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Chance at new life for old MMOs ? Tablets.
Voiidiin
Member Posts: 817
Today i am getting my Motorola Xoom, I am so hyped at the fact that Vendetta online runs on this.
I got to thinking how wonderful it would be to play Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Ultima Online, or umm i hate to say it World of Warcraft on a tablet.
Forgetting WoW for now, i bet if Mythic really put some effort into it there game engine would run perfect on higher performance tablet, i think it might even allow them to re-invigorate DAoC with a whole new crowd of players. Granted they might have to change there pricing.
Regardless, i am curious what others think of this, especially those who own tablets.
Lolipops !
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Something like e.g. DAoC is too complex to run on a tablet (control-scheme wise). WoW - or rather the iOS clone Order&Chaos - actually works quite well on the iPad tho. But it is still more comfortable to play these games on a pc, imho.
Maybe in a couple of years we can play new mmorpgs on tablets. I think I'll hold out with buying one until then.
My brand new bloggity blog.
dell motion is a tablet pc.. dual core intel proc.. 4gb ram.. 200 gb hard drive.. intel graphics.. but.. you can play games on it.. its about as powerful as a regular laptop.. if a bit pricey... but the handwriting recognition is extremely good.. technically you could play most MMO's on it.. but.. without using the usb ports to plug in a mouse etc.. i can't really recommend it.. or any tablet pc.. being suitable for MMO's.. as for the various Ipads and sony tablets etc.. meh.. their just gimmicks.. if their aimed at games.. its probably the facebook/farmville variety..
Not getting a tablet until the prices come way down, and even then you got to be around a hot spot or something. No thanks.
I will say i was at the drug store the other day, I watched as this lady messed around with hers. walked out the door still messing with it, and shes in the hospital, why walked right out into a vehicle backing up.
I guess I'm not an adopter of tech until I think i want it bad enough. I changed my phone the other day and the guy at Verizon was like hey we will give you the new gizmo if you buy a data package. I was like no thanks I use my phone for calling only.
know the feeling all too well.. i have a mobile phone.. but its a nokia flip phone.. that i've had for years.. but.. it works great.. though it does look the worse for wear.. i've tried to replace it a few times.. but... as i absolutely refuse to get a phone with a touch screen.. its a problem.. on the plus side though.. it only costs me like.. £10 every 2 months to use it
The Wii2 aka Project Cafe, is what I look forward to as a Tablet.
I want gaming, with the standard control buttons and Analog sticks. but with the added features of a tablet.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Using CULV Arrandale is really an attempt at making a laptop into a tablet form factor. That's too much heat for the monitor unless you do some serious engineering stuff. Which is why the Dell Motion costs $2800 for something no better than a $400 Zacate E-350 netbook. Well, part of that price gap is because Dell likes to mark things up if they can, but most of it isn't.
Tablets mostly use ARM, while desktops and laptops mostly use x86. They aren't compatible with each other at all, and while there is hope that OpenCL will eventually allow given source code to run natively on both, we aren't there yet. Windows doesn't run on ARM, while most games use DirectX, which requires Windows.
The other option is putting x86 processors into a tablet. You can try CULV Arrandale or Sandy Bridge, but that doesn't work very well, because of a 17 W TDP. The low power x86 architectures are Atom (Intel) and Bobcat (AMD). The problem with Atom is that its graphics basically don't work. That makes it a no-go for gaming, or a lot of other things you might want to do with a tablet. If someone wanted to make a DOS tablet, Atom might be pretty nifty.
Nvidia will tell you that Atom+Ion will fix the graphics problems. And they're right about that. But what it will break is power consumption, as Ion alone is more heat than you want to put into a tablet.
At the moment, Bobcat takes too much power. Even the 9 W TDP of Ontario is more than you want in a tablet. Thankfully, that's fixable by a die shrink, and Wichita has already taped out on Global Foundries' 28 nm HKMG process node. AMD says there will be Bobcat tablets by the end of the year, but if they're based on Ontario, I wouldn't go there. Wichita should be out by the end of the year, and actually be great for tablets, as it will offer enough performance to be somewhat functional as a computer, with a TDP around 5 W for a low power bin, so as not to fry a tablet. That TDP is for the entire chip, which includes the processor, graphics, northbridge, and memory controller.
You can get one of these for iTouch devices: iControlPad:
Or use a bluetooth keypad/mouse combo?
For mobile MMOs there are certain limitations with the UI:
As can be seen the UI has to be as minimal as possible with level/xp/manna top right and chat above, skills to the right and the d-pad touch on the bottom left and (auto-)attack bottom right.
Order & Chaos goes for a click wheel:
The avatar size is considerably bigger so the UI needs to be tucked away in the rotating wheel plus a pull-out menu.
In summary, apart from hardware specification accelerating all the time, I can see developers becoming more adept at working with or around the touch limitations and maximizing the screen real estate one way or another. I expect mmobiles on tablets and mobiles to continue to grow. As for old mmos, that's a real possibility too. Certainly there are already a new lease of life in C64/Amiga/SNES emulators on smartphones.
I'd be interested to hear how Vendetta Online plays on Android. Probably fairly smooth?
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem