Posts by zaphod

  • TES: Oblivion.

    I've tried tweaking my ini and all that crazy stuff and it runs ok just walking around but it feels like I have to drop it to like 1024x768 without a bunch of effects if I want it to run at 30 frames during combat.

    I hear what you guys are saying about working to get into it but I guess I'm just of the school that it's the game's job to bring the fun to you, not your job to tweak ini files, install mods, and trudge through things to get to the fun parts of the game. It feels like work when I just wanna jump in and have a cool experience : /

    I know there are cool parts in the game, I'm just amazed that they didn't design the game to force you through those fun parts at least at the very beginning of the game so that you know they are there. I understand the concept of an open ended game, but I think it's amazing the lack of an experience they present to you at the very beginning of the game. Shit, I don't even care if it's a little animated clippy character in the corner of the screen telling me there is something cool I could go do, just throw me a bone! I was very surprised that the first quest wasn't "go to the town right outside the dungeons" I think that would have gotten me much more into the game at first that "walk 15 minutes across the map getting stuck on terrain while little dudes shoot fireballs at you out of fucking nowhere"

  • TES: Oblivion.

    I've tried multiple times to get into this game, but I just cant : /

    I got to the part where you go through the portal and fight the annoying little demon dudes.

    It's pretty, but it runs like a beast on my 3 ghz 6800GT 2gig ram machine.

    The combat seems absolutely terrible, by the time I click the mouse, sort through the lag, and play through the slow ass swinging animation - I'm already trying to block. It feels like I'm trying to beat someone with a wooden parking block while wearing snowshoes and blocking with a bodyboard. (ie, it's fricken clunky)

    The run speed should be the walk speed and the run speed should be twice as fast.

    The lip synching is pretty lame, and the dialouge is plain and boring.

    but then some other dude I know starts going off about how they are totally addicted to it and I go crazy and try to keep playing feeling like I'm missing out on something but I can't figure out what it is!!! argh!

  • E3 2006: Hands down, who's going?

    I would be all over E3 if there was a special day where just me and my friends could go in and check everything out without anyone else there. It's such a circus though that I would rather just watch the videos online instead of waiting 3 hours in line to see the same video being played on a bigger screen with 20 foot tall monster energy drink cans on either side.

  • Revolution Gets Cooler

    the revolution is the only console I'm excited about, I doubt I will get a ps3 or xbox2. The revolution is the only console actually offering something new and fun instead of the same shit with bump maps.

    We just got an xbox2 in the office that came with gotham racing. Who hasn't played the exact same racing game for literally 8 or so years? I give mad props to nintendo for actually being a gaming company, instead of adding a 6th razor like microsoft and sony.

  • Brothers in Arms 3D (A Cellphone Game)

    thats pretty impressive, it's too bad that only like 10% (if that) of the current phone market has modern enough phones to run something like this. It will be a few years probably untill the majority of phone gamers have powerful enough phones to do a mainstream 3d phone game. Which sucks becuase I would love to be working on more 3d stuff.

  • Two rants on level design, need opinions

    In terms of a professional setting . . .

    It really depends on the scope of the project and the amount of resources that are availible for the project. Big budget games will split up job responsibilities becuase it makes sense given the time they have to make the product, the amount of content they need to create, and the amount of resources they have available to get it done. There is simply no way to make a big budget AAA game where a single person has responsibility to create an entire level - design - art - scripting - textures - lighting - and have it fit together with the rest of the game, much less on time. Say you have a game that needs 20 levels, you can try and find 5 top notch people that are very good at modeling, texturing, uv mapping, lighting, scripting, and design (a very rare find) Or you can find a designer, a lighting artist, modeler, texture artist and scripter. It's easy to find those that are good at what they do.

    Smaller scope and budget games will still do fine or have to make do with a smaller team of people handling more responsibilites.

    I think it's a lot more about logisitics than it is about what will produce the best result. As games get to a certain scope there is just no other way to do it. Pixar is a great example - they have different teams for every minute part of the proess - but they have perhaps the world's best directors keeping it all together.

    As far as how it's going to play out in the modding community - I feel like parting out roles in some fashion similar to what professional developers are doing is the only way to get a mod or level out in a timely fashion. I think the days of Niel Manke's They hunger being done by one man with new art are numbered. Even the people that are around that can do every aspect well themselves, are going to take a much longer time to get something done. If you look at a lot of "pro" mod teams you can see this already happening, using people with specific roles to get content together and done. As I see it the only options left in terms of mapping are these:

    1. Make maps for some mod team that are feeding you assets.

    2. Make custom maps with a team of a few people helping to make models / textures / etc.

    3. Make a map with mostly existing assets in the normal amount of time.

    4. Make a map with all your own custom assets, taking 4 times the amount of time options 1, 2, or 3 take.

    In my mind, 1, 2 and 3 will be the routes most people take, with smaller number of more talented people taking the lengthier route 4.

  • The industry is incompetent

    I think it's a pretty common experience . . .

    But I don't think it's unique to the game industry. Any industry that involves large companies backing projects is going to want control over the projects and the people doing the job will want to be left alone to do thier job. I bet it's similar in film, book publishing, etc . ..

  • What Games are you playing?

    just played some AOE3 last night, It was pretty enjoyable. They made some changes to the equation that I liked. And I was able to get over the UI by changing it to be smaller in the options. I've been reading about the mexican american war, so it was pretty satisfying to build up some artillery and knock people apart with it while rising around some cavalry and firing off some musketballs.

  • What Games are you playing?

    I just checked out of the rehab clinic from wow, so I am dabbling around now with dod:s, bf:s, and guild wars. I need some good non action games though, becuase I suck so much ass at fps's. Maybe I'll try AOE:3 but the UI is so ungodly huge. I'm gonna go look up settlers 2 . . .

    *edit* what is the latest settlers game?

  • Trackmania Nations - get your track creation on.

    Quote from Steppenwolf

    I believe you haven't understand it. Starforce is installed independedent from the game. It runs always when you start windows and has impact on all games that you play. And it remains in your system even after you deinstalled Trackmania.

    What is Starforce?Starforce is a software copy protection tool installed by PC game publishers, which is designed to prevent the casual copying of retail CDROM applications. It installs as a hidden device driver, without the end-user's knowledge or consent.

    Why are we boycotting it?

    Starforce has received criticism for installing its own device driver onto computers. The Starforce drivers are often linked to system instability and computer crashes. If these problems occur, the end-user would be unware as to the cause of the problem, and would be helpless to solve the problem.

    For example, here's one of the common problems brought by Starforce: under Windows XP, if packets are lost during the reading or writing of a disk, XP interprets this as an error and steps the IDE speed down. Eventually it will revert to 16bit compatibility mode rendering a CD/DVD writer virtually unusable. In some circumstances certain drives cannot cope with this mode and it results in physical hardware failure (Most commonly in multiformat CD/DVD writer drives). A sure sign of this step down occurring is that the burn speeds will get slower and slower (no matter what speed you select to burn at). Starforce, on a regular basis, triggers this silent step down. Until it reaches the latter stages most people do not even realise it is happening.

    http://%7boption%7d

    I understand perfectly, all you have to do is google starforce and there are plenty of guides and utilities you can download to remove starforce from your system.

    so far I haven't had any problems, or talked to anyone who has.