Today in Gaming

OH. MY. GOD. NEW IDOLM@STER WITH NEW GAMEPLAY AND GORGEOUS CHARACTER MODELS! THE PART ABOUT THE NEW CROWD THINGS IS SUPER EXCITING. I AM SUPER EXCITED. Not sure if I should I just try to get it as soon as guide-ish things come out or if I should wait and see if it'll be the first non-mobile IM@S game to be localized...... EITHER WAY, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING <3

hnggh blue haired heroine again. they don't really get ...happy ending, do they? i want feena back already.

i like the artwork guy this time around, does anyone knows the artist's name? the character design is gorgeous and the usage of color is simply stunning. and adol doesn't look like a generic teenage hero, well i guess that was attributed by his age being 21 for this game.



guess adol's not going to for shield in this game too.

Excuse me for a second...

http://www.siliconera.com/2016/01/29/rise-manas-adventure-coming-end-march/

Quote :

they’ll look into finding ways to bring it back in another form.

HOW ABOUT NOT AS A FUCKING MOBILE TITLE YOU FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT

*cough* sorry. I get emotional about this series and I'm totally fed up with how they're treating it.

Anyway, F2P and iOS/Android/Vita is what killed it, as well as not giving it a western localization. Port that shit to PC on Steam with a fair purchase price and without the pay-to-win microtransaction shit and all the Mana fans in the fucking world will lap it up.

(Note that this is a different title than Adventures of Mana, which they're giving the iOS and Android versions an english localization but NOT the Vita version...)

Dear god it's beautiful. COME ON NAMCO, 10th ANNIVERSARY, DO IT, JUST FUCKING DO IT

I'm also glad that this confirms real rhythm game mechanics instead of just clapping along. I hope they make more difficult modes though, because that looked like an Easy difficulty.

http://aksysgames.com/aepa/

Acquire's Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault was announced at some point and got no buzz despite coming out at the end of March. Coming to PS4, PS3 and Vita, control a giant city cannon to fight kaiju.

SEGA is localizing 7th Dragon III Code VDF

https://twitter.com/SEGA/status/694621797719756800

HOLY SHIT, THEY ARE LOCALIZING A 7TH DRAGON GAME!

Yup, Sega's been cool again for the last couple years. It's a good time to be an anime nerd with Namco and Sega localizing a bunch of stuff we didn't think we'd get. Now for Idolmaster...

http://www.siliconera.com/2016/02/04/adventures-mana-now-available-producer-shares-message-fans/

"...making it more comfortable and intuitive to play, as befits a modern game."

That is not how you describe touch screen controls. ಠ_ಠ

Taiyz wrote:

https://twitter.com/SQUARE_ENIX_EU/status/695626940640858112

TENSHI COME HERE RIGHT NOW

Yeah I saw earlier but didn't have time to figure out how to log in from my phone while at work.

Commented on the blog post now. A simple one sentence request wouldn't do - I went with something more heartfelt even though it still counts as just one voice.

I wrote:

I have been a fan of this series since its inception on the Game Boy in 1991. I have fond memories of playing through the original Final Fantasy Adventure as a kid. Secret of Mana on the SNES is one of my favorite games of all time and will forever be an important part of my history as a gamer. I weathered the disappointment as you passed up the opportunity to localize Seiken Densetsu 3, and later soaked in the beautiful art style of Legend of Mana on the PS1. I experienced the beginning of the series anew as I played Sword of Mana on my GBA between classes and study sessions in college. I even stuck around as you tried to experiment and fix what wasn't broken with Children of Mana and Heroes of Mana on the Nintendo DS, and Dawn of Mana on the PS2. Aside from Heroes of Mana they were still fun in their own way even if they played completely different, and the visuals, music, and story of Dawn of Mana really struck a nostalgic chord with me.

I was happy to hear that after all these years we were getting the opportunity to return to the world of Mana in Adventures of Mana, but extremely disappointed you were passing on the one version I would like to play. While I have an Android phone, the whole "touch screen gaming" thing never caught on with me. I would be extremely happy if you were to localize the Vita version so that I could play with a normal controller, just like old times.

Sincerely,
A long-time fan in whom you have sown the seeds of Mana

http://goo.gl/forms/QSw5SCYUjw

This is a fan thing but it's another way of getting the word out. These are all great Vita titles that I personally wanna see over here (or in the case of Gal Gunvolt and Freedom Planet, on the PS4 as well.)

As for the Other game suggestion by itself on the final page of the survey, I'd like to suggest Bullet Girls 2 if you can't think of anything.

^
Are you interested in purchasing Adventures of Mana on iOS or Android?

[  ] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Only if you beg
[  ] Absolutely not
[✓] Not a chance in hell

...or maybe I would. If they don't localize the Vita version, then it comes down to:

If I don't buy it on iOS/Android, I'm not telling them I want more of the series, which is bad.

If I do buy it on iOS/Android, I'm telling them I want more of the series on iOS/Android, which is also bad.

I really want to avoid this dilemma...

Looks like Titanfall 2 might be coming this year, instead of early next year like some reports have claimed. That would be great because this year's COD is probably Ghosts 2, and I don't think I'll be playing that.

http://www.destructoid.com/is-titanfall-2-coming-sooner-than-we-think--340677.phtml

That IM@S trailer was utterly beautiful.....

Taiyz wrote:

Dear god it's beautiful. COME ON NAMCO, 10th ANNIVERSARY, DO IT, JUST FUCKING DO IT

I'm also glad that this confirms real rhythm game mechanics instead of just clapping along. I hope they make more difficult modes though, because that looked like an Easy difficulty.

You also an im@s fan Taiyz? Nice. We gotta convert Falcom to im@s too. But he's too lazy to watch it.

I want this. I want this badly. I might import it just because it's so beautiful.

And yes more 765 Pro. Star Platinum saves Haruka and crew from the boatload of CG overload (I don't like CG. The anime turned me off so bad).

I haven't actually watched it, I've just been a casual observer of the franchise since day 1. I also listened to their song that's in the Beautiful Katamari OST more than you could imagine, even while playing other 360 games I'd throw the BK OST on through media streaming (it's a shame that it came late to the PS4 party and isn't incorporated into games well yet,) it's definitely one of the highlights.

But, considering that this is the first real non-SIM game on a platform I could play (aka not iOS or PSP,) I'm pretty hyped.

I do plan on watching the anime and Cinderella Girls though, I've got the latter downloaded currently because I assume the order doesn't matter.

Shiv and Taiyz. So based. COme on Falcom...join in the fun of im@s.

Well I hope you do find CG fun. Compared to the 765 anime, it was not that enjoyable for me. And what turns me off even more is that my fave girl prior to watching the anime (Anastasia) lacks any real kind of character at all in the show. I describe her as a Doll. A beautiful doll, but empty aside from her gimmick/foreign appeal.

A Super Robot Wars game in English?!

http://gematsu.com/2016/02/super-robot-wars-og-moon-dwellers-ps4-english-version-announced-asia

DylDawg wrote:

Shiv and Taiyz. So based. COme on Falcom...join in the fun of im@s.

Well I hope you do find CG fun. Compared to the 765 anime, it was not that enjoyable for me. And what turns me off even more is that my fave girl prior to watching the anime (Anastasia) lacks any real kind of character at all in the show. I describe her as a Doll. A beautiful doll, but empty aside from her gimmick/foreign appeal.

That's sad to hear about CG, I have yet to get to CG, but I have almost zero inclination to do so. I will still try it out one day, maybe I will be surprised because I'm expecting it to be less good and find value in it. I went in completely blind to what IM@S was when i watched 765 and it was a lot more than I expected it to be. I'm honestly more excited for the IM@S movie I have yet to see that came out around One For All.

I'm hoping they bring back Guest Idols to some extent, it was really fun to see the Dearly Stars Trio, Leon, and Ranko.

So we've finally reached .hack// levels of gaming hardware, and they instead make SAO:

http://www.siliconera.com/2016/02/22/sword-art-online-getting-virtual-reality-project-ibm-japan/

Don't get me wrong, SAO is immensely popular, I get it. But let's separate the two from their stories for a moment.

As far as in-game mechanics go that separate each from being a VR version of every MMORPG known to man, I'd rather mess around with Chaos Gates and Keywords and go to nearly limitless different fields. SAO's got... a multi-floor dungeon that makes it similar to a rogue-like, I guess? That UI in SAO is also pretty sweet, but won't quite work as intended until technology can hack our brains directly and effectively replace reality. As long as we're holding a controller or tapping away at a keyboard while holding a mouse there will always be that disconnect.

Of course, from a programming and design perspective, Chaos Gates with fields and dungeons generated based on keywords would be immensely difficult to pull off correctly - I recall a lot of the field and dungeon layouts generated by keywords in the .hack// games are identical aside from enemys and items, and this is why. Aincrad with fixed floor layouts - or maybe even randomly generated - is easy mode by comparison. So aside from popularity I can see why they'd go with SAO instead.

Chaos Gates actually fits procedurally generated content more than Aincrad. The keyword*snrrk* here is "nearly limitless different field", which is exactly what a procedurally generated level is. You have these keywords instead of rng to populate the field using several predefined blocks of room/island, but in the end, it's still generated at runtime.

Aincrad is actually more taxing on the design and programming department because the field/town and NPC location is predetermined, at least based on Early and Late and Progressive.

Sure, the story makes it sound like Cardinal populated all the quests on its own after the designer defined some parameters (thus procedurally generated), but take into account that Cardinal is supposedly an extremely advanced AI system that can take the lore of our world from the Internet to create quest; something our world has yet managed to develop. And I forgot where I'm going with this.


Point is, making .hack// is actually easier than SAO. Just model some level islands of varying themes, assign spawn points on the islands, generate algorithm for keyword-based island and monster population, then connect the islands. Very resource effective. (I'm a huge fan of procedurally generated content)

Meanwhile, for SAO, they have to make the world map for each layers considering that each layers has their own themes (e.g.; level 3 is Forest of Elves, Level 4 is geared for canoe travel). Very resource extensive (100 unique maps) even if they can have randomly generated dungeons for various dungeons on each floor and the floor boss dungeon.

So yeah, I think it's more that SAO is popular overall that leads to this.


But the funny thing was, the video showed nothing at all regarding the VRMMO part of the development. The stuff they're showing is the modelling part of the development, complete with the rigging/weight painting process (why would they even show that part, 0:45 if you didn't notice). It has little contribution at all with the actual juice of the supposed reveal.

I don't wanna know how the assets are being created, I wanna see the rig. Pretty sure our brain computer interface devices is still very primitive (and receives input only, no direct output to brainwave yet) so is it going to be something like Oculus Rift + Perception Neuron + Omnidirectional Treadmill? And how will they implement the Sword Skills? Probably something along the line of completing the preliminary movement to invoke the appropriate skills?

This is actually going to be rather interesting I'm tempted to abuse my research grant to go to Japan since my research is something similar.

^I dunno. Procedurally generated may seem easier from a design perspective, but I can only imagine it'd be hell for QA and require lots of stuff get reworked. Hand crafted areas are order, and procedurally generated is chaos. (Chaos gates. Heh.)

As usual, Siliconera doesn't provide any context.
http://gematsu.com/2016/02/ibm-japan-announces-sword-art-online-virtual-reality-project

"Cognitive Computing" is supposed to allow you to control the game with your "body", and "SoftLayer" creates the virtual world.

No, I don't expect it to achieve true VRMMO status, there won't be any physical feedback, no "flavor engine" or anything nutso like that, but if it CONTROLS anything remotely like SAO it'll be one hell of an achievement.

As far as the tech is concerned, I read somewhere (can't remember which article) that it was all predictive. Like, it would interpret your thoughts and move your digital body based on the Cognitive Computing setup. Like those mind-controlled cat ears that are popular in the anime fanbase.


As far as SAO is concerned, it's totally plausible that they could procedurally generate everything and then just name locations after the fact, creating 100 unique bosses is the tricky part IMO. Minecraft works in a similar manner, strongholds are kind of equivalent to SAO's dungeons to reach the next floor, just imagine each floor in SAO as a separate Minecraft biome.

@Tenshigami: That's the beauty of (good)procedurally generated content though - it's the 'order in chaos', or 'chaos in orders', where the whole thing is unpredictable yet predictable because it follows the rules you set beforehand but not exactly in way you expected it to be. It's oxymoronic in every possible way.

And procedurally generated content usually gets a passby for QA because they can just wave it off as bad luck on user's side. It's fun.


@Taiyz: Actually (well from what I read), the cognitive computing (see Watson) has nothing to do with the control part. From the description of pooling big data and simulate answers based on natural language processing, the cognitive computing part is more likely to be used on the AI development. Most likely on the NPC AI dialogue system, or if we can imagine big enough, the Cardinal system for generating Quests.

You're right on the SoftLayer part though, seeing as they're a platform for cloud infrastructure, possibly also the cloud computing system responsible to generate the world.

The part about controlling character based on body movement is what led me to believe that they're using some motion control input device for that part (Kinect, Perception Neuron, etc) and not brain computer interface (EEG devices, e.g; Emotiv) because last I checked, you have to calibrate your thoughts to each specific inputs for 8 whole seconds, each, and the device is still prone to failure because you suddenly thought of "pie" when recreating the brainwave, rendering the device unable to reproduce the motion you assigned it to.

And you have to recalibrate for different users because the way they imagine 'lifting' is different than the way another person would. For example, a man might think of the motion lifting by picking it up physically with hands, while another might think of lifting as telekinesis, hence here lies the difference of brainwave emitted. Yeah, I tried making a game with BCI device before, that was horrible.


Anyway, I'm really interested in seeing how the whole thing is going to develop, both as a fanboy and as a tech enthusiast.

http://www.siliconera.com/2016/02/23/dragon-quest-heroes-iis-multiplayer-will-allow-4-player-co-op/

THIS IS IT

DRAGON QUEST HEROES II, WE GOT ALL THE WARRIORS

WE GOT ONLINE

WE GOT 4P

WE GOT CROSS-PLAY, PS4, PS3 AND VITA REPRESENT

HE' WE GO HOMES, GET YO PLUS AND WE ROKKIN IT AITE?

(Note: certain DQH1 heroes will not be available at launch but will be released as free DLC.)

BF5 is supposedly going to be a WW1 FPS, lol.

https://i.imgur.com/D8nQQe8.png

"Mehrspieler Taktik Shooter im 1. Weltkrieg" translates to "Multiplayer tactical shooter in WW1".

Kind of a weird time period for a Battlefield game because WW1 was mostly infantry-based combat.