Posts by GregBoffins

  • Resident Evil 6

    Hrm Resident Evil 6. Where do Capcom get their designers from?

    Initial impression: terrible controls, frantic random input sequences that make no sense. Very hard to see where you're going, even with my Toshiba TV which is 2 months old, fully calibrated I had to max out the brightness to see anything. And I still had trouble seeing anything, yet the game setup recommends I should've had it darker.

    I don't think a level designer actually made this because it's that bad. There is absolutely no player leading what so ever, you just kind of hold forward and hope for the best. The lighting doesn't really have any artistic flavour to it, its just pitch black with blobs of lighting.

    You have way points for every part of the game telling you where to go (although most games have that now, but still that sucks). If you don't know where to go there is also a button you can toggle that tells you which direction you should go. That tells me a lot about the creative direction of this game.

    In Coop you can't see your partner if they're in the darkness there is no illumination or marker to signal where they are so it's very hard to know where each of you are; basically ruining the coop experience.

    Visually the game looks nice, the art is good, but that's about it to be honest.

    Very disappointed in Capcom.

  • The random model thread!

    That's all well and good but I think you're reading your statistics incorrectly, or they're giving you the wrong numbers.

    To have 12,000 draws is amazing. I don't even think Crysis on maximum settings has that many draws, no matter how complex your shaders are.

    To have that on one weapon would make TF2 run at 20fps, it's insane

  • Diablo 3

    Quote from PogoP

    Just started a Wizard, having a blast! Me and my friend got past Belial on Act 2 Inferno last night, that was so much fun!

    Those fucking bees in act 2, omg they hurt a lot

  • Diablo 3

    Quote from Zyndrome

    Welcome to every official forum ever.

    That's usually why I never make a proper post because I know it'll just get lost amongst the "Blizzard failed and diablo 3is dead" posts.

  • Star Wars The Old Republic

    Quote from Dark

    I'm so glad I didn't sub but I am annoyed I paid 70 dollars for nothing :/

    yeah, that sux.

    Still, its the longest MMO I have ever played of day 1 purchase. I got around 600 something hours or out of it. I did enjoy my first 2 play throughs, but during the second one it became more obvious and apparent how flat the game really is :/ and in the end just bored by that point.

    I'll go back to it after a year or whenever the mood strikes.

    If you play any game constantly for 600 hrs you'll burn out

    You need to play it for a few nights solid, take a breather, and play again.

    How do you think I keep going back to wow, I take breaks in between excessive raiding/playing.

  • Joel Weech, Level Designer

    Interesting portfolio

    Although if you're aiming to be a professional level designer then I would focus on just the level design content in the portfolio and set aside any arty stuff and leave the level content as the main focus.

    I would also try and show more than one or two levels with detailed walk through on the game play and why you decided to go with that. As you will need to do that on the job it demonstrates that you can do this, no point in hiring someone who can sit there making buildings but has no idea why

    I'm not one to talk about layouts as mine is equally not good http://%7boption%7d

    Z

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    It's looking really good man.

    In regards to your question the other day, yes the fog density feels fine.

    I am wondering though (at the moment the lighting along the walls on the top and bottom floor feel even) if I may suggest the lower floor have a slightly darker light setting, something like 10%?

    Or be a bit more sunlight dominated? Let the sun hit the lower section diluting the yellowness of the lights down there? That is focused at the second screenshot more or less. The first one seems ok, probably just the angle?

    Is there any way to have very very subtle light shafts coming down in to he scene high lighting dust in the air?

    Nothing else to really say there, I like it a lot.

    PS Quake 3 supports widescreen, or you need to come in to the future and get a 16:9 monitor ;P

  • Level design/Game Flow Tip

    This is pretty bang on.

    Although I like to think about the setting first because then it gives me boundaries to think about my crazy ideas(I find it fun to come up with cool ideas within a given rule set, more of a challenge). For example you could have a great idea but it wont fit in to the setting or the setting that fits that idea you may not like.

    Although we are talking specifics here, but I thought I'd add that

  • Level design/Game Flow Tip

    Quote from seir

    Making straght corridors will force you to sell all the mood at one time. Add way more turns, make it more unique and explorable. Remember that you're making a game and you can't just copy/paste original floor plans form real buildings. Also it's very typical and a bit lame to start a player's exploration in toilet. Your plan should tell where and why he is, how he will move from one place to another, what he will find. Also don't count that player will visit all the rooms and look on stuf you did there. Most of the players will jus run through objectives so make a player's way filled with decoration and avoid dead ends.EDIT:

    Lunaran already covered some of that tips in his article:

    [Blocked Image: http://lunaran.com/images/dmenc/styl05.gif]

    That image doesn't work now 100% of the time.

    A lot of games are becoming "cinematic" so a straight corridor will server a purpose now for story telling reasons.

    For game play it's not good to leave it straight though, but since more and more AAA games are all about story and cover systems they are more or less straight corridors.