I was just wondering when (or even if) the Seahawks ever win the Super Bowl TTL.
Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium
- Thread starter RySenkari
- Start date
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Maybe Rick will open up a portal for anyone who can get him some of that Mulan McNugget sauce
All in favor of going on a quest for endless packets of Mulan McNugget sauce, say "Aye!"
But, seriously, this TL is awesome. I'd give anything to live in that world...even though I will miss some of the great things of OTL that got butterflied away ITTL.
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
Aye, but that would incolve time travel in OTL, and who knows what stealing/purchasing tons of those things fresh would change? Even worse, the show takes place in a fictional universe, but hey, it's worth a shot in order to play all those great games.
As for TTL, we don't get a great version of Titanic, nor do we get Bob Barker hosting The Price is Right from late 1996 onwards. No RWBY, either. And the music and movies we lose...most notably "Dragostea Din Tei", pretty much everything written by Eminem, the entirety of Green Day's American Idiot album, movies such as National Treasure and Shrek...I could go on. But there is a lot of good still we don't get IOTL, and overall, as I mentioned weeks ago, everything balances out in some way, albeit in my eyes, this world is considerably better off than ours in many ways, at least at this point in time.
You know, given the recent...hubbub surrounding Battlefront II, I'm reminded that the Seventh Generation of Consoles (XB360, PS3, Wii) was really the first instance of us seeing DLC become the norm in OTL and I'm hoping that none of the terrible business practices crop up ITTL. It's probably not gonna happen but maybe it'll be lessened so as to be not nearly as big a problem. On a more positive note, are we gonna see Achievements become a thing in this generation? Not everyone likes them, I know, but I'm a sucker for them. Unlocking Trophies in a Nintendo game would be kind of surreal because they're pretty much the only game company nowadays that has no system-wide achievement system in place.
Also, I'd love to see how the people reading Game Over would react to the Battlefront II fiasco. If I were to guess, I'd say a lot of bemused faces and a decent number of chuckles.
Also, I'd love to see how the people reading Game Over would react to the Battlefront II fiasco. If I were to guess, I'd say a lot of bemused faces and a decent number of chuckles.
Well, there is also the fact that autistic people have a rougher time of it after Chris-Chan's killing spree (I am autistic myself; however, I had graduated from high school in 2000 and was attending community college in Corpus Christi). OTOH, Selena is alive and producing music and starring in movies (and helping to expand Corpus Christi) and there is no war in Iraq, with all the butterfly effects from that...
Since we're all sort of chiming in on whether or not we'd prefer living in this reality, I'm not sure I'd even be INTERESTED in console games ITTL. It was a very specific sequence of events that led me to consoles in 2006, and so far the exclusives that pushed me to get a PS2 either don't exist, or they're split between the Xbox and Katana.
Plus, as stated, no Shrek, no Steve Harvey on Family Feud, no Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.
I'll think I'll hold on to my szechuan sauce packets for the time being.
Plus, as stated, no Shrek, no Steve Harvey on Family Feud, no Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.
I'll think I'll hold on to my szechuan sauce packets for the time being.
Achievements will definitely be introduced with the new wave of seventh generation consoles. As for microtransactions/DLC, well... Activision, Ubisoft, EA, and the like all seem like they'll be around in 2017, so we'll probably see microtransactions at some point. Hell, if the games are BETTER than IOTL, gamers might be willing to put up with more DLC. So we'll see what happens on that front. Greed is evergreen, after all.
Still worth it, though. It's every alt-history fan's biggest dream.
Updates are usually on weekday mornings, but don't hold us to that, if we don't update for a while it's because we're busy with IRL stuff or one of us is sick.
Maybe, and I already have my hands full with Degrassi and the Canadian version of Fargo, so...
Speaking of Canadian TV shows, I have a brief update planned to discuss a few Canadian cartoons that'll be coming up in the timeline. It won't be included in the next kids' TV update (which is also coming quite soon), but believe it or not, in the next Thrillseekers-related update. There's a reason for that, you'll learn why in the update
Thrillseekers TV show?Speaking of Canadian TV shows, I have a brief update planned to discuss a few Canadian cartoons that'll be coming up in the timeline. It won't be included in the next kids' TV update (which is also coming quite soon), but believe it or not, in the next Thrillseekers-related update. There's a reason for that, you'll learn why in the update
That will be covered in the update but it's not the cartoon we're talking about. It does affect the cartoon we're talking about though!
Winter 2006 (Part 1) - Sony Pushes Toward The Next Generation
The Longest Journey 2
The Longest Journey 2 is the sequel to 1999's hit PC and Ultra Nintendo game, The Longest Journey. It's developed by the same developers as the original game (Funcom) but is published by Sony, who ITTL acquired the rights to the series and characters around the time of the release of the first game. It has a few shared plot elements with OTL's Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, but does divert from that game in many ways. It's also more of an adventure title, whereas the OTL Dreamfall played out a bit more simplistically. It still features primarily puzzle and non-violent elements, but does have some action scenes and combat, and a heads-up display, unlike OTL's game. It does continue from the plot of the original, which featured a plot fairly close to that of OTL's game, establishing parallel Earths and a protagonist named April Ryan who could shift between them. The game features two playable characters: Zoe, introduced in OTL's Dreamfall, and April Ryan, the protagonist of the original title. While Zoe investigates a government conspiracy in the modern world, April, who has disappeared into the parallel world of magic, must find and ultimately destroy a rune that is causing the technology to be erased from Zoe's world. The player alternates between controlling Zoe and April, and eventually, the two characters cross paths with one another to liberate both worlds from an empire spanning the two worlds, controlling ancient magic in order to destroy modern technology. Unlike in OTL's game, where April ended up dying, ITTL's game, it's Zoe who sacrifices herself to protect April and save the two worlds. However, like TTL's Dreamfall, this death is left ambiguous, and it's implied Zoe will return in a future game.
The Longest Journey 2 was pushed fairly heavily by Sony in the months leading up to the game's release. As IOTL, the original game had built up a decent cult following, and the company was hoping that this game would succeed and give them a successful and strong IP to work with. It succeeded...partially. Initial sales on the Wave were indeed stronger than the initial sales of both the PC and Ultra Nintendo versions of the original The Longest Journey. Reviews were also good, averaging around an 8/10, though that's about a point lower than the original game, which was considered one of the strongest games of 1999. Ultimately, while The Longest Journey 2 failed to be the blockbuster Sony was hoping for, it did make enough sales on the Wave alone to turn a profit, and when released on the PC later that year, it added to its sales figures. While Sony would be in no hurry to release a third game, The Longest Journey ultimately would continue as a series, and thanks to the impending release of the Wave successor, it would take much less time for the game to get a second sequel than it did to get its first.
-
Ape Escape 4
The fourth Ape Escape game and second to be released for the Wave, Ape Escape 4 is a 3-D platformer similar to other games in the series. Unlike Ape Escape 3, which was a somewhat rushed game, Sony took its time with Ape Escape 4, fleshing out the plot significantly and taking strides to improve the gameplay. While bringing back Spike and some of the familiar characters in the series, Ape Escape 4 introduced several more human characters who played big roles in the story. These characters consist of a team of kids, each with special powers and weapons, who have their own personalities and special ways of hunting down the various apes, of which there are 86 in all. There are 11 worlds in the game, expanded from the seven worlds of Ape Escape 3. Of these worlds, there are two worlds each focused on each of the five main kids, and then one final world that brings them all together to fight the final boss, a man named Dr. Luken. Luken, it turns out, used to be a kid who had a pet monkey, but when that monkey ran away, Luken became determined to force all monkeys to do his bidding so that none of them would ever run away again. The monkey who ran away from Luken makes multiple appearances as "The Masked Monkey", a chimp wearing a Zorro-like cape and mask, who is sometimes friend and sometimes foe to the five kids.
Ape Escape 4 is expected to be one of the biggest games of the early part of 2006 when it's released in March amidst a wave of hype, but ultimately, reviews are only mediocre to decent, with the game scoring only about a 71% on Gamerankings, less even than the score of Ape Escape 3. The two big problems that critics have with the game are firstly that it focuses too heavily on the kids and the plot, and lacks a lot of the humor of previous titles, and secondly, that hunting down individual apes just isn't as fun. The game tries to introduce a lot of challenges and new gameplay aspects, but ends up being a bit of a jumbled mess, with apes that are frustratingly hard to catch unless the player is able to figure out a solution that isn't always hinted at well enough. Sony's attempt to change the 3-D platformer formula by introducing a number of genre-shift minigames creates more frustration than fun for a lot of players, and ultimately, the complex game is seen as being too big and overbearing when compared with the more simplistic Ape Escape 4. Combined with the fact that 3-D platformers (except for the very best ones) are falling out of vogue with players, and the game's sales end up being disappointing, with some of the lowest figures in the series to date, and giving Sony serious doubts about bringing Ape Escape to the next generation.
-
Going into 2006, Sony had two major projects in the works: the development of the new Blu-Ray high definition video standard, and the development of Nintendo's next video game console. It had already been agreed upon by Sony and Nintendo that the new console would use the new Blu-Ray format, but development on the console itself was ongoing when Sony was getting ready to release the first Blu-Ray players. This was a mixed blessing: on the one hand, not having a shiny new game console to push Blu-Ray into the average household would be a limiting factor for the new format's success, and with Microsoft's Xbox 2 set to introduce HD-DVD to the masses, it did cost Sony the chance to issue a crucial first strike in the upcoming format war. However, it might bode well for the new Nintendo console: with more time to develop and proliferate the new Blu-Ray format, they could introduce a Blu-Ray player in the Nintendo console at a much cheaper price, a price that would be competitive with the new consoles from Microsoft and Apple.
(...)
There has been a lot of discussion amongst the gaming community and amongst technology and business analysts about why Apple's iTwin console used a proprietary format not based on one of the two high-definition video standards. For a time, the prevailing school of thought had been that Nintendo had requested that Sony block Apple from the use of Blu-Rays, so as not to allow its console competition to use what looked to be a promising new storage medium. However, neither Nintendo nor Sony ever attempted to prevent the adoption of Blu-Ray by any of their rivals in the game industry, either by Apple or by Microsoft. In fact, internal memos at the time were hopeful that Apple's new console would adopt the Blu-Ray standard, which would give Sony a small cut of every game sold for the iTwin. Sony would've had its technology in two of the three major consoles of the day, a situation that could only be seen as a major coup for the Japanese technology conglomerate.
It was entirely Apple's choice not to use the Blu-Ray for the iTwin, and the ultimate decision, made by Steve Jobs and numerous high-level Apple employees, came down primarily to cost. Adopting the Blu-Ray technology for the iTwin would've resulted in a much higher cost for the console. While Jobs wasn't afraid to charge a premium for new technology, and had done so with great success for the iPod and its gaming variant, the iPod Play, he also knew that charging too high of a price for the iTwin, which was following a minor failure in the Katana, would've alienated too many potential customers. The ability for the iTwin to play Blu-Ray movies was an attractive one, but Jobs wanted iTwin owners to buy movies on iTunes to download (and later, to stream) to the console. Ultimately, the decision was made in the summer of 2005 that the iTwin would adopt a proprietary storage medium and not Blu-Ray.
-excerpted from "The High Definition Format War", posted on Techbubble.com on April 23, 2010
The Longest Journey 2 is the sequel to 1999's hit PC and Ultra Nintendo game, The Longest Journey. It's developed by the same developers as the original game (Funcom) but is published by Sony, who ITTL acquired the rights to the series and characters around the time of the release of the first game. It has a few shared plot elements with OTL's Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, but does divert from that game in many ways. It's also more of an adventure title, whereas the OTL Dreamfall played out a bit more simplistically. It still features primarily puzzle and non-violent elements, but does have some action scenes and combat, and a heads-up display, unlike OTL's game. It does continue from the plot of the original, which featured a plot fairly close to that of OTL's game, establishing parallel Earths and a protagonist named April Ryan who could shift between them. The game features two playable characters: Zoe, introduced in OTL's Dreamfall, and April Ryan, the protagonist of the original title. While Zoe investigates a government conspiracy in the modern world, April, who has disappeared into the parallel world of magic, must find and ultimately destroy a rune that is causing the technology to be erased from Zoe's world. The player alternates between controlling Zoe and April, and eventually, the two characters cross paths with one another to liberate both worlds from an empire spanning the two worlds, controlling ancient magic in order to destroy modern technology. Unlike in OTL's game, where April ended up dying, ITTL's game, it's Zoe who sacrifices herself to protect April and save the two worlds. However, like TTL's Dreamfall, this death is left ambiguous, and it's implied Zoe will return in a future game.
The Longest Journey 2 was pushed fairly heavily by Sony in the months leading up to the game's release. As IOTL, the original game had built up a decent cult following, and the company was hoping that this game would succeed and give them a successful and strong IP to work with. It succeeded...partially. Initial sales on the Wave were indeed stronger than the initial sales of both the PC and Ultra Nintendo versions of the original The Longest Journey. Reviews were also good, averaging around an 8/10, though that's about a point lower than the original game, which was considered one of the strongest games of 1999. Ultimately, while The Longest Journey 2 failed to be the blockbuster Sony was hoping for, it did make enough sales on the Wave alone to turn a profit, and when released on the PC later that year, it added to its sales figures. While Sony would be in no hurry to release a third game, The Longest Journey ultimately would continue as a series, and thanks to the impending release of the Wave successor, it would take much less time for the game to get a second sequel than it did to get its first.
-
Ape Escape 4
The fourth Ape Escape game and second to be released for the Wave, Ape Escape 4 is a 3-D platformer similar to other games in the series. Unlike Ape Escape 3, which was a somewhat rushed game, Sony took its time with Ape Escape 4, fleshing out the plot significantly and taking strides to improve the gameplay. While bringing back Spike and some of the familiar characters in the series, Ape Escape 4 introduced several more human characters who played big roles in the story. These characters consist of a team of kids, each with special powers and weapons, who have their own personalities and special ways of hunting down the various apes, of which there are 86 in all. There are 11 worlds in the game, expanded from the seven worlds of Ape Escape 3. Of these worlds, there are two worlds each focused on each of the five main kids, and then one final world that brings them all together to fight the final boss, a man named Dr. Luken. Luken, it turns out, used to be a kid who had a pet monkey, but when that monkey ran away, Luken became determined to force all monkeys to do his bidding so that none of them would ever run away again. The monkey who ran away from Luken makes multiple appearances as "The Masked Monkey", a chimp wearing a Zorro-like cape and mask, who is sometimes friend and sometimes foe to the five kids.
Ape Escape 4 is expected to be one of the biggest games of the early part of 2006 when it's released in March amidst a wave of hype, but ultimately, reviews are only mediocre to decent, with the game scoring only about a 71% on Gamerankings, less even than the score of Ape Escape 3. The two big problems that critics have with the game are firstly that it focuses too heavily on the kids and the plot, and lacks a lot of the humor of previous titles, and secondly, that hunting down individual apes just isn't as fun. The game tries to introduce a lot of challenges and new gameplay aspects, but ends up being a bit of a jumbled mess, with apes that are frustratingly hard to catch unless the player is able to figure out a solution that isn't always hinted at well enough. Sony's attempt to change the 3-D platformer formula by introducing a number of genre-shift minigames creates more frustration than fun for a lot of players, and ultimately, the complex game is seen as being too big and overbearing when compared with the more simplistic Ape Escape 4. Combined with the fact that 3-D platformers (except for the very best ones) are falling out of vogue with players, and the game's sales end up being disappointing, with some of the lowest figures in the series to date, and giving Sony serious doubts about bringing Ape Escape to the next generation.
-
Going into 2006, Sony had two major projects in the works: the development of the new Blu-Ray high definition video standard, and the development of Nintendo's next video game console. It had already been agreed upon by Sony and Nintendo that the new console would use the new Blu-Ray format, but development on the console itself was ongoing when Sony was getting ready to release the first Blu-Ray players. This was a mixed blessing: on the one hand, not having a shiny new game console to push Blu-Ray into the average household would be a limiting factor for the new format's success, and with Microsoft's Xbox 2 set to introduce HD-DVD to the masses, it did cost Sony the chance to issue a crucial first strike in the upcoming format war. However, it might bode well for the new Nintendo console: with more time to develop and proliferate the new Blu-Ray format, they could introduce a Blu-Ray player in the Nintendo console at a much cheaper price, a price that would be competitive with the new consoles from Microsoft and Apple.
(...)
There has been a lot of discussion amongst the gaming community and amongst technology and business analysts about why Apple's iTwin console used a proprietary format not based on one of the two high-definition video standards. For a time, the prevailing school of thought had been that Nintendo had requested that Sony block Apple from the use of Blu-Rays, so as not to allow its console competition to use what looked to be a promising new storage medium. However, neither Nintendo nor Sony ever attempted to prevent the adoption of Blu-Ray by any of their rivals in the game industry, either by Apple or by Microsoft. In fact, internal memos at the time were hopeful that Apple's new console would adopt the Blu-Ray standard, which would give Sony a small cut of every game sold for the iTwin. Sony would've had its technology in two of the three major consoles of the day, a situation that could only be seen as a major coup for the Japanese technology conglomerate.
It was entirely Apple's choice not to use the Blu-Ray for the iTwin, and the ultimate decision, made by Steve Jobs and numerous high-level Apple employees, came down primarily to cost. Adopting the Blu-Ray technology for the iTwin would've resulted in a much higher cost for the console. While Jobs wasn't afraid to charge a premium for new technology, and had done so with great success for the iPod and its gaming variant, the iPod Play, he also knew that charging too high of a price for the iTwin, which was following a minor failure in the Katana, would've alienated too many potential customers. The ability for the iTwin to play Blu-Ray movies was an attractive one, but Jobs wanted iTwin owners to buy movies on iTunes to download (and later, to stream) to the console. Ultimately, the decision was made in the summer of 2005 that the iTwin would adopt a proprietary storage medium and not Blu-Ray.
-excerpted from "The High Definition Format War", posted on Techbubble.com on April 23, 2010
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