june gloom on 12/3/2010 at 18:20
Quote Posted by nicked
I assume s/he meant TFC... or were you being sarcastic?
I was.
lost_soul on 12/3/2010 at 19:10
Also, it just doesn't seem possible to do this. Consider playing FPS games that have melee combat in them (like Tremulous). I couldn't stand even 20 ms of latency while turning and moving. When you're playing multiplayer, the lag is "hidden from you" because it only usually effects the other players (unless you have a terrible ping). The lag doesn't hamper your ability to navigate the map or move in a fluid/swift manor.
Much like 1 TB hard drives and games with real-time, per-pixel lighting, I can't believe this is possible until I see it in person.
Sulphur on 12/3/2010 at 19:55
:confused:
Per-pixel lighting happened in 2004 with Doom 3, and 1 TB hard drives have been a reality for a while now. Unless you meant you didn't believe in those things in the past until you physically sampled them, and the same is true for this? Poorly worded, perhaps.
Anyhow, yeah, the latency with OnLive is going to be a pretty large problem if you don't live in a place close enough to the servers. I don't see it doing too well until we have magical interconnects with next to nil latency and appropriate amounts of bandwidth to throw at it. Too early for its time, perhaps.
lost_soul on 12/3/2010 at 20:13
Quote Posted by Sulphur
:confused:
Per-pixel lighting happened in 2004 with Doom 3, and 1 TB hard drives have been a reality for a while now. Unless you meant you didn't believe in those things in the past until you physically sampled them, and the same is true for this? Poorly worded, perhaps.
Anyhow, yeah, the latency with OnLive is going to be a pretty large problem if you don't live in a place close enough to the servers. I don't see it doing too well until we have magical interconnects with next to nil latency and appropriate amounts of bandwidth to throw at it. Too early for its time, perhaps.
Yep, that's exactly what I mean. It is hard to believe something like this is possible without experiencing it first hand. Perhaps they will give away a free trial or something.
Sure, it would be trivial if everyone was connected via fiber-optics. :)
SubJeff on 13/3/2010 at 01:54
I think they've demoed all over the place though, haven't they? We're all skeptical but surely they can't roll it out whilst knowing it will be a flop because of technical issues.
Trust in the tech peoples. You wouldn't believe the crazy stuff I heard about today at work. Makes this type of tech seem trivial.
Fafhrd on 13/3/2010 at 05:29
Yeah, it's been in beta for months and months and months, so people can probably put the 'It'll never work!' talk to bed. They've also been pretty specific about how far you can be from the data centres for an optimal connection.
And as for the pricing (
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/12/onlive-to-offer-onlive-game-portal-service-without-monthly-fee/) there's going to be a non-subscription version that will still let you rent games and play demos, but you won't have access to the friends system/brag clips/whathaveyou.
The Alchemist on 13/3/2010 at 08:59
This thread
Shadowcat on 14/3/2010 at 02:06
Quote Posted by The Alchemist
This thread
The suspense is killing me...
catbarf on 14/3/2010 at 03:10
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
so people can probably put the 'It'll never work!' talk to bed.
There's a subtle but important difference between 'It'll never work' and 'It'll never work without crippling mouse lag for 99% of their potential market'.
Fafhrd on 2/10/2010 at 02:28
They're doing free trial memberships now, and it actually really does (sort of) work. I'm on wi-fi, so I have to use the 'wi-fi beta' but I was actually able to play their Arkham Asylum demo for about five minutes before it decided my connection wasn't good enough and kicked me (to be fair it looks like I'm getting around 14% packet loss right now, which is unusually high), but those five minutes did not seem to be fraught with crippling control lag.
It even looked pretty damn good. It's been a while since I played the original downloadable demo, but I'd say visually it compared favourably with the settings I was able to run it at.
I'll have to mess with it some more. I'd say their current business model is kind of terrible, but if they could find some way to turn it into some sort of ad-supported/freemium service instead of the bonkers subscription+rental/purchase fees (and you're only guaranteed to have access to the games you bought for at most three years (iirc)) deal they have now it would be pretty awesome.
