You can teach them and show them these old games. I did to few and they surprisingly liked it...well unless they get too swallowed by the consume world etc.
What would revive the UT franchise?
- Thread starter SuicideUZI
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You can teach them and show them these old games. I did to few and they surprisingly liked it...well unless they get too swallowed by the consume world etc.
Also the other thing to add about PC gaming...
10 years ago there were many games that existed that were PC specific only, and now have completed just died out - flight sims, space sims, dark forces series, mechwarrior, quake and unreal series (as being multiplatform now, no long PC only), racing games (midtown, motocross madness). Also now, PC games are delayed often (didn't even get BF194) months after console releases, and developers have pretty much said come next engine/console releases, it's console first, pc last.
MMO's are carrying PC gaming. Period. If you want to play MMO's (free or monthly fee) and online RPG's, then the PC is for you (I think).
FPS's..flight/space sims...racing games...tournaments, ladders, gaming lobbies are no longer doing so like they did in the 90's, when PC gaming was at it's finest. It's unfortunate for those that never got to game during those years.
10 years ago there were many games that existed that were PC specific only, and now have completed just died out - flight sims, space sims, dark forces series, mechwarrior, quake and unreal series (as being multiplatform now, no long PC only), racing games (midtown, motocross madness). Also now, PC games are delayed often (didn't even get BF194) months after console releases, and developers have pretty much said come next engine/console releases, it's console first, pc last.
MMO's are carrying PC gaming. Period. If you want to play MMO's (free or monthly fee) and online RPG's, then the PC is for you (I think).
FPS's..flight/space sims...racing games...tournaments, ladders, gaming lobbies are no longer doing so like they did in the 90's, when PC gaming was at it's finest. It's unfortunate for those that never got to game during those years.
Sir_HC, I don't really get your point. If you state that PC gaming is dead, console gaming is dead, FPS is dead, simulators are dead, racing games are dead, other games are dead... Then the question is - what's alive? It would seem that relatively, no gaming was affected.
If you say that MMOs are alive - then it's a contradiction, since they are a part of PC gaming!
Also, you state that fast internet somehow contributed to this. But it is simply unavoidable, without fast internet you won't be able to get all the data you need for current games - just look at the sizes of Unreal Tournament 3 maps, for example. And it's not easier to pirate things just because your connection is faster - again, games have grown in size, too, vanilla UT3 now takes 4GB, while vanilla Unreal could fit into around 200MB or so. So again, relatively nothing has changed.
Finally, if, as you say, PC gaming is dead since less people are interested in it, and there are no alternatives, then that isn't necessarily a bad thing - maybe people don't consume everything without thinking about it these days, and do something more meaningful than playing games?
If you say that MMOs are alive - then it's a contradiction, since they are a part of PC gaming!
Also, you state that fast internet somehow contributed to this. But it is simply unavoidable, without fast internet you won't be able to get all the data you need for current games - just look at the sizes of Unreal Tournament 3 maps, for example. And it's not easier to pirate things just because your connection is faster - again, games have grown in size, too, vanilla UT3 now takes 4GB, while vanilla Unreal could fit into around 200MB or so. So again, relatively nothing has changed.
Finally, if, as you say, PC gaming is dead since less people are interested in it, and there are no alternatives, then that isn't necessarily a bad thing - maybe people don't consume everything without thinking about it these days, and do something more meaningful than playing games?
Then you have people like me that want to revive the classics, and bring people back to when PC gaming was actually a good thing. I've been doing mapping since Duke 3D and Doom II, and bringing those types of maps to UT3, and CS:S, and all those other games.
I think you misunderstood. What I meant is, 10 years ago - people were playing flight simulators such as Flight Sim 95, 98, and 2000. There are no flight simulator games like those that I can think of out right now, with an ACTIVE community (10 to 20 people isn't "active"). FPS games (ESPECIALLY deathmatch) have worndown. I can't really think of any racing games with the exception of Trackmania that are worth playing with an active community. Arena/futuristic deathmatch, to be specific..the Sin/Quake/Unreal/Blood style deathmatch games (even SoF was pretty good for what it was), are especially dying. FPS's no longer have people entering a a server and run with rocket launchers blowing up anything they move. Instead, they have people flying planes, cars, tanks, etc. Most everything has moved over to modern team-based gameplay (CoD for example). An for me, killing someone with a BFG was a hell of a lot more fun than killing someone with a Thompson. Heat.NET back in it's day with all the people that played on there, was *CLEARLY* a gaming network site devoted to FPS games such as the ones I said above. If dying is not the right word..maybe "changed"..or "process"..but it's changing...moving...and progressing away from what made it fun. It is extremely unfortunate to see it happen, too. Or maybe, better yet, the "games" back then, have died out. I mean, that is obvious. Quake 4 is no good. UT3 is horrible. The fact is, when I think of PC gaming today, I think of MMO's, and online RPG's, such as WoW, leading the way.
Well of course fast internet was bound to happen, and fast internet is good. That didn't kill gaming per say. What I mean is the faster speeds have now pretty much given anyone with a decent internet connection ease to pirate any game they want. Piracy has really hurt PC gaming. I download anywhere from 1 to 2mb/sec - a 4gb won't take that long, to be honest. In fact, I wouldn't even care to download a 4gb file. Back then when you were downloading at 1-5kb/sec, it wasn't so easy. I remember just a 20mb file taking a long time to download.
Hey SirHC, assuming your name isn't just an unlikely coincidence... you should stop by the pdX forums sometime, we're still (sort of) alive, even though me and Slice are the only ones that really play UT anymore. 
http://v3.pdxclan.com/index.php
http://v3.pdxclan.com/index.php
I didn't follow the decay of PC gaming (only the contrast between circa 2000 and now) but I want to add my 2 cents and say that I consider indie games very under-rated and "mid-range" games pushed artificially down. They aren't AAA, they don't have über 3D graphics, they don't have multi-GB content, so they are almost considered 2nd grade. People expect to pay 20€ tops and that's an exception, looking at Steam the majority are at 9.99€, some at 4€. Aren't games that focus very well on gameplay and old fashioned fun, good enough?
My impression is that since only a few super-studios can stretch their legs and come up with Hollywood style investments, this creates an larger gap and the false perception that the remaining games are worse than years ago. I'm not sure here, are they really? How can indies and medium/low budget studios keep up with huge investments, but what prevents them from making games like it was common a few years ago? Even then consider games like Portal, Roboblitz, Lost Planet, Serious Sam HD, or just go to Steam and browse the catalog for a while. I mean, aren't you guy having the so called "glass half-empty" approach here?
. Aren't games that focus very well on gameplay and old fashioned fun, good enough? My impression is that since only a few super-studios can stretch their legs and come up with Hollywood style investments, this creates an larger gap and the false perception that the remaining games are worse than years ago. I'm not sure here, are they really? How can indies and medium/low budget studios keep up with huge investments, but what prevents them from making games like it was common a few years ago? Even then consider games like Portal, Roboblitz, Lost Planet, Serious Sam HD, or just go to Steam and browse the catalog for a while. I mean, aren't you guy having the so called "glass half-empty" approach here?
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It's not that simple, you don't just need games to exist for a gaming platform to stay viable, you need good games that people not only want to play, but want to play on that particular platform, and the PC has less and less of that.
What the PC does have going for it at the moment is (MMO)RPG's, RTS'es, and casual/puzzle/made-for-your-mom games, and i guess also Flightsims (but this market has allways been extremely slow, releases are ages apart), in thease markets it still has some strong exclusive franchises that people want to play on their PC.
But all the rest are falling by the wayside, with only very rare exclusive releases, and whilst we still get many of thease titles as ports, that's no real reason to play them on the PC, often the PC version is the worst version (if for nothing else, then the DRM it has to put up with), and you could just as well be playing them on a cheaper Console.
For all thouse of us who want to play shooters, racers and all the other action oriented genres, the PC is in a dire state indeed, because thouse games have all but fully migrated to the Consoles, and all we get a DRM filled ports of them that never live up to the potential they could have as PC games, so it's no wonder that so many people choose to play them on their Consoles instead.
Sure, there will allways be games on the PC because it's an open platform, in theory, anyone could make a game for the PC, there exists plenty of open-source tools for it, and stuff like the MMO's and RTS'es are unlikely to migrate from this platform entirely, but we all know what this means, it's more and more becoming a niche platform.. and as a person who cares mostly about the FPS genre, that is a problem for me.
Indeed...FPS games have had a home on the PC since the early '90s at the very least. If an FPS game can't be played with a keyboard and mouse, then it shouldn't be played at all, that's been my motto for as long as I can remember
The problem is, you're using absolutes to define the health of PC gaming, and that just doesn't work. PC gaming will never die. It might be dead to you, but the mere nature of the platform means that people will always be gaming on it. They just may not be playing the games you want to play.
The other thing is that people have a really rosy picture of what PC gaming was like 10 years ago. It wasn't that rosy back then. There were tons of problems with PC gaming but people put up with those issues because PC gamers were simply more tech savvy and could solve a lot of problems on their own terms.
Now the market for PC games is an entirely different beast. We're talking about people who can't figure out if their graphics card can play such and such a game or tell if their graphics card driver is too out of date. They need people to tell them how to solve issues as simple as those. The "hardcore PC gamer" IS dying. The only option is to try to help shape the future of what PC gaming can be, rather than trying to cling to antiquated ideas about what PC gaming should have already turned in to.
For example, we all know that having no DRM would be great. But it's time to give up the old ideals of not having DRM attached to games, DRM is here to stay whether we like it or not. It's time that we start trying to shape how DRM will be utilized in the future, as I'm sure most of us can agree that DRM like Steam is much more acceptable than StarForce, SecuROM or whatever you want to call UbiLocks crappy DRM system.
Internet killed the LAN party.
PS: WTH is up with some PC games needing a Internet connection, to play LAN.
PS: WTH is up with some PC games needing a Internet connection, to play LAN.
You're right, PC gaming will never "die" but the foundation which many of us used to play, IS dead. Gaming network services to me were a huge part of PC gaming. I remember how much fun it was to play games on Zone.com, and HEAT.net. I remember all the friends I made on those, the countless nights spent staying up till 5am playing Quake 1..Quake 2...Baulder's Gate...etc.. - those sites, memories, and friends are all gone now. The social aspect was a huge part for me, at least. Then again, once in-game browsers came around, the need for gaming sites like the above went away.
Developers no longer really focus on PC as their main source now. It's consoles first, PC second now. I do think piracy has played a role in the downfall of PC gaming, but it's not the entire blame. I just know that for me, 1999 was the last year of gaming on the PC that was the best. I'd say anywhere from the very early 90's to 2000 were the greatest. The hardcore PC gamer is dead. As the above poster stated though, the PC is pretty much home to MMO's/RPG's. The thing I do like on the PC's though is the rise of these free games coming up. There are literally tons of free MMO's, FPS's, etc. available to play..free to play (with the exception of cash shops).
As far as mods go, yeah, mods CAN be cool. But I can't join a UT99 server nowadays without downloading a bunch of crap, joining servers with added stupid sounds/noises, etc. The game at it's CORE is excellent itself. I'd much rather play classic DM in UT99 then to join a server with 50mb worth of downloadable modded crap.
Because the internet is a standard now, with the rise of social networking, everyone is online, so why not make it a requirement to be online to play even singleplayer games.
For me this action should only be needed once to verify authentic purchase, from then on the game could be played either online or off.
Im just loving how these days people are more interested in getting a PC based genre to work on a console then they are at trying to find a real long term solution to piracy.
PC gaming was never dying; PC game development on the over hand is, as its corrupted to hell.
For me this action should only be needed once to verify authentic purchase, from then on the game could be played either online or off.
Im just loving how these days people are more interested in getting a PC based genre to work on a console then they are at trying to find a real long term solution to piracy.
PC gaming was never dying; PC game development on the over hand is, as its corrupted to hell.
Le sigh.. You are accusing me of "declaring the PC dead because it doesen't have the games YOU want to play" (paraphrased).. only, i made it damned clear that the PC can NEVER DIE as it is an open platform, thus your argument is BS.
What it can be, however, is forced into a niche and be marginalized, which is exactly what we're seeing, and that is a bad thing nomatter how you look at it.
You ever lived on a boat?
It's hard to get an internet connection when your home is rocking back and forth.
PS: Playing Video games is entertainment.
Getting a DRM game to play on a PC is frustrating.
I didn't follow the decay of PC gaming (only the contrast between circa 2000 and now) but I want to add my 2 cents and say that I consider indie games very under-rated and "mid-range" games pushed artificially down. They aren't AAA, they don't have über 3D graphics, they don't have multi-GB content, so they are almost considered 2nd grade. People expect to pay 20€ tops and that's an exception, looking at Steam the majority are at 9.99€, some at 4€
Indie games have the special problem of costing more than 2-3 year old AAA games and being much less.
Or, most of the time, indie games are just bad copies of older games.
For example is there an indie platformer that beats Mario Bros 3? Or one of the Sonic games?
And there are quite a lot of commercial games playable for free: Second Sight, Sand of Time, Psy-Ops, Hidden & Dangerous, Farcry, Fallout (Gametap)...