Scrobbs

I'd like to come and meet some folk. Depends when it is.

I enjoyed using the movie creator, but for some reason found it really difficult to understand why the dollies (i.e. the things you used to plan the scenes before you used the actors) would switch places, when I'd made a special effort with the story board and made sure the colours of the dollies matched prior to shooting. For instance, the protagonist woudl suddenly appear in a crowd shot, and a backup cast member would appear in the lead role. I remember getting really frustrated with this, and after many many goes to try and get it right, it just got too fiddly. My movies were crap as well compared to the things some people were producing, so I kind of went back to the management game...which was disappointing because I did really like the idea of that. It was yet another nail in the creative coffin over the years which has convinced me I'm much more a technical person than a creative. P.s. Should I go back to the old name do you think? Is the new one not sitting right?

I played it, and loved it. Also loved the movies that you could produce with it. I think I stopped playing it because there just wasn't enough variety; also whilst plate-spinning is that genre's bread and butter, keeping the actors happy, the grounds tidy, the screenwriters busy, the research up to keep technology ahead etc. and so forth, it was all too easy to let your best actors/actresses slip into alcoholic despair and wasteful drug addiction. It eventually became a chore rather than a pleasure. Keeping the luvvies on a leash between scenes was one of the biggest ball aches - because the crew took so long to move and set up, they would get bored and wander off to the bar. Quite a cool game mechanic you may think, and I did too, except when it happened for the Nth time. Good game, but ultimately frustrating. Maybe I was just crap at it. Pico-fact #1 - the boyfriend of a girl I used to work with worked as a coder at Lionhead, and one day I spotted her name as one of the actresses. (She signed all the release forms).

[Edit]That IS JCVD

Levitation Fail

What a great idea! I'm pretty jealous. Not of the lack of job, but my brain simply does not come up with fun ideas like this. I reckon you'll have loads of fun.

I don't quite know how to word this, but I'll go ahead and try it anyway. Why do people insist on doing this: You have the adverts - normal people going to work on the bus, tube, train whatever - look at the adverts, they are intelligent human beings. They see the advert, and something registers about the product and because they have a brain and therefore an opinion on the asthetic qualities of the advert, they are able to say whether they like or dislike the advert. Too much boring design makes people ignore the adverts. These people include the people telling you to make the adverts boring and identikit, they must like seeing a nice design as much as the next human being. If they don't have any power to change that, then their bosses must feel the same (as they still get the bus, train, car to work) , if they can't do anything about it, then the clients must feel the same, and to take it one step further the bosses of the client company. Given that premise, every designer should be producing great stuff, should be allowed to produce great stuff, although there are budget and talent limitations, but producing stuff that is at the very edge of their creativity. This doesn't happen - instead you get pages and pages of total pointless shite, minutes and minutes of useless twaddle on the teevee. What does this mean? That people go through life with no opnion on things? That the managers that drive the designers into drudgery look proudly at that page of pointlessness and say, "I helped create that." What goes on? Why does this happen?

Well series' 3 and 4 of 'The Wire have just arrived. I will be inspecting Generation Kill as well. A nice book by George R. R. Martin ('A game of thrones) is being made into a series by HBO- one to look forward to. Browsing his blog, however, he chooses to announce how he feels about the death of a daughter of a friend by using a crying Schwa. That makes me laugh at his schmuckidity. That a word? I invoke Nachimir's thread of etymological outrage.

I remember getting really excited when there was a bit of cut scene - you'd be encouraged to believe that just round the next corner, you'd get out of this infinite warehouse. When I realised that they were just lying constantly, and it was never going to happen, that's when I gave up.

Not seen a titan in battle yet! -A- swiping Goon territory would make sense as they've been fairly quiet round our way recently - not that I have much visibility of them, but we live in catch.

Yeh, that's why I haven't started a new thread! I'm getting all the numbers from Dotlan, it gets updated once a day. If what you say about them burning bridges is true, then their homeland is vanishing rapidly! If the NC lot are starting another war in Querious, I don't think they will be able to keep up their front in Catch as well. Well, they might be able to, but that is a hell of an offensive!

In the interests of diversionary pedantry, I'd argue this would be 'confidante', which fits with the western european fashion of ascribing female characteristics to inanimate objects. [Edit] Very, VERY late though. I've only just read it.

Marek - was it you that used to work at NCSoft? I presume you used to work on Tabula Rasa? I played that for a while, but it was a carbon copy of WoW but in space, and since I didn't like WoW, I didn't resub after a month or two.

It was the story that more or less put me off Assassin's Creed. I'd heard how it was quite good, but got a bit samey, but thought I'd give it a go. The story drove me off - I found I really didn't give a shit about the protagonist, and the gameplay wasn't deep enough to interest past about an hour. Raspberry for AC.

I used to do this, but a few bad experiences - friends phone me up, I end up sat in front of this dusty piece of shit all set up wrong. I find a few problems (that they didn't know they had) and begin repairing. Then it breaks. Tehn you spend the rest of the weekend making it work again. I got sick of it. I only offer advice now, and steer clear of anyone's computer except my own. If I break it, then I can repair at my leisure. But back to your point about FEAR 1 - I too got bored 2/3 way through. EG really slammed FEAR 2 as well. With Empire Total war coming and Killzone 2, I can't see me getting this.

Six - I presume reports of the amount stolen were wildly exaggerated? KenZoku have done really well out of this, and the Goons (which I am assuming is true to form) achieved a quick victory at the expense of...well a great deal it seems. So you guys have pretty much recaptured most of your systems back, Sov 3 is about to tick in with no real large scale challenge likely to be mounted before then. The Goons, on the other hand, gained 4 systems from yourselves at the expense of losing 40. I have been told (I'm still a newcomer to eve really) that BoB traditionally are at their best in a crisis, and that said crises tend to bring the old vets out of hiding who are otherwise bored with Eve...hence they are getting some lovely fights out of it. Over in the South east we are getting stuck into CVA pets, and one of them is starting to crumble. Iced teas all round

Aye, I got it on the basis of the EG review too! It's not as much of a 'job' type game as they said, and easier than it sounded on the lower levels. The top level is frantic though. Best described as like a hugely complex 'Game & Watch' type game.

That the one with Val Kilmer?

Air Traffic Chaos on the DS. It's remarkably addictive.

I quite liked the demo, thought it was quite exciting. I didn't see much of the vaunted AI though - they just seemed to behave as any other bad guy. Still undecided as to whether I'll get it. It wasn't as exciting as Eve...

Edit

No it's not that. I miraculously found that album on my player yesterday, don't know how it got there, but am rather chuffed it did! I rather like it. Ray-gun techno is just a silly name we came up with once listening to records. Just some techno with cheesy laser type sound loops. Pay me no heed

I'd stick with XP pro until Windows 7 comes out personally. If you have 4gb ram, XP will only address 3.5gb of that, but if you're not bothered, do that. Your PSU depends on what you want... a quad core gaming monster, overclocked with dual or triple SLI, you will need to look at nearer 1kw, but a more modest machine with good CPU and gfx, 600w will do. A basic system that will play older games, but mainly used for browsing etc. will get by on 300-400w.

I tend to run games at 1680x1050 (my eyes start to hurt if I go smaller). That system I posted above should have no trouble running games at 1920x1200 and give 2560x1600 a decent go. The prices were accurate as of 20/01/09; the memory and CPU heatsink were priced at Scan (scan.co.uk) and the rest was from CCLComputers.com. I use CCL because it's up the road from me, so easy to collect and return stuff if it breaks. Total was £803.05, and I think VAT is included. But I shall be claiming that back. Just done a quick check and the CPU is now priced at £240.29. The Q9550 is a socket 775 - Intel have just released their new i7 chipset, and will be pushing that, so 775 is starting to drop. i7 chips are insanely expensive, prolly not worth considering unless you're feeling really flush (mobos are around 2-300, the chips can go up to £800 and so on). It is worth spending the extra to get a modular power supply as well, allowing you to only use the power leads you need - this keeps your case tidy. Seasonic do good PSUs.