Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news
From: yaroze@theburrow.co.uk (Barry & Robert Swan)
Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.freetalk,scee.yaroze.freetalk.english
Subject: Re: Net Yaroze 2 ?  Please.
Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 14:04:15 GMT
Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE)
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Lets play devil's advocate...

we all want NY2, but would we benefit from it? I reckon not. First of
all, there isn't one Yaroze demo Ive seen that would benefit from the
'rumoured' 5000% increase in speed. What it would allow would be for
us to take a simple game and add hundreds more incidental graphics
(eg, racing + 100s of trees whizzing past the side) which wouldn't
fulfill the criteria of the original NY brief (and presumably what the
2nd would be based on) which was to help allow amateurs to develop and
fulfill their creative ambitions. I personally am not really sure that
100s more trees shows any advance in what we would be trying to
acheive. The power of the NY2 would allow advancement in graphics and
the game engine, but so far I cant really think of anyone who has
followed the writing a complex game engine thread. That isn't a
putdown at all; the resources available to us are miniscule compared
to full dev houses, and the gap is only widening. 

Will be interesting to see what the Unis make of it; I want to see the
first results from Abertay Uni which covers the Yaroze more
extensively than the coutrse I did, and I have a sneaking suspicion
how they will turn out. I cant see how it is reasonable to teach the
NY2 even during a 3 year course as there is so much to know. At Sony,
not everyone knows everything about PS; people specialise quite
heavily. The idea of trying to know and do evreything for the NY2
would be rather jolly scary. Not that this means they shouldnt try in
the Unis, just that I wouldnt expect them to be as productive as you
might think.

The best chance of getting the NY2 would be to do what somebody
previously mentioned; really stretch the NY to show that we could cope
with the extra performance in rgw areas such as dynamics , collision
detection, AI behaviour etc etc.

I was thinking about doing a PDA game for the Yaroze. I havent checked
up on it at work but the answer would probably be a big slap in the
face. Cant gaurantee it (considering it will be extremely to
dissassemble whats on the PDAs anyway) but I dont think so somehow.
Might ask if can be arsed. I have to admit one thing recently made me
laugh; the quote from a guy at Codemasters saying that he didnt think
the PS2 would accept PDAs (oh, pocketstations if youre wondering).
Made me laugh a treat that one!) They are pretty sweet. Just nothing
worthwhile playing really, considering its all in Japanese. Wow, must
get a picture of Crash in the bath, wahey. (cough)

Most of the games Ive seen so far are pretty limited and trivial, but
Im sure you could do a half decent Zelda-like game on it. And because
the levels take so small memory (and you could even download new
levels from the PS) it could be huge. Or perhaps thats what Square are
doing for FF8. ah well.