Posts by Hourences

Looks really interesting. I will certainly check it out as soon as they port this to windows, because it is mac only atm right?

Quote from Chunks

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I mean seriously when you are in the hole and the only way to free up some cash is to lay-off people what can you do?If you are losing money and are required to scale back you have to cut staff, if you don't you will just run the whole company under which resulting in everyone losing their job. Look at the big picture.

Like discussed before, I think it would be a much better idea to streamline your workflow more, and improve your tools. It is unbelievable how much money large game developers waste on endless meetings, delayed decisions, bad designs, redoing things, crappy tools and so on.

Fixing those things would save as much money as getting rid of these (poor) 600 people.

Quote

The Helping HandDeliberate Sociable Fun Veteran (DSFV)

Generous, helpful, kind...a few of many positive attributes people see in you, the Helping Hand. Nothing satisfies you more than helping your teammates or friends out in all the games that you play. You may even look to assist people in some cases if there is no one around asking for help. In fact, the enjoyment that you receive from helping people rivals that of solving a puzzle, winning a battle, or achieving a hard objective in a game.

Heavily social intensive games tend to be what you enjoy the most although you can probably find something to take pleasure in with most games. For instance, if you happen to find yourself in a competitive first person shooter, you'd probably take the support class. We recommend you stick to games (and crowds!) where people will appreciate you more; these include more casual gamers seeking fun and excitement from games rather than the serious competitive ones.

I think the test lacked several options. I actually dont like heavily social games. I want to play a damn game, not socialize. And the only reason I help people is because it is just easier to DM your way through the area, rather than going for the heavily defended objective:P

I agree but quality is subjective too. A 12 year old simply does expect different things than a 40 year old, and I am not talking about the difficulty level, but about core features they expect or value more. We game developpers will look at a level differently than an average gamer. And so on.

Finding the balance between what everyone demands, and trying to find a quality standard to work to, even while there is no very strict and obvious standard really, is the hardest thing to do imo.

But what is a player?

If some dude who plays games once a year plays your level and gets stuck, how do you go about that? A 12 year old may have more trouble finding the solution than a 20 year old, does that mean you should make it easier? Etc.

Of course if half of them can't figure it out, there is something wrong, but imo a player is not correct per se. I only consider changing things if it is really well argumentated, or if it really is a large group of people complaining about it.

Learning to accept critism is the easy part, learning when to say no, and be confident enough to just refuse to do something because you know it is right, is far harder.

Knowing when you truly are right, and when you are not, that is step 2.

Thanks

Also see the Oztoc thread for the second part

ModDb did a special and an interview about us:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-ball/feat ... is-rolling

I had a more or less related question, would anyone advice against buying second hand PS ? Saves quite a bit of money, but there is a catch perhaps? How does that work with the license.

You need UT3

Awesome logo

http://darkzero.co.uk/game-news/blizzar ... available/

No modding tools, but they will offer new content themselves, for an extra price....

I completely agree with Furyo. I liked the voices actually, they did talk a bit much sometimes, but I liked the idea of these people doing stuff in the background, fits well.

I got until room 15 or so, but I noclipped through half of them... It is too hardcore, and too plain frustrating at times. There are also several moments when you die from something you had no clue was there (turret behind a door in a dark corner?...).

Nonetheless it is still a big achievement and it looks quite ok. I can imagine that many people do overreact, and a lot of normal players are just plain stupid... Its a shame that it is received like this.

Same, grats!

We have released The Ball Part 2: Oztoc!

The Ball is the winner of the MakeSomethingUnreal contest Phase 1, having won both Best Gametype and Best Use of Physics.

The Ball is a first person singleplayer puzzle mod with an Aztec theme to it. The mod takes place in a mysterious Aztec temple, at the top of a volcano. The player has to use the Impact Gun to move a large steel ball around and utilize that ball to solve puzzles and get around obstacles. Impact Gun aside, the mod uses all new custom art to establish a unique, stylish, and atmospheric experience.

Oztoc is many times larger than Pehua, the first release, and features many improvements and additions:

# Meet the ruler and guardian of the temple. This king will observe the player as he progresses through the level.

# Enjoy a brand new ball with improved behavior and a simple but efficient hud.

# Puzzle your way through two new levels, together about four to five times the size of the Pehua level.

# Experience a whole number of new gameplay mechanics such as water, arrows, exploding balls, movable walls, and so on.

# An improved Pehua level, including one new puzzle and a little intro scene that introduces the simple background story.

# Dozens of bug fixes and small improvements.

Video

Screenshots

[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/Hourences/theballoztoc5.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/Hourences/theballoztoc4.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/Hourences/theballoztoc3.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/Hourences/theballoztoc2.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/Hourences/theballoztoc1.jpg]

Download - (102 MB)

http://rapidshare.com/files/153061528/T ... c.zip.html

http://files.filefront.com/TheBall+Ozto ... einfo.html

PS3 Build coming later, hopefully within a week.

Our Core Development Team:

Hourences - Environment Art, Game and Level Design, Art Direction

Rendermonkey - Level scripting

MrE - Character modeling (the king)

Tores - Character modeling (the ball and monkey)

SolidSnake - Programming

Setheran - Level design, Environment Art, Level Scripting

Additional Help by:

David Green - programming

Utz - Animation

Zynthetic - Voice Acting

Manti - King skin touch up

Visit us at our forum : http://forums.beyondunreal.com/forumdisplay.php?f=588

Video of the first few minutes of part 2 Oztoc.

(Doesnt seem to start - direct link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znMp74YUCOM )

The puzzles shown are simple. I didn't want to show the complex ones as that would spoil the challenge of solving those. We now have between an hour and a half and two hour of singleplay gameplay dependent on your playstyle.

Couple of small issues left, and also the monkeys are missing. Working on those. Release is planned for this weekend.

Our Core Team:

Hourences - Environment Art, Game and Level Design, Art Direction

Rendermonkey - Level scripting

MrE - Character modeling (the king)

Tores - Character modeling (the ball and monkey)

SolidSnake - Programming

Setheran - Level design, Environment Art, Level Scripting

Additional Help:

David Green - programming

Utz - Animation

Zynthetic - Voice Acting

Manti - King skin touch up

Irfanview forever

http://www.irfanview.com/

Also allows you to edit things, loads insanely fast, displays txt and videos as well, can perform a wide range of batch operations etc.

A number of inside people commented on it on gamasutra, as to why this failed : http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=20462

Lot of frustrations vented.

[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/Hourences/newball.jpg]

Brand new ball by Tores - will replace the old ball.

We just went beta. We will release within two weeks.

Video later this week.

Oztoc ended up being four times larger than Pehua - we expect there to be around 2 hours of singleplay gameplay right now, at a medium pace.

I havent read it all, but I seem to largely agree. Surely there will always be some who download things anyhow, but there is also a group who download because they believe the price is too high (those many crappy games that sell for 50 euro - I want to pay 50 euro for Bioshock [oh wait I dont cause I spend 8 hours just to get it to boot and yes I bought it], but not for all those mid range games), or that the product tries to screw you (hi DRM and Spore, bad console ports, etc.).

Piracy is not just caused by selfish bastards, it is usually an indicator of a bigger problem, a flow, a shortcoming, something. It is up to the publishers and developers to try and tackle these problems. Fix the cause, not the result...

Anyone got a list of what games they offer? I cant find it on their site. Only those pictured on the opening page?

Congrats! Good start for your career.