Project offset

Fuse · Apr 2007

Clever marketing idea, their site requires a certain amount of unique hits in order to reveal some kind of a press release i suppose .. They log all IP's and the progress bar dynamically fills up..

More on ign http://pc.ign.com/articles/782/782412p1.html?RSSwhen2007-04-20_141500&RSSid=782412

Start clicking away lads

adam · Apr 2007

Eeeenteresting

malcolm · Apr 2007

Well their texture resolutions are certainly more realistic now. I'm kind of surprised the whole bar is not full already.

Geezus · Apr 2007

Neat idea. I wonder how many licks it will take to get to the center though.

Illusions · Apr 2007

*sigh* ...highlight the whole page or look at the source code, and you see this:

01101011 01100101 01100101 01110000 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111

Which translated using a binary translator means "Keep Going"

Toomas · Apr 2007

On the shot on that page the ground looks suprisingly flat, like it uses oldschool bumpmap or something...
Weird and i tought thay had parallax and all that shit.

MoP · Apr 2007

Yeah, actually if you look at the highres image on the IGN article, the only thing that is vaguely impressive is the lighting - all the textures seem fairly flat and blurry, although they're fairly consistent and the model is quite interesting. Nothing that blows me away though. Crysis is looking considerably better, if that shot is anything to go by.

HonkyPunch · Apr 2007

Woah shit, i forgot about this game

thomasp · Apr 2007

seems like they have landed in reality.

i'm sure crysis will follow sooner or later.

acc · Apr 2007

It looks like... Half-Life 2 with nicer shadows.

Which is no bad thing by any means, but not terribly exciting.

MoP · Apr 2007

[ QUOTE ]
seems like they have landed in reality.

i'm sure crysis will follow sooner or later.

[/ QUOTE ]

Truth, yeah

aesir · Apr 2007

I'd say it looks pretty damn good for a small studio like they are. Textures may look rather low res, but that image is also really high resolution.

We'll be able to just better once they throw some more images our way.

Steve Schulze · Apr 2007

Getting close now. All should be revealed by tea time methinks.

McIlroy · Apr 2007

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, actually if you look at the highres image on the IGN article, the only thing that is vaguely impressive is the lighting - all the textures seem fairly flat and blurry, although they're fairly consistent and the model is quite interesting. Nothing that blows me away though. Crysis is looking considerably better, if that shot is anything to go by.

[/ QUOTE ]

Look at the trailer on gametrailers.com with the dragon. This game lost me there with horrible character models .

AstroZombie · Apr 2007

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, actually if you look at the highres image on the IGN article, the only thing that is vaguely impressive is the lighting - all the textures seem fairly flat and blurry, although they're fairly consistent and the model is quite interesting. Nothing that blows me away though. Crysis is looking considerably better, if that shot is anything to go by.

[/ QUOTE ]

engine is the word!
main is work of artists, and not teh power lol

Daz · Apr 2007

[ QUOTE ]

Look at the trailer on gametrailers.com with the dragon. This game lost me there with horrible character models .

[/ QUOTE ]

They've made a distinct style choice that might not suit everyones tastes, but I think horrible is a little harsh perhaps.

Oh yeah, and what thomasp said about reality setting in.

jgarland · Apr 2007

I had long since forgotten about this, but now I'm pretty excited about it. It looks a bit hit-or-miss at the moment, but I've got high hopes.

The art direction reminds me a bit of Fable or The Hobbit. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the overly exaggerated proportions aren't my cup of tea. I think we'll have to wait and see how it turns out. It's really too early to tell what the final product will be like.

Steve Schulze · Apr 2007

Well the meter has reached the end and returned to the begining, leaving a new character picture in its wake. Some kind of neat crocodile mount thingy.

It may not be gears of war or crysis, but it looks quite nice nonetheless.

HonkyPunch · Apr 2007

Wow, the characters look nice, environment is a bit sub par

rooster · Apr 2007

buh, while the environment doesn't blow me away like I was hoping, theres no way I would describe it as sub par. maybe the hype is leading us to be critical, because nothing I've seen of this game looks remotely poor

Rob Galanakis · Apr 2007

[ QUOTE ]
It looks like... Half-Life 2 with nicer shadows.

Which is no bad thing by any means, but not terribly exciting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed. I want to see any computer or console run at more than a snail's pace with a full screen of Parallax Occlusion... that alone brings my comp to 30 fps or so... add in all their other goodies and you won't have anything you can run on even DX10 for the next couple years until hardware catches up. IMO that is a good thing, just not fair to compare with Offset.

And yes I would have hoped for something impressive than a flat and barely bumpmapped plane with considerable mipping and blurriness clearly visible as a 'teaser shot' too.

adam · Apr 2007

New picture is up:

Jaco · Apr 2007

That's pretty nice, but the HDRI and DOF can't hide the SHITTY flat floor.

rooster · Apr 2007

that fucking floor murdered my cat. And I think it just called your mother fat. And sat on my hat

Daz · Apr 2007

I simply do not understand the shitty floor vibe. It's made of polygons. They kinda have a tendency toward feeling flat. Normal maps are more apparent in motion than still. Parrallax maps are far from standard. Seriously, get over it.

Nilium · Apr 2007

Everything looks nice to me. Lke that croc thing, it's quite cool if you get to ride it, and judging by that saddle I'd say you do. Only thing I dislike is this stupid hits bullshit -- extremely tedious.

MoP · Apr 2007

Creature looks pretty cool, yeah. Also nice to see they're presenting stuff that looks like it could be in a final product, rather than showing off stuff on ridiculously high-spec hardware that is likely to be cut or heavily reduced for an actual build.

Ninjas · Apr 2007

All that waiting for just one screenshot? That made me sad.

On the other hand, this game seems to have something Crysis does not-- art direction. Looking cool!

rawkstar · Apr 2007

yeah... brilliant marketing scheme, but they need to adjust the amount of unique IPs that need to hit the page cuz... this is ridiculous... its like thousands of people have to hit the page just to unlock 1 somewhat crappy screenshot... i wouldn't be surprized if people just lose interest and the rest of their stuff never gets unlocked at all lol

Mongrelman · Apr 2007

I really like all the offset stuff I've seen, but I agree with rawkstar, it requires way too many ips just for a screenshot. We've had videos before, so requiring this for screenshots seems a bit off.

Hopefully after this screenshot there will be something more interesting.

aesir · Apr 2007

it'll be another screenshot for the next one too, and probably the next one after that. Then its videos.

Nilium · Apr 2007

This much waiting for two screenshots has probably killed it now. It's not bad looking, but asking that much for just this so far, and expecting more, is unreasonable. I think they've already killed the interest in getting traffic to the site now.

spacemonkey · Apr 2007

maybe they think they have more fans than they actually do? Interesting idea though.

Illusions · Apr 2007

Yeah I was expecting a full site with previews...not one more image. Requiring more unique IP addresses is just going to kill it, if it already hasn't.

NVM! They've released more binary text...going to go translate it...

NVM again. I could care less about a scrambled message from the Project Offset message board moderators.

KeyserSoze · Apr 2007

[ QUOTE ]
maybe they think they have more fans than they actually do? Interesting idea though.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the idea is actually to attract more fans... or at least, expose more people to the game. The purpose of the hit counter thing is so you'll send a link to everyone you know (or post it on various forums you browse) to get the counter up, and therefore expose more people to the game (people who may have otherwise been unaware of the game) who will also spread the link. At least, that's the idea. It's a viral marketing type thing, but not quite as annoying as most viral marketing techniques.

Though, seeing as the progress bar has pretty much stopped dead in its tracks after the second screenshot, the idea may not have worked as well as they hoped

.

Emil Mujanovic · Apr 2007

You hit the nail on the head there V, way too many IPs required and I've already lost interest. The screens look nice, but meh!

-caseyjones

dom · Apr 2007

man. this is taking forever. nice creature, not so nice waiting times.

Illusions · Apr 2007

Well the meters apparently crawled to a halt. If I was the Project Offset team in charge of this, I'd drop the amount of hits required to move it, and drop the whole unique IP requirement down to just having each individual IP hit count once per every few hours or something.

malcolm · Apr 2007

Fuck, this site is lame. I waited like a week and thought all would be revealed. One more picture, who cares just show me the whole thing already. Maybe when you buy their game they will only have 10min of gameplay until more users subscribe to the MMORPG and then another 10min of gameplay will be unlocked. Ass. And that creature does look pretty cool, way better than the environment.

Motz · Apr 2007

The bianary in the source has changed to (translated):

AnmroyYd.p.YdabtoUrpD.nlcbi! - Esp. Warsaw and SkateHead

its typed dvorak style on a non dvorak keyboard

so it reads:

AlmostThereThanksForHelping! - Esp. Warsaw and SkateHead