Murdoc

Really, a game jam that overlaps July 4? Thanks. Other than that, love that concept. Might clobber something small in gamemaker or use it as an excuse to try a 2d game in unity. First thought: Mechanical Bull Riding, in space.

These types games get more and more visually impressive and it's really fantastic to see, but I really wish someone would consider doing something compelling with the games design. Maybe there is a niche of people that just love the heck out of this stuff, but I just look at all this fidelity and care put into the atmosphere but there is nothing that compels me to do anything in these games. Clicking item x on a menu and moving it to Point A to B just seems like a waste of a concept and universe.

I decided to play the new version (remake?Upgrade? Retail version?) and wow, did I enjoy it a lot more than the mod. Maybe because it's been a few years and my gaming disposition has changed or what I consider a "game" to be has lightened, but I think it's mostly the tone of the narrator didn't sound so condescending and my memory of that Will Farrell movie has faded. Anyway, great little narrative game, a lot of cute stuff in it and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the branches.

Hm, didn't get an email that it started. So missed a couple turns, that may not be good. Edit: Okay, soooo.... it's turned based, does that mean unless I submit a turn my orders to my fleets don't go through? I assume the fleet traveling is still real time, but when I tried to launch one, it just sat there... I assume until the next turn, or when the turn is entered? Have a bit to learn with this system...

Forgot how to play it, so sure! I'd be up for a round or two. Re-reading the olds posts, I totally forgot half of that stuff, that was a pretty cool fortress looking back.

It's funny, I saw that image on giant bomb, thought Saints Row and got the whole "White messiah" vibe again. Immediately went to facebook to message some Ubifriends and saw that they posted it. So yeah, it's real and apparently going to extremes with colour. Companies learn the wrong lessons when there are serious criticisms about a product, but then also go on to sell a butt load of copies.

BuckShot looks rad and I am digging that first Willy. I never did play the game, but it looked like a ton of fun.

Alright, I'm in, and will share Architecture's sentiments in a few days. I finally, finally, bought a functioning tablet, so I can finally realize my dream from years ago about playing this and feeling like I'm in star trek.

That's what I thought to and I honestly think the kinect is pretty cool, Kinect only games aren't my thing, but by having it as a standard peripheral was cool because it'd allow developers to experiment with it's usage. Not to mention the possibilities with a kinect and a possible future VR head set. Pretty much every cool feature XboxOne was announced with has been gutted thanks to the Internet, I just don't see the difference/appeal of the platform now, it's a box that plays games like every other box that can play games.

Yeah, but so did a lot of other companies as well. It's just the nature of the industry for larger companies, less new IP, it's too costly/risky. It's a shame too, but at the same time, and this has been stated enough by everyone, if they would at least do something interesting with their existing IP, more people would be happy.

I'd be up for another game, though I think based on the last experience with the small game, an odd number of players would be preferred if there's not a lot of people, or maybe it doesn't matter. If there's not many players, maybe try a crazy game type/galaxy map to change it up a bit.

Remember that whole issue when people couldn't tell Nick and Jake's voice apart? I never had that issue, but listening to this talk about Dark Souls and Nels goes on for about like 5 minutes and then Sean chimes in at the end and it scared the hell out of me, because once in it, I thought Nels was just a slightly off pitch Sean. It's maybe not so much the voice, it's the delivery, the exclamations, pattern, and choice parts where they pitch or lower their voice for effect are nearly exactly the same. Anyone else hear this or is it just me?

We're discussing two points on the same subject. 1. The mass market that bought into the wii that made Nintendo money 2. The legacy the wiimote left on the rest of the industry that will continue with or without the mass market. So yes, it was a fad with Grandpa and Grandpa that made them flush with cash, no, I don't think it was just a fad on the impact to the gaming community that will continue without grandpa and grandpa.

I dunno about fad, I mean as a brand, yes? But movement controllers/and kinect still live on and still are sort of relevant. Even looking at the future with VR and what the playstation move was doing or what the kinect could do in those situations, it seems like there is a bit of legacy that could live on and do some really interesting things. Even if the Wii U didn't catch on, the idea of having a supplementary touch screen is being supported by Sony and MS, it's just a shame nothing is standardized, or it would be supported more and have some really interesting uses. That is to say, none of these examples makes Nintendo money, I'm just making a point that they weren't terrible ideas. And yeah, Im not sure Nintendo has cared about the "hardcore" audience in awhile, but maybe the farther away they get away from that it would allow them to take chances like license an IP out for a game to be made in that market because it would be so far from their base it wouldn't matter to them? If that makes any sense? I dunno. I just think Nintendo could easily have their cake and eat it to, but who the fuck knows what's going on with their leadership.

@Ravage484: Might be my computer but there seemed to be a bug where the Ready and Quite buttons overlapped the player selection, so it was a little confusing. Also wasn't super apparent that everyone needs to select a character before hitting Ready to start the game. 1. This could be because of the controller support issue, I think Gang Beasts has the same problem, but I think the buttons get all messed up when the game starts. Setting it up on the launch window is a bit tough to do every time for 4 people. so having the ability to do it while in the game would be amazing. 2. Not sure if having the ability to rotate 360 degrees was the best design decision, it does change it up compared to windjammers, but scoring on myself isn't particularly fun. Maybe if the field was design in a way where I could turn back and chuck the disk against an angled wall back there to throw off my opponent would be cool. 3.Are the players supposed to cross the center line? That might be your Fifa influence, but it didn't seem to benefit a 2 player game, maybe with 4 it makes more sense. 4. Oh and this is a super polishy thing to maybe add later, but when a game is controller supported it'd be nice to see the support in the menus Due to button mapping not sure if I got into any of the nuances of throwing, but I like where it's going. After Giant Bombs marathon of Windjammers, it's cool to see people working on an homage of sorts.

I imagine it's a reaction to this: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/wii-u-sales-slow-to-a-crawl-as-nintendo-posts-457-million-loss/1100-6419475/ Polygon even did an editorial last week on Nintendo sinking or something. They have some amazing properties, they make great games, but I can't imagine them keeping up in the console race because they simply seem to have a blind spot when it comes to what people want out of a console. I'm all for innovation and I think the WiiU tablet thing was a great idea, but their lack of understanding of online and social gaming is hurting them. Also the fact they are on some weird offset cycle to the big three. Nintendo will still be around, I just don't know why they would try to make a console Stick with handheld, license your IP, and make great games.

I've been waiting for what seems like forever for this, not realizing it was local play only. I understand why, but as someone who doesn't have a group of gamers to play with, I'm a bit sad.

Ah yeah I remember they basically stripped out anything interesting from SWG and replaced it with the standard crap I saw in Wow or whatever, I just didn't know it had a name. Come to think of it they did a similar thing for EverQuest 2 which started out with some new and interesting ideas, but was revamped to be like everything else. At least have to hand it to SOE, they start out wanting to do something interesting, even if they aren't successful at it. EQN is just another example of that, so hopefully, whatever it is, it takes off.

Yeah, I've always admired Molyneux for ambition, execution may be spotty, but I see the intent and really enjoyed it. I don't quite understand the intent with Godus, it's not a trip down nostalgia lane nor is it a refreshing take on what he has already done. With a funded project, 22 full time employees(I assume) I don't get why nothing is happening on this thing. I'd really be curious as to the internal story over there, because it doesn't add up. I hate when I see people complain about developers not being fast enough developing a project or something, but as someone who has gone through the ringer more than a few times, I just look at where they were and where they are now and scratch my head. I can only guess either it's being wildly mismanaged or they are holding back content until it's ready, for whatever reason, but it doesn't ignore the fact that the content isn't knocking my socks off to begin with.

What's an NGE? Was UO modeled after any previous system other than Ultima? (which probably was based on something at some point)

I really don't think that Unreal 4 Bioshock example looks very good at all. Partially due to poor lighting, but the materials are way off for me, the textures, too low res and muddy, and the polycounts are unacceptable. Frankly an upres at this level would be the waste of time. The thing about PBR(photo based rendering) in Unreal 4 is that it can allow developers to start making assets in a new way and really cut out a lot of the detailed texture memory and time we spend on diffuse maps. Simply sticking the assets in a new engine works (the bioshock example) but is far from desirable. It's sort of the equivalent to last generations "slap a normal map and some spec" on it that we got early on; it may have made it look "modern" but it didn't look good. If a developer wanted to take this half step, honestly, I think just having rendering engineers work some magic on the current engine would end up looking better than porting it over and trying to upscale everything. We had Unreal 4 in the final months of 2k Marin and basically had most of the team just spinning around in a chair waiting for the axe to fall. We wanted to make a tech demo or pitch something, but the leadership wasn't really there to get it together. A lot of us thought it would be cool to try a real attempt at remastering Bio2 or something, but Irrational was already hitting us up for Bio2 assets for Burial at Sea and someone there didn't want us touching that franchise with 100 foot pole. The way things turned out over there in the end kind of makes me wonder if 2K wouldn't want a capable studio at being able to do that eventually, which they still have, sort of, whether it's called Marin or not.

I may be late to the party on this, but started reading Bring up the Bodies and have to say it's extremely underwhelming. The first third or so is explaining what happened in Wolf Hall and there seems to be a some deliberate character reversals just to keep the story going. It feels like a typical sequel of fan pandering, "Here are all your favorite characters in the same place, again!" It just seems to lack subtlety and the writing seems to be kind of dumbed down. I'll try to stick with it, but I think I'm good just ending it with Wolf Hall.

Hate to dig up an old thread, but I just started reading House of Leaves and it immediately reminded me of this whole thing. I'm really early in the book, but does anyone know if there is a connection?

Started it up for a few minutes to see whats changed... it is in fact better, but not sure if I would say good. There is less clicking just to get shit done, but now feels minimalist, at least at first, where you just click, wait, click again, wait, the whole thing still feels like a facebook, casual playing experience where I am not meant to really be paying attention to it at all times. Its just click the prompt, wait, click the prompt, wait, continue. The active element of shaping the terrain has gotten way better but its still less engaging than populous, which was kind of the core issue I had. The "powers"/upgrades and such is still linked to this card/sticker system which just feels really confusing why that presentation even exists, like why cards, why the obtuse interface to upgrade? I don't understand. I've probably mentioned this earlier in the thread, but both Molyneux and Wrights earlier works really influenced me as a designer and the sim/god game genre remains one of my personal favorites. However, if this is Molyneux current idea of what a "regenesis" of the genre is, I think it's time we part ways. The stuff he seems to be focusing on isn't the hopes and dreams Populous gave me, instead he's redoing all the mechanics that didn't need to be reworked and ignoring the ones that did. I want more simulation, more elaboration on culture and religion, more customization and variation of my civilization, stuff like that. Maybe in a couple years this game will go somewhere, but considering their progress over the last year, it seem to be be meandering up a mountain at a snails pace. I should try Reprisal again, because I think that might be the thing I hoped for out of this.

Man, wished I liked the gameplay in these, because I love the designs and theme.