Posts by FMPONE

  • Anthem and the peculiarities of modern monetization.

    Quote from Radu

    On 3/1/2019 at 12:39 PM, Radu said:

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    Yeah, at this point this thread has been hijacked as an opportunity to talk about the sheer number of open world games, bad design practices and monetization.

    I think there is a connection there. You still see some interesting single player games and legacy multiplayer games coming out, but the battle royale trend of racing to the bottom of pricing making everything free, and all going for the same BR audience, everyone chasing that same fad... there is definitely an air of unsustainability IMO.

    Seems harder than ever to successfully attract an audience to a lower or mid-size game, and even huge studios are doing the same thing and immediately undercutting each other. I guess that was always the case but it’s really obvious now how the evolution played out in BR and how short each games window of access to the shifting attention span of the community really was. You better hope you can monetize them while they’re around, because otherwise I don’t see how the effort is worth it for these big studios let alone the smaller ones trying to create content outside of the big trend-seeking games.

    Seems like a weird time for the market from a pure developer standpoint.

  • Site Changes and Feedback

    Quote from blackdog

    19 hours ago, blackdog said: Sorry the gravedig, not sure what's going on behind the scenes but wanted to report that recently I have been experiencing problems in logging in. Basically it seems that when I try to log in on a machine from where I'm not already logged, I get an error. This happened for example when attempting to log in from work, I got locked out because of "wrong pwd". I was pretty sure I must have got the one at least once but ok… I just came on my own PC and found it not logged in (???!) and despite the user/pwd being saved and auto-filled by the browser… login failed! Had to reset and put my good old password, and it worked.

    It happened several times I must say.

    Also another weird bug with the post editor textbox: it seems I can't paste-in text/urls on Mapcore if I close the source tab (or navigate to another address). Not sure if is just MS Edge (I'm using this recently), but I thought was the browser's problem, but after trying to reproduce for MS (I tweeted to them) it turns out is a problem I experience only trying to paste in the post textbox (subject of a new topic is fine for example).

    Is anyone else experiencing these bugs?

  • Black Mesa Source

    Quote from JeanPaul

    10 hours ago, JeanPaul said: Im pretty sure this is a thing you can do with any source engine game so I am sure we will have the support for it as well. (on both points you brought up)

    Our workshop might be a bit in shambles (last I checked) atm but it takes a load of programming power to get working properly so its on our immediately to do list once we release xen.

    We want to support mods and mod makers as much as possible so any additional input people have in this realm will definitely be listened to.

    Sounds great, it might be really fun to make a mod for Black Mesa then hook it up to Steam like that.

  • Black Mesa Source

    Quote from JeanPaul

    1 hour ago, JeanPaul said: Obviously everyone on the team is in support for making the game as moddable and open as possible with sdk tools and documentation on all the new stuff. Youll be able to make anything you normally can on valve source engine games. I would love to do map pack related things (like csgo updates you mean right?) but stuff like that is still up in the air. We'll have to gauge the community interest somehow first.

    I personally want to continue to produce more SP content for the game post xen release so I am in support of any community that aims to do the same.

    Yo!

    More of a technical question, I suppose. If the BMS team would be supportive of Total Conversion type mods that use the Black Mesa tech to package a new experience, that would be ideal IMO.

    I guess my question was more geared to how you can release a mod of Black Mesa (as long as you have purchased the game and have it installed on Steam). Would be nice if there was a way to create a Steam page for the mod, I've seen a bunch of HL1 and 2 mods doing that.

    Like this: https://store.steampowered.com/about/communitymods/

    https://store.steampowered.com/app/587650/HalfLife_2_DownFall/

  • Us (Jordan Peele)

    That was definitely not the best trailer I’ve ever seen. I’ve always felt that it would be very difficult to follow up a directorial debut as good as Get Out. There was a lot of pressure on Jordan Peele to follow the movie up immediately, right away, perhaps before he even had a good idea ready to go... Thankfully Jordan Peele seems like a student of film so I’m sure he’s approaching this in a smart way. The plot just seems a bit stupid.

    Hoping for the best here!!

  • Black Mesa Source

    Looks awesome!

    I asked on Twitter and didn’t get a response, but what about mods for Black Mesa? Your tech is really exciting, it would be fun to do a map pack. What do you think?

  • [Wingman] Turnpike

    I'm a really big fan of your work. What I like is your consistency and the way you wrap a theme together in a nice bow for people. Can't wait to run around this one in-game.

    It would be nice if Valve packaged this and some of the other cool Wingman maps we've seen lately.

  • Shadow of props propper is bad

    If you want more precise lighting on models you need to cut the long cylinders along their length with multiple edge loops. This is why it’s a better idea to use a 3D editor than propper.

    If you really want to use propper, trying to do stacks of cylinders instead of one long tall cylinder, and separate modes instead of one big model. It might not work well, I dunno. Worth a try.

  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

    Quote from blackdog

    18 hours ago, blackdog said: I’m imagining something a-la Spec-Ops The Line, and desert around just to justify not being able to go there, but guess anything can work.

    ~

    @FMPONE had an after thought regarding the potential competitive mode with resources… instead of having it fixed according to the mapper’s design, an in-between solution could be showing on the map at load time where stuff is gonna spawn, so you keep the dynamic aspect of randomisation, but teams can decide what to do from the start.

    I feel in such a bigger environment there should be some sort of randomisation, so another solution could be allowing the mapper to set where resources are, but must design it in several configurations that get randomised at the beginning of the round. Think of the classic de_havana where certain paths would be open or closed, just resource spawns would change (and again, indicated on the map at load).

    Now use your Valve connections to give us exclusive access to the SDK so we can spin a studio off Mapcore just like early Gearbox did ?

    It took me a minute to figure out what you’re saying but I actually really like this idea in theory. You get a minute to plan your tactics but the negative aspects of RNG that I find really tedious are dealt with (not being able to plan anything). Even if you only get one minute to plan your attack, that’s at least skill based compared to being dropped totally blind.

    I also really like that the map would still have a ton of variety like it does now, if everything was static you would lose that variety over time. Your idea is far superior to mine in that respect.

    Currently, everything is totally random, which means you get a nice sense of looting/discovery from time to time, so maybe not everything needs to be shown before you spawn.

    So, a really good suggestion IMO.

    HOWEVER... there is a reason we have the version we have now. I’m guessing that if they ever showed players any kind of weaponry on the map, all the players would drop there, creating a really bad approximation of competitive CS.

    So, probably after testing they realized it had to be fully RNG in order to be fair, and fun.

    But if we know anything about fully RNG, it’s that this is the opposite of competitive. So even though I had a lot of fun brainstorming competitive Danger Zone on Twitter, I actually think this will remain a casual game mode into the future. My guess is that the devs are fine with that, because classic CS is competitive enough, and it doesn’t need a rival mode, and a good casual mode is something CS has needed for a long time.

    Part of me still wants to see it played competitively though...

    As for mapping for the game mode, don’t currently know if it’s possible. It would be cool though

  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

    Quote from blackdog

    3 hours ago, blackdog said: Oh Valve

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    Finally, hype!

    Rip

  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

    Even if numbers dwindled quickly they have a bunch of content ready to go, we’ve already heard of a map enclave and I think survival island. They’ll be good for 2019 I’m sure

    I agree the mode needs some tweaks and suggested on twitter making a non-random loot map for a try at a competitive version. But tbh the fact that they’ve been developing all of this content (a ton of work) and the fact that it resulted in a nice player gain, you can rest assured they’ll keep improving it.

  • The Half-Life 3 thread of closure and memorium AKA what Tyler McVicker just said on YouTube

    Not sure some of those Valve releases really count as notable first party releases (Alien Swarm [im a big valve fan and I never heard of it until years after the fact]/The Lab [15 minute game]).

    But anyway my point is Nintendo’s commitment to first-party stuff has actually earned them a lot of criticism from the games press over the years. People felt like they weren’t being open enough to more mature releases, or just non-first party exclusives such as what Sony or Microsoft do by pursuing big partnerships with someone like Hideo Kojima or Bungie, etc. Despite the criticism it seems to have served them very well however, through the good times and the bad, they’ve weathered every storm (GameCube, Wii U), only to bounce back stronger. I think it’s because people know their next console will feature a blockbuster set of Mario/Zelda/Pokémon games and that ultimately it will be worth the purchase. Even Sony or Microsoft has struggled to create stuff people care about so reliably and dependably. Steam has Dota 2/CS/TF2, but it’s a very thin first party list compared to the console scene and especially compared to Nintendo’s first party offerings, which are always timely and almost always critically acclaimed.

    So yes, I love Valve games, they have the quality IP, but the lessons from Nintendo should extend beyond just hardware innovation. It’s also about how Nintendo makes the most of their IP by thrilling their player base and fans combining innovative hardware with new installments of their biggest franchises every time. You just don’t see Nintendo letting their biggest franchises sleep for 10 years at a time.

  • Half-Life 2: Year Long Alarm

    A cool map/mod!

    I enjoyed this from a pure Half-Life fan perspective, the goal of Half-Life stuff always being to drive you along a linear path. But that's also where I'd say my biggest critique lies from a gameplay standpoint. The one big thing this map could use more of is narrative beats. When it gives you even a smidge (like the radio call from a friendly NPC) I was definitely hoping to get some juicy narrative moments. The lack of friendly NPCs, an overall "narrative" (what does the title mean? what is the protagonist actually trying to achieve?), and a pretty thin puzzle layer took it down a notch IMO. I felt it got a little repetitive with how you were gating players (using grenades to blow stuff up, taking elevators) and that wasn't a particularly satisfying gameplay beat for me. I would also say the ending is a bit of an anticlimax.

    Don't want to sound harsh, clearly a lot of work went into this one, and it does what it tries to do fairly well in terms of encouraging players on a linear path using different combat beats and setpieces. But I would say that it didn't dial back the years for Half-Life 2, it felt a bit limited from a big picture perspective with its pure focus on combat and forward momentum. I liked the wood falling onto enemies, the flaming barrels rolling down the sewer, there were some cool moments for sure, but it was hard to care about the journey despite these interesting bumps in the road.

    There were areas where you tried to do some cool classic Half-Life stuff (showing the G-Man through a window) but it falls a bit flat because the surroundings and build up and mood don't really combine to provide much of a thrill when you get that good moment. There was also a lack of enemy diversity I would say for such a short map, it focuses a lot on killing the same types of enemies over and over. On the plus side, everything that it sets out to do it does pretty well in terms of sound design, visuals, diversity of locales. It's just that there isn't much to hang your hat on in terms of "new" features, story, or stuff that would appeal to someone who isn't already a fan of Half-Life.

    I know you said this is an older project, but a good hypothetical project might be to design a mod without any combat at all, and then compare that to what you've got here. There would be a lot of room for improvement working more of that style of gameplay into this style of gameplay, because I really feel like you need both (puzzles/combat) and then a nice human layer on top of that with a story and interesting goals for players.

    Hope this helps!