7upMan

Hey, who put those fir cones into the loo?

Well, the first and the last pic look more like a painting than real-time graphics, so I wonder if they were manipulated. After all, this is not uncommon in this industry, the prime example being Westwood with forged "screenshots" of Command&Conquer. The more I hear about Thi4f, the more I am comfortable with my stance to watch some Let's Play's first and buy later - if at all.

Not only that, but it only supports one processor core, which is annoying, to say the least. However, we are still waiting for one of the coder gurus to fix that. You don't happen to be proficient with that kind of stuff?

Well, whatever that game is supposed to be, I don't see a too bright future for its campaign: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/g3studios/deathfire-ruins-of-nethermore/

The issue I heard mentioned with this campaign is that Guido Henkel recycled lots of material from his previously failed KS campaign. I don't remember what the name of the game then was, but apparently it was not very successful and got cancelled before it could humiliatingly tank.

The French car Renault manufacturer sells e-cars that have a battery that can only be rented by the car owner. In case the owner is late with his payment, Renault can switch the battery off wirelessly. The potential for misuse is mind blowing...

Interesting. A more recent undermining of a security standard is documented here: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/11/securitymatters_1115

If you spoke German, I could point you to my favourite computer magazine that has a comprehensive summary on everything that was uncovered right now. It includes major spying of a magnitude that was not thought possible (to sum it up very coarsely). We are talking about sifting to almost all telephone calls that were made in Germany and France on a certain date (apparently, the data is from 2010, but there is no reason to assume the technical capabilities have not improved). It was also uncovered that the US embassy in Berlin (Germany) has a listening post on its roof that was spying on Angela Merkel, German chancellor and die-hard follower for the US, who was quite a bit mad when hearing this news. While the above mainly is interesting for Germans, The Washington Post and The New York Times apparently have a lot of evidence that US citizens are being spied upon by the NSA as well, which is - as I understand it - absolutely forbidden. There was quite a lot that was unveiled, among that the fact that the British GHCQ has the ability to listen on underwater glass fibre communication cables IN REAL TIME! If you are interested, check http://www.theguardian.com/uk for some interesting reading. I can only assume that as a member of The Five Eyes, the Canadian government has no interest to have information on these events hit the public big time, so I guess they are played down.

Spring, did you honestly manage to miss the events surrounding Edward Snowden? OTOH, I do know that this whole affair is much less intensively covered in ... well, most countries except Germany. I don't know about Canada, but even in the UK, the second biggest player in the Five Eyes gang, it's mainly The Guardian that regularly covers the events and offers new insight. Most other newspapers are well on the government's side repeating like sheep that the espionage is for the public good and only goes against those evil terrorists. Like the evil uber-terrorist Angela Merkel for example... XD

@Outlooker: I'm absolutely with you. Before Snowden, hardly anyone could believe in the massive conspiracy by Western secret services. Anyone who voiced his suspicions was put off as a hard case of paranoia. Today, we have hard evidence that those "conspiracy theorists" were spot on. Now, regarding the transmission of viruses through audio channels, remember that even 15 years ago, it was possible to discover what a computer monitor is displaying even if there is a solid wall between you and the monitor. This was done by reading the electromagnetic signals that every monitor - CRT or LCD - is emitting. It was assumed then that with enough research, it would be possible to place a van on the street next to a house and spy this way. The German computer magazine c't had an extensive report about this.

I guess so. However, there are supposed to be significant changes to the AI as well, so all in all this is worth its 4 EUR for me.

Believe me, in my professional career as a translator I have seen such things, and not just once. Huge American mega-corporations who can't seem to find a native English speaker to proof-read what the non-native English colleague wrote. This is one of the things that really sour my day. I have to agree completely. The ending was just lazy and atrocious. Actually, that is addressed in the Developer's Commantary in the Director's Cut. The AI is actually not able to cross the boundaries between rooms. Yes, even something that good old Thief AI could do was too much for the next-gen AI that they cooked up. Shame that DX:HR is not moddable, I'd love to have decent AI and pathfinding in this game.

I'm sorry, but you might be quite alone on this one. The music in DX:HR is one of the best soundtracks I've ever listened to. But of course, your mileage may vary....

Well, isn't it the point of AAA games that they cater to Joe Sixpack instead of Mr. Rocket Scientist? Also, I don't think the topic of criticism of social injustice should be disregarded, even in games, as it is highly relevant in today's world.

Yore missin' da point, matey. I doubt that there is much demand for a Dutch or a Swedish version of an FM, but I expect a lot of demand for a Polish or German version. In fact, one of the criticisms in the TDM review on gamestar.de was that apart from the GUI, TDM is not in any way translated. Of course this is a misunderstanding, as there are several FMs translated into German, but they don't show up in the mission downloader, so for the average player, they are non-existent.

Absolutely. Also, we know that with the release of TDM 2.0, Poland and Germany have the highest number of downloads, and people from both countries aren't necessarily the best English speakers in the world, as opposed to, say, Scandinavians or the Benelux countries. Southern Europeans have their issue with the English language too, so most subtle stuff or puns are completely lost for any of them. t might just be me, but I think reaching out to these people is better than them deleting their copy of TDM simply for the lack of missions in their native language.

stumpy, I don't think anyone would really do that. I for one always first asked for the mapper's permission to t/l the FM.

Sorry, I'm all for recycling...

Just thought it's worth mentioning that the Director's Cut for Deus Ex: Human Revolution is out. If you have the main game as well as the Missing Link DLC, the price will be reduced by 75 per cent. So far, the AI seems to be a bit better, Tesselation is either better or working at all, because from my first playthrough I remember the models to be much more blocky, and of course the Developer's Commentaries give interesting insight. All in all I think it's well worth the 4 EUR that I paid.

Do have a look at a Let's Play of Lucius before you buy it. This game is not for everyone. Like, one mission is to kill the gardener by switching on the lawn-mower he is repairing and making him put his head into the rotating blades. I don't know what kind of person you have to be to actually enjoy playing this game, but I am definitely not that kind of person.

Also, the bow completely changes your silhouette (less rounded shape etc.), so I do think that addressing this by making you brighter is the right way.

Oh yes, we did. The thing is that right now, the translator has to do the whole job as described above (changing the string lines into placeholders, extracting them, translating them etc.). There is no workflow in Dark Radiant that encourages the mapper to use placeholders instead of strings. As you are aware, some missions rely heavily on readables, so it is quite a hassle. I do NOT want to start the discussion anew, but at least for me, the whole process was discouraging enough to not bother with translation anymore. I think it would help a lot if l10n would be integrated into the mapping process itself, as I described above. That would still leave a lot to do for the translator, but it would ease the burden a little.

I just watched a couple of eps of a Let's Play on YT, and that already convinced me that this is decidedly not my kind of game. Just watching it almost gave several heart attacks... ^^

I have no idea. I'd say copy the files from his server to your server(s) and make them available there. I don't know what is necessary to d/l the localized version ingame, so I had hoped that you could answer that. However, if necessary, I can get back to Tels and ask him for specific instructions on how to go on with these FMs. I'm sorry that I can't be of more help here, but I know absolutely ZERO about all this programming stuff. Even if explanations were given, I probably wouldn't understand them.

Absolutely. I was already afraid he had went the way of Oddity...