toblix

That's why I make the big bucks, kid. No, uh, what i was getting at was that even though Starforce may never have been proven to actually damage computers, it's stil "malware", as in malicous against user. See?

Link?! I was busy fucking purchasing it! Man, I don't even care anymore about Bio... what was it, "force"?

I thought the game was beautiful. Unlike all the other games at that, with their shitty ten-polygon characters, the places and people in Outcast felt more real to me. I've always had sort of a fetish for huge pixels, though.

Maybe not. Nevertheless, it's malware in every other aspect. I'm not so sure it's a good argument against copy protection that people still pirate games, though.

Well, it isn't malware in the strictest sense, I guess. From what I hear it doesn't cause direct harm to the system, like some other protection schemes I could care to mention, like Starforce. It sounds like it could be harmful by forcing the user to disable security measures to play, though, and the annoyance factor of the install lock shit is just ridiculous. Good thing I 'll probably never play it more than once. And the "It's not a problem if you're not a pirate" bullshit pisses me off. It's as pathetic as the "you have nothing to fear if you're not a criminal" line they're feeding people to put cameras everywhere.

Does everyone wear those sleeveless silver vests or whatever that I can't for the life of me find a shot of?

Sounds like it will.

Yeah, it really sounds like it'll suck. This thread was really more about reminiscing about Outcast, and what a fucking awesome game it was.

If this goes one I'll just pirate every fucking game I want to play, and when the industry stops making PC games for good and blames me because I didn't pay for my games I'll know in my heart that what really killed the PC games industry was the industry itself. Think about it, you dimwits: There is no advantage to purchasing your games, there are only disadvantages. That's the one thing you have to change. Which is easy for me to say.

So, I read here that the game won't end when you die, but that you regenerate in a "nearby pod" and continue right away. Now that sounds awesome.

Sure, although I don't think you're really sticking it to them by buying the 360 version instead. You're probably just making it less interesting to develop for PCs at all.

Jesus, with all the hype, I'm furiously masturbating to the very idea of playing it. Good thing I have a 4:3 monitor, too!

Now who's the buttcockclown?! Of course it's like Sudoku! It has a grid, you use lots of elimination techniques to deterministically fill it out correctly. But if you meant in coolness, you're right.

Yeah, there's an algorithm for solving them. Unlike Sudoku, though, I can still play picross and have fun.

Are 2 Unlimited your parents?

I like this name because it has internet characters in it.

Spoiler-free or -ful?

Zing!

Well, yeah, exactly. And the point I was trying to make was that today these rules are really simple and there aren't many enough of them, so it's usually very obvious that the game world isn't alive, but rather reacting according to the "if you're burning, go to the closest water entity" rule.

Sure, but usually the idea is presented as if though the game is fantastic, while the truth is they've thought of and implemented something for that particular situation. Like the Bioshock stuff. The burning guys don't run to the water because of any "real AI". They're scripted with the specific concepts "fire" and "water" and "movement". Likewise, they didn't just happen to notice that water conducted electricity. There's code for the special event that "electricity" touches "water" and so on. I'm not saying it's bad or anything. Obviously it's the best and only way to do this stuff right now. I seriously doubt that trick is actually possible with today's technology. At least, I doubt that it's possible the way I described it. Sure, there's cloth physics simulation and dynamic path finding and all that, but this is still "stupid" technology that has to have the environment conform to a really simple set of particular "environment elements" (like "water" or "ladder" or whatever). Even in Assassin's Creed, with the climbing and stepping on all kinds of shit, I'll bet my ass there's a huge bunch of particular code and map markers in place to make it work.

My friend, in 50 years I'll be dead.

I'm not satisfied until I can devise clever, unscripted traps based only on the environment and whatever simulation engines there are. Like placing a rug over a hole, and because the enemy doesn't see it, it doesn't think it's there and falls into it, not because it's an instance of RugCoveredPitTrap.

Yeah, yeah, there are always convoluted, time-consuming ways to do what you want in these games. I'm sure there's a great weapon that you get if you kill every zombie in the mall without eating, or whatever.

This is interesting. When I preordered, I was asked if I wanted the limited or collector's edition, the latter being the most expensive. So I ordered that, but now you're telling me Europeans aren't getting it? So, what is it I've preordered, then?