Morgoth

Wow, you really have a talent to make an arse out of yourself. I regularly visit the DA boards, and development is going on well. As a side-note, DA is going to be a very gritty, low-magic world...so much for Fantasy cliches. Do you think developers couldn't mess up or milk a PA or SciFi or contemporary setting beyond recognition? Meshugger is totally right that it's not the genre, but the developer that is responsible for what gets made and how well it gets made.

Kaft's allegations will fail horribly once Dragon Age gets released.

Now now, don't start with insults. You pressed "[...]HL2 to me has one of the worst implementations I've seen." Then I simply asked "Have you actually coding experience with the Source engine?" You: "Pretty certain I already said I hadn't, to clarify I'm not speaking of the code implementation (The code is probably fairly slick)[...]" You're saying it has the worst implementation, yet you claim you never actually worked with it. Uh-huh.

Nice way to contradict yourself.

Take it easy. Have you actually coding experience with the Source engine?

I don't know about you geezers but I for one am looking forward to Dragon Age and possibly NWX2. It's the stories and history that I love about fantasy-themed games that are crafted very well, and I trust especially Bioware and Obsidian on this one. I agree however that heavy exploitation like the WoW universe (Anime-****) or Oblivion (needs more bloom) can trespass my sensitive borders of good taste quickly.

Specularity intensity can be globally changed within a material template via a flag, or a simple variable in the shader script. Textures (Diffuse, Normal, Specular) are separately stored and linked within the material, among other properties like collision sound, footstep sound, mass, SpriteFX stuff etc. I don't know what you mean about being "shocked" not having any control over such things. Certainly artists and level designer could go crazy about how many lights should occlude with these materials, but the more you have, the more fill-rate is wasted..and that's the point where you need to make trade offs. I figure Valve didn't want to push the rendering features too far lest jeopardizing a steady framerate and other gameplay-related systems. In the end Valve decided the right thing. The HL2 games rock, people love it, it sells like hot cakes even if it doesn't look as pretty as Gears. So what? Eh? Update your video card drivers. Lawl. I personally thought the soft shadows in HL2 look perfectly fine. Not as exaggerated and stylized like Doom3 or FEAR, but that was never the intention.

"Dull and flat" like these cave walls huh? I think deciding how specularity is used is an artistic choice rather than a restriction of the engine. Maybe Valve just didn't want it to look like Gears or Small Soldiers plastic toys?

What is so awful about the shadows? I never had any problems with it in either DM or HL2.

Who was this Bhutto dude anyway?

Where did you pick up that dramatic line? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? A well educated, cultivated and motivated human being is more than a primal beast - it's what sets humans apart from monkeys and dogs. Rob everything that this human being has worked so hard for everything however.... well, I see your point. The hell with all, should the anarchy come. I'm not giving up on my strawberry garden though! *reloads shotgun*

You know, the developer (Legend Entertainment) was shut down after Unreal 2 was released. The scattered team still finished the MP mode on their own private time...I think they deserve some credit for that at least. The MP mode wasn't made on private time. I eta tested the thing through ATARI. Had a particularly interesting bug, but that's beside my point. My point is the MP mode came through the official channels. Legend shut down a year after XMP came out. Whatever. I don't care, you Unreal2 fanboy you!

If its Gears of War you're talking about Ill have to bring teh pain. Its just too good for words in every aspect. (I know almost all the dialogue by heart) Let me guess, the dialogue goes like this "I'm Marcus Fenix and I have a big **** and now attack GO GO GO Marines Wah whahahaha take this bastard down Yessir Graaahhhhh!!!!1111@?&$!!

Oh btw I played the Beta demo of UT3 and it ran horribly choppy... Does the full version run better?

You know, the developer (Legend Entertainment) was shut down after Unreal 2 was released. The scattered team still finished the MP mode on their own private time...I think they deserve some credit for that at least.

The multiplayer mode for Unreal 2 was released a year or so later. Go google it.

Bite your tongue. I'm a member of a cult fanbase that numbers Unreal II among the top singleplayer FPS experiences of all time. Such a bittersweet ending. *sniffle* Unreal 2 was "Unreal" in name only. The original Unreal was still the best.

Who IS the best, then? That's something the client has to evaluate. JupiterFX Extended (FEAR engine) for example is a lot cheaper, not to mention the awesome 24/7 support that Touchdown Ent. provides. And it still has all important DX9 features supported, plus some rocked-solid content tool... (I'm currently fiddling around with the FEAR world editor. I love it). Source, of course, is awesome too.

That's right, a total surprise they developed a sequel to their own baby instead of outsourcing it to some nobody in order to create a highly interesting story/setting for Gears 2. Well, I might have a skewed picture in my end of the world, but it seems like no one was interested in another UT(and definently not another unreal sp). The miserable sales figures seem to prove that theory. So, IMO it would have made more sense to focus on Gears of War which is a really hot IP (it has also sold more copies than the entire Unreal franchise combined). Much of Epics staff are also just occupied with developing and supporting the engine(s), so they would be wise not to spread their workforce too thinly by continuing to develop games for an IP in decline. Would have been better to sell licenses. Epic actually have two internal development teams. The UT3 team is actually "new" (a few years ago Epic bought the American Army makers and integrated them into Epic - UT3 is the result), and the UnrealTech staff is actually an entire own team (plus 24/7 support). The Gears team had, with the excepting of some artists shifting, not much to do with the UT3 team. I still have high respect for Epic though. Their teams remain small (max 30 members on Gears), they have the luxury to take their time and really care about the mod community. I'm not necessary a big fan about their latest games though (technically impressive, artistically directed towards 12 year old kids). I hope they'll someday do something completely off the top.

Maybe everyone was so fed up after the war that nobody wanted to start rebuilding everything, prefering just to sit in the tribal camps instead and smoking pot, gamble, watching TV, amusing with hookers....

That's right, a total surprise they developed a sequel to their own baby instead of outsourcing it to some nobody in order to create a highly interesting story/setting for Gears 2.

Patch 1.2 is out!

New official Gothic 3 patch on the way! Here's a temporary list of fixes: Pretty cool. Maybe this will just convince me to pick it up again.

I'm kinda disappointed with the new teaser, I really expected a bit more fleshy content.

As long as food doesn't start talking to me "Oh please don't eat us pretty please?", I shall be fine with that. Heh, I predict a future where you just have a construction kit (like Spore) to create your own little cute Zombie kittens