Spider
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Posts posted by Spider
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No, it doesn't. Perhaps the older versions did, I don't know, but the newer ones take way less resources than even eMule.
Azureus itself doesn't use that much resources. Java, that is required for it to run, do however. I still use Azureus and love it though, it has features no other client has (and some of those I really don't want to do without).
Current numbers on my comp (memory usage): Azureus - 1,8k; Java - 60k
Azureus is great if the memory usage is a non issue, if it is utorrent is probably the best option. I can't see a reason to use anything other than those two though.
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I think they use the same regional coding as DVDs, which would mean no. I'm not sure though.
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There are some performance issues, but they really shouldn't be so bad with your setup. Was it a permanent freeze or just a temporary stutter? According to Activision the game requiers a page file that is 1.5 gb large so if you've got it manually set to anything smaller, that could have some effect (this is something they said when they released the first patch, I have no idea if it has any effect at all).
As for being unfinished, this is what I gather:
During the development of Bloodlines, White Wolf announced that they were bringing their World of Darkness to an end. It's been about doomsday prophecies all along and they simply felt it was time to deliver on those.
When Activision learned of this they were ready to scrap the game, after all why release a game that uses a dead liscence? Troika (I think) managed to convince them to not scrap the game, but instead development time got cut back (I'm not sure with how much, but I think something like 6 months). This of course means a lot of stuff had to get cut, something that is especially noticeable in the later part of the game where it becomes much more combat oriented.
So at least when I say it wasn't completely done, I refer to the lack of roleplaying in the end game and the lack of quality control prior to release (although I personally only suffered one major bug, the game's performance should have been better).
The parts of the game that are good are still fantastic though.
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Each subsection could be cosistant within itself while each subsection could have an overall theme that could be consisitant, could it not?
It's certainly a valid way to design a website. But doing so within the constraints of a portal is very difficult. To be honest I'm not even sure it's possible with the popular existing portals.
It's all about how they're programmed though, so it can theoretically be done. Just like these forums could theoretically have different layouts for each section. Either way, it requires programming knowledge that goes way beyond me.
(for those who don't know, a portal is a website software that's used to layout a page and communicate with a database. In many ways they work just like forums do)
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I don't know much about netcode but could you use multiple portals within a large portal to create a modular layout system that can work within the wiki framework?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. A portal is a modular layout system.
Edit: Or do you mean that the site switches layouts for different sections of the site? That is definitely possible, but usually not wanted since coherency tends to be prefered.
(unless the section is more of a subsite, but let's not go there)
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I have a smaller screen and often have windows tiled. So nwn2wiki.org layout works better for me currently.
Besides CSS styles allow to set 'max-width' for block-level elements, so combining both layout styles would actually make it perfect.
Even better would be for nwn2news to use the same engine as nwn2wiki.org.
Like I said, nwn2wiki definitely uses a better technical solution (technical in this case means the code that renders the page, not the wiki functionality).
The problem for nwn2news is that it uses a portal to render it's site. It's a good tool for a site such as that since it makes it easier for a large number of people to add updates, but it leads to clunky code and suboptimal layouts.
So naturally, a site that is only a wiki will have code more ideally suited to being a wiki, but I still think they should cut article text off.
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You can try Quake 4 or F.e.a.r.
FEAR has regenerating health. Only when you go below 25% and only up to that point, but it still has it. Doesn't prevent it from being a good game though.
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While I agree on freedom of choice and all but a good point was made about the format of nwn2wiki.org being superior to nwn2news wiki.
Not in all ways. While they may be using a better technical solution, there is one thing that makes it inferior from a layout one.
Text that runs all the way over a computer screen from the far left to the far right is significantly harder to read than text that only runs through (say) 50% of it. There is a reason why books are in the format they are and why newspapers uses columns.
So it'd be a lot easier to read a wiki entry on nwn2news than on nwn2wiki.
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S2: SS Was OK, It would've been a good game if I weren't fed-up with WWII settings.
But there are so few GOOD games in Sci-Fi setting which makes SR2: D welcome addition to my collection.
Silent Storm is Sci Fi.
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The writers even came in a couple times to touch base with the fans.
One of the writers, John Rogers, does plenty of interacting on his blog. Not so much on the Transformers movie though, although he has mentioned the re-writes sucking up a lot of time. It's very good for anyone interested in screenwriting.
Oh, and this post is a must read, it's totally hilarious:
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That was me, by the way.
By the way, I've been meaning to thank you for helping me to avoid a crash in the game. Not that you'd know you helped, but still..
When going up the stairs in the first part of the Cradle, the knocking on the attic door scared the crapola outta me more than anything, but much like Hotel it was a scripted one time dealIn the second part of the Cradle, I found the patients creepy. Basically the Cradle had enemies that could harm me, whereas the only nasties you had to worry about in the Hotel was flying furniture.
For me, the Cradle was creepy but not scary. I think it has a lot to do with the nature of the Thief games themselves. Since I moved about at a very deliberate pace, listening, looking, being prepared in every mission, there was nothing about the Cradle that could scare me. I saw the creatures before they saw me most of the time and when they did saw me they acted just like any other opponent in the game (which also was true when they didn't see me). The knocking door did make me nervous for a sec, but nothing more than that.
The Hotel on the other hand had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. My character was never in any real danger, but I didn't know that. Every corner I rounded I was nervous something would jump out at me and it really felt like things would take a turn for the worse any second.
Personally I think making me fear for the safety of my character when he/she is in no danger is a very impressive accomplishment. (although I did manage to die the first time I played it, I think I got an elevator dropped on my head, but that's me being clumpsy)
But even so, the level just oozes of athmosphere, and that, not the scaryness, is what makes me like it so much. I've enjoyed it greatly each of the times I've played it. I got really pissed when I botched the quest to help the poor woman by giving the locket to Jeanette on my first playthrough.
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I was actually thinking of the Return to the Cathedral map in the original Thief. The old Hammer Haunts are creeptastic.
Fair enough. I mentioned the Cradle because in another thread about Bloodlines someone said that the Hotel had nothing on the Cradle in terms of scariness and since I hadn't played Thief 3 at that time I couldn't answer on it. Now that opporunity kinda presented itself I was ready to jump.
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Once you know that nothing is actually going to happen, its loses 99% of its entertainment value.
Exactly, being so scripted it's just not the same again. It was definitely cool the first time around, although it's not on the level of the scary maps from the Thief games.
Here I definitely disagree. I've only played Thief 3 but the levels that were supposed to be scary were everything but. In fact, the Cradle was one of my least favorite levels of the game.
I'll admit it's very atmospheric and I can understand why people would like it (it's just that I didn't). It does stand out in the game. But to me there was nothing scary about it.
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It wasn't to me. It is of course not the same thing as the first time, but the ambience is still so good that I truly enjoy it every time.
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The game I helped design when I was at Midway was significantly more involved in terms of gameplay and story. Some people may have liked that, some may have not. When I realized that Midway's goals were very different than my own, I understood that I wouldn't have been much help, so I left.
For me, it was just those things that made it interesting. It's a shame Midway didn't see things the same way you did.
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And here I was actually looking forward a little to this game. Maybe JE can tell us what went wrong?
(probably not, contractual obligations and all)
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I'm playing Bloodlines for the first time right now and I don't understand all the high praise this game is getting in this thread. Yes it does have good voice acting, dialogue and character creation but that doesn't totally make up for the horrible clunky combat, bad sound and lack of feeling accomplishment from the underwhelming quests. I'm in the sewer levels right now and I gotta say this is one of the worst designed missions I've ever played in a game. It makes even the Library in Halo feel adventurous. Still, I'm going to keep going in hopes that the game starts to open up and become a little less linear. Here's hoping!
To be fair, if you've gotten as far as the sewer level and still don't like the game, then it's only going to get worse for you. The game is actually going to be more linear in the future, not less so.
What I loved in the game was the athmosphere, including voice acting and other sound, the great roleplaying opportunities and the quests I felt were among the best in any RPG. If you've encountered all of that and still don't like the game, well...
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What exactly does that mean though? Doesn't have a Z-axis? The Z used to calculate distance between the camera and objects in the 3D world (Z-buffer)? The dimension Z (as in X, Y and Z)? Although I don't see how that would be possible since the graphics surely has all three dimensions. Are you saying that the actual game engine doesn't support anything else than a simple 2D map and that the 3D graphics is just 'fake 3D eyecandy' on top of a 2D map?
I believe the more appropriate words are that NWN2 doesn't have a mappable z-axis. All three dimensions clearly exists, you just can't move through one of them.
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I would also say Xcom is under-rated, because despite selling well and being well received, there has been little attempt at recreating a game of this type.
You mean apart from the two sequels (and no, X-Com: Enforcer and X-Com: Interceptor don't count) and the much more recent "spiritual succesors" UFO: Aftermath and UFO: Aftershock (the latter which was released only a few months ago).
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So it takes about two to three years to create a game? I wonder how much they get from the production? I wonder if they get paid by the hour, or if they charge an over all fee?
I'm no expert on the issue, but from what I understand independent developers (such as Obsidian) generally gets all their expenses taken care of from the publishers when the game is being developed. I'd guess they get this in the shape of payments after milestones have been reached as mentioned earlier.
Once a game goes to retail they get a small percentage (I've heard something like 7% of the retail price), but they only get anything once their share is higher than the amount they've already been paid during the development.
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- HD - imagine the most HD space you think you could possibly ever need, then double it - HD's are relatively cheap - most mobo's have onboard RAID-0 support, and it seriously increases performance (think barely enough time to light a cigarette between KOTOR level loads) but if a drive crashes, you're screwed (i.e. - back up everything important) - Intel's "Matrix RAID" kicks serious tail, but comes at a high price (four drives required, I think) for the performance and stability of a very flexible RAID-5-type set-up, configurable in Windows. Western Digital's "RAPTOR" is still the speed king (it should be, with a 10K RPM platter speed - compared to the standard 7200 - but is ridiculously high-priced for the storage space)
Well - those are my two credits ...
The Raptor may be expensive, but it's so worth it. It really is MUCH faster. Personally, if I could afford it, I'd get a small Raptor (36 GB) for the os and apps then another HD for storage.
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!'m 99% sure that there are stakes in Spellhold. I'm not totally sure where, but I think in or just outside the library.
I wouldn't have gone back to an earlier save in your position though. Either Shadowkeeper or the games concole would have come to my rescue.
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Lucky you. Last one I played was Bloodlines and that certainly didnt work straight out of the box. It was also a buggy mess.
Bloodlines was playable for me out of the box. It had one gamestopping bug that could be circumvented fairly easily. True, I'd prefer that I didn't have to do that, but it didn't render the game unplayable for me.
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The XP increase will probably not matter much, at least not unless you get rid of the level cap. I've always reached the cap way before the end with a full party.
Taking turn base action out of RPGs...
in Computer and Console
Posted
Unfortunately it didn't sell to anyone.