Posts by Thrik

Nice trailer. I am hoping they can nail this game, because there's a lot of potential. They've said they're focusing on making it a really detailed and in-depth city, which isn't necessarily that huge but has lots of stuff to explore. That's what's lacking with Grand Theft Auto and most other open-world games: being able to go into buildings, things to interact with, etc. In a way those games' worlds feel a bit like a big set that you can look at but it's all a façade — nothing can be touched.

It does seem that too much emphasis has been put on the graphics, I'm guilty of that too. What will really make or break Watch Dogs is how the story and gameplay tie together, and I'm personally quite optimistic about both. It's going to require excellent mission design though, the same thing that keeps GTA together. It'll be nice to experience a somewhat serious story too (sex trafficking, one of the worst crimes in the world). I just hope they treat it carefully and don't make it clichéd and shitty.

Too late, nobody cares any more unless it has Oculus Rift support.

Can't you replace the video on YouTube? Or is it not that advanced yet?

Yeah, Instagram at least didn't turn out to go the way many expected. Apart from their colour scheme went from brown to blue, lol.

If you read the stuff Zuckerberg said, it all sounds pretty positive to me. They're going to let the Oculus Rift guys do what they're doing: build the best virtual reality device out there. What do you do with that once it exists? There's endless potential, of course games but also movies, live sports, product shopping, live conferencing, etc.

It doesn't surprise me that Oculus Rift is quickly becoming a big thing outside of gaming. Games might be driving its development, but genuinely awesome virtual reality has been a dream people have had for decades. This is a MASSIVE technological advancement and it's going to become a #1 interest of many, many businesses very soon.

yes

just yes

I've had GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD from various manufacturers during the past 10 years, and every single damn one has just gone kaput after a few years (if that). They just don't seem to be built to last any more, which is why I would prioritise getting long or lifetime warranty (some manufacturers offer this as standard).

That shit is fucking awesome! I love the desk shot with the depth of field blur.

Depends what you do, in terms of price. I didn't spend very much at all, but that's because I went to free galleries and museums and spent a lot of time enjoying the outdoor stuff. If you feel like you simply must do the traditional tourist things like ride the London Eye, go to the wax gallery, etc then sure you will spend a lot. That goes for any city though, there are always things they know people are drawn to simply because they're seen as 'the typical thing to do' and as such the price is usually crazy.

lol. I don't live in London, but I thoroughly enjoyed my first proper visit there last year. I'm sure that people's mileage will vary, but it is a mega-city and as such it has a monumental amount of stuff to see and do.

In all honesty, there's so much that I don't think there are any particular things that stand out. It's more about what kinds of things you like and can cram into your time there. Whether you like nightlife, museums, art galleries, theatre, restaurants, or whatever — you'll find them in ample supply, and better than anywhere else in the country.

Of course, one of my favourite parts of going there was just walking around the streets. Going up and down the River Thames on foot was nice, as was exploring the part of the city around Piccadilly Circus and Westminster. Lots of interesting shops, eateries, tourist traps, and Chinatown.

If you like photography then the place offers endless opportunities to get some iconic snaps.

Well, that undeniably sounds good. I wonder how that compares to what can be gotten out of OpenGL like the PS4, etc use. If OpenGL is already 50% more efficient then that's not so impressive, but I have no idea.

Quote

The rendering technique would, however, be yet another computational effort for the Xbox One, but it's possible Microsoft could offload that process to its vast network of cloud-powered servers.

...really? So what happens when there's a bit of latency or even a short outage, your games go black? lol.

I didn't understand why a lot of fuss was being made last week over there being a referendum within Ukraine to determine the citizens' feelings about what Crimea's fate should be — seemed like a sensible way to allow the people to have some influence.

Except then I learnt today that the only options they were allowed to vote for were 'join Russia' or 'become independent'. No option to remain part of Ukraine, lol.

This is just some really dark shit. It's become very clear that Russia wants Crimea no matter what, and it wouldn't surprise me if Russia has played a major part in causing all this shit to escalate. It now seems completely reasonable an idea that Russian snipers took shots during those protests to hurry things along. And Russia's continued presence in Ukraine is completely unacceptable.

A concern I saw expressed somewhere is that if Russia is now getting ballsy enough to take back things that were lost following a very lengthy Cold War, where does it stop? I don't like to see this kind of provocation because the world does not need even more Russia/West tension. If they even breathe in the direction of Poland we might as well start migrating to bunkers.

Good trailer IMO, definitely has renewed my interest in seeing this (which is out in days):

It seems apparent to me that there's a very good reason your Kickstarter got one backer and investors turned you down: there's absolutely no evidence that you're capable of bringing a game to market, let alone one that requires multi-million dollar production values.

If even regular gamers have shown no interest in your pitch (basically no backers), why would people spend their time contributing towards a project that is virtually guaranteed to fail? There is absolutely nothing that says 'this guy is the real deal and will make this game succeed'.

Do you even have any 'jam'-style games to your name, i.e. decent one-weekend projects?

The pace of these games is just exhausting. That said, Ubi seems to be ridiculously fast at pumping them out to levels I still can't get my head around, so I'd expect the finished game to look far better than those leaked shots — they seem more like basic block-outs to me.

Awesome!!!!!!

I guess it beats Assassin's Creed where the sequel is in development like a year before the preceding game is out.

Quote from Izuno

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03…l-for-xbox-360/

So...Xbox 360 version delayed until April 8 (Apr 11 outside US). Today is March 19 and the original Xbox 360 release date was set for March 25. So the Xbox 360 version was not gold already? Or are they talking about last minute server side fixes?

From the article:

Is it possible that initial sales on Xbox One are not as strong as EA and Microsoft were hoping for so they are pushing out the 360 release to hopefully sell more Xbox One consoles? There, I said it. Don't get me wrong, I've been playing it a lot on Xbox One and am loving it. Remember, Titanfall is supposed to be the first big game that really pushes XBO.

An issue with the Titanfall / XBO hardware bundle is that while it is a "deal" at US$499 for the console+TF it is a digital download code for Titanfall. No box. No disc. Sounds great and efficient but of the 5 different Gamestops I've spoken with (all in different parts of US) store managers all said the same thing: people want their disc esp. for a roughly 50 gb game. Further, they also said that the price of the console is just too much so they are waiting for it on 360 as a relatively cheap option to play it (excluding the obvious yet Origin PC option).

tl;dr: it's a great game but it is still beholden to market dynamics and issues with EA and Microsoft. Hopefully it will all work out.

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lol. I didn't even realise this was coming out on 360. That makes EA's recent comments about the PlayStation 4 not being powerful enough for Titanfall seem kind of hilarious.

Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

Also, the whole renting thing, we've looked into that. Maybe it's different in England but here, if they don't pay, you can't simply evict them. They have a lot of rights. So even if you find someone to rent it to, you never have the guarantee you'll see you money. So there's a chance that somebody is living for free in your house until all the arrangements are made to get rid of them.

Secondly and this is a big problem here, somebody rents the place and uses it to grow weed. Lots of problems coming from that with the power company, legal stuff, damages, etc.

Last but not least, what Beck said. Depending on your mortgage you can't simply rent it out. I had to first put it up for sale and after it had been on sale for 2 years only then was I allowed to rent it to someone.

Yeah, it's similar here. The law is almost hilariously biased towards tenants, meaning that at best it takes like two or three months for a landlord to get someone evicted even if the tenant has absolutely no right to still be there. This is why renting should be left to professional investors with the money to absorb such costs IMO, otherwise both tenants and landlords end up fucked.

I actively avoid private landlords as opposed to portfolio investors because more often than not they simply don't have the funds to take care of the property to a high standard — they just want to get the most out of the place with minimum expenditure to cover their mortgage payments. You soon find out how important this kind of thing is when something like your washing machine or water boiler breaks down.