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zilllathegod · 4 years ago

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Is Halo 4 aging gracefully?

In a nutshell, yes I think it is. After the release of Halo Reach in 2010, Bungie left the Halo series entirely to Microsoft. 343 industries was the team created by Microsoft at that time to carry on the franchise and in 2012 they released their first game, Halo 4. For a short time, approximately 2 weeks, the game was very popular but could not hold on to a core population when faced with competing against the release of Call of Duty Black Ops 2.

The population dwindled and never recovered even though many updates were released to tweak the game. Eventually, in 2015, Halo 5 was released with improved multiplayer (but a worse single player experience). I can make an entirely different post about the changes made between the two games but it is widely considered that Halo 5 took steps in the right direction to return Halo to some of its mechanical roots while balancing the need for parity with other modern games.

Since its release, Halo 4 has gone on to take a sort of joke reputation in the halo community as the most "Call Of Duty"-esque Halo ever created. Halo 4 did find its way into the compilation game "Halo: The Master Chief Collection" alongside the original trilogy, which means that Halo 4's multiplayer has been made easily accessible for anyone interested in playing the older games. If it had just been left on the 360 it is possible very few people would continue to play the game, especially considering that Microsoft recently announced they were shutting down the 360 halo servers in 2021.

All of that being the case..when I play Halo 4 today what it honestly feels like is a fun, good looking, familiar, game that shares key characteristics with the halo formula. Halo 4 felt foreign when it came out, but after playing other modern shooters and switching over to Halo 4 the game feels good because of a few key design choices.

It is important to note that it is my opinion that Halo 4 is fun and exactly how "fun" it is remains up to any individual to decide for themselves. What I would like to focus on is the fact that Halo DOES feel more like a modern shooter, not if that is a good or bad thing. You could make the argument that Halo should stick to its traditional roots and the fact that 343 making halo more accessible to gamers from other games is not necessarily a good thing. This entirely depends on your values but personally I feel like 343 had no choice and if Destiny or Halo: Reach are any indication then Bungie would've did the same kinds of things, had they remained with the series.

343 did some good things in certain respects and went overboard in other areas that stick out to me after spending time playing games like Destiny 2, Fortnite, Hyperscape, Apex Legends, Battlefield, and Call of Duty. I want to dig into some of the characteristics of Halo 4 that support its familiarity with modern shooters.

Aiming

Aiming is a huge part of every first person shooter. In Halo, aiming was typically assigned to the right thumbstick and would cover the entire screen for certain guns, or not be available for other guns. With the increasing popularity of the Call of Duty series a slightly different aiming system became common called ADS, short for aim-down-sight. The first time I saw this system used was in the early Medal of Honor series, a popular Military shooter that would be the pre-cursor to Call of Duty. You could also make the argument that even earlier games like Doom were the originators of this kind of centered aiming.

This method has the player press the left thumb trigger and actually look down the barrel of the 3d gun when the button is pressed. When the player releases the button their sight returns to normal, simulating the real-time action of pulling a gun closer to your face then quickly moving it back. At first the difference seems stylistic but it has a noticeable affect on gameplay habits and muscle memory. These particular stylistic choices are what make individual games feel unique unto themselves.

Halo 4 actually did not feature ADS but what it did feature was the ability to set a toggle for aiming to the left thumb trigger, allowing a similar button configuration to the ADS method common in other shooters. Basically it controls like other games but LOOKS like Halo. I actually think how Halo 4 handled aiming was a better stylistic compromise than what Halo 5 would eventually do, which completely abandons the old style in favor of more straight forward ADS.

Adding sprint

Up until this point sprinting had never been a part of Halo and had only ever been featured in Halo Reach as a special ability that you could decide to have or not have. In Halo 4 sprint was added as a default capability for players, which was unprecedented. From the player perspective it gives you the ability to at least feel like you can reach engagements quicker or evade losing battles. Many Halo players consider the addition of sprint to be a major detriment to the series because of the perceived negative effect on map design and game flow. I can see some merits to how sprint can alter map design but I largely don't agree that it breaks the game in the way that many say. How can you quantify that? It still "feels" like halo and if you are like me then you would have already been using sprint heavily in Halo Reach (sprint was the go to armor ability in MLG for instance). To me it is actually satisfying to be able to speed up in certain scenarios, a satisfaction that is reinforced in other modern games that would feel jarring not to have in Halo. Adding sprint doesn’t stop the game from feeling like Halo and it is better to just get used to it as a mechanic in modern shooters.

Loadouts/Abilities

Halo followed the classical method of distributing weapons to the player during multiplayer matches by giving the player a default set of weapons, then pushing them to pick up weapons scattered throughout the map. The player could find weapons either from fallen enemies or from pre-determined placements around the map. Understanding weapon spawn locations and timings were a key part of the competitive Halo meta. Another type of distribution became common in other games, especially Battlefield and Call of Duty, where the player had a more distinct, configurable, weapon-set that they could choose prior to the match start that could be different from another players weapon-set. Maybe I choose the long range weapon loadout to optimize for sniping encounters and someone else chooses the machine gun for suppression support. The weapon loadouts open the door for players to express themselves via different roles as supposed to having a more level playing field from the start.

This kind of weapon distribution plays into the core design of the game and meshes well with class-based specializations(sniper vs medic) as supposed to the classical arena archetype that is based on equal-starts and a level playing field. A good example of how this plays out is in Destiny 2 when each player determines the weapons they use personally and there are no weapon pickups at all. This can be compared to a classic Halo match where everyone starts with a pistol and assault rifle and continually fights for map positioning to gain access to the best weapons. Other battle Royale games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Hyperscape have renewed a focus on weapon pickups and situational awareness when it comes to weapon choice. Halo: Reach, Halo4 and to some extent Halo 5 (in the warzone mode) all adopt a loadout system for multiplayer matches.

Personally I don't feel like halo has the weapon selection or role specializations that make loadouts make sense HOWEVER the existence of loadouts for weapons does make the game feel familiar. With the addition of weapon cosmetics it is clear there is a push for players to build a more personal connection with specific weapons they use as supposed to weapons feeling like interchangeable tools. Having the player play "favorites" in this way is the core design change that Halo 4 shares with other comparable modern games.

Expanded Movement

Since Halo takes most of its base design from earlier arena shooters like Quake and Unreal, the movement is pretty basic. Like I touched on earlier, in the original trilogy you can't even sprint, the only thing you do is walk around, jump, and shoot. Many new shooters have implemented expanded movement systems for players though, like Overwatch or Destiny where certain abilities allow players to fly or teleport. With the addition of sprint, Halo 4 added abilities that augmented player movement further pushing to expand the way the player interacts with the environment. This was previously explored with the jetpack in halo reach but was more refined in Halo 4. 343 would eventually push the player movement further with default strafing and levitation abilities, among other things, for Halo 5. While not entirely as exaggerated as the hero-based character types of Apex legends, Halo could combine weapon loadouts and abilities to hint at specialization that previously was not present in the series but is currently common in most other FPS games.

Ease of use (feed back)

Basically in a nutshell, Halo 4 feels easy. It feels easier to rattle off kills compared to Halo 3, which many consider to be the pinnacle of the series. To some extent the game feels like its pushing you towards being satisfied faster. When I compare these two games I'm not entirely sure what it is from a game design perspective, it could be something like time-to-kill or hitboxes. One of the things I think is how the battle rifle feels to use. The Halo 3 BR has a smaller reticule and a generally softer sound/feeling. The Halo 4 reticule looks huge to me by comparison and the gun feels heavier. I haven't done any in-depth testing to compare the weapons but they definitely feel very different. In a nutshell the most used most important weapon in the game feels more grounded and easier to use. I'm not saying anything about gametypes or map design just core shooting-killing with the battle rifle and other precision weapons.

There are some areas where 343 went overboard and they have been trending slowly in the right direction. Maybe in a different post I will cover the mistakes they have made but due to some key design changes (that ultimately I feel neutral about ) they have managed to create Halo titles that have some familiarity with other games in the current market. This is important because this familiarity has a positive effect on the franchises long term market viability. The difficulty for 343 is balancing the needs of the market with the stylistic needs of the community. PS: some recent Halo 4 highlights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r8GbcE_NVA&ab_channel=ZilllaTheGod

#halo #bungie #343 #microsoft #fps #shooters #xbox

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sad-ch1ld · 6 years ago

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It’s all go across our studios at the moment, as devs from the UK, US, and Germany put the hours into getting Alpha 3.5 into the Persistent Universe. Naturally, the latest patch features heavily this month, but look a little closer and there are plenty of tasks for Alpha 3.6 and beyond being worked on to wet your whistles.

Star Citizen Monthly Report: March 2019

Last week, we updated the public roadmap with content all the way up to Alpha 3.9, where we’ll be flying Vultures to Crusader and beyond. If you missed the latest update, take a look, as progress for these new features will start appearing in your monthly reports soon enough.

AI – Character

We start with Character AI, who spent the month making general improvements, firstly to combat behaviors to make it easier for the team to assign different tactics to different characters. This work happily fixed a few bugs with vision perception and cover selection too. Secondly, NPC locomotion saw the integration of the collision avoidance system into smooth locomotion, which now takes into consideration the edge of walkable navigation areas.

Naturally, bug fixing, stability fixes, and optimizations were also done for Alpha 3.5.

AI – Ships

Ship AI implemented new pilot skill levels to vary the agility of enemy ships and determine how they balance self-preservation and aggression. Improvements were also made to how non-player traffic behaves around landing zones.

AI – Social

The Social AI Team finished the first pass of ‘scooching’, which made its monthly report debut last month. If you missed it, scooching enables a character to fluidly move from one action to another within a group of useables.

Design supported the set up of the bartender/vendor character by providing necessary tech pieces where needed. Optimization started on usables, including the caching of usable entries and TPS query time-slicing.

Animation

March saw Animation readying mission-giver Tecia Pacheco for her Alpha 3.5 debut and finishing the animation sets for Recco Battaglia and the ship dealers. They also implemented new female emotes and brought the male versions up to the current quality standard, which included stopping a plague of different technical issues.

Focus was also on two big-ticket items: developing the final jump system and the female playable character. Finally, the team worked on the combat AI system, adding new weapon options for enemies to use against the player.

Art – Characters

Character Art were one of the many teams collaborating on Alpha 3.5’s facial customizer. This coincided with the adding of the female playable character into the game and creating new armors wearable by both sexes (which will continue into the foreseeable future). Tecia Pacheco’s hair was tidied up before launch and the few non-Alpha-3.5-related hours were spent refining the hair creation pipeline.

Art – Environment

Many Environment Art devs devoted the month to Alpha 3.5, making quality-of-life improvements, bug fixing, and polishing assets. Several locations, including Hurston and Lorville, were refined and tweaked to give an overall improved visual experience. The ongoing planet tech development rolls on too, with current efforts becoming the foundation of wider improvements coming later in the year. The team are also looking into ways to better scale natural features like canyons, with first tests looking promising.

The final touches were added to ArcCorp ahead of its big release, with huge strides made early in the month when Area18, Riker Spaceport, and the surrounding city received finalized textures, materials, and finishes. While the planet was ‘content complete’ a while ago, the last stages of development saw countless optimization tasks completed to make it good enough for players to explore. The final level of detail (LOD) tweaks were completed to enable the assets to perform well in-engine, along with other technical aspects like tweaking view distance ratios, altering vis-areas, and merging meshes. Art of distant buildings and advertising added the final touch to the city’s vistas.

Art – Tech

Tech Art worked on the user interface for Character Customizer v2, which will see the light of day in Alpha 3.6. While the current version gives users all the required functionality, the process can be thoroughly streamlined through a number of layout and functionality amends. These changes have been prototyped and are awaiting implementation by the Gameplay Team.

Tasks towards extending the character creation ‘DNA gene pool’ were also completed, which will eventually increase the number of heads the user can choose from and blend together. While still being significantly fewer than the planned final amount, the enhanced pool will give players much greater variety compared to the nine heads per male and female available in Alpha 3.5.

Alongside customization, they fixed a few weapon-related bugs for both dev builds and Alpha 3.5, such as wrongly-oriented attachments, broken or missing animations, and a tagging issue causing the player character to be assigned the wrong animations. They supported Weapon Art with rigging and engine setup for several upcoming releases and worked with Animation and AI Programming on the first implementation of the new usable system.

Audio

Alpha 3.5 features the new flight model, the development of which presented an unmissable opportunity to expand on the ship audio experience. Improvements include new sound effects for strain and vibration, afterburners, maneuvering thrusters, and atmospheric flight. They also include accurate point source sound emitters and general improvements to the overall design, implementation, and mix.

Naturally, attention was given to ArcCorp and Area18, with new environmental dialogue, music, and sound effects implemented to contribute to the overall sense of a thriving metropolis. These include PA announcements, diegetic music, spot ambiance effects, dynamic advert audio, and systemic planetary ambiances. The team’s work is again complemented by the brilliant ArcCorp music cue from composer Pedro Camacho.

Audio was also produced for the Kastak Arms Coda pistol, Gemini S71 assault rifle, Xi’an Kahix rocket launcher, and Banu Tachyon ship cannon.

Finally for Audio, notable developments were made to the Foley system, including better footstep material recognition, redesigned depressurized footsteps, and varying footstep effects dependant on character heaviness and footwear. The Foley sound effect sync was improved when running too, as were collision sounds when rag-dolling.

Backend Services

Throughout the past month, Backend Services supported Alpha 3.5, fixed various bugs, and adjusted backend-supported features. On the main development front, great progress was made on the GIM rewrite, with the new matchmaker successfully tested internally. The GIM’s internal match/group management system also came to life. These changes are significant because, rather than being code existing inside the legacy GIM application, they are now individual and highly fault-tolerant services that can be scaled as the project develops.

Another major change was the introduction of the variable service, which came with a surprisingly high volume and rate of data.

One of the team’s goals this month was to provide much needed insight and analytics on various types of data coming from the DGS. So, a new system was created to track the rate of individual DGSs along with information about specific variables, enabling the team to fine-tune how data is serialized and how often it’s pushed to the backend.

The first major part of the iCache has been completed and tested internally, too. The iCache is a highly distributed and fault-tolerant storage/query engine that greatly out-performs the current pCache. It provides an indexing and query system that can be utilized by other services for specific and complex item queries. This system is important going forward, particularly as the Persistent Universe sees greater volumes of players and server meshing comes online.

Community

The community celebrated St. Patrick’s Day (or Stella Fortuna!) with a screenshot contest calling for in-game party pics. Plenty of outstanding images of memorable moments were received, but there were only three pots of gold to hand out – the lucky winners taking home a Constellation Phoenix Emerald, Mustang Delta, and Ursa Rover Fortuna.

March saw the unveiling of the multi-crew explorer, the Corsair. Should any prospective pathfinders be unsure whether they want to sail the stars in Drake’s latest, the recently released Q&A should help. Jump Point, the monthly subscriber-only magazine, took an even deeper dive into the Corsair’s design process along with a behind-the-scenes look at the new character customizer, a Whitley’s Guide on MISC’s Reliant series, and more.

Shouts of ‘Triggerfish!’ could be heard across the ‘verse when we announced our first new merchandise offerings of 2019 on April 1st: The Scents of Star Citizen collection. Classic fragrances of the past meet the mysterious essence of the future in Quantum, an innovative cultivation that transcends space and time.

Content – Vehicles

While the Vehicle Content Team predominantly focused on the three MISC Reliant variants and continuing work on the 300 series, they found time to work with Animation on a better system for setting up character ship entry and exit animations. The also tackled a variety of vehicle bugs leading up to the release of Alpha 3.5.

Design

Design’s focus throughout March was on Area18, which included adjusting the AI, usables, stores, and more. Tecia Pacheco was given a design pass, while a new team member was inaugurated with tasks to improve both the Emergency Communication Network (ECN) and NPC spoofing missions (where NPCs send out service beacons asking for help).

Regarding the in-game economy, a system built to create a robust and modular representation of item variance was polished and is now ready when needed. Inventories were also added to all new locations, including the new Alpha 3.5 weapons and items created by the Weapons Team.

DevOps

The culmination of this year’s first publishing cycle was especially busy for DevOps. The team publish internal builds every day of every month for internal testing, but demand increases drastically when additional publishes are needed for the Evocati and PTU. As the game grows, so does the complexity of deployments and the reporting requirements, with this month seeing a 69% increase in build activity. Most of this is due to the ‘feature streams’ that the team have worked on for the past few months, which isolate features from each other during development to avoid collision.

Engineering

The Engine Team supported Alpha 3.5 with extensive profiling, optimization, bug fixes, and improvements to help Sentry, the PU crash database, better analyze and catalog existing issues.

Rendering wise, they continued work on Temporal Sample Antialiasing (TSAA) with general quality improvements that translate to less flickering and a sharper picture. They also adjusted the TSAA bicubic filter based on frame time to prevent the accumulation of ringing artifacts at high framerates. For hair, they added an experimental option for custom tangents, removed the temporary scatter model, moved the hair mask to variation map alpha, improved edge masking, and added card support for the hair physically-based rendering (PBR) shader. For planetary ground fog (currently scheduled for Alpha 3.6), they refined the proxy mesh tessellation and moved pre-tessellation to jobs, did the first ray marching test and implementation, refined modeling of the fog gradient over terrain, and spent time rectifying floating point precision issues.

They also completed rendering support for CPU-accessible textures for RTT video comms calls and optimized shaders to avoided unnecessary resource creation (e.g in GPU skinning). The Initial ImGUI integration was completed and will be used to unify and improve the in-game profiling tools. System and module integration were added to avoid an unorganized collection of tools and a text/tag searchable configuration system for registered tools (similar to visual code) was implemented. To better improve load times, the team created a new load time profiler to track file access (times accessed, data transfer, etc.), amended the IO scheduler for SSDs and HDDs to give faster load times and response, and vastly improved file access in the shader system to speed up initialization at start-up.

In addition to the compile-time analysis tool developed last month, they finalized an add-in tool to generate optimal uber file sets and, as a result, reshuffled game uber files for even better compile times. Work also began on a physics debugger that will allow the team to record issues, play them back, freeze time, etc. to help understand and speed up fixing complex physics issues.

Features – Gameplay

Throughout March, most of the team dedicated their time to working with the Character Team on the customizer, including the design flow, user interface, and the implementation of the female playable character. The rest focused on implementing comms video streaming improvements. All of the team’s work this month made it into the Alpha 3.5 build, so can be seen by anyone in the Persistent Universe.

Features – Vehicles

Improvements to gimbaled weapons were finished for Alpha 3.5 and the radar and scanning systems received a polish, including the implementation of focus angle and ping fire. Under-the-hood progress was also made with vehicle item port tech, specifically with the vehicle .xml migration to Data-Forge. March’s final stretch was spent fixing game crashes and bugs for the upcoming release.

Graphics

Alongside visual tweaks and fixing stability issues for Alpha 3.5, the team better aligned the sun and shadows with fog in large spaces (such as hangars) and fixed a persistent glitch with indoor lights. For vid-comms and general render-to-texture, the teams fixed a few issues that were interfering with brightness along with intermittent cases where lights on holograms were disappearing. They also switched most holographic scenes over to a forward-shaded render pipeline to improve efficiency.

Graphics also got in on the gas cloud feature by supporting Design, adding the ability to rotate tunnel pieces, and creating a more intelligent streaming system to enable them to lay out large sections of the game without running over the memory budget.

Level Design

The Level Design Team barreled on with Area18, fixing bugs and generally preparing it for its unveiling. This included a lot of playtesting and tweaking of the room-system, landing areas, transit system, and more.

Planning began for the upcoming procedural tool and next set of procedural space stations. Prototyping was done on cave layouts and potential gameplay was ideated in close cooperation with the Environment Art Team. There were also updates to Lorville, with the addition of small and medium hangars and a new transit line between Teasa Spaceport and the Central Business District (CBD).

Lighting

Like many others, Lighting almost entirely dedicated their month to finalizing Area18, which required collaboration with a lot of other teams. Particularly, they worked with Props and Environment Art in the final push to raise the visual standard and unify the look across the wider landing zone. Performance is always a concern, so special attention was paid to ensuring the maximum lighting quality was achieved within the defined frame budgets. After lessons were learned during the development of Lorville, the team were able to optimize the new location’s lighting far more efficiently.

Aside from Alpha 3.5, Lighting had a hand in the development of the character customizer by providing a clean, high-quality lighting rig for the UI. They also supported the reworking of the Echo 11 Star Marine map, providing additional polish, optimization, and clean-up.

Narrative

In March, Narrative worked with Design to identify the production nodes and manufacturing locations of all of Star Citizen’s corporations for the expanding economy system. This led to a review of the item inventories of Stanton’s shops to make sure stores were carrying items appropriate for their location. The team also worked on generating names for various vehicles, including the Ursa Rover Fortuna.

Narrative filled Area18 with a variety of posters, ads, and props to flesh out the lore of Stanton’s newest landing zone. They also worked with the Live Design Team to support mission content for Tecia Pacheco. Finally, Alpha 3.5 will also provide a first look at the new Banu language that is being developed, so keep an eye out for more info on that.

Player Relations

Player Relations were busy throughout March supporting the Evocati and players smash bugs in the PTU. Initially, they worked alongside the Evocati for several builds to test out the new flight model.  Once it was stable, they added Concierge and Subscribers to test out the other key features. Eventually, all backers were welcomed into the PTU before Alpha 3.5’s wider release.

“We say it every month, but we can’t thank our volunteers enough for the wonderful efforts they put into helping us build this game (especially you Avocados!).”

Props

At the start of March, the Props Team took Area18’s assets from the ‘modeling complete’ phase through to ‘final art’, which included the technical set up, LODs, prefab setup, and bug fixing. They reached ‘content complete’ status half-way through the month before heading into the final polish pass. The area’s food carts were pushed a little further with branding and dressing prop variation, while the lighting was separated out to give the Lighting Team more control. Updates were also made to older street furniture to bring it up to standard and the team helped with the branding and signage assets used throughout the level.

With persistent habs included in Alpha 3.5, a pass was completed to convert a whole host of props from static objects to interactive entities, while hand grip was set up to work with the player animations and additional physics set up.

The team also took a pass at the Spectrum Unlimited kiosk, creating additional dressing, props, and magazines. The month was rounded off with a final bug-fixing pass and, of course, turtles.

QA’s testing focus was on feature integration for the Alpha 3.5 branch. They tested all the new content such as ArcCorp and its moons, Area18, the character customizer, female playable character, Origin 300i rework, and Reliant Variants. In addition, stability and performance testing ramped up in anticipation of the release and included daily performance captures to help narrow down and fix performance-related issues.

The AI feature testers in Frankfurt worked hard to stay on top of the various issues that cropped up with the addition of new mission givers and changes to collision avoidance. The embedded tester for the Transit Team was kept busy debugging various low repro issues that seemed to be tied to server performance and caused issues such as players falling through floors and Lorville’s trains not turning up. Memory corruption testing is currently ongoing to help track down crashes that occur randomly during normal gameplay. This testing is being done in the PTU using custom binaries provided by the Engine Team.

Ship Art

Lead Vehicle Artist Chris Smith completed the refactor of the Origin 300i and spent quite a bit of time getting the components modeled. He has now officially moved onto a new ship, which is currently in the whitebox phase.

3D Modeler Josh Coons continues his work on the Banu Defender and is working diligently to complete the greybox stage. Since everything on this ship is brand new and almost nothing is re-used from other ships, he is being assisted by Associate Vehicle Art Director Elwin Bachiller to ensure it’s completed in time.

System Design

The System Design Team finalized the current iteration of the no-fly zones around Area18 and ArcCorp, which required new features to be added to allow it to work at the scale required. Walla and Lyria both received their share of mining resources, with Walla getting unique Atacamite geode deposits. They also finalized their work on the unification of the vendor/bartender AI, which will allow the same behavior to serve drinks at a bar and give players items from a shelf and weapons from a rack.

Turbulent

Turbulent supported the Alpha 3.5 features promotion, which highlighted character customization, ArcCorp, and the new flight model. They also supported St. Patrick’s Day, which featured the new Ursa Rover Fortuna and a screenshot contest.

The CMS backend migration continued and was deployed to the PTU (the changes will appear in the live environment within the next few weeks).

Voice servers received an upgrade which will benefit from RTCP (data channel) improvements and enable active speaker detection in comms channels. The security of voice channels has also been improved. The Services Team continued working on video streams in comms channels in order to improve long-distance calls, too.

Turbulent’s upcoming Game Admin tool will support game designers as well as the Player Relations Team by providing key statistics as well as granular technical information on groups, lobbies, and voice channels. The design is now done and development has started on its first functionality, the general information display.

Finally from Montreal, the Game Services Team continued working on the new framework that will impact all upcoming development of Star Citizen services. Thanks to this core modification, services including group, lobby, and voice channel will be more standardized and upcoming development milestones will be reached quicker.

Last month, UI finalized the in-fiction advertisements and branding for ArcCorp and Area18. They progressed with the area map, including the ability to visually distinguish between different floors of an interior. As release day drew closer, they worked on various optimizations and bug-fixing.

Vehicles

This month, the Global Vehicle Team put the finishing touches to the Alpha 3.5 ships and steadily progressed with those beyond the latest release:

The largest sub-team is focused on the Origin 890 Jump, which has just completed the greybox stage and is now heading into the final art phase. Work is progressing on the Carrack, which now has the whole of the engineering section in the rear done to greybox and the habitation deck is only missing the captain’s quarters to be greybox complete. The Vanguard series is heading to the final art stage, with the rear section and cockpit both receiving a pass. The exterior is up next. Greybox of the Banu Defender rolls on, while the Character Concept Team was called on to build a foundation for the Tevarin species that will be used to help design the Esperia Prowler.

Finally, pre-production began on the P52 Merlin update, P72 Archimedes, and the Esperia Prowler.

VFX

The VFX Team rolled out their recent GPU particle lighting changes, which includes a new optional specular shading model for particles. This multiplies the level of lighting the particle receives from the cube maps, causing it to sit within the environment more realistically. In the photo below, the left smoke effect uses the old lighting (without specular shading), while the right uses the new system.

The team is currently looking at some of the older effects in the game and are reworking them to take advantage of the updated systems, such as the EMP, which was added some time ago and has since degraded due to issues with the old particle system.

Regarding weapons, the team polished and optimized the new ballistic pistol and assault rifles and took the first pass at the Tachyon cannon; a brand-new weapon type that was in its R&D phase last month.

On the ship side, the reworked 300i had a full VFX pass. Finally, as is usual in the run-up to a release, the team began their twice-weekly playtests, from which a fairly large ‘snag list’ was created and fixed.

Weapons

The Weapon Art Team started work on the Apocalypse Arms Animus missile launcher, the Klaus & Werner Lumin SMG, and new upgrade levels for various ship weapons.

Conclusion

WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…

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inexcon · 6 years ago

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RSI Comm-Link: Star Citizen Monthly Report: March 2019

Star Citizen Monthly Report: March 2019

AI – Character

Naturally, bug fixing, stability fixes, and optimizations were also done for Alpha 3.5.

AI – Ships

AI – Social

Animation

Art – Characters

Art – Environment

Art – Tech

Audio

Audio was also produced for the Kastak Arms Coda pistol, Gemini S71 assault rifle, Xi’an Kahix rocket launcher, and Banu Tachyon ship cannon.

Backend Services

Another major change was the introduction of the variable service, which came with a surprisingly high volume and rate of data.

Community

Content – Vehicles

Design

DevOps

Engineering

The Engine Team supported Alpha 3.5 with extensive profiling, optimization, bug fixes, and improvements to help Sentry, the PU crash database, better analyze and catalog existing issues.

Features – Gameplay

Features – Vehicles

Graphics

Level Design

Lighting

Narrative

Player Relations

“We say it every month, but we can’t thank our volunteers enough for the wonderful efforts they put into helping us build this game (especially you Avocados!).”

Props

The team also took a pass at the Spectrum Unlimited kiosk, creating additional dressing, props, and magazines. The month was rounded off with a final bug-fixing pass and, of course, turtles.

Ship Art

System Design

Turbulent

The CMS backend migration continued and was deployed to the PTU (the changes will appear in the live environment within the next few weeks).

Vehicles

This month, the Global Vehicle Team put the finishing touches to the Alpha 3.5 ships and steadily progressed with those beyond the latest release:

Finally, pre-production began on the P52 Merlin update, P72 Archimedes, and the Esperia Prowler.

VFX

Weapons

The Weapon Art Team started work on the Apocalypse Arms Animus missile launcher, the Klaus & Werner Lumin SMG, and new upgrade levels for various ship weapons.

Conclusion

WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…

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starcitizenprivateer · 6 years ago

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Star Citizen Monthly Report: March 2019

AI – Character

Naturally, bug fixing, stability fixes, and optimizations were also done for Alpha 3.5.

AI – Ships

AI – Social

Animation

Art – Characters

Art – Environment

Art – Tech

Audio

Audio was also produced for the Kastak Arms Coda pistol, Gemini S71 assault rifle, Xi’an Kahix rocket launcher, and Banu Tachyon ship cannon.

Backend Services

Another major change was the introduction of the variable service, which came with a surprisingly high volume and rate of data.

Community

Content – Vehicles

Design

DevOps

Engineering

The Engine Team supported Alpha 3.5 with extensive profiling, optimization, bug fixes, and improvements to help Sentry, the PU crash database, better analyze and catalog existing issues.

Features – Gameplay

Features – Vehicles

Graphics

Level Design

Lighting

Narrative

Player Relations

“We say it every month, but we can’t thank our volunteers enough for the wonderful efforts they put into helping us build this game (especially you Avocados!).”

Props

The team also took a pass at the Spectrum Unlimited kiosk, creating additional dressing, props, and magazines. The month was rounded off with a final bug-fixing pass and, of course, turtles.

Ship Art

System Design

Turbulent

The CMS backend migration continued and was deployed to the PTU (the changes will appear in the live environment within the next few weeks).

Vehicles

This month, the Global Vehicle Team put the finishing touches to the Alpha 3.5 ships and steadily progressed with those beyond the latest release:

Finally, pre-production began on the P52 Merlin update, P72 Archimedes, and the Esperia Prowler.

VFX

Weapons

The Weapon Art Team started work on the Apocalypse Arms Animus missile launcher, the Klaus & Werner Lumin SMG, and new upgrade levels for various ship weapons.

Conclusion

WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…

$(function() { Page.init(); window.Page = new RSI.Game.About(); });

#star citizen #squadron 42

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mrhotmaster · 5 years ago

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Samsung Galaxy S20+ Detailed Review: Here All You Need

Samsung Galaxy S20+ Detailed Review

Are ' Space Zoom ' and 8K recording appropriate for justifying an unbelievably high price?

Samsung's bundle of premium Android cell phones this year looks encouraging. We have the S20 arrangement for photography lovers, and the Galaxy Z Flip for those searching for the front line of cell phone innovation. We haven't checked the following Galaxy Note cell phone, which should come later in the year, and will no uncertainty have interesting highlights to gloat about as well. The huge concentration for the new Galaxy S20 arrangement this year are the cameras. Samsung is making a ton of commotion about its new 'Space Zoom' include and the way that the S20 models are the first to offer 8K video recording at a valuable framerate. The telephones looked very amazing when we initially observed them at Samsung's Unpacked occasion a month ago, and now it's a great opportunity to take a closer and more top to bottom look, beginning with the Galaxy S20+. This is the immediate successor to the Galaxy S10+【₹ 69,900】and like with each cycle, we ought to anticipate a sleeker structure, better battery life, improved camera execution, and obviously, an all the more remarkable processor. Valued at Rs. 73,999 in India for the sole 128GB form, is the Galaxy S20+【₹ 73,999】 justified, despite all the trouble? How about we see.

Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plan

The Samsung Galaxy S20+ is right away conspicuous as a Samsung cell phone. Contrasted with the Galaxy S10+, Samsung has refined the plan. The upper and lower bezels of the showcase are smaller, and the glass back has a more extensive bend along the edges, covering a greater amount of the aluminum outline. This telephone is still truly agreeable to hold however the gleaming completion makes it very elusive. It's not excessively thick at 7.8mm, however it's somewhat heavier than its ancestor at 186g. The thin showcase outskirts and marginally taller body have permitted Samsung to utilize an a lot bigger presentation. The Galaxy S20+ highlights a 6.7-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X board, with help for HDR 10+ and, just because, a 120Hz revive rate. You can set the showcase to run at 60Hz at its full goals, or 120Hz at or a lower, full-HD+ goals (which is the default setting) on the off chance that you like. Be that as it may, you can't have the 120Hz revive rate at the full goals, in any event not yet. There have been gossipy tidbits about Samsung anticipating permitting this with a product update later on.

The Galaxy S20+ loses the auxiliary selfie camera that the Galaxy S10+ had, and rather there's a solitary, focus mounted opening punch pattern.The pattern doesn't combine menus or other UI components from full-screen applications, so apps are mostly shut off this field. The volume and force catches are on the right, and Samsung has discarded the devoted Bixby button. Rather, you can tweak the long-press capacity of the force catch to either wake Bixby or dispatch the force menu. A twofold press activity can likewise be set to dispatch the camera, open Bixby, or some other application.

The SIM plate is on the highest point of the telephone and can either house two Nano-SIMs or a solitary SIM and a microSD card. At the base of the telephone, Samsung has disposed of the earphone attachment for its leads since the Galaxy Note 10【₹ 69,999】, thus here, we simply have the amplifier, USB Type-C port, and a speaker. There is an earpiece simply over the camera opening, shrewdly covered between the external casing and show, making it for all intents and purposes difficult to see. We have the Galaxy S20 +'s Cosmic Grey shading option, but in Could blue and Cosmic Black trims in India it is available at the same time. On the back is a rectangular camera knock, containing four camera sensors, an amplifier and the LED line. The structure of the camera group helps us a ton to remember a portion of the ongoing Galaxy An arrangement contributions we've seen, which we feel weakens the Galaxy S20 arrangement's road nearness a bit. We would have enjoyed a progressively particular structure for the back of this telephone, much like what Apple did with the iPhone 11【₹ 62,899】 arrangement, just to give its leads better display esteem. Nevertheless, when you really carry the Galaxy S20+, it feels much better than any Samsung middle-range telephone. It's incredibly all around fabricated, has a higher screen-to-body proportion, is still genuinely light. In the case, you can hope to locate a 25W quick charger, a Type-C to Type-C charging link, an AKG-marked headset, a silicone case, and the standard pamphlets. The Samsung Galaxy S20+ ships with a screen monitor which for once is very much applied and not nosy when performing motions.

Samsung Galaxy S20+ Particulars And Programming

All inclusive, Samsung is advertising the S20 arrangement as 5G cell phones, anyway in India, the whole S20 arrangement will just help 4G. The 5G rendition of the Galaxy S20+ comes in numerous capacity variations however the LTE-just form, which we have, is sold in only one arrangement with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of capacity. The last is expandable, which is something we don't see over and over again nowadays on lead telephones. Samsung has likewise utilized LPDDR5 memory here, which guarantees higher information rates and lower power utilization. Like all past Galaxy S leaders sold in India, the Galaxy S20+ is controlled by an Exynos chip as opposed to a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, and the one utilized here is the Exynos 990. You can peruse progressively about it here, yet basically it's a 7nm octa-center SoC with two custom Samsung centers for uncompromising undertakings, two Cortex-A76 centers and four Cortex-A55 centers for lighter remaining tasks at hand. Illustrations is taken care of by the Mali-G77 GPU, which professes to offer a 20 percent support in execution over the past age. By and large, we ought to expect execution along the lines of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865 SoC.

You likewise get the various lead network highlights you would expect, for example, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, sound system speakers tuned by AKG, Hi-Res sound help for wired earphones, IP68 residue and water obstruction, quick remote charging, NFC, and MST support for Samsung Pay. One UI 2.1 that is based on Android 10 is running by the Galaxy S20+, and our unit initially dispatched with the February security fix. In any case, we got a product update, during our survey with the March security fix. The most recent rendition of Samsung's Android skin feels incredibly refined, and despite the fact that there are a huge amount of highlights to investigate, it doesn't feel jumbled or overpowering. Highlights, for example, Samsung Dex and Link to Windows are available, and you likewise get the standard Samsung staples, for example, an inherent screen recorder, a screen capture manager, Edge screen, and an exceptionally customisable consistently in plain view. Enlarged reality (AR) highlights are completely gathered in an application called AR Zone, so you don't need to dispatch the camera application just to utilize highlights, for example, AR Doodle. One UI will show you limited time messages as warnings however this can be fixed by essentially incapacitating a couple of switches in the Privacy menu of the Settings application.

Samsung Galaxy S20+ Execution And Battery Life

The Galaxy S20+ conveyed unshakable execution in the time we utilized it, and we didn't anticipate anything less. One UI has truly developed on us, and today it's effectively one of our preferred Android skins. The 120Hz showcase causes looking through menus to feel smart and gives the general use experience a progressively liquid feel. Be that as it may, we favored utilizing the Galaxy S20+ at the QHD+ goals only for that additional piece of sharpness in the UI, however that is simply us. It's a touch of amazing that 120Hz isn't empowered as a matter of course (which ought to have been the situation), as we presume numerous clients probably won't find that this alternative even exists. The Exynos 990 is a strong entertainer, and the benchmarks harden our experience. We have 5,17,291 focus points in AnTuTu and 6,721 targets in the 3D Mark designs of Slingshot Extreme. Sometimes the number was lower than the number obtained in the Realme X50 Pro 5G (5,69,618 AnTuTu, 7,202 in 3DMark). Regardless, you'd be unable to see any distinction in genuine execution and even games. The standard overwhelming hitters, for example, PUBG Mobile, Asphalt 9: Legends, and Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade ran completely easily at the most elevated settings. The Galaxy S20+ got very hot after around 20 minutes of gaming, yet it was nothing we was unable to deal with. The showcase is effectively extraordinary compared to other we've run over. Hues are rich with awesome immersion, and brilliance is more than satisfactory. The encompassing light sensor can be somewhat slow on occasion, with regards to altering brilliance to coordinate surrounding light, yet this is anything but a major protest. HDR content looks generally excellent, and gratitude to the slimmer bezels, watching recordings felt exceptionally vivid. Sound quality from the sound system speakers was very amazing as well. The earpiece and the base terminating speaker sounded even, and with Dolby Atmos empowered, the spatial detachment was perceptibly better. Bass is still somewhat powerless however there's sufficient warmth in the sound to keep it from appearing to be tinny. The packaged AKG gives similarly great sound just as aloof segregation from encompassing commotion.

We should address the telephone's biometric validation frameworks. There's the ultrasonic in-show unique mark sensor, which is quick and didn't bomb us during the audit time frame. Face acknowledgment is likewise an alternative, and it functions admirably however isn't as quick as we would have preferred. It additionally will in general battle in exceptionally low light, in which case, we needed to fall back on our unique mark for confirmation. The entirety of this takes a cost for battery life, which is the reason Samsung has knock up the ability to 4,500mAh for the Samsung Galaxy S20+. It's protected to state that battery life is really strong, however not extraordinary. We had the option to get a 24-hour runtime on most days, when our use wasn't substantial. Nonetheless, on days when we utilized the camera a ton or messed around for quite a while, we had to charge the telephone a little sooner. Fortunately, it doesn't take long to charge the Galaxy S20+. With the packaged 25W connector, we figured out how to energize the battery to 55 percent in thirty minutes and up to 93 percent in 60 minutes. It additionally bolsters Fast Wireless Charging 2.0, in the event that you have a good 10W or higher remote charger. Like previously, the Galaxy S20+ additionally bolsters Wireless PowerShare or switch remote charging, which can be utilized to charge extras, for example, the Galaxy Buds+.

Samsung Galaxy S20+ Cameras

The Samsung Galaxy S20+ has a shiny new camera arrangement with two of the feature highlights being 8K video recording and up to 30x cross breed zoom. The essential sensor despite everything has a 12-megapixel goals with Dual Pixel self-adjust, a f/1.8 opening, and OIS, yet the pixel size is presently 1.8 microns contrasted with 1.4 microns on the past model. The ultra wide-edge camera additionally utilizes a 12-megapixel sensor, however with littler 1.4 micron pixels, a smaller f/2.2 gap, and no self-adjust. The fax camera gets the greatest change, with a 64-megapixel sensor however no optical adjustment. The 'In addition to' model that we have has a profundity vision camera which is missing in the standard Galaxy S20. Another change, which you've most likely seen, is that Samsung has dumped its variable opening framework with the Galaxy S20 arrangement, regardless.

The camera interface feels commonplace in the event that you've utilized any ongoing Samsung telephone. We have a customisable line of shooting modes simply over the screen button, while the remainder of the settings, for example, the viewpoint proportion, clock and switch for 'Movement photograph' sit on the most distant side of the viewfinder. The application offers switches to empower the Scene Optimiser, which identifies objects or a scene in the edge. Shot Suggestion will offer tips to better your surrounding, and there are exploratory highlights, for example, HDR 10+ video, which can be empowered. Introductory surveys of the Galaxy S20 Ultra【₹ 92,999】featured some large issues with the self-adjust framework, which Samsung has vowed to fix. While we didn't confront any such issues with the Galaxy S20+ while we were trying it, we got a product update which guaranteed upgrades for the cameras. We re-tried the cameras and didn't discover anything new or diverse about the use understanding, yet we noted that low light selfies appeared to have shown signs of improvement. When shooting with the primary camera under great light, the Galaxy S20+ caught excellent subtleties with satisfying hues and no noticeable clamor in the shadow zones. HDR is dealt with well indeed, in any event, when shooting subjects legitimately against the light. With the wide-point camera, there's much more of any scene to catch, yet you do get some barrel mutilation. Close-up shots likewise ended up incredible, with brilliant detail, sharpness and great common bokeh. The extremely fun part is the telephone's new zoom framework. The fax camera offers 2x optical zoom, and past that, it utilizes a blend of AI-helped half and half zoom and advanced zoom. You can legitimately hop to certain zoom levels with devoted catches that show up once you tap the fax symbol in the viewfinder. You can physically zoom in to an exact point also, utilizing the customary squeeze signal.

Photographs taken with the fax camera were acceptable, given plentiful light. During our underlying testing, we discovered picture quality conflicting, yet following the product update, things appear to have shown signs of improvement. After the 10x zoom level, surfaces on objects look noticeably smoothened as grain and commotion are evacuated. The Galaxy S20+ will address a more thorough measure than normal in the full 30x zoom. Contrasted with editing a local 64-megapixel test, a similar picture with a 30x zoom offers better lucidity. Past 20x, you get a little see window in the upper left corner of the viewfinder to assist you with surrounding your shot. In low light, utilizing significant levels of zoom doesn't yield entirely great outcomes. Nonetheless, utilizing Night mode with 10x zoom can offer boundlessly preferable outcomes over a standard shot with a similar zoom level. Talking about Night mode, this works over every one of the three principle sensors and disposes of grain and improves exposures. Low-light execution as a rule is excellent as well. We figured out how to get some great subtleties and hues with the essential camera, and commotion was taken care of well as well. Live Focus mode functions admirably, and we had a decent achievement rate with individuals, however questions were somewhat of an all in or all out. The foundation profundity impact can be balanced previously or after you make a go, and you can even apply distinctive bokeh impacts. Edge discovery was additionally dealt with well. Single Take is another style of shooting for the Galaxy S20 +. With this, the camera catches a 10-second video alongside stills at different interims, and dependent on what's being shot, it will naturally apply channels to a portion of the shots. This is best when you're catching a movement, instead of a still scene.

Sample taken at 4X by Samsung Galaxy S20+

The Samsung Galaxy S20+ is an entirely able cell phone for video as well. The feature obviously is 8K video, which functions admirably, yet you'll require a 8K show or TV to truly exploit such film. It's incredible that we have a telephone that can record at this goals, yet since the casing rate is restricted to 24fps, we thought that it was smarter to just stay with 4K video. Picture quality is awesome in sunshine, with astounding adjustment and subtleties. In low light, the adjustment causes somewhat of a wobble impact in video, however other than this, the quality is acceptable. When shooting up to 4K peaks at 30fps, you can toggle between all cameras, including the focus. Video quality justifiably isn't awesome when shooting with the wide-point or fax cameras in low light. There's the Super Steady video mode as well, which should offer gimbal-level smoothness. While it accomplishes work to a degree, we favored the quality when utilizing the essential camera for a few reasons. In Super Steady mode, just the wide-edge or fax cameras (contingent upon the point of view you select) are utilized, and the goals is confined to 1080p.

Other shooting modes incorporate Live Focus for recordings, and there's even a manual video mode now, much the same as you have for stills. Overly moderate movement mode is available as well, however at 960fps, you're despite everything constrained to a 720p goals. We have a 10 megapixel Dual Pixel AF sensor and a F/2.2 focal opening when we get to the Selfie camera. During the day, the beautification channel that is on of course smoothens skin surfaces vigorously, making photographs look unnatural. Turning it off improves results extensively. Live Focus is likewise somewhat of an all in or all out, with mistaken edge location. Before the product update, we had horrendous outcomes with the selfie camera in low light, yet things have improved a piece post the update.

Decision

The Galaxy S20+ may appear to be over the top expensive, yet Samsung has really estimated it equivalent to the Galaxy S10+, when it propelled a year back. From that point of view, the Galaxy S20+ offers improved plan and execution no matter how you look at it, which makes it a commendable redesign. A portion of its stand-apart highlights incorporate the new zoom framework for the back cameras, the superb showcase, strong battery life, and a sleeker plan. Different things, for example, switch remote charging, the sound system speakers, and the lean programming make this an excellent bundle to consider. Anyway this telephone has a lot of shortcoming, for example, the way that it gets very warm when playing overwhelming games for expanded timeframes, and face acknowledgment doesn't work very well in low light. The structure of the back is likewise somewhat dull for a lead telephone in 2020. Battery life, while great, could have been something more, and quick charging isn't as snappy as a portion of the arrangements we've seen from different producers. Another irritated point for certain purchasers may be the absence of 5G support in the Indian models. While it is anything but a major misfortune in case you're just going to utilize your telephone in India, it could be a major issue for individuals who travel a ton or who expect to clutch their costly buys for quite a long while. Both Realme and iQoo have propelled 5G gadgets in India for significantly less, making the Indian Galaxy S20+ appear to be less future-verification. In general, the Galaxy S20+ is as yet an extraordinary lead that offers brilliant all-round execution, first class includes, and obviously, brand esteem.

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samuelpboswell · 5 years ago

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Buyers vs. Buying Committees: Not Knowing the Difference Could Cost You

Working as a marketing or sales professional in B2B presents a unique set of challenges and hurdles. One that probably doesn’t get discussed enough is the nuance of trying to reach and engage buying committees, as opposed to single customers. It’s a hugely important distinction that too many strategies fail to fully account for. If you’re not speaking to everyone, you might be speaking to no one. And we all know where that leads.

The Expanding Buyer Committee

A buyer (singular) is a sole decision maker responsible for researching solutions, vetting vendors, and authorizing purchases. It is exceedingly rare to see this type of setup in place anymore, unless at a startup or a very small company. Given the typical weight of these decisions, several people tend to now be involved with the process, and sign-off is often required from at least one high-ranking executive. Harvard Business Review reported a couple years ago the average number of people involved with B2B purchase decisions had risen to 6.8, and it’s fair to guess that figure has risen since. As Amanda Bulat wrote in a recent post for the LinkedIn Sales Solutions* blog, “Large enterprises sometimes have a dozen or more people with significant influence on purchases.” This creates a conundrum for the modern B2B marketer. You could theoretically execute a masterful campaign, engaging a pivotal contact at a key account with compelling and persuasive content, only to have that company choose another solution because you failed to generate awareness with another key player who held more sway. In the interest of helping you avoid such a disappointing outcome, we’ll cover some methods to ensure you’re fully understanding, and accounting for, the buying committee.

How B2B Marketers Can Reach the Whole Buying Committee

First, you map the buying committee out. Then, you develop a plan for comprehensive engagement. Finally, you put that plan into action. Let’s break down each of these steps. (Note that this guidance generally applies when you’ve already identified specific accounts to pursue, under an ABM-style framework, although you can also incorporate many of these tips more generally.)

Step 1: Map the Committee

There is no fail-safe way to ensure you’re accounting for each influencer on a buying committee. As an outsider, there’s an inherent level of obscurity involved with this process. But there are a few techniques for gaining a much clearer view. For example:

Check the prospective account’s company website. Oftentimes, there will be an “Our Team” page or something similar, listing employees and their positions. Create your own rundown of executives and others with titles that frequently play a role in key business decisions.

Research the company on LinkedIn. There are many handy features for B2B marketers on LinkedIn, and gaining insight around buying committees is one of them. The platform makes it easy to dial up a list of employees with a particular organization, plus accompanying job titles. Then it’s the same deal as above: spot the roles that are more likely to impact the buying committee. In some cases, people will actually list this as a job duty in their profiles, removing some of your guesswork.

Ask your contacts. If you or another person on your team has an established relationship with someone who works in — or has worked in — the company you’re researching, it might not be a bad idea to ask about who in the business drives decisions, and who has their ear.

Step 2: Coordinate with Sales

Alignment with sales is always critical for B2B marketers, but especially in this case, for two reasons:

Sales reps usually have the most direct contact with people at an account, and can get a closer read on who the influential players are. They can be very helpful with informing the step above.

Consistency in messaging is vital. You don’t want marketing content and salespeople to be sending a completely different message to different committee members, nor do you want to be repeatedly contacting the same member due to lack of communication. Formulate a plan in tandem with your partners in sales.

Step 3: Refine Your Targeting and Personas

Now that you’ve painted a picture of the buying committee’s composition, it’s time to adjust your marketing scope accordingly. When we say “refine your targeting” we mean it both in terms of how you’re delivering your content — you want to build concentrated awareness and engagement within an account, so tweak your ad targeting, email lists, social promotion, etc. to reflect — and also your tone and personalization. Are you speaking directly to the specific individuals you need to win over? Is your content designed to create conversations within the buying committee? Does it answer questions that emerge in the late stages of a purchase decision? These are necessary questions to ask yourself in assessing whether your marketing approach is optimized for committees.

Shore Up Your B2B Marketing by Committing to Committees

Buying committees can vary greatly depending on the company and industry. As always, it’s essential to view this matter through the lens of your own context, and tap into the institutional knowledge of people who work closely with your customers and clients. As our CEO Lee Odden wrote recently, “B2B purchasing is a team sport involving individuals at multiple levels from buying committees conducting research and making recommendations to executives with budgets to decide.” [bctt tweet="#B2B purchasing is a team sport. @leeodden" username="toprank"] Similarly, marketing to B2B committees is a team sport. Get your team aligned and focused on this objective, and you’ll be on your way to overcoming one of the toughest challenges in B2B marketing. At TopRank Marketing, we have many years of experience working with enterprise brands and helping them engage with large, distributed buying committees. Contact us today to learn more about our approach and philosophies. *Disclosure: LinkedIn Sales Solutions is a TopRank Marketing client

The post Buyers vs. Buying Committees: Not Knowing the Difference Could Cost You appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/06/buyers-versus-buying-committees/

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managetransfers-blog · 6 years ago

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infotainmentplus-blog · 7 years ago

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OnePlus 6: What’s great, what’s missing The OnePlus 6 is official. With it comes a revamped glass design and an even taller 19:9 display, complete with the maligned notch. The phone gets a lot right, but nothing is perfect. It’s too early to pass full judgment on the OnePlus 6, so we’ll save that for our full review. From our limited time with the handset so far, we can say this appears to be a really good phone. On the other hand, there are a few extras we can’t help but wish for. Let’s take a closer look at what makes OnePlus shine, as well as a few extras we’d like to have seen. Where the OnePlus 6 excels OnePlus’ core philosophy hasn’t changed OnePlus has been a fan favorite for years due to its philosophy of offering a lot of bang for your buck. The OnePlus 6 doesn’t mess with this formula much, though its price has crept up around $30. Despite the price increase to $529 for the base model, the OnePlus 6 is still hundreds less than rival devices from Samsung, Huawei, and others. It’s arguably the best phone you’ll find in the $500 range. The OnePlus 6 is not only powered by the Snapdragon 845 with up to 8GB of RAM, it also offers storage options as high as 256GB. Of course, these higher storage options come at a premium, but even the base model offers a respectable 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. For more on the OnePlus 6’s specs, head here. Oxygen is the closest thing to Google’s vision of pure Android outside the Pixel. A pure, clean experience few can best OxygenOS continues to be a highlight feature. While the overall experience hasn’t changed much with the OnePlus 6, this is actually part of what makes it great. Oxygen is the closest thing to Google’s vision of pure Android you’ll find outside of a Pixel. With the new Android Beta coming to the OnePlus 6, it’s clear OnePlus is committed to being on the leading-edge in software. Refinement is the name of the game OnePlus didn’t bring a lot of changes to the game with the OnePlus 6. It has a brand new Gorilla Glass 5 design and it made some cosmetic changes like adopting a larger notched display on the front and moving the camera around on the back. These changes are just skin deep, however. The software and overall day-to-day experience remain pretty much of the same, which isn’t bad. OnePlus focused on further refining its craft instead of adding a bunch of unnecessary gimmicks, and we can certainly appreciate the sentiment. OnePlus focused on refinements, not gimmicks. In the switch to glass, the notification alert slider also was moved to a more ergonomic position on the right. The design switch also changed the weight and feel of the phone, which feels fantastic. The OnePlus 6 camera now offers optical image stabilization (OIS) and 4K shooting at 60fps, as well as a few other tweaks to the camera package. There are even a few software tricks coming a bit later, like a Selfie Portrait mode. Even the software and apps pre-installed feel very purposeful. OnePlus included only the apps it really felt users would appreciate, and nothing more. The lack of bloatware is great, but at the same time OnePlus didn’t go too lean. Things like Google Play installed out of the box make this a phone most users can just pick up and start using. A few missing features? For all the many things OnePlus gets right, there’s a lot of common flagship features that didn’t make the cut. Here are just three extras we feel would have made nice additions to the OnePlus 6. Wireless charging Android Authority‘s own David Imel recently asked OnePlus why the OnePlus 6 doesn’t offer wireless charging. The official reason is Dash charging is so far ahead of wireless that they want to maintain a positive experience with consumers. While Dash is really fast and honestly the better option, consumers like choice. The added convenience of dropping a phone onto a mat to charge appeals to many. It’s also quickly becoming a staple for other glass flagships. True waterproofing certification OnePlus did in-house testing with the OnePlus 6 to ensure it could handle some rain, a puddle, and splashes. That’s all well and good, but we’d like to see some actual certification here! This is probably a cost-cutting measure, but having a truly waterproof experience is something OnePlus really should have delivered. Outside of OnePlus, one of the last major flagships to hold out on waterproofing was Google. Even it got on board with the trend with last year’s Pixel 2 phones. An extra special something These days all flagships have shrinking bezels, dual-cameras, and the latest Snapdragon processors. In order to standout, all of 2018’s major flagships offer at least one special new feature to give them a certain wow factor. Samsung has mechanical aperture control, LG has it’s new BoomBox speaker, and Huawei has a stunning new design and a triple Leica camera with hybrid zoom. The OnePlus 6 has a notch and a new glass design similar to other glass designs on the market… and that’s it. We aren’t saying OnePlus should resort to a gimmick, but at least one major stand-out feature you simply couldn’t get anywhere else would have been nice. Then again, maybe it’s low pricing is that wow factor. Still, considering the LG G7 is only a little more money, this seems like less of a standout than it did back when the price gap between OnePlus and the competition was a bit wider. The OnePlus 6 is still a great buy Many of those things would help the OnePlus 6 stand out against its rivals. At the same time, we understand implementing them would likely drive up the costs. It’s debatable whether the additional cost would be much more, but a few small concessions have to be made to keep pricing in the $500 to $600 range. For the price and features, the OnePlus 6 is a great phone and offers all the core specs you’d expect from a $1000 flagship. You just don’t get as much in the way of bells and whistles. The fact that OnePlus had little new to offer could be a testament to just how well they’ve refined their craft. If you’re a OnePlus fan who can overlook the notch, there’s a lot to love here. The same goes if you are a budget-conscious buyer and want a powerful phone but don’t mind losing a few features in the process. Then again, we have to remember changes like the notch and the glass design aren’t necessarily for the OnePlus faithful. It’s pretty clear OnePlus is interested in expanding into the mainstream. Unfortunately, without these bells and whistles, the phone might be a harder sell for this crowd. The fact that OnePlus had little new to offer could be a testament to just how well they’ve refined their craft over the last year. There’s just nowhere to go from here unless they want to jump up to similar pricing that you’d find from Samsung and others. We have no doubt the OnePlus 6 will sell well, but some folks will expect a little more. Are you one of these people, or are you totally sold? Let us know in the comments. , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2IrxW7K

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pawprintcooper · 7 years ago

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This is a special edition of the TechSummit Rewind, focusing on Apple’s WWDC developer conference.

Apple used its annual developer conference to launch a flurry of updates for all of the company’s major platforms. Here’s a recap of what you might’ve missed:

Amazon Prime Video will debut on the Apple TV later this year, giving users access to shows like Transparent, Bosch, Mozart in the Jungle, and Catastrophe without having to fiddle with AirPlay.

The partnership is a long time coming and is a truce to a years-long war between the rival streaming platforms. After Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that the two companies couldn’t find “acceptable business terms” to put the app on the Apple TV, Amazon stopped selling the device in 2015 because it couldn’t access Prime Video.

Coincidentally, the Apple TV will also return to Amazon’s store with this announcement.

watchOS 4

watchOS 4 will launch later this year, with new features for watch faces. For instance, complications (glanceable pieces of information) will be updatable based on the time of day or location and a new Siri-based watch face.

The Siri watch face uses machine learning to determine what information is most valuable to you at a given moment like flight boarding passes, sunset time, or smart home controls.

Apple has also developed a kaleidoscope watch face and new character faces based on Toy Story’s Woody, Jesse, and Buzz.

Fitness tracking also gets updated here, with a new interface for the Workout app and new integrations with gym equipment manufacturers that let equipment provide information like incline and intensity to the Watch for more accurate workout tracking. According to Apple, Watch wearers can link their devices with the gym equipment through NFC.

Music management will also be improved, with the Watch automatically importing Apple Music playlists and supporting multiple playlists. Apple has also redesigned the dock with a vertical interface for scrolling through recent apps.

Developers can access a preview version of watchOS 4 starting today, with a public release launching this fall for all Apple Watches paired to an iPhone 5s or later running on iOS 11.

macOS High Sierra

The next version of macOS is called High Sierra, which Apple senior vice president of software Craig Federighi joked was “fully baked.”

The update hopes to be faster, safer, and more efficient about system space. This effort will be led by the behind-the-scenes switch from the Hierarchical File System first introduced in 1985 to the Apple File System that launched with iOS 10.3 in March. Apple claims that the new system is safer and more secure.

In terms of performance, Federighi claims that the High Sierra version of Safari will be 80 percent faster than Chrome in JavaScript. Safari will also use machine learning to identify and block ad trackers as you navigate the web, and will be capable of blocking autoplay videos.

Mail will meanwhile take up 35 percent less space than it has previously.

The Photos app is getting refreshed to become a lot closer to Photoshop, with easier search functionality.

Metal 2, an updated version of Apple’s graphics technology, is coming with High Sierra with VR support in tow.

High Sierra will launch in a developer beta today, with a public beta coming later this month before it rolls out to the public for free this fall on all devices compatible with macOS Sierra.

New MacBooks

The entire MacBook line got a spec bump, with last year’s MacBook Pros and the 12-inch MacBook getting Intel’s Kaby Lake processors.

There’s also a new tier for the 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar that starts at a cheaper $1,299 price tag, with the 15-incher getting discrete graphics standard. Otherwise, the MacBook is unchanged.

The MacBook now maxes out with a 1.3GHz Core i7 processor, while the 13-inch MacBook Pro peaks with a 3.5GHz Core i7 and the 15-incher goes up to a 3.1GHz Core i7 processor.

Finally, the ailing MacBook Air is getting a speed boost with a faster 1.8GHz Intel processor… and that’s it. There’s still the same 1400 x 900 panel, wedge design, and no USB-C ports.

The new MacBooks are available today.

New iMacs

The iMac line is also getting Kaby Lake processors and what Apple calls “the best Mac display ever” with up to 500 nits of brightness (43 percent brighter than the previous generation).

The 21.5-inch model can now be configured with up to 32GB of RAM, with the 27-inch model going up to a whopping 64GB of RAM that’s double the previous iteration. The new iMacs are also getting two USB-C ports, a first for Apple desktops.

Beyond that, these are still your standard iMacs.

However, things perk up with the iMac Pro. The workstation class PC is going to replace the painfully outdated Mac Pro for the foreseeable future when it launches in December.

The iMac Pro will ship with an 8-core Intel Xeon processor and will scale up to an 18-core Xeon processor with a 5K display and AMD Radeon Vega GPU. You’ll also be able to shell out for up to 16GB of VRAM, 128GB of data corruption-protecting ECC RAM, and up to 4TB of SSD storage.

You can pick one up starting at a whopping $4,999.

iOS 11

iOS 11 will improve on the “core technologies” that powers the OS and numerous user-facing features. Starting with new productivity solutions for iPad, but other enhancements are coming to Messages, Apple Pay, and other apps.

Conversations across iCloud, iOS, and macOS will be synced. If messages are erased on your iPhone or iPad, that will also be reflected on Mac. They will be stored on iCloud, which should make them easier to retrieve on your future Apple devices.

Pay

Apple Pay is also expanding to include person-to-person payments, positioning Apple to compete with Venmo and Square Cash. iOS 11 will introduce an Apple Pay Cash Card, where users will store their received funds from peer-to-peer transactions. The money can then be transferred to your personal bank account.

Siri

Siri has been tweaked to have a more natural voice when responding to users, and can now perform translations from English to Chinese, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

Siri is also getting smarter about suggestions with “on-device learning.” This is synced across your other Apple devices and “kept completely private, readable only by you and your devices.” According to Apple, on-device learning lets Siri give suggestions “based on personal usage of Safari, News, Mail, Messages, and more. For example, as Siri learns topics or places a user is interested in while browsing Safari, they will be suggested when typing in Mail, Messages, and other apps.”

Camera

With iOS 11, users can take Portrait Mode images with optical image stabilization, a flash, or in HDR. Loop and Bounce effects can now be applied to Live Photos, and Apple is using a High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) to shrink the amount of storage photos take up.

Control Center

Apple also completely redesigned Control Center, the panel that users can swipe up to access frequent and important settings or change songs when listening to music.

iPad

The iPad got a ton of attention with iOS 11, with the dock becoming more Mac-like by letting users add many more apps to it.

A new drag-and-drop feature lets you quickly move info or media from one split-screen app into the one beside it or apps on your home screen and dock.

App pairings can also now be preserved when switching between apps. Essentially, it’s a port of the Mac’s Spaces feature. This means you can keep two apps you commonly use together when switching to another app, and return to them without having to set up the split screen view again.

New Files App

Apple will give file management its own app with iOS 11. The Files app will give users a simple view of files on their device, and also those shared with cloud services like iCloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive.

Maps

Apple Maps is getting indoor maps for airports and shopping centers in select cities.

Mall layouts will be available for Boston, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose, Tokyo, and Washington DC.

Indoor maps will also come to over 20 major airports.

When you’re behind the wheel, lane guidance and speed limits will help you navigate unfamiliar sections of the open road.

More importantly, Do Not Disturb While Driving will get rid of potential distractions when your eyes should be focused on the road. Text messages won’t be shown by default, though senders have the option of replying with “urgent” in cases when you need to see something.

Music

iOS 11 will introduce support for multi-room audio between iPhones, iPads, and a slew of third-party speakers.

Plus, Apple Music is getting a social element that will show what your friends are currently listening to on the service. Like Spotify, you can also listen privately if you’re shamelessly belting out Taylor Swift’s Shake it Out.

App Store

The App Store is getting the biggest makeover in its history with iOS 11. There’s a new Today tab that’ll surface notable releases, and Apple is breaking out games into its own dedicated section. There’s also a larger editorial aspect to the store now, too, as users will find how-tos, “making of” stories, and other content that pertains to certain apps. Other refinements include the ability for developers to directly list in-app purchases in the App Store – rather than making users hunt for them in the app.

ARKit

Apple is building augmented reality directly into the core of iOS, giving developers the tools they need to convincingly blend digital entertainment with the real world.

Other features coming include screen recording, a one-handed keyboard, FaceTime Live Photos, and password autofill in apps.

iOS 11 will launch this fall – presumably alongside new iPhones, with a public beta launching later in June for the iPhone 5s and later, all iPad Air and iPad Pros, the 5th generation iPad, iPad mini 2 and later, and the 6th generation iPod touch. Some features – like person-to-person Apple Pay – require newer hardware.

iPad Pro

Apple introduced a new 10.5-inch iPad Pro and a refreshed 12.9-inch model that both ship next week. The 10.5-inch model starts at $649 with 64GB of memory and just WiFi, or $779 for 64GB of storage with cellular support. Meanwhile, the 12.9-inch model starts at $799 for 64GB of storage with just WiFi, or $929 for 64GB of storage with cellular support. Pricing will increase with up to 512GB of storage.

Both devices are powered by the new A10X six-core CPU and include a 12-core GPU. They support HDR video with a 120Hz refresh rate. Apple pitched this as essential for the Apple Pencil because of its responsiveness and ability to drop the latency rate to 20 milliseconds. That refresh rate adjusts dynamically based on what you’re viewing for smarter power conservation. The True Tone display is also 50 percent brighter than earlier models.

The new iPad Pros have a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 7-megapixel front camera. Both should last for 10 hours on a charge (in line with pretty much every other iPad to date). In addition, Apple is launching new sleeves and accessories, like a leather sleeve for both that starts at $129.

HomePod

Lastly, Apple introduced the HomePod speaker that the company claims will reinvent music in the home.

The HomePod is a small cylinder covered in mesh that looks like a wider Logitech UE Boom, and will be available in white and space gray.

The smart speaker features a seven-speaker array of tweeters. Additionally, there’s a four-inch upward-facing subwoofer and an Apple A8 chip. The speaker features “spatial awareness,” which lets it automatically tune the sound to the space that the speaker is in. Setup is simple – hold an iPhone (5s or later) next to the HomePod a la AirPods. You’ll also be able to use a pair of HomePods together in a single room for improved sound. It also works with Apple’s AirPlay 2 multi-room audio solution (more on that above).

Naturally, HomePod is compatible with Apple Music and can wirelessly access the service’s full catalog. A six-microphone array is used to access Siri, which has been upgraded to handle specific music requests like “Who’s playing drums on this track?” or “What was the top song on May 5th, 2016?” Apple claims that the microphones are good enough to hear commands from far away, even with music at full volume. The Siri waveform appears on top of the device when the assistant is activated, similar to the LED lights on an Amazon Echo. However, the HomePod also has integrated touch controls.

Along with the music support, Siri can be used for things like unit conversion, news, weather, traffic, sports, reminders, timers, and more. Apple’s own services tie in too: you can send iMessages, or control HomeKit devices. HomePod will also serve as a HomeKit hub to let you control smart home products away from your home, too.

Security is also a highlight feature for the HomePod. While the device will always listen for a “Hey, Siri” prompt to activate, information won’t be sent to Apple’s servers until after that command is heard. That information is also “encrypted and sent using an anonymous Siri identifier.”

HomePod will set you back $349 when it ships in December in the US, UK, and Australia.

TechSummit Rewind 178: WWDC 2017 This is a special edition of the TechSummit Rewind, focusing on Apple’s WWDC developer conference. Apple used its annual developer conference to launch a flurry of updates for all of the company’s major platforms.

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