Crysis Warhead First Look

a few key tidbits I found interesting:

The Crytek team wants to dispel the myth that Crysis or Warhead requires a high-end, expensive system to play. So they ran the Warhead demonstration on a $652 PC built with parts purchased online. Performance was astonishingly smooth and fluid even with a high level of graphical detail.

I am very interested in comparing the performance of each game on the same PC, as I'm still skeptical about exactly how much improvement is possible.

for every copy of Crysis sold there were as many as 20 copies that were pirated. To combat this, Crytek plans to strengthen copy protection in Warhead, but how it will do so remains murky for now.

As much as I'd like that to work, experience tells that extended copyright protection will only hurt legitimate players, not pirates, so I'm also interested in how they intend to resolve such a significant issue.

Regardless, as Warhead is intended to release only a year after Crysis and I expect there to be very little online support, I don't really have much interest in actually playing this. I just hope that the success of Crysis doesn't lead EA on another mass rehashing spree like they've done with every other successful title.
 
When they say improved copy protection, lets hope they mean a good multiplayer with the promise of updates and content patches.
 
Want now.

If they're smart, they'll just skip online play, make this single only and ship it at a lower price point.
 
for every copy of Crysis sold there were as many as 20 copies that were pirated. To combat this, Crytek plans to strengthen copy protection in Warhead, but how it will do so remains murky for now.

How do they get these figures? So if piracy didnt exist Crysis would have sold 20million copies. :rolleyes:
 
How does have many they would have sold justify 20 million free copies?
 
Crysis: Warhead is not Crysis 2.

Crytek said that the possibility of them developing Crysis 2 depends on the success of Crysis: Warhead.
 
lol they really need to give more details on the game running "smooth" on a "$600" pc...I can understand that Crysis wasn't as well programmed, but that's not very believable.
 
Looks like more of the same really. I'm struggling to get enthused about this game, Crysis got boring fast. FarCry 2 looks much more appealing
 
Crysis: Warhead is not Crysis 2.

Crytek said that the possibility of them developing Crysis 2 depends on the success of Crysis: Warhead.

I really think that depends on the performance of the game. This was supposed to be THE PC title to own last year when it debuted. Everyone was ready to run the game on High or Very high with their 8800's. That did not happen, and I believe that is what turned people off. I know a few people who pirated the game just because they wanted to play it, and didn't want to pay $50 to run it on Medium with their brand new PC.

I realize that the game can be run on medium, but this game was toted as end all title when it came to eye candy, and Cevat Yerli stated that it would run very well on an 8800. That got lots of people's hopes up, had the game not been so Hyped, I would of been fine running it on Medium and I'm sure other would too.

That being said, I received the game free with my 8800GTS 512mb, and I still haven't gotten two hours into it. I'm waiting on a PC that can actually handle it, so I can enjoy the game the way it's supposed to look and play. Had I not gotten it for free, I wouldn't of bought it until I new my rig could handle it.

If they really did optimize the coding, then the smart thing to do would be to have a few hardware sites Evaluate the performance of the game a week or so before it's launch to show that it really is running better. I feel that would help boost launch sales.

They could even take it a step further, and release the same optimizations in a Patch for Crysis the day Warhead launches, I know if I were in that boat, and the game WAS running well I'd pick-up Crysis and Warhead at the same time.
 
Yerli said that, due to delays, too much information came out for Crysis before it shipped. The long wait also built up huge expectations. Crytek is going to play Warhead closer to its chest, revealing a lot less than before. And there shouldn't be any long wait this time, as Crysis Warhead is on track for shipping this fall.

Duh, show us a vid of a game's gameplay that looks like it is going to blow everything we have known about PC gaming out of the water, then to finally release it and it doesn't look anything like what we were shown will piss us "supporting" gamers off...glad he learned that :D

I never finished crysis, but now I want to reinstall it and those mods that enhanced the graphics...I have always like it, I just dont like being lied to. Here's to Crytek hopefully doing it right this time, releasing it within the next five years and perhaps the angry people they chased away come back...:cool:
 
If the copy protection is anything like that of BioShock's, count me regrettably out. :(

And I think it's a little bullshit that developing Crysis 2 depends on Warhead's success. They would probably make it for consoles, at least.
 
If the copy protection is anything like that of BioShock's, count me regrettably out. :(

And I think it's a little bullshit that developing Crysis 2 depends on Warhead's success. They would probably make it for consoles, at least.

Same for me and I enjoyed the first Crysis.
If the copy protection is anything like Bioshock's, I will surely not buy Crysis Warhead until the copy protection system is removed or until the game reaches the economical bin.
 
I hope they tweak the engine a ton so that it will run a little better, even on my high end rig.
 
If the copy protection is anything like Bioshock's, I will surely not buy Crysis Warhead until the copy protection system is removed or until the game reaches the economical bin.
Ditto. I liked Crysis, and I'd like to have another go in that world, but not if Securom is going to be riding shotgun. That's an instant, tallyable lost sale for EA/Crytek.

The whole "strengthening copy protection will diminish piracy" concept is just amusing to me. Yeah, we're more likely to buy a game if the level of frustration imposed upon us is increased, right? Am I more likely to buy a car that needs to be jump-started every time I want to use it or am I more likely to buy a car that I can start by simply pressing a button?
 
Well, If you people kept what he's saying in context you would see that he says that the increased copy protection DELAYS piracy. Which means on launch there's a higher potential to sell the game rather than people downloading it. If they have no protection, it will be available for download probably before the stores even sell it.

This makes sense on a business level, but doesn't change the fact that these things ultimately punish the legit buyers because it is inevitable that the game WILL be cracked and pirated.
 
lol they really need to give more details on the game running "smooth" on a "$600" pc...I can understand that Crysis wasn't as well programmed, but that's not very believable.

I think it will be a combination of a years worth of optimizations, price reductions on hardware and lowered settings. High is the new Very High. Problem Solved!!

That being said, I received the game free with my 8800GTS 512mb, and I still haven't gotten two hours into it. I'm waiting on a PC that can actually handle it, so I can enjoy the game the way it's supposed to look and play. Had I not gotten it for free, I wouldn't of bought it until I new my rig could handle it.

Crysis came bundled with my GTS as well. Which I considered an added bonus since Crysis was the entire reason I was building a new computer in the first place. Handled the game well enough on high settings.

Ditto. I liked Crysis, and I'd like to have another go in that world, but not if Securom is going to be riding shotgun. That's an instant, tallyable lost sale for EA/Crytek.

Ironically, to them it isn't. Apparently lost sales are tallied by torrents. ;)
 
..increased copy protection DELAYS piracy...This makes sense on a business level
It'd make sense if the business model was entirely based around first-week sales, sure. (Assuming Warhead gets cracked in roughly one week, which is certainly feasible) First-week sales are important for a game like this, but are they so important that you threaten lifetime sales by implementing draconian, invasive, anti-consumer copy protection schemes?

I like buying games on release day, but if the copy protection is overzealous, I'm not buying it at all. Not just a lost first-week sale but a lost sale of any kind. -1 sale. Just like that.
 
here is what sucks....im not super picky..but i really like to play a game with about 50 fps..and extremly rarly have the fps drop below 40...it just takes alot away from the gameplay in my opinion..

crysis runs a little better on lower fps, than the quake engine or the unreal3 engine, but still,

I have not played crysis yet because i tried, and it was just way too laggy for me, on my 8800gts...so i put the game aside, and said, ill play it when either they patch it, or hardware comes out that will run it well...

ill be getting a 4850 or 4870....looking at the reviews..its better, but i still dont think ill want to play threw the whole game, on veryhigh, because i still think it will be choppy

now it kind of really sucks that the expansion is comming out, that supposedly i WILL beable to run on my machine, but i wont be able to play it, because i have yet been able to play the orginal..

I really hope they patch crysis either before or at the same time warhead comes out..because i really want to play the game
 
i thought i read somthing on this forum saying they are going to patch crysis..

ok well that sucks...so the $650 computers cant play the orignal, but they can play the expansion? WTF 0_o
 
It'd make sense if the business model was entirely based around first-week sales, sure. (Assuming Warhead gets cracked in roughly one week, which is certainly feasible) First-week sales are important for a game like this, but are they so important that you threaten lifetime sales by implementing draconian, invasive, anti-consumer copy protection schemes?

I like buying games on release day, but if the copy protection is overzealous, I'm not buying it at all. Not just a lost first-week sale but a lost sale of any kind. -1 sale. Just like that.

Here is the excerpt from the article:

To combat this, Crytek plans to strengthen copy protection in Warhead, but how it will do so remains murky for now. Yerli admitted that it's a very difficult task. "If you want to have an anti-piracy mechanic, you have to spend a lot of time at the risk of incapability here and there. So you will annoy some people, but you will delay the amount of piracy. You will make 10 people angry for 1,000 more people who cannot copy… It's a dangerous walk to walk because the 10 people who are upset, they will get loud about it. And this is where we have to be good about it, and it's difficult."


While the business model is not built ENTIRELY around the first week (used arbitrarily), it that first week certainly is a HUGE portion of that business model.

For a game's release in the first week, if it wasn't available for free already, logic tells us that more sales will be made than if it was already available for free. Sure, some people will still wait for that week until it is free. But for titles like Crysis, that first week's launch sales #s are going to consume a very very large portion of total sales throughout the product's life.

If those were my options as a developer and as a business competing for profit, I would undoubtably see the better option being to include the copy protection to squeeze as many sales out of that first week as I possibly could.

Yes, people will bitch, and that's what we see here a lot as enthusiasts on an enthusiast forum. What we don't see a lot is the random person walking through the store seeing the game on the shelf and going "oh that looks cool! I'ma buy that!" or the "My friend told me about this really cool game. I'm gonna buy it when it comes out!". Had they known they could get it for free, perhaps they would not buy it.

Unfortunately, that segment of the market takes up a whole lot bigger portion that we, as enthusiasts, do. We just sometimes forget to see that there's a bigger picture out there than our little corner of the web where everybody is a "know-it-all". :cool:

Compared to a game like WoW, that same business model does not apply.
 
the money is in great multiplayer games....i wonder how much TF2 has made
 
Yes, people will bitch, and that's what we see here a lot as enthusiasts on an enthusiast forum. What we don't see a lot is the random person walking through the store seeing the game on the shelf and going "oh that looks cool! I'ma buy that!" or the "My friend told me about this really cool game. I'm gonna buy it when it comes out!". Had they known they could get it for free, perhaps they would not buy it.
Let's face it: The majority of people buying games like Crysis do so for the visual treat, and the visual treat comes with great cost. You need great hardware to run this stuff, and the recommended specs printed on the box are certainly nothing to sneeze at. Sure, maybe Warhead runs great on a $600 PC, but surely the components that went into the machine were carefully selected to deliver the best experience for Crysis (and not necessarily great performance with other games) and not just some ignorantly-selected hodgepodge. If you go by Valve's hardware surveys, less than 10% of "gamers" can realistically handle Crysis at High detail levels at common resolutions (let's say 1280x1024 or above), and that's only gamers who have Steam installed and take part in Valve's hardware surveys.

To get to the point, I don't think many PC gamers waltzed into their local shop, saw the pretty screens on the Crysis box and thought "yeah, this looks fun -- I think I'll plunk $50 down on this". That's Zoo Tycoon territory, and we're talking about Crysis. It's a game that's just aggressively geared toward enthusiasts, and enthusiasts are by and large educated about what's going on in the industry, and that includes the proliferation of copy protection and piracy.

What EA/Crytek is trying to do here is, in a manner of speaking, play God. They're using copy protection as a means to regulate a phenomenon that's impossible to regulate, and their expectation is that it's going to be successful. It may lead to better first-week sales, maybe, but there's no reason to believe that many gamers simply wouldn't wait several days for a cracked executable (assuming the game doesn't end up floating on the net prior to the retail release), and there's no fathomable way for EA/Crytek to collect data or assemble statistics to determine whether heightening copy protection is successful in that regard or not. So what's the point? It's basically like trying to observe the effects of glycerin on bacteria without a microscope. They're walking into this thing blindly while under the assumption that it's the right thing to do. How strange...

Besides, Crytek talking about increasing copy protection (already?) isn't exactly going to do wonders for first-week sales. Stupid move.
 
What I see here is you analyzing things based on yours and other people's speculations. I don't know who you are or what you do, but assuming you're a regular gamer/enthusiast like me, how could you possibly know that "It's a game that's just aggressively geared toward enthusiasts"?

On the other hand, I'm doing nothing more than analyzing myself. However, it is quite clear to me based on the words that Yerli himself is saying (as provided for you) that he sees us, the enthusiasts, as the minority (10 vs 1000). And based on that, he strongly believes that "delaying" the pirating of his game will allow for more initial sales in the meantime before it gets cracked.

You are 1 of the 10 people he mentions. Yea, you're going to be pissed off about it and make a lot of noise, but you compared to the bigger picture is next to nothing. Sorry to say.

Besides, none of this matters one bit anyway. Why? Because they're going to induce copy protection and people are going to pirate games. We can't change either of those facts. If you don't want the copy protection but you do want the game then I see 1 simple solution. Buy it and when it gets cracked install it with the crack. Bam, you bought it AND you don't have to deal with their copy protection.
 
I don't know who you are or what you do, but assuming you're a regular gamer/enthusiast like me, how could you possibly know that "It's a game that's just aggressively geared toward enthusiasts"?
I'd say it boils down to system requirements, among other things. It's not a casual, mainstream game, as the system requirements for playing it "as it's meant to be played" (ambiguous, I know) are pretty tremendous, and it has a fair degree of depth and complexity in addition to being rated for mature players. If we call Zoo Tycoon mainstream, off-the-shelf family fun, then Crysis is the exact opposite of that. The anti-Zoo Tycoon ;)

However, it is quite clear to me based on the words that Yerli himself is saying (as provided for you) that he sees us, the enthusiasts, as the minority (10 vs 1000).
And the little name placard Yerli has sitting on his desk may as well read "gasbag". Who truly believes that, out of 100 people potential Warhead buyers, there'd be only one PC gaming enthusiast in the bunch? What on Earth...?

If you don't want the copy protection but you do want the game then I see 1 simple solution. Buy it and when it gets cracked install it with the crack. Bam, you bought it AND you don't have to deal with their copy protection.
There's the annoyance factor of copy protection -- the bullshit that I personally have to deal with if I buy the game -- but there's also the principle of copy protection. I'm just not going to support a company who willingly implements excessive, anti-consumer DRM schemes. That also has the potential to negate any interest I might have in future Crytek games, so one lost sale may very well turn into two, three or five lost sales within the next ten years. Big problem.

If only Silus weren't day-banned so he could chime in here :eek:
 
I'll wait before buying it. I have so many games unplayed/unfinished as it is now.
I let them earn my trust by reading reviews and hearing other's take on it before buying.

Yerli stated the optimised code might make it to Crysis later. It's extensive and sounds like a major code re-work so might not happen at all.
 
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