karsten's videogaming talks Vol.3: “The Old Videogaming feel"

[karsten]

Taking the stop at Wien here, today while flying back to italy i had finally the chance to post...

<b>karsten's videogaming talks Vol.3: “The Old Videogaming feel"</b>

<i>So i'm welcoming everybody to my usual videogaming talks, it's been quite a long stop but i'll make up with this one :) As usual this will be quite a long (boring?) dissertion. REALLY please free to enter the discussion, post suggestions and corrections.

karsten</i>

This time the title is written so to be easily misunderstood :) everybody's thinking about the usual old timers gameplay grumblings (i'll save them for a different time, rest assured) but instead i'll talk of the first thing you do when playing:

switching on your console.

well the act of switching on is always the same, what changes is what you do <i>afterwards</i>.

Let's have a flashback to just 10 years go. You switch on your tv, power the console, start playing. Easy, simple, fast. I want to play NOW and in a few seconds i'm ready to go.

But nowadays? You switch on tv set, the console, go taking a beer, chips, setting pillows, lying down the sofa and you are barely at the press start button screen.

At least for me it's a big difference, some times i would be in the mood of a fast bashing, but the time for the console to boot up, connect to live services, load the game, load the save etc etc... it's so discouraging that i drop the idea. I'm too impatient? Too lazy? You might actually be right, but the special feeling of turning on tv and console at the same time and managing to hear i.e. F-Zero tunes WHILE the tv set is warming up is something i can't forget.

Will the modern day consoles ever get back to their roots? Will we be able again to "play when we want to play" and not when the machine is ready? I have to say that i had great hopes for this generation of machines, that feature large HDs, but the idea of actually using that disk space for nullifying the load times doesn't seem to pass througth the developers minds.

Will future consoles be able to put the loadings back to zero again? Maybe with the use of the always cheaper SSD memories? Maybe with some actual smart caching system, or REALLY fast searching and reading optical devices? Or will game on demand solve all of this?

As usual, Your opinions are greatly welcome.

karsten

[karsten]

*failure* :P

[Paulo]

Guess we just arent that lazy.

[z_killemall]

Well, I don't have any current gen consoles so most of the games I play I do it on my PC, but I've always been a huge load times hater. I've even abandonned great games only because I can't stand the load times...

Load times ARE a big deal and developers should do something about it. Sometimes you don't want to wait a lot between intros, loading screens and tons of unnecessary menus, you just want to turn on the console and the TV and see the "press start" screen. I can bet 8/16 bit games wouldn't be that popular if they were filled with loading screens.

[3do]

Loading times, intro and skippable/ un-skippable developer screens can be what puts me of playing a game becuase i get in the mood for a game and then think f**k this and just play something else.

We have become very good at creating technically advnace consoles which can do so much and have realistic games on them but miss out basic things like making load times shorter. Some games may require an FMV or video before the game is loaded just for the purposes of the story or dev/publisher logos may pop up but then after that your going to have to load the FMV's up everytime you start the game and see all the relevent logos.

but couldn't the games be made to display them the 1st time the game was loaded and then be disabled for future times (via a save or something) since we don't want to watch them everytime we play the game and some developer/publisher logos are un-skippable which makes the games load time even longer.

[Carnivol]

we don't want to watch them everytime we play the game and some developer/publisher logos are un-skippable which makes the games load time even longer.

Many games have the logos as unskippable as it works as a very nice way of hiding the initial loading.

[thamasha69]

This is the first time I have read this post....and it's somewhat ironic - I recently aquired a Sigma supergun and the thought had crossed my mind the other day, "Wow, I just hit the power switch and the game is there...ready to go (well after hitting the 'coin' button at least). There is no load time. I am instantly in shooting heaven." I miss literally popping in a game a playing it. Menus and dashboards have become the norm these days..... and dare I say necessary (at least for all the frills associated with consoles of late).

So yes, I do agree and sympathize with karsten. I suppose the notion of a quick fix and instant action not only transcends loading times and boot screens, but also gameplay/style (though that is a whole other topic in itself).

[WarHampster]

I guess the game developers traded instant action for good graphics? But still, I agree that there is something satisfying in shoving a NES cart into the system and getting right into the game.

[karsten]

also not all games are hurt in the same manner...

i.e. RPGs loading pauses can have a certain "cine" effect, but never is more turning off than long loading times in Fighting games, shot'em ups and racing games (forza 2 have quite painful ones)...

why aren't the developers using HD to avoid loadings?

i guess that it is because nobody complains anymore and also the playstation generation have played all they gaming live with the "UNFRIENDLY" NOW LOADING screen and are used to it?...

[thamasha69]

i guess that it is because nobody complains anymore and also the playstation generation have played all they gaming live with the "UNFRIENDLY" NOW LOADING screen and are used to it?...

I think that since the advent of the 32-bit era and beyond (sans N64) people ARE used to it and accept it.....for....better graphics and... :shrug: ....what ever is new I guess.

[Nitro734]

Now every individual gets credit somewhere in the game, so naturally the developer and publisher throws logos up that prevent the game from starting as instantly as we would all like. But some people take it TOO far. Guitar Hero 3 (using the Wii version as an example) has at least SIX intro/logo screens before you even get to the main menu. All of them skippable but still - what a nuisance!

Also every main console has an OS now... and they always start first by default and you can launch the game throw there.... as the features of a system grows, so doesn't our wait times. Wish gaming was about gaming sometimes, not streaming video downloads or multimedia centers or voting channels. I want games.

I don't think too much of the beginning bulk has to do with load times, as often you haven't even yet chosen what save file to loa yet so it can't load much of the actual game - and if there is loading times for the title screen then the developer really screwed something up. :)

Just my opinion.

[A. Snow]

I'm not really fazed at all by load times. I credit this to having owned a Sega CD during the dawn of the disc era. People today have no clue what a real load time is.

[jccochez]

Well load times are really bad i think.

Does anyone here have a Neo Geo CD? you'll know what i mean.

But the worst is definitely the ps3, where some games need to be installed first!

[Origin]

I remember buying Tony Hawk's American Wasteland for gamecube, because of the fact there were no loading screens. However, when I began playing and got to the first loading area, I was surprised to see that there were times in the game where it loaded, but instead of a loading screen, there was a little play area while you waited for the game to load. Why cant game developers just do that? Its way more amusing than a big image of some company.

[Kami68k]

I hate loading times and that's one of the main things that always bug me with the newer consoles. :DOH:

[modrobert]

I think developers are spoiled rotten with newer consoles regarding hardware performance and resources, in an odd way that affects load times as well.

Console hardware limitations has always been the mother of optimization and creative thinking, this brings out the core idea of the game rather than filling a void of unused space with pointless FMV segments.

[undamned]

Nice little blurb.


This is the first time I have read this post....and it's somewhat ironic - I recently aquired a Sigma supergun and the thought had crossed my mind the other day, "Wow, I just hit the power switch and the game is there...ready to go (well after hitting the 'coin' button at least). There is no load time. I am instantly in shooting heaven." I miss literally popping in a game a playing it. I don't know what game you happen to be playing, but some arcade games force you to sit through ROM checks, which can take over 1 min. Most newer games don't, but some do, so arcade != quick boot.
-ud

[thamasha69]

Playing ESPRa.de, Battle Bakraid....takes less than 10 seconds....

[undamned]

Playing ESPRa.de, Battle Bakraid....takes less than 10 seconds....
Most newer games don't
-ud

[MitsuruX]

The thing that Burns me is there seems to be some games that have little to no loading times... which proved that developes can do something about it even on older hardware

Tekken 3 for the PS1 instantly comes to mind with it almost non exsistant loading times... (in fact namco fighters in general seem to have good (very short) load times)

[Bluehaze]

Good thoughts on loading times and intro. screens. As someone notes, all people want to get recognized these days. However, this has always been true, since the time of Babylon. I think the real issue is that they all want 'front page' space when there is only so much room. Personally, if this is the case, then I think it best that they should just have one or two screens with a couple of names on each screen. If you want more names, then fit more on the screen. This is what logos are for! and people recognize logos just as well, if not better than some long-ass, silly company demo.

Next, as others have said, most of this began when CDs and disc media entered the gaming market. The N64 picked this up from Sony and Sega. Did you notice how before almost no cartridges had this crazy amount of start-up sequences?

It's hard to say, but I almost feel like much of today's loading screens and credits and the result of the old 90s to early 00s days when loading times were an issue. (Notice were?) It has been shown time again that these days loading times do not have to be anywhere near what they once were, yet companies are implementing additional screens as though they were. They are either a) entirely aware of this and taking advantage of the younger consumers' being used to this to promote their companies more, or b) entirely unaware and are simply doing these things out of silly and unreflected habit. (Yes, there is a c) that they are aware but too lazy to do anything.) Nevertheless, irregardless of the fact that I believe that some current gen. games genuinely do require extra loading time, most no longer do.

As pointed out above, much of this trend began with disc media. Thus, I am genuinely excited about what will happen when, as Karsten eluded, we begin possibly moving back to solid state media. Will the trend reverse? Well, hopefully we will not need such a trend to get companies to be reasonable to begin with, as they should be doing so with such a trend anyways. With the recent advent and increasing popularity of SSDs, I look forward to seeing what the future will hold.

[Taom82]

some thoughts on the topic;

Back when the optical media was new to console gaming, the price of higher speed drives were the main issue behind load times. Everyone wanted to use the optical drives, but it was too expensive to even put a 4x drive into the Saturn and PS1. If I remember correctly those two consoles would have had to be priced at over $700 if they had used 4x drives.

Fast forward to the past few generations of hardware. Sony for example places new tech drives (DVD, Blu-Ray) into their consoles regardless of price passed on to consumers. So instead of load times to save you some cash when purchasing the console, you pay more and still wait. Certain games are going to push one hardware envelope or another. However in my opinion hardware isn't the issue anymore.

[Cyantist]

I can't wait until we get to the point where hardware and space limits aren't an issue and where graphics aren't going to get any better. Better gameplay all round one would hope.