Origin's connection to SimCity is still a MESS. Friends are playing the game in my Origin list but I join the game and it shows NOBODY PLAYING. The chat is broken, too. What the hell.
A console is very different than a PC. Even though the spec is lower, it can still perform better, since it's not running an useless component services, windows utilities, virus scan, etc etc. It's dedicated to games.
You guys are downright out of the loop on this stuff. It's easy...FAR easier, to mod a game that's come out, than it is while developing it. As a modder, you don't have to worry about the publisher, deadlines, performance, 20 superiors telling you what to do, etc. In the end you do what you have to do, to hit the deadline. Fact is, the work that Timegate did was great. You all saw the early gameplay demos from E3 last year, or Destination Playstation. That was mostly all Timegate. Once Gearbox took the game back, then had to squeeze all of the work down to function on every platform. Most of the incredible lighting that Timegate did, the higher res textures and shaders - all went out the window. The game used a custom deferred lighting engine that used a ton of memory. That gave the levels their great look. but that had to get culled in the end for performance. The art then suffered when those lighting effects were pulled back. Ever see Doom 3 in really bright rooms? Doesn't look so hot, either.
@Tobinius6 @Fowsed I doubt that. Even in our own Galaxy, we've only looked at about 1/4 of it's stars and potential planets. Even though we haven't "seen" anything, that doesn't mean one of the planets we've looked at doesn't already have life. From these great distances, you can't see city lights or any kind of technology. The drake equation (while obviously not 100% accurate) states that there could be as many as 1000-100,000 civilizations just in the Milky Way. We'll never know until we can visit those places ourself.
Seriously, you guys DO realize that Gearbox shipped in a matter of months, what took 3DRealms a failed 10years of development on Duke Nuken Forever? Riiight? Gearbox didn't develop DNF. They took what 3DRealsm dumped on them, made it playable and shipped it, nothing more. Give Gearbox a break already. Brothers in Arms and Borderlands are great games/series.
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