Frenetic Pony

Nextbox 1080: The Reckoning

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Microsoft is becoming the Pinocchio of the games industry. Except they're not really lying about anything and it's their middle finger that keeps growing larger instead of their nose.

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Is anyone else fascinated by the promises of the "driveatar" in the Forza 5 demo? Programing A.I. by uploading player behavior sounds like the future to me. If it's implimented in other genres it could be really interesting, especially if griefers realize that they can make the A.I. opponents in other people's games tea-bag and spin in circles while looking at the sky.

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They are probably using a neural network. It takes a lot of effort to un-train a neural network. You have the most influence in the early generations of a network, but I'm sure they have been training the network for months already during playtesting. So I doubt griefers will have a lot of impact.

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They are probably using a neural network. It takes a lot of effort to un-train a neural network. You have the most influence in the early generations of a network, but I'm sure they have been training the network for months already during playtesting. So I doubt griefers will have a lot of impact.

Given you're brought up my specialist subject... Well, there are a lot of different types of Neural Network. And they can all be tweaked in different ways. So it's very easy to untrain an NN if it's set up badly. Like you say, hopefully they're doing a shitload of playtesting.

 

In any case, surely they'd only upload the player behaviour from players who were actually reasonably successful?

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Today I set a new record in transitioning from «not really interested, I'll wait» to having pre-ordered one.

 

Aside: Someone mentioned that the term «pre-ordering» meant the same as just «ordering,» which I guess is technically true. I guess these days «ordering» carries the connotation that the thing is available for delivery.

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In any case, surely they'd only upload the player behaviour from players who were actually reasonably successful?

I'm sure they will have some sort of ranking system. That would be cool if the difficultly settings described how long your competition has played the game. So then when I choose "2 hours", i'll race against clones of players at their 2 hour mark.

I'm hoping that there'll be an option to choose driveatars by name if you want. So for instance I could play against all my friends who have played the game a year a go, but who are finished with the game and never play it anymore. Or I could play against a full roster of my clones. Shoot, I can imagine getting some enertainment out of setting up a race between my driveatar and a friend's driveatar, and then us being in chat as if we were at a horse race.

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I don't recall ever seeing Geoff Keighley pitch a hardball. That's not how one gets exclusives.

 

"So stick with Xbox 360, is what you're saying?" was a relevant and rather tame response. I actually thought the stick with 360 concept was a joke until I saw that clip - the flowchart of decision making for wanting a new console and not wanting or not being able to use an always online system is not "buy a 360 instead"; it's "buy a PS4 instead". I presume Microsoft knows that and is bullshitting, but hey, maybe not.

 

I imagine there's going to be at least a year, if not two, where most games will still be on the old systems as well as the new. With MS also releasing a new 360 model (available now!) and promising to support it for the long haul, it's very possible that they believe in what they're saying. It's been my experience when I worked on the campus as a contractor that a lot of the propaganda really gets into peoples' heads.

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Today I set a new record in transitioning from «not really interested, I'll wait» to having pre-ordered one.

How come, what moved you?

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Yeah, what happened? Did they suddenly announce Occulus Rift support?

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No. I was sitting at my desk at work and I noticed that it was available for pre-ordering on the Microsoft store, which I thought was interesting since I hadn't considered that Microsoft would sell and ship physical products and before I knew it I had bought one. I also pre-ordered a PS4, but not from Microsoft. My reasoning for just going ahead and getting these is that I know myself well enough that I'm too interested in the technology to be able to ignore a new console (except the Wii U of course,) and there are always those platform exclusives that tear and claw at me, so I'll end up getting them at some point – so why not just get it over and done with?

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Hey now, that's not fair. They're not that expensive, considering they're supposed to provide 5+ years of non-stop entertainment. During those years there are bound to be fantastic platform exclusives. They won't go down much in price either, if the Xbox 360 and PS3 is anything to go by. I don't think it's that ridiculous.

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I just got to watch the Microsoft thing. Saw the new Metal Gear and holy heck!

 

Don't know what it is about this year, but I am totally amped to play all the new games!

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They won't go down much in price either, if the Xbox 360 and PS3 is anything to go by.

 

I don't know about the 360, but the PS3 is half of its original -notoriously hefty- price now. I totally know how you feel about buying consoles at launch though. Even I'm a little tempted.

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I've never played a Metal Gear game and that trailer during the conference was so surreal. Americans in Afghanistan, Japanese anime style. I loved the bikini sniper and the child mystic with the tooth necklace.

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I've never played a Metal Gear game and that trailer during the conference was so surreal. Americans in Afghanistan, Japanese anime style. I loved the bikini sniper and the child mystic with the tooth necklace.

Metal Gear games definitely have this weird dissonance between American-style espionage action, and anime-inspired characters and stylistic choices. But it all blends together in a bizarrely brilliant smoothie of gamey goodness.

I would recommend playing the other MGS games before 5 to understand whats going on... but I'm not convinced I know whats going on in that series anymore.

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Hey now, that's not fair. They're not that expensive, considering they're supposed to provide 5+ years of non-stop entertainment. During those years there are bound to be fantastic platform exclusives. They won't go down much in price either, if the Xbox 360 and PS3 is anything to go by. I don't think it's that ridiculous.

 

It's not ridiculous. It's just, with my salary and a kid I could never justify spending that amount of money on two consoles and an Occulus Rift. I'm jealous. But.. I'm also never going to be as excited about a new console as any of you. I don't see the appeal in buying at launch and having to select between a handful of games. I bought a 360 a year ago, for a cheap price, and with it is a huge library. Just feels like more of a bargain..

 

Weirdly, though, I'm the opposite of everyone apparently, because I'm suddenly excited enough about the Wii U that I might buy one some day.

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Yea I used to consider myself an MGS super fan, but I missed out on Peace Walker and I feel totally lost with this plot now.

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It's not ridiculous. It's just, with my salary and a kid I could never justify spending that amount of money on two consoles and an Occulus Rift. I'm jealous. But.. I'm also never going to be as excited about a new console as any of you. I don't see the appeal in buying at launch and having to select between a handful of games. I bought a 360 a year ago, for a cheap price, and with it is a huge library. Just feels like more of a bargain..

 

Weirdly, though, I'm the opposite of everyone apparently, because I'm suddenly excited enough about the Wii U that I might buy one some day.

 

I really miss the opening year or so of the 360 (I didn't get it at launch, I think I got it when it was 6 months old,) back when I could see every single game trailer they posted and I knew about every single release. I get a charge out of getting to be that crazy into something. Unfortunately, it's never going to be quite like my first time again, so now I find different weird hobbies to immerse myself in for a few months before I get bored and move onto the next thing.

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I really miss the opening year or so of the 360 (I didn't get it at launch, I think I got it when it was 6 months old,) back when I could see every single game trailer they posted and I knew about every single release. I get a charge out of getting to be that crazy into something. Unfortunately, it's never going to be quite like my first time again, so now I find different weird hobbies to immerse myself in for a few months before I get bored and move onto the next thing.

 

I feel the same way. Even though there aren't many games at launch and within the first year there is a weird satisfaction that comes with actually being aware of every game that exists for a new console. I am usually so enamored by the fancy graphics of a new console that I will play the couple games I have for much longer than I typically would later in the cycle.

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I dunno about you guys but if one more person at Microsoft says something like this:

Another really cool thing with the new Achievements system is that it’s cloud-powered.

I'm gonna flip.

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