Spaff

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Posts posted by Spaff

  3. Posted

    had a winning game with Toblix, filled with embarrassing spinny wheel falling, taking a break, we need more people so we can do all the 4 player challenges!

    thanks for the game toblix, i forgot to say that when i logged off there, hehe :tup:

    bbiab

  12. Posted · Edited by Spaff

    wow.... this game improves 1,000,000,000% (non US billion) when you play it on a PC, with usual PC FPS Controls. I'm only near the start though, so I don;t know how long it will hold me.

    Also, seeing as easy mode only tunes down the *combat* to be easier, i decided to play on easy andavoid the apparently god awful fighting stuff people keep going on about :)

    man whoever decided to add snipers to this game needs to be taken into a small room and :pan::pan::pan:

    oh and i almost pissed myself when i came across a steam valve that I needed to turn off.

    edit:

    having said that, playing it with these pc controls really takes away from the arcade action feel of the game, it no longer feels as unique as maybe it was intended, and sometimes just feels I'm playing around in a quake map or something.... almost.

    also, wow.

    I heard the story was terrible but wow.

  14. Posted

    Right, a new build of this is now available,

    We're happy to announce a brand spanking new build of Plain Sight beta. Go forth and download

    This will be the last internal build before the 2-3 week long open beta that starts next week. So, we really need all your help swashing the bugs before we go public!

    This version includes :

    • Networking - We've heavily optimized the networking code so there should be much less lag. Also we've fixed a number of LAN hosting issues.

    • Little Bang - A new level for your enjoyment. It's awesome!

    • Customization of games - You can now alter various aspects of the game play. These include: limiting the number of in air attacks and dashes and the ability to steal a percentage of points off players (rather than one hit kill). Also, you can now choose any name you like in the options menu.

    • Blocking - players are now repelled when blocked.

    • Bug Fixes - Loads! Alt-Tab now works...

    This build should really add mode of a skill element to Plain Sight. There are some aspects (such as the new blocking) that require tweaking - please leave feedback the forums!

    As there isn't much time to test prior to the open beta we've decided to have two daily playing sessions. These will be at 19:00 GMT and 19:00 PST.

    All the best

    The Beatnik Games Team

    I'm gonna jump into those daily sessions and help the guys out, I'll be there tonight hopefully, not tomorrow due to mister Obama, but then again on Wednesday.

    Come join me? :)

    sorry about the xmas plays sessions, i wastaken out of action:

    http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6173

    hehe.

  16. Posted

    Does anyone mind if i continue to hype my little off-shoot project... good, ok then ¬¬

    we just launched our second designer sticker pack for LBP, kind of our own DLC basically:

    http://www.littlebigplanetoid.com/feature/lbp_designer_sticker_pack_2_will_scobie

    if anyone reading this is a designer that fancies showcasing their work in a little sticker pack, hit me up :)

    we also made a bonus Uncharted costume mockup in a response to a tweet from Naughty dog asking where it was!

    http://www.littlebigplanetoid.com/article_livelook/naughty_dog_hints_at_uncharted_dlc

    aaanyways on a secondary note, lets get some 4 player online going on, i'm failing to organise it though, anyone want to take a lead on that? :D

  24. Posted

    I wanted to kinda talk more about stories in MMOs cus listening back I don't think I explained myself in a particularly clear way, or with any depth, the subject is something an entire podcast could easily focus on… anyways, let me just add the following opinions of mine…

    it got kind of long, so long that i can't spend any time going back to make sure I'm not speaking out of my arse too much, so erm, maybe skip it if you dont give a shit :)

    Story based games are generally a very single player experience… sure you can share that by say, playing grim Fandango together, or taking turns to play through Morrowind, but both of those games are primarily designed to be single player, they live in the single player box. This is kinda true for books, movies etc too… kinda.

    With multiplayer games, in my experience at least, story will often either take a back seat, or be forgotten entirely; In a death match / PvP game against other players for example, story is irrelevant, and when playing co-op through say, Halo, or errr Diablo, the story is there and entertains you, but in-between the cut-scenes and minor pieces of mission briefing, the *reason* you are playing is probably not to drive along the story, or unfold epic plot lines with twists and turns, not scripted moments of cinematic genius - it's the experience of playing side by side with your friends, and the things that happen, the war stories or the epic moments where you took on 500 guys, become your story. The actual story becomes more of an excuse for it to be happening, rather than a reason.

    Adding more in-depth story experiences was the continually cited reason that co-op, once a staple gaming mode, completely disappeared from games for a number of years and had to be hacked back in by the users… Half-Life or AvP for example were too heavily scripted towards single player, and to allow two players to be in that experience would break it.

    With MMOs, I think that magnifies again…

    WoW has an epic story line, tons of lore, masses dialogue all there too enjoy and keep you entertained, but I find that as soon as you group with people to quest, the actual story of why you need 10 bear claws or to kill some giant crab thing kind fades away a bit, and becomes second seat to adventuring, exploring, battling and playing with others… the more people that join, the less the reasons matter. When I'm enjoying the story, and reading all the dialogue, taking it all in, I'm far more likely to be playing solo. This becomes even more prevalent when you start doing 5,10, 25 or (god help you) 40 man instances, especially after the first time you've done them,…

    In WoW you might repeat a dungeon over and over, sometimes too many times yes, but often you're doing a dungeon or Raid a number of times because you want to repeat an awesome experience you had, challenge yourself in new ways, or maybe play it on a harder difficulty. The game even makes you repeat them to earn various loot, tokens, cred, whatever – I'm not saying that's great gameplay necessarily, but it is working, and tons of people love it.

    Now don't get me wrong, the lore and story of WoW turns me on, I love it, but it's more something that pulls me into the world than something that drives my playing.

    Additionally, the story in WoW exists around you, but the main lore is not pushed along by your actions very often, but more by world events. Some people get annoyed at this, that the player should be the focus of the story, slay the dragon and win the day – but in this kind of game you're one of many awesome warriors, the real heroes take 25 top level guys to take down. This is reflected in stories like Lord of the Rings, where may heroes exist at once.

    So when this 'fourth pillar' of story is discussed by the Old Republic folks, it makes me nervous. I'm a huge fan of KoToR but I don't see how they can implement a storyline of that magnitude, with world changing events, nine times over, into a massively multiplayer experience, without it being detrimental to the multiplayer aspects, or making them pointless entirely. Will the henchmen type characters re-enforce that? – when I've seen them used previously they become a replacement for other players, when you need to solo and turn a multiplayer experience into a single player one.

    Guild Wars sues this solution, with hire-able henchmen and even heroes with stories that follow you around. They also use instancing so that if you want to help someone out who isn't as far along the story as you, you can join in their game, as it shapes the world around the party leader .Sadly though this isn't a solution, because then it means your game isn't an MMO anymore, it's just an MO – Guild Wars is mo more an MMO Than Diablo II really as in GW only the towns are persistent and can contain more than a party's worth of people.

    Sooooo all this makes me boil it down to what I say in the pod cast itself, "meh ignorance."

    Hopefully though the reason they are banging on about this, because they really have worked out a way to do this well that no one has seen before…. That would be an incredible achievement, and I hope they make it, bring us some innovation! No really, I may love my WoW and how it works, but I'm not totally close minded to change, and hey, I friggin' love KoToR, so bring it on.

    I'm very skeptical though.

    Aaanyways, this is a subject that we should discuss over a beer some time (or several), it would be easier face to face, it deserves a conversation rather than a one sided essay, and we could have a good old rant, so come and join me in the pub. J