Slowtrain

Its voodoo game development. Dig up the rotting corpses of ancient IPS and violate them in hideous ways, then reanimate them into some vague semblance of unlife and send them to Wal Mart and Best Buy.

Hasn't MOO been brutalized enough at this point? Let the dead have some peace.

I know I have Better Bodies, I think I have Better Heads as well (I think I had both of those from my first time around). I just added one of the mods that replaces all the textures in the game making the environment look much better too, plus a few other random mods I found looking for a good world replacer. Some of those texture mods were system killers a few years ago. It must be kind of neat to run them now on a better system and be able to actual enjoy the improvements while still keeping up your frames per second.

Replaying Morrowind atm; the default graphics for people are hideous. Absolutely hideous. If you are not using them, I recommend both the Better Heads and Better Bodies mods. Especially Better Heads. I wouldn't even think of playing MW without it.

The MW avatars, especially the heads and hair, have to be some of the ugliest things ever put into a computer game. I remember people were putting out head and body mods that were actually less resource intensive for the computer and looked about a zillion times better. Face gen may have been pretty bad in Oblivion, but it WAS a giant step forward from MW.

Its better to try playing slowly and cleanly rather than fast and sloppy. Fast and sloppy just creates bad habits. Set your metronome to as slow a speed as you feel comfortable with. The speed will come all by itself as your body physically trains itself in what needs to be done. Learning to play an instrument is just as much a physical skill as playing a sport, and, just like a sport, practice is needed to allow your body to learn what to do. ANother helpful thing is to record yourself playing as much as possible. The quality of the recording doesn't matter. Even just a handheld recorder placed near the guitar is good enough. When you listen to the playback, you will really become aware of the weaknessess in your playing and what you need to work on. At first just work on keeping the tempo consistent and allow the notes to be full and smooth.

Not really. Did you happen to read that article by Valve's main guy where he explains that it's a myth? Gabe Newell explains why PC gaming is the future: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/valve-wh...-future-article Doug Lombardi further discredits "the PC is dead" claims: http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=873 Those were interesting. Thanks, Krezzie. Its funny that they both blame the Microsoft PR machine for fostering the impression that pc gaming is dead. Otoh, Valve and Blizzard are really the only 2 pc-centric games companies doing well at the moment. ANd both those interviews were from Valve people, so, hmmm. I found it interesting that they made the point that in many non-US markets, pc game sales crush all console game sales (except the DS). WHich would explain why eastern and central europe is currently the haven for pc game development. Newell's thoughts on service-based pc gaming future were interesting.

Oh my yes. Can't believe I forgot that. Metronome, click track, even a cheap drum machine of some sort. Learn to keep time.

I agree, BUT, the longer the current tech level is in place the more time the developers have to hone their skills and the more pressure is on them to do it in order to get their games to stand out and sell. So I have hope that things will get better.

I would advice not to do that unless you are really interested in creating your own music. Those courses are often so dull and boring, since they usually dissect melodies, like Beethoven's 9th, into abstract concepts, devoid of any understanding of the incredible craftmanship of the composer. Alanchu, do you want to be like this: "Here the crescendo slowly transpires into pianissimo; it is interesting that the composer chose a scale of C-minor rather than D-major in this part of the fugue, hoho" ...oooooor HERE I AM *DU-NU-NUNUNU* ROOOOCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE *DU-NU-NUNU* <guitarsolo!> I disagree. WHile at a very early stage my focus was simply on learning how to form basic chords and develop hand eye coordination, that doesn't take very long. The guitar is a pretty simple instrument to learn at basic level. Once I learned the basics, I found it greatly increased my enjoyment to begin to learn and understand music. If one is seriously interested in music, regardless of instrument, learning to read music is a must since that is how music is communicated between people in written form. Developing you ear is obviously important. Just say no to electronic guitar tuners. And theory classes, well, if you don't understand music theory on some sort of basic level, you are not really going to understand what you are hearing. Note that I said a BASIC theory class. Not spend 4 years in university studying music theory. That's just my take based on my personal experience though. As always, YMMV. The best way to pursue any art is always mostly subjective and personal.

Pretty much. SInce the platforms will be essentially static until the replacement platforms are finally released. A big difference of course compared to the dynamic and constant tech improvement seen with pcs. But overall, it is a really good thing for 2 reasons: 1) Our current technology will still be playing games for 5 years instead of just for 5 months. 2) With the emphasis no longer on technology as a means to demonstrate how great a game is, developers will be forced to actually design games instead of engines. I mean, if all games look the same, devs are going to have to actually do some design work to make their game interesting and unique. I think that is fantastic.

Develop your ear. Learn to read actual music notation. Take a basic theory class.

This seems a much more logical look into the immediate future to me. PC's continue to advance, though at a slower rate that years past, but current consoles are still the lead development and retail platform for most games. WHich means of course, there won't be any great advances in gaming technology for quite a few years, until there is a huge leap somewhere down the road, when a next next-gen console is released. Frankly, I think that's great since it means we don't have to worry about turning over our computing technology every six months just to play current games.

So do you feel then as though you are in agreement with the OP? That the console is going to fade away and we are going to return to a more generalized approach to home computing? Understand, I am not arguing with you directly, except to say that such reasoning flys in the face of everything we've been told about pc vs console game development.

Regardless of the specifics of the technology involved, the fundamental reasoning is flawed. Computers were miles ahead technology-wise of consoles for many years. Consoles closed the gap and maybe even pushed in front a bit when the next gens were released, but even now as the technology rush forward has slowed, pcs are once widening the tech gap between themselves and consoles. I haven't upgraded my computer for more than a year, except for a slight graphics card upgrade, and I can still run all the current games well. That would have been unheard of three years ago. But despite the almost constant technology gap between consoles and pcs, consoles have ALWAYS generated far greater revenues. Which platform is technologically superior it not relevant in game sales. In fact, it tends to be the opposite. Less tech advanced = greater revenue. Again, I am just going on what we have been told over the years by publishers and what not. Maybe they have all been lying.

Isn't "one box that controls everything" just a wordy way of saying pc though? A console is a game optimized computer, still a computer, but one with a very specific purpose. Going back to a general purpose "one box that controls everything" is going right back to the pc again. If that approach didn't generate sufficient reveune for game devs and pubs before, why is it going to do so in 2 or three years?

IIRC, they made it clear that they would no longer develop high end pc games and that the XBOX 360 would be their lead dev platform. That may not be the same as not developing for PC at all, but it definitely is an embrace of the console as the revenue generating platform of the future. Nobody is going back to PC's as their lead development platform. The concept is absurd. Unless all the info we've been fed by publishers and console developers is simply lies and pc sales actually do generate revenue.

I thought all of crytek's whining over piracy and the lack of sales for Crysis and their swearing off of the pc was pretty definite. Perhaps I was mistaken. So basically the idea is that once again, new technology will make the pc the higher performing platform? But how does that make it any more viable for generating sales? All I've been hearing pretty much non-stop for the last few years is that the pc is not a viable platform for game developement because it doesn't generate enough sales. Publishers don't care if their games utilize next gen features if nobody buys them. Publishers would rather have old gen game features and oodles of sales on an old gen platfrom.

I can't tell if that hair looks like its made from plastic or melted wax. Either way its hot.

I really don't understand this though. Haven't we been told for the last 2 years that PC gaming is dead (REALLY dead this time)? Even hardcore pc developers like Crytek have just recently embraced the console. What and then suddenly, BOOM!, everyone is all back onto pc gaming gaming again? SOmebody needs to go get CGW's old offices cleaned up and ready to go. Makes absolutely no sense.

You don't see this every day. EVen in the zone.

Wait. Are you saying we're going to pcs again? I kinda liked the fact that hardware requirements for games has leveled off so drastically over the last 2 years. Now we have to switch back again? Technology makes me so confused.

Ha ha! You know that's almost true.

Hey, that's where I live! And let me tell you, here Oblivion is a total pile of poo. One of the worst games ever made. And btw, both Battlespire and Morrowind were pretty badly flawed. MW was almost as broken as Oblivion. Just broken in a different way. I will certainly give credit to Bethesda for rising above their usual level of ineptitude with FO3, but that doesn't make some of their previous games any less inept. I am hoping that ES 5 will be influenced more by FO3 than by any of the previous ES games. I should point out that I haven't played FO3 yet, but I am assuming its pretty good because so many people liked it.

I always find it oddly terrifying when people actually agree with me. lol. Well, it would be a departure from the traditional viewpoint, to be sure. but I think that as long as the features (most of them anyway) were implemented, I think it would be interesting. Do you remember XCOM Alliance? It was a first person game that was still XCOM. The idea was you played in first person as a soldier, and had an interface that linked you with other members of your squad. The AI controlled the other squad members, but you could give them orders and take control of them as needed. That was the idea anyway. Pretty ambitious for a first person game (although Terra Nova has done a very similar thing a few years before), and it ended up getting cancelled. I believe it was due to a studio buyout or something, rather than any direct problem with implementing the features. So that was what I was thinking of in terms of envisioning the Fallout 3 engine being used for a Jag game.