@\NightandtheShape/@

One gamedev student to another, Kudos to that. Games need to change, drastically so. One of the things which I have always disliked about RPG's is the lack of decent AI, over use of scripting etc... If you ask me for the story to change the implementation needs to change... The entire approch to development of role playing games on computers needs to change, I have always felt that RPG's should be at the frontrunner of AI development in games, sadly that isn't so because people are mentally stuck in trying to recreate PnP on a computer, as in literally trying to recreate PnP, if folks think about the problem differently you get a different result. It's about time people started asking different questions on how to control story's in games. Mold the story to the player and not to the player to the story, natural language processing is perhaps a little too far fetched in it's current state, but in terms of future developments this is perhaps one tool that may indeed be useful. NPC's need to start communicating and reacting to player actions in a realistic way, a player should have a standing with all comunicatable NPC's, and NPC's with each other. Dialogue trees can then be implemented based upon a players standing with the said NPC, the NPC's faction and so on. (Edit: For clarity)

Queen of spam I am intrigited...

And then what would our humble PC users turn to, the whole PhysX thing has got me excited!

It's hardly got high specs

Just watch yourself, you know how legal stuff can be...

Mount & Blade? What's creepy about that.... Mount as in horse, blade as in sword, axe etc.... Or were you refering to some kinda sexual attack??? Wow Darque posted in my thread *Bows head* (w00t)

Yeah it has a kinda open ended story, but its nothing to shout about

Has anyone else played his little gem... If not check it out at http://www.taleworlds.com/ It's still in beta, it's not bad either, while there are a few bugs in there I'd say it's worth a look for the combat system alone.

If you really need a scripting language you could write your own ya know, but as I don't quite know what your after it's hard to say if the time investment is worth it, frankly if I needed a scripting language I'd write it, parser, warts and all. So what do you need it for?

NWScript is only one thing, bloody awful! 1. Lots of scripting languages use a C like syntax, quake C springs to mind, the main thing bioware did wrong was they wrote there own parser and screwed up slightly... Atleast from what I recall. 2. Can't answer that one right now, atleast not for sure, but I was under the impression it wasn't interpretered. 3. Pretty certain it wouldn't be. Edit: realised I said it would be legal, I'm pretty sure it'd be illegal due to the fact I assume disessembly would be required.

I'm currently one of those people out there who are "busting their butt" to attempt to get into the games industry. It's tough, really tough, and extremly competative depending upon what kind of position you're aiming for. Oh, and boy do you need some talent! I'm currently at University study'in a degree in computer games programming (Second year), and just to simply explain the kind of dedication one needs to get some results I'll quickly skim over my last 12 weeks. Firstly, during the twelve weeks we've learnt C++, and the Direct X API & Parts of the WIN32 API. The first task was to create a scene... It could be anything you wanted to create, lots of folks went for space scene's. I didn't (I spent all my first year concentrating upon getting the feel of dungeons correct) so I've continued with this theme. During the first 6 weeks, I taught myself the entire C++ syntax to a level I now feel confident enough with it to create anything I desire. Now I never studied maths above GCSE level, and now being 23 I had honestly forgotten anything I had learnt at that time anyways, so I also taught myself about Vectors, Matricies, Trig, Linear Algebra, How radians work... etc... Then you have the API's to get to grips with, DirectX does have a learning curve, albiet it much easier now than versions 6-7. You can imagine the amount of books I've read! By week 10 I had just finished writing the initialization code for Direct X and researching another project which I am about to continue working upon. Between week 10 & 12, I worked solidly building classes for primitives, creating a mesh loader program, dealing with sound, lighting, object movement, a little particle engine and so on... As the deadline crept closer I slept less... (You know when Chris Avelone spoke about the amount of caffine he drank and how he ended up going to the doctor in an interview he gave I got a little taste of that world, and damn that guy must be a slightly bit crazed at times, I certainly started to question the nature of reality atleast! and began jabbering mad stuff) I was coding for periods of 14-24 hours soild, then crashing for 4-6 hours and repeating the process. And my achievement at the end of all this? Around 2/3 of what I originally set out to do, if I get chance I'll post a screenshot of the result... (I'm at work at the moment) That was 12 weeks, your average dev cycle is approx 60 - 80 weeks, with milestones every four weeks, and you have to make those milestones! heh You have crunch time aswell, all I can say is I am glad I invested in a decent sleeping bag already. Anybody who thinks making games is an easy ride needs to go get lost some place in the Arizona desert, it's tough, it's competative, it's could even be considered cruel! Also if you're really serious about making a game, but you can't afford college or university, why not take a look at the mod scene, or try the gamedev forums, where there is a will there is a way. I'll go back to trying to find an internship, I currently have an interview coming up for Rare Software, I expect to be sitting a C++ test, if anyone could shed any light on what these are like I'd very much appriciate the info. Sadly, obsidian ain't wanting interns at the moment so I can't apply to my number one place . I don't wanna put them off me for life by bugging them to give me a job when they don't have space.

I've not enjoied many JRPG's, to me it always seemed like pressing reading a book and pressing X alot and attcking randomly and well.... You get the picture, I did enjoy the shining series of games. Shining in the darkness, and shining force were favs of mine back in the day, but they were so to speak a little different, I never managed to get on with JRPG's after those, no not even Chrono. If anything it's the style, they're usually well balanced and pretty well built.

OOoo Fun fun.... May one ask why you haven't?

Aberty Dundee up in Scotland is supposed to be a decent place, I thought about going there but I opted for Huddersfield.

<_< Syntax's are generally easy to pick up. C++ is found by many to be an ugly language, bah personally I like it and prefer it to Java. But I will maintain that probably the best language to start with and also gives the best understanding of what is going off inside those dusty innards is asm. asm, coupled with an OO language leads to the best understanding in my opinion of how to best go about writing code. I just find it's more important to know exactly what is going off in a line of code opposed to which language has the best syntax. So be it C++, C#, or Java, it doesn't really matter all that much. Learn them all!

I don't know about Georgia or the eastern countries that used to be part of the old USSR (Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, etc), but Ukraine for one isn't doing that bad. For instance I think their importance as a touristic destination is rapidly increasing. And as for the others, well, they are now free from the Russian rule, so it's up to them to get the country going. At least now they have a chance to to run the country, which they didn't have under the USSR. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> States like Estonia could be considered to be doing very well indeed, a NATO & EU member. Hard to say really. Depends how you define improvement.

<_< Abortion? Ahhh Screw it. Legalize MURDER! (w00t)

Bloodlines ona system that can handle it is good, heck if it wasn't for the bugs it's a real 9'er

Sounds to me like the CD's are hammered. No need to shell out serious money, just burn a copy somewhere else if you can, it's certainly not the reader though i imagine the laser should be finer, thusly the problem reading scratched CD's.

Not sure how you can fix it but essencially what it means is your reader isn't reading the cd correctly and it's basically farting and saying there is data missing. I suppose you could try some kinda virtual drive, and litterally copy the CD to it. Not sure how that would turn out. Or you could read the CD from the the drive that reads it, and then network it to your laptop HD. That wouldn't be a fun job... Basically what I'd do is make a copy on a PC that can read it, and see how you fair with that.

I'm no fanboy of any company. I liked trokia's work, I admit they were pretty buggy pieces of work, and I'm quite agreeable to that, but still I liked what they were trying to do. The ToEE engine was extremely good, no game beats it for rules implmentation, while not perfect it was a hell of alot better than NWN. Some folks in the industry see games creation as an art, i wonder what people would have said if Trokia's software hadn't been so buggy, if they'd have had polished products, each of the games could have been considered works of art. For me they nearly created a classic in V:TM Bloodlines, and by that I mean true classic. If it hadn't been so unstable! All I can say is that it was the only game I bothered with last year that mattered to me. Sad to see them go, but like everyones been saying, they lacked business skills, the games lacked polish, and in the games industry that means you're outta business. I'm shocked they staied afloat so long, I'm more shocked that the publishers didn't cut funding when trokia clearly weren't meeting their milestones. It's sad, because if obsidian sinks, we're left with bioware... Which to me is quite troubling, they've not managed to entertain me to a level of satisfaction since 1998.

Alot of the folks at Uni are playing KOTOR II, some have finished it. I myself haven't bought it, no money at this moment to think about it. But I will note that one of my friends was raving about how cool it was, he'd come across a few bugs but it was a really awesome game in his opinion, he finished it this weekend and for him atleast he did say the ending spoilt the whole game. I'll find out for myself but after 10 hours of the first KOTOR i was bored, so I doubt this will be any different. I hope I get to see a patch before I buy it. Oh yeah and lots of bug complaints silly bugs aswell.

I suspect that has something to do with cheap skatery, paper crowns is cheaper.

Also in some circles it helps if you can drink copious amounts of alcohol... Don't know why, it's just a fact. So get drinking. (w00t)

To be quite honest, without access to the specific contract and agreements we cannot say who is to blame at all. The big difference over at Bioware for example, is that they don't seem to fall into the same trap, and the strategy of producing high quality games has paid off. Troika got a bad hand with ToEE, BIS was constantly undermined by Interplay, I just hope Obsidian takes a new path. Short development times lead to the dark side... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> NWN upon release was the worst piece of software I had ever been near. It was crap, BG 2 wasn't exactly stable either. There is no difference between any of them(bioware, trokia, BIS, Obsidian), some folks run into bugs some don't. It's the way it goes.