Saturday, March 19, 2011

A wider point of view, part two.

In part one I talked at length about current games and their console and PC features. One of which is an often ignored option that has been irking me to no end: A configurable Field Of View (FoV) variable. A limited FoV is usually a telling sign of consolitis, a term the online PC community uses to denote a game that is marred by its console origins. Yet I have not explained just why it's such a big deal. Why the fuss over adjustable features? And what makes the FoV so important?

An example might clarify what I'm talking about. If you want to fully notice the difference between the following clips, watch the peripheral vision, size of opponents, sense of speed and turning speed. The effect is clearly visible when you look at the onscreen size and position of the AK47. This first clip is Black Ops at its standard 65 FoV:

This second clip is Black Ops at its maximum allowed FoV of 80. Which still considered on the low side by most PC gamers who'd want the scale to go as far as 90:

The differences are subtle, yet make a world of difference while playing. CoD might not be the best example of this because the gap between min and max FoV isn't that big. The engine is quite performant and so the standard FoV is still quite wide compared to other games.
But does it make a difference? Of course it does. Compare the render area with this picture in picture image images courtesy of the GamingAU.net Forums). In the picture is a screenshot of Bad Company 2, the numbers on the shot is the used FoV. 55 Is what the console uses, 85 is typically around what a PC gamer would use on a 16:10 monitor.

The difference in number of assets that are displayed on-screen is clearly visible. More on screen logically means the computer will need more system resources to display them. Also note that the 55 FoV screen is zoomed in, enlarging objects in depth. The shot with 85 FoV is less zoomed in, but objects in the distance appear smaller on screen.
There's an additional concern with the zoomed-in view. If we were to apply 3D vision to it, the effect would be less pronounced. If you've ever looked through binoculars and moved from left to right, you'll know that depth perception is minimized. This means that any game with a very narrow FoV will gain little from 3D effects, and might even get in the way of gameplay because it is so unnatural, at least on PC.
If the viewing angle gets to big though, the image will become noticeably warped, like watching through a fisheye lens. What's more, if more image is squeezed into the view port of the monitor, objects in depth will get pushed even further away, making them smaller and, as a side effect, harder to aim at in a shooter. Debunking the claim that increasing the FoV would be some sort of visual cheat, just because you get to "see more". Players need to find a workable medium, one that looks and feels comfortable.

PC gamers demand adjustable FoV because, unlike their console playing brethren, they're sitting quite close to the screen. A low FoV makes you look around constantly in order to take in your environment. Combine this with the screen distance, a lack of peripheral vision and one can easily get motion sick.
What's more, a larger FoV is more immersive because our natural FoV is quite large as well. So it is best to match the natural FoV with the one in the game. The further you sit from the screen, the smaller it can get without appearing unnatural. But when watching a screen up close, as is the case with a PC, it needs to be quite wide. To drive the point home: if your eyes were the screen, logically, you'd want to have the full natural FoV which is about 180 degrees. Fun fact: a large FoV also greatly increases the sense of speed.

So why don't console games provide a bigger FoV? The low FoV on consoles could be there for a number of reasons. As I mentioned before, one is that the player sits a distance away from the TV, his "window" into the virtual world. Making a smaller FoV appear more natural. We'll ignore the naturalistic appearance of a pair of arms more than a meter away for now. One argument against this then is: why don't they incorporate a FoV slider and give players a choice. I can imagine some console gamers are sitting quite close to the screen too.
Perhaps console devs simply can't. And that really narrows down the number of design choices.
Linked to system resources, a low FoV can also be due to the limited horsepower of the consoles. Rendering less makes a console render faster. Here is where we get to the crux of this topic. This highlights what infuriates PC gamers so much about badly ported shooters: inferior hardware dictating and limiting the way a game plays on potentially superior PC hardware.

In the past PC's have always been used for immersive applications that greatly benefit from wide viewing angles. A good example are flight simulators where, even in the early days, multiple screens would be used to simulate a real cockpit in which the pilot could watch not only in front but also to the sides. This was even more useful when piloting a fighter, where dogfights would take place in 3D space. By which I mean a fighter pilot has to keep track of his targets all around him, back, front, left, right, up and down. Watching rigidly ahead would narrow his spatial awareness to less than 1/6 of what it should ideally be. If the used foV is around 90 degrees.
We could quite easily change the context to shooters, where a soldier needs to keep track of his targets in a 3D environment. Perhaps not so much under and above him, but certainly in front, to the left and right and to the back.

With all this in mind. Let's watch the following youtube movie. The commentator, the esteemed El Presador, doesn't have an inkling about how a game engine works technically, but what he's saying from his gamer background is pertinent. And that's what really matters. The game is Killzone 3.

If you enjoyed that, there's more on topic El Presador on Killzone 3.

Killzone 3 is a prime example. A low FoV is its main persisting problem, as it has been present since the first Killzone. And its bad controls are always what people complained about however the "sluggish controls" are wrongly attributed to the controls. The game looks sluggish because the view is so zoomed in. It can make people nauseous. It makes the environment harder to navigate which in turn makes people run into walls. That's also what happened in the video.
I assume Guerilla squeezed the PS3 for performance, making the game look good, by squeezing the FoV. Render less to make it render faster. And despite the sacrifices the game doesn't run any faster than 30fps. Meaning that a TV running at 60hz will display every frame in the game twice, where it would display any given frame only once at 60fps. Twice the frame rate makes a game feel more responsive.

Because engines have gotten harder to run on consoles, the FoV has become more narrow. And in many cases can be blamed for the sluggish or unresponsiveness in console shooters. Which makes all of them fail to topple Call Of Duty. It has the lightest engine, the widest, most natural FoV, the highest frame rate and the most responsive controls on the market. Does this mean it is untouchable? On the current consoles it probably does. But I for one feel that the age of Call Of Duty is coming to an end. The new engines dazzle players with their effects, physics, realism and immersion. The visual fidelity of Cryengine 3 and Frostbite 2 will raise the standard in a way that Call Of Duty players will expect the same quality from their favorite game. Unfortunately though, if Call Of Duty has to upgrade its engine, it will also have to leave behind its 60fps and 65 degrees FoV in favor of 30fps and 55 or less FoV. With the same sacrifices on gameplay in favor of visuals, it would get attributed the same dubious award of looking great, but playing like garbage. Current console hardware only goes so far.

For PC players though, this tipping point is a sweet release from the shackles of console hardware. We're seeing it with Battlefield 3 already, where PC is the leading platform. PC hardware does have the power to run a 64 player battlefield game at 60fps with a 80+ FoV. Which is bound to get the goad of at least some ardent console players who'll have to admit that the PC platform is leaping miles ahead in both gameplay, scope and graphics. The consoles will only be getting a limited version of the very same game. Again, Battlefield 3 will have to use DX9 technology on consoles leaving out all the realism gained with DX11.

Ultimately, it's hard to point fingers. I guess the lead artist or lead gameplay designer of these games are responsible for allowing it. Even though they might not even be aware of the issue. Not knowing about the legacy of shooters or technical limitations. Perhaps they simply have to comply with the lead programmer that the game just doesn't run fast enough with these kind of high-end visuals.
Maybe it's the fault of their customers, supporting bad practice with their money. Though they are even less aware of the issues. And are at a loss about what some other, often PC players, are raving on about. Why are they getting so upset? They only know that this game doesn't feel as good as Call Of Duty but can't quite put their finger on as to why. So they play it for a week and go back to their beloved franchise with the crisp controls and the responsive frame rate. Even though they wished the other game would take them somewhere else.
Then, the newest trailer of Battlefield 3 stuns them into a new dream. The lighting looks amazing! And look at the soft shadows! Will it run at 60fps? But of course it won't. Even Josh Olin, Treyach community manager, hinted at that smirking all the way from his gold plated throne. Disappointed once again console players will go back to Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3, while DICE wonders why only the PC crowd keeps cheering them on. And EA, learning too little, will break their heads over how they could possibly reclaim the FPS crown from Activision once more. Funny that, how this cycle repeats itself.

A wider point of view, part one.

I may or may not have mentioned the end of civilization recently, which may or may not be coming our way soon. But just in case of a global meltdown, I'm preparing for extreme violence. Luckily as a Belgian I'm not far away from one of the world's most renowned weapons manufacturers. So when I go online and equip a FN F2000, like the ones delivered to the Libyan special forces, to headshot teenagers in Battlefield, I'm actually celebrating our great Belgian Culture. How our Minister of War, Pieter De Crem, would swell with pride and joy upon reading this post. If only he knew how to read. Yet all of that pales in comparison when compared to the way the man can pre flight check a Lockheed C-130 by patting the side of the fuselage as if congratulating it after winning the Ostend Derby. Sadly, the last great Belgian military victory dates back to when horses were high tech in the year 1302, when we kicked the French all the way back to France. We haven't had a French related problem ever since, proving the value of armed conflict once more. But let's not dwell on political games.

Suffice to say, I've been playing a lot of games. Mostly shooters. My most recent stint started about half a year ago with the release of the Medal Of Honor reboot. But even before that the market has been flooded with big budget hardcore first person shooter (fps) games. One remarkable trend among these titles: most of them are multi-platform. Console popularity is on an all time high with developers because of the large user base. So the leading versions are often for console and then get ported over to the PC. A process that almost always leads to an inferior PC title compared to pure PC games. Developers porting from console to PC usually leave out a lot of functionality or options the hardcore PC community is used to. Such as mod tools and dedicated servers. But the lack of one often ignored option has been irking me to no end: A configurable Field Of View variable.
The field of view determines what the viewing angle (in degrees) of a game is according to the old 4:3 aspect ratio. So a 65 FoV gives the player a 65 degrees viewing angle. This same variable, 65, will result in a somewhat wider view in 16:10 and 16:9 widescreen aspect rations.. Maybe it's not quite as ignored as I think though, but I am getting the idea that many devs just don't care. Which leads people who actually are passionate about this topic to write about how devs just don't care.

The following blog posts require a bit of gaming history to really be understood. This first post sets the scene for what is to follow.
I will talk about first person shooters on both PC and consoles. The differences, the design choices and the consequences. To some this might be sliced bread, but I'll highlight the necessary info just in case. And this chronological summary will provide some perspective on the genre today. This is by no means a complete list though, but it highlights the big hitters.

The game that popularized the "modern war" setting was Call Of Duty 4. Current generation CoD games were made with a very heavily modified Quake3 engine by Infinity Ward. The game has a fully moddable FoV in the .cfg file, which could be modified with a simple text editor. The game was smash hit and instant classic on consoles first and PC second. Which led to the sequel Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

A big console shift happened with this game. All variables were locked away, including the FoV. While still having a somewhat usable FoV even for PC, other neglected options, the biggest of which were dedicated servers and the access to an ingame console, made this game into the most hated Call Of Duty for the hardcore PC community. The outstanding production values made things worse as Infinity Ward dropped out of favor. Not supporting the game beyond a few simple bug fixes and exploits added insult to injury.

Not long after Battlefield Bad Company 2 was released. The name "Bad Company" denotes the console offshoot of the Battlefield series. Made by European developer DICE, the original had no PC version but the sequel did. Surprisingly it was quite configurable via an editable config file which allowed PC gamers to change the FoV, among other things. One year after release, the game still has quite an active PC community. While not a steamworks game it still makes the steam top 10 most played games list almost every day. Yet it can't get close to the popularity of CoD.

The 2010 release of Medal Of Honor marked the reboot of the series with a modern combat setting. Not surprisingly it was heavily influenced by the succes of MW2. It had a troubled development though and the game was ultimately split into two separate pieces with two different engines. Resulting in two quite distinct games. The Single Player campaign used Epic's Unreal Engine 3. Which has encrypted configuration files, making it impossible to adjust the FoV. Producer EA pushed the game primarily for the console market to compete with CoD but got absolutely destroyed in sales.
The multiplayer side of the game was done by DICE. They used their proprietary Frostbite engine giving players the same options as Bad Company 2. Making it quite configurable.

The current king of the market is Call Of Duty Black Ops. Made by Treyarch, it has been well supported across all platforms. Needed indeed because the release version of the game was very buggy for PC and PS3. The lead PC programmer (@pcdev) made a promise to make this a genuine PC title. A statement that was bound to come back to haunt him. Yet as a result this CoD game is much more configurable and enjoyable than MW2, its biggest rival. The games options menu has a built-in FoV slider. It and many more variables can be edited with a text editor just as before too. A remarkable and commendable return to form. As were dedicated servers. Mod tools are promised with a future patch.

Not a cross platform game but still important is Guerrilla's Killzone 3, as it is intended to be the flagship FPS game on Playstation 3. It's backed by Sony and presumably the answer to Microsoft's Halo before CoD took over the market. Rightly lauded for it's superb visual design but despite all effort has failed to catch on and hasn't even come close to competing with CoD.

Bulletstorm was made in response to the "serious" military shooters of the last year. This over-the-top arcade shooter was ported to PC and uses the Unreal3 engine. Many PC options were left out in the release version and the config files encrypted, which sent forums alight with rage. To soften the blow a bit for PC gamers, a decrypter was posted on the Bulletstorm forums so they could edit the config file.

Homefront is made by Kaos Studios. A spiritual successor to the developer's earlier game Frontlines. They develop games using Unreal3, not a very promising sign if we look at its history. However, Kaos has been wooing PC gamers with exclusive features, dedicated servers and the promise of editable config files. The game was recently released with moderate success. Undoubtedly it will get stiff competition from existing and upcoming games. But the success of Counter Strike has shown that a PC shooter doesn't necessarily needs to be a looker to be a darling. If it keeps getting support.

Speaking of lookers, Crysis 2 is developed by Crytek. Responsible for the exquisite Far Cry & Crysis 1. Crytek will now foray into the console market with this sequel. Now suddenly skeptical PC gamers are promised the same great Crysis style support and features. Crytek have a lot to live up to as the first Crysis had and still has the most impressive game engine to date. Just about every variable was editable. The game had dedicated servers and modding tools. It was pretty much exactly what the PC community wanted from a FPS game. Gameplay footage from Crysis 2 has been very promising so far. The demo, released on 4/03/2011, was not. Gamers all over the internet were predicting doom and gloom because the demo lacked just about every configurable setting while carrying over a few key console features, such as the now infamous "press start to play" opening screen and aim assist for gamepad users. A demo isn't representative however, so here's hoping Crytek remembers its promises.

Brink is being developed by ID software protegé Splash Damage. Like Bulletstorm a reaction to current "realistic" shooters and like Team Fortress 2 is very stylized. The game uses the ID4 engine, known from Doom3, which was also used in Splash Damage's Enemy Territory Quake Wars. They seem to be very aggressive in their stance on the genre, and very confident of the game's success. They also have the material to back up their claim as the game seems to be in great shape. The PC legacy of the ID4 engine is telling, the game is promised to be fully configurable with an ingame console, FoV modification and dedicated servers on PC. If the game is a success it could spell the end for Call Of Duty clones.

Speaking of ID software. It is also cooking up a new game, with a new engine. It's called Rage and will appear on consoles and PC. Curiously, it seems to be the only one breaking new ground with its engine. As the FoV seems very wide compared to other console shooters. Which is good news for everyone. Perhaps the venerable giant, I'm talking about ID, can come back to compete in style.

Battlefield 3 is the upcoming DICE blockbuster. Using an upgraded frostbite engine, it was originally a PC exclusive and will be using the latest DX11 technology. Meaning the PC version is the one to be downgraded to the DX9 generation consoles. Couple this with DICE's excellent PC support and it should be in great shape.

And then there's Valve. They release few new games, but instead opt to support their games long after release. Counter Strike, Left For Dead and Team Fortress 2 are prime examples. Updated almost every other day, fully modable, dedicated servers and more have made these games fan favorites.
Valve had their own FoV incident when Half-Life 2 was first released on PC in 2004. Many of people were complaining about getting motion sick while playing the game. The standard FoV was set at 75. Shortly after, a patch addressed the problem by adding a feature to modify the FoV to 90. Keep in mind that the Call of Duty standard anno 2011 is 65. You can read more about this historic event here and here and even here.
Most likely the game was configured as such because at the time Valve didn't want their brand new engine to run slowly. So they probably narrowed the FoV to boost performance. Which is key to my next post.

There's another layer of politics going on though. I've mentioned developers so far but it's the publishers who're really competing for the market. The big players are Activision with everything Call Of Duty, EA with Battlefield, Medal Of Honor and Crysis, THQ with Homefront and Bethesda with Brink and Rage.
At present, everyone on the market is trying to knock Activision of its throne, with little success. In my next post I'll explain just why this is and why it's probably not going to change anytime soon while this battle is fought on the consoles. Which in a way has consequences for our PC gaming freedom.

Don't forget to also read part two of A wider point of view.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Rebel without a clue, part two

I'm feeling a bit depressed after the first part of Rebel, so let me lighten the mood by playing some music. Music softens the senses and mine are sharp. As sharp as the peeling knife that cut the top of my right thumb while doing the dishes yesterday. I didn't realise this at first but the blood stains on the door, wall and coffee mug gave me a clue. Tired as I was, it took almost a whole minute while I feared for my sanity, before I finally felt a dull pain emanating from my thumb and saw a shallow cut about 15 millimetres long. It had reopened and small drops of blood were slowly trickling out. Next I see the walls bleeding however I'm afraid a simple band-aid might not help, because I've been on edge for a while now. Helping me to stave off clinical insanity is Mozart, and his K262 concerto performed by La Grande Écurie et la Chambre Du Roy under direction of Jean-Claude Malgoire. "An immortal masterpiece" it says on the box. There's some irony there but with the mood now set to a suitably light tone, let me continue my irrational but not insane rant about the coming end of the world.

Because the end is coming our way. Fast as an incoming comet, chilling as a new ice age, scorching as global warming, sweeping as a tsunami and inescapable as global slavery. At least, if some sources on the Internet are to be believed. A truth that has quite a bit of apostles in the world.
One of which is Albert, a friend of a nephew. Albert is something else and proud of it. He's the waving finger whenever you try to have a discussion about the upcoming elections, our national pass time. He's the warning voice saying that no amount of votes or politics can stave off the inevitable end of the world. He'll sometimes add that some of the authorities are in on the plan to enslave everybody. With motives ranging from greed to plain evil. Everything goes to achieve their goals. Even global warming is set up to kill off part of the populace. The question that never gets asked though is why a robber would burn money in order to get it. Albert would interject and say that he doesn't, he raises taxes to battle this so-called global warming and pockets the money. What the money will be used for is never stated. It might never be used at all because, also according to Albert, all forms of currency are about to disappear with the rise of the new world order.

His claim to this truth is incontestable because he has read it on a web page blog post opinion piece, much like this one. He is convinced that everything written down has to have at least some modicum of truth about it. Trough this lens Albert also looks at his preferred religion: having no preferred religion. He's the one looking for the red wire running through all the world's most popular beliefs. Believing that the thing they have in common must be the core of truth. Life after death is a good example because just about every religion assures everyone that they'll never stop being. The success of which is simple to explain. Few people exist who have the imagination to imagine not existing. Death reverts us back to the state we were in before birth: not there. Try asking people if they were aware of their personality before they were born and count the frowns. When asked about this Albert says he's had past lives, but he has trouble remembering exactly what or who he was. Luckily there are many people willing to help him remember. From would-be gurus to truth tellers. Albert has a lot to look forward to; caught in an infinite loop of reincarnation on a planet that is getting worse as time goes along.

Of course every religion has its "end of days" scenario and Albert has adopted a few. I could also be so arrogant as to say the world will end in my lifetime. Special as I am to be one of the very, very few people in the history of existence that get to rightly predict and witness The End. But if it doesn't happen, I'd look very, very stupid. Most of the time I look stupid enough as it is so I'm not going to take voluntary steps to make it worse.
It's mostly old people who tend to speak in terms of doom and gloom, because of the thing that looms largely on the horizon: their own demise. As if nothing has a right to exist if they don't get to. Most youth with health and prospects have optimism about the future. So what makes young Albert so gloomy then?
Albert insists he's always right about everything. When his girlfriend broke up with him, he was trying to get me to break up with mine. He said that all women are deranged freeloaders, and we'd be better off without. Or with different ones. Albert gets kicked out of school. That's OK, so should you, because the school system is used for indoctrination. Albert can't find a job. That's fine, you shouldn't work either. Cannabis can be bought just as easily on welfare. Albert is poor. Not a problem, you should be too and concentrate on what's really important. Like expanding your mind, man.
Albert doesn't care about his health, and why should he? Why should you? The world will end in 2012 anyway. As "predicted" by the Mayans. Be merry, have fun, relax and make love, not war. But what then if what he thought was wrong? Now you're uneducated, homeless, angry and crawling with STDs. I'm rather thinking he doesn't want to be alone. It all comes down to this one sentence: "if you are like me then that gives me and my actions legitimacy". Even though he values his uniqueness and independence above all else.

If there is one thing Albert and me can agree on is the existence of aliens. I think there's an immensely high probability of extraterrestrial intelligent life. Albert also believes that in addition to the transdimensional aliens looking over your shoulder as you read this, Draconians, Pleiadians, reptilians and archangels.
There's a theory that says aliens have influenced ancient civilizations. Part of me hopes they did. I hope the smoke, fire and hocus-pocus in the bible is only a description of the spaceships stopping by to toss out a bearded madman or some such. That way, when they come back somewhere around 2012, as Albert believes, every Catholic will have to admit their belief in god was actually alien worship. Of course the aliens, as superior beings, will see this flaw in parts of the earth's populace and promptly send believers to alien sweatshops, where they can continue their worshiping habits. In contrast, anyone who did not subscribe to religious doctrine but instead thought for themselves will be welcomed among the Alien ranks. And by the way, let's say humanity were to enter a galactic society, don't you think it would have to discard something as divisive as religion? I doubt that will happen though. So for now we are on our own. And we have to solve our crises ourselves.
As a professional problem solver, I'll have a crack at it. It's high time we come to the conclusion that we need to deal with the problem at the source. What's really taxing the planet? The root of all this evil is humanity itself. Or at least part of it. The part that makes us spread like a wild-fire, consuming even the air we breathe. How to deal with the situation? We can't simply remove people, that would be immoral. The solution might be then to stop reproducing the way we are. Though it might not happen because every scrap of humanity thinks it is entitled to reproduce itself and add yet another mouth to the teat of nature. Even Albert thinks children are the holy fruit of love and our only hope for the future. With fewer natural resources every excess child brings us one step closer to the fight of all against all. The inability of government to sustain its populace, protecting it from such a scenario in the first place, will dissolve government. The mask of civilization cast aside to show the hungry fangs of the inner ape. No, releasing your knowledge and fresh ideas upon the world is much more useful than releasing your genes. As it stands, I would much rather conserve the talent and knowledge that is in the world already in favour of an expanding population. This means we should prolong human life and keep up the quality of it as much as possible. Who, apart from the suicidic, would rather have a decrepit body at an old age over a youthful body at a high age? I know some of you will rightfully think that I'm hoping such treatment will be available for myself in my lifetime, special as I am. Some people might cry out that I'm just afraid of death, and they are not. Willfully ignorant perhaps, unable to change the fact of the unavoidable, best to cope with it as best you can.
But I would like to point out that they are wrong. They too do obsess about death. Looking both ways before crossing a road, wearing seat-belts, signing up for insurance. And they obsess even more about the health of their children. There's no such thing as DNA insurance. If your offspring doesn't survive, neither do your genes. And that's it for your personal branch of evolution. Luckily for those occasions the human race has sidetracked natural selection, so it doesn't really matter. Everybody gets to live. No matter how muddled the gene pool. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for it too, but I'd like to take matters to the next step.
The books and sites Albert reads have a different view though, every one of their readers are the pinnacle of human evolution, ready to ascend. So get down to earth and back to nature! Cast aside those inoculations and medications! Don't you know that no disease can kill you!? Their children to be gods among men. Prepare for the tidal wave of indigo children! For they will defy the global government, aided by aliens from parallel dimensions, aided by telekinesis and telepathy, aided by your dreams and illusions!
If you can't quite comprehend the words of that last sentence, don't worry. Just get any issue of X-men and you'll be up to speed within reading five pages. Just don't go believing what you read, or some person might write an arsenic blogpost about you.

Just in case though I'm already stocking up and saving up for a self sustaining underground bunker. I've got the plans right here, and a few shovels. I only need to convince a few of Albert's satanic friends that satan really is down there, near the core of the earth. After all, nobody has been there to prove otherwise so he really has to be. When they dig deep enough they will get to him eventually. Of course, a day or two in they will probably find it to be too much work and get back to playing Xbox. Leaving me with my personal underground lair.
This way I'll be safe for when humanity starts loosing it's mind. And by the time generations of post-civilization cannibals have chewed their way though the concrete walls in search of the holy grail, all they'll find will be my desiccated mummy and Mozart playing through the speakers for all eternity, until the Aliens finally arrive. Expecting a golden race of Illuminati and Elvis Presley. But finding nothing more on our brown planet earth than the corpse of a civilization that found it more important to consume rather than to construct.