Posts by Thrik

  • Blizzard's new game

    Quote from bitmap

    am i the only one that dont like games like these?diablo, wow, lineage, guildwars. i mean. i hate all these games. :s

    Hahahahaha!

    (You'll understand why that is very funny if you actually look at the game this thread's about properly.)

  • Requesting Europeans!

    What exactly are you basing this opinion of our media on? Because I've not seen anything like what you're describing. The news has been extremely factual, and indeed detailed the suspects and how they'd been arrested as soon as it was announced.

  • TF2

    Been doing some lunchtime reading. There're two other articles linked to in the first part of the one I linked to above, as it's the third in a series. The first two interview the guy behind QWTF, TFC, and now TF2. It's a really interesting read for any fan of the series and helps clear up a lot of the reasoning behind some of the decisions -- well worth a look.

    http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/ ... .05812.htm

    http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/ ... .51023.htm

    Quote

    We spent a lot of time focusing on better ways of making the game accessible. I really want to make sure people don’t confuse this with trying to simplifying the game. We felt that was the wrong approach. Instead we tried to find out ways to help people understand what was going on. Probably the best way to explain this is to point to specific features. The freeze-cam feature, when you die. We did a lot of play testing, and one thing we saw in TFC and other multiplayer games was the general confusion about death. A new player often dies. If we bring in a new player in and make him play any multiplayer game today usually he’ll die a few times and not really know what killed him.What we tried to do is eliminate that kind of problem. What are the problems new players face when they play these kinds of games, and how do we solve them specifically? “Who killed me? Why did I die?” We want to say, you died, here’s the person who killed you. Here’s what he killed you with. So on. We take that opportunity to tell you things – hey look you’re getting better at things—which is the stat panel. The persistent stats. All these things are about solving this core problem. Our approach to dealing with all these new players was to try and help them walk them through the game so they understood every step of the way what was going on. How they were doing, how they were getting better and so on.

    And yes, they talk about why they removed the grenades in more depth. For example, the medic no longer has a conc as that's not really what the medic's for. So no more concs, but the TF2 Scout can do super-high propelled jumps as that's the class that is meant to have such flexible movement.

  • Requesting Europeans!

    Are you just making assumptions or do you actually know what you're talking about? Being British, I've seen the media's coverage of it, and for the most part it's been very sympathetic. Granted, tabloid newspapers concentrate on the worst stuff, but that's to be expected.

    I didn't actually realise the prospect of her being taken for human trafficking had already been discussed at length in the media. That came purely from my own look at the situation.

  • TF2

    Just in case anyone hasn't seen this April hands-on preview:

    http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/ ... htm?Page=1

    A notable thing mentioned in this article is that the Spy can actually still disguise himself as enemies, even though death feigning is out. I didn't realise this at all and thought they'd just replaced that ability with the whole cloak thing.

    I think I'd better read that article properly at lunch.

  • TF2

    Yes.

    Having thought about this though, I'm not too bothered about the changes. It was basically two points made on some other forum last night:

    a) The game is still being made by the guys who created a game I played heavily for years and years; chances are, they know what they're doing and despite whatever changes they make the game'll still probably be great fun and very balanced

    b) Team Fortress 2 was at no point ever designed to be a remake of Team Fortress (Classic), and until under a year ago we had no idea what was going on with it at all, let alone whether it'd ever be released; the fact we're getting a more closely tied sequel that happens to have some core changes is good enough for me

    I mean let's face it, I was basically set upon never playing a proper Team Fortress game other than Fortress Forever ever again until the new TF2 was announced. We're still getting it, it still looks great, and it'll still probably be awesome.

    My contempt of grenade removal is now over as it looks like there are actually quite a lot of nice changes being made beyond that, and it's going to be a wholly new-feeling game with pretty much every class being quite significantly changed. Reading the Wikipedia article about TF2 also hyped me up again, with all the classes clearly being quite different.

  • Requesting Europeans!

    Considering what's happened and the lack of any body/etc, the chances are reasonably high that she's ended up being taken into human trafficking (sex slavery) for paedos.

    Rick that is so not funny it's embarrassing to think you thought it was.

  • TF2

    BTW I was being sincere when I asked what other additions to the play are in TF2. I'd actually like to know since I'll be getting it and love TF.

  • TF2

    Haha, superb. That could be used extremely effectively in maps like Well where the enemy he's making invincible could stand up on the upper levels while the medic stays safely out of sight.

    The gameplay's definitely being modified, as from what I saw the Spy now gets to go temporarily invisible instead of being permanently disguised as an enemy. Whether this is an improvement or not is up for dispute, and I don't think that kind of thing gives the game more depth so much as simply changes the formula.

    TF2 will probably be great as I said way earlier in this thread, but I think the removal of grenades will take a side of the game away that a lot of people will miss. Play CS:S? Imagine them taking out automatic weapons. Battlefield? Imagine them removing vehicles.

    That's how frequently the various types of imaginative grenades were used by past players of TF. Battlefield and CS:S may still be great fun without those elements in place, but they sure wouldn't be as dynamic nor as varied in the long-term.

    I hope I'm managing to make those of you who never played the older TF iterations see our perspective.

  • TF2

    You kidding ifO? The gameplay looks completely like TFC's in almost every single way as far as pace and technique goes. I reckon you're just sold by the graphics because an observer would have difficulty telling the difference between a TFC video and a TF2 video if the graphics were the same.

    Make no mistake, TF2 will be very much like TFC. Everything released thus far backs this up, so if you absolutely hated TFC I doubt you'll like TF2. Not unless you hardly played TFC and/or basically tried it for about five minutes.

    It just won't have grenades, lessening the overall depth.

  • TF2

    Eh, the teleporter didn't bother me too much when it was added. It rarely actually affected my game at all as somebody would always destroy it before it could get going.

    I think the mistake was that a lot of people tried to use the teleport offensively, and thus is was destroyed within minutes. Clearly it is much more suited to defensive use, allowing you to shortcut from your spawn to the top level of Well for example.

    I think if they're still in TF2 (looked like they are) and are embraced from the beginning they could be a decent addition as long as people learn to use them effectively. The majority of people in TFC didn't use them at all or just tacked them onto years of experience and technique, which usually went badly.

  • TF2

    I personally agree: I think the grenade removal will severely harm TF2's long-term appeal.

    At the moment a lot of new people are being attracted to it based purely on its graphics. This is no bad thing, and I reckon they look superb too. The only problem is that without grenades, there's a huge level of tactical depth that's suddenly gone.

    With conc grenades, you could take shortcuts and surprise the enemy by using an exit they're not expecting you to use (Up the enemy lift in 2fort, anyone?). Using flame grenades you could fill an area with fire. With caltrops you could leave spikes all the floor that slightly hurt but more importantly slow your enemies down to a crawl.

    Sure, it was difficult to use all the grenades effectively, but it was mastering them that made the game such a satisfying one to play over a long stretch of time. Partially, at least. Mastering the rocket to do rocket jumps (shown at the end of the older trailer) and various other things that you can't just do as soon as you see someone else do them all added to the long-term appeal.

    Boo to the grenade removal. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

  • TF2

    You're wrong there, Rick. Conc jumping was an intentional feature right back to the original Team Fortress for Quake. It's not something that was added towards the end of the game's life as a gimmick like the shields in CS; grenades have always been a core element of Team Fortress, and their behaviour in every single way is very much what the developers intended. It's almost hard to imagine TFC without grenades as they were just as important as your shotgun.

    That's what makes their removal so surprising. The only person who I can seriously see thinking the grenade removal is a good thing is someone who hardly ever played Team Fortress, if at all. The grenades were superb with the only exception of a few specific choke points that were slightly abused (but could have been fixed with some map modification) -- simple as that.