Game still looks good though, right? There is still plenty of time for graphical passes.
The benefit is the leap from Killzone 4 to their next game will be even bigger.
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Killzone Shadow Fall (PS4) announced, launch title [1080p/30fps]
- Thread starter shinobi602
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Game still looks good though, right? There is still plenty of time for graphical passes.
The benefit is the leap from Killzone 4 to their next game will be even bigger.
Resistance 2 had a similar story where the entire game was fully playable long before it shipped. I've worked as a tester at a major first party publisher (not for Sony), and we've had games finished from beginning to end almost a year before ship date. This is nothing new.
The more exciting thing is what Guerilla will do with more RAM under the hood. The studio must be under a litany of pressure to match up to what Crysis 3 has delivered. To a large extent, this healthy rivalry will shape what next-gen visuals are all about in year 1, since I don't forsee third parties rivaling Sony or MS's first party efforts on these platforms.
The more exciting thing is what Guerilla will do with more RAM under the hood. The studio must be under a litany of pressure to match up to what Crysis 3 has delivered. To a large extent, this healthy rivalry will shape what next-gen visuals are all about in year 1, since I don't forsee third parties rivaling Sony or MS's first party efforts on these platforms.
fuzzyreactor
Banned
What are the chances that we will see some MP footage at GDC? So hyped for this game, if it delivers a similar experience to KZ2 this will be my personal most enjoyable launch of a console, and will alone justify the price of the console. KZ2 set a bar that no one since has met.
Are people seriously thinking that Sony's studios don't know about the specs?
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Straight from the horses mouth:
https://twitter.com/StevenTerHeide1/status/315469380932739072
He says expect something 'soon' though. When is GDC?
TacticalFox88
Banned
Considering how Sony added the last 4 GBs, literally, at the last possible minute, the developers WERE blindsided by it.
SniperHunter
Banned
I think the multi will be 60 FPS, mainly because the graphics in the multi aren't as good as the single player (usually).
From what I remember, GG was a major impetus behind the upgrade to 8GB. However, they designed their game (alpha build at least) because they didn't know if Sony was going to be able to hit the target. I remember seeing a tweet saying that the portion shown off at the Feb 20 unveiling event was made with 1.5GB VRAM (in all likelihood just for visuals out of the total 3.5GB that was rumoured to be limit). It makes sense given the demo build would be made quite a while before Feb 20th.
But KZ games never skimped on visuals in either mode. I doubt it will be 60fps.
SniperHunter
Banned
yea I know they were in Killzone 2 and 3, but PS3 was a different system. This time around it will be easier to get the look of Killzone in multiplayer but at 60 FPS IMO.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
https://twitter.com/StevenTerHeide1/status/315493268303515648
'@_kingcorlone @sentry_nc we need to release later this year, which means we only have a couple more weeks before bug fixing starts'
Like Thuway said looks like this is par for the course.
'@_kingcorlone @sentry_nc we need to release later this year, which means we only have a couple more weeks before bug fixing starts'
Like Thuway said looks like this is par for the course.
Yeah? PS4 is a better system. I do not see guerrilla games going backwards on visuals for multiplayer when they've been able to do it on PS3. Just saying.
Over 6 months for bug fixing sounds completely unnecessary. Im sure they will spend a lot of that time polishing the graphics and adding features. Sounds like the game should ship extremely polished.
SniperHunter
Banned
I wish Sony had given these guys some more time, I mean PS4 is launching with BF4 and probably a CoD game...Shadow Fall will get lost in the hype for those two titles
fuzzyreactor
Banned
Honesty I'd rather it be at 30, KZ is slow enough that the added frames wouldn't be worth the degraded graphics IMO
Okay I disagree and I'll leave it as that
Really?? I didn't even know this. Launch is going to be insane.
fuzzyreactor
Banned
Some ppl, like myself, don't care about those games
SniperHunter
Banned
no...I play a lot of PC shooters, any FPS is better at 60 FPS. Can you imagine Killzone 2 and Killzone 3 HD running at 1080p 60 FPS?
fuzzyreactor
Banned
I'm sure it would be better at 60, but would it be worth the down grade in graphics? IMO, no.
Indeed, I will take Killzone over COD and Battlefield any day.
SniperHunter
Banned
Battlefield is the best IMO especially on PC, Killzone is second now. Before I used to play a lot of Team Fortress 2, but I got tired of that game. BTW Bad Company 1 on PS3 is really awesome, had some good matches yesterday ^_^
I think a lot of PS fans will jump on Battlefield now that BF4 PS4 has full 64 player support.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
With EA behind Battlefield, I wouldn't hold much hope for the next game.
Seriously, it is almost an absolute inevitability that the game is only going to get progressively worse from BF 2.
You just have to look at the fact that EA are hell bent on making this as big as COD. That doesn't mean good things for any self respecting hardcore gamer.
Seriously, it is almost an absolute inevitability that the game is only going to get progressively worse from BF 2.
You just have to look at the fact that EA are hell bent on making this as big as COD. That doesn't mean good things for any self respecting hardcore gamer.
It got some exposure for being played on Jimmy Fallon so don't count it out just yet.
I think it's a few months earlier than launch games typically are content complete. Definitely confirms that PS4 development won't be as tiring or raise budgets as much as PS3 development. There's also pretty much no way it misses launch now.
Exclusive launch games are always expected to not be a direct return on investment. There's no way that they can get enough sales with a smaller userbase. They're purely there as a way of showing what the console can really do. Besides, I have a feeling that if the rumored Durango specs are true and BF4 and CoD are both 60fps, Shadow Fall will be THE next gen graphics king at launch since it's developed purely for PS4. That alone will sell units.
Keep believing that.
Third parties were mostly blindsided. I'm sure Sony's first parties knew but just had to balance their demos around the original spec since they didn't have dev kits to work with the full amount of RAM.
Again, keep believing that.
TacticalFox88
Banned
The clamshell design for RAM that made the 8Gb possible just got finalized. It's literally impossible for them to have had access to that much GDDR5 before the conference whether they knew about it or not.
SniperHunter
Banned
agreed.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Yeah Steven ter Heide has since tweeted they need around 6 months for bug testing, but this all depends.
What I think people mean is that the demo shown on the 20th for KZ: SF was likely not using 8 GB of system spec memory, as we have found out the game has been 'complete' for a 'couple of months'. Unless Sony gave devs devkits with equivalent 8 GB video memory several months ago (and they didn't), we can therefore assume the demo was running on an old, underspecced dev kit.
If you guys really believe that when Sony's own worldwide studios, that developed the hardware, controller, and system architecture, didn't know about the RAM specs, please continue doing so.
Not stopping you. I just believe you're wrong.
And dev kits will always have more RAM than the consumer version.
Not stopping you. I just believe you're wrong.
And dev kits will always have more RAM than the consumer version.
Content complete is very different from being complete and polished. Granted, the level design won't be impacted much, if at all, but they could shift things around if they want.
Beta dev kits are not the same as the final dev kits. Playable demos like the Shadow Fall one are separated from the main game a month or more before the showing to make sure that those slices are polished up so it likely was running on an alpha kit since beta kits just went out in January. The decision to double the RAM to 8Gb was made sometime in early February when it became clear that it would be feasible. I assume first party studios targeting launch knew but many third parties clearly did not and neither group had access to that much RAM.
Now this is becoming worthy of being reported. I remember information was posted on B3D about how 1.5GB was available for gfx when the demo was being made.
The good thing is facts are agnostic of personal beliefs.
No, they did have an idea but none of them were certain Sony's time table would be able to match up with the release of 4gb density chips (followed by production and integration). Thus, the demo products were created with the older, more certain specs in mind. It's easy to expand but very difficult to shrink when it comes to filling up the newer better technology.
Oh, I guess you know that the Beta dev kits never had 8gb of RAM?
Reportable? Until you have proof that 8GB was not known to developers before the announcement, I think you have a lot to prove more than I do.
Either side is speculation, but saying Sony blindsided devs with better specs is a lot more sensationalist while my belief is more reasonable.
- Firstly, if you want proof trudge through this thread.
- Secondly, at point two devkits were released featuring 8 and 16GB but it was not known what type it was.
- Thirdly, 4gb density chips came out at the beginning of this year. Prior to that the PS4 would have to feature 16 chips on its mobo for 4GB. MS could go with 8GB because they chose DDR3 for 16 chips. Now it's 8GB for 16 chips for GDDR5. Had the 4gb production not succeeded or showed promise of sufficient yield, Sony wouldn't have put an extra 4GB without risking probable delay from their original schedule. It was a fate the Steamroller (CPU) was doomed to according to a chinese article that made Jaguar Sony's choice.
- Fourthly, both CPU and GPU matters were settled with only RAM being the volatile spec. So developers would have had a very good idea as how the system would perform given the dev kit. Upgrading the ram has no bearing on the computation power figure (TFLOPs). The same thing happened with XB360 during its development stages.
- Fifthly, the last rumour (posted by EDGE) stated that Sony were promising developers that were trying to match XB3's 8GB RAM figure. That was less than month before the Feb 20 event.
- Sixthly, post event interview with Mark Rein of Epic (by Dorito Pope) revealed that he was both elated and relieved to see Sony committing to remove a potential bottleneck that only developers can truly appreciate.
- Seventhly, one of ND's developers tweeted his surprise at the amount. Perhaps they knew that Sony were targeting 8GB (from point 5) but a public announcement means committing to it.
- Lastly, all this has been covered by either highly reliable EDGE and VGleaks. Plus as aforementioned, B3D also played a part.
So while it may be all speculative, a lot of continual information has been flowing in favour of why the games that were built on older dev kits with different ram specs (given all dev kits evolve). I am past caring whether you believe it or not but it becomes highly annoying when you quote people to say, "Keep believing that" without providing any contradictory information to support your snide remarks (even it be a rumour).
velociraptor
Junior Member
So the single player for this game is already finished? Guess we probably won't see an improvement in graphics. Don't get me wrong - KZSF looks beautiful, and looks like one of the best looking games of all time. Was hoping for GG to apply some extra (8GB GDDR5) magic though 
Just the opposite. The less work they have to do on the main game design, the more time they have to improve visuals. Most games' graphics don't fully come together until the last 3-4 months of development and that's doubly true for launch titles. KZ2 improved a lot in it's last couple months.So the single player for this game is already finished? Guess we probably won't see an improvement in graphics. Don't get me wrong - KZSF looks beautiful, and looks like one of the best looking games of all time. Was hoping for GG to apply some extra (8GB GDDR5) magic though
Ireally hope there recoil, gun sway, and weight up in this bitch...or else. The vita version looks better than this. If the demo is anything to go by, this will be another Michael Bay film.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Not sure if serious.
The only weapon he used was a rail gun, hence the recoil.
The Vita version while stunning, does not look better than SF... Unless you mean the gameplay, in which case we haven't seen enough of either game to really judge...
More on topic- If they really did only build this game off 2GB and and most of the game was nearing completion, they could let the texture artists and animators go nuts for the next 6 months, adding more and higher detailed textures, adding dozens and dozens more animations, idle animations, npc animations, etc.
They could also work on completely eliminating any loading screens or fading to black for cutscenes.
Frame rate would be largely unaffected but they could still improve a ton of stuff in the game, and add a great layer of polish.
Yeah gameplay. The reload way too fast for a KZ game. There was no gunsway either
James Sawyer Ford
Banned
Great sign that the game is already in a near finalized state.
KZ3 seemed to really be down to the wire. I recall the Beta for that game being a terribly buggy mess. I feel that title suffered as a result.
Having a full 6+ more months for playtesting, minor gameplay tweaks and balances to SP/MP, as well as improving the visuals should make for a very polished experience, unlike KZ3.
KZ2 was fairly polished as well, the beta for that game was actually quite playable 6 months prior to release.
KZ:SF being a launch title is fairly ambitious, so I don't expect any huge shakeups for the series in terms of gameplay. And with how impressive the visuals already are, they aren't going to be anywhere near pushing the system's potential.
KZ3 seemed to really be down to the wire. I recall the Beta for that game being a terribly buggy mess. I feel that title suffered as a result.
Having a full 6+ more months for playtesting, minor gameplay tweaks and balances to SP/MP, as well as improving the visuals should make for a very polished experience, unlike KZ3.
KZ2 was fairly polished as well, the beta for that game was actually quite playable 6 months prior to release.
KZ:SF being a launch title is fairly ambitious, so I don't expect any huge shakeups for the series in terms of gameplay. And with how impressive the visuals already are, they aren't going to be anywhere near pushing the system's potential.
I just hope this Killzone's MP is more like KZ2 and less like KZ3.
Portugeezer
Member
The actual gameplay being set in grey and orange burning building didn't help them, but everything before and after that looked amazing (though definitely could use some work).
Crytek have been developing on high end PC hardware for many years.
HueyFreeman
Banned
I still can't believe how hard they blew the jimmy Fallon reveal for this. This was the general populations first chance to see the ps4 and they showed nothing to distinguish it from any current gen shooter. The city fly over or the helicopter scene is where that demo impressed - this is really what people should have seen.
Granted, you could make the argument the reason it didn't impress is because they haven't evolved the gameplay enough, but killzones always been a showpiece series, for better or for worse. Doesn't mean we can't enjoy it.
Granted, you could make the argument the reason it didn't impress is because they haven't evolved the gameplay enough, but killzones always been a showpiece series, for better or for worse. Doesn't mean we can't enjoy it.
Game is already playable from start to finish and most of the QA is starting now?
PLEASE BE MORE LIkE KILLZONE 2
SOMEONE LINK THEM TO THIS THREAD
On a more serious note, and it may be just saying the obvious: There is a sort of a pattern here, but I think it is just an issue that affects most sequels not living up to the expectations set by awesome games before them: UC2 > UC3(very high bar set by UC2. Still like both almost equally), GoW3 > GoW:A(in terms of polish/glitches), KZ2 > KZ3 (Several things already mentioned here).
I really hope that they don't cave in like they did with KZ3 and just stick with what they want to do (and already did with KZ2 and even KZ1.)
PLEASE BE MORE LIkE KILLZONE 2
SOMEONE LINK THEM TO THIS THREAD
Sorry. :| Though it would be great to have Victor Zuyle or even Hermen Hulst himself here like the GoW:A threads.
On a more serious note, and it may be just saying the obvious: There is a sort of a pattern here, but I think it is just an issue that affects most sequels not living up to the expectations set by awesome games before them: UC2 > UC3(very high bar set by UC2. Still like both almost equally), GoW3 > GoW:A(in terms of polish/glitches), KZ2 > KZ3 (Several things already mentioned here).
I really hope that they don't cave in like they did with KZ3 and just stick with what they want to do (and already did with KZ2 and even KZ1.)
I must be the only person on the planet who thought 3 was better than 2...not as OMG jaw dropping step up like from 1 to 2, but just more refined than two....also some really good puzzles
Launch titles are polished like a diamond before release.... you can argue that launch titles arent always that good, but they are usually really bug free
They are very well aware of what our suggestions are (some of the threads have even been tweeted by a couple of devs). Up to them whether it works for their vision of KZ.
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