Posts by BaRRaKID

I think that the hacked FBI phone call is a good example of how they work.

From the info that was released so far about it, it was just a guy that had hacked a random gmail account, found an email with the call details and then told Sabu about it (which at this time was already working for the feds apparently) and asked him for help with a VoIP software to record the call and distribute the phone call.

I believe this is how they always work, some guy does something and then they put the anonymous stamp on it. It's wrong to call this an organized group or to suggest that there is someone pulling all the strings behind the scenes, they are just guys doing things, it's as simple as that. I would even say that most of the big hacks are accidental, or at least whoever did them didn't knew what kind of information they would get from it, and are due to the amount of people currently hacking under the anonymous flag, someone will eventually find a pot of gold it they are all searching for it.

It wont change anything tough. The hole point of anonymous is that there isn't a leader to the group, we can all be part of it, so even if they arrest the most prominent members there are still thousands of other hackers out there that will keep doing their work.

Besides most of the big breaches are not done by the known members of anonymous, they are done by a random hacker somewhere on a ex-urss country that uses anonymous as an umbrella to divert attentions away from him. And these guys will never be caught, or at least not by the FBI.

I'm betting that something big will happen next Friday in response to this

Basically this:

[Blocked Image: http://v.cdn.cad-comic.com/comics/cad-20120305-20729.png]

Quote from dissonance

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ever seen Crash? my interpretation of the game is that it's something like that; you play as a guy who is tripping out as he dies. as his brain begins to slowly lose oxygen, everything gets more and more surreal, and all his memories begin to interweave and pile on top of each other, with the freshest memories (car crash, hospital) being the strongest and most vivid, and with earlier memories painting broader strokes; i think the herebrides were somewhere he visited as a kid that had a large impact on him.

just my two cents.

Yeah, I've seen that movie before, it gave me one of the weirdest boners ever lol. They're having sex but they're all so messed up that all the sex scenes become repulsive. But I think your interpretation makes sense

I think we all waited for a few minutes for the credits, kind of shows how good the experience was.

First things first, the not so good parts:

- Navigation could be improved. There where many times that it was hard to figure out where to go next specially on the sections before the cave, I'm guessing it was due to the low contrast between the textures, and that made me backtrack a lot and get a bit frustrated at the beginning. But let me say that the light/sound (the part where theres a loud seagull sound and you see the seagull flying to where you're supposed to go next was really smart) cues on the cave and the final sections where brilliant.

- There where a lot of clipping issues that where made worst by the fact that you couldn't jump. I had to restart twice because i got stuck on the geometry. Also it wasn't always clear what rocks you could walk on and what ledges you could climb/jump off, and there where many invisible walls that kind of ruined the immersion.

- I noticed some texture and shader issues but couldn't take any ss of them. I remember that in the final section I could see a big white semi opaque wall on the top of the cliffs from the "beach" that was probably a clip texture or something like that.

- There was a bug with the water. When I entered the water everything turned black, which I think was intentional, but the "darkness" remained even after leaving the water which made me have to restart the game twice.

Now the good parts

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- The "drowning vision" of the accident was so simple yet so brilliant

- The candle lights where kind of creepy, who placed them there and how the hell do they stay lit for so long with all that wind?!

- The cave was amazing! The execution was perfect both visually and technically, and every section was inspiring. Also at the end (i think) when you have to go through a path that gets increasingly narrow as you walk I actually started to get a bit claustrophobic, so again, nicely done.

- The paper boats where kind of poetic, it was the section that sparked my imagination more than any other, there are so many meanings to those boats, his armada, loved it.

- The ending was a mix of emotions. As I was climbing up and earing the narrator, and started to realize that he was descending into his own madness and was going to kill himself I wanted to stop and go back, but then you toke the control way from me and I started to panic and get mad as you forced me to see him jump, but then when he flew away i realized that he was with Esther now, he got what he wanted, all the pain and madness was gone and he was in peace. So it was a really great ending.

I ended out thinking that he probably died after falling in the cave. Everything after that seemed more weird and dreamy than in the sections before which felt more real and plain, it was, at least for me, a really obvious turning point in the story and scenery.

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I'm definitely going to play this again since I think I missed some important locations. I also noticed that when you restart a section some of the narrations are different, so I'm guessing the story is kind of dynamic and it wont be the same on every playthrough, so I'm curious to see how different the story can be.

It seems like I finally have plans for Valentines Day

The list of SOPA supporters was released, see it here: http://%7boption%7d

GoDaddy is one of the supporters, so as a form of protest everyone opposing the bill is going to transfer their domains to other providers on Dec 29, and many of GoDaddys competitors are offering special discounts for those who which to transfer.

So if you're a GoDaddy client protest the bill and save money by transferring your domain to another provider. Also be sure to contact GoDaddy and tell them why you're transferring.

More info, and discount codes here:

http://%7boption%7d

Also why the fuck is L'Oreal supporting the bill?!

EDIT: GoDaddy no longer supports SOPA http://%7boption%7d

Quote from Pericolos0

that tiberium alliances looks really interesting . Looks like it plays a bit like plants vs zombies?

Yes, the combat system is clearly tower defense.

You can see at around 00:45 that there is an "Attack Wave Editor". I'm guessing each square represents one of the base entrances, and you then decide which units attack which entrance on each of the four attack waves.

Right after that you see an attack in which the defenses are basically the typical C&C towers.

So it seems like this will be a Free To Play Tower Defense Persistent Browser Based Massive Multiplayer Online Game, or a F2PTDPBBMMOG

Tiberium Alliances Trailer

The only thing I'm afraid is that it will probably be an Origin exclusive :\

About BioWare Victory, the guy behind the studio is the guy behind Heroes of Might and Magic, so he has some experience with strategy games and seems to know what he is doing.

And RA3 was a great game, same for C&C3 (except the expansion, what a waste of money that was). C&C4 was a piece of shit, even worst than C&C Renegade (the one that was half FPS half RTS), and shall never be spoken of again.

I´m a big fan of the C&C series, and now there are two new C&C games on the way.

First, Command & Conquer: Generals 2, a proper RTS made by BioWare Victory on the BF3 engine:

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Yes, Bioware are making an RTS. Or more accurately: they’ve now got an RTS studio under the same label. Generals 2 is powered by the Battlefield 3 engine. It’s PC-only. Dr Ray said: ““We’re bringing BioWare’s vision for emotionally engaging gameplay and great attention to quality to the strategy genre and the Command & Conquer franchise. I am excited to welcome BioWare Victory to our label. They are a great addition and the team is working hard to make sure Generals 2 truly immerses and engages players into this intense, gritty, modern war experience.” And Executive producer Jon Van Caneghem said: “With Generals 2, we are bringing the Command & Conquer franchise back to its roots, blending strategic gameplay with fast-paced action — all set in visually stunning theaters of war powered by Frostbite 2.”

Second is Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, which is a HTML5 MMO:

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Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances is a browser-based, HTML 5-powered “epic strategy MMO” which “allows players to experience C&C in a brand new way.” Primarily by being able to access it from most any browser – they seem to be thinking about mobile devices here too. The MMO bit revolves around playing with or against your friends and forming alliances on a “dynamically updating map”. Despite all this new-fangled newness, the brief website maintains this is “hardcore strategy.” On dev duties are Battleforge chaps Phenomic.

http://%7boption%7d

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":1lc5hx12]I still don't understand how come it's cheaper to order a game from Amazon than it is to buy it from steam, shipping included..

That has been explained before, but the publishers are the ones that set the prices on steam, so it's not entirely valves fault, except for that policy they have (had?) that dollars=euros, so a 50$ game costs 50€ when it should cost around 35€.

As to why the publishers charge as much (or more) for a digital copy as for a retail copy, I believe it's made so that the perceived value of the product doesn't change (which is also one of the reasons I think the latest COD games are doing so well). Basically, if you give a uninformed consumer two similar products the one with the highest price will always be perceived as being better, so if your digital copy costs less than the retail copy the consumer might think that he is buying an inferior version of the product. It's also the reason why a indie game costs much less than a AAA game. If you put the indie label on the game it's perceived value drops, so most buyers expect it to have a much lower price even if the actual quality of the game is on par with many pricier AAA games.

You can see how the perceived quality of a product changes it's price by looking at the humble indie bundle. The average price of the bundle is around $3, but there are people willing to pay more than $100 for the same product.

About piracy I still download must of my music, but that's because there are no real good music stores around here, and most online stores suck. I used to buy from a Portuguese online store, but after receiving a few albums with broken cases i started doing it less.

On the other hand my ISP provides a music streaming service for 8€ a month that I love and use. Basically you have thousands of songs that are provided via streaming. You can add them to playlists that you can then listen to on your TV, computer/laptop and smartphone. You can also download 10 musics for free each month, but if you want more you have to pay for each song. I never felt the need to dowload any songs tough because their steaming quality is great.

The comments on this news post seem relevant to this discussion:

http://%7boption%7d

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I hear that skyrim doesnt have QTE’s at all. Therefore it cannot be considered “AAA” and I am hereby boycotting until bethesda has added said QTE’s. The sheer and blatant lack of QTE’s and the apparent use of “sandbox” reeks of cheapness.How you can cover such a title, with its lack of linear plot is appalling, you should all be ashamed.

The thing is, strange as it sounds, many hackers like and use steam, so I'm guessing we will know who did this very soon.

Bugs can be related to design. If the bugs are serious enough they can get in the way of the gameplay, and as such having a proper testing should be faced as a design issue, at least in enterprise software development testing is seen as a design issue. If nothing else it can attest to the quality of the product.

If I were, for example, a level designer in a AAA title I would be ashamed if my map got to the client filled with bugs that made it unplayable.

I think the worst thing atm are PC releases filled with bugs that make the games unplayable. It seems like developers don't even care about the quality of their products anymore.

Also developers insisting that I register on their content delivery platform, social network, and hundreds of other services before i can even play. I remember buying GTAIV on Steam, and besides having to lunch Steam, I had to login on Rockstar Social Club and GFWL so that I could save my games, it was the most frustrating experience ever.

Even better, stop using GFWL, it's a complete piece of shit.

Quote from Sentura

games should be focused on the player's experience rather than the designer's intended experience

I think that's the main point, most artsy games are more about the developer than the player, and most of them are really pushy about it, and get offended when you question them.

It's a bit like musicians who ask the listeners not to skip songs from their albums, saying that the album should be experienced the way they intended it to be, but in reality the album should be experienced the way I want it to be, if I want to skip a song that I don't appreciate (maybe it brings back bad memories, maybe it doesn't fit my current mood, or maybe I think it breaks the flow of the album, etc...), I will do it, and I don't care.

35min interview with Chet Faliszek about the game. There are some interesting answers there, and it made me feel a bit more optimistic about the game.

Quote from Erratic

Meaningful how, sales? Engine licensing? Who gives a shit. RAGE is probably the best shooter single player so far this year, how is that not fucking relevance?Also lol they still made one of the best looking games since Doom 3.

Meaningful as in does anyone still give a shit about them (not taking in consideration what they've done in the past)?

And saying that RAGE is the best single player shooter (did you mean first person, or any kind of shooter?) of the year so far is a stretch... Crysis 2 and Deus Ex 3 come to mind. Hell according to Metacritic Critic Reviews (not user reviews), Rage is as good as Dead Island, which apparently (haven't played it tbh) is not that good. Have a look for your self.

And about Doom 3, many adjectives come to mind, but best looking isn't on of them, quite the opposite actually, to this day I regret buying it along with Q4, although I grew up playing quake and doom and am a big fan of both series.

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":1y5mz6ig]Also.... Carmack just said what everyone already knows, Carmack just said what everyone has been thinking for the last couple years but never ever had the guts to admit, Carmack has the balls of steel to say what's going on with pretty much ALL the major AAA studios out there (including his) and he gets bashed for that... but of course he does, that's how society works isn't that right? I'm surprised it even comes as a surprise to anyone what he just said, everyone's concentrating on consoles now, the only developer I can think of that still makes AAA for PC is Blizzard, and even so Blizzards is it's own league.

On the other hand one can argue how meaningful Carmack and id are on todays game industry. The last game id developed was Doom 3 (in 2004) and before that it was Quake 3 arena (in 1999), Rage is their first new ip since 1996 (when they released the first Quake). Even if we look at how meaningful their game engines are idTech 4 was only used in 8 games (Doom3, Doom3: RoE, Quake 4, Prey, ET:QW, Wolfenstein, Brink and Prey 2, so it was basically an in house engine) as opposed to the 20+ games in which idTech 3 was used, and the amount of games and engines that spawned from the Q1 and Q2 engines. To me this looks like a company (and by extent a man) that it's living in it's own shadow and that has hardly any relevance today.

This means that, first, I doubt that what Carmack said will have any impact in the industry, and second, it all just sounds like an excuse for a company that is out of touch, doesn't know what their clients want, and that released an average game hoping it would be the next big thing.

It we look at companies like Valve, Crytek, Blizzard, EA, Konami, Eidos, BioWare, Codemasters, and many others, it's true that they are all releasing their games on consoles, but they are also releasing some of the best PC Games of the last decade, and they are all polished, mostly bug free, and proper pc games. I'm a PC gamer, I don't own any of this gen consoles, and I played many great games and had great experiences in this last few years, the only differences are that now I'm more selective, I only buy games that I know are good, and I buy almost all of my games trough steam, all the rest feels the same as it felt 10 years ago.