a game whenever, I also don't need a headset.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Oh, wow, when they said the game supports splitscreen I just figured they meant two player and never even imagined 4 player support.

This is where 1080p becomes truly desirable. A large screen gives each player there own 960x540 EDTV screen's worth. Sit close enough and it's like 4 20+" screens!

 

[Arwin]

Wow this is great:

A great feature of the disc based version is the ability to play the game on a number of PS3s at the same time using only one disc

I love that. Awesome for LAN parties and stuff.

 

[kyleb]

This is where 1080p becomes truly desirable. A large screen gives each player there own 960x540 EDTV screen's worth. Sit close enough and it's like 4 20+" screens!

Ah, we barely have any one player games that are rendered at 1080p, so I rather doubt will be seen 4 player splitscreen at 1080p this gen. I'm pretty sure Warkhawk's developers have confirmed they do their rendering at 720p.

 

[wco81]

I bet they won't let disc owners play without the disc in drive.

Otherwise, what prevents you from selling the disc used and continue to play the game?

 

[djskribbles]

of course they wont. they only let 3 other people on a local network to play without the disc (but at least 1 system needs a disc). if you download it from the psn, you might be able to share the game with 4 others (if its like the other games).

 

[Jaeyden]

I doubt they'll let people share the DL. At $40 bucks a pop, it just seems like too much to lose. It'll probably be set up like the Resistance maps, I'm pretty sure you couldn't share those.

 

[tuna]

Ah, we barely have any one player games that are rendered at 1080p, so I rather doubt will be seen 4 player splitscreen at 1080p this gen. I'm pretty sure Warkhawk's developers have confirmed they do their rendering at 720p.

Anyone have any real confirmation about this?

 

[betan]

Anyone have any real confirmation about this?

During beta, after complains from 1080i only users they added software scaling for 1080p. So yes it is 720p native.

 

[morlock]

During beta, after complains from 1080i only users they added software scaling for 1080p. So yes it is 720p native.

Dylan Jobe at the official blog.

Dylan Jobe | August 4th, 2007 at 6:44 pm

To: Winter Soldier
Yes, Warhawk now does a 720p -> 1080i upscale so you and many other players are now covered.

 

[Todd33]

Check out the pics of the rack mount PS3s for official Sony servers.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/08/08/behind-the-curtain-the-warhawk-servers/

Those of you familiar with Warhawk already know that the game features a very unique server method that we call “Integrated Game Server” or IGS for short — the industry needs more acronyms don’t you think

The Warhawk IGS method means that instead of us forcing players to be connected to the SONY “mothership” for any and all games, we instead let players host their own servers on their own PS3s. This is fairly unique and it enables a couple of really nice benefits.

First, since Warhawk is a global online game, our IGS method scatters game servers quite literally into player’s homes all over the planet — the US, China, Europe, Australia, and Japan! No matter where you live, what time you want to play, or what language you speak, you’ll always be able to get your game on.

I remember a guy on the AVS forums worked for Sony and ran these servers in San Diego (I think). He made the comment (never saying Warhawk, but it was obvious) when talking about the PS3 reliability. He said he had 100+ PS3s running folding 24/7 waiting for the launch of Sony's upcoming online game (Warhawk) and never had one PS3 die.

Edit: Found the thread, he even verified it they were for Warhawk.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10978245&&#post10978245

We have 100+ PS3s currently doing folding@home 24/7 for about 3 months without a single failure. I think that is proof enough that any reported failures are isolated incidents.

 

[betan]

Check out the pics of the rack mount PS3s for official Sony servers.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/08/08/behind-the-curtain-the-warhawk-servers/

I wonder how many games each PS3 can host. User dedicated servers can host only one, which would be wasteful for official servers.

Anyway, lack of matchmaking and manual ranked match selection are big negatives for me however he put it.

Hope they will have enough "official" dedicated servers. I certainly don't want to play Warhawk only on user servers.

 

[-tkf-]

Looks Sci-Fi, kind a cool that the console serves itself..

 

[morlock]

Looks Sci-Fi, kind a cool that the console serves itself..

There are atlest 150 units in this shot only, 30 per tower. So if each unit run one game with the maximum of 32 players this room can hold 4800 players in ranked games. These kind of setups is supposed be scattered around the globe so there should be enough ranked games for this game i suppose. I will be fun to see how many custom servers are running when the game hits.

 

[Strange]

With Warhawk Being able to do this, this sounds like a very business viable option for sony's network service to me.

As PS3s are ALL compatible with PS3 games (that's a given), any PS3 with the software can run as a dedicated server.

Furthermore, as the population of multiplayer for a certain game peak and then decline, all they have to do is to dedicate the PS3 to another hot game that just came up the horizon, and there, no waste of servers!

Then when an old game suddenly has a spike in players and they need more servers, I don't see a difficulty in adding servers within a few hours.

All they have to do is to go to their one inventory of PS3s, grab one, put it in the rack, connect the cables, put in the software (and update the firmware, obviously), and there! you have another running server

I'd say that a company using it's one single product as all of the following:
1. Presentation tool
2. Product
3. Service provider
has found a very viable business solution.
One product that sells and services itself. How sweet

Does anyone know how much power typical dedicated servers suck up?
If it's no more than what the PS3 actually does, (in which 200W is quite low compared to most of our computers, IIRC) then it's long-term and short term cost seem to be quite amazing.

Dedicated servers that cost 500 bucks? I'm not sure if I've seen that before.

 

[-tkf-]

Hmm looks like two of the USB connections are in use..

External harddrive and some kind of Control thingy or just Connected to a USB KVM switch i guess