wesp5
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Posts posted by wesp5
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Edit: checked if it's shopped, just in case. It isn't, here's the source.
Very interesting read, it's exactly as I suspected all along, only now I have the prove
! It also explains why my patch was able to restore so many unfinished things to Bloodlines...Comparatively though, they still are about as good as it gets...
I don't see it that way, Newell has already be caught lying his head off, I wouldn't be surprised if other things happen. Maybe they should split Valve into one company that maintains Steam and another that actually makes games
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Does leaning forward not help in those situations?
Is that possible in TDM? I didn't even know...
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This is got way off-topic, but, wesp5, could you find that interview with Tim Cain about Activision 'freezing' final build of VtMB?
Sorry, but I don't know about that interview. I have only one with Boyarsky in which he tries to avoid the contract question:
Terra-Arcanum: The Internet abounds with rumors of Half-Life 2 delays. Allegedly, there is a clause in the contract that Bloodlines can only be released after HL2. Is this true? ... Leonard Boyarsky: We aren't at liberty to reveal details of Activision's contract with Valve.
But Brian Mitsoda said in an interview with Grupo: In the end, there was only so much we could do or were allowed to do and it was taken out of our hands.
Valve's finances aren't based on advertising and collecting personal data.
But right now Valve's finances are based solely on the fact that Steam keeps it's distribution dominance, because they earn from almost every title downloaded from there. They surely couldn't survive from the few mods they released on their own! Also what really made me start the rant is the fact that Facebook is regarded as evil, I agree of course, but Valve is regarded as good, for which I see little reason. They collect a lot of data too, just check their hardware surveys, and have a DRM client running always in the background. GOG looks much better as a distribution platform to me...
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Hi Airship Ballet', I just can't quote your badly formatted posting, so here comes my reply out of my head.
Valve doing charity work and so on - Zuckerberg does the same only much more.
HL2 delay didn't kill Troika off - Besides that Troika had to restart Bloodlines over and over because the Source engine wasn't finished as Newell only cared about Steam at the time, there was also a clause in their contract that Bloodlines mustn't be released before HL2. So however far Troika was with the game, they couldn't release it as long as HL2 was delayed, so they tried their Fallout 3 pitch instead on working on a game that had to sit on the shelf anyway. Bloodlines came out the same day as HL2, stupid decicion or the last attempt to make some needed money as soon as possible?
Steam only created for patching - I never played Counter-Strike much, but I had never the impression patching was too slow in those days. You admit that EA is doing the same thing right now, but Valve didn't? They did it with CS and HL2!
Before this escalatates, I just wanted to say that in my humble opinion Valve is as much a "good" guy as Facebook
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Everybody knows HL3 has been in development hell. Saying it's a cynical calculated strategy is like saying companies plan on bankruptcy to avoid paying their debts
Of course it's no strategy, but it shows that all Gabe Newell and Valve care about right now is Steam. Not games. For that they release the occasional pimped mod...
Edit: Wait, isn't the topic the Oculus buy? We're not even talking about Valve. Sorry, I should have Kvorning's advice...
Yeah, I know. But it's somehow connected because Facebook bought OR to stay "top" like Valve announced Steamboxes. Both only want to dominate the market and have long forgotten what they all started about.
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He's proven otherwise on countless occasions.
Yeah, like when? Where is HL3? What caused the delay of HL2 that killed Troika off? Why are Valve only releasing pimped up mods by buying out their teams instead of actually creating a game themselves? Why have the leaders of these teams left Valve again in the meantime although their flat company architecture is supposed to be so great?
Besides, they originally made Steam so that they could patch Counter Strike without days-long disruption to their service, not because they're evil masterminds who live only to mildly inconvenience you.
You really believe that? Like the whole online distribution is only a side effect of patching? Don't make me laugh! Newell is not dumb, he got the headstart that made Steam a success by using Counter-Strike. EA is doing the same right now with Battlefield: take a blockbuster and use it to force your system on people! Also the whole Valve-supports-Linux stuff was only done to lay the ground work for their Steamboxes. Maybe you don't know, but it pretty much broke a lot of HL2 mods that way and Valve didn't care at all!
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Another improvement suggestion: Quite often I have to crouch on top of chests or drawers to get the items out. Is there a way to make that easier?
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Even then, with the whole scandal over Origin scanning people's computers, people still use it, and with EA's ability to go exclusive on it with new titles, they will eventually claw back more market share away from Valve.
I really hope so because the way Valve started Steam by forcing every Counter-Strike player to use it wasn't fair in any means! Also Newell has been known to lie on several occasions, especially regarding the HL2 delay, and I don't trust him any more than Zuckerberg. He is an ex-MS guy who only cares about money and market domination, games are side business for him and ever were. That's the real reason for the delays of HL2 and HL3!
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But apparently Valve is making their own VR headset so really the Oculus Rift is just one of many that will be coming out. I know for sure I wont be buying this now but hopefully Lord Gaben will lead the market and save us!
I don't really understand this, unless you were talking in irony. Everyone is complaining about Facebook and it's dominance in the social network area and nobody seems to notice that Steam is trying to do the same with PC gaming: Forcing everyone into the same over-connected DRM network that only Valve controls by announcing gadgets like the Steamboxes and Steamcontrollers...
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I know we are talking about single player games here, but just look at multiplayer. I played Counter-Strike for a very short time when it was new, what maps have I played? The whole game is nothing but a few maps played over and over again, still nobody would claim that Counter-Strike isn't a game because it has no campaign and no connection between maps!
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There's a very nice idea of making an Official Mission/Tutorial in a similar way that is now but much more dynamic. The Training map is very varied and can help guide new players through varied situations. I already got some nice ideas.
So are you going to work on that or do you need someone else to do it? I have just recently started a bit of real map editing for Bloodlines and I guess that even modifying a TDM map, if that is possible without recompiling it, is still out of my league. If so, remember to add a way to actually finish the training map! BTW, is anything going to happen about your suggetion to increase the info on the mission list? In case this is considered, I would really like a way to manually add a rating on how good a map was. So I'll know what to replay years later
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I read some of the other threads here in the meantime and there was the suggestion to turn the training mission into some kind of mini city hub where you meet a fence to start the FMs and could also have an unified store. I really like this idea! Together with some included team member campaigns it would also help with the whole "TDM is a toolkit" discussion, because it would string the missions closer together in a way. I disagree with the original poster though, that the player would have to move to a part of this hub fitting to the entry point of the FM because this would probably mean a lot more work than a new hub-training-map would mean anyway. In my opinion it would be fine if the FMs could be selected either from a fence or maybe a board in a thieves guild and they would then get loaded like they are right now. What do you think?
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Perhaps the training mission could be used as the architectural template for a mission.
Good idea! The different areas could be rearranged to be played in a certain order with the AI section last and a final "Mission completed" message at the end too
! As I wrote elsewhere, I was annoyed right from the start that the training mission couldn't be completed on the mission list... -
The skills in Deus Ex are irritating, given that rounds come out of gun barrels sideways until you level up the skill that allows you to shoot straight.
I'll second that! In System Shock 2 you couldn't use some weapons at all unless you leveled up a skill, as if it would be too difficult to pull a trigger. Even in real RPGs, like the Elder Scrolls games or my beloved Bloodlines, skills are problematic, because either you gain them like in the former by repeating something, which is grinding and thus boring, or like in the later you get XP for completing a quest and can spend them on skills you didn't even use at all, which makes no sense. To me special items improving the player which you gain through quests are the best way out of this dilemma and I don't see how this can be done in a many single missions scenario like in TDM.
But I agree with Taquito that a star system on the missions list, each star for each difficulty, would be a good idea!
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Why not include all missions by team members into the next official TDM release, in case their quality is sufficient? Then new players could slowly work their way up from training over St. Lucia and NHAT to the Thomas Porter missions without needing to download anything else! After that they are either hooked and will play every FM out there, like I am right now
, or will have stopped playing already...-
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[OT]
Hey Wesp, are you THIS Wesp5?
Yes, I did the Unofficial Patches for the last two big DeepShadows games and I also still patch VTM: Bloodlines, which has some pretty good stealth options on its own. Although the stealth system was pretty much too easy before I tweaked it!
Back on topic, I read on the Eidos forum thread that there are several campaigns done by the TDM team members. Why don't you include these or the "No Honor Among Thieves" one mentioned there with the main game? Or if you don't want to do that, create some kind of DVD Release like "The Babylon Project" did, in which they made a compilation of the best stuff to fit on one DVD without need to download anything. Something like this is possibly on the PC Powerplay DVD...
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I know I'm sick of games that try to keep people pressing the button for rewards in place of actually being entertaining across the time you spend on it...
I agree with that! Giving XPs or money or inventory for finished FM won't bring them closer together, in fact it may make some too easy or too hard to finish if you didn't play others before. One aspect though that was already suggested in the Improvements thread is that giving more stats for each mission in the mission list, like e.g. difficulty, might make the thing at least look more rewarding
!And as for the "TDM is not a game" discussion, what about Minecraft? Is that considered a game on the Eidos forum?
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Water doesn't really "stick" to stuff so one might imagine it drips off probably faster than the timer even.
But water arrows themselves have no time limit. I always imagined you mix both kind of water together...
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These could all be done with the current mechanic (which I personally don't feel is "tedious" at all) by adding silver powder or oil flasks to the item inventory and applying the same way a holy water arrow is currently done.
I agree. But what I really don't like about the current way holy water arrows are created is the time limit. Holy water is holy water and does not get unholy over time! This would make even less sense with the new options above and should be replaced with something else like now X arrows are holy water arrows. I see the problem of missing additional keys...
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It comes with St. Lucia and the Training Mission installed.
Ah, I thought as much but wasn't sure.
If it comes with missions already installed then it's a game, but if I have to make two extra clicks to get the missions then it's not?
This can be important if you don't have an internet connection. If you got TDM on a gaming magazine DVD, you can play it right along without doing anything else. So it's a game, albeit a very short one without the other fan missions. Once a longer campaign is finished, I would vote to include it to silence any critics!
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As for the discussion of whether The Dark Mod is a game or not, does it come preinstalled with at least one mission besides training? I can't really remember this as I downloaded a bunch of FMs right then, but if it does, it has any right to be called a game! Which is similar in my opinion to another great free game, The Babylon Project. With this again the multiple fan campaigns are the most important part, but still the original game included two campaigns itself and thus was playable as a complete game right from the start without any downloads!
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After 4-6 seconds, AI will react to a suspicious door being open.
Uh, is this diabled on Easy? Because I don't really ever get that.
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I agree to all that demagogue just wrote!
But while we are talking about AI behaviour, I'm quite often annoyed how only a split second of getting alerted makes a guard invulnerable to blackjacking. Like they have not even started their bark or animation! Can't this be delayed until they do? It might make blackjacking easier, but play out more realistic in the end.
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The Dark Project is still copyrighted, and it wouldn't matter, that's close enough for Eidos' lawyers to descend on us like a ton of bricks, and shut us down.
Okay. I think changing the name is idle speculation anyway, because you are well known as The Dark Mod
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Facebook Buys Oculus Rift For $2 Billion
in Off-Topic
Posted · Edited by wesp5
Yeah, maybe that was worded a little bit harshly
. But just check out the links below
http://www.geek.com/...e-theft-556567/
http://www.gamespot....2/1100-6112889/
I'll close this by repeating that I don't trust Valve anymore than I trust Facebook
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