You must have been skipping content also, because there are some other early missions you fight heroes in - I think you're L6 or less when you go to defeat the sea witch, who is the first "hero" sort of enemy (Although she's only a boss at low levels, you encounter her again in the low 20s as the first actual "Hero" you fight (which is the CoV equivalent of an Archvillain)).
Yeah, in all fairness, I've heard folks say that. I wasn't deliberately skipping content, though; I was simply joining pick-up teams, and the only missions people seemed to be running were villain-on-villain missions.
If more than 1-in-10 missions are villain vs. non-villain later on, that's cool, but it just doesn't seem like a good element to delay until the mid-game -- we didn't spend the first 15 levels of CoH helping old ladies across the road/rescuing kittens from trees/etc. We fought villains who were assaulting the innocent and plotting against the citizens of the city, in nearly every mission. In that sense, CoH delivered on its promise earlier and more effectively than CoV seems to have.
I played CoH for 1.5 years and was in the CoV beta.
My main problem with CoV, and the reason I didn't end up subscribing, was that most missions had me fighting other villains. Sure, villains engage in some in-fighting, but in 16 levels of leveling up a Corruptor in beta, I fought non-villains in exactly three missions:
1.Fought guards in the tutorial mission. 2.Fought heroes in the first mission. 3.Fought guards in the bank heist mission.
Everything else was fighting the same old villains from CoH -- Hellions, Skulls, Lost, Family, etc. Sure, the mission text may say "kidnap" rather than "rescue", but I was only ever "kidnapping" someone from another villain group, and it sure felt like a rescue. Sure, I steal valuable items, but only from other villain groups -- never from museums, offices, mansions, and the like.
It just seemed like a massive waste of an opportunity. There was even a 40+ page thread on the CoV beta forums titled "CoV Just Not Villainous Enough"? That thread never saw a single developer response, and appeared not to impact the game in the slightest.
Which is fine, really, if the developers' definition of "villains" is just "heroes who don't get along". I'm sure lots of people will dig it because of the new archetypes, zones, powers, and PvP potential.
For my money, though, I expected something very different from a game titled City of Villains.
Does anyone know how the big 3 modellers compare? (I know a lot of game dev studios use Max and Maya.) Also, what about Blender?
While Maya is great for modeling, it's the animation and dynamics tools that really make it stand out. I don't know what apps are best positioned to take Maya's place in these areas. How do Blender's animation tools stand up to Maya's? Anyone tried Project:Messiah? Maybe this will be just the thing to push Softimage back into the spotlight...
Final Fantasy IV (II) a pioneer in featuring moral dilemmas and character development? Don't make me laugh. Try Ultima IV, perhaps, which did it all half a decade earlier in 1985.
1.Ultima. Beloved world and franchise.
2.Freespace. I agree with TFA on all counts.
3.Deus Ex. Let's just forget about Invisible War, okay?
4.Crimson Skies. Get the original (PC) team back. The sequel had none of the character and charm of the original.
5.Disciples. Great turn-based strategy franchise with some beautiful 2d art.
I loved Beyond Good and Evil. The Zelda series also qualifies as action/adventure.
I really miss the old Sierra/Lucasarts games though.
I actually still play them. Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle, Space Quest, The Dig, etc. etc.
Have you checked out Psychonauts? It's by Tim Shafer's studio, Double Fine, and is very much a hybrid platformer/adventure. It's available for Xbox, PS2, and PC. (Tim Shafer was the director of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango.)
(Full disclosure: I'm one of the game's developers.)
The one thing that always bothered me about those time travel movies (besides the ridiculous timetravel part) like "Back To the Future", is that you wouldn't have to go to extremes to prevent your birth. All you would have to do is bump into your Mom or Dad to delay them for 1 second; that slight change in the timeline would guarantee that it would be a different sperm that won the race to impregnate your mom.
Are there significant differences between individual sperm? Are there commonly major mutations on that scale?
I know next to nothing about the subject, but I'd imagine that all of a single man's... ahem... load... would consist of nearly identical sperm. They're carrying the same genetic material, after all, are they not?
...why resort to the same D&D-style fantasy world again? In a packed market, it seems to me the last thing you'd want is to feature the same setting as the most popular MMOs out there.
I see some nice steampunky elements in their screenshots... I wish they'd run with that rather than resorting to the same old elves and druids and rogues and blech.
I bought a personal copy of Lightscape 3.0, a radiosity rendering package, back in 1997. At the time, the license system involved the following steps:
1.Install Lightscape. 2.Enter serial number into installer. 3.Installer gives you a second number. 4.Send the first and second numbers to Lightscape, who will then generate a third number and send that to you. 5.Run Lightscape and type in the third number.
From there, you're "set". Of course, that second number was completely machine-dependent, so you need to get a new third number from Lightscape every time you upgrade your machine.
Oops... except Lightscape was bought and assimilated by Autodesk, who stopped supporting the app in July 2003. The problem here, of course, is that where Lightscape is concerned, "support" was necessary simply to install the product.
Guess as a paying consumer, that's just what I get for patronizing a company with a draconian licensing scheme.
The interesting thing is that my first Walkman, a Sony F5, was build like a bloody tank. That is to say, it lasted me a good 10 years before it finally broke down. No [tape-playing] walkman I've owned since has held up as well. It seems that, after a certain point of maturity, many industries settles on a disposable approach to product design and construction.
(Also, I'd like you damn kids to get off my lawn.)
You know what annoys me?
that all the freaking sentient aliens are pretty much the same size.
why can't we have some superdense 15 foot giants walking around talking trash.
Why are they all the same size?
Napoleon came after the revolution. Don't try to tell me he was all about surrendering. Bad guy? yes. Pussy? no.
And yet, Napoleon's goal (independent of his method) was to overthrow tyranny and spread the spirit of the French Revolution throughout Europe. Interesting to look at this in a modern context, eh?
I'd be interested to know, do you get the same effects with numbers written out in word form?
e.g. a telephone number of the form: five, five, five, one, two, three, four.
I'm just wondering if it's something that is related to sequences generally -- regardless of how they are presented -- or whether there's something significant about the actual digit representations that makes them difficult for you to interpret reliably.
Curious. It was easier for me to read and remember the sequence, though the block of three fives still seems to mess with me a little.
It almost seems like there are two things going on:
1.The more visual information that's presented, the easier it is to read.
2.Having to read them written out forces a slower read as well as a "conversion" to a numerical representation, thus devoting more brain time to each element.
Though your example was pretty easy because it really just formed two logical sequences (3 identical, 4 linear additive); when I did a test where I wrote out 7 random numbers in a row, it wasn't neary as easy to remember then. It was easier to read them, though. (But I'm not making any promises if you reply with "two X squared minus four X minus sixteen";)
I don't have any problems with written language, but written sequences of numerals are terribly problematic. The numbers (almost literally) jump around, switch places, and imposter for other numbers. This makes even simple math problems a nightmare. In high school, I got a solid D- in Algebra, followed by an A in Geometry the next year -- because geometry was all about proofs, shapes, and logic, without any of those messy numbers!:)
...isn't that Diebold is going to fix all the elections. It's that whoever loses will have solid grounds for a legal challenge, simply because of the inherent insecurity in the system.
It would be really unfortunate to see another election end up in the Supreme Court.
Trickle-down economics? Grow up. They don't work, and never have. The whole concept of trickle-down economics was just a feeble excuse to cut taxes for the wealthy.
Just a thought -- while you may have good points to make, saying "grow up" isn't likely to help your argument. (In addition to that, I got the sense that the parent poster was using the term semi-ironically.)
[sign on a closed-down movie theatre that reads: Yahoo Serious Festival]
Lisa Simpson-"I recognize all three of those words but that statement doesn't make any sense."
Christian music was HORRENDOUS for a very long period of time. The musicians had a heart for God, but not an aptitude for writing lyrics or music.
Yeah, it just needs to be good at what it does. I'm not a Christian, but one of my favorite bands is a "Christian band" -- Sixpence None the Richer. The key to their success, as I see it:
1.They don't preach. It's just passionate music from a perspective other than my own.
2.It's just plain good pop music. Good melodies, good production, good lyrics.
As I'm sure is being said elsewhere in this thread, all "Christian games" need to do to succeed is be fun to play.
Slashdot Mirror
You must have been skipping content also, because there are some other early missions you fight heroes in - I think you're L6 or less when you go to defeat the sea witch, who is the first "hero" sort of enemy (Although she's only a boss at low levels, you encounter her again in the low 20s as the first actual "Hero" you fight (which is the CoV equivalent of an Archvillain)).
Yeah, in all fairness, I've heard folks say that. I wasn't deliberately skipping content, though; I was simply joining pick-up teams, and the only missions people seemed to be running were villain-on-villain missions.
If more than 1-in-10 missions are villain vs. non-villain later on, that's cool, but it just doesn't seem like a good element to delay until the mid-game -- we didn't spend the first 15 levels of CoH helping old ladies across the road/rescuing kittens from trees/etc. We fought villains who were assaulting the innocent and plotting against the citizens of the city, in nearly every mission. In that sense, CoH delivered on its promise earlier and more effectively than CoV seems to have.
I played CoH for 1.5 years and was in the CoV beta.
My main problem with CoV, and the reason I didn't end up subscribing, was that most missions had me fighting other villains. Sure, villains engage in some in-fighting, but in 16 levels of leveling up a Corruptor in beta, I fought non-villains in exactly three missions:
1.Fought guards in the tutorial mission.
2.Fought heroes in the first mission.
3.Fought guards in the bank heist mission.
Everything else was fighting the same old villains from CoH -- Hellions, Skulls, Lost, Family, etc. Sure, the mission text may say "kidnap" rather than "rescue", but I was only ever "kidnapping" someone from another villain group, and it sure felt like a rescue. Sure, I steal valuable items, but only from other villain groups -- never from museums, offices, mansions, and the like.
It just seemed like a massive waste of an opportunity. There was even a 40+ page thread on the CoV beta forums titled "CoV Just Not Villainous Enough"? That thread never saw a single developer response, and appeared not to impact the game in the slightest.
Which is fine, really, if the developers' definition of "villains" is just "heroes who don't get along". I'm sure lots of people will dig it because of the new archetypes, zones, powers, and PvP potential.
For my money, though, I expected something very different from a game titled City of Villains.
Interestingly that Rhino 3D is picking up users.
Does anyone know how the big 3 modellers compare? (I know a lot of game dev studios use Max and Maya.) Also, what about Blender?
While Maya is great for modeling, it's the animation and dynamics tools that really make it stand out. I don't know what apps are best positioned to take Maya's place in these areas. How do Blender's animation tools stand up to Maya's? Anyone tried Project:Messiah? Maybe this will be just the thing to push Softimage back into the spotlight...
Final Fantasy IV (II) a pioneer in featuring moral dilemmas and character development? Don't make me laugh. Try Ultima IV, perhaps, which did it all half a decade earlier in 1985.
Hallelujah.
Hey, but at least having picked those, it's guaranteed to be good
Likewise for Half-Life Dreamcast. It was finished, but they cancelled it for the tax write-off (according to popular myth).
Though, in all fairness, contemporary marketing costs more than 10% of development -- it's more like 50%-100% for most games.
1.Ultima. Beloved world and franchise.
2.Freespace. I agree with TFA on all counts.
3.Deus Ex. Let's just forget about Invisible War, okay?
4.Crimson Skies. Get the original (PC) team back. The sequel had none of the character and charm of the original.
5.Disciples. Great turn-based strategy franchise with some beautiful 2d art.
Homer: Implied, Lisa, or implode?
I loved Beyond Good and Evil. The Zelda series also qualifies as action/adventure.
I really miss the old Sierra/Lucasarts games though.
I actually still play them. Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle, Space Quest, The Dig, etc. etc.
Have you checked out Psychonauts? It's by Tim Shafer's studio, Double Fine, and is very much a hybrid platformer/adventure. It's available for Xbox, PS2, and PC. (Tim Shafer was the director of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango.)
(Full disclosure: I'm one of the game's developers.)
The one thing that always bothered me about those time travel movies (besides the ridiculous timetravel part) like "Back To the Future", is that you wouldn't have to go to extremes to prevent your birth. All you would have to do is bump into your Mom or Dad to delay them for 1 second; that slight change in the timeline would guarantee that it would be a different sperm that won the race to impregnate your mom.
Are there significant differences between individual sperm? Are there commonly major mutations on that scale?
I know next to nothing about the subject, but I'd imagine that all of a single man's... ahem... load... would consist of nearly identical sperm. They're carrying the same genetic material, after all, are they not?
...why resort to the same D&D-style fantasy world again? In a packed market, it seems to me the last thing you'd want is to feature the same setting as the most popular MMOs out there.
I see some nice steampunky elements in their screenshots... I wish they'd run with that rather than resorting to the same old elves and druids and rogues and blech.
I bought a personal copy of Lightscape 3.0, a radiosity rendering package, back in 1997. At the time, the license system involved the following steps:
1.Install Lightscape.
2.Enter serial number into installer.
3.Installer gives you a second number.
4.Send the first and second numbers to Lightscape, who will then generate a third number and send that to you.
5.Run Lightscape and type in the third number.
From there, you're "set". Of course, that second number was completely machine-dependent, so you need to get a new third number from Lightscape every time you upgrade your machine.
Oops... except Lightscape was bought and assimilated by Autodesk, who stopped supporting the app in July 2003. The problem here, of course, is that where Lightscape is concerned, "support" was necessary simply to install the product.
Guess as a paying consumer, that's just what I get for patronizing a company with a draconian licensing scheme.
The interesting thing is that my first Walkman, a Sony F5, was build like a bloody tank. That is to say, it lasted me a good 10 years before it finally broke down. No [tape-playing] walkman I've owned since has held up as well. It seems that, after a certain point of maturity, many industries settles on a disposable approach to product design and construction.
(Also, I'd like you damn kids to get off my lawn.)
You know what annoys me?
:)
that all the freaking sentient aliens are pretty much the same size.
why can't we have some superdense 15 foot giants walking around talking trash.
Why are they all the same size?
Glad you asked
Haldane's On Being the Right Size
Of course, his essay does make certain assumptions about an Earth-like atmosphere and gravity...
Firing the staff of a niche cable network is a "Hitler move"? How did this get modded +5?
I know! That made me laugh out loud. In a sort of sad way.
Napoleon came after the revolution. Don't try to tell me he was all about surrendering. Bad guy? yes. Pussy? no.
And yet, Napoleon's goal (independent of his method) was to overthrow tyranny and spread the spirit of the French Revolution throughout Europe. Interesting to look at this in a modern context, eh?
Currently the toolbar is only available for IE but a Firefox version is under development.
I'm just curious, are "Mozilla" and "Firefox" effectively synonymous now? Or do people sometimes mean Firefox but not Mozilla?
I'd be interested to know, do you get the same effects with numbers written out in word form?
;)
e.g. a telephone number of the form: five, five, five, one, two, three, four.
I'm just wondering if it's something that is related to sequences generally -- regardless of how they are presented -- or whether there's something significant about the actual digit representations that makes them difficult for you to interpret reliably.
Curious. It was easier for me to read and remember the sequence, though the block of three fives still seems to mess with me a little.
It almost seems like there are two things going on:
1.The more visual information that's presented, the easier it is to read.
2.Having to read them written out forces a slower read as well as a "conversion" to a numerical representation, thus devoting more brain time to each element.
Though your example was pretty easy because it really just formed two logical sequences (3 identical, 4 linear additive); when I did a test where I wrote out 7 random numbers in a row, it wasn't neary as easy to remember then. It was easier to read them, though. (But I'm not making any promises if you reply with "two X squared minus four X minus sixteen"
I don't have any problems with written language, but written sequences of numerals are terribly problematic. The numbers (almost literally) jump around, switch places, and imposter for other numbers. This makes even simple math problems a nightmare. In high school, I got a solid D- in Algebra, followed by an A in Geometry the next year -- because geometry was all about proofs, shapes, and logic, without any of those messy numbers! :)
...isn't that Diebold is going to fix all the elections. It's that whoever loses will have solid grounds for a legal challenge, simply because of the inherent insecurity in the system.
It would be really unfortunate to see another election end up in the Supreme Court.
Trickle-down economics? Grow up. They don't work, and never have. The whole concept of trickle-down economics was just a feeble excuse to cut taxes for the wealthy.
Just a thought -- while you may have good points to make, saying "grow up" isn't likely to help your argument. (In addition to that, I got the sense that the parent poster was using the term semi-ironically.)
Likewise. Here's what flashed before my eyes:
[sign on a closed-down movie theatre that reads: Yahoo Serious Festival]
Lisa Simpson-"I recognize all three of those words but that statement doesn't make any sense."
When skimming the headline, I first thought it read, "Using Blogs to Dispose of Venture Captial"...
:)
Doesn't sound like much of a challenge, but hey, it's a slow news day
Christian music was HORRENDOUS for a very long period of time. The musicians had a heart for God, but not an aptitude for writing lyrics or music.
Yeah, it just needs to be good at what it does. I'm not a Christian, but one of my favorite bands is a "Christian band" -- Sixpence None the Richer. The key to their success, as I see it:
1.They don't preach. It's just passionate music from a perspective other than my own.
2.It's just plain good pop music. Good melodies, good production, good lyrics.
As I'm sure is being said elsewhere in this thread, all "Christian games" need to do to succeed is be fun to play.
Doom. Doom was orignally designed to run on an Apple II. Quake was also originally on a Mac. And Wolfenstein 3D.
Just out of curiosity, do you have any links to sources for this info?