Comparing Blizzard to Epic is hubris. As far as I remember Blizzard didn't sell out to the consoles or drop their insane quality standards...
Does Bulletstorm PC Use GFWL?
- Thread starter Sir_Brizz
- Start date
-
Two Factor Authentication is now available on BeyondUnreal Forums. To configure it, visit your Profile and look for the "Two Step Verification" option on the left side. We can send codes via email (may be slower) or you can set up any TOTP Authenticator app on your phone (Authy, Google Authenticator, etc) to deliver codes. It is highly recommended that you configure this to keep your account safe.
Switching to GFWL surely is a sad sight even on Epic's end I would imagine, here they've been posing as a money hungry monster for a few years, and now they slap that on a game that will probably diminish its sales.
Granted maybe not enough though for Epic to give a flying truck about, considering the PC sales are already probably going to be low enough regardless of it having GFWL on it.
Granted maybe not enough though for Epic to give a flying truck about, considering the PC sales are already probably going to be low enough regardless of it having GFWL on it.
You're right. However, name one successful currently released arena shooter. Aside from QL, which is a re-release of a decade old game in a different format, there are none.
Well, for many of us fans, UT games offer more value than most games. Replay value moving to the most complete modding tools in the business, nobody can deny UT games are not the ****. But, these tools only attract a niche group. Not exactly household name building, unfortunately.
Unilaterally hated, yet, gamers scarf up the games that use it. Perhaps it is a misconception that it is a unilateral hatred. Since I have no clue, I'm just playing devil's advocate.
Yeah, I get that. But do you really blame Epic for moving to other platforms? Sure, they could have made different decisions along the way, starting with UT2003, but they are a business that has to work in conjunction with other businesses. Looking at the tepid sales of their Unreal based games on PC and consoles, I can see why they have pretty much abandoned further development on those games. Epic had a mega hit with Gears, way bigger than the Unreal or UT ever netted for them, therefore, it is understandable why they would choose to continue development on that front. Too bad the Gears PC was a flop and there will be no follow-on effort there.
Even though Epic took some blame for the fiasco and did their best to make up for it with UT3 Black, there were other outside factors that contributed to the unbaked release of UT3.
There you have, arena shooters are not mainstream games. Us UT fans are a minuscule group even in the grand scheme of the platform of our choice, PC.
While true, it is a goofy statement to make. Funny how that would not be so applicable over on the Gears forums. I doubt many of those players surf the forums on their XBoxes.
Selling out would indicate that consoles are inferior to PCs. Depending on the angle one would take to prove or disprove that argument, it could go either way.
As for quality standards, keep in mind that WoW goes through numerous constant updates, and it should, since players spend a small fortune to play the game.
QL is free, too.
That's what I'm talking about. Unreal could be (and probably, thanks to the engine, is) a household name already. It's all about where Epic has focused their time and attention. Also, Gears could just as well be a commonly played PC game if it had been given the appropriate attention.
Do they? I think most of the time people on PC just deal with GFWL integration. Fallout 3 had it, people dealt with it, New Vegas switched to Steamworks. DoW2 used it, people dealt with it, the next DoW game is using Steamworks. These companies realized something that Epic clearly hasn't: Nobody likes GFWL.
A lot of Gears success can also be blamed squarely on marketing. Epic has never had any non-Microsoft published product marketed as well as Gears and Shadow Complex, hands down. And that does make a huge difference. The problems Gears has on the PC I blame on Microsoft.
That said, I don't care about Epic branching out to consoles. Valve's games are on the 360, too. But the big difference is that Valve's PC games haven't suffered because of it and their commitment to the PC platform has never been stronger. I can't say the same about Epic right now.
Well, what I meant was that gamers in general aren't necessarily moving away from games that use GFWL. Whether they are "dealing" with it is an assumption, as there is no real hard data to back up the statement that it is hated by even a majority of players (although I do digress that may in fact be the case that the hatred is there).
I think the sales numbers and general lack of polish among the vast majority of GFWL games speaks for itself.
To be fair, though, the measuring stick I'm really using is multiplayer, and most GFWL have non to speak of (besides DoW2).
To be fair, though, the measuring stick I'm really using is multiplayer, and most GFWL have non to speak of (besides DoW2).
This might be a stretch, but perhaps it is part of Epic and Microsoft's overall contract that Epic uses GFWL? Whether it would be admitted by either company or not, stranger things have happened.
All I know now is that I am not buying Bulletstorm on day one. I am going to wait and see how the whole GFWL thingy turns out. If you guys are right and it ruins the game overall, then I will most likely try it on my PS3, if nothing else but as a rental.
All I know now is that I am not buying Bulletstorm on day one. I am going to wait and see how the whole GFWL thingy turns out. If you guys are right and it ruins the game overall, then I will most likely try it on my PS3, if nothing else but as a rental.
Cue in the missing UE3 on Linux support
While it may be true, there is no way to tell when the attention is going to come back. Besides, this group is always willing to try out new arena shooters simply because there are not many of those. And they tend to stick to those games, too. So while the profit might not be the best, but it should be pretty constant. And if you make something really good, it might make the whole style popular again.
It reminds me of the Linux gaming community as well. There people are interested in basically anything that runs natively on it, simply because there are so few native releases there.
I'm looking forward to BulletStorm, and i can't really see GfWL putting me off that. I'm sure the gameplay will make up for the small amount of time spent logging into the GfWL thing.
I don't get this whole "Epic betrayed us" crap going on here. I really don't see how. They made some PC games, then they made some console games, now an Iphone game, and BS is coming for PC. What's actually wrong?
I didn't play GoW2 and won't be playing GoW 3 either simply because i don't have a 360. I can't hate them simply because i have to play those new games on console though, that's just daft.
People just gonna hate i guess...
I don't get this whole "Epic betrayed us" crap going on here. I really don't see how. They made some PC games, then they made some console games, now an Iphone game, and BS is coming for PC. What's actually wrong?
I didn't play GoW2 and won't be playing GoW 3 either simply because i don't have a 360. I can't hate them simply because i have to play those new games on console though, that's just daft.
People just gonna hate i guess...
What is wrong is that we are suddenly forced to use a closed system to play a game that doesn't need it. There is now a third party involved in our online gaming. If GFWL becomes subscription based again - whoops, no more free MP for Bulletstorm. If they decide to block xfire - whoops, no more xfire for friends lists. Microsoft's interests can now alter your gaming experience after your purchase.
Etc.
If GFWL actually added any value I would hold a different opinion on this. As it stands, the service is mostly just a crappy version of things we already have available for free and without platform lock-in.
That's because Valve didn't create Counter Strike.
Insane Quality standards? That would explain weekly updates to WoW; that would explain the patch at release date for Starcraft 2 or the amount of rebalancing post-release after months of public beta testing.
The constant fixing of issues in WoW is actually a requirement due to subscription plan they sell.
But yes, Blizzard does have a nice aftercare of their games by still fixing some minor issues in their 10+ year old games (in order to keep them running on newer systems). But that's a benefit of being allowed and able to burn money on older products due to raking in massive amounts with WoW.
Anyway. Some clearly didn't get that the point of my remark was that Epic doesn't have the same fanbase as Valve and Blizzard which have the opinion that their beloved company in infallible.
I am a PC gamer, I prefer to play games on a PC. I only play exclusives on my PS3. And I do wish Epic would (more) put effort into creating PC games. But as I said before there even was a UT3, I'd rather not see another arena FPS game (or an MP focused game for that matter). Right now I'm really enjoying Enslaved on my PS3, it reminds me a lot about Unreal (except that it doesn't have guns). And I'd really like to see a game from Epic on the PC with a similar SP experience. But I'm not holding my breath for anything. They money I would spend on that game will go just as easily to an other game. (BulletStorm won't give that to me, it's a completely different game, it's way more about mindless actions, which is also great).
I bought Gears of War for the PC, and I loved it. But I didn't hear much praise from it from others in the community. Everything was "broken" and "consolised", etc. etc.
Considering that Valve is responsible for its retail success and it was the the game that put Steam on the map I can care less that didn't actually create the first game/mod. They defiantly brought it to the masses and they love it, even if its a really ****ty game.
Balancing patches =! poor quality standards. I have yet to see an RTS with multiple race options deploy 100% balanced. If you have seen one, name it. MMOs are a different beast, considering that Blizzard's wow is the industry's leading MMO they must be doing something right.
I think I know one thing that Valve and Blizzard do much better than Epic, rapid deployment. If there is a bug or problem it is fixed quick, game breaking bugs last weeks not months. Both Blizzard and Valve have made their own facilities to get patches to their community as fast as possible.
Last edited:
Wait GFWL can patch games too? Last few GFWL games needed to still be manually patched in addition to GFWL nagging it also wanted to be updated and restart the game a few times. 
MS has really slow patch approval process anyway good luck with that.
MS has really slow patch approval process anyway good luck with that.
Afaik the patches through GFWL were pretty much instant. I don't think there is an strick approval process for GFWL. The most annoying part of patching through a system like GFWL, Steam, Battle.net, PSN, etc. is that you can't do anything else with the system in the meanwhile.
Counter-Strike wasn't distributed through Steam. It was only used for patches.
Valve does do it better than Epic as far as quicker patches, but as elmuerte pointed out, when Steam is patching, you can do nothing else with it. And comparing Blizzard to either Valve or Epic is ridiculous. Both the smaller companies combined employees numbers only makeup about ten percent the total employees at Blizzard. So yeah, I would hope Blizzard does really well at rolling out patches in fast order. Besides, they get paid through subscription alongside their game sales, so you pay for your patches, essentially; with Valve and Epic, your patches are free.
While Steam is patching you can still use your computer. This isn't true of GFWL (and maybe not even Battle.net, I have no idea on that one). You launch the game, the game starts downloading an update and you are still stuck in the game. If it's a large patch, your computer is, essentially, out of commission for several minutes to several hours.
Really, the dichotomy between Epic and Valve is the most apparent, primarily because Epic should be drooling all over Steam with each of their in-house developed PC games. If it weren't for Steam, UT3 would have been a complete and utter disaster for them financially (comparatively speaking).
The other thing Epic could have been better about even in UT3 would have been smaller, more focused patches in the beginning and all the way along. We didn't need massive all-encompassing updates every single time.