PC vs Console (featuring Fallout: New Vegas)

[General Zod]

I gotta say I'm getting mighty sick of the load times in this game. Every single time I enter a new area, fast travel or even open a fucking menu I get hit with lag from hell.


Mod Note: Split this from the New Vegas thread. This is the second time we've had a PC vs Console bitch session. We locked the first one, but apparently you people are just grimly determined to hash this out, so go nuts. If you don't like it, look away. However, I will be holding you assholes to reasonable standards of debating, so don't fuck this up. --Lagmonster

[Chaotic Neutral]

Don't forget the various performance mods from the Nexus. It runs much much better after you get them.

[General Zod]

Don't forget the various performance mods from the Nexus. It runs much much better after you get them.

Do I really need to explain that you can't mod a 360 again?

[Chaotic Neutral]

Oh, sorry. I guess you will learn next time.

[General Zod]

Oh, sorry. I guess you will learn next time.

How about you take the pc gaming elitism and shove it up your ass? This is a case of the developers sucking shit, not a point where PC games are "clearly superior" or whatever.

[Chaotic Neutral]

If I pay the same, and get something better, then it's "a point where PC games are clearly superior".

[General Zod]

If I pay the same, and get something better, then it's "a point where PC games are clearly superior".

It's not better when the user has to go in and fix the developer's mistakes, you dumb twat. But I guess PC gamers are used to getting substandard products.

[Chaotic Neutral]

I suppose it's better without fixes then?

[General Zod]

I suppose it's better without fixes then?

It shouldn't need fixing at all. But then again the developers probably realize there's a horde of apologetic morons out there like you ready to make excuses for them and do the work that they're too fucking lazy to.

[Chaotic Neutral]

So why did you buy something you know is crap AND you know is unfixable?

And what are these "mistakes" you are speaking of? Not coming with 40k already installed?

[General Zod]

So why did you buy something you know is crap AND you know is unfixable?

If a game turns out to be crap I can always trade it in. Then again maybe that's why you're working so hard to defend shitty developers.

[Chardok]

I don't think you're understanding Zodkins' argument. the product itself is neither superior or inferior on one platform or the other. it is a product, and it was developed by braindead morons who don't understand how to QA their own products. (Keep in mind, this critique is coming from someone who LOVES pretty much all things Fallout) The fact that other people can move in on PC and fix the dumbshit errors that the devs couldn't points to a fundamental flaw in not the platform of presentation, but the tenet held by devs that "Fuck it - we can patch later" or "Modders will fix it." That is to say - it may look prettier on the PC - but it still has all of the flaws of the console version. In other words - if a thing is a piece of shit, and someone shows up and dips it in chocolate, it's still shit, and devs who do things like this should be taken to task over it.

One could argue that the fact that modders are ABLE and often do come in and "Fix" the problems the devs couldn't or didn't is perpetuating the overall CORE issue. What does that mean? Yeah, I'll say it - PC games are shit. Fuck off.

[Chaotic Neutral]

Yes, but for PC games to be shit, console games must ALSO be shit, as they are the SAME games.

Except with the PC, you can fix it, and on the consoles, you can't.

[Chardok]

Yes, but for PC games to be shit, console games must ALSO be shit, as they are the SAME games.

Except with the PC, you can fix it, and on the consoles, you can't.

I was right, you don't understand.

[General Zod]

Yes, but for PC games to be shit, console games must ALSO be shit, as they are the SAME games.

Except with the PC, you can fix it, and on the consoles, you can't.

Except the end user shouldn't have to fix it. It's apologetic morons like you that let developers continue releasing substandard games.

[Chaotic Neutral]

So I guess if we all bought console games, the quality would rise?

And by rise, I mean fall, because there is no legal way to have 40K in my Fallout, and I don't care about stability as long as it isn't game-breaking.

[General Zod]

So I guess if we all bought console games, the quality would rise?

Or you could stop making excuses for developers being obviously shit.

[The Yosemite Bear]

hey were fallout fans, if it wasn't buggy as all shit, it wouldn't have been created by brian fargo, and or inspired by him.

[Xon]

Except the end user shouldn't have to fix it. It's apologetic morons like you that let developers continue releasing substandard games.

Or you could stop making excuses for developers being obviously shit.

You have 2 choices; play with buggy software and get the fixes as the problems are discovered and fixed, or wait for multi-decades for the developers to actually debug the sucker to a significant extend, and even then it will be buggy.

News flash; it is physically imposible to inspect source code to discover all game breaking bugs for any non-trivial codebase(NP problems are a bitch). The maths and logic is quite complex, but it is fundmentally an unsolvable problem or will just take a few trillion multipules of the current lifetime of the universe.

[General Zod]

You have 2 choices; play with buggy software and get the fixes as the problems are discovered and fixed, or wait for multi-decades for the developers to actually debug the sucker to a significant extend, and even then it will be buggy.

News flash; it is physically imposible to inspect source code to discover all game breaking bugs for any non-trivial codebase(NP problems are a bitch). The maths and logic is quite complex, but it is fundmentally an unsolvable problem or will just take a few trillion multipules of the current lifetime of the universe.

Did you even read the things I was complaining about before the chaotic retard started babbling or did you just want to see yourself type? I expect game breaking bugs from scripting and character choices, I can work around those (even if it's no excuse for shitty development). What I can't deal with are simple problems such as obscene load times and menus that lag to holy hell for no viable reason. And frankly I don't feel like playing most games on a tiny PC monitor when I have a perfectly good 47" HDTV. Besides, I can always trade-in a console game that turns out to be shitty. No such luck with PC games.

[Xon]

All I'm reading is waaaaah post complete with a fundmental misunderstanding of the nature of software development.

Games have utterly microscopic development times for how complex they are, they have to prioritize what inevitable bugs they can fix. Throw in multi-system ports which have fundementally different hardware and often major consessions in game design for it even fit on the consoles, it's a wonder the game even works to begin with.

Also, the PC version has the following requirements;

Minimum requirements:
OS: Windows 7/Vista/XP
CPU: dual core 2.0 GHz
Memory: 2GB RAM
Storage: 10GB free hard drive space

No shit the console version runs like ass. It has between 1/8 to 1/4 the memory, and signficantly less CPU power to throw at it, and has the design constraint that it must allow streaming off the DVD media rather than just loading purely from the harddrive. Fallout New Vegas is also an RPG, which historically have many areas in which gameplay takes place and will require moving between these regions frequently.

Technologically wise, you picked an utterly inferior system for the type of game you are playing. This is going to have major impact on what the game can do, and the perceived performance. Fallout New Vegas has had slightly more than a single year of development time, it was never going to be dramatically distinct to Fallout 3 engine wise, and it isn't. Almost all the issues you are bitching about existed in Fallout 3.

[Stark]

That's his point. Its years later and the engine is still fundamentally broken. He doesn't consider this acceptable - doubly so since console users haven't been trained to tolerate QA failure the way PC users have; and you're basically claiming all those games that DON'T have game-breaking quest-scripting bugs are just plain lucky, which is absurd.

And since F3 worked pretty much fine with 'lod to shit' and 'turn off the bloom' on 360, I think any claim that its 'an utterly inferior system for the type of game you are playing' is pretty stupid.

[Xon]

That's his point. Its years later and the engine is still fundamentally broken.

Fallout 3 was release in Q4 2008, Fallout New vegas was anounced in Q3 2009, released in Q4 2010. Fallout New Vegas is a glorified content addon, with very little actual under-the-hood changes. Fallout New vegas never could be fixing fundmental issues with the engine. It simply never had the development time to rebuild how content is loaded from disk which has an amazing impact on level design.

He doesn't consider this acceptable - doubly so since console users haven't been trained to tolerate QA failure the way PC users have; and you're basically claiming all those games that DON'T have game-breaking quest-scripting bugs are just plain lucky, which is absurd.

I'm claiming QA is not going to catch a fraction of the issues with any given product because there isn't time nor is it physically posible to. Bitching it doesn't work the first time, and expecting it to be released quickly is amazingly stupid and ignorant.

Go play COD/Modern warfare/whatever the fuck it's called now/etc if you want quick release iterations of the same damn game. That type of game and release style works because everything is on the same damn map, the interactions between actors/players are a handfull of operations and there is almost no scripting to go wrong.

And since F3 worked pretty much fine with 'lod to shit' and 'turn off the bloom' on 360, I think any claim that its 'an utterly inferior system for the type of game you are playing' is pretty stupid.

Never mind the console versions had dramatically reduced textures so they could fit in memory, and I'm sure turning down how far you could see never would have an impact on gameplay. It probably helped all the weapons ranges where utterly nerfed in Fallout 3 so you couldn't even try to use them at any range. Fallout New vegas weapon ranges are dramatically higher for some weapons, which has major gameplay implications if the fade distance level of detail is turned up from "can't see shit"

[Stark]

Fallout 3 was release in Q4 2008, Fallout New vegas was anounced in Q3 2009, released in Q4 2010. Fallout New Vegas is a glorified content addon, with very little actual under-the-hood changes. Fallout New vegas never could be fixing fundmental issues with the engine. It simply never had the development time to rebuild how content is loaded from disk which has an amazing impact on level design.

So... what? They're still selling a product based on broken shit... and if its still the engine from Oblivion, just hacked to shit, that's even worse.

I'm claiming QA is not going to catch a fraction of the issues with any given product because there isn't time nor is it physically posible to. Bitching it doesn't work the first time, and expecting it to be released quickly is amazingly stupid and ignorant.

Are you saying that it's 'amazingly stupid' to expect any game to have a standard of polish better than Fallout New Vegas?

Go play COD/Modern warfare/whatever the fuck it's called now/etc if you want quick release iterations of the same damn game. That type of game and release style works because everything is on the same damn map, the interactions between actors/players are a handfull of operations and there is almost no scripting to go wrong.

If only Fallout New Vegas had a staff of quest scripters to check the ... oh ... wait.

Never mind the console versions had dramatically reduced textures so they could fit in memory, and I'm sure turning down how far you could see never would have an impact on gameplay. It probably helped all the weapons ranges where utterly nerfed in Fallout 3 so you couldn't even try to use them at any range. Fallout New vegas weapon ranges are dramatically higher for some weapons, which has major gameplay implications if the fade distance level of detail is turned up.

I ... just said that, idiot. You're claiming that 'big areas' and 'quest scripting' are impossible on console, which is obviously false. F3 looks like dogshit on a console, but that's not why quests bug out due to poor testing or whatever.

I'm not seeing how 'LOD means you can't sniper-cheese a game' is at all related to your previous claims that its okay when games have bugs on console because its 'an utterly inferior system for the type of game you are playing'... especially when cutting down tex and lodding detail significantly reduces what has to be moved around. I'd also like to see you address that most people on console are going to be playing Fallout New Vegas off the HDD anyway, just like on a PC. Hell, lower standards of GFX nose-hairs on console should save dev time so they can check the quest scripting more than once, which should help them release a game that isn't a pile of bugs.

[Xon]

The truely hilarious thing is the loading issue General Zod is complaining about is purely an artifact of console's lack of memory. And has been historically the case for Oblivion and Fallout 3. Adding polish and fixing scripting bugs requires time and significant resources, and those requirements increase exponential based on the project side. Not linearly, not in polynomial-time, Exponential time, and almost always non-deterministic too boot.

FNV has a large number of multi-stage quests with very high potential for interaction between different quests at vastly different stages. It is quite trivial for any part of the process go very wrong. Any change which introduces new potential branches in the code/scripting/content will result in an exponential increase in complexity.

Also amusing is your suggestion of turning LOD fade distance to minimum, means any practically every creature encounters will be inside that creature's attack radius.