VF5 on Xbox 360

I'm going to put in my two cents on the online situation:

I'm approaching my 3rd year in computer science. I've done some light game programming and am working on taking it to the next step by learning OpenGL. That said, I really do find it hard to construct a messaging system for this game. If anything, the game would have to use a server as a host machine to calculate the different inputs of the characters, which I think is going to happen, or the game will use one 360 as a 'host' machine where one player will have an advantage. To put things into perspective, lets say it takes 20ms (a great ping time) for both users to talk to the server. That's 20ms for the 360 to send the info, then 20ms more to recieve an update to the situation. Just shy of 2 frames. Now also keep in mind that if one user had a faster connection they have an immediate advantage. Now also take into account that if you're using a TCP/IP messaging system instead of a UDP messaging system (just feeds information to the server, server does the same), you also have to PING to make sure you still have the connection. Do you see where this starts to become a problem?

Most online games come up with algorithmns to guess what a player is going to do next, which is why you sometimes see a person flicker from one place to another in a FPS. The difficulty in creating a system with an old fighting game like Street Fighter 2 is no problem because there is little complexity, just collision detection and a small number of moves. With a game like VF5 where you're dealing with collision detection in a 3D environment and so much going on in terms of character movement, attacks, etc, it's hard to begin to imagine an accurate way of doing this with all the different play styles that exist with a single character.



Enough about that however. I'm not one to poo-poo Sega for bringing the game to another system. I'm also not one to look down on them for adding new content instead of a port, BECAUSE the game was not originally planned to be a 360 game.

The reasons for why 360 games are looking better than PS3 games, or at least my look at it, is that developers are having trouble harnessing the power of the processor. I've been doing a lot of reading on gamasutra about the threading in videogames. One of the features I read favored a single string, but explored the multithread environment of a game. Conclusively it found that games work best with 3 paths (Xbox 360, three processors, hmm) with several choke points where the game needs to be updated. Even at a low level, threading can be a bitch and at higher levels testing becomes extremely hard. I personally think the hardware for the PS3 is the best hardware, but on a programming level I'd prefer developing for a system like the 360 because that in itself would be a challenge. This difference I believe is what attributes to higher development costs for the PS3 and why the exclusives are starting to fade, however, if someone comes up with some code to harness the cell processor, we'll see Sony gain a lot of power back fast.


-SuperDave

 

And what's wrong with pleasing whitey? In the past I've known people on here accuse sega of pandering to their Japanese audience with things like VF.net and VFTV, while ignoring their western audience by doing things like not even makin VF5 arcade available for purchase outside of Japan. Their western audience told them "We want online play", they listened, and they added it. (well, either they listened to us or Microsoft drove over to Sega of Japan with a drumptruck full of $$$) But for whatever the reason, Sega is adding a feature to the game that will make their western audiences happy, and for that I say good for them.

Given the popularity of VF in the west, playing a tight offline version isn't an option for many people who live far away from a VF scene. It's not that they actively want to play a laggy version of the game, it's just online gameplay is the only feasible way for them to consistantly play the game against human opponets.

Adding online gameplay takes NOTHING away from the offline game. Adding online gameplay will make the game more popular than if the game was released without it, there's no question. And if the game is more popular because of the online gameplay then there may be more people seeking out to play the game against other players offline, but we'll have to wait and see.

Also, I think a lot of people need to lose the elitist attitude "omfg you can't DTEG online. what about my 1337 defensive tecniques... WHAT ABOUT TEH FRAMEZ!!?!?!" If fratboy johnny can enjoy playing VF5 online without knowledge of the frames and this and that, more power to him.

 

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Adding online gameplay takes NOTHING away from the offline game. Adding online gameplay will make the game more popular than if the game was released without it, there's no question. And if the game is more popular because of the online gameplay then there may be more people seeking out to play the game against other players offline, but we'll have to wait and see.
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I couldn't say it any better. I remember back in February the quote came. Why eliminate an aspect of the game that 95% of the would and and enjoy, just to appease the 5-10% of the hardcore that won't enjoy it. Plus, Who cares if the Hard Core don't like it. They couldn't simply not play it online. They could simply continue to travel to various places for tournaments and the like. But for some of us that Would enjoy online, let us be. GameTrailers really said it best in their review.

In this day an age, 2007, Next Gen, Playstation 3, there is no excuse for NOT having Online in a fighting game. I could understand something like an RPG not having online, but Fighting games are so Niche, and it's so difficult to find people even Willing to play you, that there has to be online if you want to game to NOT collect dust. Again, Most people don't have the TIME, nor the money to go travel to play games, and quite frankly, Most people couldn't see themselves, paying $1.00 Per game just to face some competition at the arcade. I know for me, when I play VF5 with my friend, we usually get 50, 60 games per sitting. Imagine the cost if you did that at the arcade. Exactly, That is the reason consoles exist, so that You didn't have to Pay to play limited amounts.

So with that said, Namco, Arc, Capcom, Sega, Midway, or any other Developer/Publisher that has an aspiration of making a Next Gen Fighting game. Listen up, IF IT ISN'T ONLINE, IT ISN'T GOING TO SELL PERIOD.

 

Hopefully they can use some of the replays of matches of PS3 play footage for actuall A.I. that way we can feel immortalized.
I also only think the X-box verson will sell about 200,000 copies even with all the new upgrades.

 

I couldn't say it any better. I remember back in February the quote came. Why eliminate an aspect of the game that 95% of the would and and enjoy, just to appease the 5-10% of the hardcore that won't enjoy it. Plus, Who cares if the Hard Core don't like it. They couldn't simply not play it online. They could simply continue to travel to various places for tournaments and the like. But for some of us that Would enjoy online, let us be. GameTrailers really said it best in their review. </div></div>


No offense, but people who don't understand why others aren't losing their mind over "online versus" tend to be people who don't think (or give a shite) about the larger implications. Simply put, Sega has run so many franchises into the ground that any move to please casuals at the expense of gameplay leaves me cautiously optimistic at best.

Seriously, when the developer says hey you know this game is going to play like shite, and the publisher says hey you know we don't care, just do it - then there might be reason for a tiny bit of a caution from fans. Yes, it's easy to say just don't play online, if you don't want - but that's not really the trouble you see. I think more than a few people are tired of Sega trying to make a quick buck at the expense of everything else. Sega pretty much sucks for the most part.

 

I'm really pissed to read this! I really hope they do a update for PS3 or I can't tell if I'll stick with VF.

 

I think MS uses a peer to peer model for the actual games?

The information being transferred is roughly the same as DOA4 which runs ok to a degree?, although it does preempt choices I guess, and there isnt nearly as much movement.

How do you suppose the DOA system manages to deal with the initial jab exchange when neither player has the advantage?, the moves are just as fast as VF and it deals with them in a seemingly responsive way?

I guess one thing in the programmers favour is that neither player can validate their opponents input against what they're seeing.

 

And what exactly are these larger implications? How will online play bring the VF franchise to the ground?

And what's up with this elitist, holier-than-thou attitude of sega ruining the gameplay for the "casuals". They're adding a gameplay option that a lot of fighting game fans want to see, but I'm sure you're better than those casuals. right...

Maybe you forgot but Sega is a company and part of that is making money and promote their franchises. VF isn't as popular in the west as it is in Japan, and by adding the online gameplay that many western gamers want from their fighters, sega is taking an active step to make VF more popular in the west by listening to the fans. Is there any logical reason why sega shouldn't do this? The so called "larger implications" you mentioned before?

 

i'm guessing am2 will employ the same system as team ninja where both consoles modulate the playback speed of animations to compensate lag spikes. notice in doa4 how sometimes the play slows right down? this is the code scaling the game tick speed to let both players catch up while input data is being qu'ed.

also, someone above mentioned quality of broadband connection. in reality all the game needs is a 250k (up)/1meg (down) standard ADSL connection as each console is only sending and receiving the current state of each player's controller, current animation and frame number. given you can encapsulate joystick data in a single 8-bit variable, plus say two integers for animation n umber and frame, the amount of data being thrown back and forth is tiny.

lets assume 2x 32-bit integers plus 8...that's 70 bits or 9 bytes per tick. 9 x 60 (frames) = 540 bytes per second (that's less than 1 k)

therefore the biggest bottleneck will be the internet itself, not the user's broadband speed.

technical considerations aside, surely the point is this:

online play will not be perfect, far from it. to that end online play will act more as a community tool where players can meet and learn from each other.

the hardcore players will continue to gather locally for proper vs play. i cant see online spoiling this side of the vf community.

it's all good, folks.

 

You knw guys even if the onine lay sucks people will still buy it, which means Sega wins.

 

Namflow its's not a holier-than-thou attitude, it's just basic logic, but I'll spell it out. Sega is a publisher, sales are most important, and casual gamers (the largest and fastest growing segment of gamers) demand online versus play. So online versus is a must if sales are to go up in the West. EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS THIS, AND IT HAS ALREADY BEEN STATED MULTIPLE TIMES, WE GET IT. But applying that very same logic, why not take the next step and "tune" VF to make it a more "accessible" fighting system? This too, would bring a ton of money in (actually, maybe it's been the game's biggest problem in the West), and perhaps aid with the online experience. So tell my why not?

See I used the word "accessible," hopefully that doesn't offend you.

 

They won't because Sega's core market for VF is still Japanese arcade players. Unless the American market becomes larger than the Japanese market -- which would be cool -- but I don't see that happening.

 

What I still don't get is the hate for online play. People are acting like the addition of online play is somehow an insult to their very existence. If you don't like online play, don't play online. Simple as that. For those of us who may not have a great scene and a ton of people to play with, a laggy, messy experience is still preferable to playing against the A.I 90% of the time.

 

Oh by the way, there is a Very big difference from Changing the Gameplay to try to attract more fans which would make Virtua Fighter NOT be Virtua Fighter.

And Adding an Extra MODE to the game like Online play. And for those saying well if online play isn't lag free , that is essentially changing the gameplay but that is NOT the same. Example, Tekken ADDED Tekken Force or whatever it was called in Tekken 5 when you went through 5 stages to get Devil jin. That game play was different than the core Fighting game play of Tekken 5 but it didn't CHANGE tekken as a technical fighter. There is Nothing Wrong with adding a Gamplay element. and quite Frankly, the People Spoke and We are who took the side of there whould have been an Online play, were Right. So no elitest,

 

Yo, this is DancingFighterG. I don't think that online play will hurt the community but definitly expose people to the game more. I don't see the online version being as good as the lan version but that's fine. HALO is the same way. Hardcore players like playing lan due the glitches in HALO online but the mass play online. Those who play online learn that when they come to a tournament that online is very different than lan play. VF will be the same thing. I just want Ps3 to get that patch with the new version. That's all I ask for. It's one thing to have online play versus lan play but to play VF without the changes and upgrades would suck. Sega can give us all the upgrades without the online play.

 

You should probably chill out a bit. There's a big difference between adding a new avenue of accessibility for people to play against other people and changing the gameplay to be easier fro people. There's a reason people in Japan don't generally play DOA, but will line up for considerable amounts of time to play this game, and it's generally not because of its "lack" of accessibility.

The people who haven't considered VF before now, probably won't if they catered to them, however, online will most certainly pull in those people with a shortage of nearby opponents, or people who would rather not cash their salaries in on arcade tokens.

Whereas if AM2 decided to change the system to be more accessible... then we'd have another MK, Tekken 4, SC3 or DOA (not bad games, but all ae pretty far from arcade popularity) moment on our hands, and I think it's safe to say that course of action would be much like AM2 holding the business end of a shotgun under their chin.

 

I think in 5 or 10 years time all the chat of whether VF should have been online will be long forgotten. Much a do about nothing. I think by that time, we'll all have 10 or 20 mb connections as standard - and by that time Sega/Am2 will have learnt so much to improve a netcode.

Imagine if in 10 years or 20 time if the arcade and console play merged?

Starting online now is a tiny step closer to this unity, even if it is far away today.

 

Ultimately, I don't believe it's AM2's call.

Anyway, I don't know what the home console online influence will mean to Japanase arcades. I also don't know what direction the core gameplay of the series will take. But I do know where to go if I ever need to borrow tea leaves or a crystal ball.

 

+1

let the self-proclaimed vf experts (aka snobs) rant all they want....in all honesty some of them do more damage to the vf community than good. anoyone with half a functioning brain will see this as a positive development.

 

I used to think like that. VF was the ultimate game and theres only one way to play it, 1v1 sitting next to same machine. Anything else was blasphemy. After I got older luckily I have been able to see things from a wider perspective. Ultimately this will increase VF playerbase so its a good thing. I thought the mere fact that VF was coming to 360 was massive in its own right.

We hardcore people just want that the 'new players' wouldnt think of online play as the ONLY way to play the game.

I reckon there will be lots of 10-year olds with their xboxes bought by their daddy loudmouthing, swearing and going "U SUK" in not so many letters. Its easy to doubt what will the community be like when all the juveniles, who didnt know VF community existed before, jump in.

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If you don't like online play, don't play online. Simple as that. For those of us who may not have a great scene and a ton of people to play with, a laggy, messy experience is still preferable to playing against the A.I 90% of the time. </div></div>

Yeah, we just cant help but think what the whole of community is going to be like. Its a legitimate concern, but I think it also as a necessary evil for VF-community to continue existing. In a world soon dominated by online play, VF must follow too, or the community will stagnate and die like every other niche. Change is growth.