Doom3world

http://community.enemyterritory.com/index.php?q=node/58

while I support companies getting extra $$ out of their work, according to the article the length of time a player looks at the adds, that takes up CPU cycles & bandwidth.

So how much CPU power & bandwidth would it take up? If I walked in to an area that had a coke can (for example) would a routing start sucking up my CPU to calculate when it's in my POV & then start recording data when I looked at it? One add may not be a problem, but if 10/20 were in an area?

i know it may be trivial but the requirements for ET:QW are much higher then D3 & Q4 & perhaps this could be a reason.

I assume they could track how often a texture/surface corresponding to an ad is in the draw cache, then transmitted to the server every few minutes. Should be pretty low-intensity as long as it's integrated into the engine well, and not some weird hitscan script that talks to one of massive's .dll's every tick.

Honestly, what i worry about is how well they integrate the ads- will they have a real artist dirtying them up so that they integrate with the existing texturesets, or will it be streamed from massive as fullbright crisp eye pokers.

I guess as far as "dynamic" in game advertising go it could take up a few passes, but i don't think it would overtly affect performance on any decent system. Personally, though this has nothing to do with the performance of the in game ad textures, i think everyone should have the ability to simply switch off the ads....as I'm sure some of you guys will figure out how to do anyways

Anyways what would take up some fairly serious networking power would be synchronizing the ads, and also updating them dynamically rather than having certain ads show in a certain place all the time....obviously this won't be the case as it seems as though the ads are streaming from the server side. Which in that case would probably only significantly affect load times rather than any REAL FPS drop.

i don't see how it couldn't be a hit-scan related thing. Depending on the add it could be rendered while not in view which would negate the purpose of seeing how long the player looks at them. The only solution that comes to mind is using the players position, position & size of the add, find out how much of the screen it fills for how long & at what angle (so you don't could adds that are just in view due to combat, like ducking next to a coke machine).

So that stuff will be downloaded during the launch of the game? Awesome. All we need is ads. The game is getting shitier and shitier everyday.

hmm while normally I don't like the idea of adds in game, it could in this case actually improve the game if done right. If the ads are melded into the look and feel of the map it would actaully make it easier for me to believe in the world i'm playing in. Who here can picture a world without a coke machine or a McDonalds Billbord... even if they are dull and battle scared in a world invaded by aliens?

If the ads don't distract and it keeps the content free I'm cool with it. Not like those lousy theaters .. now you gotta sit through 15 min of Toyota and crest commercials before you get to watch the overrated POS that you payed more for than when there weren't any commercials.

can't say that until you've played the game.

like said above, if they make sense (coke cans, talking phone book bill boards, etc) & look the part, it won't detract at all. but then again, i don't know ANY player who will stop & look at an add while playing for the purpose of looking at the add.

i have a feeling they will instead be blatant crap that doesn't fit, like a tampax commercial durring WWE.

I dont have problems some cola cans or posters there and there, or burger on the commanders table, but tracking user how much time they look at those ads is too much. And those ads most likely will be dynamic and downloaded everytime you boot the game.

The images are all placeholder at the moment, but I have to say I barely notice the billboards ingame while running around.

They have said that they at least need to approve an ad:

I think it's only defendable when you can pay LESS for versions with ads instead of MORE for versions without ads (the latter will most likely be the case). Paying fullprice for a game with ads is just... plain a-social and will keep me from buying that game.


I'm starting to understand why certain stuff is being encrypted.
What if... you want to make a TC for ET:QW?
Imagine a Coca Cola commercial inside the Hexen TC...

Been playing the beta for a few hours and can't say I've noticed any ads yet.

My main beef with the ads is that the reasoning behind them is for continued support of the game after it is shipped.

Since when is continued support of a game something we have to pay extra for? Whatever happened to game companies planning for the support of a game after release? I understand that supporting a game is a costly endeavour, but this kind of stuff really needs to be penned into the game budget from the beginning.

It depends on the support doesn't it? A patch is not the same as paying for bandwidth, new levels, etc. Support should be expected if it involves making it work, otherwise it is above the call IMO.

I think ingame ads are still an experiment by the publishers/devs. I guess they're trying the waters to see what kind of content they can push and what kind of revenue they can expect from it.

I just don't think any of it will ever benefit the players. It will probably be used to keep the FPS market alive more than anything; with so many developers switching to MMOs due to its successful subscription model, FPS developers seem to be trying to fit some kind of similar money source into their products.

I'd welcome this if the profit was received by the company/isp hosting the server; the server situation around here is kind of pathetic and many isps don't have compelling reasons to build a server for a game (just making internet kids happy doesn't cut it). As a result it's quite common that some extraordinary games doesn't even have servers nationwide (ie, UT2k4) even if it was published locally. And for MP games, not having servers and other players to play with means the game suck no matter how good you think it is.

If the profit generated by ads on random servers simply go to the publisher itself, I can only see this situation getting worse.

that's the biggest issue. Does "continued support" mean that when there's an issue, it will be fixed RIGHT AWAY? None of this beta-crap that's done with Q4? Does it mean we'll get FREE extra content? Does it mean REAL tech support & not things that get ignored?

If not then I don't care what the company says. It used to be a company would make a game & then make another to keep bringing $$ in. This is sounding more like they want to make less games & keep this one up there in status to increase add revenue (which I don't mind, but what if it doesn't take off? Is "continued support" dropped & we're ignored?)

Since the cost of simply making a next gen games & the amount of revenue lost through piracy has sored exponentially in recent years.

Pirating an online game like Quake Wars would be pretty pointless. Sure, there's Hamachi, but it doesn't take long before there's only a couple people in Hamachi servers who want to play it.

i wouldn't say that. for Doom 1 id sold a fraction of what they sell now, even with piracy. So they made a fraction of what they do now.

it's that they WANT to spend exponential amounts on games to "compete" against other companies. They don't NEED to spend that much $$ to bring in money "lost" to piracy. And if that was so, why do it for an online only game? They could make it so everybody logs on to their servers (like steam) & you have no choice &, like valve claims, piracy will be nill to greatly reduced (to, apparently, pre-modern game development levels).

It's just that game companies are just now starting to realize that they don't make so much $$ on games that take 1/2 a decade (due to much higher costs) & sell as much as games that take 1 or 2 years, so they're looking to new revenue streams to keep making games every 1/2 decade.

I think you misread my post.

I didn't say that id need to spend big bucks making the games bigger and better to counter the losses caused by piracy. I was simply stating two major factors in justifying advertisements as a legitimate way of giving the developers a better chance of actually making some money out of their game.

Id don't choose to make multi million dollar AAA titles because they want to spend more money. If they could sell 3 million copies of orcs & elves for $60us I'm sure they would. But from a business standpoint they NEED to spend that kind of money to produce a modern 'next gen' AAA title.

Also friar, come on man... Even if doom1 did sell a fraction of the units, it cost a fraction of the price to produce, well before piracy was as rampant as it is today.

I won't argue that an online only game such as something steam based, or one of the new battlefields will greatly reduce the appeal to pirates, it's still a major factor in potential sales, but currently is almost non existent in the console market, hence the QW being multiplatform & X360 being the leading platform for Wolf.

Id may be a company that makes great games, but they are a company none the less and need to make money, so be it in game-advertising or multiplatform games, either way, we've all just goto accept the direction the industry is moving in.