@\NightandtheShape/@

You may all beat down on Tim Cain, but he's a damn fine programmer.

Oh oh, I remember that fight! First you fought some lame dude that called himself Tyranithraxus.. and the game didn't end. I was like 15 years old or something and could not figure out what I had done wrong. I think it took me THREE YEARS to find that bloody hidden room with the real Tyranthraxus! And once I got in there it turns out all the evil aligned characters in my party betrays me and joins up with Tyranithraxus.. It was like.. 15 against three. Best end fight ever! Unfortunately Curse of the Azure Bonds is not even half the game that Pool of Radiance is. Secret of the Silver Blades isn't nearly as well done either, even though the interface becomes better the longer the series continues. Pools of Darkness was OK though. You should try the Dragonlance series too. I used to love that as a kid. They were mostly about fighting hordes of really deadly enemies with your band of Knights. Still good games though. They also happened to have the best box-art ever in the history of mankind. I can imagine this game was truly brutal playing it when it first came out. I have the luxury of Gamebanshee to help anytime I get stuck. Of course, didn't Pool of Radiance come with a 'clue book' back in the day? I remember the years it took me to beat Kings Quest 2 and Space Quest 1 way back in my Tandy 1000 days. I got held up for months in Space Quest 1 due to typing an improper command. It was 'Put Jetpack On' instead of 'Put On Jetpack', or maybe it was vice-versa... been a long time. I absolutly intend to try the Dragonlance series after I complete the Pool of Radiance series. I'm going on sort of a retro-replay phase, trying out all the old SSI D&D games I missed. The hardest part isn't so much accepting the older graphics, but getting along with the interface which requires you jump through a million hoops to do something as simple as pass items between party members. If you get chance and haven't already I can highly recommend the bards tale series! Bare in mind though squared paper is advised. Had I more time I'd do the same, though I suppose in way I play alot of retro stuff anyways, but usually it's shooters like r-type.

That would likely be an awesome experience. But also extremely challenging, it's one of those square pegs round holes moments. It can be done, but it ain't easy and would most likely be a serious source of bugs.

FACT: Cars are for wussies, regardless of if they're manual or automatic they're still incomprehendabley pathetic.

I have to agree, he often pointed out valid flaws in games. It's done in an entertaining way, infact he OVER does it, but if you take the comments lightly enough he's usually right to a certain degree... That said, its really not worth him reviewing alot of games on the grounds that if it's an RPG he actually complains about the fact it's an RPG, which frankly I find odd! I think initially it was a funny approch but unless he actually starts to approch gaming genre's without a degree of bias "OMG it's an RPG and it's got like talking and text so it sucks", isn't really my idea of a decent review of a game... But he has done some noteable classic reviews: Tomb Raider, Halo3, Fable, Psychonaughts, and Orange Box all spring to mind as funny and somewhat accurate reviews, where the reviews of Mass Effect and The Witcher just seem pointless, as they ended up being neither that entertaining or valid.

By default everything on the PS3 is crap, so don't feel bad roll on Mass Effect.

Actually the engine used a middleware product called speedtree, so it didn't even do that exactly

HL 2 NWN 2

Oh, indeed. You're probably right. My point though is that it clearly gives an impression of an aged and jaggy game. It's been pointed out to me, too, that the shadow are... well, lacking. I've a fair ideal what's happening, they just need to rework the artwork slightly and make the shadowing less extreme... But that doesn't solve everything. Fallout 3 is fallout in name as far as I can see... I'm willing to give it a fair shot though, I'm one of those folks who actually likes Bethseda's work peroid. That all said I do understand how die hard fans must feel, but as I was never a die hard fallout fan (I like the game alot I just see a million and 1 problems with some parts of it).

The PS2 couldn't create anything remotely close to the quality that can be seen in the pictures, the textures are quite obviously much higher in resolution than the PS can begin to handle. All's said I do agree that the general quality just seems to be lacking something I just can't put my finger upon it... I think it's the self shadowing on the characters. The flame/explosions seem fairly good, but I agree with the sentiment that the muzzle flashes aren't excellent. It doesn't look anywhere as bad as folk seem to be saying it does. Special effects are extremely difficult to get just right...

Along with this post, @\NightandtheShape/@ will receive a complimentary copy of "You Got Served" available in DVD and VHS format. Which has been aptly returned to said sender. That's too bad, it features Kirsten Dunst back when she still acted in movies and it has the semi-evil vampire slayer from Buffy as well. You're missing out. I prefer bukkake LMFAO

Along with this post, @\NightandtheShape/@ will receive a complimentary copy of "You Got Served" available in DVD and VHS format. Which has been aptly returned to said sender.

Oh I purposely didn't add anything because I wasn't aware that anyone cared how bloom and HDR work, and the fact that our friend made the comment that bethseda needed to learn how to set up their bloom settings sort of upset me as I felt it was ignorantly stated and felt that it should be pointed out. It was a misconception, as the bloom and HDR settings are only part of the equation. They're both effects that deal with exposure and apply a certain amount of blur to the scene, generally speaking a gaussian blur. Bloom deals with scene saturation and intensity within a threshhold, where HDR works in a slightly different way as it deals more directly with colour exposure levels. The result is directly linked with how a scene is lit. Basically what should have been pointed out would be that bethseda need work on setting up their scene lighting and exposure levels. Most of the problem with Bethseda's approch actually comes from the fact they apply too much blur to scenes with objects which are overly lit inregards to their specular highlights. The problem isn't just with how the bloom is set, it's more to do with the specular highlighting of particular objects and general colour options in general in regards to their threshhold. These fallout3 shots also appear to have a certain level of desaturation applied to them, not quite to the extremes of GoW, but still somewhat desaturated. Sorry if you thought my previous comment offensive in some manner.

I'm going to laugh now, because I'm sure you don't ACTUALLY understand anything about bloom, and HDR.

3DS MAX while my pet hate(What smartarse thought Z was up) is perfectly adequette, I personally use XSI when it comes to import/export functionality. Also, here's something that with some clever coding and manipulation may be useful, you can use null's/dummy's to provide points of interest. Via some clever coding and strict naming practices you could potentially assign shedloads of cool things to those positions... i.e. Lighting, particle emitters... For example, by prefixing all the potential point_light sources with for example PL, then some colour info there are a number of ways this can be done, lets just keep it simple and say you have some predefined colours Red, green etc... Then some falloff information say... and perhaps a name tag. What you end up with is PL_RED_10.0_LIGHT1. When you load any "Level" model you can place a point light that emits a predefined red light with a falloff of 10, and also has an internal tag of LIGHT1. This could be done for an entire level, then all you need to do is some basic culling. What you end up with is an increase in your load time, but the benefits can be fairly cool. This certainly makes MAX more effective in regards to level editing. It applies in general to all 3D software packages, infact it's something I've made use off extensively, not in the manner of lighting, but in the manner of particle emission points... The the ability to build your own tool chain and engine greatly increases the amount of stuff you can do. Anyways, that's one fairly good way you can make max more useful as a level editing tool.

I'm running it at 1280x800 and I've had no problems at all... Well i did when I tried to turn everything up, its certainly running better than it did... But its still got "legacy" issues.

I do plan on giving it a serious play through when i get time, but currently I just have too much on.

How long is a piece of string? I'd figure that somewhere in the region of 9-12 months would be an average time for an expansion to be developed, depending upon any features which are added... For a good major expansion that is anyway...

I enjoied Fahrenheit mostly because it was a welcome change from what I usually play, and the story was atleast entertaining enough to make the more labourious key sequences tolerable. All that said it was far from perfect, but it was certainly a fun Adventure game.

No one has claimed or hinted otherwise? I just like to expect QD's next game to be as much of a bag of manure, as Fahrenheit was, because QD clarly have their priorities wrong. I often forget that you're the only person in the world who knows what is fun!

Gothic takes too long to get going, Gothic 2 I don't recall really bothering with for more than 2 minutes, and gothic 3 ran so poorly that I just said screw it.

Are you saying you experienced lots of jaggies? Halo just feels wrong as an FPS... Kinda like Diablo does as a CRPG.

And if you'd have said "****", would the mods have done anything...

It depends upon skill, some people could, some couldn't. It may require alot of time and patience. What engine is it may I ask? It's under NDA so I cant tell you exactly, but I am allowed to say that it is one of the big ones. I imagine it would be heaven for us artists, but sheer torture for the programming team. Okay well... When you say one of the big ones, I only ever think of three engines (That's not to say its one of those). I also understand that NDA make it difficult to speak about anything directly. You'll be wanting direct control over pixel and vertex shader to help aid in a cartoony result... The ability to tweak shaders is second to none really, psychonaughts infact has a very basic lighting system, lots of diffuse and ambient stuff, not really any specular colouring. Where TF2 uses specular in conjunction with other lighting methods to create the look they got. Truevision3D certainly is ticking all my boxes. The features are exactly what I would aim to integrate myself into a robust multipurpose system. I'd just like to say a few words as to what it is that actually appeals to me about this engine, and I'll go through it's feature headings and try not to be too technical, but your programming team should enjoy the environment as much as the artists. Render System - The main thing I like is that it isn't bloated, which means it supports the basic run of the mill features, which if one was so inclined could be gutted out of the engine. It's also an adequtte start point which allows for controlled expansion. HLSL Shader Support - You really really need this, especially if the game is supposed to be very artistic. Landscape and Terrain System - Now I obviously don't know if you'll be requiring landscapes, but a good terrain system will always go far. The system is robust, more than adequtte and ready to use out of the box, thus the level designer should rejoice. Static Mesh Support - It may sound silly but good static mesh support is always useful, heck you could make a high poly level, and slap a low polygon collision mesh over it with this system in next to no time. Animated Meshes (Actors) - This one is so important, especially if you're making any sort of game where it's character dependant, animation blending it perhaps the one thing that stands out to me personally as it makes the whole process of animating a character 10 times more streamlined than a system without. It supports everything you would ever need. Morph targets should be great for building a lip sync system so you could have some nice cinematics. Material and Lighting System - Does everything you'll need, but you may have to expand it slightly. Particle Systems Everyone thinks about emitters when they talk about particle systems, but attractors are also extremely useful. Althought, the first thing I'd do personally is see what the numbers are when it breaks on an average system. Also, there doesn't seem to be any collision support, it's not something you'd wanna over do but... It's one of those features I tend to smile about and say yeah... I'd like the option for certain emitters. It does on the otherhand support small meshes, so you can actually output a mesh as a particle. GPGPU (General Processing on GPU) - The programmers will enjoy that. Integrated Newtonian Physics Engine - Fairly decent physics engine, I mean its no Havok, but it is certainly good enough. Built-in Special Effects and Controls - It already has some nice post processing features like bloom, glow, motion blur and depth of field. No HDR tho' Supported Languages and Compilers - Language support is excellent! especially when a designer has one of those designer moments and wants to get an idea of a feature, code it up in something nasty and prototype, it can solve arguements and allow for design desicions to take place during development, because nobody gets everything down first time, and idea's don't always work. It's a good engine. If the commercial engine has more features, then you should use that. There will be a huge learning curve but actual commercial game engine experience would be very very helpful for you guys in the long run. I don't know how talented your code team is, but if they're scared of a commercial engine, because they won't have support then I'd be generally scared in regards to their abilities, to me personally there is something wrong with programmers who are afraid to sink their teeth into something and understand why something is written the way it has been, why it may even be hard to read in general, and OMG why there indeed may be some inline ASM laying around. One of the things that it is important to do as a programmer is recognise elegant solutions to a problem, and not get bogged down in the thinking that your way is always the best way. Truevision3D is certainly a good second option if you have pansy programmers who are quaking in their boots over using an industry engine. There are a few things missing from the engine mind, and it's mostly in regards to spatial organisation, so that is a job you may want to work at straight away on the coding side.

Heh, your not alone...