Turn Based Async Gaming Built Into iOS 5!!!

YES!!!! <3<3<3

 

1. 
   
   of course is easier on developers.. question is about the implementation..
   gamecenter was so faar i've encountered a pretty basic service, where even the most basic stuff is missing.. for example offline data save of achievements and leaderboard scores.. this is such a basic feature but a must for nearly every game out there supporting gamecenter..
   
   but how is it implemented? ..well in most cases not at all, alot of games do not care about that.. because everyone out there needs to write such functions themself.. over and over again from dev to dev..
   (yes offline storage is in open feint)
   
   so if apple "neglects" such important factors with their gamecenter who knows what developer will find missing (or even worse don't even notice its missing) with more complex features..
   
   alot of people think GC is a out of the box solution, where its not.. if a raw framework of a house where you need to add your walls into or else your customer will notice some air draft here and there and oddly staring neighbours.. who can look into your bedroom..
   
   
   maybe their turn based stuff is not much of interest.. but to be honest there is not that much turn based games out there anway.. especialy not if you compare it to the onslaught of casual high score games..
   
   
   lol.. wow infinity blade made 10 millions.. rovio made 100 millions.. apple made a billion.. what has one thing todo with the other?
   
   if you'd read my post again you would notice i speak about time.. in response to "being first"... there is no iOS 5 market and the day it hits the update servers there is still no iOS 5 market.. only a small clientel of iOS user update their device regular and even keep track of updates..
   
   surely after time the pre iOS 5 userbase will shrink and shrink.. but being there with a product on day one means you have no market to sell your game too. And even if you count thoose odd few 10k or even 100k of user who update immmediatly.. what makes a developer think they will rush all out to get the newest game which has round based multiplayer.. oh wait.. hey other games had this before.. so what makes this game(s) so special..
   
   well the answere is nothing.. the GC stuff happens behind the curtain.. the customer out there could not care less about an easier life for the developers to implement feature X.. the competitors already have thoose in.. so why did you not have it..? wanna play the poor indie card on a global online market? pff as if anyone give a damn except a handfull of fans on an internet board..
   
   thoose out there don't care, they don't know and they don't even wanna know whats going on behind the curtain.. thats our playfield not theirs..
   
   
   
   
   iOS 5 actualy shows that apple is not always the "inventor" .. and certainly don't push the boundaries more than they need to.. they do what is necessary to compete on the market, but not a single thing more..
   
   this goes for software as for hardware.. every year a slightly faster cpu, a tiny bit more ram, a bit spec more here a bit spec more there.. heavily regulated evolution in close view on the competitors..
   
   android phones got a faster cpu, whe need a slightly faster one, they got a better gpu, now its our turn.. they got a 800*480 screen we get more pixels.. etc.
   
   the same happens with alot of the features buit into iOS 5 which are clearly inspired or even blatantly stolen from other apps on the appstore..
   
   i needed to laugh very hard when one of the new great feature was that you could snap a picture with the volume buttons.. hehe that was definatly not new and apps where not approved and removed from the appstore for having such a logical feature..
   
   but you know what.. the majority out there does not now.. nor do they care..
   they got the some new toys to play with and as a customer thats always great.. as a developer that a slap in face for some and a kick in the nuts for some more.. and some "nananananaaaa" for some others..
   
   but in the end i personaly could not care less.. its apple turf and you have to play by their rules.. they are surely not fair in alot of circumstances but there is no better mobile market avaiable
   
   
   
   
   ? what has virtual goods and currency todo with game center? setting up such a system is actualy pretty easy.. what do you need other frameworks for that? you already got iap which unlocks your own currency and then you have your games planting, building , whatever stuff going on consuming thoose currencies?
   i can't see anything missing here.. or some magic stuff you'd need from OF or Scoreloop
   
   maybe i am missing something.. care to elaborate ?

 

That's a nice post, but people still love Game Center anyway

I agree about offline achievements though, as an iPod Touch user it's one of the things that frustrates me the most.

 

I rarely bother to even log into OF anymore, forget about creating a new account just for some online multi. GC is without a doubt my first and only choice. Disk driving is the only non-GC game I play and I cant wait for them to add GC asap!

Completely pointless argument. iOS has the fastest rate of upgrades by users. And something as big as iOS5 is going to downloaded so fast that I wont be surprised if it crushes apple's servers. Heck, I couldnt wait and already installed the beta knowing fully well that its gonna be buggy as hell. Sure it wont reach is 100% potential in the first few days but to think it'll only be about 100k odd few people is beyond laughable.

Also, rest of your points against choosing GC for asynch are invalid too. No need to bother about maintaining your own servers is a big deal IMO especially for smaller devs. If/once your game takes off and/or you release the app on multiple platforms, you can invest your time and money into your personal severs instead of doing it the opposite way, wasting your resources only to find out your app is selling 10 copies a day. Invest your time in making the game as unique, interesting and polished (at launch) as possible instead.

I'd say these forums have people who'd care most about Online multiplayer experience and the majority of those prefer GC over everything else. Wjat makes you think that an average casual gamer will care about GC's few shortcomings if even TA gamers dont care about them?

I'm not really sure here but does apple even allows apps to re-program volume/other hardware buttons? Did they provide API's for that?

 

iOS 5 is clearly going to be released at the same time as the iPhone 4S/5 and the new iPod touch equivalent, plus many many 3GS+4 and iPad owners will upgrade on day 1 given it's a MAJOR iOS release. That's going to be considerably more than 100k iOS 5 users..

 

By the way Mr Ugly "native support" doesn't mean it's just an API by Apple, it means it can run all the time and be part of the system, including the notification system, and voice chat can persist between games without reconnecting. I suggest you try out an Xbox 360 to see how well this works.

Developing a system as good as Xbox Live doesn't take a small team 8 months, Microsoft invested more into that than we can probably imagine (both in term of software engineering and the physical server farms), why do you think Sony PSN is so poor in comparison? Apple have lots of resources working on Game Center trust me, and it will get better as more people adopt it.

 

I'm pretty sure Xbox Live is an ongoing project, it's never really out of development and what we see now is the accumulation of everything MS has worked on since its inception way back in 2000-2001.

I'm the same, I haven't accepted a single OF request from a game since I got Game Center. Never liked the UI and never liked it bugging me for access with every app I install.

 

well i hope the same is true for GC.. they surely don't work in short burts on anything over there @ apple.

well its not really open feints fault that they need to ask you.. of course there are benefits if its from apple themself, pretty much anything thats not from apple needs to to ask for allowance to be used in different apps , at least once on startup.. but that surely isnt the fault of services like open feint..or any other.. if they could they would surely love to be able to recognize users systemwide

*seufz* of course its a major update.. and if people learned anything from the release of iOS4 they will hold out a bit and see how this new enhances iOS works on their older devices.. and how fast 5.0.1 fixes the first issues.

apparently the debacle of the iOS4 release was forgotten fast.

we'll see and hope for the best..

i am curious what killer games you have released to be able to review any games with such authority.. ? get the point?

i don't need to release anything.. but i worked on alot of projects and still do.. so why do i need to release something "killer" myself? is there a single guy behind every developer? or of the ten-thousand smaller joints?

and what has multiplayer coding knowledge todo with releasing something yourself? what makes you think the code of a round based game is much different on any platform?

you make it sound like you need to been working on the multiplayer code of world of warcraft to have any knowledge of such things.. because it needs to be "killer"..? right.. ?

of course you scale such stuff.. if you start small which you should you can let it run on your companies webserver (or your webhoster of choice assuming everyone has at least a website) .. once you see the shit hits the fan because your a big hit you can scale up ... so start small and scape up if you need more performance.. one can get pretty beefy root servers for 50€ a month and can easily go from there..
surely its pointless if you game does not make the 50€ /70-80$) a month..
but honestly why even going on such a big project in the first place if you can't support it for some time?

as for consumers.. i highly doubt the big mass out there cares about gamecenter, its features or anything a developer cares about.. like i wrote earlier.. i don't even think they know exactly what game center is or how it works.. and why should they..

again people on this board are not the casual audience out there who buys the games into their top 10 positions.. this community is the tiny top of the "eisberg" when it comes to iOS audience.. and for every vocal user there comes what a hundred or thousands of non vocal customers who just don't care.

they do not provide an api for that.. but you can easily check the volume settings and if you press on the volume button in app X thoose values change and you snap a picture..

the point of rejection back then was not the some voodo coding but using a button outside of its purpose.. which they know do them self..

but again its their marketplace and they can do as they wish with it.. i just find it amusing that they change their rules as they see fit and slap a developer for doing so on monday only todo it themself on tuesday

..

i think they added async mp to gc because their biggest competitor (which is open feint in this segment) has this feature and not because its so importantly needed.


take care guys

 

why are others not doing it better.. can't say ask the developers..
for whatever reasons they have..

i also never said "easy" but reasonably, especialy in comparsion to other modules of a game

a few people over in the orions2 thread asked for async play which is a reasonable request.. and implementing thoose would not even close be as difficult as a ki playing out a magic the gathering like card game..

of course you need a server running etc. but if you are not a hobbiest thats all small expenses.. and if a team does not have the skills/time whatever you can always hire someone todo if for you..

in the end apples cloud will make alot stuff more accessible for smaller developers, for sure.. and even take come expenses away from bigger devs too.. the question is how much you want to rely on apples services alone..

there is a reason why bigger devs have their own social services like crystal, plus+, gameloft live etc. and do their stuff over their own server etc.

 

well you can use game center right know for match making.. this can easily work hand in hand with whatever tech you have

the biggest.. well problem is not the right word.. maybe shortcoming..
is that game center is not an .. well "active" community.. at least not in the broad view.
the service has so many user because its bund to their apple id everyone needs if they want to download anything in the store..

often it gets compare to xboxlive but xbox live is different because you need an account for xbox live to consume any online related features, may it be shopping , online play etc.

with gamecenter is something that came after the sudden success of the iphone as an gaming platform.. and the excecution of it still lacks alot of even simple features..

the option to buy app from within gamecenter is a nice addition but imho integrated at the wrong spot.. the game center app.. which i honestly never use.. i don't know how much usage other does it but i find the "integrated" approach of OF better because you can access all features from within every OF enabled app.. i would love to be able to switch to the dashboard of gamecenter from within an app without leaving it.. checking new fridnrequests etc. there is alot of potential and alof of things OF did right.

well again active use of gamecenter is necessary work such things to work.. if you just log into it once and then never really see it again because everything works in the background then i think its a bad implementation..

but again.. i have yet to see a handfull of developer who really implemented gamecenter into their app without relying on the basic views they provide..

apples gamekit documentation even recommend it strongly to use your own views and to integreate the "spare" framework into your product..

for example in house of mice i like how you get instant numbers when you finish a level.. there is no casion-esque view you need to access first to see your rankings its all there.. well not perfectly formatted for my taste but the implementation is right how it should be..

of course apple contradicts themself a bit here because implementation of the features should be as seamless as possible but then again the leave alot of features out in the "main" app where you need to switch between two apps do get the hole featureset.. which makes it cumbersome in alot of times.. at least for me.. i miss the direct access to the dashboard..

ahh and just a sidenote to the uglyness of OF.. any developer can deploy their complete own UI for OF as for gamecenter, no one is forcing anyone to use the provided ones..

as for app discovery i think OF does a good job with that with their (sometimes not free) offerings..

with some luck more of OF features will show up in game center in the next updates..

one main social gaming is very important imho.. and apple could do alot better.. i mean honestly they have endless resources and could easily beat the hole competition on their platform if they actually would, but maybe i hoped to much improvements on the gaming sector.

 

Really? Why?

 

EXACTLY. Why should they be bothered to create a new account, find and add their friend's id on this network to play with them instead of simply starting the app and going online with GC automatically without any need to login/create new id and finding/adding friends? I'm completely failing to understand how exactly is this situation better for either the devs Or the customers?

What are the disadvantages of GC you keep talking about? Cross platform limitation? What if the dev doesnt intend to try other platforms for now? And if/once the dev does decide to go cross platform, GC doesnt force an app to use GC's own servers for multiplayer. Just use GC for login and your own servers for multiplayer. Best of both worlds.

So what exactly is the reason you are asking devs to stay away from GC? I simply dont get it. Of course it has a lot of missing features which I'd appreciate if/when they get implemented but the few advantages it has, they are more than enough to make it better than anything else out there. ESPECIALLY for the casual gamer.

And…???
You still dont realize the simple fact that forum members prefer GC despite of its shortcomings and not coz GC has some extra features to please these not-so-casual gamers. These 'vocal' Forum members prefer it coz of its ease of use and the fact that its the official online service for iOS gaming. So what makes you think that its an inferior service for the average, non-vocal, casual gamer? If they dont really care, then why not got the GC route which is easier cheaper and more preferred by us forum members (atleast)?

Whoa, could you be any more wrong? I dont remember it exactly but Apple said they had over 200 million ids with credit cards. GC has 50 million. Where did the rest of the 150+ million disappear? With 24 million ipads and a crap load more of 3rd, 4th gen iDevices out there, there are definitely way more than 50 million GC capable devices out there.

Now go back to that GC app which you dont use (yet have no problem being an expert about its uselessness) and see for yourself if there is a login option or not. Your GC id is not the same as your apple id you used to download apps. You have to activate GC by using/creating an apple id.

Forget about "killer". Just tell us what exactly have you worked on which makes you think you are an expert when it comes to iOS app development? Everyone is bound to have an opinion but for some reason, you post your opinion as true facts. So please enlighten us with the wonderful works of Amazing mr.Ugly!!

 

Awesome! I was throwing around ideas for a turn based multiplayer game and this would make it easy peasy.

 

who debates about such things? you do.. and you do it alone..

no one is saying that game center is "wrong".. just that its not what it should be.. and could be with the unlimited ressources of apple..

if the "competiton" have more features and sometimes better technical solutions i fail to see whats keeping apple to limb behind..


[/QUOTE]
What are the disadvantages of GC you keep talking about? Cross platform limitation? What if the dev doesnt intend to try other platforms for now? And if/once the dev does decide to go cross platform, GC doesnt force an app to use GC's own servers for multiplayer. Just use GC for login and your own servers for multiplayer. Best of both worlds.
[/QUOTE]

who said that.. your arguing against yourself again.. this was about async play in gc.. which was "wooted" which i found odd since the competition already has such features for some time.. and i would expect them to finaly outdone them, which apprently they are not interested with their mini steps of developement in GC.

of course you can use gc only for matchmaking and then let the rest run over your own servers, no one said this is not possible.. if i recall right it was even an example given.. but excuse me if i don't scan the hole thread for this.

lol.. where did i ever said to not include gamecenter in your games?
that stuff you interpret yourself into my post.. nothing i am saying..
people should stop interpreting weird stuff into post of others.


as for the "liking" of forum members.. well thats their personal preference.
and one does not argue about taste..


as for ease of use.. what other system is so damn complicated? actually game center is the "weird" design choice as you need to access a seperate application to get full access to the features it has..

its the same with their initial idea of app setting which should be implemented not inside the app itself but into the settings app, so you would need to close app x to got to setting browse through all the clutter find the settings of app x choose them set what you wanted and get back to app x..


the same is with gc.. since there is no reason why they could not give games access to their dashboard and the extended features the app itself have.. so

i personally don't see much that makes it better than other offerings, except it being from apple. if that alone makes it automatically better than anything else, then be it that way. no point in arguing.

well never heard of such numbers (account+credit cards attached to it)..
but i don't beleive in the pr number mumbo jumbo..

but not everyone is using gc because not everyone is consuming games.. as easy as that..

well i log myself in with my apple id into game center.. it explicit ask me to enter thoose into it.. so your point is what exactly?

of course you can create as much apple ids as you wish and attach payment methods to such account or not.. but i still don't see the point..

game center is so much "used" because it uses the same ids.. that even your "easy of use" pro point?! ... don't get what you want to tell me..

ahh sarcasm.. well you guys add adjectives like expert, amazing, killer.. to the discussion not me.. and i surely never stated that my opinions are facts.. you do, i voice my opinion.. which is shaped by doing game developement for some time.. thats it.. read into it whatever you want.. i don't really care for personal attacks and insults.. we would say
"dieser zug ist schon lange abgefahren" .. if there is one thing one learns in over an decade in this biz is to handle ciritc see i'm no superman either, but i never thought of me that way.... but being able to fly would be awesome actually..