Dark Souls for PC: Petition

[bpm195]

Yet you keep saying Portal System but you don't EXPLAIN HOW IT WOULD WORK. How would you regulate Modders and such? Explain to me that.

But as I said, PC Gamers don't seem to want Dark Souls, they just want another game they can Mod because apparently Vanilla isn't good enough.

In software development there's a concept of version control. Basically a piece of software always has some version number and may be considered different from a the same program with a different version number. In online gaming there are additional forms of verification as to which version is which. For instance for example Program 1.0.1 and Program 1.0.2 will be considered different and changing the name of Program 1.0.1 to Program 1.0.2 will not fool the system. For sanity purposes different versions are rarely allowed to interact with each other. In PC gaming if you have Program 1.0.1 and you're trying to connect to a Program 1.0.2 server a version mismatch error. On the Xbox if you're running Program 1.0.1 but Program 1.0.2 is available you'll be forced to disconnect if you don't update.

When modding comes into the picture the concept of version control gets more complicated. If your running Program 1.0.2 and Modification A, you're considered to be running a different game than a person running Program 1.0.2 and no mods. Depending on how the architecture is built either Modification A will be disabled before you can play with the unmodded player or you may be outright refused citing differing versions. There's a less common third option of allowing the unmodded player to get Modification A before you play together.

There will also be some allowance for differentiation, though this varies greatly from game to game. However, there are certain files that the game doesn't check for validity and therefore can be replaced freely without issue. For example, very many games use a file to display the opening credits every time you start the game, but frequently you're allowed to change these files and maintain compatibility because they aren't checked.

Version control isn't a simple problem, but is has been thoroughly solved and all software developers that aren't just one person use version control.

Next comes the concept of the server. Every video of late uses the Client Server paradigm when one machine functions as a server and all other machines connect to it. Sometimes the server is a player's machine and this is called a local host. Usually the server is a third party machine called a Dedicated Server. The differences between local hosts and dedicated servers are cost and performance, but functionally a local host and dedicated are both treated as a generic server, and any player connecting to the server is still a client.

As an example of how trivial the difference is, in Unreal Engine 3 a local host is a dedicated server on a person's machine and they just connect to the IP address 127.0.0.1 then play exactly as if they were connected to a dedicated server with admin privileges.

As a principle of good design, servers are generally independent of each other and built in a way that allows the developers to add or remove servers without affecting other servers.

Dark Souls does have servers that players connect to even though it never bothers to tell you. The connection is done automatically and the server is chosen based on some gameplay related factors. If you're playing online you're connected to a server.

When it all comes together any server is able to function independently of other servers, and is able to decide what versions and modifications it allows, bans, or forces. There are always servers controlled by the developer/publisher and they almost always run a completely unmodified version of the game. This is how you'll be able to enjoy your vanilla Dark Souls.

The point of contention for many developers and the PC community is the control of dedicated servers. PC gamers like it when they can own their own servers and therefore modify things as they like. Publishers don't like to allow this because it adds a lot more that they have to support and erodes their control over the game. Whether a publisher will allow players to own servers is a different issue.

There's also the issue of save games. On a console it's relatively save to leave a save file on the system as only a few tech savvy individual will be able to access and modify it. On the PC you have a lot more control over your data, therefore it's relatively easy to modify game saves. Keeping game files secure would be an actual issue, and a strong point against letting players have servers.

Cheating also does tend to be more rampant on PC because you don't have to do the additional work of porting the cheats to a console. This is countered quickly allowing players to own servers as banning a person from a private community is very easy, especially considering how in most communities admins are easy to find.

 

[Zakarrum]

That is total BULLSHIT. You guys are saying that consumers should not get what they want from a company whose goal it is to please consumers, and thats it.

You know a doctor is not obligated to see any patients. They can pick and choose their patients, even though they would not be raking in as much cash, they have control over who they wish to serve.

All companies are the same. Do not think for a second the customer is always right, because if this was the case, the world would stop - you cannot please everyone. The developers COULD release a Dark Souls version for PC and rake in some more cash, but if they don't want to, they shouldn't have to. They have already hit their primary market in console gamers and porting the game to the PC is a gamble and one they don't want to take.

Agreed, though I think he is taking more offence at the fact console owners are saying the devs SHOULDN'T give PC gamers what they want, simply out of spite. Honestly, it is the devs decision, and just how well a game will do does ride on these sorts of things. Add in some form of modding, you attract a whole new crowd of people who want to see what they can change in the game to make it harder, easier, shinier, bigger, ect.
If the devs want to forgo that, that is fine and it is their decision, but nobody needs to be saying that they downright shouldn't try to give PC gamers extra features.

He clarified my post for me, many thanks.

When it comes down to it companies exist to please consumers, if they do not please consumers the company will quickly go out of business - consumers are always right, yes businesses have the right in principle to refuse to listen to consumers, but the sole purpose of a business is to provide goods and services for consumers that the consumer wants. They can refuse to listen to consumers, but they shouldn't outright ignore such a large chunk of the market. For any rational business it is very good practice to try and please as many consumers as you can.

Edit: What I'm trying to say is that a business serves absolutely no purpose for general society if it exists only to put out goods and services it and only it wants to produce. If a business wants to produce goods and services without thinking of anyone but themselves they are no longer a business.

 

[LilithSlave]

If PC gamers don't want it, why does it have 40,000 petition votes? Seems like a pretty portion of PC gamers to me.

 

[Mr Companion]

If PC gamers don't want it, why does it have 40,000 petition votes? Seems like a pretty portion of PC gamers to me.

Especially considering that the majority probably don't know the petition exists. Hopefully From will start taking notice now, best bait when hunting companies is the promise of money.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

If PC gamers don't want it, why does it have 40,000 petition votes? Seems like a pretty portion of PC gamers to me.

Not all those votes will be from people who plan on buying it if it does get ported.

I don't for instance, but I still voted because I think that PC gamers should get to play an awesome game.

We'll have to see whether or not 40,000+ votes is enough of an incentive for Namco to take that risk.

 

[LilithSlave]

Probably a lot of them are, though.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Probably a lot of them are, though.

You've been a here a while and you still don't know how to use the quote button?

 

[LilithSlave]

No, it's just often times pointless to quote the person directly above you.

I try not to abuse the quote button whenever possible.

 

[SextusMaximus]

52800+ ? Rely hoping this goes through, any word from From yet?

 

[DazZ.]

-snip-

It's more so they get an inbox message knowing they're being talked to.

Also so people can see it's a response and not a totally new trail of thought.

 

[Aprilgold]

WARNING, WARNING, WALL OF TEXT!

Spoiler

Any decent argument he made was nullified by his "Only PC gamers can truly appreciate a game like this" argument. What a twat.

You know, there are a lot of games that are PC-exclusive that I want to play. Like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for instance. But it'll never get a console port (Even though GDC said they were going to way back in '07) so if I want to play it I need to save up $500-800 and build a computer that can run it.

You want to play Dark Souls? The swallow your "pride" and go buy a $200 console like the rest of us.

Well I'd like to point out that he does prefer PC over console and can be the bit elitist. But I remember my friends sitting around bashing Demon Souls for even months after the game was released. I don't call purposely buying the game only to cover it in shit as 'appreciation' do you?

On the S.T.A.L.K.E.R one, is there even a petition for it to come to console? No? Well shut your pie hole because apparently no console fan apparently cares about S.T.A.L.K.E.R and neither should you. You know, there about 30 games just on my Steam libary that will never ever be coming to consoles unless as many people ask for it. Hold on a second while I pull up Reddit to find a subreddit built specifically to help you build a gaming computer that can run S.T.A.L.K.E.R for a budget that you want, why buy a brand new computer when you can just upgrade it for about half of 500$

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/

Well theres the link so off you go to make a thread, delightful.

But, quite honestly, how many people who played something like Demon Souls ask for Dark Souls to be harder? Bloody no one. And don't give me "BUT ITS HAAARRRDDD!!!" Crap, its literally just realizing things in the environment before they happen to save your life. I do think that Dark Souls would be appreciated on a much deeper level because people who will play it on PC will probably ask for the sequel to be harder then it already is.

I still don't see if you have any evidence to back up your argument against the video itself, while the argument your arguing does have evidence. I don't see any reason I should go out and buy yet another console if I didn't already have all 3 of them, since it would cost less to just buy the 60$ copy then run a emulator, and yes, I just said that. My pride can be intacted because my PC could run the game as stands and the upgrade for someone else to do it would probably be about 200$, which is as much as a console.

Already signed it. So a little bit of slow poke pokemon thread going on for me.

We are talking about a platform where several year old titles suddenly sell like sliced bread. Not only that, we have indie games that almost sold more copies than Dark Souls by now, and from the 1.8mil copies are way more players thanks to used sales.

I ask you a question! Will Dark Souls for the PS3 still sale in 4 years when the next console generation without any backwards compability exists? No, not really. On the PC it will still be sold. In 10 years it will be sold. People are still buying Ultima games from GoG.

And this is why PC gamer could appreciate this game more than console gamers. Because of the simple fact that most of us still buy old games unlike the minority of the console owners who still keep their PS2 or such as a sacred relict and try to get somewhere copies from older games (both thumbs up for those guys, if there were more of you consoles would have a better backwards compability and I would actually consider getting myself one).

And with this post I made myself hundreds of fans...

Do you have a club I could join? Because this is 100% true. Hell, want to know whats still popular on Steam at the moment? Counter Strike, not Source, just Counter Strike, which as about 73,240 people who are playing it just today. Er, around today, so within a 3 span of the 11th of January to the 13th of January. And didn't that game come out in or around the 2000s? Otherwise, good post.

Why do you want it on PC? So we can hear the PC fanboys complain about more "console ports"? If you spend large amounts of money on a comp built for gaming you're just going to have to accept that not every game is going to be available. The console fans accept this (hell they have to considering how many games are PC exclusive) so why can the PC fans suck it up and do the same?

No, they don't accept it.
They want everything to come out on the consoles.

Can I just say how much this is true. I don't think many people realize how many times PC's wanted a game but never have gotten it but Consoles ask for a game and then suddenly 12 come to fill in its place if its not there. The fault I despise in Valdus's statement is that he thinks PC's should accept the fact that they won't be getting this game then goes on to say that they should just buy a console, does that sound elitist to anyone else?

So because you can't have what you want, I shouldn't be allowed to have what I want? Do you see how silly and immature that sounds? Is this truly a competition? What did I ever do to you?
.

No it means "Pc's aren't automatically better than consoles", so asking me why I wouldn't want to play the game with better framerates etc doesn't convince me, since for myself (and many people) that's not an option.

Read my posts, my issue with this is that it wouldn't work the other way around. If I made a petition to get say...Magicka (which was even designed with the 360 controls in mind) onto the xbox how easily do you think it would happen? Would someone like TB back me up? HELL NO. If PC gammers where willing to do this I wouldn't have an issue doing the same back, the problem is that isn't the case at all.

What's actually happening is that some PC gamers have gone "Whaa, we want to play/mod that game without getting a console, let's complain to the devs until they do it".

Hold on a minute while I check this. Well, your right on the Magicka one. But Magicka is on Steam anyways. If you want it for consoles, well then you probably won't get it. Conoslelers never really seem to want to help their own kind achieve a common goal. But thats a no brainier since many seem to be happy with the sub par, and doesn't exactly pay attention to the other side of the pond as much. So much news surrounds gaming press of just console games that you have to notice thats why were asking. Because, apparently, 59+ thousands of people want to play it on PC.

I don't see why modding is even a complaint here. I have never made a mod in my life, and never have played any full on total conversions without first playing the game to extinction. We both sound childish, really. Your complaining about people wanting something and I'm complaining about you being a poo poo face who doesn't want to let me have some fun.

Can you give me any real reason to why it shouldn't come to PC, or are you saying it out of spite like 2 pages worth of people have been?

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

On the S.T.A.L.K.E.R one, is there even a petition for it to come to console? No? Well shut your pie hole because apparently no console fan apparently cares about S.T.A.L.K.E.R and neither should you. You know, there about 30 games just on my Steam libary that will never ever be coming to consoles unless as many people ask for it. Hold on a second while I pull up Reddit to find a subreddit built specifically to help you build a gaming computer that can run S.T.A.L.K.E.R for a budget that you want, why buy a brand new computer when you can just upgrade it for about half of $500

GSC Game World got their Xbox 360 developer rights way back in 2007 and even said publicly that they planned to port the first STALKER to the consoles. Unfortunately due to a lack of manpower and the studios recent problems, that's not going to happen. There's no petition because there's no need for one. I made the point later in the thread that you don't always get what you want. You can either live with what you have or try and whine the developer into submission. Part of the reason I'm not rooting for a PC release is that I want my developers to have some resolve. I don't want customers to get the idea in their head that they can bully a company into doing what they want.

I also made the point later in the thread that right now I can't afford to build a computer, even a $300-800 one. I'm between jobs so all my money is going towards medical bills and gas and other grown-up shit so I'll have to just make do with my second-hand consoles and $250 netbook. I know the idea that some people can't afford to to pluck $500 out of thin air and build themselves a computer mind blow some of your minds but it happens so unless you're offering to give us that $500 or if you know some way to magically upgrade a netbook for under $50 so it plays STALKER and Amnesia and TF2 and all those great-looking PC exclusive I've always wanted to play (But have learned to live without) then please, do tell, otherwise I don't really need your financial advice.

 

[Aprilgold]

On the S.T.A.L.K.E.R one, is there even a petition for it to come to console? No? Well shut your pie hole because apparently no console fan apparently cares about S.T.A.L.K.E.R and neither should you. You know, there about 30 games just on my Steam libary that will never ever be coming to consoles unless as many people ask for it. Hold on a second while I pull up Reddit to find a subreddit built specifically to help you build a gaming computer that can run S.T.A.L.K.E.R for a budget that you want, why buy a brand new computer when you can just upgrade it for about half of $500

GSC Game World got their Xbox 360 developer rights way back in 2007 and even said publicly that they planned to port the first STALKER to the consoles. Unfortunately due to a lack of manpower and the studios recent problems, that's not going to happen. There's no petition because there's no need for one. I made the point later in the thread that you don't always get what you want. You can either live with what you have or try and whine the developer into submission. Part of the reason I'm not rooting for a PC release is that I want my developers to have some resolve. I don't want customers to get the idea in their head that they can bully a company into doing what they want.

I also made the point later in the thread that right now I can't afford to build a computer, even a $300-800 one. I'm between jobs so all my money is going towards medical bills and gas and other grown-up shit so I'll have to just make do with my second-hand consoles and $250 netbook. I know the idea that some people can't afford to to pluck $500 out of thin air and build themselves a computer mind blow some of your minds but it happens so unless you're offering to give us that $500 or if you know some way to magically upgrade a netbook for under $50 so it plays STALKER and Amnesia and TF2 and all those great-looking PC exclusive I've always wanted to play (But have learned to live without) then please, do tell, otherwise I don't really need your financial advice.

I need to ask what you think of Project Rainfall, or all the Earthbound fans who aren't going to get the next game any time soon despite fan outcry. Its not bullying a company, especially since they also planned a PC version, or hinted at it on the post that started it all. They said a 'maybe' sure, but it still was something that people were waiting for held the devs balls to. On the Stalker one, if people didn't give a shit, and you don't give a shit, then why bring it up? The people in that thread held the devs to that.

Dark Souls will be forgotten about in a few years. However, through Steam it would sell years and years after and they would slowly rake in a fortune. I don't think its bullying, its holding them to their word, letter for letter. Even if Stalker fans didn't, that doesn't mean that others shouldn't.

Save up, thats what I did. It costs about as much as a console, you can probably just save up. I did so, and thats how I got mine. The sub reddit I sent you too can help you with anything related to building, the PC, specs and all that good stuff, they can probably find you a good deal on something you need somewhere. I'm just trying to be helpful is all, but your problems don't exactly matter to me and aren't at all related to the thread.

Can you give me any reason why it shouldn't come to PC, and preferably a good argument with it?

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

Can you give me any reason why it shouldn't come to PC, and preferably a good argument with it?

I'm not saying it shouldn't, I'm saying the odds aren't really in your favor. You're asking for a PC port from a developer and publisher that don't really have that much of a history with the PC. Namco Bandai has only released 2 games on the PC in the last six years (Well 1, the other hasn't been released yet), similar story with From Software. Just trying to point out that the likelihood of it happening isn't as high as you'd probably like it to be. I mean it could happen, but I wouldn't bet money on it, and certainly not on any sort of petition.

 

[dragonsshunter]

I don't just want dark souls i want Demons and Dark souls for the PC. That would be a beautiful combo deal.

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

I don't really see the point other than allowing more people to play the game, if the video had any good arguments, it ran out of them very quickly before stooping to the low of "PC gaming iz better than stoopid consoles we're better at appweciatin teh gayums moar"

Literally the one decent argument in the video is about PCs having more advanced hardware which is completely irrelevent in this day and age. Look at the footage from the game in that video, are you seriously looking at graphics like those and thinking "nope, not good enough"?

Is this Totalbiscuit guy really trying to convince people that better draw distances and anti-aliasing will let the developers "fully realize their vision for the game"?

 

[zombieshark6666]

I can't believe mighty PC gamers would stoop so low as to play a port of a modern dumbed-down game that was clearly designed for consoles. Diablo 3 is coming out soon, you'll be able to click away all you want. Jeezus...

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Damn you are amazing!
I honestly wasn't expecting such a massive support. My boss(es) even came to talk to me about this, after it explodes all around the world. If you wanted to have the attention of Namco Bandai Games, now you have it.
The future is in your hands, and I hope you will keep supporting this.
I make a personal objective to make sure every relevant people in Namco Bandai Games is in touch with this formidable effort.
Great Thanks!

http://forums.namcobandaigames.eu/showthread.php?p=2333925#post2333925

Hmm, at least the petition got not only the attention of the big guys but also made it clear that there is quite an interest in the port of this game.

I really hope this doesn't go into waste. A port of this game (irrelevant how shoddy it will be [well, not really. I won't forgive a port on Saints Row 2 quality]) would be a day 1 purchase for me then. Ah fuck day 1, preorder.

I'd wait for a word from the developer before I get excited. What is the publisher going to do? Have another developer make the port? No one wants that.

 

[Matthew Jabour]

IT'S A TRAP! At that website he mentioned, none of the other petitions say they have 15,000 signatures, but it doesn't show anyone's name! It's a sca-THWACK!