YapaPanda

I have a pretty dope connection, but during the summer months, storms have a tendency to knock out internet. I don't know about other people but when I don't have the internet, I tend to play games. That is a problem I have with steam too because even though they have an offline mode, it requires foresight to activate (you have to log-in, authenticate and then restart offline). If my internet gets knocked out, I want to play games I payed for at that moment. Granted I may be an edge case, because I am a single player gamer in the age of multiplayer/co-op.

So posting this as a fyi for people. Not sure how many people have seen it. Basically auto-updates and social features are not behind the paywall anymore (which I actually didn't expect cause I thought Sony wanted more people to pay). I may actually buy a console this generation.

"If you choose not to subscribe we are still gating relatively little in many senses, so access to online catch-up TV and online movie services sit outside of the gate, for example. The social features of PS4 and PS4 games sit out of the subscription service... things like auto-updates on PS4 sit outside of PlayStation Plus, so we're trying to be as balanced and as fair as we possibly can. If you choose to pay the subscription, yes, you get one important element of modern-day gameplay, but you also get fantastic value in games, including the PlayStation Plus Edition of DriveClub."

Full article: http://www.videogamer.com/news/sony_details_ps4_playstation_plus_changes.html

This was discussed by Cerny in a Gamasutra article a while ago (very interesting article, should give it a full read). Sounds like essentially, the PlayGo system they use for playing digital games while downloading is being used for disc based games as well. What I wonder is how this will change game design for the beginning of games since I assume there is a size limit to ensure this works. Link: Inside the PlayStation 4 With Mark Cerny

Cerny said (from article):

"So, what we do as the game accesses the Blu-ray disc, is we take any data that was accessed and we put it on the hard drive. And if then if there is idle time, we go ahead and copy the remaining data to the hard drive. And what that means is after an hour or two, the game is on the hard drive, and you have access, you have dramatically quicker loading... And you have the ability to do some truly high-speed streaming."

To further help the Blu-ray along, the system also has a unit to support zlib decompression -- so developers can confidently compress all of their game data and know the system will decode it on the fly. "As a minimum, our vision is that our games are zlib compressed on media," said Cerny.

@andorski: Adam Boyes on the GIant Bomb E3 Day Three stream mentioned that the touchpad is 1900x1800 touchpad that can detect which corner is clicked in. I'm not knowledgeable about touchpads (so correct me if I'm wrong) but that sounds pretty high for such a small area? I tried looking up how high the Apple trackpads are but couldn't find it when I google'd it.

Just thinking of the top of my head, mouse gestures at the game or os level that does certain commands like in chrome or firefox would be cool. Like a quick save/load for games like skyrim would be super awesome. That would cut like hours of non-gameplay off my playtime (fiddling with menus).

Tell someone else about the room, lock the door and wait till I hear the explosion. Then go in and collect my money.

Definitely Sony. I also want to add that I feel vindicated for all these years of following Giant Bomb after the Sony press conference. Super Giant Games and Adam Boyes? If Brad Muir and John Vignocchi showed up, I would have shit myself. Also Jack Tretton is the best figurehead of the big three. He will shank a mofo.

I don't know guys, this looks INCREDIBLE. INCRRRREEEEDDIIIIIIIIBBBLE. Ok I'm back in games you guys.

Hi guys, I like DOTA2 but random asshats on the internet made me stop. Looking to get back in with the GB Community.

Steam: yapapanda

Location: US East (Most of the time

Experience: Intermediate? Its been a while

Roles: Carry or Pusher

@raremonkey: thanks for the game, but I think I and the duder who won the darkness must have gotten each others codes.

Hasn't the beta for HOTS been lackluster? I don't play Starcraft 2 but my understanding is that the big MOBAs have eroded away people who would play it. I wonder how much traffic they are anticipating.