Murdoc

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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    2015

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Posts posted by Murdoc

  2. Posted

    Apologies for the length and "live" commentary style...

     

     

    Well, I started up Godus PC today.IT is labeled Beta 2.2 51% complete.

     

    It immediately goes into developer commentary, sooo that's different. You can turn this off as Mr. Molyneux reassures me at least twice, so that's good, but kind of an odd way to start a game. He also mentioned that they will comment on what features aren't done. I'm guessing this is like a tutorial.

     

    Oh god its a tutorial + commentary, this is awful, but I'm leaving it on because this is the default. Mr. Molyneux said I should remember this moment when I have 2 followers. From a design stand point, this was a terrible decision to have on as a default, it's over explaining what should be simple mechanics that should be taught in 2 minutes.

     

    Oddly enough, just yesterday I watched George Fan's 2012 GDC talk about how he designed the tutorial section of Plants vs. Zombies. It was a really enlightening talk. Judging from Godus, Mr. Molyneux, nor his 21 compatriots watched this talk.

     

    Anyway, 5 minutes + and I've learned how to only sculpt land. It feels better than when I tried it earlier, but still feels tedious as you get these little nuggets left over that aren't as responsive as the larger sections. Is there a way to get this system to be fun? I'm not sure, but I think it hit their original vision, it just turns out it isn't as cool as it was in our imaginations. The old tile structure of populous' land shaping, while technically inferior, remains timeless and enjoyable.

     

    Ok so we then go into the game, which is still the tutorial and more along the lines of what George Fan was talking about, so yeah this is feeling a bit more polished. Still a lot of clicking though, I bet this would be fun with a touch pad.

     

    Destroying rocks gives me belief... alright, sure.

     

    I received a card, no explanation of what these are... yet.

     

    It's telling me to find a sticker in a chest. No idea what that is or why I should be doing this. 

     

    Found a sticker. Mr Molyneux chimes in. There is absolutely no way I would have any idea what any of this does without his commentary. It's an odd way to teach the player, but hey, I'm learning, I think. 

     

    I am still very confused as to the cards/sticker system. It's a tech tree, I was told I can ignore if I want, but if I want a deeper game there is strategy here. Conceptually, I just don't understand cards and stickers if I am a god, but lets ignore this thought. From what I gather, you save up stickers to buy cards along the tech tree which will give you things like better houses, spells, farms and such. This doesn't sound too bad.

     

     

    Okay, confused again. I found a card, I have a sticker, but my card isn't activated until the bar on the card is filled up. I use the sticker by dragging it onto the card to activate it. So I think I won't buy cards with stickers, I'll still have to find cards and collect stickers, but even when I find cards, I'll have to use my stickers to activate them. Okay simple enough, still really conceptually weird for what should be a tech tree. I guess its an attempt at something different. I'm a god collecting stickers to put on my playing cards...  I kind of like that image there, some sort of man child futzing with civilization. From a design stand point it seems like a lot of pointless systems to get me to the meat of the game... yet I think this is supposed to be the meat and the tech tree is the sauce.

     

    Also, you can only use stickers on cards that have the same color... great.

     

    I was just told by Mr. Molynuex this next bit will feel grindy and to spare with them for a moment because the real game is coming soon.

     

    Alright I got belief, they are little spheres  on each house I have to click to get belief... again, it goes back to my original opinion in the early days, so much clicking for no reason. Mr. Molyneux chimes in again and shares what the intention for this system was, it makes sense, I see where he is coming from, and he does mention that in the future I'll be able to group settlements and click once to collect all the belief. So they acknowledge the problem of clicking each belief and added a way to deal with that, but still wanted to keep their original vision of clicky, clicky, clicky in the early game. Fair enough I guess.

     

    Ok there is now a gem exchange. I'm collecting Gems now, I can trade in gems to get more belief and some stickers. Why do I get a sense that they toyed with the idea of paying real money for gems or that that might actually be an option on the mobile version... it feels like one of those screens. Nope, Mr. Molyneux chimed in and said this was a PC exclusive feature, but said it was very different from the gems on the mobile version... and yep he came out and said I wont be spending real money on gems in the PC version, so guessing mobile people get to pay for this stuff.  Fair enough, that's the economy.

     

    I'm writing this as playing, but I'd like to point out I'm still basically in the tutorial and it's been 45 minutes. Between the prompts asking me to do a specific task and listening to Mr. Molyneux who usually talks an average of 3-5 minutes about each feature, this is taking awhile. However, I do appreciate it because I am learning the reasoning behind this kind of dumb game, even if I don't agree with the choices, or rather, the choices aren't what I wanted out of it. He does keep saying "we don't have this in the game yet but will sometime." So "released" like with most games these days is a soft term.

     

    Collecting stickers, expanding stuff, learned A LOT about gems, this isn't so bad once they start opening it up. I'm going to stop here because I think I'm through the tutorial finally. I truely think this would be more fun to play with a touch screen, but then you have to deal with whatever the differences are with the mobile version. I think there might be an alright game here after you get through the slog of learning everything... most of which, to be honest, should take 5 minutes, but instead is probably a half hour at best.

     

    My initial impression of the most recent version: Pretty okay. Much improved from the other two versions I played.

     

    On a side note and there are a couple nit picky issues: One, the game feels a bit lifeless, a bit with the art (it could have used some post effects, better lighting, better materials, or even just some atmospheric fx. Music and sound could certainly use a boost, as with many of these types of games there will be times where you hang back and observe whats going on, and it's just not sucking me in.

     

    Another thing, their fullscreen mode going back and forth with alt tabbing is seriously annoying, as you have to go into the menu and confirm full screen every time. A small problem, but hey, I noticed it writing this up.

     

    Also, at some point I stopped generating belief, or belief is generated extremely slowly. So guess what? I guess I just let the game run or I go and use my gems to buy more belief. This really makes no difference to me on the PC as explained about, but hoo boy, as someone who follows games, the F2P design philosophy is a bit off putting; but I think we saw this coming from the initial beta.

     

    Update 2: I mapped my mouse to my controller to see if its more fun to click on stuff. And let me tell you, yes. Instead of clicking 5 times to get rid of a rock or a tree to get 1 belief, I just hold down a and away it goes. This is far more enjoyable.

  3. Posted

    I agree with both of those thoughts.  I was just taking exception to the idea that because a game isn't explicitly "about" a topic it can't be discussed or analyzed with respect to that topic.  If that's not what you were saying then I misinterpreted you and I apologize.

    Ah, yeah, I would agree with that, I must have misunderstood the original message, or wasn't thinking about it in that context. 

  4. Posted

    You're probably not far off Mington.

     

    I have no idea what Kojima studios is at this point, but as someone who follows the job boards, they have been hiring hundreds and hundreds of people over the past year and half, so it's safe to say the studio is gigantic at this point.

     

    If one half of the studio is using the FOX engine for MGS then it would be ridiculous to think they would use something else for Silent Hill... but it does happen, I just think it's way more common these days that one studio/publisher starts to share the same technology. 

     

    The one thing that is going to start throwing people off is PBR (Physically Based Rendering.. though I think this has a bunch of names, photo based rendering, image based rendering, whatever) it's a lighting and material model that is going into nearly every next gen engine and has a very defined look to it. The problem is that look, looks basically the same no matter what engine you're using, so we can easily start mistaking one engine for the other. Then you will have different studios doing their own stylization on the art and that will throw everyone for a loop.

     

    Every engine has quirks and a way to do things, so I'm sure someone who has spent some time in FOX engine or MGS could probably play PT and spot the quirks. Sadly I am not one of those people, but I'd say its a safe assumption its the same engine.

     

    Also I am not an expert, so I may have got some of the tech mixed up, just based on what I know and what I am seeing across studios and tech.

  5. Posted

    @SecreteAsianMan If games are art, and I believe they are, then nothing is off the table. Whether it is from past, present or recent events. Between movies, comics, music, multimedia, and games there are a billion examples of what Hardline is portraying. Does that mean we should dismiss it no? Does that say something, as JonCole proposes? Yep.

     

    I'm a little confused as to why one product deserves so much attention and lamentation when millions/billions of others have presented these issues with the same superficiality?

     

    There was some talk about Watch Dogs before/after it came out, but I didn't see a lot of comments about canceling the game because of what it represented. And to be fair, the issues America is going through with this do happen in other places, but I'd care to wager the issues Watch Dogs were treading on affect a much larger group of people across the world and are just as serious.

  6. Posted

    I think you can make a fun version of this game, like if you made it some kind of "action movie" setup, like hong kong triads vs cops, or like some kind of 80s action nonsense, but when you're talking about "realistic militarized police" you can't ignore that realistically these police are killing unarmed people of color every day, most often while executing a search warrant for drugs. 

    It amazing how many people are trying to find meaning and commentary in Hardline when at it's core they have said it's in the format of a cheesy cop drama like CSI (They referenced Micheal Mann for the action, which I don't think they are nailing, but the cut scenes are completely nonsensical tv cop drama). 

     

    Yes there could be commentary about the militarization of the police force in this game, there could be even a two sided argument going on in it as well, but there isn't. Is that a failing on the game? Depends on what you want to get out of it, if you're looking for a hard hitting social commentary, I can guarantee it's not coming from Hardline or anywhere else that is attached to EA.

     

    This isn't meant to be the Spec Ops of militarized police shooters, it's a fairly superficial romp in television cop land.

  7. Posted

    I don't know what it is, but I'm completely adverse to modern day setting with people fighting with magic and swords.

     

    I think enough games have tried it and fell completely flat. I think I've been burnt enough times to just get queasy any time I see anyone try it again.

  8. Posted

    I watched Klepeck play this last night.

     

    It's uhhh... interesting. I think I am more jazzed out the marketing aspect of this then anything. The horror elements in the game seemed really cliche and the "puzzle" solving was seriously obtuse... then again, maybe it's because I was watching someone play it, it came off as impenetrable. :)

     

    Other than that, it seems a little, I dunno, bland for a Silent Hill? I'm not an expert in the series though, but there was enough of a tone here to be curious if they can carry more interesting elements into the main final game.

     

    Also, I just finished House of Leaves a couple months ago so I was immediately interesting in a couple aspects that seem to relate to it from this demo thing.

     

    But man, the marketing aspect... super cool stuff, stuff like this rarely gets pulled off as well and secretively these days.

  9. Posted

    "The open-world game features an enormous universe, dynamic weather, and the ability to play as any creature you wish. "Devoted to the wilderness," its promotional text says. "Set 10,000 years ago when nature and humanity were one."

    Ancel expleined, "We wanted to make a very specific type of game," and on a single platform. "Our concept is based on experiencing new situations each time you play."

     

    Okay cool, but that still doesn't tell me what kind of game this is... am I playing any creature like a third person adventure game? Are there skills, stats, items, etc..? Saying universe instead of world... what does that mean?

     

    Anyway, not to be too hard on it, just the trailer told me nothing and the description only fills people with imagination which seems odd since it mentions "a specific type of game" but give no real details on exactly what kind of game it is.

  11. Posted

    Alright, I'll give it ONE more shot, then I may just go about finding a way to permanently delete it from my steam library so I never have to think about it again, OR hail it as the thing I really hoped it would be.

     

    Honestly, this feels like flipping the coin at this point... only worse, because I'd least I'd have a coin and invested 1 second of my time after doing that.

  12. Posted

    Hey YoThatLimp,

     

    Maybe try to get a list of people willing to play going, the whole starting a game and hoping people pop on doesn't seem to be working that well.

     

    If you go that route, count me in, I'd be up for a normal game again at this point. 

     

    I should probably try to play this more frequently so it's not always trying to relearn everything each game... but man, I don't think I can commit to that. I almost need a Neptunes Pride Lite, whatever that would be... maybe against AI or something.

  16. Posted

    Well, I forgot I had this option to do the bloodline and currently in crunch time had about an hour to slap something together. 

     

    Can't complain, it was my fault for not thinking about this the moment I pledged, but feeling a bit disappointing about my entry. I'm sure that will be alleviated when I start playing the game, hehe.

  17. Posted

    Thanks Bjorn, I didn't mean to draw this thread out, I was first surprised someone decided to play it after all this time and what you're feedback was since you slogged through it in the end.

     

    I totally agree with your feedback on the mechanics, the inherent game system seems interesting, but the execution of the context/theme for powers really got muddled.

     

    A lot of the risk and reward stuff seemed to be glazed over in favor of simplicity(so not to confuse shooter fans?) or oversight; the original idea born from Xcom was there, but again, the outcome seemed to be glossed over. This could have easily been a time/money thing in development.

     

    And yeah, the story was a mess. It was a product of a long development where they had this cool idea during the Bioshock 1 days of a "gotcha" ending then 6+ years later had a billion different rewrites that couldn't divert from it's path, so it was just one horrifying mess. Despite the games problems, I think if they were bold enough to take a step back once they had the foundation of the game they released and do a mass rewrite/edit akin to what happened on Spec Ops, the game might have been received a bit better.

     

    And yeah I agree, I thought the idea of you playing a stereotypical cliche game protagonist is a cute idea and how you get to throw him away in the end, only that after x amount of hours, it's no longer cute, it's just a stereotypical protagonist. For that idea to really have come through, he should have been your 20 minute tutorial character that you then throw away. 

    It's funny because I think somewhere during development they lost sight that this guy was your typical meat headed yes man, it comes off in the dialog clearly, but then the marketing and much of the game is centered around how cool this "Franchise" protagonist is... yet he wasn't supposed to be. Too many crossed channels and a muddled experience through and through. 

  20. Posted

    Thanks for the links Dinosaurssssssss.

    Haven't had much time these days go delve into it all, but looking at the third party options/extensions/sdk stuff I think I have a better idea about the vocabulary I should be using when asking questions.

    The MS site talks about creating grammars, which I guess are recognized phrases/words?

    The libraries is the dictionary of words that can be used?

    I'm curious if it is at all possible to edit or make your own library, which I assume is the hard/impossible part.

    I'll keep reading when I have more of a chance to.

  22. Posted

    Hey,

     

    The community seems to be made up of a lot of diverse people, so on the off chance someone knows anything about speech recognition, I figured I'd post some pretty basic questions.

     

    I am not a programmer or much of a technical person and so far my knowledge on the subject is mostly based on this article: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/speech-recognition.htm

     

    Any basic speech recognition software I've used either over the phone, the xbox, or whatever has been not the greatest and unreliable. This is understandable because of the incredible complex nature of what it needs to understand and the computing power required. It's not my intention to try to get or have something made that is on this level, but since I know very little about this type of software, I'm curious to know if there is a middle ground that could be useful to my needs.

     

    Does anyone have any experience working with or programming this type of software? How plausible it is to make a very basic system that recognizes a small dictionary rather than trying to understand millions of complex words? Is there middleware for this sort of thing or is it something where a specialist would be needed to program something bespoke?

     

     

  24. Posted

    I have no doubt the game features will all be there and the options for "tactics" and destruction; but anyone who has played a shooter online would be kidding themselves to think that's how it's going to end up being played by the public. Even by  several limiting movement speed to make it more methodical, you're still going to get more "gamey-ness" in a real game than what was staged/roleplayed/whatever there.

     

    Edit: Actually I am speculating on the outcome of a game that is pre-alpha based on an E3 video. So yeah, I can't say for certain. But given a very staged demo vs. normal gameplay of every other shooter. It's just a gut feeling, but I can't say or judge until its out in the wild.

  25. Posted

    Polygon interview tried to tackle this and it was really the wrong place and the wrong time, but a fair question.  

     

    It would be interesting to see a game tackle these questions, but considering this is Battlefield and EA, I wouldn't be looking for anything more than surface level movie fantasy. This game isn't trying to model cops and robbers, but rather fullfill that cops and robbers film fantasy. In that sense, I agree with the guy on Polygon with his response, even as ineloquent as it was, approaching it from the stand point of "we want you to have fun in this over the top movie bank heist" doesn't seem inherently bad as long as the player approaches it with that in mind.

     

    And who wouldn't realize that after playing a game where for, 5 million dollars at stake, 200 robbers (Let's pretend that when you re-spawn you are a different person or we have to concede there resurrection also exists in this world) that kills 200 cops in LA (again, assuming that there is no resurrection). I mean it's ridiculous and who would take that seriously? Also this is a world where the cops, to stop the criminals, steal the money back from them.

     

    It's window dressing and clearly with not a lot of deep thought put into it for the sake of a fun game that has to match a certain criteria for it's namesake.  

     

    Mostly agree with youmeyou, but that Rainbow SIx thing was such a staged farce, nearly the exact same footage could be taken from Hardline if we rehearsed it as well as Ubisoft did.