[Merged] Please make a console version!

[Cthulhu0316]

If they want to make future titles in the series for consoles I have no issues with them doing so. Although, any game available for the PC should be designed for the PC. There are very few bigger budget titles that are designed for PC. Bethesda and Bioware PC games are rather terribly designed compared to older RPGs.

 

I agree with you on that point. Thinking about it a little more, a ton would be lost in translation trying to make the exact game for consoles and would essentially be a sub-par game and I'd hate that. I would say that console games centered around the mythos and realm of the game can be made and successfully.

[Amentep]

To my mind it was pretty clear in the pitch that PE was only being developed with the PC in mind. Ergo, I don't mind it being PC only.

 

In the same sense, when a developer announces a really cool game for the PS3 I don't demand it on the X-Box 360 or the game is for a 3DS and I don't demand it also show up on a PC. Because sometimes it just makes sense to make the game the best it can be for the platform the creators want to work on.

 

Not everything can be a dessert topping AND a floor wax, like New Shimmer.

[evdk]

Why does this thread exist? Does it need to be spelled in giant neon letters on the kickstarter page that this is a PC only game? Some people...

[Ieo]

I posted this in the other thread about consoles. I dont so much think a console "version" of Project Eternity should be made (Could is out the window, with proper funding ANYTHING can be done). I will say, however, that I dont see why, and this is in the future, AFTER Project Eternity has been released, that a game, done by the team, for consoles, that is set in the same realm, can't be done.

 

Sure. Let Obsidian calculate the costs (manpower to strip half the dialogic content and redo the entire GUI, and all the console licensing costs and whatever) and start a totally brand-new unrelated Kickstarter. See how far that goes. It will be a different game--make no mistake about that.

 

Under no circumstances should any of the current Kickstarter funding go towards any other platform besides PC. NOT EVEN any of the subsequent game purchase income should go to that, because the hope is that Obsidian will build their own franchise--and if it starts out pure PC only, it should stay that way.

[Cthulhu0316]

Why does this thread exist? Does it need to be spelled in giant neon letters on the kickstarter page that this is a PC only game? Some people...

 

Relax, you dont like it, dont post in it. Follow basic courtesy rules, my man. Its just a discussion. I've pledged and am fully supporting and backing this venture as a PC game, nothing more or less. Its all "what-ifs". Chill.

[Jasede]

No.

[Cthulhu0316]

Sure. Let Obsidian calculate the costs (manpower to strip half the dialogic content and redo the entire GUI, and all the console licensing costs and whatever) and start a totally brand-new unrelated Kickstarter. See how far that goes. It will be a different game--make no mistake about that.

 

Under no circumstances should any of the current Kickstarter funding go towards any other platform besides PC. NOT EVEN any of the subsequent game purchase income should go to that, because the hope is that Obsidian will build their own franchise--and if it starts out pure PC only, it should stay that way.

 

Why, as you say, should it stay that way?

[Amentep]

because the hope is that Obsidian will build their own franchise--and if it starts out pure PC only, it should stay that way.

 

My thinking the way to go - if they wanted to go console ever - would be to develop a game in the setting that is its own console game that plays to the strengths of that platform and not a remake, reworking or direct sequel to PE which is its own franchise.

 

This seemed to happen more back in the day (Might and Magic IIRC having a couple of different play mechanics, or Sega's Shining series, or the Atlus' MegaTen series) than it does now though.

Edited October 3, 2012 by Amentep

[Ieo]

Why does this thread exist? Does it need to be spelled in giant neon letters on the kickstarter page that this is a PC only game? Some people...

 

Relax, you dont like it, dont post in it. Follow basic courtesy rules, my man. Its just a discussion. I've pledged and am fully supporting and backing this venture as a PC game, nothing more or less. Its all "what-ifs". Chill.

 

 

All well and good. Why not think about Obsidian's feelings on this (interview)?

 

 

Avellone: "[i'm] tired of designing content and interactions that caters to consoles and console controllers."

 

 

"Those limitations affect RPG mechanics and content more than players may realize (especially for players who've never played a PC RPG and realize what's been lost over the years), and often doesn't add to the RPG experience," he told me.

 

So why not? There are a lot of reasons not to. And because they don't want to do it.

[Cthulhu0316]

Why does this thread exist? Does it need to be spelled in giant neon letters on the kickstarter page that this is a PC only game? Some people...

 

Relax, you dont like it, dont post in it. Follow basic courtesy rules, my man. Its just a discussion. I've pledged and am fully supporting and backing this venture as a PC game, nothing more or less. Its all "what-ifs". Chill.

 

 

All well and good. Why not think about Obsidian's feelings on this (interview)?

 

 

Avellone: "[i'm] tired of designing content and interactions that caters to consoles and console controllers."

 

 

"Those limitations affect RPG mechanics and content more than players may realize (especially for players who've never played a PC RPG and realize what's been lost over the years), and often doesn't add to the RPG experience," he told me.

 

So why not? There are a lot of reasons not to. And because they don't want to do it.

 

So you are basically against this entire conversation even existing?

[Ieo]

After the decision is already made and given all the reasons not to and Obsidian's own stance? Yes. Constantly bringing up the request is pointless, especially on Obsidian's own forum. Trying to put forth arguments from only the end-user perspective and not considering far-reaching economic and systemic issues to which end-users have no idea about (like Avellone says), is pointless.

 

If Obsidian especially feels they as creative developers have been kept down while trying to keep consoles in mind, that's all the more reason not to ask them to do it. It's practically offensive at this point.

 

That's why I suggested in the other stupid thread on this topic that the only possible way this can happen is if Obsidian is willing to start a brand-new Kickstarter just for that--a different kind of game.

[Cthulhu0316]

After the decision is already made and given all the reasons not to and Obsidian's own stance? Yes. Constantly bringing up the request is pointless, especially on Obsidian's own forum. Trying to put forth arguments from only the end-user perspective and not considering far-reaching economic and systemic issues to which end-users have no idea about (like Avellone says), is pointless.

 

If Obsidian especially feels they as creative developers have been kept down while trying to keep consoles in mind, that's all the more reason not to ask them to do it. It's practically offensive at this point.

 

That's why I suggested in the other stupid thread on this topic that the only possible way this can happen is if Obsidian is willing to start a brand-new Kickstarter just for that--a different kind of game.

 

So now you think a persons opinion is stupid? I dont think yours is, I think you have a valid point. Doesn't mean I agree with it.

 

When and If Obsidian doesnt want this kind or any kind of conversation to occur, a moderator will step in and either cancel the thread or tell us to quit jabberin' about it.

 

Relax, dude. We are all just talking. I'll advise you once again, if you dont like it, leave the thread.

[Vulee]

No, no, no, no, NO. NO. They should't even consider the possibility of console ports, not during the development of the game nor after the release.

[BruceVC]

Why does this thread exist? Does it need to be spelled in giant neon letters on the kickstarter page that this is a PC only game? Some people...

 

Relax, you dont like it, dont post in it. Follow basic courtesy rules, my man. Its just a discussion. I've pledged and am fully supporting and backing this venture as a PC game, nothing more or less. Its all "what-ifs". Chill.

 

 

 

All well and good. Why not think about Obsidian's feelings on this (interview)?

 

 

Avellone: "[i'm] tired of designing content and interactions that caters to consoles and console controllers."

 

 

"Those limitations affect RPG mechanics and content more than players may realize (especially for players who've never played a PC RPG and realize what's been lost over the years), and often doesn't add to the RPG experience," he told me.

 

So why not? There are a lot of reasons not to. And because they don't want to do it.

 

This for me is the most salient and relevant point for why the majority of people don't want PE on the console. It will lead to a "dumbed down" version of the game. It will still be entertaining, like DA, but it won't offer the complexity of games like BG and Planescape.

 

I have always believed this and now Chris Avellone has confirmed the impact a console version will have. But I would still like someone who really understands the technical mechanics to explain why a console version of any game is generally not as complex as the PC game. I have heard many theories and speculation but based on Chris comments above, why can't you have a BG2 on console?

[Ieo]

So now you think a persons opinion is stupid? I dont think yours is, I think you have a valid point. Doesn't mean I agree with it.

 

When and If Obsidian doesnt want this kind or any kind of conversation to occur, a moderator will step in and either cancel the thread or tell us to quit jabberin' about it.

 

Relax, dude. We are all just talking. I'll advise you once again, if you dont like it, leave the thread.

 

No, I think bringing up requests countering explicit and already publicized decisions is stupid. Example: Asking for PE to not be isometric. Seriously? Stuff like that is plainly written all over the Kickstarter page.

 

There are many other aspects of this game that up in the air or fuzzy around the edges that are ripe for discussion, but specific technical and business decisions like this that have already been made--that were part of the original Kickstarter business proposal--aren't....

 

(And Obsidian doesn't lock threads except under three very specific conditions, so I'm not worried about that.)

[Ieo]

This for me is the most salient and relevant point for why the majority of people don't want PE on the console. It will lead to a "dumbed down" version of the game. It will still be entertaining, like DA, but it won't offer the complexity of games like BG and Planescape.

 

I have always believed this and now Chris Avellone has confirmed the impact a console version will have. But I would still like someone who really understands the technical mechanics to explain why a console version of any game is generally not as complex as the PC game. I have heard many theories and speculation but based on Chris comments above, why can't you have a BG2 on console?

 

They did port the Baldur's Gate world to console. It was an action RPG game (2 of them) called Dark Alliance. It's a different game compared to the original BG series. I don't know how the dialogic content compared.

 

They definitely couldn't do PS:T on a console--that's mentioned somewhere in a different interview.

 

Edit: And keep in mind that Baldur's Gate was a AAA title with publisher backing and marketing.

Edited October 3, 2012 by Ieo

[Althernai]

But I would still like someone who really understands the technical mechanics to explain why a console version of any game is generally not as complex as the PC game. I have heard many theories and speculation but based on Chris comments above, why can't you have a BG2 on console?

The control interface can't handle it. Consoles lack fast and precise point-and-click functionality and they have fewer hot key possibilities. Think about it this way: BG2 has 6 party members each of which has on the order of 10 (it's more, but let's keep it simple) actions which can be accessed almost instantaneously via either a button to click on or a keyboard shortcut. This makes for around 60 things that a PC player can do in approximately 1 second after having decided to do it.

 

How would you do the same thing on a console? First, we must select the character. I suppose you could use one of the sticks as a pointing device and a button to click, but I suspect this would be extremely awkward because I have not seen it implemented in any game I have played. Instead, the most common mechanism tends to be to cycle through the player characters. Having done that, we need to select the action. Again, I have not seen an RPG that offers of order 10 hotkeys which means you must typically go through a menu. Menu access is slower than on the PC because instead of point-and-click, it involves traversing an ordered list. Thus, an action that took of order 1 second on the PC takes of order 10 seconds on the console. And this is something that a player will be doing very, very often.

 

Here is another example: imagine positioning multiple characters on the PC. Click on a character, click where the character goes, repeat. Again, it's something that takes of order 1 second per character so 1-6 seconds total. On consoles, it does not appear to be done at all (at least not in any game I have played on an XBox) because now you really must use the sticks as precision pointing devices and this is not pleasant.

[Romiras]

Please DON'T.

 

Please?

[BruceVC]

But I would still like someone who really understands the technical mechanics to explain why a console version of any game is generally not as complex as the PC game. I have heard many theories and speculation but based on Chris comments above, why can't you have a BG2 on console?

The control interface can't handle it. Consoles lack fast and precise point-and-click functionality and they have fewer hot key possibilities. Think about it this way: BG2 has 6 party members each of which has on the order of 10 (it's more, but let's keep it simple) actions which can be accessed almost instantaneously via either a button to click on or a keyboard shortcut. This makes for around 60 things that a PC player can do in approximately 1 second after having decided to do it.

 

How would you do the same thing on a console? First, we must select the character. I suppose you could use one of the sticks as a pointing device and a button to click, but I suspect this would be extremely awkward because I have not seen it implemented in any game I have played. Instead, the most common mechanism tends to be to cycle through the player characters. Having done that, we need to select the action. Again, I have not seen an RPG that offers of order 10 hotkeys which means you must typically go through a menu. Menu access is slower than on the PC because instead of point-and-click, it involves traversing an ordered list. Thus, an action that took of order 1 second on the PC takes of order 10 seconds on the console. And this is something that a player will be doing very, very often.

 

Here is another example: imagine positioning multiple characters on the PC. Click on a character, click where the character goes, repeat. Again, it's something that takes of order 1 second per character so 1-6 seconds total. On consoles, it does not appear to be done at all (at least not in any game I have played on an XBox) because now you really must use the sticks as precision pointing devices and this is not pleasant.

 

Thanks Althernai, that was a comprehensive and informative response. It makes sense

[Psyckosama]

If you do make a console version, make it an Ouya exclusive.

 

[Rivfader]

i remove my pledge if they waste time with consoles

[Freddo]

But I would still like someone who really understands the technical mechanics to explain why a console version of any game is generally not as complex as the PC game. I have heard many theories and speculation but based on Chris comments above, why can't you have a BG2 on console?

The console game itself can be as complex as a PC game, it's really the input device that cause issues (and sometimes the smaller amount of RAM too but that's irrelevant for a low tech game like Project Eternity). If it was common to use keyboard and mouse on the console, then this problem wouldn't exist.

 

And actually, the PS3 do support mouse and keyboard, but the only game I know of that actually use that support is Unreal Tournement 3. So it's up to the developers to implent it. But then you stumble into another problem of requiring extra hardware to run the game on console because they only have a controller which doesn't work. Few PS3 users would be happy buying a game they can't play without buying extra hardware. And related to this Kickstarter, there's the additional fees that Sony require for a game to be published on PSN, which makes it a more expensive platform to develop for than PC which is not a good thing for a low-budget project like this.

 

Anyway, regarding the input complexity, with the PC you have a lot of keys to work with, hotkeys and whatnot, but with the consoles you only have relatively few keys which can be limiting to some game genres. With the rise of the multiplatform gaming with the arrive of the original Xbox about a decade ago, the genres really been streamlined and had their controls simplified, to be used with only a few keys and not very precise controls.

 

The controller input affect more things than just the controls though, it affects the user interface of the whole game. In a game that have an inventory screen that designed to be used with a mouse tend to show more information on the screen at the same time where the player just can point and click, while controller inventory screens are more about having long lists and tabs. The console user interface often also show less information because the text is larger (because people sit far from the TV)

 

This change is especially noticeable with the flight simulator genre, which pretty much died as a result. There were a lot of them back in the 90s, and many of them used pretty much the whole keyboard to function. Now in this age of multiplatform gaming it's been a long time since we last saw a flight simulator, and those flight games that do appear are much more actiony and not nearly complex controls as a simulator should have (there are lots of different keys inside a real plane).

 

But it's noticeable in other genres as well, including the popular shooters. In many shooters there is now auto-aim to assist the player to more easily hit the enemy (if the aim is very close to the enemy but not quite targetting the enemy, it's still a generous hit), and the enemies in the games usually react a bit slower than they used to too, so the player have enough time to change the aim with the thumb stick.

 

And then there's the strategy/RPG genre, where you have a top-down view and easily control multiple characters/units on the map with the mouse, use a bunch of hot keys to quickly issue commands and so forth, there's a whole different level of player efficiency.

 

And yet, despite all this, BG1 was

(but never finished but I would speculate it was cancelled for other reasons than the controls). And soon it's released for the iPad which have no mouse or keyboard either. So, umm, anything is possible with additional hard work, I suppose. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Project Eternity some time in the future being ported to other platforms if the PC version is a success. But only then, now they are busy enough to make the game for the PC and won't spread their focus elsewhere. And if the game is later ported to non-keyboard platforms, then they will need to do a lot of extra work as well, to redesign and streamline the controls and UI for a different input device.

 

Uhhh, this turned out to be a lot larger than I expected

[BruceVC]

But I would still like someone who really understands the technical mechanics to explain why a console version of any game is generally not as complex as the PC game. I have heard many theories and speculation but based on Chris comments above, why can't you have a BG2 on console?

The console game itself can be as complex as a PC game, it's really the input device that cause issues (and sometimes the smaller amount of RAM too but that's irrelevant for a low tech game like Project Eternity). If it was common to use keyboard and mouse on the console, then this problem wouldn't exist.

 

And actually, the PS3 do support mouse and keyboard, but the only game I know of that actually use that support is Unreal Tournement 3. So it's up to the developers to implent it. But then you stumble into another problem of requiring extra hardware to run the game on console because they only have a controller which doesn't work. Few PS3 users would be happy buying a game they can't play without buying extra hardware. And related to this Kickstarter, there's the additional fees that Sony require for a game to be published on PSN, which makes it a more expensive platform to develop for than PC which is not a good thing for a low-budget project like this.

 

Anyway, regarding the input complexity, with the PC you have a lot of keys to work with, hotkeys and whatnot, but with the consoles you only have relatively few keys which can be limiting to some game genres. With the rise of the multiplatform gaming with the arrive of the original Xbox about a decade ago, the genres really been streamlined and had their controls simplified, to be used with only a few keys and not very precise controls.

 

The controller input affect more things than just the controls though, it affects the user interface of the whole game. In a game that have an inventory screen that designed to be used with a mouse tend to show more information on the screen at the same time where the player just can point and click, while controller inventory screens are more about having long lists and tabs. The console user interface often also show less information because the text is larger (because people sit far from the TV)

 

This change is especially noticeable with the flight simulator genre, which pretty much died as a result. There were a lot of them back in the 90s, and many of them used pretty much the whole keyboard to function. Now in this age of multiplatform gaming it's been a long time since we last saw a flight simulator, and those flight games that do appear are much more actiony and not nearly complex controls as a simulator should have (there are lots of different keys inside a real plane).

 

But it's noticeable in other genres as well, including the popular shooters. In many shooters there is now auto-aim to assist the player to more easily hit the enemy (if the aim is very close to the enemy but not quite targetting the enemy, it's still a generous hit), and the enemies in the games usually react a bit slower than they used to too, so the player have enough time to change the aim with the thumb stick.

 

And then there's the strategy/RPG genre, where you have a top-down view and easily control multiple characters/units on the map with the mouse, use a bunch of hot keys to quickly issue commands and so forth, there's a whole different level of player efficiency.

 

And yet, despite all this, BG1 was

(but never finished but I would speculate it was cancelled for other reasons than the controls). And soon it's released for the iPad which have no mouse or keyboard either. So, umm, anything is possible with additional hard work, I suppose. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Project Eternity some time in the future being ported to other platforms if the PC version is a success. But only then, now they are busy enough to make the game for the PC and won't spread their focus elsewhere. And if the game is later ported to non-keyboard platforms, then they will need to do a lot of extra work as well, to redesign and streamline the controls and UI for a different input device.

 

Uhhh, this turned out to be a lot larger than I expected

 

Thanks Freddo, your post was another excellent and insightful response to why Console games are not as complex as standard PC games. I have learnt a lot from yours and Althernai posts

[Dianjabla]

Trollolololol

[ImRhoven]

The abominable user interface of Skyrim and the decline of Dragon Age with it's second installment into an action game rather than RPG (to name 2 recent examples) are perfect examples of why console versions are detriment to the cRPG genre.

 

I can't even imagine how a game like BG would be played with a console controller. (I think a tablet's touchscreen would go pretty well with it though.)