SneaksieDave

Every time I've ever followed a link from another site to an "attention grabber" article title (which ended up being on Wired), it has turned out to be nothing more than long-winded go-nowhere over-written shit. Useless fluff basically. And I'm talking years of blind clicks. Leaves a scar after a while.

TDS was a nice warmup, right? Perhaps with a new team developing the tech there's hope. I'd wager that if/when id tech 4 goes open source though you can expect just as much modding to happen to it as with quake.

Notice to all Summer Vertical Contest 2010 competitors: STAY IN THE HOUSE TODAY

Man, this thread is quickly headed for the highest ham-to-post ratio in history.

Six days. <derail!>

Yikes! Glad you're alright.

+1

Hmm. :-/ MMB does the same as LMB for me: loads in same window with the greyed out background and fade to white. FF 3.5.5.

Kindred spirit...

I want to know whose idea it is for forum attached screenshots to fade to white in between. Ugh. Anyway, I believe keys mostly look like that for me already but it's hard to be sure. Nice improvement for anyone who's having problems.

Hm. Don't know anything about it, but I'll be watching for this.

Cool, nice job. Couple of suggestions: 1. the page is currently orphaned. Maybe give it a category, and maybe (maybe?) link to it from waaaay at the bottom of the FM list (and share a link back)? Not sure on that one. Others' opinions? 2. maybe some kind of default order. Probably not useful to have a bunch of 'unknowns' be alphabetical, but it's better than nothing. Then again maybe it could/should default sort by author? Does this list include other things like models, voice sets etc? Or should that be separate. Hm... probably separate, or maybe turn the page into a couple of tables (missions and other?) Just thinking out loud. Amusing to see my name on there. Waiting on an FM for me is like waiting for hell to freeze over, but what the heck, I'll play along. The BOD mission is a 'maybe someday' I suppose. More likely is the other I'm working on, which I'd categorize as a tomb. There's also a city I started, but I haven't touched that in half a year at least. I got a case of the easy burnouts! More likely yet is separate bunches of rooms I make based on pictures I like but then do nothing more with, rinse and repeat. Nice idea and list though, good contribution. Kinda lights a fire under the arse.

Having played (over the decades) Ultimas III - IX, UO for a couple of years (private UDUO/Legacy server), and both Underworlds, I think I can safely assert: Because it is in now way whatsoever anywhere near as good as Ultima Underworld. It was decent (despite the graphics and stability problems, plot problems, the silliness of an endgame fistfight with The Guardian, the emptiness and smallness of the world, the piss-poor dungeons, and countless other problems I don't care to spend my time listing), but in many ways wasn't much improved over Pagan. I liked them both fine, but they are the reason the series died out, and didn't live up to the standards set by IV - VII/SI. If you want huge games (in more ways than just size), do try those.

Glad I didn't vote; I think I'm leaning back toward public. Ignore me.

I agree with that. ^ Netflix uses a silly description and it hamstrings me all the time. "Well I didn't dislike it, but I certainly didn't like it..." Everything ends up being voted 3 (of 1-5), which is "I liked it", when I think it should be "average."

I'll offer an argument for either side, for the sake of discussion (because I'm not even 100% sure of my own opinion): Private: (Some) voters will feel more free to vote honestly; freedom from persecution for opinion and all that jazz. Public: It encourages (some) voters to play nice. And against: Private: Allows for personal vendettas/dislike for other reasons to affect mission scoring. Public: Inflated fluffy scores, if only those with something nice to say, vote. I think I lean toward it being private, for the sake of honest, accurate scores. That's not to say though that I don't care for people being nice; people should be nice for its own sake, not be forced into it. But there's something to be said for being open, too. What's that, I'm wishy-washy? Yeah no kidding; can never make a damn decision. Edit: Maybe best would be public but casting a number requires a comment?

I so need that vote + button right now.

A private one? <kick, snare-hit, splash!>

Weird that some are getting slow quickloads (though I guess slow is in the eye of the beholder). Even back when I was using a 1.4GHz system with a GF4600, my initial load times would be very slow (e.g. 5 mins to load Blackheart Manor at that time), but quickloads about 2 seconds.

While I would definitely be against it being on the completed FM list, it could have and probably deserves its own dedicated wiki page with linked forum thread for discussion.

Yes but they take a very narrow and flawed view of it. One of the things that drives me crazy is, don't they realize there's value in that: * hardcore gamers do exist and we do have significant numbers * we are still playing and modding for Thief 12 years later * we are still playing Ultima >20 years later * we are still playing and modding Doom 18 years later etc. We might not be as many in number as the couch Halo / Madden crowd, but we stay for the duration, and there is value in that. If they'd make us another [fill in awesome title here], we'd play it. And I do believe to some extent they're trying, just failing. I really think the future's best gaming lies in mods and indies; development from gamers who do it for the love of the game, not because they can do it for a living.

These are two very different statements, and only the second one is true.

Well one change I'd suggest is that polls be private (most(?) have been public). That would encourage honesty in voting, and if a poster wishes, they can expound upon their opinions in their post, or leave it at that.

It's really a shame that no one can seem to bring this level of greatness back to the table anymore. But why not? I wonder about this pretty often. * Is it about greedy corporate publishers who attempt to maximize payoff-for-labor-involved ratio? I mean, that's what they're supposed to do, right? * On that note, what about quasi-monopoly (e.g. Electronic Arts, Ubisoft) This however is not how it's supposed to be. When companies like EA buy up rights to everything they can lay their hands on, it limits what developers can do to some extent. * Are devs not hungry enough? Why waste energy coming up with something new when you can lazily re-hash and do reasonably well enough to pay your rent and keep the car gassed up. All while having a "cool job." WTF, seriously. * Is there too much competition, washing out creative focus? If you have to compete to get to market, battling time pressures and budgets, does the product suffer? No doubt. * Are devs inexperienced, not talented enough? IMO, the first truly great games came from people like Garriott and Carmack and the team at Blue Sky (I'm not sure who specifically to give credit to) and the like, true hardcore computer and game nerds. I say that in complimentary fashion. Visionaries. "MIT grads," if you will (hopefully you know the reference). People with the brains and creativity to pull it off. Back in the days when kids grew up on D&D into adults who still played, using no more than dice, paper, lead figures, and imagination. There are endless other good devs and good platforms (ah, C64), but there are few true innovators, those who trailblazed in new and better directions. Today, you can go to University for a "degree in game design!" and suddenly find yourself working on a team of 170 other people who took the same route. Smart people, sure, and gamers (hopefully). But are they too "average" to bring forth great game design? Or something else altogether? How many things currently stifle good game design? Crap, I think I may have just off-topic'd this already off-topic topic. Well, if it becomes necessary we can split again.

[Offtopic: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=28003 http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ultima+underworld+gameplay&aq=3 {spoilers, obviously. Man, I'm practically weepy with nostalgia just seeing these vids. You can see many features just from the vids (e.g. quasi-physics, lighting, dialog trees, inventory, crafting, automap, enormous levels you can leave and return to, loot!, dynamic music system, first person melee, swim-able water, a gesture system, trading system, diverse spellcasting, etc., etc. Makes me wanna break out DOSbox.) Freakin' 1992, dudes. Eighteen freakin' years ago! Blue Sky / (soon to be) Looking Glass genius dawning, is what it is. "Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss shipped in March 1992 - two whole months before John 'Quake' Carmack and Apogee released Wolfenstein 3D - something worth remembering if you assumed that Wolfenstein 'started' the whole 3D revolution." "Following the release of the second Ultima Underworld game - Labyrinth Of Worlds - both Paul and Doug, as well as many of their UU colleagues, took their experience to games such as System Shock, Terra Nova and Thief for Looking Glass Technologies" Edit: I'm throwing in a pretty hilarious UU2 review for the hell of it: ]