Posts by text_fish

Ohh okay cool. Thanks, I'll look out for that!

Really excited to see what they do with it. But a small black part of my heart is also crying out because if they do a good job I won't be able to lord my original copy over people like the gold dust it is.

RockPaperShotgun speculated that Sony would only fund the reboot (or refurb? spit-job? tune-up?) if Double-Fine announced the PS/Vita versions a month before all the others, as the PC (et al.) confirmation came out exactly a month after the initial announcement. If this is true it just goes to reaffirm my disdain for proprietary platforms, even if it's a mostly harmless dick-move in this particular case.

Maybe I'm about to have a hugely humiliating "n00bz0r" moment, but I spotted this in the latest update:

Quote

- Suiciding players or players who died naturally (like world damage) can no longer “save” another player.

- “You saved X” won’t show if the player on your team who you saved is an enemy (like if mp_teammates_are_enemies is on, for example).

Since when could you "save" another player and how do you do it?

Urgh. This is why if I ever make a successful map I'm going to get a second account, so I don't have to deal with douchbags like Chris [heart] up there. It's a shame, but most players will just never understand the amount of passion and energy that goes in to creating the worlds they run around in.

Then again, I hate Cobblestone and Valve should probably kill itself?

Hi Kerq, you should check out TopHattWaffle's tutorials: http://www.tophattwaffle.com/

He's made loads of great tut's over the years and he's still at it, so there's some good up-to-date ones covering more recent technical advances in the source engine.

If I were you I'd start by making a sort of "playground" map including all the most wild and wonderful ideas you can think up just to get a good understanding of the engine, then you'll be better equipped to design and build a competitive map. Once you start your comp map it is good to have some sketches but don't spend too long on them because until you've built a rough version of the map in the editor you won't really get a feel for how it plays and you might need to go back to the drawing board if part of it doesn't work out how you'd hoped in your sketch. Hope that makes sense.

I don't get the complaints about BG's complexity either tbh. It only takes a couple of matches to learn it, which seems pretty reasonable to me. I'd even go so far as to say that it's quite simple once you understand it, because the player is usually moving forward or sideways so there's barely any backtracking. Basically if you go forward from either spawn you'd have to be a bit of a dink to miss one of the bombsites. Sightlines are slightly more complex than traditional CS maps, but this is balanced by plenty of cover (unlike a certain other map in the pack ) so it just promotes more stealthy play.

I think overall it is a good operation, but I do agree that more bugs could have been ironed out. It's easy to forget that the previous op consisted entirely of maps from previous operations, and that pretty much all of them underwent some tweaking (possibly with the exception of Cache?), so I expect a lot of the current issues will either be fixed or players will adapt to them.

Does anyone know what (if any) other shooters the Machine Games level designers have worked on?

I'm a bit annoyed that the Doom reveal is private. They could at least have made that clear in the teaser trailer. Cellphones are all well and good, but for something like that you really want proper HD video.

Finished TNO earlier in the week, having got it for my birthday the week before and become almost instantly hooked! Here are my thoughts:

Pros

• Lots of optional exploration -- so many games these days think they have to have some sort of rudimentary economy system to make players look for treasure, when all you've actually got to do is sufficiently intrigue the player by making them feel like they're discovering something that other players might never see.
• Every gun felt like it had a purpose, viz. every enemy was best dispatched with a certain weapon.
• Duel wielding was more than just a John Woo tribute because you have to sacrifice corner peeking.
• Great world design, supported by plenty of background story in the form of letters and audio recordings etc. It feels natural because it's not forced in the players' face. *
• Loved being able to dream about Wolf 3D.
• The narrative did a great job of ramping up the sense of tension, supported by increasingly oppressive environment design and hectic music.

Cons

• Horribly embarrassing sex scenes. I'm not a prude, but I've never come across a sex scene in a (non sexually themed) game that didn't make me cringe all over. Perhaps it's just my issue, but even when I'm on my own it's a feeling akin to the one when you're watching a film with "older" family members and an unexpected sex scene comes on.
• I wished they'd explained the car journey between Berlin and London a bit more thoroughly. I like to think the Nazi's built some sort of super concrete bridge across the English channel, but if this is so it would've been great to see it in a cut scene at least!
• * I would have liked to be able to listen to audio-logs whilst I'm running around, rather than having to sit in the menu.
• Some of the fetch quests in the rebel HQ were rather dull and just felt like filler.
• Could have done with a shortcut to quickly equip and use the LaserKraftWerk when in front of a cuttable surface.
• Wanted more external moon action!
• Some of the narrative time jumps felt a bit too sudden (case in point, what happened to Anya's grandparents?)

I'm sure there are more pros and cons that I can't remember right now, but in short it's the most enjoyable single player FPS I've played since Deus Ex:HR (though entirely different, so perhaps that's not a great comparison!).

I use Blender because it's free and I don't do piracy anymore, but if you are rich/pirate/student I would advise going for one of the more professional suites because as great as Blender is, the skills you'll learn from it don't translate easily to more traditional 3D tools (in my experience anyway) which are often (a) more powerful/up-to-date and (b) recommended or required in industry job applications.

I wondered the same about Marquis Sylvain. Not played Catfoods maps, will investigate now! I was also expecting Crown to show up.

All I can think is the authors didn't submit their maps for some reason?

Although I have a sneaking suspicion those two empty slots will get filled at some point during the operation, either by more community maps or by some official stuff.

Crikey that's hot.

Personally I think the dirty brick provides really nice contrast with the clean bits. Maybe you could scatter a few fallen leaf decals in the outside bits but that's as far as I'd go re: dirtying.

This is the fanciest greenhouse I've ever seen, they must be working on some super high-end top secret government shit behind closed doors!

What did you end up doing with the other side of the old crates in A?

Yep! All the maps are really growing on me, but Overgrown and Blackgold were instant favourites. I don't think Rush or Insertion will ever be my "type" of map because they both feel a bit too sandboxy, but they're still fun for a super-casual shootout. Congratulations everyone who's included.

I've been getting stuttering too, and it seems to take ages "searching" for a game to join. Think Valve cheaped out on the servers this time round. Hope they aren't losing interest in the operations.

The grouting does seem quite thick now you mention it.

Looking good! How about:

cs_ringcs_athletecs_arenacs_oval I think as there's already a famous de_stadium it would be best avoided. It wouldn't harm to go more abstract if you can't find a good literal one -- something like cs_strife for example. Re: Overview, a quicker way than manual painting would be to take one overview screenshot with props, details etc. turned on and one without. Then put the image with full props/details in a layer above the empty one and apply the eraser tool liberally to any areas with too many ceiling details to reveal the simpler image below.

Visually one of the best CS:GO maps I've ever played. I'd say the only thing that looked odd to me was the scale of those police cordons around the edge of the outside sections -- they seem really thick.

Gameplay-wise it's obviously hard to tell against bots, but it seems like the routes could do with a bit of tightening up to lead players to choke points etc. and I had a few clipping issues on the yellow scaffolds and some door frames, where the passages just felt a little too narrow. Obviously it's not designed for competitive play but if a server did turn solid players on it would get really frustrating trying to move as a team.

I hope you're going to make the ramps out of this sort of brick:

[Blocked Image: http://acimg.auctivacommerce.com/imgdata/0/1/9/3/9/7/webimg/5097898.jpg]

Neat! Are you colouring the models with tint or separate skins?

I like the increased contrast in t-spawn, but I think you should tone the dust motes back down. IMHO motes should just be a background detail that the player doesn't even realize are there most of the time.

Thanks Tomm, I totally agree about the yellow. I had a faint yellow ambient, so I've changed that to a saturated blue-gray and upped the brightness as you suggest. Still needs a lot of tweaking, but it's less of a yellow blob now!

Yep, definitely gonna destroy some more stuff! I've been going a bit crazy on displacements for that though, so might make a bunch of modular "broken wall" edge props to sling about on the high points where players will be paying less attention to detail.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/05/28/battlefield-hardline/

Whuuuuuut!

I'm hoping for a more dynamic Counter-Strike, where criminals can take hostages from an AI controlled civilian population and hole up anywhere they like, or sit in a smoky cellar planning their last big heist. Give me car chases and sieges. Let me chuck my balaclava in the bin so that I can blend in with the civilians.

I just have trouble believing they can make the cops as fun to play without nerfing the robbers.

No battlefield game in the past has ever managed to hold my interest for longer than a couple of weeks -- maybe this will be the first!