Posts by Fletch

  • Why EU sucks

    1) If you're a European government, you certainly don't like the idea that almost all of your governmental systems and data are in the hands of a company from a different country. Globalism be damned, a government's priority is to protect it's own country. It's the same reason governments don't want huge debts to other countries. You don't want to become their bitch.

    2) The EU's in't unjustly asking for money and secrets. Their asking MS to stop it's monopolistic practices or face a fine, which they have all legal right to do within their jurisdiction. You're absolutely correct that MS can say "piss off" and stop selling in the EU. Of course that move would be severely petulant and not do any good as it would just be handing Linux and Apple the second biggest market in the world. It would essentialy knight one of them as the heir apparent to the MS throne.

    3) MS is engaging in monopolistic practices and racketering. Almost every major government in the world (including the US) has slapped them with it. You can't have access to the Windows code needed to get most power applications working correctly without paying MS a fee. MS has set up a shoddy OS with so many holes that you have to run power apps to avoid security holes. Thus nobody developing a power app can actually get theirs to market without paying MS. MS gets money for everything put to market on it's OS. That's called racketering. In addition to hardwiring in IE and WMP, thus creating huge market leverage in the secondary markets, MS definately has some shitty business practices (Hi Xerox).

    4) The fine they recieve is a very small percentage of what they make. MS justifies it at this point as a cost of doing business.

  • Mapcore Mappack (i.e. Mapkorpak)

    I like where this discussion is going, so just a couple comments:

    Why CS:S?

    Because it is the most popular game out there right now, and we Source is the engine the msot of us are knowledgable in. Thus it's a good way to start off this project. It ensures we have a higher success route.

    Why not just release a pack of the best maps every 2 or 3 months?

    First of all, the pack would be really random. Who is going to download a pack that is a CS map, 2 DoD maps, and a Doom3 map? Second, the real benefit to this project is that people get a chance to work under quasi-industry condidtions... or at least learn to deal with a deadline and artist/level designer teams.

    Would this be a one off?

    Hopefully not. Like Izuno said, if this works we can repeat it pretty easily. We can lengthen deadlines, make the projects bigger or focused on a theme, use a different game or engine, etc.

  • Mapcore Mappack (i.e. Mapkorpak)

    Yeah, I just threw the deadline out there as an example, not a concrete rule. I'd just prefer it if the preliminary deadline was reasonable (perhaps January 31st). If you give everybody two months to make a map and a bunch don't get picked, you piss off a lot of people that put in a lot of work. If you give them a month, you don't get as many pissed off people. Also, remember that the first deadline isn't for your map to be 100% complete. It needs a theme and the basic geometry there so that people can see what it's going to look like and how it's going to play. That way you can leave a stack of crates at the bomb site and say "There is eventually going to be an outdoor fountain here."

    Then that mapper can be teamed up with a texture artist and modeler

  • Mapcore Mappack (i.e. Mapkorpak)

    So I (we) had a little idea. Mapcore is striving to be a place where we all can strive to further our skills and careers. It's also really nice to get positive attention to our work. So lets kill a few birds with one stone. I hereby suggest a Mapcore Map Pack. The rules are simple.

    We set a submission deadline (let's say January 15th). In that time you try to complete/finish a CS:S map. On that deadline, we show the forum what's been submitted and pick the best 4 or 5 by vote (or as close to a quasi-democratic mechanism as possible). The winners then get a week or two to polish their work. Since we'll all be polishing and playtesting at the same time, it makes it easier to tweak spawnpoints and other flow issues. This also allows other community members who arent' level designers to help chip in with any custom textures and props that are needed. Once those couple of weeks pass and the maps and completely finished, we release the pack.

    Benefits:

    Big publicity on all the major HL sites (and most of the major gaming sites) means your name gets out there, and it's a nice thing to have on a resume.

    Mapcore's rep at a premier game design community grows.

    Gives level designers experience of working under a deadline.

    Gives other artists experience at asset creation to fit a particular need (instead of jsut freeform creation)

    If it works, the entire thing is repeatable. We can then try to put out a pack every 3 or 4 months with different deadlines, themes, etc.

    So who's in?

  • King Kong

    I honestly thought it was one of the shittiest movies I've seen this year. To be fair, I'll make a list.

    The Bad:

    -Horrible matting. You could see really bad edges and glows on too many scenes.

    -Dinosaurs looked like shit. Jurassic Park came out 10 years ago and looks lightyears ahead of these things.

    -CGI charachters had horrible physics logic to them. If all those brontosauruses were hitting the edges of those cliffs, rocks would be sheered off, flesh would be ripped, and all kinds of other shit. They al behaved like they were gummi-dinos. Also, Kong would not be supported by a frozen pond that is clearly only a foot thick of ice when the mortar hit it.

    -The writing was attrocious. I'm fine with making a fun, campy action film ( I love Pirates of the Caribbean), but the writing took itself soooooo damned seriously it was painful to listen to. I felt like Peter Jackson was writing this shit at a 17 year old girl's slumber party.

    -Major pacing and timing issues made it way too long. Look at the last Harry Potter movie. It is about the same time as this, but moves soooooo mcuh quicker. Shots were drawn out for no reason, scenes lasted too long, and the pacing was just not there. What makes this problem worse is everybody knows the story of Kong and knows where things are headed.

    -Zero character depth. The two main characters fall in love in about 5 seconds. Jack Black's character doesn't grow a single damn bit. When it looked like the smug actor was actually growing by staging a rescue, he throws it away by turning back to a prick when he gets to NYC. Again, this is just bad writing.

    -Every other shot was the sun rising. I shit you not. It's the island of the perpetual sunrise.

    -The bitch kept climbing to the top of the building. I mean come on, you've almost fallen off a dozen times. You've been shot at by planes. You know the damn ape is going to die and fall off. Keep your ass inside where it's safe, dummy.

    -The islanders just fucking disappeared. It's not a big island, especially the walled off section, how the hell did 1000 people just disappear?

    -Infinately spawning Red Shirts for the boat crew.

    -There was no payoff for the investment of time on the kid on the boat.

    The good:

    -Kong looked good.

    -Everything from when they arrive back in NYC excluding the ice skating shit and the stuff at the top of the building was great looking and enjoyable to watch.

    -The boat captain was a good character.

    -The vagina/worm/tentacle raep monster.