woah

So from what's been said it seems like these so called "moderators" are actually clandestine PR types (doing e.g. damage control). Moderators are supposed to enforce the rules for their compensation--no more, no less. These people do not fit that description. But for god's sake, is there any aspect of life that the amoral class of PR types and influence peddlers won't corrupt? At least here in the US, one is hard pressed to find any bit of reporting/journalism or research that isn't tainted by this bullshit (e.g. on science, politics, product/service reviews, etc etc), and now one can't even take part in a game discussion without some assholes trying to "shape public perception"?

Routine looks interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAcAd1fUiy8

Not much. Basically just TFC now and then after work, and I'm thinking of trying out the new Shadow Warrior soon. Would actually like to play more, but I've got way too much stuff going on in the next few months.

I've had my eye on this for quite some time and expect I'll buy it for the Steam sale. However, I'm curious about what others' impressions are of it. I'm not too enthusiastic about the procedurally generated or "open world" environments--I like a good, carefully planned story, but it certainly looks cool.

Sometimes I just play the atmospheric music that is triggered when one enters the 1st floor hallway of Thief 2's first mission over and over again at night. If someone were to observe me they'd certainly think I'm crazy...

This is the sort of thing I had always hoped they'd do. All of the advantages of PCs and consoles without sacrificing user control and mod-ability. By making formal and simple hardware standards, users can expect games that Steam approves as stable to "just work" and developers can expect hardware and OS environment consistency--like a console, but like a PC there's nothing stopping the developer from distributing their game outside of Steam on the same OS and hardware (no walled garden bullshit). This will force linux distributions that want to provide a reliable gaming experience to coalesce too. And also like a PC, the user can install their games on their own hardware (upgraded or non-derivative), but at that point it's up to the developer and user to fix all of the issues that normally arise in PC gaming due to their noncompliance with the standards (i.e. if you want to go off and do your own thing, the user that "just wants to play" doesn't have to pay for it) Like a console, there's a pre-packaged user interface tailored to gaming, providing a marketplace, community features, IM/chatroom service, voice chat, etc etc, but like a PC one is not forced to use this simplified interface when using the OS or hardware (and also like a PC, one can install whatever they please on the OS and hardware). Now the exception to all of this is that the service and these standards are dictated by a private company and--assuming the Steam OS becomes widespread--this puts a lot of power into the hands of an easily corruptible entity (e.g. when management is inevitably corrupted); the altruistic (or let's say "nongreedy") nature of it completely depends on Steam not "going evil" (and they certainly will become evil--especially after Steam becomes more successful). This is in addition to the fact that one already doesn't actually own the games they've purchased and one cannot share them (and other little things, like Steam forcing updates in the background--even while playing multiplayer games--in a way that is disingenuous due to their bandwidth monitor not making note of it). If Valve were smart, they would put measures in place that limit their own excesses because at this rate the future Valve will certainly become something the current Valve will disagree with.

My connection spend 10 minutes on "Selecting best server based on ping" and then I gave up. $90 / month for this (plus "regulatory taxes," they must have had a good laugh when they decided to insert this line into everyone's bill). It gets worse every year. 'mericuh internet

Damn, that's too bad. I didn't finish it, but Amnesia was a good game (as long as you remove the teeth grinding sound effect). Too bad they changed their approach. Guess they had to pay the bills?

I had been eyeing this on and off for a while, but forgot about it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention--I promply bought it and I'll be sure to return with my own impressions

Not too long ago he stated that he's putting his aerospace company into "hibernation" until he can get more funding, so this may be among his motivations for joining (as CTO he'll make out pretty well if the OR is a success with cosumers). Let's just hope he's at least as passionate about VR as he is about simply securing funding for his personal projects. I mean, it seems like he is, but given that he'll be in such a powerful position it could be unfortunate if this isn't the case.

I use linux as my main PC OS--archlinux in particular. And I have to say that it is a pain in the ass whenever I try to change something. Add new hardware, there's almost always a bug with it. Update or add a new program, there's a good chance I'll have a problem with it (almost guaranteed if I do a full system update). Many things only "half work", e.g. for several years I've had a suspend-to-ram bug where there's something like a 10% chance the PC will lock up on execution of the command. I either deal with these things or spend hours--days once in a while--trying to resolve the issue. However, even with these things, I still can't find an OS that better suits me. I simply like a sane development environment, a modular (and also sane) CLI, bleeding edge software (and hardware), and there's always some obscure program I want to install and incorporate into my scripts (thanks to modularity). Windows cannot offer me this, and I find the lack of such things more frustrating than the issues I experience with linux. Still, I do not personally know more than 3 people that I would encourage to use linux, and those people already use linux. I usually reboot to windows 7 to play games, but Valve and indie developers seem to be slowly chipping away at this issue.

Well this turned out to be longer than I had intended it to be, but the "story" is pretty relevant to this discussion: I've programmed as a hobby since my late teens, so I took a job as a software programmer for several years at an insurance company. Despite having a good manager, it was very stressful, I had a ton of responsibility, long hours, overtime, presentations, deadlines, etc etc; it really felt like I was still at work even on my days off. I ended up having trouble sleeping--I'm guessing from the stress. And, worst of all, after expending most of my "mental energy" at work, it was no longer pleasurable to program (or do just about any other cerebral activity I desired) with what little free time I had left. This latter part seemed to be a pattern among my coworkers, but they were satisfied with playing video games, socializing, reading novels, etc etc (not implying there's a problem with this). And despite exercising regularly, sitting or standing in one position for so long was quite bad for my health, but that was something I was willing to endure... But the other things--stress, no free time, lack of sleep, loss of the ability to act on my interests--I really couldn't stand those, so I decided to make a change. Now I'm apprenticing as a stone mason and I have to say I'm a lot happier. The work itself can be pretty simple so I listen to audiobooks during the day to keep me stimulated between joking around with coworkers. Due to the job's flexibility I've been able to reduce my hours significantly and get back to my hobbies (and the energy is there too, because after a short period of acclimation I, oddly enough, find I have both more physical and mental energy at the end of the day). There's also the benefit that my work itself is now my exercise and overall I'm quite a bit healthier. I'm no longer a zombie (and neither are my coworkers). Of course it's not without difficulties. The pay is a lot less, and I've had to adjust my living for that. I haven't been able to justify the cost of health insurance ('merricuh). I definitely couldn't "afford" a family. Most people look down on manual labor, and while this can be irritating at family gatherings, it's often only a somewhat patronizing attitude--probably not even intentional (only a few times have I gotten genuinely snide comments from people, usually a kind of annoyed skepticism). Any semblance of retirement doesn't seem to be likely (but the 401ks offered by American companies are a joke anyway). So iit's no paradise. You need to weigh what's most important to you. So this is how I balanced my "time for hobbies" dilemma with my occupation. The issue is of particular concern to me because, to be honest, I consider my hobbies as my happiness. Also, I have considered starting my own business and "making my hobby my occupation," but I'm of the belief that making it "marketable" would mean too much stress and too many compromises--to the extent that it would no longer be a hobby and thus defeat the purpose. I don't mean this as an egotistical thing (i.e. it's not a "my aspirations are too grand for this" sort of thing). Rather, what I enjoy is spending excessive amounts of time obsesseing over things--something incompatible with that context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7RgYN6SSEE edit: set to public

I started playing Amnesia not too long ago (fortunately found the sound files to disable the annoying/jarring teeth grinding sound effect) and I thought it was great. I didn't play too much of it because I need to be more selective with my time, but it's definitely one of the scariest games I've played. I also loved the environmental detail, and dark games like this will be so much better once good contrast ratios can be achieved again (e.g. with OLED monitors becoming affordable. I sold my CRT because I had forgotten how much they strain the eyes). And if A Machine For Pigs were to support upcoming VR headsets, now that would be particularly freaky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ovcEK9UbIo This is a really good collection of 10 Oculus Rift impressions. Highly recommend checking it out if you're skeptical or just curious about what the experience is like.

There was a time when I'd expect to at least be a little anxious about something like this, but I've grown so accustomed to seeing sequels to my favorite games being retrofitted for mass market appeal that I no longer even bother. Of course once in a while something good does come along, but the risk of actually anticipating anything is too high. Your hair is amazing! Please be my king!

Granted these guys plan to continue with the patches, I really hope they don't get too confident and end up revealing themselves. Even if Eidos claims they want to cooperate or green lights it themselves in an official statement, they can always "change their minds" (in fact, I vaguely remember something similar happening a few times). The presence of Thief 4 means the suits are all the more likely to try and bring down the hammer, and if not the current lot of suits, then perhaps the next in line from the "general sifting of the most morally reprehensible individuals to the top" process. Yes, it's unreasonable for them to care about such a thing, but it's perfectly reasonable to think that they would based on lots and lots of history.

In terms of input systems made feasible by VR, while I don't have any experience with them or high quality VR like the rift, I would think the imagination would compensate well enough for the haptic feedback aspect of it--especially if there's a risk/reward system in place (penalizing inconsistent actions) and visual indicators e.g. that draw two separate limbs when your limb's tracked location goes out of sync with what the physics engine says it should be. So, for example, when you stick your hand through a wall, you see "the real limb" (as far as the physics engine is concerned) pressed up against the wall, and also, say, a red outline of your limb's tracked location passing through the wall. The latter would only need to be displayed when there's an inconsistency. And I think depth perception is the key difference in terms of believability of and confidence with a limb-mapping input system. If the brain is given accurate and consistent information about objects' distances from itself, this opens up a whole new range of possibilities that are otherwise too difficult (or too revolting, as I distinctly recall from trying to manipulate things on the screen--in "third person"--with the Novint Falcon). An input system that is as 1-to-1 and latency free as possible will be essential, of course. A Thief-like game would be a perfect application of such input technology. Mantling (can you imagine climbing the geometry of the side of a building?), pick-pocketing, lock-picking, sword play, and what everyone else has covered--the context for it is all there. I think Oculus Rift support (granted it gets positional tracking) justifies itself in Thief due to the increased immersion, but to accompany it with such an input system might just be the holy grail for a Thief game. I don't know, maybe the lack of haptic feedback nullifying any potential for the increased immersion of such an input system is a real possibility. But for now I can only use my imagination to analyze its feasibility, and given a visual perspective consistent enough with your actual one (and with depth perception, full FOV, tracking, etc etc), similarly consistent limb tracking (considerable software support to adjust for the inevitable inconsistencies), and some familiarization time, it certainly appears to be a real possibility. Of course I think it will be awkward at first to see your hand pass through a wall when you expect resistance, but to me it seems likely that once one gets comfortable and gives their brains some "training" time, the imagination will fill in the gaps left by the lack of haptic feedback. I read an impression a while back where someone trying out the rift--even in its current immature state--dropped their controller on the ground because the ingame table they reached for in their periphery didn't actually exist, so that sounds promising. Of course this could just be hype from Oculus.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are my personal favorites for comedy (and if I were limited to television for staying informed, the former would sadly be much better than many of the other US news networks for certain things, e.g. they actually acknowledge the embarrassing level of corruption in the US). For pure comedy I watch Seinfeld re-runs once in a while. The internet where I live in the US (few miles out of town) is too poor to stream anything and is capped at just a few gigabytes (if I go over, it's $10/GB thereafter), so I have very few options as far as media in general goes.

Paul Krugman's "End This Depression Now!" Lawrence Lessig's "Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a plan to stop it" (highly recommend this one) David Wessel's "Red Ink" Hedrick Smith's "Who Stole the American Dream?"

While it's probably not going to amount to anything, I make an effort to not let cynicism prevent me from participating in something that only takes 5 seconds to put my name on, so I'll join.

I believe Hawken is getting VR headset support (Oculus Rift), which will be extremely cool. For those that have played Hawken, what is the gameplay like? A while back I read that while the graphics were really amazing, it just played like a regular old DM/TDM FPS rather than a mech game. Is this true?

I know that feeling all too well. I played through a bit of that prequel to dark souls (forget the name), but I couldn't finish it either. I mean, it was a great game and all, but it just couldn't compete with other things I could dedicate my time to (I would rather dedicate that time to e.g. creating something). I love the fact that it's very challenging, but without a compelling story or in-depth combat, the only thing that comes to mind when I think of Dark Souls is "daunting." I've noticed that nowadays I mostly gravitate to two kinds of games: (1) Very immersive games with good storylines and interesting gameplay. Some examples: Portal (1 and 2), MGS4, Valkyria Chronicles, Chronicles of Riddik: Escape from Butcher Bay, all the way back to The Metal Age (still my favorite game of all time). Lately I've been trying to get into Amnesia: The Dark Descent (had to disable the teeth-grinding sound or whatever that annoying thing is), but I'm hoping the story picks up since it currently feels kind of forced. (2) Pick up and play multiplayer games that have a lot of competitive depth. Examples would be Wipeout, CS 1.6, Quake 3. I don't consider games like Call of Duty to have sufficient competitive depth (even though most would throw it in the same bucket as CS1.6). However, I haven't really been into even these kinds of games for the past few years due to poor internet ('merricuh). Overall there are a lot of games that I would have at least tried back in the day, but won't even dare to touch now. Open world games that involve grinding or "side quests" (or perhaps rely heavily on procedurally generated content) just don't do it for me at all (they actually leave me feeling rather depressed for some reason). I can't even get myself to play an MMORPG anymore.

Oh man ... if I saw someone playing an FPS and using the keyboard to reorient the view in this day, I'd probably burst out laughing. Not that I have a problem with it--whatever floats your boat. I just find it really funny. For some reason it reminds me of a guy I used to know who would unplug his computer from the wall when he was done with it ... no, he didn't shut it down first. He just unplugged it because he thought of it as any other electrical appliance and didn't know any better. The first time I asked him why he had just gotten down on his knees and crawled under his desk to yank out the cord, I remember laughing until tears were running down my face But as for the thread's topic, on the desktop I use an old mx510 mouse and a kinesis advantage keyboard. I don't play any games on my laptop, but on my "UMPC" (or whatever you want to call it .... it's a UMID Mbook M1 pocketable computer --> http://www.umpcportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/umidhands.jpg ... good thing I don't have meaty fingers like this guy), I play FPSs with a combination of the keyboard and the touchscreen--mostly GoldSrc based games. I wrote a mouse hook that (well, once you set up the variables right in the GoldSrc engine right) reorients the optical axis with wherever you tap on the touchscreen. E.g. you tap heads for headshots in CS 1.6

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414070,00.asp Oculus Rift demo'd by pcmag at CES 2013. It's short, but it gives you a sense of just how convincing the effect is. Really can't wait for this thing.