In case you missed Part 2.

Not a day goes by when I am logged on to LOTRO that someone does not comment on their anticipation for one day raiding in Rohan or stalking orcs in Mordor. Many players seem to have a longing to visit all the areas of Middle Earth that are central to the story of Frodo, the Ring, and his companions, and yet, every time I hear someone say these things, I silently chide them (after all, there is no need to troll others while taking down Gorothul) for missing the most amazing thing LOTRO has accomplished. LOTRO is not just an MMORPG with a story; it is an MMO that has utilized the wonderful setting of Middle Earth to tell the untold stories of elves, dwarves, men, and hobbits.

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In case you missed Part 1.

Last time around, I spoke about the skirmish system in the Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood expansion. Now I want to narrow my focus and draw attention to something smaller. A single instance, in fact. Today, let’s talk about Sword Halls and why it is a well designed instance for three people.

Now, before getting started, I am sure someone is going to flame me and complain that, with all of the beautiful content in Mirkwood, why focus on a three-man instance that can be run (if you have me in your group at any rate) in less than 20 minutes? One reason is because there is no need to talk about Sammath Gul or Barad Guldur. The big stuff gets plenty of discussion. And yes, I think Sammath Gul is also a well designed instance, if only because it is one of the few instances in which marginalized classes (Loremasters, Burglars who focus on CC, Captains who do more than heal) get some real action that lets them use their class capabilities to the fullest. But in focusing on Sword Halls, I want to illustrate the small things that Turbine did correctly. I will also, inadvertently, point out how some players betray their own gaming ignorance by not seeing the full potential of such a small instance.

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The Siege of Mirkwood expansion to Lord of the Rings Online has been out since December. It has gotten a lot of good press from our competitors (I’m not going to run up their site traffic; you can look up their reviews yourself). Most of that good press is rightfully deserved. In spite of the smaller amount of content compared to the last expansion pack, Mines of Moria, Mirkwood offers the right amount of gameplay for the price: free to multi-month subscribers when it was released. It’s a great expansion to what I think is already an excellent MMO with an excellent community.

But I don’t want to do a review of the game. Instead, I would like to spend some time discussing the finer points of the game design that Turbine put into the title. I want to point out the small things that they did right, to which I hope other designers are paying attention.

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Readers who frequent the PC reviews here at Avault have probably noticed that I have started posting video commentary on YouTube along with my regular game reviews. I thought I would take a few minutes here and explain what my goals are with these video commentaries, where I see them going, and how they connect with our other work here.

My initial foray into video commentaries was sparked by some of my academic work. I purchased a copy of Fraps so I could screen capture games for use in presentations. After doing some initial work, I realized that there were some things I could highlight to our readers in a video that would take up too much space in a written review, such as describing the good and bad qualities of a title’s interface. I did some experiments, and found that iMovie makes adding commentary fairly easy, provided I keep the cats out of my hair (they like to mew at me while recording). It’s taken a bit of practice, but I really only need about an hour or two to record and edit a video commentary once I have the raw footage from the game.

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… and I must say that I was rather surprised. I mean, it’s not a normal malfunction that PC users confront in the course of their daily lives. It’s also the kind of thing that defies typical conversations. Imagine the following discussion while hanging around at ones workplace.

“Over the weekend my monitor caught fire.”

“Really? I guess it smelled bad.”

“Yeah. The flames didn’t shoot up very high. I was kind of disappointed.”

“Too bad. Becoming a towering inferno was the least it could do before dying on you.”

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If it’s one thing I hate, it’s when a laptop refuses to turn on. Generally, the moment a laptop just doesn’t want to turn on anymore, you can be rest assured that you are about to spend big money. In my own case, since it refused to even turn on, the range of potential problems all boiled down to a bad battery, ruined chasis (i.e. ground has gotten loose somehow), or the motherboard was cracked. Given that my laptap was new, this was not encouraging.

So, in some despair, I took my laptop to my local Best Buy. My only goal was to get a diagnosis of the problem before I sent it in for warranty work. To do otherwise is to invite a never ending litany of “we fixed it” “no you didn’t” with HP. I approached the Geek Squad technician and told him that my laptop would not turn on at all. I started to speak at some length about how the power supply still provided power, how the charging indicator would still light up, how I took out and replaced the battery to make sure the contacts were lined up properly, and so on. Rather than listening to my homegrown attempts to diagnose the problem, he calmly took out the battery and pressed the power button a few times. Then he replaced the battery.

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While Adrenaline Vault was down, I undertook a minor experiment in memory upgrades: Readyboost. For those unfamilair with Readyboost, you can tell Vista to turn part of your flashdrive into an extension of the PC’s own memory. Because flashdrives access their memory faster than a hardrive, telling Windows to turn a couple of gigbytes of your flashdrive into extra memory  has the potential to speed up your PC.

In my case, I am not suffering any real shortage of memory; however, I had received an 8 gigbyte flashdrive as a gift. Now, since I don’t make a habit of toting 2 or 3 movies with me everywhere I go, I end up with plenty of empty space. Just for fun, I figured I would asee if I could get better performance out of my PC when running memory intensive games, such as LOTRO: Mines of Moria. I spent about a 3 weeks consistently using Readyboost, and in the tradition of Fight Club, I came up with a few rules.

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So, a good friend of mine accidentally gets an Xbox 360. I say “accidentally” because he received it as a gift. If he had his say so, he probably would’ve gotten a new PC; however, he’s pleased with his gift because he has Call of Duty 4, which keeps him more than occupied. Of course, the sad part is that my PC version and his Xbox version won’t play together online, so we’re still stuck either playing at my house on the PC or at his house on the Xbox, either of which devolves into drinks, telling goofy stories and wondering why we both keep getting killed. It also leads to the occasional rant about why the PC and Xbox version of the game aren’t compatible and how this should be patched/fixed/updated, despite the fact that we’re probably members of a group of gamers comprising one-half of one percent of the Call of Duty population.

As amusing as our problem is, it got me thinking about multiplayer and PC games in more general terms. David already spoke at some length about his views on exaggerated reports of the death of PC games. As I thought about it, a curious thought struck me: World of Warcraft, if Blizzard is to be believed, has 10 million or more paying subscribers. That’s 10 million people paying more than 10 dollars a month to play a PC game, not counting the cost to actually purchase the title and its associated expansions. That’s big money no matter how you slice it. So big that it’s no surprise that MMOs continue to be developed. There’s even been talk of a great disturbance in the Force: Bethesda, developer of almost exclusively single-player titles in the Elder Scrolls series (Battlespire being the exception), might be planning their own. If the rumors are true, it shouldn’t be that surprising. Titles like Morrowind and Oblivion were already large virtual worlds in their own right (heck, even Arena was large, and that was back in the 90s), so why not funnel all that effort into something that could generate even more revenue? Even if the rumors turn out to be false, I can’t imagine that their corporate leadership hasn’t at least given the issue some thought.

Given the popularity of various titles in the genre, I began to wonder if maybe we’re going to see a longterm migration of PC gaming in that direction. Is it possible that in a decade, the majority of PC titles will be MMOs of some variety or another? Couple that with download distribution, and you won’t find shelves lined with PC games in stores anymore. That saves publishers money, and if they make more money from subscriptions than just selling titles, that will make them profitable. And that’s the name of the game, whether PC or console: profitability. As long as PC games remain profitable, we’ll continue to get more of them.

However, my inexperience with MMORPGs meant that I, until recently, was unsure of gameplay differences between them and the PC games I’m used to playing. In an effort to understand them a bit more, I decided to play the free trial versions of two very different games: Pirates of the Caribbean Online and Lord of the Rings Online. After playing Pirates for a very short period of time, I realized it wasn’t what I was looking for in a game. It was a bit heavy on the grind and cameo appearances by characters from the movies, and a bit light on real piracy (which should have been no surprise to me, as the movies are much more focused on fantasy than they are on pirates doing what pirates do best). Not my cup of tea, but I’m sure some folks enjoy it. I then tried out Lord of the Rings and found something a bit more to my liking. Less outright grind (quest XP tends to be much more than XP for wandering around randomly killing), a well-rendered virtual world, a friendly community and a PvP setup that’s completely optional and never intrudes in the lives of those who don’t want to get involved. In fact, Lord of the Rings seems fun enough that my beloved and I are considering purchasing it while the price is right so we can play together over the summer.

However, even as fun as this game is, I notice that it still suffers from some of the same oddities that affect all MMOs. For one, the world doesn’t change in response to the things you do. I’ve had to “stand in line” a few times to slay a particular critter to solve a quest because multiple fellowships were in the area, ready to tackle that baddie. Obediently, it respawned and let us all take our turns killing it, yet at no point was Middle Earth ever permanently saved from the ravages of old Bloodtusk. While many single-player games also suffer from this, either by fault or by design (Hellgate: London is the most recent game that comes to my mind in which named, unique critters respawn all the time, even after quest completion, if you return to certain areas), it seems that MMORPGs can’t let you have too much of an impact in the world around you. To do otherwise would ruin the game for others playing. Also, it seems that gold farming is in action in Middle Earth as it is elsewhere, although thankfully, the message spam relating to such things is minimal. There’s also the “Server Down For Maintenance” issue, along with the very similar “Server Needs to Be Taken Down For Maintenance Because of Lag, Rubberbanding and Inability to Leave Certain Areas.” These problems are the kind you’re going to find on any game where your PC must connect with some other server in order to do things, and it’s rarely a big problem. It does mean, however, that with any dedicated MMO, you can’t always play when you want.

At the moment, these issues indicate that the gameplay offered by MMOs can’t replace single-player, even if these titles add substantially to the entire spectrum of gaming. I do wonder, though, if the profitability of these titles will eventually render single-player PC gaming obsolete, not because single-player games stink, but because there just isn’t enough money to be made on them to justify development. I am aware that companies that develop MMOs also have higher support costs. I’d love to see Blizzard’s bandwidth costs for supporting 10 million subscribers in World of Warcraft, not to mention server maintenance costs, employee salaries and benefits, and legal fees for in-house lawyers who craft EULAs and use them to police players who violate them or hackers who try to hack the system. Yet, these kinds of costs have already been born by companies like Blizzard and Ensemble Studios for years without a monthly fee in order to enable games like Starcraft and Age of Empires (Battlenet and ESO) to be played online. While all of these things indicate that falling flat on your face when developing a MMO will result in bankruptcy even faster than developing a single-player title, the revenue potential is also much bigger.

Maybe single-player developers will mutate their content and publishing in order to increase profitability. Instead of high priced games with occasional expansion packs, maybe episodic games like Sam and Max Season 1 and Season 2, wherein the game is divided into much smaller chunks which are much cheaper and development is paced differently, is the way singe-player will go. Perhaps we don’t understand the economics of MMOs fully just yet, and there’s a theoretical point of market saturation that, once reached, means MMOs will compete with each other for gamers and their ever necessary subscriber fees rather than attracting new gamers (if that point is 20 million players or less, watch to see them start dying off in five years). Maybe there will one day be hybrid games that do both right out of the box. Imagine a game of Oblivion’s scope that can be purchased for X amount of dollars and played single-player or for a monthly fee (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Bethesda). Time will tell, I guess.

Still, one thing is for certain. Console gamers shouldn’t look with too much glee on this post. There is a theoretical point of profitability where even console developers will drop singe-player titles for exclusively multiplayer content, massive or otherwise. I do wonder if Xbox gamers would be willing to pay for both Xbox Live Gold and a subscription fee for an MMO. This question will likely be partially answered when Age of Conan comes out for the Xbox in 2009. Rumors have it that Microsoft might only demand Xbox Live Silver for MMOs like Age of Conan. If this is the case, and if Age of Conan is successful, my colleagues who work console titles might end up making the same kind of post five years from now.

No doubt the news that Jack Thompson has been censured by a Florida Court for 27 Bar rule violations will be greeted with a rousing chorus of acclaim by the gaming community. That’s to be expected, as he has been no friend to our community. But we shouldn’t get too excited just yet, as the fight isn’t quite over. While the judge’s decision has been made public, Florida’s Supreme Court still gets their say in the matter before Thompson actually loses the ability to practice law for up to ten years. Given his antics at the latest hearing, not to mention previous sanctions for inappropriate conduct, I suspect the Florida Supreme Court will revoke his ability to practice law.

Like he has in previous legal scrapes, Thompson has waved the flag of First Amendment rights, arguing that there’s a conspiracy to deprive him of his freedom of speech. I find this odd, considering that his attacks on the industry would themselves seem to be the kind to reduce freedom of speech; however, I have no intention of spending thousands of words on discussing hypocrisy, fun as it might be. Instead, I’d like to point out something that might not be obvious throughout all of the courtroom theatrics and heated rhetoric. Even assuming that he loses the ability to practice law, I imagine it will have little impact on his anti-gaming crusade. He can still write books, launch into tirades and express his hate and discontent in any manner of ways. In fact, if he still has money, he can hire his own attorneys to continue the legal battles. Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, losing this legal fight will not impact his freedom to speak.

What it will do is put an end to Thompson’s frivolous lawsuits and dubious abuses of the legal privileges that lawyers enjoy in their line of work. Hopefully, the taxpayers of the great state of Florida will no longer have the rather expensive time of their courts taken up with Thompson’s legal silliness. He’ll have to fight these battles on equal footing with the rest of us now.

I, for one, welcome the challenge. As I’ve said before, I’m not one to trample on anyone’s right to express themselves. I rather thrive on discussing things in a calm, rational manner. While I’m sure many of my peers wish he’d just go away, I will instead extend an offer of dialog not unlike the offer I extended to Lyndon LaRouche. If, and when, Thompson is disbarred, he can feel free to discuss video games, violence and First Amendment rights with me in a debate that’s likely to enlighten both of us.

Let’s exercise our First Amendment rights instead of mucking about in Florida courts with frivolous filings. We have those rights for a reason, after all, don’t we, Jack?

So it finally happened a little while ago. My computer, a top of the line custom built rig from four years ago, finally went to the great computer desk in the sky. One too many cords being unplugged and chewed on, and one too many things being dropped on the tower resulted in the death of my computer. I’ll mourn that machine for a long time……….

Okay, mourning time is over.

So, I go out and get a good deal on a desktop at BestBuy of all places (remember: sale + open box = fewer $$$). Of course, it comes with Windows Vista Home Premium. I’m not too excited, but I figure I’ve had a good run with XP, and if you want DirectX10, you gotta have Vista. I take it home and begin the long process of installing everything again. I quickly found out, though, that Vista doesn’t work or play well with others…

To be fair, I had heard the horror stories from those who went out and bought it right away. And truth be told, the horror stories were nothing compared to the evil that was the original release of Windows 95 (anyone who ran the OS when it first came out knows what I am talking about). In that respect, I was prepared for a few frustrating days of working around compatibility problems and getting used to the new Aero-style desktop. (It’s nothing special, in case you’re wondering.)

My first clue that it was going to be an uphill battle was the very first piece of hardware I installed: my wireless networking adapter. Vista wouldn’t properly install the software or the drivers on the CD because it needs a special set of Vista drivers available at D-Link’s website.

Question for Microsoft: If my network adapter can’t be installed because Vista won’t properly install the software that comes with the hardware, then how do I grab the Vista drivers from the Internet?

Answer: Hope you have another computer in your apartment; otherwise, no Internet for you.

You get bonus points if you can answer this question with the right amount of snark: How hard is it to update Windows Vista with no Internet connection?

But that’s not all. In addition to my pastime of writing reviews for games here at Avault, I also beta test games. (Sorry, I signed an NDA, so I can’t talk about them.) One of the games I’m testing, which means it’s not even released yet, uses the most up-to-date DirectX9. Now, you’d think that since Vista has DirectX10, then I’d be all set. Nope. It turns out that DirectX10 isn’t the same thing as DirectX9. That meant I had to download and install DirectX9 in order to continue beta testing. (The download is only 71 megs, and it installed smoothly.)

Question: If you go through the trouble to put Windows Vista on a DVD and give it the cool, new DirectX10, how much effort does it take to ship DirectX9 with the OS and have it installed as well?

Answer: What, are you a noob? You shouldn’t be playing games that require DirectX9.

You get bonus points for asking the next question with the right amount of snark: How many games released by Ensemble Studios, which is owned by Microsoft, require something other than DirectX10 to run?

The best part, though, is my guilty pleasure. I like to play older games occasionally. Right now, my beloved and I are fighting our way through Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. I haven’t played it in years, and she never got to play it in the past thanks to her idiot former boyfriend. (What gameplaying moron wouldn’t want to play games with his favorite gal?) Now, I knew that Vista wasn’t going to like Diablo II, so I was prepared for running things as the administrator and running the game in “Super-Duper Retro-Gaming Compatibility Mode” which is slang for Windows XP, SP2, 256 colors and 640×480 compatibility mode, run as the administrator. Of course, despite setting this up, the game wouldn’t even install from the disk because of an error related to the Start Menu. Yes, the Start Menu. No, the Start Menu was never involved in my attempts to install the game, and yes, others have reported a similar problem over at Battle.net. Wanna know how I got it to work? I copied all 1.8 gigs of Diablo II from the second computer (not to be confused with my broken one) to my new one over the LAN. Then I set it up to run in compatibility mode. At this point, I can run the game, even if I can’t install it.

So far, Diablo is the only success story I have in running things in compatibility mode, and I still had to find a work around.

Question for Microsoft: Why?

A more specific question: Why make Vista so uncooperative with things that were developed in the past? Sure, Diablo is seven years old, but my D-Link adapters sure aren’t, nor can you claim that beta testing a new game counts as retro gaming. How hard would it have been to provide a wee bit more compatibility, like installing DirectX9 along side DirectX10? It doesn’t make any business sense.

Making DirectX10 Vista only makes business sense, as it encourages consumers to purchase your produce to get the coolest graphics. It doesn’t make me happy, but it’s the right move for making money. But it’s not like Blizzard is some two-bit software company, and D-Link isn’t some cheap knock-off of better hardware. I’m not trying to use off-beat, weird stuff, so you can’t say I’m asking for something unreasonable. All I’m saying is that maybe, just maybe, making Vista a bit friendlier with pre-2008 applications and hardware would have won Microsoft some real prestige.

Still, Vista isn’t the total mess that Windows 95 was when it was first released. At least there’s that.

Those familiar with my debacle with NetGear Wireless Garbage will no doubt remember the ultimate cause of that technological fiasco and my subsequent invective of discontent: my cat, Iago. Despite his fascination with destroying all cords, all the time, I still love him, much as a parent can love a child who destroys hundreds of dollars in household goods. But I’m not blind to his terrorism of electronic components. He is, after all, the reason for wireless networking, wireless keyboards and wireless mice. If someone would invent a cheap way to rig a monitor as wireless, I’d do that too, although he has some difficulty chewing the monitor cable; it’s a bit thick for his jaws.

But in my quest for wireless perfection, I’ve noticed that wireless isn’t the same as “free to roam about the room.” True, I feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of my D-Link WUA-2340s. Due to an odd apartment configuration, I’ve ended up putting the router and cable modem in the bedroom, and I can get decent reception in the living room with my two desktops. But when it comes to mice and keyboards, I can’t seem get reception that’s worth a damn.

Between two different apartments and three different wireless mice and keyboards (three different brands, even), the best I can do is get the keyboard and mouse about 12 inches away. That’s only if I want word processing or Internet browsing capability. When I’m playing COD4, I have to put the wireless desktop items within three inches of the receiver or I miss out on important things, like firing my weapon and actually hitting things. And since you can’t pause COD4 in multiplayer to adjust your equipment, this is an inconvenience to say the least.

I understand that such items aren’t meant to let me sit across the room and play Crysis. But it’d be nice to put the receiver in a place where my cat can’t reach its cord. After all, that’s the whole point of having wireless in the first place, at least in my household. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who has this problem!

I have a sore spot in my soul for Electronic Arts. Not because of money ill spent or lackluster titles, but because I remember Bullfrog Productions. Bullfrog was the British developer for such ground breaking titles as Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Syndicate. Those of you who remember will smile as I do when I think back to hours spent sending floods against the worshipers of the opposing deity or of training and disciplining the creatures of my dungeon. The programmers at Bullfrog had a certain synthesis of programming expertise and designing savvy. A generation of gamers on both PC and consoles, whether they know it or not, were influenced by the design decisions of these clever folks.

My sore spot comes from EA’s decision to consolidate Bullfrog into its other British holdings and to farm out the workers to other projects, which occurred early in 21st century. (Yes, I’m going to speak of the century in these terms now. It’s 2008, so don’t complain.) As a result of this decision, there will never be a Dungeon Keeper III or another version of Populous.

But even EA can learn from its mistakes. In this article, EA’s CEO acknowledges that “These were great studios that created great products and yet these places no longer exist today… Something broke, it didn’t happen as we or they dreamed it. I would state simply that we at EA blew it, and I was involved so I can say I blew it.”

Yes, you blew it. And EA has posted some losses recently. But perhaps EA can learn from its mistakes. In any event, I accept Riccitiello’s apology. There will be no future releases from a developer whose products I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope that EA will fill in the gap they themselves have created.

Doing so will go a long way to winning over gamers with long memories. I know I’m not the only one.

Let me preface this blog by thanking MobyGames for all of their high quality screenshots of classic games. Without their hard work and their kind permission to repost the screenshots in question, this post would not have been possible. Thanks a million!

Regulars here at Avault will have recently seen my review of Crysis and the very specific warnings I related about the game’s stiff system requirements. While there’s no denying that trend in PC gaming is always toward programs that utilize more and more processing power, memory and storage space, Crysis bore special mention because its requirements are beyond even those of its contemporaries, in some cases significantly higher. For many hardcore gamers, whose systems easily exceed the minimum requirements for Crysis, I’m betting my warning was merely seen as a justification for their extremely high end systems and then ignored. In fact, I’d be disappointed if anyone with a top of the line Alienware system felt intimidated by my statements.

However, we few, we happy few, who are PC gamers are not just gamers — we are also consumers of a variety of technological products that go beyond the games themselves, including operating systems, hard drives, RAM, CPUs, video cards, sound cards, network cards, modems, Internet connections, mice, keyboards, speakers (or a connection to a real stereo if you’re an audiophile like me), surge protectors, monitors, CD-RWs, DVD, DVD-RW, thumb drives and probably a few other things I’ve left out. Each of these items has some impact on the quality of your PC gaming experience. Some, such as DVD and CD drives, are not a big deal anymore since games tend to store almost everything on the hard drive. Others, such as the Internet connection, may be extremely important for gamers who think multiplayer is the end all and be all of gaming, while unimportant to other gamers.

However, as consumers, when new games come along that require substantial upgrades to even play, we should ask ourselves how much better are the features versus how much more computing resources it takes to achieve this new level of gaming. After having seen the best graphics games have to offer ever since the ’80s, I’m beginning to wonder if graphics have reached a plateau in terms of quality versus performance.

Let’s start by tracing the development of graphics in PC gaming over the past 30 years by using the easiest barometer available: screenshots. And where better to start than with one of the most popular games of all time, a game that started an entire franchise that continues to this day. I’m talking about the original Ultima, known variously as Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, Ultima I, and even just Ultima. Originally released in 1980 for the venerable Apple II, it was so popular it was ported, recoded and re-released several times, the latest of which was in a collection published in 1998 for DOS. Ultima’s legacy set the standard for every CRPG to follow, having more impact than even venerable franchises such as Final Fantasy. But what did computer graphics look like in 1980? See for yourself:

That giant rat looks frightening, doesn’t it? Well, maybe not to jaded tastes that have seen Oblivion, but it’s not too bad, considering the computing power of an Apple II. According to Wikipedia, the Apple II+ had a 1 MHz processor, 48 KB RAM, a cassette drive (remember cassettes as storage media?) and an old school 5 1/4 inch disk drive. The cost? $1,200 in 1979-1980, which is roughly $3,400 after adjusting for inflation. Now, before my fellow hardware nuts start pointing out how processor cycles, RAM and storage media capacity are not meaningful when compared to the same stats today, let me say I know. I’m merely simplifying things to keep the argument simple and to point out very broad trends. (Believe me, I know what total, ahem, bull, it was to compare MHz when looking at the performance of RISC and SISC processors back in the day.)

Such difficulties in comparison don’t obviate my claim; compared with computer capabilities today, you could store the Apple II OS, the entire library of its games and run several copies at the same time… with your video card. And this isn’t to say that the Apple II was a piece of junk; I’m just pointing out how far we’ve come in terms of hardware and in terms of graphics. Alright, so that’s what top of the line gaming looked like in 1980.

By 1986, graphics had improved somewhat, but more important, the games had gotten better. That fateful year in gaming saw the release of The Legend of Zelda and Metroid for consoles in Japan (yet two more franchises that are still making money), but for the PC, the best of the best was Starflight. This open-ended science fiction game included starship battles, roleplaying, exploration and a non-linear plot, all of which are the sorts of gaming elements we still talk about. It also looked pretty good in DOS:

If you played this game in DOS, you might have done it on an IBM PC AT with an Intel 80286 6 MHz processor, 512 KB RAM, perhaps a 10 or 20 MB harddrive and an EGA graphics mode. So, for a 6x increase in processor power and a 10x increase in RAM, you got those graphics. The cost? As much as $6,000 in 1984, which is about $11,500 when adjusting for inflation.

The years rolled by until a little company called id was founded by John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack. In 1992, they released Wolfenstein 3D and made history. First person shooters were now a mainstream genre and the first choice for those craving cutting edge graphics. And in 1992, this is what cutting edge looked like. Note the pseudo-3D perspective:

By this time, PCs and their ilk were running around 25 MHz, but by the time Doom came out, you could find machines running at 50 or even 60 MHz. As for RAM, you might have two megs. Cost? Well, by this point, prices were dropping dramatically. An Amiga 1200 sold for $599 in 1992, which is $900 when adjusted for inflation. Competition in the market was good for consumers, obviously.

By 1996, Blizzard Entertainment was making money hand over fist, and it was because of Diablo. While the reasons for Diablo’s success are legion, it’s graphics represented a gold standard for what we expected from all of our games. They look dated now, but the isometric 3D perspective would serve Blizzard well for years to come, including use in games such as Starcraft and Diablo II:

Diablo required only modest improvements in system requirements: 60MHz processor, 8 MBs RAM (16 for multiplayer) an SVGA video card, a 2X CD-ROM and Windows 95.

But within three years, both games and computers began ramping up their resources. 1999 saw the release of Aliens versus Predator for the PC. In the old days of Avault, this game garnered the Seal of Approval. I know, because I didn’t purchase it until the reviewers gave it the thumbs up. The graphics for it were, and are, simply wonderful. Not only do they have decent polygon counts and good color depth, but you really pay for three different video display modes because each race views the game world differently. Furthermore, Predators and Marines have extra vision modes, further multiplying the graphics wonders of this title. And the screenshots prove it. Take a look:

Thanks to the combination of excellent graphics and some brilliant sound, the game was very scary when you were on the defensive. I never did, and still will not, play the game as the Marine with the lights off. You also felt the distinct rush of slowly, stealthily stalking your prey while playing as the Predator and Alien. Great graphics also helped this game earn its Mature ESRB game rating (head-bites, dismembering, blood splattering everywhere). All of these good graphics required hefty system requirements. Three years after Diablo, AvP required 200 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 64 MB harddrive space and Windows 98.

For the next few years, clones of Doom were everywhere. But in 2004, id proved it still had the midas touch when it released Doom 3. Doom 3 garnered nearly unanimous praise for a variety of things, including a return to Doom’s simpler gameplay in the face of ever more complex shooters. The worst thing anyone could say about Doom 3 was that duct tape should have been standard issue for any Marine who might have to fight in the dark. The graphics were great and required some hefty system requirements: 1.5 GHz CPU, 384 MB RAM, 64 MB video card and 2.2 gigabytes of harddrive space. These are the graphics that resulted:

Notice the attention to detail. Also notice the nice polygon counts. You can’t say you didn’t get your money’s worth; however, you’ll notice that the progress of graphical improvement has slowed since AvP. The system requirements are nearly seven times as high, but are the graphics seven times better?By 2006, another landmark title had been released: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I could spend a few hours citing various reviewers who loved this game, but who has time to do that? Instead, let’s just summarize it by saying Bethesda Game Studios earned every single penny of profit they have received for this game. And no wonder: between open-ended gameplay, a robust character generation and advancement system, and excellent voice acting from such notable actors as Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean, the game did everything right. The lack of multiplayer did not seem to hurt its sales in the least. Furthermore, the graphics are gorgeous. I just played it again last night, and they’re still engaging. Yet the system requirements have gotten even harsher. Here’s what a 2 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 128 MB video card and a 4.6 GB harddrive would get you:

Are these graphics better than Doom 3? I think so, and probably some of you would agree with me. But the system requirements are twice that of Doom 3. Are the graphics twice as good? It’s a hard call.

All of this discussion of system requirements and screenshots has been leading up to a comparison with Crysis. This game needs no introduction; if, for some reason, it does, go read my review. Even if you think I need my head examined, Metacritic indicates that Crysis has a combined score of 91/100. In academic circles, we’d call that “critical consensus,” and it’s very favorable. Like it or not, this title is going to become a benchmark for both shooters in general and graphics in particular. There’s even some talk that it has the best graphics of any game to date. We may not know for a few months, if only because even top of the line systems have a hard time going beyond “medium” for graphics. Take a look at the screenshots and make your own decision:

And what kind of system do you need in order to take advantage of these graphics? A 2.8 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, 256 MB video card and 12 GB harddrive space. However, if you’re not running Windows Vista and DirectX10, you miss out on some DirectX10-only features of the game engine (I’ll rant about DirectX10 and non-Vista users later). Those requirements are about twice that of Oblivion. Yes, they’re impressive. But does anyone reading this think they’re actually twice as good?I don’t think so; however, the point of this article is not to begin bashing EA for releasing a game with high system requirements. In fact, if anything, their decision to release the game in its current form seems to be a sound business decision. Crysis will continue to generate sales for years, and EA has nothing to fear from another game coming out and rendeirng their top title obsolete.

Furthermore, as my previous statements about the price of computers makes clear, computer prices have tended to drop over the years as you adjust for inflation. Even Alienware’s most overpriced models have comparable prices to the Apple II and IBM PC AT when they were first released.

Instead, I’m trying to make a very different point. Specifically, that while Moore’s Law may predict that the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit increases exponentially, the improvement of graphics quality over time does not. In fact, it seems that the rate of improvement in graphics has slowed down ever since games gained 3D graphics while their system requirements have kept up with Moore’s Law. Part of this is because other aspects of games have gotten more bloated as time has worn on. Voice acting eats up the harddrive space, while detailed inventories and item creation routines in CRPGs utilize more RAM.

And, of course, Windows has gotten more bloated over time as well, meaning that more processor cycles and RAM is used just to turn on the computer and get to your own desktop.

But on the other hand, we seem to have reached a point where PC games, despite the demand for titles that look stunning, are not going to improve their appearance by leaps and bounds every generation. The hardware doesn’t seem to be able to support it. Yes, I concede that CGI in Hollywood movies will continue to get better, but coding a CGI fight scene in a movie is not the same as coding a 3D first person shooter wherein the physics, camera views, object shapes, decals and lighting are all variable and subject to change at a moment’s notice and at the whim of a player.

If the hardware isn’t going support leaps and bounds in graphics, then what have we to hope for? That depends. If Rock’s Law is correct, then the cost of a semi-conductor plant will double every four years. While this adage has been challenged for its veracity, the general trend does seem to be that it is getting more expensive to improve the production of integrated circuits and research new techniques. Furthermore, Moore’s Law may become obsolete as researchers finally get a handle on nanotechnology and build integrated circuits that utilize molecular-size components. Keeping these things in mind, on the one hand, we have the possibility for soaring production costs to slow down the hardware race in PCs, which will further plateau improvements in graphics. On the other, we have technological limitations that will slow down improvements in processors. These two factors conspire to arrest the development of graphics in PCs.

The question seems to be whether or not there will be some sort of breakthrough in either computer design or programming that will grant us the next massive improvement in graphics within the next few years. There will have to be; we cannot rely on the old trend of faster CPUs and more efficient memory to enable programmers and developers to satisfy our insatiable desire for graphically intense titles.

Review these screenshots and tell me if you think I’m right:

As those who have read my bio on Avault might have noticed, I claim to have very little skill in multiplayer. (If you haven’t noticed because you haven’t read my bio on the main blog page, just smile and nod.) While there are probably a thousand reasons why I’m not brilliant at multiplayer, what’s more interesting is that despite my obvious failings when facing humans in mortal combat, I actually do enjoy it. However, I don’t find myself playing against my human friends very often. Instead, we play co-op: two humans, battling together against the forces of [insert currently preferred antagonist here] and triumphing against carefully constructed and measured odds.

While it might be tempting to read my statements, combined with my previous blog entries, and conclude that I only play CRPGS in multiplayer, you’d be quite mistaken. A good friend of mine and I spent countless hours killing, and being killed, by neverending swarms of xenomorphs in the original Aliens versus Predator. We also played the ultimate in marathon gaming, Age of Empires 2 — the two of us versus the maximum number of AI opponents on the highest difficulty. Some of those games would last for over six hours, requiring multiple breaks for food, beverages, restrooms and the requisite strategy sessions. Of course, playing cooperative multiplayer with my beloved was a different experience altogether, especially when we would play the original Crusader Kings. There’s nothing like having this discussion with the woman you love:

Me: You know, my ruler’s son just came of age and he needs a wife. I see you have a good candidate in your court.

Her: You mean my ruler’s niece?

Me: Yeah. She’s kinda hot.

Her: What are you talking about, her character portrait is fugly.

Me: Sure, but look at her stewardship rating. And what guy wouldn’t drool over her huge tracks of land.

Her: Large tracks of land, eh? Do you mean…

Me: Yes, it’s what your thinking.

Her: Well, don’t get your hopes up. My ruler is about to change his inheritance law to Salic Primogeniture, so your son won’t be in line to inherit those huge tracks of land.

Me: Damn. That’s what your dad told me just the other day.

Her: What was that?

Me: Oh, nothing.

Of course, this is not to say that I do not enjoy CRPGS in cooperative multiplayer; I’ve played countless hours of Bioware’s original NWN and its expansions (not its lackluster sequel by Obsidian). But I’ve often wondered, if we leave aside all those disagreeable players who use the words “n00b” and “pwned” a billion times a game, how many of my fellow gamers play various RTS, grand strategy and FPS titles in a mostly cooperative mode? Am I really such a strange breed of gamer, aside from my numerous other quirks?

What do you think?

Every once in a while, when problems in the apartment get to be too much, I make rash decisions. And so, it was one fine day, almost a year ago, when my cat Iago was busily chewing on yet another network cable only minutes after he had chewed completely through the mouse cord, that I decided wireless networking was for me. Without checking online for hardware reviews, I jumped in my car, drove to Best Buy and practically ran to the networking section. Much to my delight, NETGEAR products were on sale. For around $100, I walked out of Best Buy with a NETGEAR WGT624SC router and three WPN111 USB wireless networking adapters. It seemed I’d have my apartment networked in about 30 minutes, and this time there would be no cords for Iago to chew upon.

I was right. I did have my apartment networked and ready to go within 30 minutes. The joke was on me, however, because I had paid $100 for what amounted to excrement, laced with transistors and a USB port.

Had I bothered to check online, I would’ve never been surprised by the high temperatures these USB network adapters achieved while in use. Had I bothered to do my homework, I would’ve known they use a disproportionate amount of CPU cycles for a product of their type. Had I spent about a week crawling through tech support forums, I would’ve realized that the blue screen of death, resulting from a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL issue with wpn111.sys commonly occurs when transferring large files over the LAN or downloading 50 MB files or larger from the Internet.

Of course, no amount of research would’ve told me that any wireless network that has password protocols and is not a NETGEAR router would be difficult to access, even if I have the proper password and tell NETGEAR’s software what encryption protocol is in use (i.e. my apartment complex’s free wireless network at the pool, which is password protected so only tenets can use it). Also, no amount of research would’ve revealed that the NETGEAR router would sometimes forget that it was connected to the DSL, or, alternatively, that wireless adapters were connected to it, requiring periodic shutdowns and restarts.

For those wondering what networking in a home with WPN111 adapters is like, imagine you’ve decided to play your favorite multiplayer game online. Now imagine getting 10 minutes into it, and the WPN111 has gotten so hot that you have to remove it from the USB port because the USB is no longer functioning properly. You cancel you game and let the adapter and USB port cool down, and then decide to go watch some clips from Mystery Science Theater 3000 on YouTube to improve your mood. After watching five minutes of a montage of The Final Sacrifice, the computer flashes the blue screen of death, indicating that a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error has occurred with the WPN111.sys software, requiring a restart. After restarting, you can’t access the Internet because the router has forgotten it’s connected to the DSL line. You restart the router and go to Windows Update to look for a driver you’ve heard rumors of. You install the driver for your hardware posted on Windows Update, and you lose all networking ability, requiring you to roll back Windows to the point in time prior to installing those drivers. After all that, you would love to play a single-player game, but you can’t because you’ve frittered away your entire evening dealing with networking issues and it’s time for bed.

The next day, you take the laptop to school and use the WPN111 adapter to access the free wireless networking on campus. This works great until it overheats again, except this time it’s overheating a USB port on a laptop where the distance between the overheating USB port and the CPU is about three inches. Thankfully, the laptop isn’t destroyed, but not for lack of thermal effort on the part of the adapter.

Now, I could blame this all on my Iago, and to a certain extent, it is his fault. I had no real need for wireless networking until he declared war on all computer cables (for the record, I have wireless mice and keyboards now, along with several pairs of rechargeable batteries). I could also blame NETGEAR for their terrible product, and part of my troubles can be blamed on them. But the blame also rests on me for not doing my homework and checking up on such a product before purchasing. Had I done my research, I wouldn’t have had to spend a second $100 on an entirely new wireless networking scheme for my apartment (D-Link this time).

In honor of my lesson on always doing research, let me award the NETGEAR WPN111 the first Cave of Spleen Award. The Cave of Spleen Award is intended for computer products that are more than just bad; they are so frustrating and bothersome they cause significant anger on my part. If a computer product causes me to hear Emperor Palpatine’s voice inside my head saying “Give into your hate,” then it’ll receive this dubious distinction.