alanschu

I don't know much about it to be honest. My guess is it'd expand the content on the Citadel. I'll send some messages out to friends if they would have any perspective. As an aside, I did like that they are paying tribute to Robin Sachs with Operation: Tribute this weekend.

Eh, it's fine to not care for steam, but "PC gaming" from the stand point of "I am playing games on my personal computer with my mouse and keyboard" is what most people mean. I prefer PC gaming because I prefer that environment, the control schemes, and so forth. I also have no beef with people that identify themselves as being "console gamers." I actually like Steam, but I agree that Valve has legions of fanboys that probably don't fully realize much of what they are saying. If you want to boil it down, all video games have been played on computers. Just different types. They all have inputs that are read into a central processing unit, that do calculations and output information in a way that is meaningful to the game in question. The thing I like most about Steam is simply the push it has given towards digital distribution in general. They weren't the first, but they have helped reduce barriers to entry for people to produce and distribute games. I do agree that PC elitism is stupid (it's just a different team in the platform wars) and doesn't add much to the discussion, however.

I remember going "ooo backwards compatibility" too. Until I realized it's uncommon for me to really care. I'm having a blast through the past with a lot of NES and SNES gaming with some guys at work, but if it wasn't available to me I'm sure I would have done something else and still enjoyed my time.

Decade ago? Barely any console games would get PC versions, and the ones who got were pretty bad ports. I think only 10% of the PS2 games I used to own, had PC versions Eh, you're worrying too much about the details. Some games, like Red Dead, aren't getting PC versions because it's believed that it wouldn't be a financially sound decision. On multiplatform releases, is rarely the top seller and often the lowest seller. As such, depending on how much effort it would take to make a PC version and how a particular AAA game company perceives PC game sales, there may not be a PC version. The point was more that there's an influx of non-AAA developers that would be filling in any sort of gap (whether that gap is real or otherwise)

I say that because there happens to be large AAA titles that don't come out for the PC (like Red Dead Redemption, for example). Perhaps a decade ago it would have been, perhaps not. My comment has nothing to do with any newer consoles or anything like that.

I'm not sure where your sales figures come from. The only data I have is from a recruitment drive at my University where (ironically EA) stated that PC game sales tend to be consistent in their rates of growth without huge fluctuations from year to year, where consoles go boom/bust with the cycle of the platform. This was a few years ago though, but nothing I have heard indicates the same. Some larger AAA titles may not come out for PC where maybe they would have in the past, but there's not really a shortage of other works filling in that gap.

PC gaming isn't dead.

I downloaded the demo and found myself feeling underwhelmed. That the tutorial (of a complex game) was apparently a live action combat zone where some guy can randomly walk by and shoot the guy teaching me how to do stuff in the game isn't the best thing to have happen. It's funny, but in that "laugh at the game" sort of way (rather than laugh with the game). Unfortunately there's no shortage of games to play so I'm not keen on spending too much time on something if I don't see much promise. A game like War in the Pacific is Grognard in its level of detail and micromanagement, but it hooked me early to the point where I had no problems paying for the Admiral's Edition (enhanced gameplay across the board) at another $70. Some games grab people, others don't. The interesting thing is that the game is more known for a mod someone made, than the base game itself. And it doesn't take much research to read up on a lot of the issues that ArmA II had at release and beyond. The devs themselves talk about how really difficult it is to deliver to the wide variety of distributors, particularly from a patch perspective, and when your previous game is laden with a ton of bugs at release, there are definite advantages to doing so. It's one thing to go "I don't like Steam, this isn't for me for that reason." It's another to suggest that it has disaster written all over it simply because of Steam.

My only experience with ArmA II (which wasn't DayZ) didn't really have me thinking it was NOT a disaster (my tutorial trainer was actually killed by some random patrol while giving me instructions... A+) I doubt it affects modding, however.

I'll admit a personal pet peeve of the term "lazy" so there was definite "NO I WASN'T! /RABBLE /RABBLE" with my response HAHA. But yeah, my skin slowly grows thicker (this peeve has existed with me for years) It's a bit funny because I'd much prefer to just be told "You made a poor decision that was bad and you should feel bad" rather than "You're lazy" haha. Like I said, fire off any questions my way. Some tips, I encourage you to build up your economy of your controlled demesne (build upgrades that improve tax revenue). Having a highly capable tax collector collecting taxes can help out (and the effects are multiplicative too). Who did you pick? I usually play as a count in Ireland or Wales, as it means I don't have a liege and I have a bit more autonomy in that regard (and forming the Kingdom of Wales/Ireland is fun too).

The problem with DA2 came more from it not really being sure what it wanted to be. It was actually originally concepted as being a sort of Dragon Age 1.5 (called Dragon Age: Exodus. Inquisition was to be the sequel to DAO), with the idea of experimenting with some gameplay ideas. In not being sure if it was a full sequel or semi-stand alone and whatnot, scope concerns weren't really fully thought out. The game was actually intended to be a shorter game, but then there was concerns that it'd be hit critically due to its length, but the scope of the project didn't really accommodate much for that. I'm sure there's a host of other things as well that I can't really go into (as much because I don't know the full details so there's some degree of speculation on my part for what motivated some decisions), but in the end adding to the length meant asset reuse and we were raked over the coals for it (rightfully so IMO).

Ours is similar. It can be pretty tough to determine specifically when the project as a whole is alpha in my opinion, and as such I find it's easier to do it on a system level (even then just with iteration, new stuff still ends up coming in without much time to spare before cert/release). The big thing I have noticed in my short time is how complex "doing some extra work" can really be (the woes of feature creep). It's easy for one person to stay a bit late for his pet project/feature, but without realizing that it may affect several people down the development pipeline by doing so makes simple tasks suddenly take a lot more total man hours.

It's not too bad, but there are some quirks to it. I recommend starting off small (A count/earl) just to get the idea on how some of the mechanics work.

There are definite advantages to unified memory. There's actually situations in DA2 where we leverage the graphics memory for non-graphics purposes because we knew we'd have the spare graphics memory but the system memory was all used up, and it's significantly more complicated to do things that way as you had to be very creative with your solutions.

I have no doubt that it was pre-alpha. Time in development isn't really an accurate measure of when you're in alpha (alpha itself can be a somewhat nebulously applied term too)

I get a blank page on that link too (though you can find it properly). Though I don't know if I really consider buying the Ultimate Edition through Steam as "getting the DLC through Steam." To clarify, Crysis is an EA Partner's game, and as such is treated very differently even internally. EA offers all sorts of benefits/perks for EA staff wanting to acquire EA games, and the Crysis games are not covered under that umbrella. Without going into too much detail, the primary issue with DA2 was that we had released DLC for it after Valve changed their policy, so Valve removed DA2 from their storefront. I am pretty sure that had new DLC come out for DAO, it would have been subjected to the same removal. Valve and EA had their issues and IMO neither party is without blame, but at the same time both entities are free to conduct their business however they feel as far as I'm concerned. A jaded cynic type could see that there is extra motivation since EA was releasing Origin, but I don't have ears in Valve so I can't substantiate any claim of that sort. Although any idea that we pulled our games off of Steam isn't entirely accurate. No doubt there's some level of "fine if you're going to be like that, we won't play by your rules" and some may think that's childish or whatever, but ultimately it came down to two entities not wanting to back down for how to do business with each other, to which I chalk up irreconcilable differences. In the end it's unfortunate, since Steam is my preferred platform, but in the end I'm not too affected.

I agree with Hurlshot. I like that it seems like I get more life out of my computer hardware than I did around 2000.

On a personal note, I'd rather the extra resources be applied to things other than graphics.

Wasn't it LOF that lauded the North Koreans for innovative prisoner handling techniques?

HAHAHAHAHAHA Oh, you. *fey handswipe* In general Bok's statement is pretty spot on.

I know it's not always the case, but Valve does garner financial success off of indie games. Yes it's symbiotic and garners some great PR with fans and potential developers (which businesses always like) when they offer to help out those at no cost, but it's important to note that Valve is still a business and justifies their decisions in large part for business reasons. They pretty much state this straight up in their new hire guide (when it comes to evaluating employee performance). EDIT: Reading the link, I can easily see (perhaps ironically) the piracy angle chaffing the folks at the digital distributors.

I'll accept responsibility as I clearly should have done a full regression pass on the editor! My bad!

Eh, "alpha" can often be somewhat irrelevant based on what is seen in a video. For instance, is some game footage shot of a game that was created prior to the game being in alpha. That said, it's easy to see the potential (I think it almost always is when it's a game you want, by a dev you want, that isn't complete).

Nice. I was helping set up some clipping tests with an asset that has all extremes so that no false assumptions will be made by cinematics (obviously not a concern for your project). Silly pauldrons always get in the way. My point? I just got a crash course in this stuff from one of our tech animators so your post actually made some sort of sense! Cheers!

Eh, Valve has still made a non trivial amount of money off of indie games (because they take a percentage based cut, it doesn't really provide any hard barriers for an indie game to use Steam). Which is well within their right to do for providing the distribution service.