speak

Oh no, not one of the devs, too. :\

Guys... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/13/valve-kills-steam-greenlight-heres-why-it-matters "Valve kills Steam Greenlight" Does this affect Dark Mod?

They're hanging their heads in shame all the way to the bank.

A game can have a visual style whilst varying it a bit. That's just it, when you establish a visual style, diverging from it can really create a sense of awe. Oh wait, I thought we were talking about games, not real life. Even then, my real life looks nothing like a sepia filter showcase.

I don't feel like I'm in a simulation when I'm playing Dishonored 1. It feels like a made up world. I don't think "realistic" is any sort of virtue here. "Monotonous" is closer to what I'm thinking it is. My number one(ish) issue with Dishonored 1 was also that most places felt identical nearly, not much variance in the mood and atmosphere. I'm not saying you have to go full on alice in wonderland, but god, a bit of variance truly would be nice to see.

My only complaint so far based on the footage is that the locations look pretty samey, even with the new "exotic" locations. It's like they decided the same 4 colours used everywhere in the game can not be diverged from. Even the architecture and plantation seems to have to follow some pretty rigid guidelines. (or lack of imagination?) I do hope I'm wrong, though!

I know this is irrational, but argh, it is painful to have the interviewer be someone who has never played Thief. >_>

For me personally that is not the issue. Exploring procedually generated landscapes gets boring after a while if you have no good reason to do so. (survival in this game is super easy, so you really just need to explore for explorations sake, or to grind for better equipment) I've finished Terraria (well, as much as you can, killing the main boss etc) a couple of times, and it's not a perfect game, but it gets some things right for a procedually generated game. First of all, the amount of human crafted content is still immense. The creatures are interesting and funny, because they are hand crafted. You can't really procedually generate humour, because humour is so dependant on human context, so that's another thing missing from NMS. The same applies to the weapons and items you find. It is not interesting to me to find a procedually generated weapon where you go "Okay, so let's compare the exact stats". As someone mentioned already, min-maxing. It's much more interesting to find a weapon that was actually thought out by someone, because a specific weapon might only be good for certain contexts, also carefully planned and balanced by the creators. Terraria also has pretty clearly delineated stages that you are in, with various boss fights in between etc. It manages to keep things interesting, and you get to build your base, as well. (which I personally don't think is quite as fun as in Minecraft, but nonetheless).

Absolutely. To me, procedual generation is great as embellishment on a game which is already interesting. If there is no human touch, things get boring real fast. I've played a lot of Minecraft, but just travelling the world gets boring quite fast. A game needs much more than that. As an example, The Dark Mod with procedual maps I would maybe play a couple of times. I crave story and hand crafted atmosphere. Minecraft works without those, because it's got player interaction, and you get the build things lego style. In No Man's Sky you're more of a consumer. You just go around, point and scan/mine.

Yeah it's a double edged sword. On the other hand, game devs are able to put out stuff that otherwise may've been impossible financially. On the other hand, Unity can be pretty terrible performance-wise, and linux support is pretty bad on top.

They already got your money, that's all the feedback they need! (Sadly I'm only half joking)

Just to offer a bit of a differing view, it's wonderful to have LP's without commentary available, because sometimes I can't play for a multitude of reasons, and I just want to watch the game, usually with a friend. So yeah, I like both with and without commentary, both serve a different purpose. So, thank you!

Whoa, I'd never even heard of Infinite! System Shock 1 is amazing, but it can definitely be tricky to get into. It'll help to install all the modern fixes in it to get proper mouselook etc. I wouldn't give yourself too much of a hard time if you just want to start straight from 2, it gives you a rundown of what happened during System Shock 1, so you won't get lost plot-wise. But yes, I do highly recommend playing 2 before you play any newer version!

Nice video Bikerdude. I've got to say, as someone who hasn't desensitized themselves to all of this zombie stuff (I did play Resident Evil 1 at the time, and have seen both Shawn of The Dead and Night of The Living Dead ), this game looks ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING.

I already addressed this point, if you read my post. I understand wanting to aim for realism, and that's cool. It's not about ditching realism completely. They are ALREADY picking and choosing what parts of "realism" they want to incorporate. Say, it would be realistic if one sword hit in your knee would debilitate you for the rest of the game, and also of course you will be forced to play iron man mode, because save points are unrealistic? Do you think they will incorporate these mechanics into the game? My whole point is: it's up to the developer which parts of realism they want to incorporate, and of course hilight. I'm not even totally against having quests where someone speaks badly about women, I mean sure it happens in real life, so go for it. (I see no added gameplay or atmospheric value in adding such a quest, however) But the fact that this is the FIRST QUEST they want people to see is bound to alienate a bunch of their potential players, and also just leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth. First of all sorry to say, but poor people (as poor as they are in the TDM universe) are not a part of the group who are going to be playing this game, as that would require a house and access to a computer and access to games. They thus won't be subjected to anything in either game, so it is not terribly relevant. Secondly, funnily enough, I haven't seen in the Thief universe too much hilighting of people being really nasty to poor and sick people, either. Can you give me examples of where this happens? Again, it's not about having people who are completely equal. There are a million themes to explore in a medieval realistic game. And the first theme they chose to explore is where women get called sluts etc. And this is just a side point, but also I need to say it again: "Diabolical runs" was a part of the dialogue. That's some seriously terrible dialog, sexism or not. I certainly didn't feel "pulled in" to this universe reading this dialog, as much as you are going on about realism.

First of all women are not treated so well now, as we know since terms like "slut" are still extremely common. My problem with this is, if you're a woman, how are you going to feel welcomed into this game when the first quest example they specifically chose to make to demonstrate the game is full of the same terminology used today to denigrate women? It's not about being 100% realistic, I mean come on, games always take liberties to make game play better and more appealing. You can also choose what you want to HILIGHT in whatever setting you choose. I'm sure nobody is going into this game because they desperately want to be sexist arses, so not hilighting that - by choosing that as your first demo mission - would in no way take away from the game. Who is going to argue GTA isn't a sexist game series. Sure, it is realistic in that yeah, in real life guys go bang prostitutes, but to hilight that in the game like GTA does, it's obvious who the game tries to appeal to. And one last point: Even if the game aims at realism, games are still a tool for escapism most of the time. I mean, you are playing a game instead of being in the real world. So I don't think it's too unreasonable to let it be a tool of escapism for a larger part of the population, not just white males.

My interest in this game seriously declined (died) after the first "quest" example, aka the Alchemy Quest started with calling a woman a slut and a whore etc. Boo. Also "diabolical runs" ? Oh dear. Even if the character turns out to be a lying bastard, this is not a good sign for the depth of the quests in this game. And yes I know it's an alpha example quest, but what they chose for the example is revealing of the mindset they're in.

Happy Anniversary, your work on this game is astonishing! (also: first post on the forums, yay)