Aye, Dink Smallwood.. a fun game, that:) I've been a member of the community ever since it was released as freeware in '99, and the source was released earlier this year, making things ever-so-interesting.
Since I will soon be the webmaster of the one and only living Dink Smallwood fan site, I may as well 'pimp' it: The Dink Network Feel free to bother us all.
I've seen my fair share of lame game commercials - the Sims commercials seem a tad dumb, IMO - but I wouldn't say gaming needs to "grow up" just because of a few campy, corny ads. Noone's telling companies Mastercard or Progressive to grow up, yet they have some ridiculous spots on the telly.
Just my two cents.
"Act 4 still only has very few waypoints, compared to all other levels. Adding some more waypoints, or even a new area or two, to Act 4 would have been great."
That's a little more than they could do in a patch... they're only able to edit the game's features to an extent.
IMHO, in games, the tech should always take the backseat to the actual gameplay, not the other way around. If you want splendid video and audio, then go hunt down some technology tests on the web.
Meh, indeed.
"So, uh, what's up?"
"Well, last night, I picked up an N-Gage.."
"N-what?"
"N-Gage. It's like a cell phone and a handheld gaming platform rolled into one. Don't get the wrong idea, though - the Game Boy is for the kiddies. N-Gage is for more of a, shall we say, mature audience."
"Yeah, well, whatcha got for it?"
"I've got Tomb Raider, um, Sonic... er... Pande..mo..nium...."
"Get outta here."
"Regarding the rest of your comment though, Blizzard really haven't done much at all for the game since since 2001."
That's a little thing we all like to call "crunch time for War3," and then a few months later, its expansion. You may say, "Yeah, well, that was Blizzard Irvine; Blizzard North developed Diablo II," but... they don't round up the entire development team of a certain game to work on a patch. I'm pretty sure noone does. They gather a handful of people from either company who work bit by bit, and these folks try their best to build the next patch. Then, when something's wrong with a more recent title (Warcraft III), some of these same people are redirected toward building a patch for that title instead, and a higher priority is placed on it. After that, they can return to the D2 patching goodness.
Also note that company test cycles for the patch last 2-3 weeks, and if *any* error is spotted, they work on another build and go through yet another 2-3 week test cycle.
In addition, whether you realize it or not, Blizzard also does server-side updates apart from the standard patching which fix bugs/security/cheating problems exclusively in multiplayer. And believe it or not, they don't announce every little thing. For the most part, they're discreet in regards to the server-side work.
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Aye, Dink Smallwood.. a fun game, that :) I've been a member of the community ever since it was released as freeware in '99, and the source was released earlier this year, making things ever-so-interesting.
Since I will soon be the webmaster of the one and only living Dink Smallwood fan site, I may as well 'pimp' it: The Dink Network Feel free to bother us all.
I've seen my fair share of lame game commercials - the Sims commercials seem a tad dumb, IMO - but I wouldn't say gaming needs to "grow up" just because of a few campy, corny ads. Noone's telling companies Mastercard or Progressive to grow up, yet they have some ridiculous spots on the telly. Just my two cents.
"Act 4 still only has very few waypoints, compared to all other levels. Adding some more waypoints, or even a new area or two, to Act 4 would have been great." That's a little more than they could do in a patch... they're only able to edit the game's features to an extent.
IMHO, in games, the tech should always take the backseat to the actual gameplay, not the other way around. If you want splendid video and audio, then go hunt down some technology tests on the web. Meh, indeed.
"So, uh, what's up?" "Well, last night, I picked up an N-Gage.." "N-what?" "N-Gage. It's like a cell phone and a handheld gaming platform rolled into one. Don't get the wrong idea, though - the Game Boy is for the kiddies. N-Gage is for more of a, shall we say, mature audience." "Yeah, well, whatcha got for it?" "I've got Tomb Raider, um, Sonic... er... Pande..mo..nium...." "Get outta here."
Heh, nice Smart pun. George is about as cocky and arrogant as Derek, too... it's bothersome.
"Regarding the rest of your comment though, Blizzard really haven't done much at all for the game since since 2001."
That's a little thing we all like to call "crunch time for War3," and then a few months later, its expansion. You may say, "Yeah, well, that was Blizzard Irvine; Blizzard North developed Diablo II," but... they don't round up the entire development team of a certain game to work on a patch. I'm pretty sure noone does. They gather a handful of people from either company who work bit by bit, and these folks try their best to build the next patch. Then, when something's wrong with a more recent title (Warcraft III), some of these same people are redirected toward building a patch for that title instead, and a higher priority is placed on it. After that, they can return to the D2 patching goodness.
Also note that company test cycles for the patch last 2-3 weeks, and if *any* error is spotted, they work on another build and go through yet another 2-3 week test cycle.
In addition, whether you realize it or not, Blizzard also does server-side updates apart from the standard patching which fix bugs/security/cheating problems exclusively in multiplayer. And believe it or not, they don't announce every little thing. For the most part, they're discreet in regards to the server-side work.