Quote from RaVaGe16 minutes ago, RaVaGe said: But anyway, if some of you have concerns about my project, it's the right moment
I have concerns that you're going to be super busy then super rich and that you'll vanish from mapcore. I hope it works out dude, good luck!
I realize I haven't really answered your questions and it's frustrating when people do that so here it goes:
Quote 1) I have Unreal Tournament installed, and I have tried creating levels for it, but part of the issue that I have is that I keep drawing a blank when trying to come up with a layout, and I keep fighting myself to commit to a layout. (I find myself reworking it and making no progress)
See my previous post and suggestions from others: find something exciting, form a vision from another medium (books, movies, other games...) or from real-life (e.g. go visit an abandoned place, an architectural masterpiece, etc.) etc.
Quote 2) How would you go about creating different types of singleplayer levels for a portfolio? (Ie. would you create a level for different genres?: A FPS, a co-op level, open world, a puzzle game, survival horror, etc)
I would worry about a portfolio when I've built a few levels I'm happy with. It's nice to vary your experience of course, so feel free to do just what you mentioned. Consider your strengths, weaknesses, limitations (time, engines...), passions etc. and that should help narrow down WHAT to work on.
Quote 3a) I really want to learn more with Unreal Engine 4 and get really good with it. But for showcasing singleplayer levels, should I essentially create a small game? (game/level document, mechanics, scripting, art assets) to show that I understand how it all works together? Would it be in my best interest to do this for each level? (for a portfolio)
That's one approach, and it's a valid one, although it suits better the profile of the usual indie game developer than that of the AAA industry level designer. Extra experience and skills are never a bad thing, but by trying to tackle too many things at once you run the risk of not managing to sell your core level design skills. For instance, creating final art assets is something you'd pretty much never do as a level designer in many companies, BUT using a 3D package like 3dsmax or Maya can be very important depending on the company (some companies create levels directly in Max / Maya). So it's not necessarily about showing you can build a game by yourself, no-one is going to ask that of you if you apply as a LD. But game and level design are tied so it never hurts to have experience there, scripting too (visual scripting mostly these days).
I don't know how much of a newbie you are to level design so it's hard to say. If the goal is to learn level design itself, I would tend to think worrying about the other stuff too early could be detrimental, but I can't know for sure. My suggestion would be to focus first on levels until you feel confident using the editor of your choice and maps for the style of games of your choice, and then (if you so desire, because it seems you are concerned about just building levels being not enough for a LD position, which can be true in some cases) expend on that with extra activities like creating a small non-artistic game where level design is important and mechanics are simple/overdone but that challenges you to not match the level design of an existing game but to come up with your own rules and such fitting those mechanics you decide upon.
Quote I would like to focus less on multiplayer levels (CTF, TDM, etc) and more on singleplayer levels, at least to start with, but is that a bad thing? Is it bad to want to focus on a certain aspect? (singleplayer vs multiplayer) Do you have any choice (of what types of levels to work on) in the industry? Is it essential as a level designer to showcase (and learn) both? Thank you.
Nope, it's not a bad thing at all. I don't think there's a particular imbalance between the amount of jobs for MP levels vs SP levels, and the games industry keeps on evolving so it's more important that you learn the skills that are shared by both MP and SP design, which are the more abstract, more experience-based ones that would be hard to tutor. Just build levels you want to build and don't make the mistake of tackling too big of a challenge (it's especially hard in SP design where you tend to want to do a full campaign for instance), and you will learn skills applicable to all types of level design. For instance, there are plenty of level designers that start their career designing race tracks for racing games, that doesn't prevent them from being good at designing SP/MP levels (although they may be a bit rusty on certain skills/concepts specific to a game genre). Don't niche yourself too much.
10 hours ago, Greg D'Alessandro said: 1) I have Unreal Tournament installed, and I have tried creating levels for it, but part of the issue that I have is that I keep drawing a blank when trying to come up with a layout, and I keep fighting myself to commit to a layout. (I find myself reworking it and making no progress) 2) How would you go about creating different types of singleplayer levels for a portfolio? (Ie. would you create a level for different genres?: A FPS, a co-op level, open world, a puzzle game, survival horror, etc) 3a) I really want to learn more with Unreal Engine 4 and get really good with it. But for showcasing singleplayer levels, should I essentially create a small game? (game/level document, mechanics, scripting, art assets) to show that I understand how it all works together? Would it be in my best interest to do this for each level? (for a portfolio) I would like to focus less on multiplayer levels (CTF, TDM, etc) and more on singleplayer levels, at least to start with, but is that a bad thing? Is it bad to want to focus on a certain aspect? (singleplayer vs multiplayer) Do you have any choice (of what types of levels to work on) in the industry? Is it essential as a level designer to showcase (and learn) both? Thank you.
From reading this it sounds to me like you're approaching the challenge the wrong way. You want to focus on stuff that could get you hired but that doesn't click for you. Maybe you should try starting with things that really excite you? Like what is the last game you played that you felt you really wanted to build a custom level for? Sure you can't always mod your favorite games, but there's a decent panel of customizable games out there that you should be able to find something that motivates you. Cut the 'hmm, I want to focus less on MP', just select what you ACTUALLY wanna do, even if you don't think it's necessarily great portfolio material. Learn the basics by doing that, by fueling it with your enthusiasm for the particular game/genre, then when you have more experience (could be just a few months down the line), you'll be able to approach the tougher challenges of designing levels for games that you're not necessarily crazy about but that you feel would get you a job. Also remember that doing MP levels to get hired but not really enjoying it may very well mean you end up being hired to design more MP levels, so picking what you like can also help orienting your career down paths that you'll also enjoy. Don't design a competitive shooter level because you feel that's where the money's at right now if all you really care about is creating well-crafted SP experiences. At least not as your first few learning experiences.
I bought it before but was just sitting on it to be done because I don't like going through early stuff, cause I know I won't play it again when it's done. Glad to see it completed, will check it out soon 
Quote from Taylor13 hours ago, Taylor said: God, I love Roadhog.
That's some pretty badass hooking action, I always miss those and fail to chain them with a kill when I do catch someone.
Quote from Jetsetlemming16 minutes ago, Jetsetlemming said: Yeah, but Pharah and McCree's ults can do something, just not the full effect, if they get shot in the middle of it, it isn't an all-or-nothing, that's what I mean. There's no partial effect for Junkrat, like there might be if the tire exploded when shot.
Fair point, but I think that's balanced by the fact that if he fails he doesn't necessarily dies, so can keep playing without respawning at the other side of the map like those other heroes. Anyway, I guess I'm not particularly concerned about his ult, I do fail them from time to time but I manage to get kills with most. I think allowing it to explode on getting shot would break the risk/reward system in place here, where you've sometimes got 1 or 2 characters in range but they're shooting at the tire and you have to decide whether to push forward and potentially blow up more of them, at the risk of getting shot and doing nothing, vs. blowing it up now and having those kills for sure. That sort of quick decision making is important for the game to stay interesting me thinks
Quote from Jetsetlemming45 minutes ago, Jetsetlemming said: Like I said, when Junkrat's ult works it works really well, but its incredibly fragility puts it in a skill level that seems pretty out of place with the rest of the game. Nobody else has to work quite that hard, not for an ultimate.
Not sure that's true, many ultimates rely on precise timing to work (Phara needs to wait for people to be busy or she gets shot down, McCree fails a lot of times because enemies get a chance to move out of view, etc.) and Junkrat's falls into that same category. Trigger it while your team does a push, and not too far from the enemy team so they don't have time to fall back or disperse, and you have as much chance than those other heroes with timing-based ultimates I think. Also the fact that you can keep operating it even after having died means you can do like the other heroes and trigger it in the urgency of an intense battle by sacrificing yourself for the big payoff.
I'm more annoyed by Reinhart's ultimate that has the nasty habit of not hitting enemies clearly in its range, because the ground effect does not match 1 to 1 the actual people that are going to be affected (especially on stuff like stairs and slopes) so it's quite annoying to trigger it with 3 people in view to try and save the day and only hit the first one because he's on the exact same plane as yourself.
Quote from Jetsetlemming22 minutes ago, Jetsetlemming said: Started playing this last night, and really enjoying it. One thing that I really appreciate that I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about is that you don't need a console command or anything to show fps, just a menu check under graphics, and that option also shows your computer temp, ping, and a couple other statistics I couldn't decipher but whatever, fps ping and temps all from an option checkbox! That's pretty damn good for a checkbox, imo.
I think there's a keyboard shortcut too like Ctrl+Shift+R or something to toggle that stuff in-game, like if you wanna record without it or such.
If CIG organizes a trip there I might go just to meet people, but I've little interest in standing in line for hours to play overrated games I could just wait for. Also the loud music and bikini babes gets old fast.
Screw that, Gamescom sucks
Corwin#21782
Yeah, she's annoying, and I keep getting the impression that when I play her I can't slow people down for shit, but when she's played against me, I freeze in like 2 seconds. It's a conspiracy!
I think the annoying part really comes from the freeze effect being a bit fuzzy in terms of feedback and progress etc. and the fact that once you're frozen either by her or her ultimate, oftentimes you're basically already dead but waiting for it to happen, and that's not a very enjoyable situation. At least McCree's stun is shorter and you don't get this 'oh crap, here it goes again, now she's going to get close and aim at my head dead on and I'm going to die' stretch of a few seconds
I am actually a tad disappointed, since there is luggage in Numbani with stickers from most of the locations of the game on it + one of 'The Nile' I thought there would be an extra level before the end of the beta 
12 I think from the description on the bnet store (bought my game today, first time in years I believe that I buy a game early, let alone day one)
truer words were never spoken, praise the internet messiah!
Quote from FMPONE2 hours ago, FMPONE said: This is a fun fuckin game! I really enjoy even the heroes I hate (BASTIONNN!!!)
At first I played Pharah a lot, then I tried out the other offensive classes, today I really enjoyed playing Mei, I got some Bastion in on King's Watch, played some Widowmaker too. I honestly like all of the classes in the game, and the levels play well... all this must have been a real pain to balance, but it's worked out beautifully. The only classes I've tried and really didn't connect with were Hanzo (really difficult to play seemingly) and Zarya (didn't see the point). I need to play some of the engineer class soon, and D.Va. There are just so many classes it seems like, definitely a lot of depth to be had even if the gameplay feels like a weird mix of competitive and casual right now. Ranked matches are going to be great whenever that gets released.
I still think 2 or 3 characters are a bit OP, at least in how versatile or frustrating they can be against most other classes, like McCree's stun and 6-shots-in-a-row combination (although I heard they nerfed that a bit, but I haven't played much since) and Hanzo's scatter arrows they he can just shoot at the feet of most non-tank enemies to one-shot them. But yeah, in general the fact that around 20 characters with totally different abilities combine so well outside of a MOBA is quite impressive.
I usually play Reinhart, Winston, Lucio when no-one takes a healer or to do those nice push kills in maps like Illios, and I'm starting to like Zarya and Junkrat too. Zarya is hard to play because you have to time very precisely the shields for max effect but she kicks ass once fully charged and her ultimate can really save the day (+ auto regen is nice when healers suck in your team)
Nice one man! I liked the presentation and diagrams too, very clear and clean. Good job!
Yeah first time I opened it it took 30minutes 
