KungFuSquirrel

All right, I'm going to draft up quick rules tonight and post a thread. I'm curious how many people we can roll in to something like this on short notice - even if this one fails, it should be a learning experience if we try to do more weekend challenges. Is everyone on board with the requiring the Nightwatch texture set? I'd be fine running stock content, too, but NW-themed would be fun!

How many people would be in if we ran that this weekend? We've got 3 so far. (I'll put out a Twitter attendance check when I get home) Gives us some more time to put together the rules for the next big one.

One more suggestion from Lunaran on the walk to lunch the other day - we grab some old GameFaqs text walkthroughs, pick one at random, and have each person build the described level and see what interpretations come up. Like a game of level design telephone! These other ideas are pretty great, too. Good selection to work from Also, SamCom: I still really want to do a weekend challenge at some point, but I've been a bit swamped with work and personal stuff lately so this is all slipping behind where I was hoping things would be. If you (or anyone else) have any ideas for what that challenge might be, maybe we can roll one before we get the next big one started?

Sound to me like they just needed to use the ESRB's rating to decide if a game was violent, thats how its done in the UK. Twiz is right about that internet comment though. The original law was created based on the belief that the ESRB was an inadequate ratings system (despite being rated the strongest of all the voluntary ratings systems here in the US). This issue was never really about the content or kids being able to acquire it - the ruling doesn't mean that kids should be lining up to buy DNF (nor will they, because the already-established ESRB partnership with retailers already won't allow them to) - it's about the role of government in entertainment. We take our First Amendment right to freedom of expression very seriously over here, and all other forms of entertainment have been found to fall under those protections. Games, like the film, TV, and music industries, provide voluntary ratings systems to help consumers make an educated decision about whether a movie, tv show, album, or game is right for them or their children. This California law targeted only games, which the justices of the Supreme Court (rightly) ruled is a violation of 1st Amendment protections when compared to other forms of media. After all, why should a local, state, or federal government get to say whether or not Halo can be sold on store shelves while Eli Roth makes Hostel movies and no one bats an eye? An opposite ruling in this case would have relegated games to government oversight like alcohol, tobacco, and pornography instead of allowing them to exist in parallel to their peers of film, TV, music, books, etc, and would have set disastrous precedent for the entertainment industry as a whole. The Supreme Court made the right call, and it's a relief to see both sides of the political spectrum on the court generally agree (interestingly, the two dissenters were the two more extreme justices on either side, haha)

I used FancyBox for mine, which I'm really pleased with. It's got right click support, mousewheel scrolling, and totally customizable everything. I've got images, embedded HD youtube videos, and embedded text files all tied through the same interface. I recommend it Great portfolio, too!

They actually had this in the first game, if I recall correctly. I think mostly on the Hill Climb events. You'd get shorter runs earlier in the career, then open up the long 8 minute-ish courses later in the game. PaulH, am I insane or was that actually the case?

I'm inclined to agree, but the three we've run so far have been two with fairly strict design constraints and one entirely design challenge. Texture constraint entries would still have an impact on layout and gameplay, but in general I don't think it'd hurt to toss in a more artistic one here or there

Some excellent ideas there that could only come from you I do think the more mass-market ideas are best suited for strong participation, though (I'm such a sell-out). I'd be interested in the texture constraint or re-lighting ideas. Both are good proving grounds for a specific kind of skillset, but I do wonder if we might want to consider settling on a pre-decided engine (presumably Source) for both of them, particularly the re-lighting challenge to help keep a consistent starting point. Thoughts? Other votes?

What Radiant lacks in polish it makes up for in raw speed and power. I will <3 it forever. That said, don't plan on Rage being all that easy to work with. When I saw it at the QuakeCon 2007 demo, they talked about how they did build a roughly Doom III-level of detail in the latest version of Radiant before exporting it out to a modeling package for final detailing, and last I heard from dudes there it sounded like they were just straight up building a lot of their levels in Modo. I'm really interested to see what the final SDK they release looks like and what the actual balance ends up being.

Should I move this to Finished Work since it's been submitted to the Mapping Initiative already?

This is a good idea, and makes my life easier in some ways. We have been getting some good vote turnout with the 3-vote poll method, though, and the one negative I could see is possibly losing some votes. But, I'll keep that in mind, and I'm curious what the rest of you think. I know the Summer Mapping Initiative just wrapped up and we saw some entries there, but do people still want to rock some Portal 2 for the next challenge? I still love the idea of the MapCore pack, but we'll need some discussion time to sort out how to go from a collection of random entries to an actual cohesive pack. I think this could be a really great one with the game so fresh in people's minds and the fun options it opens for level design, but if everyone's Portaled themselves out already we can roll something else (in which case I'd consider this a good time to suggest something )

Looks like you forgot the download link Screens look pretty solid, though; it's cool seeing the Portal 2 content picking up!

All right, one more. Our trailer that aired during the Sony press conference:

To the best of my knowledge, it's always been intended as a console exclusive that will tie into the PC EVE. The first mention I saw of possible PS3 exclusivity hinted at Microsoft's policy toward off-site servers being a factor, which makes sense. MS seems unlikely to allow CCP to do what they want to do with this on Xbox Live. There's a reason Valve brought Steamworks to the PS3 and not the 360.

Looks like the interact prompts are "E" in the latest vid (only watched low-res) - looks like the PC version. This game appears to get more and more generic every time they show it. I got kind of angry when the gate dropped so the enemies could do their scripted jump in animations before the gate magically opens so another guy can somersault into the room for no good reason. Looks even slower than D3, too.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/06/ ... -acid-sea/

Did you try voting for more than 3, or cast one vote and then go back and try to cast more later? Those are the only two ways I can think that that'd occur (the latter as a result of not allowing users to change votes)

You know you could have voted for all 3, right?

You can scroll through the shots by clicking left/right on the screenshot popup, or use the mousewheel. The video will also pop up after the shots if I have one ...I wish I had a better way to indicate that, though. It's super slick but not obvious.

And the Door Challenge is in the books! Results are posted here: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=16260 As always, if you have any feedback on this Challenge, speak up! Was the wider voting window better for everyone this round? Does everyone still like the "vote for your top 3" ballot?

Hello again! Thanks to everyone who participated and voted in the Door Challenge - we had great turnout for this challenge and some great results. The poll has now closed - here are your winners! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FIRST PLACE: THE DOOR by Soleval ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECOND PLACE: DECOY by insta ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THIRD PLACE: THE DOOR by Puddy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMt0kwSGAu0 And, if you missed them, be sure to check out, the rest of our entries in the voting thread: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=16237 Thanks again to everyone for the great turnout and to generalvivi for providing the idea and template. If you have any feedback on this challenge or thoughts on future ones, swing by the Challenge discussion thread (viewtopic.php?f=23&t=16082) and leave your thoughts. See you in a few weeks!

I now get paid overtime and it is the greatest thing ever. I'm still full-time, salary, with benefits, but we're trusted to log our own hours each pay cycle (being treated like adults! imagine that!) and any hours over 40 receive full time-and-a-half pay. It means the company now has a financial interest in not crunching, but when deadlines come up and work needs to be done, you get compensated for it. Money isn't everything in life, but if you're working for free, especially if it's mandatory, you're being exploited.

Interesting that you mention that - the big header images were one of the most important things to me in the redesign... I wanted to get some big in-your-face visual elements as part of the browsing to replace the smaller thumbs I've been rolling with for the last few years. Now to see about some more colorful stuff...

I loved the first two, was hoping to hold off on this one for a bit though (I've bought way too many games recently)... then I watched the Giant Bomb first look last night and ordered it about 2 minutes into the video. It'll be here tomorrow. Can't wait

WELL SO MUCH FOR THAT IDEA (damn you valve)