Jump to content

Luridis

Members
  • Posts

    550
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Luridis

  1. I was just talking about this on Disqus the other day. Real time with pause is a compromise I think that unfortunately sacrifices the best of both worlds for a mediocre compromise. I completely understand why they did this, but I personally feel like riding the fence on it diminishes the game.
  2. Like I said in another thread, they're building maps from high resolution tile sets in a high end 3D application, one too expensive for modding. I think that they then export that as a texture for a ground plane in Unity and fit nav meshes to it. Probably the best thing they can do is make a few generic rural, town, wilderness, dungeon maps and nav mesh them and let you populate them from an external data file. That's not to say the uphill battle can't be fought, it's just going to be horribly time intensive.
  3. Let me try to give you just a little bit of insight. I've sat and talked with these guys/gals, well not Obsidian, but Gearbox here in Dallas, or at least they were around 9 years ago. At the time I was a Sr. Admin for an internet marketing company in the same building and I smoked. So, I ran into these people regularly in the garage area. The stuff they told me, or I simply overheard because they were venting loudly, about the game industry was mind blowing, I had no idea at all. They are constantly under the gun from so many different things, but the biggest problem is publishers ripping off the studio, or their own fans by not paying for the games. Not only is it ridiculously competitive from a job market standpoint, the rewards of being a "game developer" come at huge personal sacrifice of free time and personal sanity. So, I'm going to sum this up in one sentence: Game developers, artists, etc., be they man or woman, have balls of diamond coated steel to stay in the industry they've chosen. I'm not kidding. I'm an admin, toolmaker, installer developer, cross platform architect and I can work for just about any company that has servers and computers. I don't put in a lot of overtime and I work from home 90% of the time. People who can do what these folks do would, I think, make more money and live a generally more peaceful life if they moved into graphic arts, systems or web programming and also see a lot less competition. They stay in it to make games, and I'm grateful, and the least I can do is drop the cash they're asking for the result of their toils.
  4. Now you're just being straight-up belligerent. I realize that you somehow see it as you being entitled to completely disregard what others are saying and attack strawmen that you build up all around them, but you can't expect people to take you seriously when you do. You may ignore earlier posts, but to do so and then claim malice on part of another is completely ridiculous. You're flat-out accusing someone else of a crime, attacking their character and insulting them, despite said someone (me) making their stance clear on the matter. I'm not taking anything from anyone, no matter what kind of nonsense windmill you concoct. "You're" in the third-person, as if speaking to anyone who would do it. I was not accusing you, my apologies if you thought that was directed solely at you. I'm not attacking your character or insulting you, or anyone else for that matter. You really need to work on the color of the glass you receive other people's words through. "You're a xxxx xxxx" is a personal attack, "I strongly disagree with your position and the entire premise of what you're saying." is not. I don't agree with the general arguments made about piracy isn't "bad", by you, or anyone else. I explained that before. That's not a result of me talking to you just now, it's what I've thought for a long time. I've heard the arguments done a thousand times over and I've never considered them to be sound... period.
  5. 1 - Ooops, my bad. I honestly just got the letters mixed up. 2 - I was focusing on that you would need to do work, to duplicate the rug. Piracy as it exists today would not be so trivial then. 3 - You're making an assumption, I'll leave it at that. Unless, you have some physical proof? No, okay then. 4 - Denigrate and insult your post, and not at you. I shall have to break this one down. Examines his post to see where he called Katarack's post any of these: poopy pants, dirty dog, booty sniffer or rotten egg. Sorry, I just don't see anywhere that I insulted your post. Examines his post for denigration and sees, "terrible analogy". Okay, while that's certainly not speaking highly of it, I don't see it as the same as saying something like, "That's the stupidest and most useless post of all time!" So, I'm not entirely sure that qualifies as denigration. Talk to you? We're not sitting at a table where I can turn and look at your face when I respond. I did not, after all, PM my response to Luckmann, I did post it here, where anyone can read it, even the Google crawler. I hardly think that qualifies as talking behind your back. Rude? Well touche friend, I think you're rude. You come back and lash out about all sorts of things at me and if you'll examine my post carefully. I never called anyone a name, never belittled them personally. I spoke my piece and what did I get? Yet another netnilly flying off the handle because I don't agree with him or her. Well, that's just too bad, I'm afraid you're going to have to go through life dealing with people who don't agree with you. That's just how the world works.
  6. Stick of Truth is 66% off. To be honest, I was only slightly interested and had planned to skip it. But at $14, it was a no brainer. http://store.steampowered.com/app/213670/
  7. Strong opinions and no filter... It's frustrating the reactivity I create sometimes. But, I honestly don't think I am any smarter or better or that my opinions are more valid. That's not to say I have no conviction for my own ideas, just that I know from experience alone that I make mistakes, back the wrong horse, etc. Now if you saw what I wrote about piracy in the PE forum, that's another strong opinion. The bottom line on that to me is: if you benefit from someone's work who is expecting repayment and you don't reciprocate, for whatever reason, you've done something unjust.
  8. Oh god, it's almost like that's exactly what I said there could be a good argument for to do if possible, two hours before your condescending reply! It's almost as if you almost but not really at all read the posts in the thread to understand someone's position before firing at the legion of strawmens and charged the windmills. What a time to be alive. What a time. 1. It was a response to your first post. For reasons stated below, I didn't care to read further before voicing my own opinion. And, as this is a discussion forum, I am entitled to do so. 2. I was being condescending, and deliberately so. If a starving man steals a loaf of bread, I am inclined to not look so harshly on it. When a person of means starts spouting justifications for stealing non-necessities, I personally find it deplorable. We are talking about a non-existent conceptual good, hardly a necessity. 3. The world frustrates me too. Especially so when I see someone calling my arguments "straw men" in the face of their own ridiculous justifications for thievery. We're talking about a single player game with a pet platypus or something. "This is a discussion forum, so it is my right ignore the discussion, and be condescending. One of my favourite passtimes is to start needless flamewars based on baseless preconception. I believe I am entitled to do so." Fair enough. Also, being called "a person of means" is heart-warming. I do believe you are projecting, though. I tried so hard. I swear I tried so hard. Q_Q Not trying to start a flame war, I'm saying taking this sort of thing without paying is deplorable. I've seen all the justifications for piracy before, and find them wanting. I even went back after the fact and read the terrible analogy by catarak about copying a rug in 1250something. And, yes it's terrible... Because he conveniently says "assemble" another rug in likeness. Assemble... that's the whole point. Games have value because people put tons of work into making them, thousands and thousands of hours. Just because duplication is trivial doesn't mean making a copy doesn't deplete value. And, just because the game is already developed, doesn't mean you aren't taking from the people that make it. Things like employee retention for new projects, employee benefits and quality / quantity of development tools and software are based on on-going revenue. So, call it what you want, justify it however you like... You are taking something that took real work to produce and not offering something in return, that IS the bottom line, no matter what nonsense justification you concoct.
  9. You need to run one or more of those games and write down the error, exactly as it appears for us to help you. Without that, we don't have even a starting point as there are dozens of things that can cause CTDs. Next, click Start -> Run, type CMD and a DOS box will appear. Type this and send the result: systeminfo | findstr /C:"OS"
  10. Oh god, it's almost like that's exactly what I said there could be a good argument for to do if possible, two hours before your condescending reply! It's almost as if you almost but not really at all read the posts in the thread to understand someone's position before firing at the legion of strawmens and charged the windmills. What a time to be alive. What a time. 1. It was a response to your first post. For reasons stated below, I didn't care to read further before voicing my own opinion. And, as this is a discussion forum, I am entitled to do so. 2. I was being condescending, and deliberately so. If a starving man steals a loaf of bread, I am inclined to not look so harshly on it. When a person of means starts spouting justifications for stealing non-necessities, I personally find it deplorable. We are talking about a non-existent conceptual good, hardly a necessity. 3. The world frustrates me too. Especially so when I see someone calling my arguments "straw men" in the face of their own ridiculous justifications for thievery. We're talking about a single player game with a pet platypus or something.
  11. If I can't have all the stuffs... I must piwate! Evwyone will piwate if they can't have stuffs! The one I can buys doesn't haves a pet wienerdog! I wanna wienerdog! Sounds more like you're looking for an excuse to not pay for something. I could be wrong, but I don't go robbing banks because someone received a better interest rate than me, or because they got a neat pen and I didn't. Either not ripping people off for their work is important to you, or it's not... and I don't think it is. You know why? If the lack of x item is, in itself, that big a deal and you really don't want to pirate the game you could buy the game, and then pirate the backer version. That way, they still get paid. Note: I'm not endorsing piracy here. I'm saying that if he's really that twisted up over an exclusive item and really does not want to steal, there is a way, even if it's not entirely ideal, or legal.
  12. It needs more performance because why? Clearly it isn't struggling for anyone that I've seen post about the beta. It's not like their pushing the limits of Unity 4. you aren't looking well. When opening the Inventory menu, at character creation and transitioning between areas it's struggling. Ask Sensuki if you don't believe me. My apologies, that's the first I've heard of it. My machine is pretty beefy because I develop client server stuff and run a lot of VMs. I wouldn't throw in the towel yet though. They're still developing, so it's entirely possible that they've not done any serious optimization passes yet. If Sensuki is still mentioning performance when we're on release candidates, then you might really think about an upgrade.
  13. I'm with Bryy on this... It's kindof pointless for them to spend a bunch of time on modding tools and information just so people will turn around and say they're too difficult to use. From what I understand: Obsidian is using some high end modeling software to make tile sets, which is probably 3dsmax or something along those lines. They use this to build the ground plane texture, which probably includes some static scene building and then export that as a 2D texture. At that point they import it and create a new level in Unity and add things like walk meshes and whatnot. That is a ton a work for a modder, more than I want to do. Tile Sets: They're not likely to hand these out. Even if they did, the software to use them is likely in the thousands of dollars range. Nav Meshes: You'd need a Unity Pro license to do these... $1500 last time I checked. Even then, they're not going to hand out the raw game project. This is asking for mods to introduce bugs, huge huge bugs. What can they do? Make an interface that reads custom levels. These would probably be comprised of files that list NPCs, quests and dialogues that are created on the fly. i.e. You'd specify an existing game model and equipment for your NPCs, then customize the quests and dialogue options. They could make a few generic town, wilderness and dungeon maps available for you to specify in the file and place your NPCs on. But custom models, maps and behavior of any kind are probably out. I was much more optimistic about this before I got the beta. Now that I've seen the engine in action, I don't see mods with the capabilities of say NWN2 being viable.
  14. I wouldn't upgrade to 64-bit OS on his existing hardware because that's going to worsen his position to run the game, not make it better. Windows 7 is fatter, and far more taxing than Windows XP, and it will use more memory, lessening the amount available to the game. Going to the 64 bit version is worse because that increases the memory footprint even further. Your cheapest option is to go buy 4GB and replace your existing memory and leave it at that. (Defragging your drive and cleaning out spyware is a good idea too.)
  15. It needs more performance because why? Clearly it isn't struggling for anyone that I've seen post about the beta. It's not like their pushing the limits of Unity 4.
  16. Considering the Atari 2600 was out before PCs were affordable for most people, it's probably fair to say consoles came first. Nope... Both the Apple II and Commodore Pet were out a few months before. However, if you go back to the earliest video games in general, they were out long before this. In short, people have been making games for computers for as long as they have existed. http://www.old-computers.com/history/timeline.asp
  17. Coming from a non-game developer... Changing the development platform this late in the development cycle would provide little benefit and is pretty precarious. Just changing the engine wouldn't leverage the newer features and might break things that are working now, have been fully tested and received a status of release ready. Now add Murphy's Law to that. Do you really want to risk a ton of bugs for a few new lighting features?
  18. Nope, you definitely came across that way. Perhaps it's the borderline temper-tantrum feel it has. Yea, there's the tantrum I mentioned. As the developer who posted above you noted, a multiplayer component would require network programmers and additional QA personnel. Those would take money away from mechanics, story, world, companions, etc. The option was weighed early on and I think even popped on the forum for the backers to offer input. The response was an overwhelming no. Divinity: Original Sin has what you're looking for and it's a great game. I'm in beta, I do not feel it is generic. It feels very much like a modernized successor to IE games. It's unfortunate that you're disappointed, but tough cookies. Me an 73,985 people disagree with you. We put our money where our mouth is and provided the funding for the game, a game that doesn't include multiplayer. As I mentioned above, I believe we were asked for input and the result was a resounding no. If we were not asked, I think me and a lot of others have made it pretty clear by now that Obsidian made the correct decision. Calling the developers Lazy is pretty insulting by the way. Studios have to make decisions on which features to add based on the funds available for development and content. Saying they didn't add multiplayer because they're "lazy" is like saying the game isn't twice as long for the same reason. You're right... It's absolutely trivial, otherwise they might write whole textbooks on the subject... oh wait. http://amzn.com/0470018577
  19. Just loaded up my beta... Been in other games so I haven't done this for some time. I noticed a little bit around the weapons, but not enough to distract or annoy me at 1960x1080x60Hz. At higher resolutions it's probably less noticeable.
  20. That's interesting... thanks folks, I will check them out. I'm in the process of writing out the back story for post-cataclysmic world. However, the ages-past disaster was not caused by zombie viruses or nuclear waste and mutation, but was instead created by the unbridled use of magic. If I carry it any further than that it won't be, as you say, zero to hero, it will be what happened and what's all this new craziness that's going on.
  21. And also... If I made any of you think I was trying to belittle you or somehow prove you to be stupid, know that I'm sorry and that was never my intention. Stuff just comes out the wrong way. I'm not nearly as angsty or confrontational as I probably sometimes sound.
  22. Well, yea I see that. But in those cases there's still other stuff about the class like lightsabres and whatnot to keep it interesting. I wonder how it would remain interesting in a medieval fantasy setting. For instance, when Lord of the Rings Online first came out, they adhered to cannon as far as practitioners of magic were concerned. I read an article somewhere a few years later that they had to change that because the magic like classes they created just weren't interesting to play. But, I don't know how much truth there is to the article.
  23. I'm just curious as to whether or not this has ever been done successfully. I've obviously not played every RPG or CRPG that has existed, so maybe someone else has seen this. What do I mean by "subtle"? Think about Tolkien's use of magic and another example is the works of Fred Saberhagen in his Book of Swords series. I'll post the summary from the wikipedia article: So, how would that be done well in an RPG... Paper or computer? Has anybody seen this? I see lots of games, especially on kickstarter, that go the route of no magic at all and, of course, the status-quot is fireballs, lightening bolts, etc. Frankly, a general sense that when you see a wizard, hell is 5 steps behind them. I guess the root of my own curiosity here is: how could a magic system be subtle and interesting to play at the same time? I mean, a character that can just scry and heal wounds is bound to get boring.
  24. I can see how you might think that. But, to perhaps alleviate that a bit, know that I have ADHD. No, not "I think I have" or "I'm scatter brained" as in life long diagnosis across many psychiatrists. I am use to: being misinterpreted, misunderstood, misjudged, every other thing I say being received the wrong way, considered strange, considered creepy, considered crazy... etc. So, I'm not really surprised to hear that someone thinks my goals are to make someone out to be stupid. I stated way the hell back in the thread that my opinion is no more or less valid than anyone else's. So, if you want to know the truth about what I think, here goes: No one is stupid, people are just smart about different things.
  25. I'm not a big fan of the "heh, silly kitten, you thought your choices matter?" attitude in an RPG. I mean, even in the tabletop games based on the IP (Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu), you can at least postpone the untold death and devastation that the awakening elder gods would bring. Usually. At great personal cost. ("Half the party dies, rest goes irrevocably insane, also some get horribly mutiliated" is a good outcome.) I see your point... But, I got the idea from your first post that you thought the boat killed Cthulhu. Anyway, like I said to Bryy, he can write whatever he wants into a game and people can build upon Lovecraft's work however they choose. But, I personally find it difficult to say anything is true to the form that ends "heroically". If I were going to say anything in recent production had a Lovecraft feel too it, it would be the movie Dark Skies, and that pretty much comes down to how it ended.
×
×
  • Create New...