AwesomeOcelot

You have to upgrade drivers sometimes but only graphics drivers and it's just one click after a message comes up asking you, PS3 updates drivers in much the same way and seems to take ages doing so. The PS3 has existed for about 6 years, the PC parts I get don't tend to fail in 6 years.

I'd hope they'd just make torches more available and last longer in the easier modes, perhaps have more of them in chests.

*Tilts head* I hope not, that's giving me neck ache.

I haven't seen that in gameplay videos, this would only be achieved in a 2D isometric game by having four assets for one object. That wouldn't be that hard considering the game doesn't look that much better than C&C or Red Alert, with repeated objects placed on tiles, both those games I believe had 8 assets for moving objects that rotated. It depends whether Obsidian want to do that for more angles or if they want to spend their time making rooms look unique or varied. In Commandos a lot of the assets seem to have 4 to 8 versions already just viewing at one angle, objects are placed on the map at different angles, two identical buildings next to each other are placed at angles e.g. facing north and north-west.

You're right, painting would have to be redone if you used the same room model at different vertical angles. Also the 3D models will be made for one perspective, not as complete 3D scenes, like 3D Skyboxs in Source engine games, often two or three sides aren't there because they're only ever seen from one angle. So you couldn't have a room be at isometric or cavalier oblique, then move the angle horizontally but moving it vertically would still be possible, although it would have to be repainted.

I'm fine with a constant zoom and perspective. I'd prefer they spend less resources on the 3D character models and just not zoom in ever. Also making zoomed in rooms would require more detail, therefore more time and resources.

That's the point it's a challenge. In a areas, used sparingly, it's something in the environment you have to take into account or use to your advantage. Plus you could be able to wall mount some torches, or light some already there. There could be creatures that prefer the darkness that come along and put them out.

That's down to consoles and their memory limitations, console manufacturers are willing to sacrifice memory, they're really behind the curve compared to PC. Any large area is really sparse, flat, with repeating textures. Valve presented a talk on this, they said for Half-Life 2 they had to double the loading screens on consoles. In open world games, they have to use texture pop-in and limited view distance to compensate. On that note, Neverwinter Nights 2 is a PC only game that's as bad as Origins in this respect. NWN2 minimum requirements for memory is the amount that the Xbox 360 has released a year earlier, the amount of RAM I had in my PC 7 years earlier. According to the Steam hardware survey, over 70% have 3GB or over, including over 60% (possibly over 70% because of a survey error) having an extra 1GB or over in GPU memory. Large areas should not be a problem. Common sense should tell you that if you're only designing for one angle there's a lot of work you don't have to do, if you're designing a box with a texture on each side there's two sides you don't have to do with a fixed perspective. The reason for DA2, apart from conscious design decisions that were stupid, is widely known, it was rushed, they had to cut corners.

Real torches imply 3D shadows; from characters, furniture, objects, and walls. I suspect that isn't going to happen; we'll get a glowing, flickering halo instead. What I would be interested in seeing though are different light sources: various torches, lanterns, hooded lanterns, oil lamps, and candles. You can do impressive shadows without 3D, you just need lighting maps and filters. They are already 3D because the backgrounds are being created in 3D then prerendered. That screenshot is not 3D models of buildings, that's just pathing models of buildings.

Back in pre-Unreal Engine days, 2.5D was used to mean an engine like DOOM's, Wolfenstein's, Duke Nukem 3D's, or Marathon's. They cut a few corners with the arithmetic, which meant that the vertical axis was restricted: when you pointed the camera up or down (if the engine allowed it at all, DOOM and Wolfenstein didn't), verticals remained perfectly vertical on the screen, without perspective distortion. Yeah, you're right, the Build engine is referred to as 2.5D. Also the characters were 2D in these games.

Some places get cleared while others, like roads have respawns.. So far its nowhere near as retarted as the 2nd game. I really like how you clear places and your side comes to take it over.

My update was also 400mb. That's a pretty big update and it's completely unaccounted for in the update notes. Episode 2 is definitely over 400MB bigger (I backup steam games).

It completely depends on what you're doing with it and for what price. We know how small Sony can make a PS3, the super slim PS3, obviously remove the BD-ROM, HDD, it would be pretty small with an external PSU. Why not just get a super slim PS3 if you want to play PS3 games? I don't know. What's being transferred through the bus or thunderbolt? It's possible you could connect the Cell to the new GPU through it, but then you're using AMD to emulate games designed for Nvidia, using Nvidia patented technology, one of the reasons why Microsoft said they couldn't make the Xbox 360 backwards compatible. So in this dongle you have Cell, RSX, XDR, so it can use the HDD, BD-ROM, NIC, controllers of the PS4, all for $70-99. The PS3 super slim costs $270. The question isn't why can't you miniaturize a PS3 and plug it into a PS4, it's why would you ever want to, why would Sony sell it for $99. It doesn't make sense.

We're talking about PS2 and PS3 games here, they don't come in 1080p/60fps, they very rarely come in any sort of 1080p native rendered. Why anyone would play games from a disc is beyond my understanding, I stopped doing that stupid **** a decade ago, I run some games from a SSD. OnLive is well documented now, plenty of experience and reviews. Also it's a different proposition when Sony does it with games designed for its platforms on hardware it creates developed by its developers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0gA8MUMQak

With thinking like that, I don't think Gaikai will be pushed much outside Japan... That's about something entirely different, that's highly dishonest. Making a download only console is completely different technology and prospect to making a game steaming service. OnLive only needs 3Mbit/s download, downloading next generation games on that is a daunting prospect, and considering storage costs customers aren't going to be able to store a massive library on the PS4. OnLive has proven that a company could stream games, especially 30fps games at 720p and under, on both coasts of the US, Canada, Western Europe, Northern Europe, South Korea, and Japan if they wanted to. Japan is nothing special when it comes to the internet, why would it only be pushed in Japan?

Spawning waves are fine when used sparingly. In Torchlight it gets a bit repetitive. I think it should be limited to a type of enemy in a type of area where it makes sense, so that it's special, rare, and optional. Like areas where you can't rest, but you can leave them and not bother with them. I'd like the option of stopping certain encounters by completing quests or wiping out areas, it could be a different route to the stealthier group, so avoiding enemies and being clinical against leaders is very different from playing a group that puts the hammer down, you may have to go the long way or sacrifice equipment. Not having encounters that don't make sense, so no New Vegas style woefully underpowered thug trying to mug two people in power armour with a tire iron. A compromise with ambushes and hidden enemies would be allowing for hidden enemies to be scouted if your party is set up with the ability to do so.

Couldn't that be for their streaming service that was mentioned in the article? Especially since it requests linux experience. Another point against the dongle. Why does it need to exist if they can stream you PS2 and PS3 games thought the internet? The technology is way more feasible.

PS3 memory bandwidth is well over that (230.4 Gbit/s), USB 3 doesn't function the same way as the memory bus either, it's measured in transfers per second, it's not plausible to use USB for a memory bus, it's not plausible to even use the vastly superior Thunderbolt. Theoretically Sony could reverse engineer the Cell to run on a new type of AMD processor (as they are rumoured to be providing the PS4 with CPU and GPU) with many cores, but they'd need permission from IBM and Toshiba, which is unlikely. This would take years of development, and wouldn't need a dongle, so the original claim is still not true. If emulation was developed, a dongle with the Nvidia RSX is plausible, such things already exist, and it would be using Thunderbolt, not USB 3. How much money do you think Sony is willing to pump into backwards compatibility, they don't seem to care for it, didn't they remove it from the PS2 and PS3 with later additions?

Not having to use the registry as a requirement (while still using it for convenience and OS integration) and keeping all paths configurable using ini files can save headaches down the road.

It's technically perfectly feasible. They just need to put the Cell and RSX into a MCM or even better a single die with a proper die shrink (I think the PS3 Super Slim right now already uses 32nm lithography processes, which is very small). Blu-Ray drive, HDD, RAM etc. can be used with the PS4 hardware. I'd say if those rumors are true and Sony beats MS in terms of release date and offers PS3 hardware backward compatibility, then they already have a huge advantage. The NextBox sounds like it's gonna be an incredibly expensive piece of hardware anyway, if they truly want to add Kinect 2.0, as we all know is quite pricey. You say that like putting the RSX and Cell together is a trivial task that wouldn't require great development resources and new agreements with at least four different companies. The Cell isn't being developed anymore. What kind of connection would allow this dongle to use the RAM on the PS4? You can't separate the RAM from the CPU like that. Also the PS4 is going to have a different architecture with different RAM. GPU is going to be completely different as well, probably using another companies technology, so using a GPU that's not the RSX is out of the question.

It costs to miniaturize the hardware so you can't compare it to a fullsize console, the price isn't the most unusual claim. Just fitting the Cell, GPU, RAM into a dongle and making it work doesn't seem plausible, the power would be a concern. The Cell processor is dead as far as I can tell, years ago, the only reason it's still in production is the PS3. The Cell I don't think has gotten any smaller but the PS3 has, and a super slim version will be out this year, but it's much bigger than a dongle. Also how is it going to connect to a PS4, something like Thunderbolt? That invites hacking, and that would be a major reversal for Sony, also Thunderbot in no way would be able to carry the type of bandwidth Cell uses.

I don't really believe most of that article, from the claims and the tone: It's not exactly shocking or a rumour that Nintendo pushed for 3rd party titles like Bayonetta 2 with more to come, or that they're going to release Nintendo franchise games. Tech that the Wii U can't run at 1080p. Even if they can't use Unreal Engine 4 yet, they could use Unreal Engine 3 with more AI, larger levels, and more complex gameplay, things that should actually matter. Do they even do 160gb drives now? If they do I don't see them still manufacturing them in a few years time. How is that remotely plausible? How is that at all meaningful?

If you can't tell the difference between Origins and Fallout there's probably no point in trying to explain it to you. Why pick Baldur's Gate, and not Icewind Dale 2 or NWN2? You already know why. You can believe whatever makes you feel better.

You are just arguing for arguiing's sake, I'm not going to bother anymore. They function as a game on their own, as does the hacking game, they might be short and not fun at all, but they're minigames. The skill system is part of them, it's just one variable that makes the game harder or easier, it could easily be sequential or random. Also the Bioshock and Deus Ex: HR minigames also rely on skill systems of their own, and you had no problem describing them as minigames, proving my point. Me: Hello Collins English Dictionary, what do you say to that? Collins English Dictionary: Engage, 3. to involve (a person or his attention) intensely; engross; occupy Me. What about you American Heritage Dictionary, do you have anything to add? American Heritage Dictionary: Engage, 4. To attract and hold the attention of; engross Me: That doesn't say intsensely? American Heritage Dictionary: Engross, 1. To occupy exclusively; absorb Me: I guess you're right, that could definitely be described as intense interest. Anything to add Random House? Random House Dictionary: 3. To attract and hold fast. Me: None of these sound anything like my experience with lock picking minigames.

You're going to have bugs regardless of who you are and the complexity of any game, just through the limited amount of time you have, it gets worse with more complex games, so you're relying on QA, it's their responsibility. It's certainly Bethesda's fault that there's no official support for the game now, that tells me they don't really care, let alone the issues with their engine you mention that plague all their games, it's not like other companies don't fix this stuff. I don't know specifically what it was like for Obsidian making New Vegas, there's ways that developers could be at fault. Obsidian insist it wasn't their fault, I'm way more inclined to believe them. Actually having RPG elements, something like: Fallout 1 & 2, Arcanum, VtM: Bloodlines, and New Vegas are notoriously complex and hard to test, but also the Infinity Engine games and NWN series. Origins is definitely the most complex game BioWare have made since EA bought them. The Landsmeet is one event, in one area, filled with cutscenes, and although I didn't experience any bugs the Dragon Age Wiki shows there are some. Obsidian. The significantly less financially well off Sega delayed Alpha Protocol from October 2009 to June 2010 (which was already delayed from February 2009). I'd be surprised if this is as isolated as you seem to think it is. Didn't Sega cancel two Obsidian projects after that? Pretty sure that's a slam dunk for me.