Heard of Evolve?

[MayheM]

So My friend told me about this and I just signed up. I figured I would share this with you guys in case you have not heard about it...

The site is...

http://www.evolvehq.com

[Armageddon]

Sounds like Steam's Shift+Tab. Even looks the same, and online gaming wasn't fun to begin with...

[Plague]

I assume that by showing TF2 their saying this can work in unison with Steam Overlay?
I could see issues there if they were to both be active.

But maybe I'll sign up, what little I use of the Steam Overlay I have not found a need to replace it.

[Ark11]

This is pretty much Steam but without the Store, News and Library features. Seem awefully pointless to me since better software that does the same thing and more has already been invented (i.e Steam, Xbox Live, Onlive, etc).

[pk_hunter]

Yeah, sorry, why is this better than Steam?

[Plague]

Well here is what I would guess makes it more attractive.

- Not tied to Steam, so it would function independently of Steams common hitches.
-- Might be openable during loading of games and servers and show up faster.

- Assuming the matchmaking features can cross over into Steam games we could see some neat things like the trailer showed off. I.E. sending invites to friends in a "party" system which can throw us into a game. (more streamlined compared to Steam)

-Good for secondary laptops/computers which might not have steam or don't do well with it.


But this reminds me of Rogue, it was cool at first but things like steam have it and now its pretty common.

[MayheM]

This is an overlay and will work with steam running in the background as well. While logged in I had no issues sending messages from both. It is still in beta at the moment so they are still working things out. It was pretty cool though since I gamed with the creators of it last night and helped them test some things.

As for the "same as steam" comments, yeah it is similar. Though there are many people who for some reason buy their games in hard copy form. This will allow them to network. I am still learning about all the stuff they are planning for this, but at the very least I think it is worth looking into.

[Plague]

I got my email,

other features,

- Able to cross chat with Facebook Chat, MSN, AIM and Gtalk.

- Browser

FB Chat does it for me, I'll be testing it out later.

[SotaPoika]

I see no point on this. Steam does the same and is already integrated with all it's games. It's like building another OS on top Windows, that does same things as the original but thru this new program.. Oh well, maybe with other games outside Steam this is useful.

[pk_hunter]

Though there are many people who for some reason buy their games in hard copy form. This will allow them to network.

You can use Steam with non-Steam games.

[MayheM]

Though there are many people who for some reason buy their games in hard copy form. This will allow them to network.

You can use Steam with non-Steam games.

Yes but those people who do not have steam can not talk to you on steam chat. That was my point. I was not saying you could not game with people who do not have steam.

[pk_hunter]

Then they could get steam :3

Either way they have to download a separate program to get in-game chat, might as well be the one that everyone uses.

[Nullvector]

I'm always on the look out for new multi-protocol chat clients, particularly ones that have ingame overlays. Honestly I just wish I could chat to msn/aim/facebook users via steam, then I'd finally be down to chat 1 client.

I've been using Raptr but its ingame overlay is pretty unpolished, sometimes making the game flicker even when its hidden. It also lacks quite a few features in general like group conversations and such.

Evolve seems interesting, I like the aesthetic more than Raptr but its definitely early beta and is missing a lot of general chat features. Gonna give the overlay a spin though and see if it runs better than Raptrs.


Edit: So much for that, seems Evolve doesn't support SLI yet, it only renders on one video card so it flickers every other frame

[nub]

I see no point on this. Steam does the same and is already integrated with all it's games. It's like building another OS on top Windows, that does same things as the original but thru this new program.. Oh well, maybe with other games outside Steam this is useful.

It seems like it's got more to it than Steam's overlay, but there was no mention of a web browser being integrated, so I'll stick to Steam.


Also, not every non-Steam game works with the Steam overlay, but most do.

[MrTwoVideoCards]

This is nearly borderline Legal Trouble. Not in the sense that it copies steam though.

Honestly if you want to sell some platform to someone, it's generally not a good idea it looks similar to your competition. Thats probably one of the stupidest things they could have done at the time, and because of this people will generally degrade this platform client to" Oh it';s a Steam rip-off" Or "That shit is a low budget version of steam" and perhaps "They're joking right?".

I honestly can't see this platform going anywhere. I can understand it's uses in games that could require overlays, but steam can already provide that. It can already provide communities at which to announce to said community a game is being played or something like "Everyone Play some TF2 @ Interlopers.net server!". Honestly this feels like a mega step backwards in the "online" socializing software and community type interfacing.

The features I currently see listed will probably and eventually be included in almost every client we'll see. At this point theres not much reason to reinvent the wheel, which it seems to be something the developers of Evolve have been going after. And this is clearly evident by the fact that they literally talk to the viewers of the trailer like this has never been done before, or that this is some whole new kind of magic. It reminds you constantly of the " how the simplicity of things is not existent".

Honestly this is seriously stupid shit, and I think they are entirely wasting their time. Not only are they going to have to persuade people to stop using clients like Steam and D2D, but they're also going to have to hire a huge team to compete with how much those other clients have to offer. Not only this, but they'll have to offer much more than what steam and D2D is doing to really make anyone want to care. A perfect example of this is "Games for Windows Live". Sure it has a decent amount of users, but it just wasn't something that was fully backed up. As a result people would rather not use it, and go straight to something like steam.

I also feel that the team behind evolve are going to have to eventually give people some sort of reason to want to use their software, and eventually integrate into games. While GfWL isn't obviously the best, it allows games to access specific things within the client, same can be said for Steam. The integrated code between those clients also offers a lot of things I think that Evolve is going to have to persuade game developers, if eventually at some point evolve would want to. And lets face it, they will. Otherwise the evolve is going to slowly sink into the depths of oblivion, and cease to be used.

Either way I think you Evolve guys are a bunch of morons. Great job entering the market and business of Client integrated programs for gaming. It's not like steam has had years ahead of you, or GfWL, or even D2D. Honestly from a business standpoint, it's retarded. You guys are going to waste so much money, and so much time putting effort into something that is never going to be able to compete with the likes of these type of programs that offer the same features, if not even already more. This isn't the kind of business that you can bring revolution to anymore, because others already have it going on, and literally are going "full steam ahead". There is huge momentum with the current offerings of clients out there for this, that are going to be really hard to get in the race with.

Say even if it does happen, you're going to be just ANOTHER peer to peer way of in-game communicating. Then it will eventually boil down to what you can offer that makes you different. Being entirely honest here, Steam is the king. GfWL only has the momentum it does because of the Xbox 360. D2D has a decent amount of user base, but even then it's still not offering what steam has.