Posts by Minos

  • The Witcher - Netflix TV Show

    Quote from blackdog

    On 12/24/2019 at 3:53 AM, blackdog said: Watched the first three episodes and being uber tired doesn't help... but also my partner is saying she's not understanding anything about the show.

    I mean I got a few bits but the plots feel as apart as ever rather than converging. I hope it'll make sense by the end, cos I'm not going back and rewatch from the beginning just to get the full of it.

    Feels like a discount version of GoT where they needed to get some action right off the bat instead of building the characters.

    Lol, same here. I got so bored and simply gave up. Nothing makes sense, and some of the scenes are so obviously CG that I cringed a bit. (even backgrounds as simple as a brick wall are CG ?)

  • Game Design videos

    Great series, especially the AvP one. Really made me think about how the average game is made these days. Due to the complexity of art creation, physics, and everything else, it seems that there's little room for exploration and happy accidents to happen along the way, like how it happened to them. I dream of the day (which I think is very near), when mid sized teams can make relevant and groundbreaking games again (and I mean games with actual gameplay, not interactive movies like Senua ?)

    Probably the best channel for anything Unity (he always has up to date tutorials on the latest features and goes straight to the point)

    https://www.youtube.com/user/Brackeys

    I've been learning a lot about data oriented programming (as opposed to object oriented, the standard paradigm) and this shit is fascinating. It allows for much more optimized and reusable code. Unity is also transitioning from Object-oriented to data-oriented, and by the looks of it, this will probably be the new standard at some point.

    The best advantage of making things this way, is that instead of referencing other gameobjects in your code, you reference data sets. For example, if you follow any Unity tutorial on how to make a Health bar HUD, they will hook up that system to a gameobject (usually a gamemanager), that has to always exist in the scene (singletons), and creates horribly interconnected code, that at some point becomes almost impossible to know what each object is doing.

    He offers another solution, instead of hooking up gameobjects to one another, you simply dump the data you need to scriptable objects (data files), and then you can write behaviors that utilize that data. This way, your objects will not reference one another, but simply the same data set. This makes it much easier to create new objects and experiment with gameplay, since you can just use that existing data in creative ways.

    If you are interested about this mindset, I really recommend this talk. Even though he uses Unity, these concepts can be adapted to any engine (I suppose).

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    It's a huge paradigm shift in how we make games, and the more I learn about it there more I believe it will unleash a new batch of highly creative and unique games, free from the tyranny of the old (and bad) ways that we have been making stuff :D And as a trivia, we use a similar approach on Overwatch to organize our data:

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    And by transitioning to data oriented programming, you will be able to leverage all the insane performance from Unity's DOTS system:

    https://unity.com/dots

  • Half-Life Alyx

    Completely unrelated, but VR lost a lot of charm for me when the paradigm went from the user being a "camera in a virtual world" to it being "a person in a virtual world". When I got my Oculus DK2, there was a website called Oculus share where people were posting free demos and experimental stuff, and most of it was awesome and super immersive and fell into the first category. Stuff like, you are sitting behind a desk and stuff is happening around you, or you are a camera moving on rails on a cyberpunk city, a submarine ride to the bottom of the ocean or you are inside a cockpit of a giant meccha on Mars. Then I bought a Vive and could never get the same sense of immersion with room scale, since it's so easy to break the simulation and sense of disbelief when your hand goes through walls and things don't behave as expected. I guess with the camera paradigm, you have a lot more limitations and fewer ways to break the simulation, whereas with the person in a VR world paradigm it's quite hard NOT to break the simulation. I still dream that one day I'll have the time and drive to make some immersive VR experiences that are just about chilling in a futuristic apartment, or being in the middle of a chaotic urban sprawl.

    Anyways, very curious about this, I'm sure it will look gorgeous at least ;D

  • Blizzcon 2019

    Quote from FMPONE

    3 hours ago, FMPONE said: Last memory of Diablo 2: blaring Linkin Park in the background via my CD drive, skipping middle school to play online. Getting d/c’d every time someone used the phone. Losing all of my items and then desperately trying to find them again (futile)

    I regret not going to the Linkin Park concert a few years back at Blizzcon... now the guy is gone.

  • Blizzcon 2019

    Quote from blackdog

    6 hours ago, blackdog said: Apple WWDC costs $1600 to participate, sells out in a matter of hours if not minutes, yet the keynote stream is live and free. The workshop sessions are also available after the event.

    E3 costs $250 and is covered by different websites in real time, plus publishers have their own streams.

    Even Star Citizen, the most heavily monetised legal rip-off joke of a game, has tickets for $140 but a free stream.

    Have you ever been to a concert? You don’t pay just for the content of the presentation when you decide to attend, there’s a suite of other benefits from networking, to trying the products presented etc.

    You can watch most of the stuff for free on the Blizzcon website, you only need a virtual ticket if you really want to watch every single panel (and the closing ceremony).

    Free BlizzCon 2019 Live Streams

    Opening Ceremony, Esports, and Select Panels

    This year, everyone’s invited to watch the BlizzCon opening ceremony, all of the BlizzCon esports tournaments, and select developer panels—including the first four panels on the Mythic Stage immediately following the opening ceremony—completely free on BlizzCon.com and in the BlizzCon Mobile App.

    BlizzCon 2019 Virtual Ticket

    If you want to get the most out of your BlizzCon home-viewing experience, you’ll need to pick up the BlizzCon 2019 Virtual Ticket, which comes with two full days of All-Access Channel content; complete coverage of all of the developer panels on the Mythic, Legendary, and Epic stages; the Community Night contests on Friday; and the live closing festivities on Saturday—plus a legendary cache of commemorative in-game extras. Check out the Virtual Ticket to get a closer look at this year’s loot.

    https://blizzcon.com/en-us/news/231…le-app-now-live

    I'm excited for tomorrow! :D

  • The Official Mapcore Anime Fanclub™

    Netflix seems hell bent on destroying classics with crappy 3d remakes... I mean, look what they did with Saint Seiya :(


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  • The cost of games

    Quote from Radu

    8 hours ago, Radu said: "Watch Dogs Legion, Ubisoft's dystopian romp through the surveillance state city of London in the near future, has been delayed. It was slated to come out on March 6, 2020, but the company announced today that it will instead be released sometime during the company's 2020-21 fiscal year, which begins on April 1, 2020. Rainbow Six Quarantine and Gods and Monsters were also delayed into the next fiscal year.

    The delay announcements were accompanied by a significant reduction in financial targets for this fiscal year, from a previous target of €2.185 billion ($2.42 billion) in net bookings to €1.450 ($1.61 billion). The downturn was attributed to the loss of expected revenues from Legion, Quarantine, and Gods and Monsters in this fiscal year, as well as "a sharp downward revision in the revenues expected from Ghost Recon Breakpoint and, to a lesser extent, The Division 2."

    https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-delays…ds-and-monsters

    Good call to delay those games!

  • Anthem and the peculiarities of modern monetization.

    Quote from Radu

    5 hours ago, Radu said:

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    If I watch this will my youtube feed become infested with yongyeah and "game critics" raging about the latest microtransaction bullshit?