Posts by Thrik

Quote from SotaPoika

Solution was: Uninstall Origin through Control Panel while it's downloading the update and installing it. It did the trick. WHAT THE FUCK EA?!

Origin, a high quality product.

Pretty much guaranteed I'd say.

I play it all the time, so do other Mapcorians. Find the MapCore platoon and join it to find friends.

As for bugs, I've actually hardly encountered any bugs at all after 45 hours of play — maybe a handful of times at most. And when I have seen bugs, they've been more glitches/exploits than bugs.

One benefit to the pay model is also that it presumably can lessen the need to grind. I spent a lot of time grinding in the training centre in PlanetSide, and I'm guessing most people can emphathise with this — otherwise you're basically missing out on a tonne of free experience which allows you to jump pretty far up the ladder. Now I'm all grown up and shit my time is a bit more valuable than it was when I could sit for endless hours grinding up yet another character of mine, so I'd probably be willing to pay a small amount to skip the hassle.

Yeah I'm very cautious about the whole free-to-play thing because I hate the idea of games that charge you for things like weapons and upgrades. I'm fine with earning them, but having a distinct advantage or access to cool stuff just because of the size of your wallet isn't something I'm keen on. With that said, the costs of buying all the shit you want might end up less or equal to the cost of a year's subscription to PlanetSide 1, so in that respect it's not so bad. I dunno, I guess I just prefer a more even playing field where everyone has equal ability to unlock stuff (not just me, but my enemies too).

As for PlanetSide itself, the first game was excellent. It was essentially what Battlefield 2 became, taking elements from both Tribes and BF1942 to produce a sublime large-scale FPS with squad organisation, huge maps, vehicles with really good physics, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if BF2 took a fair amount of inspiration back from PlanetSide as it executed the formula so well.

With that said, it did have issues. Gamer hardware and internet connections common in 2003 meant that a lot of people struggled to run the game, so the incredible 100 vs 100+ battles that occurred were so laggy it was practically unplayable. But it was amazing when it worked.

One big thing that PlanetSide had over Battlefield was the fact that it featured honest-to-god bases, a little like BF2142's Titan mode and Tribes 2's bases but much better. They were huge complexes with multiple levels underground, generator rooms, weapon rooms, cores, etc. To take a base you had to not only get through the outer defences (turrets, forcefields, etc which could be upgraded by collecting energy from other parts of the world and bringing it in little trucks), but also take out the various things protecting the base's core, and then finally spend a fair bit of time hacking the core to switch the base's ownership. All the while with literally dozens if not hundreds of people fighting to protect/take the place.

There were something like 10 continents, all themed (ice, fire, lush, etc). And across all these continents you had maybe a dozen bases, with smaller outposts inbetween. To actually take a base it had to be connected to one you already owned, so the fight for each continent was structured quite nicely. And of course when you took a continent it meant you could no longer drop pod into it (exactly the same as BF2142's drop pods), so you could only get in via the sea gateways that connected the continents.

It was actually genuinely epic, and I've not come across a game yet which does the same thing equally well. If PS2 can actually rediscover that magic formula it's going to be rather special. :derp:

That's true, haha.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!

Quote from sarge mat

To be honest its been going so long a lot of its just going to look dated again...

Yeah, it's a shame. When you think about it, the time between HL2 coming out and now is pretty much the same amount of time between HL1 and HL2.

Yeah, much as I hate to say it this has gone well beyond my threshold of being able to hold interest. If it comes out one day it'll be a nice surprise, but it's now been well over seven years since I first got excited about this coming out. Seven years — my entire adult life!

This also pretty 'rock and roll', you might say.

12 Days of Chrismyth, 12 Battlefield myths/tricks:

Can't wait for this. Despite not really being into the whole high fantasy genre, Lord of the Rings remains probably my favourite trilogy of all time. While I respect others' opinions, I believe anyone who doesn't love those films is an uncultured heathen deserving of being lined up and shot.

Getting to delve back into Peter Jackson's Middle Earth for a couple more films is something I never thought I'd get, and that I'd just have to rewatch the LotR extended editions for the rest of my life. I was getting worried with all the development hell stuff going on that major cast changes would be made, etc — but it really does look like everything and everyone from before is on board and the feel of the trailer is perfect.

That bit right at the end made me go all ':D'.

Quote

Gollum.

Haha, thanks again everyone I've received a lovely number of donations and will be putting it all to good use. There was no Christmas party sadly, but now you mention it...

I do believe I got one from you Sentura, thank you very much! I won't be disclosing any donor names without permission so at some point I'll shoot an email out to everyone I have on file with a thank you and also inviting you to have your names put on the new forums' donation page and contributor list.

How utterly bizarre.

Let us hope this transfer of power doesn't lead to Korean War 2.

lol

Saw Sherlock Holmes 2 last night, by the way. A bit more colour but still blorange as hell — you can clearly see how the ornamental red, yellow, and green on uniforms and stuff has just become various tones of brown. Awesome film, though.

Oh, how misleading — they had a massive colourful logo during the credits and everything.

Uncharted 2/3 still have tremendous colour direction though (as well as art in general), whatever they're doing they're doing it right. The bit where you're in lush jungle, go in a tunnel, and then you're in amazing snowy vistas was astounding, unfortunately in most games the jungle would look as blue and cold as the mountains.

Funny how when they be unintentionally vague they sound like just about every bit of Apple marketing.

While I do love a bit of Gabe, I had to give Evan Wells some love. That Uncharted is some good shit, man.