Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General: The Biggest Non-Secret No Ones Talking About
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Justin Webb writes this week's column about Tiger Woods Online and what it could mean for MMO players.
The double negative in the title aside, something fascinating is happening in the world of online browser games. Somehow, EA (imagine that) might just be about to completely change the way games get played. I know it’s a golf game, but please, point your browser here and give it a quick try (Don’t worry, it’s free right now).
You may have to create an account (however, if you’ve played Dragon Age or Mass Effect 2, you probably already have one.) Once you’re in, click PLAY NOW. To get the full effect, you only need to play one hole. It really is something. I’ll wait for you to get back.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Old news, i posted about this last week
Beta tested this one. Buggy, but fun. They really need to amp up the customization, IMO. I'm pretty sure people expect more from their golf games nowadays, and really, it's just not as fun watching the same couple of golfers compete.
Agree that browser games are making a strong move. I've enjoyed quickhitfootball.com, although, again, it still needs work.
This is all well and good, but can you cheat on your wife? If not then it really isnt Tiger Woods Online.
Where's my immersion!?!?
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
I can comment,since i don't like golf live or in a game,so i quit after 2 holes.
customization is possible for sure,but as of now there is none,so no AAA there,in it's current state not even AA.
Textures are low end,nothing to look realistic,example shirt doesn't move in wind,no moving grass,trees.Player doesn't breathe.No caddy ,no gold cart,he jus tmagically appears at each hole.
Really the game is nothing more than a stick man with a few different animations.Same club for each animation?No turning of the player or grips,it is all just pre rendered into your choices.
All in all it nothing close to a AAA,not even AA,just a boring browser game as expected.Even if it was something more to my liking than boring golf,i would still not play it ,even for free.Of course anything other than golf would take at least one more player if it was tennis,any other sport would need several animations,too much effort for a browser game,witch is why they chose a one man golf game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
InstantAction (Garage Games renamed) is actually developing a system that will allow developers to simply set up a developer account with them and InstantAction will take care of the rest. Then, the developer can put their games up on any website. It uses a similar streaming concept and they've been doing it for a while with a select few developers on their website www.instantaction.com. A tribes like game was once up on their website, right now though, their website is being reconstructed because they're revamping everything in preperation for the release of the ability for any developer to gain access to this powerful distribution tool.
It's very interesting and it supports some pretty complex, fast paced games, such as Fallen Empire: Legions.
APRIL FOOLS!!!
wait...
It's been a long time since I've played a golf game, so it took a while to get used to.. hmm spacebar bashing doesn't seem hard. The trick seems to be to understand the help tools you're given.
My biggest problem is that sometimes the browser just hiccups causing you to press the spacebar at the complete wrong moment. Better put all this in a lightweight client instead, so the browser cannot mess it all up.
The tech behind TWO isn't new. Look up Citrix or VMware View. The software can run on a full client in a VM somewhere on the internet and only transmit screen and keyboard info to your browser. The only difference these days is that the infrastructure cost to present this info to the client is a lot lower than it has been in previous years and 3D VM capabilities have come a long way. Your PC is now just a dumb terminal connected to "the cloud".
This will work somewhat for TWO, because the demand is relatively low. The computing power required for several million simultaneous players as in Wow would be tremendous.
Gee - Windows only web-plugin...nice.
I think the urging that we all run out and try TWO right away was a bit over the top, but I appreciate the article.
so...
Not sure I understand what the fuss is all about.
Do these browser games not require the client (i.e. your computer) to have the hardware requirements that "normal" games do? In other words, is the game rendered on the server and streamed over to your computer?
If not then I dont see what the big fuss is about. I buy a game and install a client. All this would do is not needing you to install a client, not that big of a deal to me. Downloading any client rarely takes me more than a couple of hours with my connection so that is not an issue to me.
However if actually how it works is that everything is run on the server side (including the rendering of gfx) and then streamed to your client and it works smoothly with thousands of players using the service then it is revolutionary indeed.
My gaming blog
Made me smile, I want the advanced version as well.
Interesting tech, I'm not quite as blown away by it as the OP, but who knows, in 5 years we may all be playing browser games.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
That's exactly what this means. Cloud Technology is essentially getting rid of the need to constantly upgrade a PC to be able to run the brand new hi tech graphics. It can all be played through the browser. This has been tested where a person had 2 browser windows up, one had Eve online the other had World of Warcraft, both playing seemlessly as if the software was on the computer, but it wasn't. It was on a server somewhere halfway across the country.
I think this is awesome and is the future of gaming and computer software. Now the hard part is going to be legislation in this area because it CAN be wrongfully used if their aren't laws passed on this to hinder identify theft, etc. Something to watch, that's for sure.
They are using the Unity web player, the same player that they used and is still used for Battlefield Heroes. This player is beginning to get more released with it. It is installed locally and you can uninstall through the control panel.
Tarkus
Giving EA credit for breaking ground here is ridiculous.
So many companies have already been pushing out similar technology, EA is late to the developing game on this they just happen to be big with a big name product which got you to notice it. Every company realizes that the future is in letting them play the same game they would have but do it through a browser. There are a lot of people who don't like to download and install major games so they just don't buy and play them. Companies have all been putting out tech, each better then the previous, for playing right in your browser.
One thing holding this movement back is that OpenGL is the browser standard right now, and OpenGL refuses to update it's tech anymore to compete with DirectX. Yes OpenGL is currently just about as powerful but the went from having a huge lead, to almost being even and in the future to being behind. OpenGl does have the advantage of being able to cross platform.
But no this isn't news, isn't a secret, and everyone already talked about it. We're just all in the waiting for our favorite games to go browser time now.
"They are using the Unity web player, the same player that they used and is still used for Battlefield Heroes. This player is beginning to get more released with it. It is installed locally and you can uninstall through the control panel.
Tarkus"
The nicest thing about the Unity engine is that it is affordable to Indie game makers, but of course no one notices when Indie games do things.
Cloud technology will never be acceptable for real gaming. You really think any company could afford to have 100,000 machines capable of graphics output like home users have, that then streams it back to your computer? Ever? Not unless they want to charge you 50+ dollars a month to play it. It simply isn't economically feasible. That's why the graphics on any games that try it will be poor. Good for a browser perhaps, but not up to the standard of real gamers.
You'll notice I've used the word 'real' twice now. Real gamers like modern warfare 2 and dragon age, and fallout 3. Maybe not all such games, but most of them. Web gamers like farmville and pet society. You can appeal to the latter, but it's doubtful you'll make a profit from it.
Cloud computing it just a gimmick. Remote accessing your own hardware over the internet is feasible someday though, but don't call that cloud computing, because it's been around forever.
But that's not the only stumbling block. Aside from requiring hosts of said games to supply hardware capable of processing graphics and sound for every single connected browser, there's the matter of net congestion, ping times, and bandwidth usage. It's quite likely america will eventually have it's ISPs switch to a limited bandwidth system, and ping times are as fast as they will ever be without us fully switched over to fiber optics. The amount of data transmission needed is 10x what normal online games need due to the video and audio feeds. And lag will always be there, but it's the kind of lag players can't forgive, input lag.
If you had a fiber optic cable going from your computer to the game server, of course this wouldn't be an issue. But you don't. And you won't, for at least another decade, outside of maybe a very small percentage of the populous.
If you want to push some bullcrap sub-par golf game, that's fine, but it doesn't belong in the mmorpg world anymore than farmville does. Leave cloud computing slurping to the idiots on cnbc who think it must be the future so buy buy buy!!!
Here is a better example of how I personally think Cloud Technology is the new age of computer software and gaming. This link points to the Gaikai engine/software that utilizes this. Nice video demo for you to peruse.
http://www.dperry.com/archives/news/dp_blog/gaikai_-_video/
I learned about this a few months ago from an article on Massively.com and I was fairly intrigued by it.
No one is talking about it because it is pretty much a non event. The so called MMO offers littel that cannot be found in a single player game except to see who is the better twitcher.
As for all the rest of the stuff who knows...cloud computing maybe...likely not...browser based no client games replacing pc based client-server games again not likely for the reasons stated above. The biggest point is games are still not even close to being real enough/immersive enough for the average "gamer". I define a gamer as someone who is willing to buy a computer or even console for the express purpose of gaming and nothing else and is willing to spend at least a couple hundred dollars a year on game titles. For people like us untill we are immersed in a star trek like holodeck with full sensory input we just will not have reached the "pinnacle" of gaming. Since we are no where near that and the resources and tech required for that would be through the roof compared with todays technology...replacing a powerfull machine able to handle many of the game tasks on a person by person basis with machines a 3rd party runs is not likely going to happen except in small cases or in games/programs that are otherwise behind the times.
We can never have enough cpu/ram/graphical power as it is now and trying to stream that over an allready congested net isnt going to make things better. Instead you will likely see that technology simply added on to the current system to improve the current technology even more rather than replace it.
On a side note Guild Wars(not sure if they were the first) was using streaming technology from day one on their game. You only had to install a 2 or 5 megabyte client and you were off. It took about 5 minutes to download the information for the starter area and as you were playing the rest of the game slowly and silently installed itself in the background. You never had to patch and I dont remember the servers ever needing to come down for a fix. This is the true streaming technology that could and probably will make the difference in future games.
Being anal retentive: It's not a double negative. The two negative statements refer to different factuoles, namely the fact it's not a secret and no one's talking about it.
I'm not sure how to weigh in on this one.
It's clear that where 'massively online' is concerned, ease of access, low challenge barriers, very casual pacing is what is the progressive area of industry. EQ ~> WoW showed us this, and WoW ~> Farmville furthers this notion. Love it, or hate it, I think no one here can argue that browser games are where the industry is headed.
But only to a degree.
I recognize the beta status of the client. I recognize the advances in computing technology. But it isn't smooth. Could it be in 5 years? 10? The point is irrelivent.
Accessibility drives away the spectrum of hard core gamers. The need for heavy immersion isn't going to take place without a setting. While I think the choice to make TWO golf their flagship entry into this browser-based phenomenon, I'm not sure how real-time RPGs would measure up. Casual games will make it across any number of platforms, but the games (and the gamers) who require depth and immersion, also require a stage.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
I was impressed, but I also noticed quite a few locations where there was lag. One *very* noticeable one was during NFS- where damage to his ride was posted well after the fact.
I think it's a buzzword right now, and holds much hype. I can see the benefits to the technology, but judging from my conversations with former classmates who now work the programming and networking industries, it's only a reality for certain senarios.
Of course, 'im'possible loses its prefix with time.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
Just an FYI: There's already a free to play Golf MMO, that has been out since 2004 (when first released in Korea) and then had a 2006 US release with Games Campus. The game is Shot Online and although it isn't a browser based game (with EA/Tiger Woods) it's definitely something comparible.
I do agree the browser ability of this does seem like some decent technology, but it'll still end up being 4 golfers taking individual turns with some form of common area or chat to find golfers to compete against... So basically the same thing as ShotO, with Tiger Woods and EA.
I think it's a buzzword right now, and holds much hype. I can see the benefits to the technology, but judging from my conversations with former classmates who now work the programming and networking industries, it's only a reality for certain senarios.
Of course, 'im'possible loses its prefix with time.
True. The lag you saw reminds me though that this technology is still young and even that demo you watched is Beta footage, meaning it can be fixed, and built on. I was just impressed with the idea of running 2 full fledge MMO's at once and neither had any lag, the Eve and WoW part. That and the idea that it is all using imbedded video streaming technology which is a whole different beast, meaning the few posts above this who said CPU issues and server issues etc, would be moot.
Does the game allow me to have sexual escapades with lots of chicks? If not, then it isn't a realistic Tiger sim!
I've been playing the TWO beta for a while. For the most part, the graphics and gameplay are just as good as they are in previous versions of TW PGA Tour on PC, which is to say there are some issues but it plays fine. I think it's pretty neat that you can get it through a browser now, and that the content is streamed so there's no big downloads or installations. But really, I don't think it's going to revolutionize gaming or anything dramatic like that. It's just another way to deliver games. It wasn't that long ago that there was no way to get a major game onto your computer besides installing it from a disk, but now we take services like Steam and Direct2Drive for granted. So maybe in the near future some games will be streamed to our computers through the web browser like TWO. Big whoop.
The ONLIVE idea is something completely different from TWO, and if it can ever be made feasible and affordable, it could have much greater implications for gaming, but of course it is way WAY more challenging.