Vanguard confirmed for Xbox360

[Eomer]

Voice chat will probably be more or less standard, so honestly I don't see a huge need for a keyboard, if you're playing on the Xbox.

[0hz]

Originally posted by Frax
Anyone ever use a keyboard and controller while sitting on the couch? Doesn't sound like much fun. Add to that the fact that most people do not have a high res/high def television, and the typical amount of chat scroll that MMOs have would be something you would have a very hard time following without having a huge font size. And Bog brought up the UI issue.. consoles so far have fixed UIs.. there are maybe some that let you move a window here or there, but very little cusomization. Even if you use the default UI in EQ, most people make a lot of changes in the layout just to make it display information in the way they prefer.

On the flipside, I'd also say that console games often have simplified, elegant controls that either don't require or are complimented with a clean, informational UI.

Unfortunately, I imagine XB Vanguard being a PC control scheme shoehorned onto a console pad with all the elegance of the PS2 UI for FFXI that was slapped onto a PC.

Text is a big problem on a TV set. On the average TV it needs to be the equivalent of about 24pt in a wide block text to be readable. Even a pretty decent HDTV starts to look like shit when throw typical small fonts onto it.

I'd like to see games get away from the text scroll personally. Stuff like...

"Soandso hits a slime for 14 points of damage!"

...is starting to look very cheesy to me. Everything you need to know to play the game intelligently should be communicated visually, aurally without having to speed read a slew of scrolling text.

[Lenardo]

cough cough

what about the xbox 360 live "exchange" that is supposed to be live as well

you know the cash for items in game setup that microsoft is supporting in their xbox 360 games.

i know brad is against it, but their publisher is for it...


that said- ever since they went with XNA i have suspected(as have ALOT of you here) strongly that vanguard would be xbox 360 as well as PC.

course being able to play on a widescreen HD monitor(my TV)....ooooOOOoOoo

[Frax]

Originally posted by 0hz
I'd like to see games get away from the text scroll personally. Stuff like...

"Soandso hits a slime for 14 points of damage!"

...is starting to look very cheesy to me. Everything you need to know to play the game intelligently should be communicated visually, aurally without having to speed read a slew of scrolling text.

I agree, the one issue I see with Vanguard at this point that might make that difficult is that it has locational damage, at least in the available screenshots. That means not only do you have to know you were hit, but where on the body you hit is important as well.

Hopefully some of the people who attend E3 next week will be able to give more concrete info on the Xbox portion of the game, if it is available to view.

[Frax]

Originally posted by Lenardo
cough cough

what about the xbox 360 live "exchange" that is supposed to be live as well

you know the cash for items in game setup that microsoft is supporting in their xbox 360 games.

i know brad is against it, but their publisher is for it...


that said- ever since they went with XNA i have suspected(as have ALOT of you here) strongly that vanguard would be xbox 360 as well as PC.

course being able to play on a widescreen HD monitor(my TV)....ooooOOOoOoo

This is from a thread on vanguard boards a month or two ago:

oh more Microsoft F.U.D.!

Well ask and you shall receive!
I've stated it on the boards before and I will state it again. Microsoft has no plans to sell currency or items in Vanguard. We are on the same page with Sigil in this regard.

Microtransactions are actually a very cool idea for games w/o subscriptions. In these games developers often like to make ongoing content but without a monthly fee there is no way to fund that content. Microtransactions make it possible to provide new levels quickly and efficiently. The content is paid for by the small transactions and it allows them to release content more quickly than waiting for enough for a complete expansion. Because there's very little(or no) persistence in these games there is no impact to a virtual economy. The developer and publisher gets paid and the end user gets new content at a low price. Everybody wins.

I know there is a lot of anxiety about Microsoft on the boards. I will make it very clear that while we have a lot of different technologies to choose from, we are only going to implement the features that make sense for Vanguard. We aren't going to do anything to compromise this game.

So relax guys.
__________________
L-Train
AKA Leon Pryor
Program Manager, RAT Studio
Microsoft Game Studios

[0hz]

Originally posted by Surlok TP
I don't understand why consoles require the processing power they do to run,while usually always shipping with inferior graphics processors.

The ATI card is a good card right now,but for some perspective...

I run an AMD64 3500+ with a Geforce 6800 Ultra,couple gigs of ram,10krpm HD. Basically you know a hardcore gaming platform,not the best there is by any means but still a quality PC.I run the new 3dMark05 benchmark somewhere in the mid 6k Range for a score.This is the pretty common range right now for high end "average" PC's.

The difference in say 1k points in that benchmark in terms of gameplay is rather extreme,so when you take into account that people running rigs with Dual Ultras in PCI-Express are getting scores of 9K+ you can clearly see how PC graphics are about to jump up by leaps and bounds over the next year as PCI-E becomes more and more mainstream and affordable.Where as I am getting an average of 25-30 FPS in the game demos in that particular Benchmark,the Dual Ultras are getting in the 60+ range; enough bascially to cap rates to most people monitors.The graphics and effects displayed in these demos areofcourse incredible,but nothing can run them currently with any kind of decent performance,at least not anyhting average which is what PC developers have to target.


That X-Box is going to come out already outdated and out performeda TON by PC's

If they are developing Vangaurd with PC in mind first then there should be no issue,a UI and control scheme compatible with the new X-Box 360 shouldn't be a problem.Also note that the new Hardware seems to be full wireless and will likely allow for Mouse and Keyboard's designed for PC's anyway.

My only concern is knowing what's on the horizon in terms of graphics in regards to PC ,that the Devs of Vangaurd don't hold back on future graphical enhancements simply because the X-box version won't be able to handle it.

Who cares?

Comparing a PC with $400-1000 in graphic cards alone to a $200-300 console is just plain dumb and always has been.

You can buy current (and very likely next) generation console for less than the cost of an adequate power supply for the kind of systems you're talking about.

The "bang for the buck" factor is so far off it's absurd.

And please, anyone who wants to point out that a PD2365-7AGY-XQ Rev. B with 1GB Intellicache option, unlocked, overclocked and bought with 3 $50 rebates and promotional code LKJKDJKLS2898293-2908023 is actually cheaper than PS2 can preemptively shut the fuck up.

This doesn't just apply to kids limited by what their parents are willing to spend either.

I could spend 4K on a tricked out gaming machine any time I felt like it but I won't.

It just isn't worth it to me and the vast majority out there seem to agree.

[Iannis]

I just find actual voice chat creepy. I prefer good ol' texty boxes. Plus, I notice a lot of my Euro or Japanese guildmates knew english, apparently far better than me since I take the way the goddamn thing works for granted. But are they so fluent in oral communication? I can(or could, haven't had much practice lately) write tolerably well in italian and french and japanese, but hell if I can speak it half as well.

shit. Even english. I can't understand half the things you damn Yankees say. TAKE THAT, NEW JOIWSY!

[Frax]

If it's any consolation, we ignore most of what other people say here in the USA anyways, so if they can't speak clearly, it doesn't matter !

[Eomer]

heh, I kind of agree, there's a crew of people I've been playing with on and off for 5 years now, and it will be wierd hearing their voices for the first time.

My only concern is knowing what's on the horizon in terms of graphics in regards to PC ,that the Devs of Vangaurd don't hold back on future graphical enhancements simply because the X-box version won't be able to handle it.

Why is it so difficult to understand that comparing the specs of a PC to a console is completely pointless? For example, the Xbox I believe has a 733mhz processor very similar to a Celeron, if not outright a celeron. It's got an outdated Nvidia GPU in it, somewhere between a Geforce 3 and 4. It's got 64 megs of unified ram, for BOTH system memory and graphics memory. It's also got I believe an 8gb hard drive that probably has transfer rates 1/4 of what current mid range ones do. Basically, if it were a computer it would be useless (I just gave away three P3-933's from our office cause we replaced all our computers, and there was no practical use for them).

But that useless computer plays Doom3 at virtually the same visual quality as a high end PC does, albeit with chopped up levels and a lower resolution. HL2 I heard was actually scaling up the detail in some respects cause they have some performance headroom.

So in short, it doesn't matter if a PC will have better specs than the console. Because of the set architecture, developers can squeeze a shitload more performance out of the hardware, not to mention having way less application and OS overhead to deal with. Xbox 360 graphics will most likely blow away PC graphics for at least the next year or two.

In otherwords, don't be concerned about Vanguard scaling back the graphics for the console. If anything, it's the exact opposite.

Oh, and the GPU going into the 360 isn't a current generation ATI chipset (someone said the 850XT). It's supposedly based on their next next generation chip, as in it's going to be more capable than ATI's next PC chipset release.

[Esmo]

Originally posted by Qhue
What if it ends up being a Xbox 360 exclusive title?

What if it isnt truly exclusive, but is released for the Xbox 360 6 months or so before the PC version?

KOTOR and Halo are compelling precedents...

If anything, it is more likely the PC version will be released before the console version for the sole reason that the PC technology was available prior to the xbox tech when they initiated development.

It's no secret that Vanguard was being designed for the xbox in addition to PC ... they've had a job opening for Console Programmer up for months now. Anyone who bothered to do any research has known this for a long time.(http://www.sigilgames.com/displayope...p?openingid=12)

[Surlok TP]

Originally posted by 0hz
Who cares?

Comparing a PC with $400-1000 in graphic cards alone to a $200-300 console is just plain dumb and always has been.

You can buy current (and very likely next) generation console for less than the cost of an adequate power supply for the kind of systems you're talking about.

The "bang for the buck" factor is so far off it's absurd.

And please, anyone who wants to point out that a PD2365-7AGY-XQ Rev. B with 1GB Intellicache option, unlocked, overclocked and bought with 3 $50 rebates and promotional code LKJKDJKLS2898293-2908023 is actually cheaper than PS2 can preemptively shut the fuck up.

This doesn't just apply to kids limited by what their parents are willing to spend either.

I could spend 4K on a tricked out gaming machine any time I felt like it but I won't.

It just isn't worth it to me and the vast majority out there seem to agree.

My PC cost me 1600$ Total Canadian,My PS/2 when I bought it was 500 bucks a PC capable fo running programs to the degree that a PS/2 can you could probably pick up for 100 bucks at a flee market,thats the point.It would be different if X-Box live was coming out tommorrow but it's not.How much is it going to be when it ships and how much is a PC of similar caliber to mine going to be when it does come out? the price will be alot closer.

It's based on current technology but it isn't current and when it is current it will be at similiar value to what a PC capable of running the same applications to the same graphical quality is.So the huge savings in a console over a PC are not really there,let alone the fact that you can do a ton of other things with said PC that you can't with a console.It was different when PS/2 was the new thing,you couldn't buy a PC for the same price capable of the same things.But Technology now advances as such a faster degree that youcould probably get somethign cheaper even than the new X-box oncei t comes out.

[Iannis]

The only real problem: the seamless world. It might be a bit too much for the xbox to chew, I dunno.

Morrowind took like...5 minutes to load, a small skip of lag when hitting a new area...whenever I played it on my xbox. Unless xbox 2 has some hella improvements I could see bad things happening to those poor saps...

[Lord Thanos]

the "leaked" XBOX 360 specs


2 types of Xbox Live:
Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)
Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)

Features for Gold service
* Also for Silver
# Also for Offline

- Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
- Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) *
- Free Xbox Live weekends *
- Multiplayer online gameplay
- Avatar for gamer profile * #
- Motto for gamer profile * #
- Personalized look for Xbox System Guide * #
- Offline achievments * #
- Online achievements *
- Access to other players' Gamer cards via Live *
- Cumulative gamer score * #
- Location/language profile * #
- Reputation *
- Enahnced matchmaking using above
- Skill level matchmaking
- Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)
- Recent players list *
- Free and premium download game content *
- Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv *
- Downloadable demos/trailers *
- Microtransactions *
- Custom playlist in every game * #
- Play music from portable devices * #
- View images from digital camera * #
- Strem media from Windows XP * #
- Interactive screen savers * #
- Track info for CDs * #
- Communication with voice, video or text *

360 HW:
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture

Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR

Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels



And yeah that says "MegaNertz", either a typo or bad font recognition, probably from a scanned PDF file...

And yeah it says 9 billion "dots" whatever that means

[0hz]

Originally posted by Iannis
I just find actual voice chat creepy. I prefer good ol' texty boxes. Plus, I notice a lot of my Euro or Japanese guildmates knew english, apparently far better than me since I take the way the goddamn thing works for granted. But are they so fluent in oral communication? I can(or could, haven't had much practice lately) write tolerably well in italian and french and japanese, but hell if I can speak it half as well.

shit. Even english. I can't understand half the things you damn Yankees say. TAKE THAT, NEW JOIWSY!

I avoid voice chat because I get tired of people hearing the bass in my voice and asking "Are you a nigger?".

Of course, XBOX Live! is a cesspool.

Voice chat is the future though. Nearly any organized guild runs a Ventrilo channel or equivalent and a lot of people host public ones for whoever.

[0hz]

Originally posted by Surlok TP
My PC cost me 1600$ Total Canadian,My PS/2 when I bought it was 500 bucks a PC capable fo running programs to the degree that a PS/2 can you could probably pick up for 100 bucks at a flee market,thats the point.It would be different if X-Box live was coming out tommorrow but it's not.How much is it going to be when it ships and how much is a PC of similar caliber to mine going to be when it does come out? the price will be alot closer.

It's based on current technology but it isn't current and when it is current it will be at similiar value to what a PC capable of running the same applications to the same graphical quality is.So the huge savings in a console over a PC are not really there,let alone the fact that you can do a ton of other things with said PC that you can't with a console.It was different when PS/2 was the new thing,you couldn't buy a PC for the same price capable of the same things.But Technology now advances as such a faster degree that youcould probably get somethign cheaper even than the new X-box oncei t comes out.

I understand what you're trying to say but the comparisons are just plain wrong and bordering on ridiculous.

Like Eomer said above, pure specs just don't tranlslate into sensible comparisons.