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| Gamer Discussions; Discuss the industry and community. | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 10 2011, 02:20 AM (58,919 Views) | |
| -Blacklightning- | Aug 5 2011, 12:44 PM Post #136 |
BL;DR
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Not that this is especially relevant to the engine itself, but I figured it might be entertaining to put into perspective just how much of an obstacle memory usage must have been / is bound to be with an approach like this. This is a scale map of the entire planet Earth recreated in Minecraft through various scripts and NASA maps. The scale is 1 nautical mile per block. Because of a hard-coded height limit the map only reaches 121 blocks high at the peak of Everest, but nonetheless the map still boasts a surface area of 21600 ×10800 blocks. Now I don't know exactly how much data Minecraft uses per block, but among other factors it depends on a hex block type, an area biome which denotes the colour of grass and leaves, and location data, which all up totals to three and a half gigabytes. According to the article that can be compressed to 350mb, but gameplay wise that's being extremely generous, and would create a lot of lag between uncompressing and recompressing files when needed. Now here's where the interesting bits start. If what I understand about the Infinite Detail tech is right, objects don't use textures so much as each individual atom in the game is given a colour value to lend the same impression. If we're generous, we can fit a single atom's colour data to within roughly a byte of information and leave it at that - there are other properties that could potentially be applied on the atomic level, such as composition of the atom (denoting anything from simple aural and visual properties like footstep noises and shinyness to absolutely unthinkable and advanced shit like anchorage to other atoms, general hardness and flexibility properties to make for realistically destructive objects, but I literally can't even imagine the impact that would have on modern day computers), but right now I'm just going by what I see. Given the maximum dimension of the map overview - 21600 on one axis - you could fit one dimension of map data to about 15 digits of binary, so all three dimensions all up (with the Y axis cut off at 128 as per the game's limit) would add to about 3 bytes per atom. So with the absolute bare basics - colour and location information - each atom should be about four bytes, give or take. This is all guesstimates, so I can't claim to be 100% accurate on anything. Now for Infinite Detail to directly replicate a Minecraft map, it would have to account for each individual atom in every individual block. We can use the game's texture data to denote the depth of that - for some users the texture resolution can go up to 128x128 and beyond, but again for generosity's sake let's just assume the Minecraft default of 16x16 per full size block. With some streamlining measures such as location data centralized per object rather than in relation to the map itself, that jacks the memory usage per block up to 1024 bytes - or a kilobyte per block, to be more blunt. That in itself is fucking horrifying, but let's just do the math before we let that set in. 1 block = 1024 bytes Minecraft World Map = 21600 x 10800 x 128 = 29859840000 blocks Therefore Minecraft World Map = 29859840000 blocks x 1024 bytes = 30576476160000 bytes = 29859840000 kilobytes = 29160000 megabytes = 28476.5625 gigabytes = 27.80914306640625 terabytes NEARLY TWENTY EIGHT FUCKING TERABYTES OF DATA. All that, from a map file that originally started at 3 1/2 gigabytes. And you know what the kicker is? This was already a scale map in the first place. I can't claim to know what Infinite Detail's definition of an atom is as far as size is concerned, but again being the generous guy that I am I'll assume it's something like a cubic centimetre per atom. Which means if we were to display the Minecraft World Map at its native size in Infinite Detail without any "texture stretching", so to speak, it would represent an area only .2% the size of Earth (with some very generous rounding). I think. I get the feeling my math is wrong on that count, if anything it's probably even smaller. And even then it would still consist largely of noticably curved but still relatively flat surfaces. Yeah, I know I've already made my skepticism pretty clear here, but I thought this might seem somewhat interesting to some of you guys. If it means anything, Nintendo's been researching the concept of Holographic Memory for quite a while now, so if ridiculous memory requirements turn out to be an actual necessity I'd put my money on them being ready for it first. Edited by Blacklightning, Aug 5 2011, 01:13 PM.
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| Psycho Werekitsune | Aug 6 2011, 01:42 AM Post #137 |
Part man...part beast...full psycho!
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Woah, that's a lot of heavy shit. The thing is, we still don't even know any details behind the technology they're using because they haven't made it available to anyone. Still, if it's anything like that, then the concept of holographic memory seems more appealing considering if games do get that detailed, they'll be needing a lot of memory to keep up with them. Anywho, it's that time of the week kiddies: EA discusses what it said last week about being a subscription service. Apparently they think consumers WANT to pay them for a monthly subscription for their crap. Battlefield is going to have online pass because, according to EA, the servers will be a problem. *rolleyes* They get called out by a dude who works in server management. DICE says an annual Battlefield will hurt the series, yet we all know that the publisher's word is law. Remember Call of Duty? Same deal. Mass Effect 3's purported multiplayer is being planned as DLC. Here's another example of selling an incomplete game and getting DLC before the game is even out. A message from Foamy the Squirrel follows about the evolution of media and how digital distribution will screw over the consumers. EA is now enforcing taking content away from you when they feel like it. Any inactive Origin account for two years will be deleted, even if content was purchased for it. If they become a fully digital distribution service, expect entire games you payed full price for to be taken away from you for any number of reasons. Anyone who bought Kinect, Microsoft has announced that the Kinect is not about precision and gamers shouldn't worry about being perfect. Shooting yourself in the foot much? Tekken producers come out and say all developers should be on the 360 and that if you're not, then you're doing something wrong. Funny thing is, Tekken Hybrid is exclusive to the PS3. The new consoles will be out by 2012. Apparently the future XBox will rival Avatar's (the movie) graphics. Diablo 3 is using real money auction houses, meaning that the game is secretly running DRM on you because it needs a constant online connection. Fight Night Champions is damaging PS3s, making them hard reset, overheat and giving them the yellow light of death. If this happens too much, it'll kill your console. Deleting the patch that causes this will not allow you to play with DLC boxers, causing the game to crash. Catherine has broken Atlus sales, shipping 200 000 units in it's first week. FUCK YEAH ATLUS, DOIN' WHAT THOSE MAGGOTS COULDN'T! Apparently, however, people are using the game as a basis for relationships...wtf. THQ is deciding to feed you religion in their games, wanting to get spiritual in their games. CRAPCOM wants fans' opinions on the new Devil May Cry....OH, A LITTLE EARLY FOR THAT, ISN'T IT? After disabling comments on their Youtube page and banning people from the community page, NOOOOOW they want people's opinions. Doesn't this sound a bit like that Dev Room thing for Megaman Legends 3? Well anyway, you can voice opinions on a Facebook page they made for it...except you have to like the page and guess what? They disabled the like button because people were giving their opinions. I swear, they're so fucking far in the hole, they don't even realise it. RE: Code Veronica HD will only be released as digital download in the West. Each game will cost $19.99 and the reason they're not selling them on physical discs because it's IMPOSSIBLE to sell these games as a $20 package and would cost $50 PLUS on disc. LOLOLOL THEY WANT TO SAVE US MONEY! Except there's no excuse because they're being sold physically in Japan. The Pokemon director is "crying" because he thought the last E3 was all about killing. Saints Row 3 will have preorder DLC and a season pass....this is getting old. Rage 2 is already in the works. Fatal Frame 2 remake IS coming to the Wii in Japan. Nintendo has lost a fortune and their stocks have dropped by 20% since Megaman Legends 3 was cancelled. Also, apparently the 3DS has been suffering from breakdown problems and, get this, gamers have been using 360 parts to repair their 3DSes. Since this is pretty newsworthy, I'll just post the link from the infobar: http://www.msxbox-world.com/news/article/15813/gamers-use-xbox-360-parts-to-fix-nintendo-3ds.html A 99 year old woman still plays Nintendo everyday, that's pretty awesome. On the flipside, a UK woman drives over her boyfriend TWICE because he cheated her in a videogame. PES will be coming September 27th. Namco has announced Heroes Fantasia. The PSVita won't launch in the West until 2012. New AAA Rambo game coming out in 2012. Predator DLC might happen for Mortal Kombat, which is pretty cool in my personal opinion. Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat MIGHT happen, it's possible. Kojima finishes writing his next videogame script but he refuses to say what it is. Batman Arkham City has not finished revealing the characters Batman'll be fighting or teaming up with. I smell DLC milking. Virtua Fighter 6 is in development. Timesplitters 4 will be announced very soon. Ubisoft is fighting for the "Rocksmith" name because a band exists with that name. Some potentially good news; Square Enix buys the rights to True Crime! True Crime Hong Kong may end up being a reality. KEIJI, ARE YOU READING THIS? Final Fantasy Type-0's demo will be out next week. Event has been talking to city planners in a bid to open up a chain of arcades in Philadelphia. There's a cool preview on an upcoming documentary about arcades at the end. |
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| -Nageki- | Aug 6 2011, 06:43 AM Post #138 |
Master
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I want to start a drinking game for every time that guy says "understand" I agree with him for the most part, but I don't like his manner of speaking. |
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| -Havoc the Tenrec- | Aug 6 2011, 07:07 AM Post #139 |
Master
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I suggest people skip to 4:00, before that it's literally about gangster crap and shoutouts. |
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| -Eternally Fallen- | Aug 6 2011, 07:09 AM Post #140 |
The Darkness
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First, with Diablo 3, I actually went and googled it, and I really think it sounds like a good idea. I mean, this has been "illegally" going on for years in the Diablo 2 community, with online shops offering all these items and runes, along with leveling services. Personally I think it would be better to have the in-house real money auction house rather than see some people botting for bunches of items and then selling them off for a big profit. This would be a nice deterrent from people trying that, at least. I didn't even know Code Veronica was coming out in HD, but even though it's not on a physical disk, I could see me buying it to play. I am pretty into Resident Evil, though, and I can see why others might not be so eager to go for that. And Fatal Frame 2 holy shit, I've been looking forward to this news since screenshots popped up. I really hope they localize it but if they don't I'd still import and try to find a way to play it. I've heard of people developing patches for the fourth one to be able to play it that way, so I'm sure it would be possible at some point. |
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| Psycho Werekitsune | Aug 6 2011, 11:25 AM Post #141 |
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Part man...part beast...full psycho!
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You get used to it after watching a few videos. I don't understand the concept of paying real money for fake stuff. I don't understand why they can't use the in-game currency instead, it makes more sense. This used to be illegal in MMOs because it could potentially cause a liability for them, plus it allowed players to take advantage of the system where they could jack up prices to their heart's content without much repurcussion, especially if they found a way to exploit the game to get what they wanted to trade. It used to be a contract violation, until developers, initially turning a blind eye to it, started making it a part of the game. This may seem okay at first, but it just opens the door for the developer to create more ways to force the player to pay microtransactions to play the full game. You've seen games like Champions Online and DCUO do it, you have to pay real money for character clases, abilities, gear, costumes, whatever. Given time, real money trading will eventually become a part of all MMOs and seeing as this is a virtual world not governed by the economics of real world trade, the developers can do whatever they want with it. It's a bad thing in the long run. Other than that, the point was that it's enforcing DRM on the player and it's doing a pretty sneaky job of it. I'm not going to always want to be connected to the internet or hell, I might not even be able to be connected to the internet at all times, just for some stupid auction gimmick that I'm never going to use. Of course, it's the only way for them to regulate this thing and possibly reap profits from it by taking a cut of the auction money. Like I said, it's a bad thing in the long run. Both Code Veronica and 4 are being re-released in "HD" format. I don't know why they're bothering with the most recent games considering they look fine and looking at pics of them doesn't really show any difference from the original releases. Also, RE4's been released, what, four times now? Stop whoring it out Capcom. |
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| -Jacquerel- | Aug 6 2011, 07:41 PM Post #142 |
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The thing with Diablo III is that in Diablo I and II it was against the TOS but so widespread and hard to track that it was basically impossible for Blizzard to do anything about it. DIII is going to have, if anything, a larger playerbase than either of those games so it would be even more widespread! You wouldn't ever buy virtual goods for cash, neither would I, but evidently a large proportion of people are prepared to do this and will do it whether it is against the TOS or not. Given this situation, would you not agree that it is better to implement a safe system for players to do it, thus removing any risk of account theft and also taking money away from the kind of people who botting farms in other games rather than leaving people to get scammed by third parties? I can understand disliking people buying power when they can use it to compete against you, however Diablo III is not a competitive game (It is not even really an MMO! It is a game like torchlight, you can play co-operatively but that's pretty much it!) and all of the loot is randomly generated. As the main part of the game is players versus AI (on your own!) there is no unfair advantage gained if you are the type of person prepared to pay real money for virtual goods, and anything that can be put on the cash auction house can also be put on the game auction house for in-game currency so the cash players are not gaining any advantage over the in-game currency players anyway! If this was a scheme where people could buy armour and weapons from Blizzard for real money, I would be up in arms too. Any game where the top tier equipment requires you pay real cash is just awful. That is not what this is though. All the loot that you pay your real money for is bought from other players who have farmed it themselves in the game, and can also be bought using in-game money. This system is not a money-grubbing scheme that gives advantages to the players who want to pay extra cash to Blizzard over people who just buy the game. All that this system is is a safety net to stop people from being scammed, because Blizzard knows that people would buy items from other players with real cash regardless of whether Blizzard told them not to. And I am ok with this. Edited by Jacquerel, Aug 6 2011, 07:42 PM.
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| Psycho Werekitsune | Aug 6 2011, 10:20 PM Post #143 |
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Part man...part beast...full psycho!
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I know man, I know. I'm just saying that I think this may LEAD to that eventually. By opening this can of worms they're saying it's okay to deal with real money in a videogame, which may in turn lead to future endeavours where real money will need to be used to buy good gear or whatever, from the developer themselves. |
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| -Jacquerel- | Aug 6 2011, 10:35 PM Post #144 |
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Honestly I prefer to just take things as they come rather than pessimistically predicting that things are just going to tumble down a slippery slope. Maybe in the future Blizzard will start selling end tier items for cash monies (despite the fact that nobody is actually buying items from the developer at this point) but I'm going to save my complaints until it actually happens. I can understand why you might think that though. Edited by Jacquerel, Aug 6 2011, 10:35 PM.
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| -Blacklightning- | Aug 7 2011, 04:27 AM Post #145 |
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BL;DR
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As long as we're still talking Diablo III, I got this in my ModDB newsletter and figured it'd be relevant to the discussion. tl;dr, game mods are impossible with the new game economy, and it's outlawed in the game's new TOS. |
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| -Jacquerel- | Aug 7 2011, 04:31 AM Post #146 |
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Yeah that is something I'm slightly more upset about, I suppose if you're going to have people selling items for cash monies you can't just let them hack 1000 duplicates of The Grand Sword of Ogglogoth +5 because the market would crash immediately but blanket banning all mods is a shame. |
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| Psycho Werekitsune | Aug 10 2011, 01:02 AM Post #147 |
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Part man...part beast...full psycho!
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That's weird, I could sworn I posted this before. Bethesda sues Minecraft creator for the use of the word "scroll" Not enough lols can begin to describe how farcicle this is. |
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| -Jacquerel- | Aug 10 2011, 01:19 AM Post #148 |
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And here's the word from notch himself on how farcicle it totally isn't: http://notch.tumblr.com/ People who are angry at Bethesda or are doing silly things like boycotting Skyrim simply do not understand how copyrights work, even people reading that blog post continue making the same mistake despite Notch, the man being sued, explaining it himself! Long story short, if you have a copyright and don't enforce it then you lose the copyright. Bethesda are forced to sue whether they want to or not, because if they don't and someone makes a real infringement on their copyright the fact that they did not attack Notch would mean that they are unable to attack the actual threat. Here's more explanation: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/08/bethesda-and-notchs-scrolls-off-explained/ This is why you are allowed to use words like "Hoover" to describe vacuum cleaners in games and other media without being slapped by copyright, the manufacturers did not enforce their copyright and so they lost it. The same thing is probably going to happen to the word "Photoshop" Edited by Jacquerel, Aug 10 2011, 01:23 AM.
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| Psycho Werekitsune | Aug 10 2011, 01:34 AM Post #149 |
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Part man...part beast...full psycho!
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So does it still mean that no one can use the word scrolls in a game's title because they'll end up being sued? Because that just means copyright laws need to change if that's a fact. Also, plenty of those free MMOs and browser games that are advertised over the internet share similar titles (and sometimes even the font of said titles) as trademark videogame series. You see crap like "Tales of Pirates" or "Final Quest" or "Dynasty Kingdoms" yet I've never heard of any big companies suing smalltimers like these guys over copyright infringement. Regardless of how this is "justified" and by the book and how well Notch is taking this, it's still stupid. It just proves how outdated copyright laws are and the situation itself (as well as how aggressively Bethesda is pursuing it) is still farcicle. |
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| -Jacquerel- | Aug 10 2011, 01:38 AM Post #150 |
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Copyright law may well be stupid but Bethesda is not stupid for following it, they would still be penalised if they didn't and saying "but that law is stupid!" is not enough to win court cases. The issue is that scrolls is a game with a fantasy setting and elder scrolls is also a game with a fantasy setting so a court of law is quite likely to decide that these are similar enough that it is an issue. Another point is that bethesda are not angry that he is using the name scrolls but that he is copyrighting the name scrolls as the name for a game with a fantasy setting. If they do not fight now, anyone could make a game called "Scrolls of the Elders, Oblivious Morrow on the Rim of the Sky Daggerfall" and there would be absolutely nothing they could legally do about it because all said company would have to do it point at Scrolls and they'd get off scott free. Rage at copyright law if you want but getting angry at a company for doing the only sensible thing and trying to protect its assets is silly and a waste of time. |
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