Posts by Thrik

  • Buying a house and the games industry.

    Quote from knj

    Why, you can always rent the house and have an income ?


    There's a lot more to renting out a place than just collecting money man. You're looking at endless costs for insurance, maintenance, letting agents (unless you seek out and background check tenants yourself which probably isn't wise), and ultimately if they fuck up the property it's your ass on the line. I wouldn't do it unless I had more than enough cash to cover, for example, three months of no tenants because someone decided to damage the whole property with water and disappear abroad because they thought their landlord was a bit shit (true story).


    Like Liam, I wouldn't consider buying a house until at least my 30s. Lifestyle and prospects can change completely at our age, and even though you might be happy now you could find yourself feeling very different if you're made redundant when you've barely settled into your house. Don't make the mistake that I made, and think that after being with a company for years they'll think twice about dropping you the moment you're financially inconvenient for them, no matter how well you get on with them.


    And then what, back to renting and barely covering the mortgage payments on a house you don't need? That's assuming you get tenants in all the time, which often isn't the case. And if you're no longer living in the area, what about the practicalities of handling viewings, repairs, etc?


    I'm perfectly happy to rent for the indefinite future, because while it means there are limitations on how much I can customise my home and I'm not going to make anything from it, I'm not losing an awful lot either. I have a lovely home to live in, and if I decide that my neighbours suck or I want a fresh start in another city or country, I can make the move fairly painlessly.


    If you still want to do it with all this in mind, perhaps it's the right choice. I would seriously consider some of these possibilities, though. Take it from someone who's seen good friends get into some serious shit with unwise property decisions at too young an age, it's not something you want to get wrong.


    If I were you, I'd just assume that you're going to lose your job in two years. Not that I'm trying to bring you bad fortune, but you need to consider things with that kind of mentality to figure out whether or not this is really a good idea. In any other industry it wouldn't be such a big deal, but it's not like the UK is oozing with games industry jobs at any given moment in time.

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    Quote from D3ads
    Quote from Sentura

    Yeah no, that's a false assumption. You assume they'd only put mines on their own soil, yet what they have essentially done is invaded a country already.

    It's a false assumption that they'd be laying mines in Russia, therefore you must conclude they're laying mines in Poland (which is an invasion)... otherwise, I really don't understand what you're talking about.

    Pretty sure he's talking about Russia softly invading Ukraine.

  • Metal Gear Solid 5

    I'm not just feeling this at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm wetting myself for a proper new MGS. But everything I've heard about this so far indicates that it is pretty much just a demo, a very small taste. While I wouldn't mind that if the main game were coming out a little later, that doesn't seem to be the case. It's just going to piss me off immersing myself into that world for a couple of hours then having to wait who knows how long for the real thing. Especially when...


    Quote

    Kojima has alluded to [The Phantom Pain] possibly being "too big to clear", adding that the game is "200 [times larger] than Ground Zeroes


    I think I'll just wait until it's all out, because it does seem like that's the way that it's meant to be played. But if everyone did that, poor sales would probably lead to the full game getting gimped. It just seems really stupid to do this, I don't know why they don't just finish the game rather than pull the 'we need to please the desperate fans' thing.


    As we all know, even right up to to the end of any development you constantly refine things — so what about gameplay improvements, etc they make to the final game? Will Ground Zeroes get that in a patch? This is particularly significant with MGS because the series is notorious for being very unpolished until very late into development.


    Ugh, this and the Kiefer thing just seem unnecessarily daft. Why is this beloved franchise getting such weird treatment? I know that MGS has usually had prologues (Ground Zeroes is basically MGS5's equivalent of MGS2's Tanker Incident, MGS3's Virtuous Mission, or MGS4's Middle East segment), but splitting it into a separate release 1–2 years beforehand? Mm...

  • Ymir : a multiplayer diplomacy and city builder game

    Looks cool, very bold concept making this all multiplayer and such. Could be tricky to pull off while retaining enjoyment but I'm glad it's being done.


    Personally, I wish it had less of a retro look. I know a lot of people love that kind of thing, but in all honesty I find it a bit weird that with today's comparatively endless horsepower a lot of developers making games of traditional genres like simulation and platformers go for an art direction that's barely any better than what was being created 20 years ago.


    I guess it simplifies production which is good for indies on a budget, but even just some cool lighting effects and such would be a big improvement. I don't know, the whole 90s-style UI and sprites doesn't do it for me. I'm not saying a 2D approach is bad, but it doesn't have to be so rigidly slavish to the past.


    I guess there's a certain degree of irony to the fact that for years I said I'd love to see gaming return to its roots and feature more platformers and such that look like the old classics, and now we're inundated with them but I wish they'd look more modern.

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    Quote from Sentura

    I got Ukraine work colleagues here, they're telling me that Ukraine is pretty much surrounded from 3 sides by Russia, and that an invasion is imminent. Adding to that, the border to Poland has been rigged with landmines. So much for Putin just declaring it an exercise...

    ...And once Ukraine falls, eastern Europe is next. Watch them try.


    wtf?????

  • Watch Dogs

    I think at this point I just need to get it on my TV and see how it looks. I understand the notion that the consoles' strength was perhaps exaggerated, but then look at how good some next-gen games are looking — and also consider how good GTA5 looks despite running on indisputably inferior hardware.


    But then, I'm not convinced that the footage we've been seeing is being presented in the best light. For example, that over-analysed footage of the car at night is under a huge spotlight, which clearly washes everything out and makes the lighting look weird. Also the footage itself seems to be heavily compressed.


    Of course, there's also the artistic side to things. To me it does seem that the original art direction has shifted, with the game certainly having more colour now. While that's kind of nice, it does change the mood somewhat and robs the game of the distinctive look that it had before. The game now looks and feels more like any other open world game, especially ones that too had fairly bland 'real world' art direction.


    It's kind of like how the Director's Cut of Deus Ex: Human Revolution stripped out the orange filter and toned down a lot of the lighting, which despite hardly being mentioned had a negative effect on the game's virtually perfect look IMO — made it more generic. Personally I think the difference this kind of thing can make to perception is underestimated.

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    That is funny. From casual conversations I've had with other Brits, the perception that Turkey is a wonderful place for holidays is all they know about the place. The same goes for Egypt.

    I guess the UK doesn't let things like terrorism and kidnapping get in the way of visiting traditional vacation spots... lol.

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    Quote from KoKo5oVaR

    The deutsche welle is apparently the same thing france 24 is, and you too don't know about it, that's amazing


    I didn't knew you could have a tv channel broadcasting what your country "thinks" on the international scene (like maybe it's not the opinion of the majority of the citizens in the country), it's paid with your taxes, and you didn't know about it. I'm blown away


    That is weird. I'm aware that there's a global BBC entity (both channel and news site I think), yet we can't even access the website in the UK without proxies and the channel certainly isn't aired here. I remember stumbling upon it one day and it telling me I can't view it because it's not funded by the UK TV license system. It doesn't tend to come up in UK search results either. It feels like these things are set up specifically to speak for us without letting us have any idea what's being said...

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    While I won't pretend to know a great deal about the complexities of Russia, it has struck me for quite some time that it just doesn't feel right that Putin has been in the hot seat for as long as he has. It was widely said even when he was 'merely' Prime Minister that he was the one really pulling the strings, and in all honesty it just isn't good for a country to be led for so long by effectively one man — even if the country's people do approve (or at least appear to).


    That's how dictatorship and cults of personality are born, as when the leaders in question manage to sufficiently bend the country's laws and earn unconditional military support, etc they are essentially untouchable. All the photos of him looking cool and awesome and hardcore are propaganda, and the saddest part is it works. Do we not learn from the past? Stalin and Lenin were (and sometimes still are) popular and similar strategies were used to cement that perception.


    Of course, it could very well be that any leader other than Putin is a far worse thing for the world. On top of that, it isn't lost on me that there's a certain degree of typical Western arrogance to dismissing Russia's political system as wrong. But then, how many alternative systems that don't adhere to the principles of democracy have actually worked out? Russia itself learnt the hard way just how much of a fall a country can have when the system is rotten and the people blind to what's coming.

  • Thief 4

    The international element makes it even worse with the games industry. At least in most other sectors, you've potentially got hundreds more jobs in the same region. It seems that a lot of people can and do end up moving their whole lives to countries to work there, only to be let go... it's so bad. Maybe not so much when you're young, but totally impossible when you're a bit older and have a family.