125 replies to this topic

[Acrilix]

For me, the thing that caught my eye in the latest screenies were the tree clones standing next to each other. Something we, as Links course designers spend a lot of our time trying to alleviate.

[JCat04]

Posted in an interview Executive Producer, Peter Garcin at Operation Sports:

 

We moved away from the meter-based control scheme that seems to dominate recent games. The game we created doesn’t have a power meter, but focuses on feel and recreating the performance of the swing. There is a lot of subtlety and depth in the controls for those who are hardcore and want to really get into the precision of the swing.

 

What he doesn't say here is that they are still working with 3-click mouse control and trying to include it in the game.  I've gotten two responses from one of the devs who admits it's still being worked on.  Peter's comment above suggests to me that if the PC version of TGC does have 3-click control, the gamer will have to rely on the golfer animation to gauge their button clicks.  I think they now know how strong the sentiment is for 3-click control among PC golf gamers and are genuinely trying to make it a reality, while standing by their anti-meter philosophy.

[nightowl]

Thanks, John, for the info.

[Sinewiz]

Posted in an interview Executive Producer, Peter Garcin at Operation Sports:

 

We moved away from the meter-based control scheme that seems to dominate recent games. The game we created doesn’t have a power meter, but focuses on feel and recreating the performance of the swing. There is a lot of subtlety and depth in the controls for those who are hardcore and want to really get into the precision of the swing.

 

What he doesn't say here is that they are still working with 3-click mouse control and trying to include it in the game.  I've gotten two responses from one of the devs who admits it's still being worked on.  Peter's comment above suggests to me that if the PC version of TGC does have 3-click control, the gamer will have to rely on the golfer animation to gauge their button clicks.  I think they now know how strong the sentiment is for 3-click control among PC golf gamers and are genuinely trying to make it a reality, while standing by their anti-meter philosophy.

If this is indeed true it's good news. Even the lack of a gauge isn't particularly unsettling to me. I think there's probably been enough dissatisfaction shown on their board about the lack of 3 click support to cause them to at least reassess in regard to swing methods.

[MERACE]

I found this refreshing to read the response from one of the developers to a comment referencing PP's PG (http://www.hb-studio...hp?topic=621.15):

 

"Competition is good for everyone, so I hope they continue. We wish them the best and I'd hope they feeling was mutual."

 

 

-MERACE

[Brucey Mc]

Interesting comment there from Little Daz, looks like someone being mischievous to me.

[Acrilix]

Interesting comment there from Little Daz, looks like someone being mischievous to me.

 

Little Daz aka Mystery Man aka Alex Katzman aka Pssst....(I work for EA) aka... I forget the other one...... 

Just glad he b******d off from here... different name every day

[JCat04]

If this is indeed true it's good news. Even the lack of a gauge isn't particularly unsettling to me. I think there's probably been enough dissatisfaction shown on their board about the lack of 3 click support to cause them to at least reassess in regard to swing methods.

 

I saw K11's video showing how a meterless, 3-click interface could work in a contemporary golf game.  It looks like it would get the job done to me.  If I were a 3-click player, I think I would feel more directly linked to my on-screen surrogate if I were using them as the "gauge" for my shot - in real time - than a "C" shaped gauge, often not in a real time association with the golfer animation.

[MERACE]

I saw K11's video showing how a meterless, 3-click interface could work in a contemporary golf game.  It looks like it would get the job done to me.  If I were a 3-click player, I think I would feel more directly linked to my on-screen surrogate if I were using them as the "gauge" for my shot - in real time - than a "C" shaped gauge, often not in a real time association with the golfer animation.

As a mouse mover (TS/RTS) I use the golfer animation as a "guide or meter" for the back and forward movement of the mouse.


-MERACE

[JCat04]

As a mouse mover (TS/RTS) I use the golfer animation as a "guide or meter" for the back and forward movement of the mouse.


-MERACE

 

I had forgotten that I did that as well.  Tiger Woods and PGA Championship Golf 98 - 2000!

[JCat04]

I was wondering how HBS was going to pull off "cross-platform" play with this game.  What might be the answer came yesterday in one of the devs reply in their official forum.  They're calling their multiplayer play - "asynchronous" play, meaning that there might be a second or two delay between what you see your opponent's "marker" hit their shot with its associated color telemetry, but they might have actually hit the shot a second or so before you actually see this "echo ball" depiction of it.  I think by doing it this way, HBS can get around what ever licensing issues there might be between linking XB1 and PS4 players directly together via their respective proporietary networks. 

 

The HBS servers would be acting as a 'delay buffer', in effect.  If they're going to allow voice chat across platforms as well (and I think they're going to have even more legal issues to pull this off cross-platform) it will likely be in a different time continuum itself. IOW, you could hear your asynchronous opponent's reaction to their shot before or after you actually see it on your screen,

[vfe]

That's pretty similar to the server infrastructure I designed for PG actually.

Instead of designing the online as a continuous (mostly) uninterrupted stream of play. You break the game down into instead a series of async events.

To put it another way, you could think of a match of just people playing 18 holes, or as a collection of small events, that when stitched together, give the same impression as the first one.

There's a lot of associated benefits to doing that way,

• It makes replays exceptionally trivial.
• It makes slow-play modes, almost like "play by mail" style possible(where you make a shot, I log in 3 days later and take my turn, back and forth, i.e. we don't have to play at the same time).
• it makes it possible to do things like fantasy replays, i.e. a year after we played a match, we can decide we want a "do-over" at the 6th hole, with our previous scores attached.
• Performance wise it makes the servers a lot more affordable and easy to deploy.

 

Keep in mind, I'm not saying PG does or even will have those features. Just that this style of processing has a lot of benefits, so I can definitely see why they'd go with that over more "traditional" methods.

[JCat04]

Very informative post Mac.  It helps me to understand how this process streamlines things a bit.  I hadn't though about how much of a cost savings it would be on servers.   Thanks for the inside look!
 

[AndyJumbo]

Hi gents, i agree with you JCat04, it was an informative post, keeping on fellas !

[JCat04]

Andy, I would imagine a console version of Perfect Golf is quite a ways down the road.  The benefit of that though is that PP will have the benefit of seeing how this asynchronous play concept works out and how it is received by the buying public.  I saw a post from Mike Jones in another section here where he recognizes the value of having recorded rounds available for play also.  I'd like to see that be a part of all versions of Perfect Golf, especially if they offer the same hide score option for selecting what amounts to recorded rounds ('ghost balls') in The Golf Club.  You can select rounds by player name and the date on which the round was recorded.  I'm a beta tester for the PC version of TGC, and this option adds a lot of drama to the ghost ball play 

[AndyJumbo]

Whew!!! got you JCat04, thanks for the full answer, great as well!

see ya!

[clayg17]

 I play at the golf club  they finally got Microsoft and sony to agree to share cross platform play.

right now Microsoft and sony have the game and are telling hb to fix a few  minor things nothing big .

[Dazmaniac]

Not quite cross platform play, as many were hoping.

 

HB studios in their latest blog post said:-

 

The other consequence of this is that currently each platform will still be logging their own set of scorecards and can only play live against people from their own platform. In the future we will be investigating ways that we can facilitate cross-platform leaderboards or selected ghost data in a way that makes sense without revealing off-platform user identities – but it’s something that needs to be carefully considered so that it’s actually a good experience. This also means that Tours+Tournaments are restricted to those within your own platform.

 

So courses can be shared across PC and console, but it still seems a way off for console players being able to play live with PC players or in tournies with a mix of console and PC players, which was what I understood 'cross platform play' to mean when they first announced it, lol.

[JoeF]

Daz, does this not also affect xbox one vs ps4 play as well?

[Dazmaniac]

Daz, does this not also affect xbox one vs ps4 play as well?

 

I would guess it does, even though I didn't allude to that in my post.

 

It seems 3 platforms and 3 separate areas of play. So no playing on your PC against your mate with a console, or even no PS4 playing against a rec round from an XBOXONE.