Posts by Thrik

At the end of the day it's always going to be a massive, expensive, long-winded process to move BT to fibre due to the crazy scale of their network — some areas are going to get it first no matter what. This is just a way of doing it based on demand, which I can't see a problem with.

I'm not really excited about Infinity anyway as not all homes will be getting a direct 100mb/s fibre — many if not most will only have fibre to their street, with a top speed of 40mb/s and a cap of 20GB. That's not even as good as Virgin's already-available 50mb/s fibre, and Virgin is rolling out 100mb/s as we speak.

You'll want the h.264 codec, I usually use MP4 but I'd imagine Quicktime supports the codec too. Keep the frame rate as 30, not familiar with the 'complete frames' setting, and for data rate you'll want something like 10mb/s for good quality. Don't forget that Vimeo will re-compress it to a lower date rate just like YouTube usually does, so by aiming a bit higher you should ensure your video looks great.

Quote from Izuno

Anyone play Hydrophobia on XBLA? I played the demo but found the pacing / "story" integration wrecked it...at least wrecked the demo. I must be wrong because I've heard a lot of people really like it.

It got absolutely slated in Edge (most respectable and tuned-in gaming mag IMO) so it's officially dropped off my anticipation list.

Got the new Castlevania yesterday. Shieeeeet man, very good if you like God of War-esque games!

I have added a bunch of you. Naturally you will all want to add me immediately.

http://twitter.com/thrik

The problem is the demand. The old site wasn't popular even when it was updated with reasonable regularity, largely because too many other sites do the same thing. MapCore isn't really a news and tutorial site, so there's no sense in trying to make it one. We're better off emphasising MapCore's greatest strength, which is its close-knit community of professionals and budding professionals who all give feedback on each other's thoughts and work. I want to keep the forums as the 'home' of the site, and to expand on those by building into them.

For example I do plan to reintegrate the spotlight, complete with the spotlight forum as before where people can give direct feedback. I'll also be having a section in the header which shows articles from chosen members' blogs, etc. This could expand to MapCore-specific articles and interviews, with a featured area for those. The news issue has been brought up and extensively discussed in the past, and I think the best route is to let the forums work as they do: people post threads about current happenings, then they're discussed. Splitting it up so there's also news on a separate home page with comments just isn't the way to go IMO.

Really MapCore isn't broken. The traffic has gone up and up since I've done things like restructure the forums, etc, and I think drastic changes are unnecessary. This is why I'll continue to gradually build in extra functionality.

It was very rarely updated, and the majority were just about recruitment openings anyway which we've integrated much better into the forums themselves now. With that said the spotlight feature was cool (thumbnails at the top showing the community's work), and I've been hoping to re-integrate that directly into the header of the forums at some point, as well as a feed which shows updates from community members' blogs, Twitters, etc.

Due to other things taking priority this has been back burned for some time, but it should return — most probably when I redesign the upper part of the site to include the menu, etc which were lost when phpBB was updated a few weeks back.

Lol, I do get the impression the DOTA community is very cliquey and is over-protective about the game. It's not like other games haven't gone from being free community-led games to commercial properties before (ie: Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, and Day of Defeat). In fact it's pretty much Valve's standard operating procedure now. It's not that big a deal — you don't have to buy or play it, nor is the original going anywhere.

Quote from SpicyTanuki

Also I feel like naming the game DOTA2 was a low thing to do. I won't be buying it on principal.

How's it low exactly? Isn't bringing more exposure to what is a relatively niche game/mod going to be good for it, rather than it eventually dying?

I think the whole senior/lead thing is the same in most creative industries, in that a senior is someone who's been doing the job for a good number of years and is typically trusted with more responsibilities, highly important work, etc. A lead is the same, except they've become a manager and thus spend more time doing that than actual production (and have a higher salary accordingly). Management isn't for everyone and it's perfectly possible to earn a lot as a senior in the right company, and obviously you'll be paid a specific wage based on your experience and your responsibilities. Two seniors aren't necessarily equal.

I saw somewhere that I'm going to impale you upon a tower made from your own bones.

Quote from Tisky

I don´t like it. I don´t like it at all. I´m still waiting for this:[Blocked Image: http://www.kupoartist.eclipse.co.uk/gman/extraimg/tf2promo1999.jpg]

I wanted that more than Duke Forever

Well, that game basically came out and was called Battlefield 2.

I think the Team Fortress 2 that did come out was better than that would have been.

But it'll be more visceral and emotionally engaging, as well as taking players to places they've never been before!

Bit like how The Simpsons ran out of jokes and started becoming far too reliant on celebrity jokes and stuff.

Haha, oh yeah — Construction Mod. I used to play that so much, it was great.

Quote from zaphod

It would take a long assed article to really analyze all the stuff we have done and to try and figure out which things specifically were the most effective, but here are some bullet points of stuff off the top of my head::arrow: The iPad market is still pretty small compared to the iPhone / iPod market, so it is tough to sell a lot of units there. It will grow over time though, especially every holiday season.

:arrow: Try to leverage free if you can, it can be a very powerful tool, especially if your game has mass appeal.

:arrow: Try to get on TA, the more your game is in the press the more chance Apple will feature you. *edit* Have a video of your game!!!

:arrow: Do promotions.

:arrow: Listen to feedback and make changes to your game.

:arrow: If your game is a niche game, charge a niche price.

:arrow: Have a great looking icon.

:arrow: Make more than one game, try to gauge what worked well in each one. Experiment.

:arrow: Use whatever resources you can to cut down on development time.

:arrow: Don't make it perfect, polish it enough for initial release and then see what the reaction is.

Display More

Some great advice there Zaphod.

It's a real shame Zero Gear never had any kind of console release, its failure seems undeserved. While Minecraft has clearly shown that indie PC games can be wildly successful, I'd imagine the risk of not making a splash is exponentially higher (just like with high-profile PC games really). Was it ever considered? Too much upfront cost, etc?

The stadium fight looks amazing.

Yeah both were there, quite a big presence — I think there were a good five or six rows of Crysis 2 stations. Really good event actually, got to play Fable 3, Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, LittleBigPlanet 2, Killzone 3, Medal of Honor, Brink, Gears of War 3, and Gran Turismo 5.

Anyone in the UK definitely wants to get themselves there next year. I even had a chat with Rare's programming and art directors which was cool, though sad I missed Peter Molyneux who was there the day before.

Got to play the PC version of Crysis 2 for 10 mins or so yesterday — shieeeeeeeeeet man, so good! The combat felt excellent, and I enjoyed dealing with the big-ass Metal Gear we've all seen in trailers. I especially like the new ledge auto-grab, something I've not seen in many first-person shooters.

Didn't really explore the suit modes much but the core action gameplay is superb, and the way epic stuff is going on around you — not to mention the sheer aesthetic beauty of the cityscapes — makes for some serious immersion. Definitely going to be hard for another game to top it as shooter of 2011 if it's as consistently exemplary as Crysis was.