Game Developers Conference

Kiksar · 03-12-2005, 03:05 AM

This isn't going to be much of a write-up (I'll link to our website if we actually get a more complete view of things written up), but I figured some people may be curious as to what went on at GDC this year. Or at least what went on in the few lectures and things me and my roommate were able to attend. I'd let you rely on IGN or something, but they're such douchebags and their info isn't even all correct!

So we missed the Unreal Engine 3 demo on Wednesday because of a mix-up with our passes (I don't think I should elaborate on the legalities of it all, so I won't!) We started with a nice lunch, then headed over to the Gameplay Moves Forward into the 21st Century session headed by Peter Molyneux with help from someone whose name I can't recall (he's working on Black & White 2 with Peter and he's previously worked with Blizzard on all of their RTSs). The presentation was mostly a "hey, I'm sorry that Black & White lacked structure, but the second one is going to kick SO MUCH ASS I PROMISE!" claim by Molynuex. When that man claims something and then he shows you the progress, it's very hard not to drop to your knees and believe every word.

Black & White 2 kicks so much ass. We have video but if we host it our bandwidth will get owned faster than we'd like it to get owned. So if anyone else feels like hosting any of the video we took at GDC PM me. It's camera footage of a projector, it looks good on our TV but I'm really not sure how the quality would end up if we went through the hassle.

Either way, he showed us Black & White 2 which kicked complete ass, and since I'm lazy you'll have to ask questions if you want details.

He showed The Movies first, I forgot about that, but it looks neat as well. Not so much my genre, but definitely impressive anyway (for those unfamiliar, it is a sim game where you make movies).

Then it got even more interesting. Molynuex asked Mark Healey to get his ass out of the audience and set up a demo of The Room. The Room is an experimental thing which Healey developed to show off some new badass ideas, rendering, and physics. Think something that may be used as MC Escher: The Game. I don't know how else to describe the things that went on while he was showing it off.

From a first person perspective you could explore and interact with anything you wanted to in a room. Leading into other rooms were portals in mirrors. As he went through one portal into a hallway with pillars and such, he turned around to some sort of casket. When he lifted the lid off the casket a seemingly smaller version of the room he just came from was inside. By moving down into the casket he seamlessly transitioned back into the original room. The demo also included changing the size of things by putting them through portals and creating objects with an in-game dumbed down clay. I'm sure that all sounds a bit boring, but it was actually very impressive visually and technically.

We were disappointed, however, that Mark didn't have a chance to show his game Ragdoll Kung Fu. Which, as you may know, looks like it kicks almost too many forms of ass. So we go up to the stage afterwards and ask him about it and he gets all excited. He was way nice and wanted to give us a proper look at it, so we headed out to the hall and pulled up a table and some chairs. He loaded it up on his laptop and showed us how it all worked, then he let us play. I may seem easily pleased right now, but holyfuckingshit that game kicks so much ass. Nothing but simple physics and simple controls and so many ways to beat ass (you can already play online or hook up 8 mice to a computer for multiplayer). Keeping all of that in mind, he also told us that he made the game in 2.5 years almost completely by himself (with help from 2 friends for some coding ideas).

Anyway, his name is Mark Healey and he deserves lots of money, so buy the game when he finishes it (which he says will be soon).

Then we checked out the Age of Empires 3 engine demo, which was honestly way more disappointing than the screenshots would suggest.

I'm actually too tired to write anything more tonight, so I'll mention some of what else we attended and if anybody cares feel free to ask about things.

We went to the Nintendo Keynote where the president of Nintendo talked about how DS will be set up for WiFi soon. He said it will be free and that the Revolution will ship with a similar free service for online gaming. He also mentioned that the Revolution will be backwards compatible. Some new Zelda footage, which looks badass, and some playing of some new DS games which included Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Electroplankton (I think?), and the seriously fucking cute Nintendogs.

The Half-Life 2 session was mostly technical stuff about their tools and engine as the guys from Valve showed off how they set characters up in game. The face poser and all of their tools are seriously kick ass, if you hadn't noticed already.

We saw Peter Molynuex again, this time doing a postmortem of Fable where he admitted mistakes, talked about what he liked and didn't like, and announced that they will be releasing Fable for the PC closer to how he wanted it to be. They're going to add another third to the game, give it its intended ending, improve parts of the world and even make it bigger I believe, and touch up the combat system and other little things. He also mentioned something else they were working on that will be for multiple platforms, but didn't say anything about it. When asked about it afterwards all he said was, "I can't really tell you much, but I will say that it's a game about you. You will be able to play parts of your own life." Then he said again, "that's all I can say," and he chuckled at our "ok crazy man!" look.

We finished that day with another look at Ragdoll Kung Fu at the experimental games thing where the crowd had never heard of it but they pissed their pants when he started showing it off.

That's most of what we attended. The expo floor was neat, got to play with some decent technology, but nothing really worth mention. Oh, yeah, that F.E.A.R. game sucks.

Ham n Cheese · 03-12-2005, 04:50 PM

I tend to read this thread when I'm having problems falling asleep.

Kiksar · 03-12-2005, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ham n Cheese
I tend to read this thread when I'm having problems falling asleep.

Strange, I tend to put a pillow over your mom's face when I'm having problems falling asleep.

Ham n Cheese · 03-12-2005, 04:56 PM

Her snoring is pretty loud sometimes, I don't blame you.

Khalikryst · 03-12-2005, 08:36 PM

I didn't read all of this but at least "Ragdoll Kungfu" was highlighted so that part at least caught my attention haha.

This game is indeed kick ass. There was an old demo that Healy let loose almost 2 years ago and even then it was a complete blast. Just the fact that you can basically define you're own martials style is really crazy. Can't wait to try the multiplayer.

Rumor has it that it'll be out as early as next month and will only cost around $10 (most likely just a downloadable thing).

Kiksar · 03-12-2005, 09:41 PM

Yeah, he said he hoped it'd be done in a month, and that he'd probably sell it on the website for "10 [english babble]" so i'm not sure if that's 10 dollars or 10 pounds.

Kevincheese · 03-13-2005, 03:10 PM

You need to rename this "The Peter Molyneux thread".

As a side note - I think both Black and White and Fable sucked. So whatever.

Kiksar · 03-13-2005, 04:46 PM

Yes, but you like Robots and ugly girls.

The Bog · 03-13-2005, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kiksar
Yes, but you like Robots and ugly girls.

You leave thott out of this.

Komido · 03-14-2005, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kiksar
When that man claims something and then he shows you the progress, it's very hard not to drop to your knees and believe every word.

Oh yeah because this man always makes good on the features he announces for his games. *cough*Fable*cough*! I wont hold my breath thanks.

Ham n Cheese · 03-14-2005, 11:59 AM

Kiksar is my fav fanboi though.

Kevincheese · 03-14-2005, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kiksar
Yes, but you like Robots and ugly girls.

I'll give you Robots, but what ugly girls?

Zarcath · 03-15-2005, 01:04 PM

Did you only go to the GDC to get a sneak peak at new games? Because there were some interesting lectures that you missed out on.

Will Wright's presentation turned out to be a sneak peak of his new game, Spore, I don't know how you managed to miss that one. We were packed in there like rats, even on the floor, couldn't walk anywhere without stepping on anyone. I did a small write up of Spore on MB.

http://p201.ezboard.com/fmonklybusin...ID=841. topic

Yes, F.E.A.R. Multiplayer does suck a lot (imagine playing The Specialists if it was on Source). But the game is really more single-player oriented with MP as an afterthought.

I finally got to try out a DS at the Expo and I didn't like it at all, I'm glad I didn't buy one before I went. I have very poor stylus poking skills, WarioWare Touched is ass. I don't know, maybe I'm just not used to the whole dual screen thing, but I would mostly focus on the bottom screen and ignore everything that was going on at the top.

The "Persistent Versus Instantiated Spaces: The Great Online Game Debate" lecture was mostly Lead Designers talking about how great their game is/was.

The "Competitive and PvP Systems in Massively Multiplayer Games" was lead by a designer from Wolfpack Studios, which confused me because I honestly thought their game shut down already.

Kiksar · 03-15-2005, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Did you only go to the GDC to get a sneak peak at new games? Because there were some interesting lectures that you missed out on.

Definately not. I went to things that I thought would be helpful to my future in the business. Like I said, we had a delay getting in the first day, but other than that I got to see everything I wanted to see. I woulnd't have missed Molynuex's presentations. I was thinking about going to the Will Wright thing, but I had a ton of work to do and I'm actually not a huge fan of his. I'll give it up for his brains, but I think Molynuex is a more creative and better game designer.

03-12-2005, 03:05 AM	#1 (permalink)
Kiksar X-D Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 811 +6 Internets	Game Developers Conference This isn't going to be much of a write-up (I'll link to our website if we actually get a more complete view of things written up), but I figured some people may be curious as to what went on at GDC this year. Or at least what went on in the few lectures and things me and my roommate were able to attend. I'd let you rely on IGN or something, but they're such douchebags and their info isn't even all correct! So we missed the Unreal Engine 3 demo on Wednesday because of a mix-up with our passes (I don't think I should elaborate on the legalities of it all, so I won't!) We started with a nice lunch, then headed over to the Gameplay Moves Forward into the 21st Century session headed by Peter Molyneux with help from someone whose name I can't recall (he's working on Black & White 2 with Peter and he's previously worked with Blizzard on all of their RTSs). The presentation was mostly a "hey, I'm sorry that Black & White lacked structure, but the second one is going to kick SO MUCH ASS I PROMISE!" claim by Molynuex. When that man claims something and then he shows you the progress, it's very hard not to drop to your knees and believe every word. Black & White 2 kicks so much ass. We have video but if we host it our bandwidth will get owned faster than we'd like it to get owned. So if anyone else feels like hosting any of the video we took at GDC PM me. It's camera footage of a projector, it looks good on our TV but I'm really not sure how the quality would end up if we went through the hassle. Either way, he showed us Black & White 2 which kicked complete ass, and since I'm lazy you'll have to ask questions if you want details. He showed The Movies first, I forgot about that, but it looks neat as well. Not so much my genre, but definitely impressive anyway (for those unfamiliar, it is a sim game where you make movies). Then it got even more interesting. Molynuex asked Mark Healey to get his ass out of the audience and set up a demo of The Room. The Room is an experimental thing which Healey developed to show off some new badass ideas, rendering, and physics. Think something that may be used as MC Escher: The Game. I don't know how else to describe the things that went on while he was showing it off. From a first person perspective you could explore and interact with anything you wanted to in a room. Leading into other rooms were portals in mirrors. As he went through one portal into a hallway with pillars and such, he turned around to some sort of casket. When he lifted the lid off the casket a seemingly smaller version of the room he just came from was inside. By moving down into the casket he seamlessly transitioned back into the original room. The demo also included changing the size of things by putting them through portals and creating objects with an in-game dumbed down clay. I'm sure that all sounds a bit boring, but it was actually very impressive visually and technically. We were disappointed, however, that Mark didn't have a chance to show his game Ragdoll Kung Fu. Which, as you may know, looks like it kicks almost too many forms of ass. So we go up to the stage afterwards and ask him about it and he gets all excited. He was way nice and wanted to give us a proper look at it, so we headed out to the hall and pulled up a table and some chairs. He loaded it up on his laptop and showed us how it all worked, then he let us play. I may seem easily pleased right now, but holyfuckingshit that game kicks so much ass. Nothing but simple physics and simple controls and so many ways to beat ass (you can already play online or hook up 8 mice to a computer for multiplayer). Keeping all of that in mind, he also told us that he made the game in 2.5 years almost completely by himself (with help from 2 friends for some coding ideas). Anyway, his name is Mark Healey and he deserves lots of money, so buy the game when he finishes it (which he says will be soon). Then we checked out the Age of Empires 3 engine demo, which was honestly way more disappointing than the screenshots would suggest. I'm actually too tired to write anything more tonight, so I'll mention some of what else we attended and if anybody cares feel free to ask about things. We went to the Nintendo Keynote where the president of Nintendo talked about how DS will be set up for WiFi soon. He said it will be free and that the Revolution will ship with a similar free service for online gaming. He also mentioned that the Revolution will be backwards compatible. Some new Zelda footage, which looks badass, and some playing of some new DS games which included Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Electroplankton (I think?), and the seriously fucking cute Nintendogs. The Half-Life 2 session was mostly technical stuff about their tools and engine as the guys from Valve showed off how they set characters up in game. The face poser and all of their tools are seriously kick ass, if you hadn't noticed already. We saw Peter Molynuex again, this time doing a postmortem of Fable where he admitted mistakes, talked about what he liked and didn't like, and announced that they will be releasing Fable for the PC closer to how he wanted it to be. They're going to add another third to the game, give it its intended ending, improve parts of the world and even make it bigger I believe, and touch up the combat system and other little things. He also mentioned something else they were working on that will be for multiple platforms, but didn't say anything about it. When asked about it afterwards all he said was, "I can't really tell you much, but I will say that it's a game about you. You will be able to play parts of your own life." Then he said again, "that's all I can say," and he chuckled at our "ok crazy man!" look. We finished that day with another look at Ragdoll Kung Fu at the experimental games thing where the crowd had never heard of it but they pissed their pants when he started showing it off. That's most of what we attended. The expo floor was neat, got to play with some decent technology, but nothing really worth mention. Oh, yeah, that F.E.A.R. game sucks. __________________

03-12-2005, 04:50 PM	#2 (permalink)
Ham n Cheese Productive, fully-charged, cocked and pointed Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Houston Posts: 8,383 +18 Internets	I tend to read this thread when I'm having problems falling asleep. __________________ Xeph Hunky Dory Mavo Mayhem

03-12-2005, 04:56 PM	#4 (permalink)
Ham n Cheese Productive, fully-charged, cocked and pointed Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Houston Posts: 8,383 +18 Internets	Her snoring is pretty loud sometimes, I don't blame you. __________________ Xeph Hunky Dory Mavo Mayhem

03-12-2005, 09:41 PM	#6 (permalink)
Kiksar X-D Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 811 +6 Internets	Yeah, he said he hoped it'd be done in a month, and that he'd probably sell it on the website for "10 [english babble]" so i'm not sure if that's 10 dollars or 10 pounds. __________________

03-13-2005, 04:46 PM	#8 (permalink)
Kiksar X-D Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 811 +6 Internets	Yes, but you like Robots and ugly girls. __________________

03-12-2005, 08:36 PM	#5 (permalink)
Khalikryst OotS MMO plz Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 1,165 +0 Internets	I didn't read all of this but at least "Ragdoll Kungfu" was highlighted so that part at least caught my attention haha. This game is indeed kick ass. There was an old demo that Healy let loose almost 2 years ago and even then it was a complete blast. Just the fact that you can basically define you're own martials style is really crazy. Can't wait to try the multiplayer. Rumor has it that it'll be out as early as next month and will only cost around $10 (most likely just a downloadable thing).

03-14-2005, 11:59 AM	#11 (permalink)
Ham n Cheese Productive, fully-charged, cocked and pointed Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Houston Posts: 8,383 +18 Internets	Kiksar is my fav fanboi though. __________________ Xeph Hunky Dory Mavo Mayhem

03-15-2005, 01:04 PM	#13 (permalink)
Zarcath You People? Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Hawaii Posts: 4,731 +5 Internets	Did you only go to the GDC to get a sneak peak at new games? Because there were some interesting lectures that you missed out on. Will Wright's presentation turned out to be a sneak peak of his new game, Spore, I don't know how you managed to miss that one. We were packed in there like rats, even on the floor, couldn't walk anywhere without stepping on anyone. I did a small write up of Spore on MB. http://p201.ezboard.com/fmonklybusin...ID=841. topic Yes, F.E.A.R. Multiplayer does suck a lot (imagine playing The Specialists if it was on Source). But the game is really more single-player oriented with MP as an afterthought. I finally got to try out a DS at the Expo and I didn't like it at all, I'm glad I didn't buy one before I went. I have very poor stylus poking skills, WarioWare Touched is ass. I don't know, maybe I'm just not used to the whole dual screen thing, but I would mostly focus on the bottom screen and ignore everything that was going on at the top. The "Persistent Versus Instantiated Spaces: The Great Online Game Debate" lecture was mostly Lead Designers talking about how great their game is/was. The "Competitive and PvP Systems in Massively Multiplayer Games" was lead by a designer from Wolfpack Studios, which confused me because I honestly thought their game shut down already.

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