Posts by SamCom

Lots of buzz this morning, even though all they have to go off of is a Game Informer cover and this blurb:

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Dishonored is the antithesis of a edge-of-your-seat roller-coaster ride. It's a game about assassination where you don't have to kill anyone. It's a game about infiltration where you can set up traps and slaughter the entire garrison of an aristocrat's mansion rather than sneak in. It's a game about brutal violence where you can slip in and out of a fortified barracks with nobody ever knowing you were there. It's a game about morality and player choice where the world you create is based on your actions, not navigating conversation trees.

Gamasutra summary here.

It's Arkane Studios here in Austin, with Harvey Smith, of Deus Ex fame, and Viktor Antonov, the concept artist for Half-Life 2.

Sounds very interesting, like the kind of game I'd love to work on! Guess I'll have to keep an eye out for job postings...

What would be awesome is if we could get a server up and running with all these maps sometime this week.

Sector 2 (nwdm_sector2.bsp)

DOWNLOAD

Description:

Mix of outdoor (crates!) and lab interiors. My first HLDM map, I'm actually a little proud of it. Even a (tiny) secret included!

I'm drawing blanks when it comes to detailing. I'm starting to see why crates are so popular in older engines first hand. So many empty halls.

CampaignJunkie - How are you changing the lightmap scale? Is these some compiler command?

Have everything sealed up and leak free, now to light it.

Something tells me I might have some scale (note the tiny scientist in the bottom right of the second shot) and scope issues. I might start again and aim smaller or just scrap half the map.

Just so I'm not making some terrible mistake, almost all of the 256x256 textures have to be scaled by one half to be the right scale, right?

That's the thing that gets me, brushwork in Unreal is a terrible pain in the ass compared to Hammer. Maybe I just don't know the shortcuts, but even resizing brushes seems to take so much longer. The center points of my brushes keep moving, they're harder to select, I just feel like I'm missing something. Is there a good way to prototype in Unreal?

I tried it out on a 3G Android phone, and everything looked alright. The main menu images took quite a while to load, but the formatting looked fine.

I wish Pandemic was still around, then they could just blend what worked from those three games and have something amazing.

Mercs 1:

Good - Airstrikes!!!! High value targets with a backstory, more than just generic dudes. Wide variety of terrains and climates, easily buying weapons on the go (don't have to drive halfway across the map to get the airstrikes you want), larger number of remote/GPS guided airstrikes, ammo restocking for vehicles (or just infinite vehicle ammo ala Just Cause 2) Story was a little more serious (personal preference there)

Bad - Way too easy to die kept me from trying crazy stuff, too few checkpoints for most missions, driving felt terrible.

Mercs 2:

Good - Grappling hook for helicopters, more factions, being able to collect airstrikes from the world (with a wider variety of collectible airstrikes)

Bad - Strikes were even more difficult to use than in Mercs 1, took more than eight clicks just to swap in another airstrike. Just a simple UI tweak here, just one button to bring up list of strikes, another click to choose, then use the strike. Custom vehicles were almost worthless since ammo was limited and couldn't be replenished. Buying strikes required driving all over the map, was a huge pain. Soldier chatter was terrible and repetitive.

Saboteur:

Good - Wall/building climbing, being able to call in troops to help you at any time, being able to take ridiculous amounts of damage, more dynamic events (battles you can stumble into, being able to save civilians from Nazi patrols), rewards for destroying structures. Hand to hand combat was greatly improved, stealth that worked.

Bad - Missions tended to be more drive person a to point b (with some notable exceptions, standouts including stealing a bottle of champagne and the blimp mission)

Other fixes: Better QA (Mercs 2 had some atrocious bugs), fix vehicle handling (felt like very heavy slot cars, slightly better in Saboteur)

Just Cause 2 hits some of those points, but I like the working with factions, airstrikes, and more military trapping of Mercs. Just felt like there was so much more that could be done with the hiring a mercenary crew in Mercs 2.

Quote from 3Dnj

Hammer don't work with my new ati.

Apparently copying just some dlls from older ATI drivers to your Hammer folder fixes that.

I can't see/haven't tried this download since I'm at work, but it's supposed to be a fix that does just that.

http://%7boption%7d

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An HTTP error occurred while getting:http://www.mycrysis.com/support/

Details: "connection failed".

Looks like the servers are getting pounded.

For the weekend challenge, I think I'll steal your idea for a Half-Life 1 deathmatch map using only the Nightwatch texture set? I downloaded it and set up Hammer 3.5 to try them out, and they look pretty sexy for Half-Life textures. I think there's enough there for some cool maps.

Would people be up for it this weekend or would the weekend after this coming one be better?

Or does someone have a better idea for something that would fit in a weekend?

Erratic, that makes me think of the Bioshock Arcadia demake, which is awesome: http://%7boption%7d

Maybe a fully playable remake of all/part of a level from a more recent game? Screenshots are cool, but I'd rather end up with something playable.

There was a really weird switch, especially

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having to escort the Little Sister through the training course near the end.

But I guess by that point you already knew you were

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brainwashed

, so I guess they have that going in their defense, even if that's pretty weak.

Despite that, the skyrails in the Infinite trailers make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Just something about flat out falling to the next rail, the sound of the wind, it's intense.

The old-school weekend challenge sounds interesting, is that still a possibility?

Besides that, the build a level with one texture set sounds alright, although I'd prefer something more design oriented as opposed to art as well.

I made it all the way to "Gordon's half-brother" before it hit me.

Quote from Rick_D

Do those sales figures include Steam or any other digital distribution service?

Because this (Destructoid) is the source of the quote, and they quote this (videogamer.com? Is that a well know site?) as their source, then they quote the "All Formats All Prices UK video game chart", which I think is this, but I don't see the platform number breakdown.

Quote from Redfigure

- The functionality for finding a server, actually connecting to it etc, is terrible

What specifically is terrible about the server browser? My experience is just in the demo, but I had few problems finding servers.

I did get the sense that headshots were almost required to drop someone, and resulted in me having the drop on someone, feeling like I'd emptied half a clip into them, then they turn around, seeming unscathed, and one shot me with a pistol in the head. I mean, maybe that's intended, maybe I'm misreading my experiences, but those are the kind of moments that seemed unfair and frustrating. Again, just from the demo, so I'm not sure how much weight that carries. One thing that might make it seem less unfair is giving the health of the enemy that killed you like in Bad Company 2, so I can at least see for sure if I landed some hits or not. Maybe I just think I'm hitting them.

Single player sounds like a good idea, since there's a better chance people will actually play the map, I would imagine.