Global Agenda - locked FOV, HiRez think its an unfair advant

[Downtown1]

Hello all,

Global Agenda is quickly poising to become the next PlanetSide of MMOs. Think of an FPS, think of instancing with hundreds of players, a conquest mode where you take over territory from other agencies (clans), and now you have a very mild idea of what's going on. It is very much an FPS with unlockable skills similar to Battlefield 2142. Meaning you can be max level and still get your ass kicked by a level 1 if you're a bad at FPSes.

The game itself costs normal price, but if you want to engage in the conquest modes you have to pay a monthly fee (there is coop and normal versus battles that are free for life).

Anyway, the reason for this post is that we really want this game to have proper multi-monitor support. There was a thread on their forums about it and one of the HiRez developers just said:

"no, since it would give an unfair advantage"

A pretty narrow answer. So let's all go to this thread and please post a note of your support:

http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=12858&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

[suiken_2mieu]

it says i'm not authorized to read sorry.

[airodus]

Thanks for the linkage. The original post was made by me. I just setup my eyefinity rig a few weeks ago, but unfortunately I had pre-ordered Global Agenda before that. It's a fun game, even with a single screen. But I have been too engrossed with playing games that actually support my eyefinity setup to really give GA a fair shake. In terms of fun factor, I feel like this:

Global Agenda > Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 (surround gaming) > Global Agenda (single screen)

Jetpacks are great, but eyefinity is better.

[Tanuki]

I wonder if they will limit the connection speed of any T1 users to prevent unfair advantages?

[shockabuku]

I've registered on the globalagendagame forum but still get a "not authorised" message following the link. I do hope this kind of "unfair advantage" nonsense from some devs gets knocked on the head pretty quickly. All they are doing is damaging an emerging new (ish) technology that's got a lot of people excited, and of course saving themselves some additional coding. I think the arrival of Eyefinity & nVidia's equivalent could finally see multi-monitor gaming reach a mass market PC audience, and as we know, it's hard to go back to single screen gaming once you've tried it, so the software boys are really going to need to get on the train if they want to keep up.

[Aexrael]

Blah, was looking forward to playing triplescreen. Was very much looking forward to playing this game, but can't stomach playing 1680x1050 with narrow FoV.

Too bad I already purchased it.

[Unknownsock]

Let's face it most people still play with 4:3 1280x1024 screens, if that.
So realistically they should lock it at that right?

All this unfair advantage is BS tbh.
What if i have a native 2560x1600 30"?
Would i also get penalised for that?

I'm not authorised to read that btw also.

[airodus]

Yah, the original post is on the beta boards. I made another post in the public section. Please visit and show your support:

http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=12858

[Hyunkel]

Remind them that if they truly want to discourage "unfair advantage" they MUST discontinue all support for surround sound, widescreen, resolutions over 800x600, multi-button mice, gamepads/speedpads, macroable keyboards (and those with LCDs)... and anything you can think of adding there because some people prefer to get wasted every week-end than invest into their gaming experience.

You either take a stance or you don't.

[whismerhill]

+1 hyunkel

since any higher res than 800x600 will give more details in the distance effectively giving some kind of "zoom" which could be an advantage ...

I think surround "may" give a slight advantage in some particular situations with very skilled surround players
however with the larger amount of screen estate I don't think each & every surround player is skilled enough to be focused enough so as to watch all the screens at once in clear details ...

and let's be real it's been like this since the start of PC gaming ...
have a better screen ? => slight advantage
have a more precise high quality mouse ? => slight advantage (if skilled enough)
have a powerful computer with more consistent FPS ? => slight advantage
have a powerful computer with more gfx details ? => slight advantage OR disadvantage depending on the particular situation ...

they should rather focus on watching for hacked gfx drivers that allow for wireframe rendering or transparent rendering & the like ....
these are far worst....

[airodus]

Well looks like the post sort of worked. Latest response from developers:

HiRezErez wrote:
At some point we will look at it again, for now there are higher priorities.

So at least they are not dismissing it out of hand anymore. Dunno if this changes their stance, I certainly hope so. I can't imagine a game like Global Agenda worrying about "unfair" hardware configs. That's definitely taking itself too seriously and kind of turns off people who are looking for a game to have fun in. Anyways, feel free to reply in the GA forums and show your support. It's a fun game which would be made even better with some triple monitor goodness.

[Butch_N]

Hi all

That is really bad news. I hope this doesn't begin to be industry wide thinking.
I was really worried when I got Rise of Flight. It was completely vert- in triscreen when it came out. By completely vert-, that's exactly what I mean too. It simply took the standard single screen image and stretched it to fit across three panels. With all the talk about offering fair online play, I was worried they did that so triscreen could not be an advantage. Thankfully that wasn't the case and the devs corrected the aspect for proper triscreen display very quickly.

No doubt that folks with triscreen do have an advantage, but like has been pointed out, there are many other things that also offer advantages over other types hardware too. To single out triscreen as something bad for multiplayer is concerning.

I'm not playing Global Agenda and have no plans to get it, but I hope you guys get the proper support from the devs. As long as single users are not crying foul, it shouldn't matter to the devs. Now with AMD and soon NV offering triscreen solutions, their power should help to make sure games are released with the proper resolutions and aspect ratios for triscreen. I guess all you can do is lobby as much as possible. The squeaky wheel method, you know.

Good luck.

[fuzioninfinity]

I was really surprised to see this after I had gotten this reply from HiRezStew when I inquired about Eyefinity some time ago : http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=8906 (requires beta access)

The /setres command Zypher indicated will "work" in the sense that it will change your resolution to the indicated dimensions. But the specific multiple-monitor configuration is not tested or officially supported at the moment, and thus I would expect some things to potentially not work, and other things to work but potentially be awkward. From light, unofficial testing, it generally looks like the Combat missions will be largely fine, but you may see some problems in a few other areas (such as character creation).

-Stew

Though, when I got in game, it was very much the opposite, character creation was fine, combat was unplayable.. :-| Go figure.


I hope HiRez pulls their head out of their asses and gets around to supporting this, I had been looking forward to this game for a really long time..

[Downtown1]

I was really surprised to see this after I had gotten this reply from HiRezStew when I inquired about Eyefinity some time ago : http://forum.globalagendagame.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=8906 (requires beta access)

Yeah, I got the game to be tricked and run at 3840x1024 in Windowed mode, but the game is way way Vert- so there's no point.

[wazoo]

Kyle over at HardOCP is calling for a boycott of this game because of this very issue:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/02/11/dont_buy_global_agenda_editorial

I'm with him on this one and, frankly, am THRILLED to have Kyle and HardOCP onboard for triplehead gaming.

He's giving it lots of attention.

[shockabuku]

Yeah, Kyle's a good chap to have on your side, as he does tend to be rather outspoken & therefore attracts a lot of attention. He's gone completely nuts for Eyefinity, which is kinda fun to watch :mrgreen: .

[skipclarke]

Kyle over at HardOCP is calling for a boycott of this game because of this very issue:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/02/11/dont_buy_global_agenda_editorial

I'm with him on this one and, frankly, am THRILLED to have Kyle and HardOCP onboard for triplehead gaming.

He's giving it lots of attention.

I decided that we would join him in the Boycott.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/Main_Page

[redgun]

Left a post in there forums.
Also I definitely won't buy any game that doesn't support TH properly or allows tweaks to make it work.

[BRPunk]

This game was one the games I was looking forward to the most this year. I saw it at Quakecon and fell in love. After setting up Eyefinity though, I find that I just can't go back to single-monitor gaming... Because HiRez won't support Eyefinity this game has dropped me from a definite subscriber that was watching the game for months down to someone who won't even boot up the copy that they pre-ordered.

[Leapo]

I don't get how they can allow a bunch of other hardware that gives players an advantage, but not triple-head.

They're even allowing 120Hz monitors; someone playing on a 120Hz monitor at 120FPS can react twice as fast as someone on a 60Hz monitor locked to 60FPS. Such a monitor can also be used to enable stereoscopic 3D with shutter glasses, giving the user true depth perception. How is that fare when being able to see wider isn't?