Algor

Congrats, but maybe your memory is not as good as you think. Unless if generealizing the concept of going from one side to the other is "identical". Observation area (enter through tiny pipe and out through bright red opening): http://steamcommunit...s/?id=101464656 Actually entering the room, no collapsed catwalk that dumps the player into a confusing mess. The geometry and lighting make it pretty clear the player has to jump straight across. http://steamcommunit...s/?id=101464685

Several times, are you expecting me to remember what to do based on how it was in HL? Not that I remember how this room flowed, but many things have been changed in BM, so I stopped expecting it to be identical.

It is rarely that simple in single-player design. Problem #1, I was stuck in the pit. Eventually I found a ladder to get back on to the catwalk, but it was very difficult to see; Circling around a vat (the ladder is conveniently obscured by geometry); http://steamcommunit...s/?id=101455548 Now with the ladder in sight, it is nearly the same color as the wall. I must have gone around the room several times before noticing; http://steamcommunit...s/?id=101455447 Problem #2, the room is lit uniformly and has a nearly symmetrical layout. I can't tell which way I even came from or which way I need to go. Jumping across the vats hadn't even entered my mind as an option. http://steamcommunit...s/?id=101455414

Stuck in Residue Processing in the room with the radioactive vats and giant plungers. What do I done did do? :ssj:

this. Pretty sure that's the same in HL2... Yes, as I mentioned. However in HL2 it was more a rare occasion where the player had to dismount to the side, rather than climb up a ladder and move FORWARD onto a platform, which works fine. HL probably has at least twice as much ladder climbing and required jumping related stuff than any other game, so this stuff adds up quick.

Just finished Blast Pit, pretty great work so far indeed. To think that people from all over have contributed to this beast of a mod is really impressive. Two things keep causing me to nearly ragequit; - Jumping. I feel like such an asshole when I can't even jump on top of a regular crate or a pipe or across a small gap. Takes me several times for the easiest of jumps. You cannot say the jump has not changed, because it is clearly broken (that or the dimensions in BMS are slightly off). Just load up HL2 and try to jump on your average crate, no problem. Then try to jump on something in BMS (even noticed I couldn't jump up this simple beam prop, which I flipped over to HL2E2 where my savegame had the same prop... worked perfectly there) - Ladders. These were great in HL1, just look and move where you want to go and the player easily dismounts. In Source they are a royal pain in the balls (this is true for HL2 and everything). I had always jumped to get off the ladders, only after reading campaignjunkie's post did I know I could press +use to dismount. Either method is an equal gamble whether the game will understand what you are trying to do, most of the time ending up in plummeting to your death or to <25hp. I even missed the final ladder in Blast Pit and fell down the inside of the ladder cage inches away from the actual ladder. This gave me an shitty auto save after the map changed where I could watch the player crater, then reload and crater again, etc.

Some neat polish things I noticed last night; - Crowbar has blood splats applied to it (don't think I remember HL2 having this and I just replayed it last week) - A zombie decomposed (like a balloon losing all its air) after I killed it.. pretty awesome. Although I tried to watch for this again and didn't see it so maybe it was just a bug that convinced me it was a real thing. What in the hell have they done with crouch jump? It takes me a dozen tries to get through a window.

No ? Are you cereal?

I have had my TV set as a second monitor for a long time now and it works pretty well. Once it is set up it is just plug and play (HDMI) and understands when the TV is on or off (and same with the monitor). In my case I just have the TV as a clone display of the monitor. If I am understanding you correctly...

Interesting article some folks (environment artists or aesthetically inclined designers) might find useful; http://www.naughtydog.com/site/post/nau ... in_vertex/

I really like some of the minor tweaks they made to some of the maps. For example in Aztec as a T and in the first room before the wood bridge, the crates used to be jammed up against the wall so there was only one way around. Now the crate is away from the wall so players can move around both sides. It just seems like a minor but obvious fix that helps prevent someone from blasting the first pixel that turns the corner with an AWP. Similarly, some spots by bomb sites used to have tons of little nooks where players could hide and kill the CTs as soon as they started defusing. Now it seems like there are much less options which creates more meaningful choices from what I've seen as opposed to the old cheap shot peek-a-boo tactic. It does feel a bit strange having updated maps where returning 1.6/CSS players have a HUGE advantage over new players in a game that is pretty hard to get into. Having a number of these small changes seems like a good way to lessen the advantage, even if it may only be by a small amount.

Looks pretty awesome, I may have to finally pick this up. They sure do make this as confusing as possible though. There is BF3 "Premium" which is only the 5 DLC packs like a season pass, and then there is BF3 "Premium Edition" which is BF3 + 5 DLC packs...

Great stuff, thanks for the study! That was such a pleasing world to be in

Great atmosphere and spaces you've got! You seem to be adding your own spin to it as well with the stasis pods which is pretty awesome. If I have any nitpicks, the support that crosses over the stairs here seems like it is placed to take people's heads off (and even does so in the video ). Also the dramatic leap onto the cable in the video was a bit jarring and disorienting to me, I initially thought the player was hanging onto something horizonally... which made no sense.

carmack is into virtual reality, valve is into augmented reality

trailer for a Valve "non video game project" thursday night :E

Congrats on the release! Definitely looks great this time around. Great exploration of the combine stuff. Here is a link to the demo of my playthrough and here are some notes; - I started playing with a 360 controller so I could play on my couch using the TV. When I got to the Probably nothing you can fix, but figured I'd mention it. - One of the first things you experience is a boat sound that has a short, annoying loop. - Floating rock around the first path - Rocks just beyond the door of the first building, door goes right through the rocks when opening. Vines on the wall there also extend past door, clips through when the door opens as well. - The fog plane behaves strangely near the lighthouse, sometimes it works fine and other times it seems to be broken and you can clearly see where the water ends in the playable space. - - - - - - - - - Cool end credits -

now it's 50% off on steam ($30)

gg y'all

congrats, i can't wait to see what you guys are cooking up down there! needs more EOT countdown calendar until august 6

PSA - If you haven't picked up the game yet, amazon is selling Max Payne 3 steam codes for $40 this month. Could have sworn they were going for $30 a week ago, though. Also not sure if it is restricted to any countries, but worth a look.

i left Monolith in early June and started my new gig as World Designer at Bungie two weeks ago

Rage quit Dragon's Dogma today and probably never coming back. The game is already not that good and I feel like I wasted $60, I was mostly trying to finish after investing about 8 hours. The final straw was getting a quest that had you run for miles (there is no fast travel) to talk to someone about some "important information", only to get there and hear "there is urgent news at the capital, you must return at once". Are you fucking kidding me!? What a huge waste of time. Good stuff; + "Pawn" system. Each player is given one "Pawn" which is like an NPC assistant that levels up with you, and you can choose their class, outfit them with gear, and manage their skills. This pawn can be shared online with your friends, or with everyone. A player can also have two additional pawns in their party, which can be from friends you know, or just random people on XBL/PSN. Pawns can gain information from fighting enemies or quests, and if they have done the quest you are on in a different game, can even lead you to the location. + Dialogue system. As you walk through various parts of the environment, your pawns will comment on things around you. This can be pretty neat and make them feel like they kind of know where they are, rather than just an AI running around geometry. There are some issues like being at the bottom of a cliff and the pawn says "if we jump we could get a shortcut, or die" even though that should only play at the top of the cliff. If a pawn has information on tactics to take down an enemy or boss, it can be pretty helpful. The dialogue can also be pretty damn annoying since you hear the same stuff all the time. I have this as a plus because it is a pretty cool attempt and I haven't seen much like it. + Combat and climbing on shit. Certain character classes have the ability to grab onto and climb all over bosses like in Shadow of Colossus. This is pretty cool and you can climb directly to a bosses vulnerable spot and stab the hell out of their balls or whatever. One boss that was particularly cool had . There are weird instances where you are climbing on a boss and the system is so confused which way "up" is, you might as well jump off and try again. The bad stuff; - UI... this is really bad. Some times when you complete a quest, the screen is nearly 100% filled with different notification windows. Some of these have important information, but most of them will fade away before you can even read 1/4 of them. Doing anything in the menu is really slow like selling items, combining items, or equipping/unequipping items. For some reason you have very similar inventory screens on the BACK button and on the START button, but you can only equip/unequip items on the START menu. No way to sort anything by weight or function either, so even after investing a lot of time I was equally clueless when flipping through items. Most of the UI when selling items can also kick you out to the chat screen, so you will hear the same "What are you selling?" about 50 times during one session. Might be fitting for a game 10 years ago, but just embarrassing by now. - Quest system. Probably one of the worst I have ever seen, more half of them I can't even figure out how to progress on. Each quest has a "show on map" but most of the time it just shows where you are on the map, not at all useful! Other times a quest will only be applicable at a certain time of day, but fail to mention that and the game only lets you sleep and progress to morning or night so to hell with waiting. Like the reason I quit, many quests also have you run 50 miles to get somewhere just to have you run all the way back. - Combats and enemy population. Along the roads and stuff of the open worlds, enemies will respawn in the same spots every day or so, many of which can barely be avoided. These weren't all that fun to fight the first time, and just turn into a pain in the balls the 10th time you run past them. There are some things like enemies blowing horns to attract more enemies nearby that seem like a cool idea if the player stops them, but it just gets lost in the chaos of battle. - Dialogue. This is the worst fantasy trash you might ever hear. T'was and T'is' until you want to turn off your speakers or set the dialogue in a different language just so you don't recognize it anymore. I've never heard more bloated dialogue that could deliver the same message and be 1/4 as long. Picked up Payday: The Heist afterwards.. awesome!

Looks pretty awesome, nice variety in there. I for one welcome our new clean overlords