Gorbles

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Everything posted by Gorbles

  1. Bit of a bump on this, but wanted to get my thoughts on Dishonoured down. I love the art style. The RPG elements are right up my street. I love selecting different weapons based on what I want to do. I love the talking heart and every other bit of arcane wizardry the game throws at you / against the rather polished mechanical elements of certain baddies. But I just can't get through it playing non-lethal. This is like Deus Ex (the remake) all over again. I quit that out of frustration too, because up to a point it doesn't matter about your intentions to be non-violent, the game kinda railroads you against that ideal both subtly and unsubtly. In Deus Ex it was giant rooms of bad guys on mission timers (and apparently boss fights, but I never got that far) and here it's the incredibly meagre amounts of non-lethal options you get (and sleep darts are in really short supply). I keep wanting to like it (much like Deus Ex tbh, you could probably swap the names around in this post for exactly the same effect), and keep trying it periodically. But I just can't keep with it. Blah.
  2. Modest Tech: The NX Generation (Nintendo Switch)

    Oh goodness, that would kill me. I only have two games for my (new!) Switch so far, and a Prime release would just, urgh. Also hi! I have a Switch! I don't have the online pass yet, just trying to space out luxury spending things (as the Switch ate up any disposable I did have, and then my PC keyboard died). No idea how the friend stuff works yet.
  3. Half-Life 3

    I am absolutely here for this kind of shade
  4. Bloozzard

    Sorry, didn't mean to infer that. I'm just riding quite hard on the "gamers being assholes" thing because for as many fuckups as Blizzard have made, the surrounding noise and harassment makes it hard to even qualify by itself. If the reaction hadn't been massively magnified by said figures from the rubbish parts of the Web, I agree a lot more. It's frustrating. I don't want it to stop critique of Blizzard at the management level, but I also don't want to move past the whole fan reaction thing either.
  5. Bloozzard

    I get you osmo, but I feel the need to point out that this has been latched onto by the Usual Harassment Types which kinda exacerbates the whole issue. There has been some quite public shaming of developers, and regardless of how badly-managed PR it is, I don't think we should be comfortable with the kind of (public and visible) culture that has emerged and been made to feel acceptable in recent years. Probably not saying anything you'd disagree with, just trying to break that binary. Blizzard (specifically, Acti-Blizzard) may in some way be culpable, but nothing excuses the reaction of certain parts of the "fanbase" nor how they've targeted anyone speaking up in defense of Blizzard since. It makes it impossible to have an actual conversation about PR gaffes, bad marketing, why nobody seemed to be aware that Blizzard literally made an actual blog post saying not to expect a huge deal at Blizzcon, and so on. Even a new angle on outsourcing work to foreign studios (there are both pros and cons here, especially in light of the recent RDR2 pieces). The problem is the fan reaction, because it's completely unnecessary, and also obscures any worthy criticism actually worth talking about. Blizzard are stuck on damage control, and all developers outside of Blizzard see is more of their own taking an absolutely ridiculous beating for something that isn't even in their (the developers') hands. ------------------------ Also, more happily, kinda excited about Reforged. Warforged. War3forged4fun. I greatly enjoyed WC3 when I was younger and it's only the dated engine that prevents that nowadays. I understand the reasons for keeping a lot of the technical choices intact (I vastly prefer squads in my RTS management these days), and it's mitigated by the news that (I think) they're upping the editor tools to match the new offerings, which means modders can go absolutely silly in terms of improvements and remakes. Really hoping to see an official or unofficial remake of The Founding of Durotar. Absolutely loved that campaign.
  6. Left 4 Thumbs - The Homethumbing 2

    Boomer Bile is good because 1. unlike Molotovs, it doesn't enrage the Tank. Handy especially on community servers who like being idiots with Tank spawning, but really underrated regardless. 2. it drops liberally from hazmat zombies, unlike explosives which are map-generated and / or in place of other useful items. 3. it doesn't damage you. Unlike molotovs and beepy grenade things.
  7. Left 4 Thumbs - The Homethumbing 2

    I have no idea if there's a corresponding character pack, but there are related (melee) weapons I think, and it is scripted to handle various stages of the attack. Been a while though.
  8. Left 4 Thumbs - The Homethumbing 2

    Baby permitting, absolutely. There's a hilarious Helm's Deep map knocking around the Workshop we should try at least once, too. So yeah, L4D2.
  9. Jurassic World Evolution - Nick's GOTY.cx 2018

    Frontier branching out, huh? That's the fascinating bit for me. ELITE must be doing well, which is Good™.
  10. Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

    Welp. (http://blog.bioware.com/2017/08/19/mass-effect-andromeda/)
  11. Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

    I've been sitting on what to think of the new MP changes for a while, and it looks like this patch has a noticeable change that might change expectations on it: http://blog.bioware.com/2017/07/31/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-1-10/ I would imagine this works for weapons as well? Bioware patch notes have a habit of being weirdly specific in a lot of ways but then leaving out some important detail. Certainly, that's how they should be doing it. Extra progression for people at the top, no change for people still grinding the lower ranks. Add to this the current rotation for weapon mods (Bronze to Gold), character cards (Silver to Platinum / UR) and similar items that you can buy with Mission Funds, and I think it's actually quite a good place for MP to be in. I'm just sad that all we're getting are these kinds of fixes.
  12. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

    You should try the (effectively) Monster Hunter DLC. There are a lot more trolls to try and take out.
  13. Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

    Dunno how I missed this: http://blog.bioware.com/2017/07/04/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-1-09-notes/ http://blog.bioware.com/2017/07/04/mass-effect-andromeda-combat-balance-updates/ The Batarian is Rare, not Ultra! Woop woop. Lot of new gear and such in the Store; I need to sit down and evaluate the utlity of the ones I've already got, figure out what's power creep and / or what's redundant. Of note, there are some time-limited things in the Store right now, including an Apex Elite pack for a whopping 600,000 MP Credits (guarantees an Ultra-Rare, but expires in two days), but more interesting the Item Store lets you get a: Random Character (Ultra Rare) - 960 Mission Funds. Random Character (Uncommon) - 70 Mission Funds. Random Weapon Mod (Rare) - 120 Mission Funds. These all expire in 5 days (@Bjorn), so you might want to grab them while you can! They are also repeatable; I just bought an UR and there's still room for more. Gonna grab another, coupla weapon mods and then save my funds for other Items (I don't need Uncommon Characters).
  14. How to start making a game?

    There are two ways to approach this. One approach is to grab something like Unity and play around with the default project, figure out what you're comfortable with, replace some assets, etc. See what you can build without too much effort, work out what parts of the development process you're most comfortable with (scripting, 2D, 3D, physics, etc). This is the fun approach The other approach is simple (and necessary if you have a larger project in mind). Plan everything. Plan until you get bored of planning. Figure out how much of that you like as well. Work out what engine suits your needs ahead of time. Storyboard any plot elements you want to work in. Figure out what assets you need, and who can make them, etc. It might seem overwhelming but a lot of this is simply note-taking that you can do anywhere; on the move, at home, in the garden, etc. Downside is it's not as "fun"
  15. Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

    I'm taking "three people familiar with Bioware's plans told me" with a huge grain of salt. It may well be we don't see the kind of work that got put into ME3, but an ME2 Lair of the Shadow Broker (or heck, Loyalty-scoped mission sets, similar in premise with MP runs but with SP impact) are entirely possible to round out the game. Of course, I am the eternal optimist. (also heck yeah Batarians and blades. Bladed Batarians. Let's get on this)
  16. Civilisation 6

    I was getting reasonable performance on my aging setup (i5-3570k, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, GeForce 660 Ti); performance naturally degrading with map size / turns played / units in-play. Map size and AI player count is the biggest hit as end-of-turn calculations start dragging on turn time more than it does general (frame) performance. I put another 8GB in and swapped up for a GeForce 1070 and I'm getting 50+ at most stages of most games for the average map size. Game is still CPU-bound though, but now my rig is CPU-bound (it wasn't before), which is an interesting benchmark to run from. tl:dr; go for as much RAM as you can feasibly slot into your motherboard. It's the cheapest component and it gives your OS a lot of space to sit back and think if you've got a few things running at once. After that, if your GPU is within a reasonable generational gap (900-series for example), look at the CPU. Relative strength of the model within the generation is better than going up a generation at this point (i.e. my 3570K is top-end of its generation for the i5 chip, sitting below the custom i7 chips of the third generation Intels. It beats out most lower-end chips for the next three generations). EDIT Ten years on web forums and I still suck at tl;drs.
  17. Well @Rilen it's a bit trite, but, everything! A long time ago (well, about 12 years ago) I got into Dawn of War in a big way. I was 16. Late compared to Relic Entertainment's established fanbase (I was "one of the DoW lot", hah); heck, I got "the Internet" quite late. But 16 is a very impressionable age, and I was getting into computers about then. So I decided in a very typical way that I wanted to be a games developer. Everything I've done since then has had that in mind. I studied Computer Science, I helped some developers out with community moderation, I did some beta testing, I graduated into software development, and now I make games tech and other bits and pieces in my spare time. I mean I could write an awful lot more but the baseline is my enjoyment of video games (and specifically the one I had the best time with, and its developer) had an immense impact on my career path, general hobbies, and eventually outlook on life (it brought me here in the end, after lurking gamesdev Twitter for several years, which gradually informed me in terms of politics and culture as well). I am quite literally who I am, in a large part, due to video games. It's brought me into various social circles (and great people I've met IRL, including folks from here!), and it's kinda awesome. There are, as always, pitfalls in that journey, but it's been great fun, and is continuing to be so
  18. E3 2017

    Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
  19. E3 2017

    Yeah, everyone is saying Spider-man looks really good and I'm tentatively excited. Though probably console-only?
  20. E3 2017

    I personally like ME:A and the effort they've been putting into fixing the product. It's not for a lack of love (or competency) it seems - simply time. There's a good Kotaku piece floating around about how it suffered quite a bit from development hell. Presumably for a new IP they've have locked down the creative issues and timelines. You only really get one shot with a (new) IP; Andromeda at least had the name to rest on (which can also, obviously, backfire). I am a fan of Rob (retroremake)'s responses from the Tweet announcement -
  21. E3 2017

    This is a Very Good summary and I Like This Post.
  22. Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

    Just a double-posting heads-up for this. I got my first Kineticist card and a Gold weapon mod!
  23. Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

    Looks like the patch has now dropped, and what seems to be a rather interesting APEX mission. Angaran enemies? Not able to check myself, yet: http://blog.bioware.com/2017/06/08/apex-mission-roekaar-occupation/
  24. Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

    Was about to link that article, just got done reading it. A sequel might be shelved, but I really hope they have some kind of a post-release cycle beyond this basic stuff? I dunno. It's a real shame. Also, honestly, telling of the potential impact of things like the silly GIFs and general _user_ reaction to such games. It's a completely different climate from 2012 or so, both in terms of critical journalism (for good and for bad) and user-based reviews (mainly for the bad there, in my opinion). EDIT (@Bjorn) Not gonna lie, all of those MP changes look good. Reduced reliance on Juggernaught buffs other (Gold) kits by comparison, and hefty bonuses to melee across the board. QOL buffs for the S-ranked weapons (as much as I agree they're a lazy inclusion, at least they now feel more of a progression) and some good tweaks for underperforming power (and to combo detonations, too). The MP for ME3 still works, so if it's something they keep alive for Andromeda, I can see myself putting in many, many hours into the game on that front (as I did ME3). Good to see parity with the crates available in ME3, too, Reserve and Arsenal packs in particular.