Re: installs in PC gaming

Magnulus schrieb:

Simply because console games have less data (small levels, small textures etc), and simply because the target audience expects a handling like a CD player or VCR - put the media in and play. Lots of them even wouldn't know how to start a game installation on a PC...

You really think console gamers are that stupid?

They are not stupid, they just don't know it. As I already pointed out consoles are aimed at different target groups than PCs. Consoles are also aimed at people with low technical background. PCs are not...

The point isn't that some people are too stupid that they can't install a game. That's not the issue. The issue is that some games it takes far too long just to install a game to a hard disk.

It's obviously a problem for _you_. It's not a problem for me or anyone else in the big group of family, friends and colleagues that play games on a PC. Even a low-end crap PC can install the latest Quake4 in less than 5 minutes, so what?

Not to mention all the downloading and patching some games take.

Yeah, right. You see it as a backdraw, but for people like me that had the "pleasure" to play unpatchable console games with annoying bugs (like Tomb Raider IV on PSX or "The Thing" on XBox) are happy that there is at least a way to fix program errors. With consoles you're lost. The old XBox had a way to apply patches to games, but that has been used for almost zero times by game developers.

Mind you, you _don't_ have to download patches. You still can play the game out of the box as you can with any console game. But unlike console games PC games _can_ be patched, and also can be expanded by additional maps and other goodies.

It all comes down to "plug and play". Or do you all not believe in that anymore, the idea that stuff on a PC should "just work"?

Well, for me it does "just work". I really can't see your problem here. If you want a gaming system that handles like a CD player and can be used from people with low technical background, get a console. It's as simple like that...

Progress bars and config settings shouldn't be the only thing seperating PC's from consoles, because if it is, PC is screwed.

Of course there is much more, most things which you simply ignore. Besides the fact that PC games can be patched, tweaked and expanded a PC isn't just a stupid game machine. It's main advantage is it's flexibility. You can play games on the same computer you write your mail or write a book, manage your financials or do other things.

Besides that, Sony and MS are afraid of having copies of the game disks content on the hard drive because that would make piracy even easier.

How? It's not an actual ISO disk image.

Simply because data files on a hard drive can be very easily modified, much easier than to modify files on a read-only medium...

XBox has a cache for 3 games. A few games support HD caching. When you put in a game, occasionally it might take a little longer to load.

"A little longer"? Hell, I do have an XBox myself, depending on the title loading times are way longer on the console than on my PC...

After you go through 3 different games, the process starts all over.

That's of course a bottleneck of the console. But then, the XBox is quite old and now suffers from it's relative small (8GB) hard drive...

I could see something like that happening on the PC.

How? XBox was sold with dofferent HD sizes but _all_ of them were forced to 8GB limit. No limit on a PC. Xbox was sold with password locked HDs that can't be easily upgraded by users. Your PC hard drive is full? Just add another one...

Any questions?

At the very least, you could have a complete HD install, but the game installs to the HD while you play, and not all in one huge chunk.

Why? Just to slow down the system because the background copying process takes up ressources (and especially optical drives are _very_ bad at handling multiple requests!)? What for?

It would cut off alot of time people spend staring at a progress bar.

Geez, you probably waste more time in your life on other much more stupid things (i.e. watching TV) than on a little progress bar that is there for three minutes _one_time_ during initial installation.

I know some people, mostly casual gamers, who like Medal of Honor, for instance. But they install games and having to set things up. Realisticly, they shouldn't have to mess with all that. They should just be able to stick in a game like that and play.

Yeah, right. As with consoles that give you a selection of two or three keymaps and that's it. What a stupid thing. _I_ want to configure the keys as I like, and not what some ignorant developer wants me to use. Of course, console games usually can't store keymaps anywhere, but PC games can.

Do you still use a 2x CDROM drive? I haven't found any game thats installation took more than 5-10min max...

10 minutes is still too long.

No-one expects you to sit by the computer and stare at it during install. You are free to make use of the installation time. Get a cup of coffee, watch the latest news in TV, or make your wife happy, whatever. Thanks to the flexibility of a PC installation _can_ be done in the background, so what?

PC != console. Different aiming, different target audience...

Yeah, one is a bunch of Fatal1ty wanabees and hardware masturbators... is that what you are saying?

Well, of course this group also belongs to the PC gamer market, but the latter is not limited to it...

What about people who just want to play games without any hassle? Not everybody gives a damn about how many pixel pipelines their video card has.

I belong to the people that just want to play games. And I can do that on my PC easily. My XBox is collecting dust because it's too unflexible evenm in gaming (i.e. keymaps), the loading times mostly are just annoying, the games are _much_ more expensive, and the gfx is far behind a todays entry gaming PC. But then, I don't whine around because a game requires ~3-5min average installation time, because I'm not so stupid to start installation and stare at the progress bar. It's no problem to have any installations running in the background while doing my mails, surfing the web, or even while working.

Jeez, it used to be the PC was all about the gameplay. Where did it all go wrong?

What went wrong was the war of gfx hardware and game developers that only compete in who has the best gfx. Gameplay sadly seems rather irrelevant for a topseller today. Thankfully there still are developers like Rockstar games that drive new titles mainly with gameplay and fun and not only with gfx...

Benjamin
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