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peter_spy

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Everything posted by peter_spy

  1. peter_spy
    To create these mods, it seems so, but not to play them.
  2. peter_spy
    Holy shit, this is one of the very few moments, where I actually believe this might really be something groundbreaking. Nexus Mods will need bigger servers, fast
  3. peter_spy

    It's funny how perception changes over the years. I've been replaying Bioshock in its Remastered version, and I'm surprised how bad the level design actually is. It's just a series of abstract corridor mazes that you can't really map out in your head. There's nothing that would ground them in any kind of reality, fictional or otherwise, no sense of place people could live in. It's almost like Wolfenstein 3d with cool art deco assets.

    1. Show previous comments  6 more
    2. datiswous

      datiswous

      Quote

      playing Tomb Raider 2, 3 & 4, NOLF 1 & 2, Oni, Urban Chaos, at work to pass the time

      Ehh, at work??

    3. peter_spy

      peter_spy

      Quote

      What kind of level design should new Bioshock franchise invent? Open, connected world?

      I don't think it has to invent anything, just use human architecture as a reference, and create places that look like they are lived-in. First Bioshiock was released early in X360 lifecycle, so that might explain abstract levels, but the technology is definitely there now :)

      I guess one of the explanations for large blocky layouts could also be that there had to be a sufficient space for Big Daddies to navigate and fight.

    4. Epifire

      Epifire

      Well I mean it was based off System Shock initially, so I think a lot of that design comes straight back to gameplay. It's funny because I'm the weirdo who vastly preferred the last game. I like the style of Bio1 but something about it always struck me as it feeling like a chore to complete every time I've played it. You get YouTubers like the Act Man who treat it like it's an untouchable legend but I never had that kind of admiration for it.

      I can agree the level design and overall layout, definitely lends a hand to this sentiment.

  4. peter_spy
    If you ever need reference for antique painting frames, this one is really good https://www.johndaviesframing.com/frame-gallery/
  5. peter_spy
    if toned down slightly, that could be a mural of some sort, nice! By the way, while I was experimenting with current paintings-as-loot entity system, I noticed a couple of things. It seems like it always needs a second model for an empty frame entityDef. You can't use the base model with "stolen" skin. Examples from Loot entityDef seem to confirm that. The second model can even use different skin, but you can't use the same model for base painting and empty frame, by just switching skins. It's a bit of resource waste, two models instead of one, but ideally both solutions could be supported, IMO.
  6. peter_spy
    It sure does! But strangely, I found that stuff like that is everywhere in video games and it works for me as well. It's gross oversimplification, to the point of looking utterly silly, but somehow it gets the job done. I guess this one just screams "you've already stolen this!" at you, and you can see it from quite afar.
  7. peter_spy
    Yeah, the painting itself is fairly reflective. I've been experimenting with things on normalmap, but adding patterns there turned out to be quite distracting. No no, you're right, there is a fair bit of specularity thrown in there. There are some things on specular, like dust bits, and a subtle stuff on normalmap to make the painting look as if there are paint layers. I tried some brush strokes as well, but it seemed a bit much
  8. peter_spy
    Remade SeriousToni's painting model, so it can serve both as decoration and loot item. 500 coins for such a sloppy cutout job might be a bit of a wishful thinking though
  9. peter_spy
    Very nice, gives me the Dishonored 1 vibes, although with higher res textures Did you design these, using 3d elements baked into textures, or did some good old photo-bashing?
  10. peter_spy
    You can crouch and creep right behind stationary AI and blackjack them, even on tiled floor. But I discovered that through my mapping experiments, not by playing missions. I it seems like noone bothered to teach players this.
  11. peter_spy
    Yeah, a good animator or character artist is very hard to find
  12. peter_spy
    They do look like crap anyway, just because of how much time have passed. But that's okay, you did what you could, with knowledge and tools that were available to you back then. Does that mean though, that any efforts to bring better assets to the table should be discouraged?
  13. peter_spy

    Spiritfarer

    What a lovely game, perfect way to relax before sleep.

    1. STiFU

      STiFU

      Is that Gris?

    2. peter_spy

      peter_spy

      Spiritfarer 🙂

    3. STiFU

      STiFU

      Oh nice, I just downloaded the demo on our Switch two days ago, when I felt sick and wanted to play something relaxing, but I was too tired. 😄 Definitely gonna give it a shot 'though.

  14. peter_spy
    That's really awesome news. It will be interesting to test that
  15. peter_spy
    If I see correctly, fog lights are still treated as omni lights, and they mess up the lighting preview. The workaround in previous versions was to put such light on a separate layer and make it invisible. It doesn't seem to work on my end anymore with 3.0.0
  16. peter_spy
    Have you tested it performance-wise? Last time I checked, heat haze was getting more resource hungry the more pixels in player viewport it used. So sticking your nose to the glass and looking at another big heat haze surface, like a body of water or something, could be really expensive.
  17. peter_spy
    It's nice to see that gamedev is finally adopting common software development practices, adding this one to my fav GDC vids list
  18. peter_spy

    Deathloop – what a mess of a game. I'd love to see a post-mortem on it some day. I hope Arkane is doing okay though.

    1. Show previous comments  24 more
    2. Shadow

      Shadow

      Thanks to this thread I am currently playing Deathloop. Have to say I am enjoying it very much, but I can see where it turns people off. The bad first: Yes it's repetitive and enemies respawn, annoying to have to encounter/kill the same baddies over and over. It is a time loop game, so that part is to be expected. Perhaps the back and forth between times of day and revisiting areas once you find info or codes in other areas can be too much backtracking for some. The good: It feels just like Dishonored with a No One Lives Forever candy and bubble gum pop vibe. That's a definite plus. Mooncrash will be next to play for a real comparison.

    3. STiFU

      STiFU

      So, how do we turn this status discussion into a fully fledged thread now? 😄 @Dragofer is this possible? 🙂

    4. Dragofer

      Dragofer

      Unfortunately I can only hide or delete this status update. Would be cool if new threads with new posts could be created.

  19. peter_spy
    First off, at the creation stage it's just "let's create great art", or "let's think of ways to express ourselves and communicate our ideas". GDC presentations are a byproduct of that work. Then, at some point, the PR department steps in and talks about high sales. But historically, games in the Thief era had much more leeway in that regard. So framing it like it was a modern AAA title is misleading. The question of hobby vs. professional framed the above is something that I've seen several times already, and TTLG and here would be the only places in the world that I've seen people frame it like that. There is no hard line between hobbyist and a pro, as your post implies. People do pick up creative hobbies because of pros in the first place. Like you pick up an instrument, because you heard something recorded by pros. And you imitate them, then you try to find your own style, etc. You learn whatever your curiosity and taste leads you to, and as much as you are willing to spend your free time on this. But no one says: "ooh, I'm not learning that, this is for the pros only". "I'm not learning it right now, because I have to work on my technique first" – sure. In the end, the difference between hobbyists and pros is mostly that the latter earn money for it. Not how far someone goes in their learning or skills. That is perhaps one thing we can agree on. Also don't want to continue this, because to me it seems like a discussion for sake of discussion, with walls of text, and not in order to get somewhere interesting. @Dragofer you forgot to move this last post from the conversation to the gear thread.
  20. peter_spy
    That people who came up with the principles I'm talking about got to these conclusions while designing their successful games, Thief included, which TDM is based on. Using this knowledge is useful and leads to creating better maps, whether in Thief series or similar games, so again, TDM included. So not knowing or not being interested in what made the game TDM is based on great is nothing to be proud of. And no, referring to knowledge or experts in subject-matter is not running out of arguments, unless you're this type of a person who questions everything, and has your own "philosophy" on everything. Then I'm definitely outta here Not really, you even bolded out that part: "creating situations in which not using your gear is one of the worse possibilities". And that's a purely theoretical situation, it won't hold up during the execution. The rest, i.e. "stealth games are dead" is just a defensive distraction and watering down the discussion; next up will be "what is a stealth game", "what is reality anyway" etc. Again, not my kind of jam
  21. peter_spy
    1. Yes, most interactions with the environment mean noise, which can lead to failure. If you want to incentivize using tools and experimenting with guards and environment, why did you choose Thief gameplay and implemented stealth score? 2. Not really, if you balance it out. You can create more paths, e.g. a shorter one, but lit by a lantern that goes out for a while, every now and then. Or another shorter path behind guards back, but with a loud surface. This way player has a risk-reward kind of choice (get somewhere faster, but have to creep carefully behind AIs back, or time their move through a temporarily unlit area). Again, it's easier and faster to discuss these things when you know the contents of that presentation.
  22. peter_spy
    Well, there is no rulebook, but there are e.g. ex-LGS devs presentations floating on the web, this was basically a quote from Randy Smith's presentation called "Level building and stealth gameplay", but there are also others. Since these are done by professional developers, and confirmed by many successful games under their belt, then yeah, their expertise and credibility is much much stronger than of anyone here, sorry You can see this approach working in their games, I can see it working in my WIPs as well. And, you know, I'd rather get the fundamentals first, and maybe then try to play the rebel and make up my own rules. Like in any other discipline, really. I'd suggest reading that presentation first, because you're kinda discussing its points taken out of context, which doesn't make much sense.
  23. peter_spy
    That scenario is in direct conflict with one of the fundamental stealth design principles, where in every situation you should have at least one "zero-failure path". It's not that it cannot be contested in any way by AI (looked at, crossed by patrolling, etc.), and it might (or even should) be the longest way to go from A to B, but it has to be there. Using noisemakers, water arrows, or killing guards is always an option. But it's also a play style choice some might not like. Even using blackjack as one of reusable tools might not be preferable by a portion of players. Not to mention that you can fail using any of these means, and you'll be punished by swift death, in most cases. The fundamental difference between stealth games and titles like Quake is that in the latter, developers expect you to partially fail, so they scatter around medkits. In stealth games, you don't expect player to fail (typically).
  24. peter_spy
    I wonder what practical example of that would be, since most player tools (arrows) are finite, and you always risk player running out of them (whether by accident or not), before arriving to a place where they'll have to use them. Even if you trap the player in a room with variety of arrow types they have to use to get out of it, you always risk a situation where they could make a mistake, and permanently lock themselves in. The only infinitely reusable tools are blackjack, sword, lockpicks, and... lantern?
  25. peter_spy
    It seems to be doing that, actually. It seems like AI can go from level 4 or 5 to 0, it just plays the "agitated search" barks until it reaches Alert 0 on level 0, and it never puts away its weapon since. I thought the very slow cooldown for the 1.5-0 range might be there to add a little variation if player manages to alert the same AI second time in a row, in a time between alerts shorter than 3 minutes. Anyway, thanks for digging that up, this is interesting
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