Posts by R_Yell

There are multiple opinions, here's one from Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock. This guy seems to think the PC gaming industry is losing sales not due piracy exclusively, but its own wrong decisions. The hardware requirements is one of them, and I agree with him, this is not the death of PC gaming, but PC hardcore gamers.

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So why aren't these games (Galactic Civilizations II and Sins of a Solar Empire), which, combined, have sold half a million units on a small budget, getting more attention? Because they're not aimed at some nebulous idea of the "hardcore gamer." This is a market that may exist in the minds of people writing about games, and it may describe those who buy gaming magazines, but such gamers are certainly not a force at retail.

And something about copy protection:

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"The reason why we don't put copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count," Wardell argues. "When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... rates.html

blog: http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303 ... _PC_Gaming

This mod will be made public tomorrow, here's a preview

http://www.moddb.com/mods/6106/diprip/f ... ip-preview

And BTW, this is odd, but I was making a map for another car combat based mod 2 and half years ago, which died. Then DIPRIP started and I offered it to them, however the time passed away and this mod seemed like dead too. That's not the case, fortunately, and seems my map will see the light of day finally. I worked a bit on it recently, and well, isn't great but I hope it helps this mod to grow as is quite fun and only needs more maps to take advantage of it. It's not part of initial release, and I'll let the DIPRIP team to work on it if they consider it necessary, could be taken much further.

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Hmm, did you checked this?

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki ... n_Overview

There was another pretty straight one which was meant to reuse the SDK rig into new characters, but can't find it now.

Here are some video tutorials for XSI&HL2, no character but there is one for weapon rigging:

http://iwannamap.enterprise-tcw.com/

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Maybe the vehicles are in fact the player models? Just a thought, I don't know :X

Obviously not, the vehicles have the same physics features than the HL2 jeep, for example. I played today online and it responded quite well (and I had no a great ping).

The only problem is most coders cannot figure the way to predict vehicle movement, but Empires did long ago. And there is a simple work around to make it work decent at least, fixing the camera jittering. This mod, whatever it does, does well.

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Shame the weapons dont seem to move around on the vehicles in the direction they are firing.

There is a turret and moves around (machine gun and grenade launcher, very cool btw), rest weapons are static. But it makes sense because you have to face other vehicles.

As I said, the technical stuff is very well solved. Gameplay needs more depth, but is worth as is now as well.

The mod is really better than the screens/videos can tell. It plays nice online which was my fear due to issues with Source engine and vehicles. It could be a blast with more weapons and game modes.

I downloaded it just to take a look (as I don't play DoD too much), the whole thing is amazing but I agree in the look of the textures doesn't reflect the situation. Most of them are clean, doesn't matter if a bomb exploded just there or not. However I'm not precisely someone who cares too much about that in its map, but the overall quality could be higher if texturing had other art direction (much more time consuming, on the other side).

Sorry for posting here before any other site...

I'm still uploading the client full version.

The game continues evolving at fast pace, I'm personally very proud of beta 1.3

http://www.fistful-of-frags.com/view.php?indn=13

I enjoyed the read a lot, thank you very much.

It'll be part of FoF beta 1.3, which comes out tomorrow, in case someone wants to play it. The final version has more light, these shots were too dark.

My last maps simply don't pursue any graphical refinement, or at least they aren't taken as further as I could because my experience and modeling/texturing/animation skills. However any constructive comment is welcomed, maybe not for this map, but who knows. Also couldn't say this map is finished at all, I'm more interested in how it plays than any other thing, if it does well it could receive upgrades. I'm also in need of new levels, and due to general disinterest of other level designers in Source community, I have to rush a bit things due my other duties in FoF. On the other side, is great to design a game mode from zero, code it, and create a map to complete your vision.

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I agree, the excitement and number of mod releases has not seemed able to keep pace with the growing complexity of the average game. It used to be that people were just happy to slap some things together and put it out for the community to play with (remember playing the early CS betas? ). Now it seems like people give all the attention ( and maybe this is the norm now ) to mod teams that put together 20 man, professionally recruited dream teams that won't release anything for 2 years because it's not as pretty as a AAA title yet.

I'm not sure what the answer is, maybe scaling back the size and visions of mod teams? Is the FPS genre even still valid for modders looking to create something efficiently that people will want to play? Maybe all the FPS modders should just give it up and start making indie games! just kidding!

That still works, is just what Garry did, or what I'm doing these days. I've been testing a new game mode (and a new map) for my mod which only required a server update, so anyone could join the server and play, make suggestions, etc. Mod development is getting ridiculously complex because you cannot ensemble competent teams without promising them the mod will be developed as a professional game. Then they start to lose contact with reality, therefore they want the same tools and attention that pro devs, same distribution channels, etc etc.

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I first thought you wanted to make some underground parts for tramonto-lite but making a new map of it is great.

Yeah, I had a tunnel section for original Tramonto map which wasn't used, so I made a map from it.

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Looks sweet indeed, but whats FoF?

Fistful of Frags I thought we were more popular heh.

This is my next map for FoF. I took some references from XVIII century undergrounds, and added a desert on top with several atmospheric effects. I thought it would be cool to spawn into a dust storm with lightning strikes, and I'm really happy with the overall effect. However that's just the spawn area, most of the action takes place below. There are 3 entrances, each one with a distinctive style, well, the whole level was build thinking in player orientation.

It took 2 weeks approximately, some brushwork existed before. There aren't many fancy models or textures, but I always had a desire to make a tomb rider-like level, this one has a bit of it

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Great games there, the original SW: Jedi Knight I think was worth too, it had many original elements. I enjoyed it a lot, even without being a SW fan.

I lost some of my respect for Sid Meier after watching his desk, but still think he's the greatest.

I liked the style immediately. Looks like immense urban environments with a good amount of detail.

Real time radiosity could be ready relatively soon AFAIK, at least seems to be one of the upcoming effects in development if you take a look at some DX10 demos. However that scale of scenery seems too large to implement it, even when there is hardware powerful enough.

Well, I wish all we took this discussion in a more mature attitude. Probably I wasn't very receptive to Sentura's suggestions (or simply didn' took the time to explain him why I was doing that) and that made him more critical over me, I'm sorry for that. I enjoy talking here about gameplay because everybody has a designer perspective, and I appreciate that. I also don't feel my opinion is better than the rest, but I know this game better than anybody and if I'm able to explain myself probably all would be more clearer.

FoF was designed with some RPG ideas in mind, that why exists notoriety and equipment selection. Player has limitations to overcome. Jump was supposed to be one, because there exist a stamina upgrade which let you increase that "ability". However the initial beta was very permissive in that aspect. Jump takes much more stamina after beta 1.1, so there are a lot of chances of having not enough stamina to jump depending how do you use it. That's another part of the game, as having no ammo or having to reload a weapon. Well, that's the general idea, but there exist certain issues with spawn areas, such limitations never should exist in spawn areas because that's annoying in a game where you respawn a lot of times, and it will be fixed of course.

I also think my idea about the jump could work without taking so much stamina, however the initial value was clearly insufficient for my purposes. It could be revised.

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if you're not gonna bother about players or gameplay

It's interesting how do you jump to such conclusions... The fact is your logic abandoned this thread a few messages ago. If you stopped playing because there was a minor issue in a spawn... it was all said.

I find really odd that some players seem to think their word is pretty much pure wisdom that devs have to use if they want to improve the game, like there wasn't just other options. I'm sure that people asked Insurgency devs to add crosshairs like a million times (this is just an example). And I'm sure those persons had their reasons to ask, but Insurgency is was designed for other purposes.

Well, the fact I'm discussing with you those issues should be an indicative I'm not that arrogant, because if I was probably I wouldn't be here (as many other devs do, btw). However that doesn't mean I'm going to do what other people want every time. Many players asked for a deathmatch mode and I won't offer one even if the game dies quickly because lack of players. The idea behind FoF simply has nothing to with DM, my interest is in that idea and the fact people plays the game isn't the main thing in this project. I mean this isn't a commercial game, I don't have to worry about having players as if my life depended on it.

Regarding the jump, if there are map issues with the actual system they will be fixed. However there will be serious restrictions and that won't change. There are games where you can't even jump, the fact is games have restrictions that you must overcome, if not they wouldn't be games.

Well, it's clear you never has been in my position. Every player has suggestions and its own view of how should be played the game. Sometimes you have to isolate from those opinions and do what you think is right according with the gameplay idea you have.

The example you cite is actually a level design issue, nothing to do with the jump. It'll be fixed as soon as possible. That spawn was made with the old "super-jump" in mind, clearly an error. However it's still passable if you crouch and jump, not so complicated. And are there "many more" issues like that? I only know that one.