Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Komag

Member
  • Posts

    3270
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    5

Posts posted by Komag

  1. Here is my experience with Dark Messiah:

     

    I open the box, look at manual - first inside page - my eyes catch the word "Steam". I'm about to just pack it back up, but I read further and it says installing Steam is just required for auto-updates and multiplayer. So I think "screw the updates, screw the multiplayer, fine". I put in the disc and start to install, immediately setting my firewall alert that just popped up to "Block", and then unchecking the multiplayer install option to proceed.

     

    First things first, I go to change the retarded default install directory (all games/software do it, some long path with three company names deep within Program Files) to just H:\Games\DarkMessiah. But as soon as I try to click "Next" it changes it to "H:\Games\DarkMessiah\Dark Messiah of Might and Magic". I'm like "What the freak?". So I just highlight it and take off the long part on the end, but it puts it back again, so now I'm pissed off, but I figure "Fine, be that way, I'll set it to 'H:\Games\Dark Messiah of Might and Magic' just to make you happy". But then it changes it to "H:\Games\Dark Messiah of Might and Magic\Dark Messiah of Might and Magic". Now I'm about to run over to Ubisoft and rip someone's nuts off! But I lower myself into the depths of humility and finally submit my will to the higher wisdom of the game, setting the directory to "H:\Games", then click next so that it will condescendingly change it to "H:\Games\Dark Messiah of Might and Magic", and I'm on my way.

     

    The install then proceeds quite slowly, finially finishing about 5 or 10 minutes later. It never asked me if I wanted to install Steam, so maybe that only comes up when you install the Multiplayer. Then I click to play the single player game, and after the intro movies I get another firewall alert that I set to "Block", then the main menu starts. I set all my favourite keybindings and start the game.

     

    The first level is the same as the demo, the training tombs. After just a minute of running and stepping around, I see that the movement is still just as slidey and muddy as the demo, very disappointing. I still can't tell what the aiming reticle is doing, but I think that it lights up in segments the more HIDDEN you are, the opposite of the way it should be.

     

    Being on the Half-Life 2 engine, of course the lighting sucks. Body awareness is cool to me, but looking down and seeing myself all lit up because half of me is in the light (while the mostly half of me in the shadow is practically glowing by the contrast), then inching over slightly to the shadow and seeing all of me fade to black (while the mostly half of me still in the lighted area is now a black silhouette) is quite jarring. I guess TDS and Doom 3 spoiled me!

     

    After playing a couple levels, I'm getting a better feel for what this game is all about. It's basicaly an action game on rails (mostly), no RPG at all really. I'm more used to the muddy jerky movement, and sometimes it works really well to make the action feel more wild and visceral. I'm not sure if I like or don't like the game yet, but it sort of strikes me as a medieval Far Cry, which is a good thing so long as you know what you're getting into.

     

    I'll play it some more over the next few days to see if my impressions change...

  2. I read an article and I forgot where (sorry), but the point was that the numbers of vampires would very quickly overrun the whole human population on the planet.

     

    Let's say the first vampire came into existence in 1600AD. The world population at that time was about 500,000,000. If he bites one neck each month, after one month there are two vampires, then 4, then 8, etc. Here's the progression:

     

    Jan 1

    Feb 2

    Mar 4

    Apr 8

    May 16

    Jun 32

    Jul 64

    Aug 128

    Sep 256

    Oct 512

    Nov 1,024 (round down to 1000)

    Dec 2,000

     

    Jan 4,000

    Feb 8,000

    Mar 16,000

    Apr 32,000

    May 64,000

    Jun 128,000

    Jul 256,000

    Aug 512,000

    Sep 1,024,000 (round down to 1,000,000)

    Oct 2,000,000

    Nov 4,000,000

    Dec 8,000,000

     

    Jan 16,000,000

    Feb 32,000,000

    Mar 64,000,000

    Apr 128,000,000

    May 256,000,000

    Jun 512,000,000 (at this point all the world's half billion people are vampires)

     

    If we took it from today's 6.5 billion people it just takes four more months

     

    Jul 1,024,000,000 (round down to 1 billion)

    Aug 2 billion

    Sep 4 billion

    Oct 8 billion (all of the world is vampires now)

     

    If you think one bite per month is too much, you can set it at one per year, and it's still less than 30 years for the whole world population to turn vampire.

     

    Of course, this doesn't take into account how much vampires much fight and kill each other off, or the activities of devoted vampire hunters like Simon Belmont and family. Plus, depending on what vampire legends you subscribe to, some or most of the biting/blood drinking just kills the victim instead of turning them into vampires. But those are just silly details!

  3. The game came out today, and now that I got a little part time job at Gamestop for some extra holiday cash, I have "check-out" privileges, so I checked it out for 4 days.

     

    Unfortunately I'm at my other job right now so I have to wait until late tonight to install and play on my home PC. We'll see if they improved any of my complaints from the demo two months ago.

  4. One of the most important things to me about Gothic vs Elder Scrolls is the monster leveling. In Gothic I really get a sense of what areas are too dangerous to go into yet, so I look forward to becoming strong enough to eventually make it in there. With Oblivion, for example, I was fighting guys 5x tougher than the boss of the whole game, because I had finished the main quest already and was still playing in the world later on with leveled up AI.

  5. Well, it just calls for a little benefit of the doubt. Do you really think he didn't know that people paint walls nowadays? Along with the link about paint history, I thought it was clear in the end, although at first I have to admit I had the same initial thought "of course they do!"

  6. I just got my mail and opened up the import box sets I ordered from UK - the Icewind Dale "3 In 1 Boxset" and Baldur's Gate "4 In 1 Boxset", so now I have them all!

     

    should I play the BG series, or IWD series first? I'm leaning toward BG

     

    Should I use the BG1Tutu deal? Are there any problems with that program? Is BG2 engine/graphics really that much better, or what would I be missing/getting? From reading their forums and stuff it seems that it works pretty good but is not perfect.

  7. Crispy, I think you lack vision. If you look at computing abilities 60 years ago that should be a clue, and the development is exponentially advancing. I'm positive I won't be able to convince you, but read some computing magazines sometime, especially artices on AI advancement, and you might start to see the real possibilities.

  8. Maybe someday (like in 60 years or so) you could just tell the computer (a la Star Trek Holodeck style) to "recreate that old Thief game level from WAY way back in 2001, only spiff it up and make it cool by today's standards", and the computer could intelligently interpolate/extrapolate enough to do it automagically.

  9. I just watched it today; it's unbelievable this crap could ever get made!

     

    It's about a small group of college kids who get all caught up in the game "Mazes and Monsters" (obviously "Dungeons & Dragons") and one of kids (Tom Hanks) goes off the deep end and can't separate fantasy and reality, beleiving he's the character off on some crazy quest to join the Great Hall.

     

    It's based on a book by Rona Jaffe, who bullcrapped his way through the stupid fake incident of some supposed boy genius who committed suicide in the steam tunnels of some university while playing D&D. That never happened, AT ALL, but the media back then jumped on the story and moms all over the country suddenly banned their kids from playing D&D. I remember being a kid and hearing about this evil new game, blah blah blah. All pure bullcrap of course, and to this day there isn't a SINGLE proven incident of D&D directly causing any bad thing to happen, ever.

     

    So anyway, the whole movie is a take on that story, and a bad one at that. Being from 1982 it reeks of old crappiness throughout, such as a scene where the girl suddenly puts two and two together and is trying to remember more details about something, so one of the guys gets all anxious in her face with "C'mon, THINK! TRY TO REMEMBER! WHAT DID HE SAY?!?!" and the other guy also yells at her "Yeah, WHAT WAS IT??? C'MON, TELL USSSS!!!!!!!!!!" all stupidly dramatic like 6 year olds would act it out in their first grade play.

     

    Oh well, it's neither here nor there. I just needed to vent I guess. :)

  10. If anyone has experience with these games (Baldur's Gate 1, exp Sword Coast, 2 Amn, exp Baal or something), can you advise me where to start if I wanted to?

     

    I just remember like five years ago I installed part 1 and I right away hated the controls for some reason, but I can't remember. Plus, I've always heard tons of great things about 2, but not 1. Should I just play Baldur's Gate 2 (plus expansion) and forget 1? Will I miss anything significant? I don't have endless time, so the quick answer "just play both!!!!" is not the right answer, unless there is really a good reason I should play 1.

     

    Thanks!

×
×
  • Create New...