Quote from Dejavothe floor screws up the scale for me. A person sized to use the computers would get stuck with his feet in the floor.
Hard to rest ones eyes in the scene. It might be to full bright. Foreground, middle and background are fighting for attention with lightning and colors.
Agreed, particularly on the floor scale. I'd also mention that the vertical scaling of this scene seems way off. Everything looks squat and wide.
I really don't know about a movie like this. I'm totally expecting a movie that turns into sci-fi action cliches. Also, is Ben Kingsley playing Mazer Rackham? I don't recall him having total facial tattoos...
Throwing some ideas out there (I have no idea if any other maps use these names): de_inca, de_unearthed, de_excavation, de_ancient, de_amazon, de_couatl, de_predator, or any sort of South / Central American place name (Belize, Ecuador, etc.).
Almost as bad as the insults I get just for joining a Counterstrike match.
Super disappointed this apparently won't run on my system. Looks like I may need to get a new machine soon or maybe look into the console versions.
Like FMP I'd love to see the beautiful art on the cards here, but I have no interest in a virtual "collectible" card game. It is literally pay-to-win and has been since Magic days. Should've left that in the dustbin of history where it belongs (particularly since these aren't even actual physical cards anyway, so there is no rarity)
Honestly my number one piece of advice is to practice interviewing with someone face to face. Try finding a job-seeker's group and attending and finding someone who has worked as a hiring manager to interview with you. The harder a time they give you the better. This will give you a much better understanding of weak areas of your interview skills that you will need to work on.
For example, some of my previous employers have breached contracts that I have made with them. After giving the employers ample notice about my intention to leave unless they fulfilled their obligations to me, I eventually had to leave those positions. This has actually been a rocky point in my interviews because it can create a bad impression that I'm the sort of person that would just jump ship immediately if I'm a little unhappy, which is actually the complete opposite of the truth. I needed to develop a good response that clearly articulates the reasons why I left those positions without conveying hostility to those other employers or the impression that I will just leave a job at the drop of a hat.
I also am a weak improvisational speaker and so some of the personal anecdotes about challenges I faced or accomplishments that I had deserve some preparation. One time I was interviewing for a programming position and one of the areas that I spoke about as an accomplishment had to do with a particular idea for a game that I had, but was unable to implement until much later since I didn't understand the linear algebra / vector mathematics of how to implement it when I conceived the idea. My discussion on this topic was pretty poor because even though this is an accomplishment that I'm proud of, for a layman audience it's highly technical and my ability to relay those concepts to the interviewer was hindered by feeling I had to dumb-down my discussion on the fly. If I had prepared my discussion on that topic beforehand I would've handled it better.
Looking forward to this. Chronicles of Riddick was pretty enjoyable, reminded me a lot of the original Conan films, and seemed to beg for more development.
Quote from SteppenwolfFair enough. I guess the "Germans are always on time" positive stereotype also correlates with the "Germans don't have a sense of humor" negative stereotype. Just shows that nothing is clear cut and that it certainly doesn't hurt to discuss opinions from different view points.
Calling this "harmful" is a bit of semantic legerdemain. You can see exactly the bogus, non-scientific perspective this paper comes from just by looking at the Highlights listed on the page (sadly, I'm not willing to pay $30 to actually look at this)...
► Positive stereotypes are especially detrimental to egalitarian social perception.
Translation: When people acknowledge stereotypical traits they are less likely to believe the notion that human beings/groups are all equal in every way. (This is hardly harmful unless you think acknowledging the truth is harmful.)
► Exposure to a positive stereotype led to increased essentialism.
Translation: People who acknowledge a stereotype understand that many personal and behavioral traits that we as human animals are endowed with are a result of our genetic heritage. (This undermines the silly notion that human beings are blank slates to be shaped by culture.)
► Exposure to a positive stereotype led to increased application of prejudicial beliefs.
Translation: When you believe a thing to be true, you often act as if you believe that thing is true. (Duh. Tautological.)
Stephen Pinker's 2002 book The Blank Slate goes into great detail into debunking the blank slate, evolution-denying mentality we see here. Definitely worth a look if this topic is of interest.
Quote from Rick_DExternal Content www.youtube.comContent embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.
Love this lady. Pointing out that Peach is playable in 46 games is hellaciously damning figure, and goes to show that cherry-picking your examples (e.g. "core games") is a great way to lie by omission.
I also really like that she brings up the basic, obvious, and necessary discussion about how technology is a driving factor in the stories we can tell with games. The vast majority of games that are made deal primarily with physical conflict, whether that's fighting, shooting guns, driving a car, running an obstacle course, whatever. Games are very good at depicting physical conflict and not-so-good at narrative or emotional conflict. To be clear here, when I say they are not-so-good at narrative, I'm referring to the fact that the vast majority of virtually any game's content typically consists of "game mechanics" which are rules set down beforehand that can govern the nigh-infinite gameplay space, while story is typically non-interactive and generated directly and painstakingly by humans rather than execution of rules within the computer.
I am actually currently working on an indie RPG and our dialogue tree for the introductory area is almost 50 pages long -- That's just for the introduction. There is a real challenge narrative-driven games face as choice and non-linearity are givens in the interactive medium of games, but both of these are, to certain extent, at odds with the idea of a coherent narrative. The technology for games to adapt narrative on the fly to player choice is not there yet and won't be there until we get much more sophisticated procedural and AI-like tools.
Quote from JetsetlemmingI'm sorry you have this difficulty, but regardless of what you might thing about gender, it is a social construct. That aspect of gender is part of its very definition.
You’re right, I tripped over my words. I don’t agree that innate differences begin and end with the genitals, but certainly gender is socially and culturally generated. I’m going to steer clear of this semantics minefield because it’s not something I’m equipped to deal with, however I will try and expand this past the half a sentence you quoted. Do you agree with her point that because women are disinterested in science, computing, engineering and video games this implies in itself an active discrimination?
Yes. Girls are raised from birth to fulfill a feminine role, which is not one of computer science or engineering. Women are absolutely capable of programming and designing things, but are told their entire lives that they must be pretty and focus on aesthetics and other people and be nice and kind and polite and respectful and defer to others and be a wife and be a mom and be a caretaker. This is what those mean ole feminists are talking about when they talk about the Patriarchy. Do you think that most nurses are women and most doctors are men because of an innate biological difference? Do you attribute anything whatsoever except the differences in reproductive role to innate biological differences which are universal per-gender? If so, how do you square people who aren't "normal" male or female on the biological spectrum, such as those with XYY, Adrenal Insensitivity or Hyperactivity, Hermaphroditus, etc?
To Steppenwolf: Mainstream feminism doesn't want to take away your porn, your ridiculous fantasy wobbly women, or your damsels in distress. The problem is their over representation and domination of the depictions of women in general, not their very existence.
Of course some of this observed difference in interest may be due to sexism / gender roles -- But how much? Can we break it down more specifically? Is biology 50% of the difference, the other 50% being gender roles? 75/25? 99/1? Is it a good mindset to assume the answer, even part of the answer, before we can support it?
It is as if we have phenomena where, when an object is dropped from a height, it falls to the ground. The prevailing theory among one group is that the falling behavior is because of these evil spirits, "Thetans" that we can be free of if we atone and give them money, status, and power. Later scientific research reveals that the falling behavior is merely caused by a universal force we identify as gravity. The Thetan-group's argument backtracks then -- We know why things fall, it's gravity, but gravity doesn't explain why a feather falls differently than an apple, so that difference must be caused by "Thetans." Later scientific research reveals that drag causes these different behaviors in falling. Again, the Thetan-group posits that we know why things fall and how they fall, but that we can't explain why some objects seem heavier than others after they fall, so that must be caused by "Thetans." And once again, scientific research tells us about the concept of mass which explains the perception of weight.
Our scientific knowledge of biology is still vastly incomplete, but it's actually rather shocking to me how woefully uninformed or misinformed popular culture notions are on the subject ...
Quote from JetsetlemmingThere's a whole lot of talking in this thread, and I've yet to see a single real critique of the video. People saying "Oh it's boring, it's wrong, it's just opinion," but never actually citing anything directly, or arguing anything. You know, if you don't want to be interpreted as a misogynist you should probably pretend to respect women enough to actually argue with them instead of dismissing them out of hand.
Personally, I liked the video. It was well constructed and provided a lot of evidence for her points, and lots of examples of the trope being examined.
What I find interesting here is that you don't take this as a condemnation of the videos themselves. Anita doesn't offer any new ideas or insights, she is merely recounting ubiquitous feminist positions that one need not have even taken a course in feminism to be familiar with or understand. While I can point to numerous elements of the video that I think are objectionable, the reality is that the major flaws in Anita's video are flaws that are inherited from the arguments of other feminist figures. The onus is really on Anita to prove her points, but this video doesn't do that -- It's effective only if you assume that the points Anita makes are automatically and exclusively valid. I'm still waiting on her to provide any actual evidence that the damsel in distress trope is harmful, rather than just making throwaway references to "Objectification" and assuming that using jargon is inherently convincing.
Quote from ThrikI think a lot of the criticism about donations stems from the fact that this video series got an unprecedented level of funding. I've had discussions elsewhere about how Kickstarter itself could handle this phenomenon as it's sure to happen again.
A lot of the criticism stems from the fact that Anita (or members of her staff) were posting her Kickstarter on 4Chan to specifically rile up internet trolls, then playing the victim card to the mainstream news outlets.
Quote from FMPONEitt, a woman makes one hundred sixty thousand dollars, and a career out of giving speeches, lectures etc to the video game industry, by claiming that video game industry subjugates women. she later becomes mayor of Ironyvile
itt, another bunch of dudes are line "omg I THOUGHT WE WERE BETTER THAN THIS. I thought we were better than to disagree with a feminist!!!!"
i'm now sawing my hands off and sticking my face in a vat of molten lead. if somehow my body musters the energy to make another post in this thread, please drop a solar system on what is left of me before i can hit the post button
I'm going to make your same mistake. When I look at a situation like this, I like to ask myself, "Who is really wielding the power here?" And I feel like, asking ourselves that, it's hard to believe that real power is vested in a bunch of pseudnonymous online criticisms rather than in a person who earns hundreds of thousands of dollars as some sort of media figure and "expert" consultant to companies, who is herself a representative for an industry and social movement that wields such massive power that ordinary people are often afraid to voice their opinions publicly.
Quote from Rick_Dthe same thing applies with all social issues, it's worthless to denounce someone's views simply because they differ from yours, the responsible thing is to ask "why do they feel like this?". You can pick data, and pick apart their arguments and statistic but why do they feel it is an important issue?
Anyway, it's never black and white. There's going to be extremists on every side. A problem is a muddle of greys, possibly without a right or a wrong position, and to just pick a position that comforts your world view does nothing to further society or yourself as a person. Humans fight for each other every day, they do incredibly selfless acts. Your mother risked her life to bring you into this world. That guy from Nigeria risked his life moving to some frozen wasteland to give his family a better chance. That policeman puts his life on the line every day to keep his community safe. I think the very least we can do is to question our views every once in a while and try to see things from multiple viewpoints, not just to appease some political or social agenda, but at the least to make yourself a better human being.
I posted this video because she isn't some "stupid whore" with poorly researched opinions that serve to put down and demonise men; but because it's interesting to see opinions from a different angle. Anita came to DICE and gave a talk to the studio about things we could do as an industry to improve how women perceive themselves in games, how we can get more women to play and enjoy games. believe it or not she enjoys video games, she really cares. her problem is that when we say "oh but it's always been like that" or " but everyone else does it" then we are part of a larger problem. Even if you go for the wallet then creating games that are more open for all ages and genders is going to bring you bigger profits.
Anita Sarkeesian is certainly entitled to her views, however ultimately everyone is an individual and has their own perspective. This is actually one of my primary objections to her efforts -- She presents her viewpoints as facts when ultimately they are simply opinions. As a woman you might take it as offensive that so many women are Presented as a "Damsel in Distress" -- But that's hardly the only valid opinion. As a woman you could find this a favorable trope for acknowledging the difficult-for-some-to-cope-with reality that women are physically much weaker than men but promoting the idea that one's value as a person might be independent of your ability to exert your will over people via force.
As a man you can equally take offense to a number of other ideas that are perhaps even more prevalent in gaming. A "Damsel in Distress" is definitionally a woman perceived as worth saving, but the flip side of that is that men are not subjected with similar frequency to this narrative trope because men's lives are often considered without innate value. The games where men are slaughtered without remorse by the hundreds or thousands for no reason other than wearing the wrong colored uniform are too many to count.
In my own eyes there aren't "shades of grey" as you say, but rather a multitude of blacks and whites and greys, and in our reality something can be both black for you and white for me, or anything in between, all at once. Both of ours are "true" from our given reference frames. Ultimately there are billions of different perspectives out there, stating that anyone's subjective experience is "wrong" is very presumptuous (we can, of course, be wrong about what something objectively is). And unfortunately that is exactly what these videos try to do -- They aren't attempting to present a complex and multifaceted reality which encourages our sharing and understanding of our experiences. These videos are about trying to establish and promote a particular narrative and hedge other perspectives out.
In my own opinion, this is largely successful precisely because the videogames industry is immature and because people who are the foundation of the gaming industry, those of us who have been gaming our entire lives (ie,nerds!), are not socially savvy enough to understand and articulate a proper response to what's really going on here. A similar thing happens with videogames when the topic of violence in gaming rears its head -- A socially powerful group (politicians) makes some flimsy claims ("Violence behavior is strongly influenced by violent videogames") and demands that the industry change to accommodate their demands.
Like the famous loaded question, "When did you stop beating your wife?" the only good answer is to refuse to play that game.
I highly recommend viewing these videos:
Pretty obvious Anita Sarkeesian was a con-artist for awhile now. Just don't understand why she bothered to make these videos -- Good con-artists are supposed to disappear after they get your money.
Quote from SquadDisplay MoreFirst of all, thanks for your feedback
With too much textures contrast, do you mean it's generally too dark (also due to the low sunlight pitch) and that I use too much different (and rather noisy and dark) textures in a scene?
I don't want it to look like a copy of cs_italy too much.
So what about this? I quickly slapped a few other textures on some of the buildings, please don't mind the quality of the textures and the color palette in the scenes. It's just for getting the idea across.
Also upped the brightness a bit, changed the sunlight pitch, used different ground textures and put the fog a little further. But that's not really what the pictures are about.
[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/gus/csgo18.jpg]
[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/gus/csgo19.jpg]
Those pictures are a huge improvement over the version we played. Having the stronger colors on the buildings doesn't thrill me aesthetically (whether we're talking about the map or the actual locations), but I can understand why you might want to stick with that to follow through with that theme.
I'm interested in the new multiplayer stuff, but honestly after Starcraft 2: WOL and Diablo 3 I don't trust Blizzard to make a coherent story any longer.
Quote from FMPONEAli:I think this was a fun map but it had some basic problems. Every single texture in the map seems ill suited for the map, not that htey are bad textures or the map isn't pretty, but it's got contrast overload to a crazy degree. You know those boring plain one color textures? this map needs to be using those to great effect. I think it should be white/yellow themed with yellow light.
Speaking of light your pitch is way, way off. Right now its nearly horizontal, which results in almost the entire map being pitched in darkness. That's a sure way to confuse people and it isn't flattering for the visuals. Put it at about -67, instead of where it's at now, probably -15 or -20 I want to guess, if even. That's just too low. The ground textures also suffered from the contrast problem.
Not to sound harsh, but your texturing on this one is just way off. I'd start from scratch with readability in mind. Readability is like when you have an action figure in front of a plain white sheet of paper. Right now you've got your action figure in a dark muddy soup of contrast, and it's harsh and tough to see people. The fog also begins too early. I'd additionally say that the balcony, while fun, is an obvious cut, but you already know that.
This is a fun map with just obvious glaring issues that are really simple to fix, but crucial to fix if you want people to have a pleasant experience. Also boost the brightness on the map, it should be happier. Right now its a little gloomy.
I really agree with most these sentiments. The first thing I thought when I loaded into this map was, "How come there is a brick wall texture being used as a floor texture?" FMP is spot on pointing to too much environmental contrast. Due to the strong texture contrast the readability of the map is reduced, and just the overall aesthetic design suffers.
I'm not entirely sold on turning this into a brighter/daytime map. I do like the attempt at bringing a nighttime environment into CS:GO -- Virtually every map is bright and sunny, even Aztec with rain falling down. But what you've got right now isn't working and you'll need to keep at it to get it looking right.
Quicktime events.
I'm also starting to dislike RPG mechanics in every game, especially shooters.
Agreed with FMP, what have have looks solid as a base but I have never seen a stadium look that clean in my life. A pass of grit, litter and grime would really sell this level.
Are you looking for feedback on appearance or feedback on the visuals?
Visually it looks alright but looks very monochromatic and this leads to the shots looking flat and the actual space being hard to read (at least in my eyes).
In terms of gameplay feedback, at least using UT3 style gameplay, this doesn't look that compelling. You've got one atrium area and a string of rooms connected by mid-wall doorways. That's sort of uninteresting as you're just making a straight line to traverse these rooms.
Quote from PuddyBioshock definitely failed in that regard.
But both Half Life games did it well imho. I mean, you could argue that "mystical intra-dimensional man jumps in and grabs you right at the end" is a cheap narrative mechanic, but I think they pulled it off.
It's a little convenient, but Half Life establishes that this happens and that the G-Man is watching you (whether through VO, 'cutscene', or just having him show up in odd locations). The plot synopsis version isn't that great, but the execution is well done.
Really loved Deus Ex HR's gameplay and the immersive world they created, but the execution of the story had issues, whether that be major philosophical issues or just silly contrivances like Adam turning into a total moron in cutscenes. Would love to see another go at it though, hopefully with some lessons learned.
