[tiam]

Im getting a bit fed up of Dark Souls and have Witcher 2 , Farcry 3 and Prototype 2 to play. Im not sure where to go first tbh.

My ocd wants me to finish Dark Souls but its a bit repetitive atm I find

[Aptorian]

I've got Prototype 2 and Witcher 2 on my to play list as well. Prototype 2 isn't high on the list though seeing as it's received midling reviews and I am a bit intimidated by the mechanics of the Witcher 2.

Now Farcry 3 on the other hand. That is one of my top 3 games of 2012. It's an amazing game, a disappointing story, but an absolutely fantastic world to play around in.

I. CAN'T. WAIT. FOR. FARCRY: BLOOD DRAGON!

[Silencer]

MTS, on 25 April 2013 - 04:24 PM, said:

No, they're just very long text files, but there's a lot of them. Individually mine ranged from 23 MB to 66 MB a piece, and I had about 170 of them (I did it today, that's how I remember ).

They're not .txt files though, which may be the issue. They're .ck2 files that open in Notepad.

Yup, so, again, this is a fail on the part of the developers. That is ludicrously heavyweight file-format for simple text. Now obviously there are reasons for using a proprietary format rather than just throwing it all in a .txt - this way you can still edit the info in a text editor but you can't just whip one up out of thin air filled with gibberish and break things. However, given the ludicrously large size of those files, they are NOT just text in a bad format. There's other data in there that is holding it all together or something, it's just that you can't get at it without having the dev tools. At least, that's my guess. Because if 170 save files is going to fill 8GB of your client's HDD, and all it is, is text...you are more of a failure as a developer than the people who made Max Payne about 20GB larger than it should be...OK, not quite, but almost.

One of the most basic principles of coding is that you do things in the most efficient way possible. This means picking the right algorithms for your code, not wasting clock cycles, making sure you keep it as simple and efficient as possible - because resources are scarce. Now, I can understand if you've got a bit of complex game code (and, most likely, a deadline/budget) that in practice this is not always possible. Trust me, I *get* that. But there are places where a developer just has no excuses for poor design like that - one of them, is in saving freaking text files in such a way that they take up 8GB of precious HDD space.

Thus, I can only conclude that the devs in this case have a *lot* more in those save files than appears to the text editor (understandable, there are reasons for this...though they still strike me as large), or they are some of the worst developers on the face of the planet (addictiveness of the final product notwithstanding), and should be rounded up and SHOT, so large of a fail would this translate to. :S



But anyway...I think we may be getting a bit sidetracked here. Consider me flabbergasted over the blatant excesses of the current industry. Some people need to go back to school... XD

[Morgoth]

So, Baldur's Gate. I'm embarassed to say it, but the slow speed of everything is something I need to get used to. These days games are so quick and free of dead time I've been corrupted in my preferences.

I'll get better.

[Macros]

BG is fucking awesome, don't you dare naysay it you Neanderthal!

[Morgoth]

Macros, on 26 April 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

BG is fucking awesome, don't you dare naysay it you Neanderthal!

I'm not. I'm saying I've been damaged by modern gaming conventions. Still, I'll get into it.

[Imperial Historian]

Morgoth, on 26 April 2013 - 06:11 AM, said:

So, Baldur's Gate. I'm embarassed to say it, but the slow speed of everything is something I need to get used to. These days games are so quick and free of dead time I've been corrupted in my preferences.

I'll get better.

I'm just about at the end of a run-through of baldur's gate (I used the tutu mod, which converts bg to the bg2 engine, rather than enhanced edition, as as far as I could see, it didn't actually do much that the various mods out there already did) I had a lot of fun, though admitedly it does take a while to get going. Planning to continue through baldurs gate 2 when I finish.

Also playing as a wildmage can certainly be a lot of fun, the unpredicatableness adds a new dimension, an easy battle can become tough when you accidentally silence yourself and your spellcasters, or a hard battle can become a lot easier when a cow falls out of the sky and kills your toughest foe.

[Macros]

Currently bashing through Icewind Dale 2, actually my first time playing it, played the first one several times through and have played the shit out of BG and oh so much BG2, was massively disapointed with all the negative feedback the enhanced edition produced. I wish they had just left 1 and 2 as they were and given us a third.

[Mentalist]

So I finished Planescape: Torment a while back, during exam study breaks.

All the nice things people were saying about it were true, though combat was pretty annoying.

Of course, I also did some major fuckups-- i left Grace in Curst, planinng to come back for her later.... and I forgot that she had my anti-Shadows ring... oops.

I'm also kinda curious about doing an evil playthrough....

[Solidsnape]

Aptorius, on 28 November 2012 - 06:25 PM, said:

I love myself as well.

In other news, details, may or may not have leaked about Bungie's secret project "Destiny".

http://www.giantbomb...-leak-out/4460/

Is this Bungie game the one that SE was writing for?

[Garak]

Just finished Bioshock Infinite. Holy hell, what a game. The story had me hoked and was pulling all the emotional strings (the bit at Comstock House ... yeah I went in full Unstoppable Rage mode at it: emptied my guns a bunch of times, meeled opponents for theirs like the Terminator and all the while dishing out all the vigor insanity I could). The last time I got this emotional in a game was Mass Effect and that was a trilogy with lots of characters and such, this game did it with one well done character. I admit I didn't really care that much about the combat (there could have been very little in all honesty and the story would have worked just as well), the interaction between Booker and Elizabeth was the true joy of this game (especially with hindsight being what it is now I finished it). Seriously I really liked her character so awesome job game.

Spoiler

So in the post credit bit we see Booker back at his place and the screen goes black just before we can see if Anna is in the crib. Personally I took this to mean that with Comstock dead in every reality, Booker never gives up his daughter - which also means the events of the game never happen. It's late and my brain is still processing this but that's how I see the ending.

Just felt the need to share, I guess.

This post has been edited by Garak: 29 April 2013 - 10:16 PM

[Khellendros]

Interesting (or not) interactive graphic by The Guardian (UK newspaper) on violence and guns in best-selling video games. They've listed the top 50 best-selling games of 2012, and placed filters on type of content, types of guns/weapons used (if any), and suggested audience.

http://www.guardian....ing-video-games

[Silencer]

Meh. If they failed to notice the presence of grenades/explosives, the energy sword, or daggers in Halo, tomahawks/daggers in Call of Duty, bow+arrow in Far Cry 3 and daggers or grenades/explosives in Battlefield fucking 3, then I'm kind of dubious about the amount of effort they put in...

>.>

I also don't really see the point of this graphic - is it really shocking that games have guns in them, and that this tends to correlate with content warnings of M or above for blood/violence/etc? There really aren't a lot of conclusions to be drawn from this, frankly, other than that the content ratings system appears to be working fine and lots of games have weapons in them (gasp). *shrug*

[Khellendros]

Silencer, on 01 May 2013 - 02:34 AM, said:

Meh. If they failed to notice the presence of grenades/explosives, the energy sword, or daggers in Halo, tomahawks/daggers in Call of Duty, bow+arrow in Far Cry 3 and daggers or grenades/explosives in Battlefield fucking 3, then I'm kind of dubious about the amount of effort they put in...

>.>

I also don't really see the point of this graphic - is it really shocking that games have guns in them, and that this tends to correlate with content warnings of M or above for blood/violence/etc? There really aren't a lot of conclusions to be drawn from this, frankly, other than that the content ratings system appears to be working fine and lots of games have weapons in them (gasp). *shrug*

Yep, I agree in general with all that. However, it is a nice fancy interactive graphic. In any case, the real reason for posting this was to draw you out, Silencer, so that I can ask:

What happened to you in Mafia 100?

[Silencer]

Clever bastard....


Uhm. I got sidetracked...game went on too long and was waaaaaaaay too much of a train wreck for me to properly keep up with the thread, really. Not enough time to commit to following the thread = not bothering to follow the thread = eventually modkilled from not even posting. >.>

Yeah, my bad. XD

[Khellendros]

Silencer, on 01 May 2013 - 03:33 AM, said:

Clever bastard....


Uhm. I got sidetracked...game went on too long and was waaaaaaaay too much of a train wreck for me to properly keep up with the thread, really. Not enough time to commit to following the thread = not bothering to follow the thread = eventually modkilled from not even posting. >.>

Yeah, my bad. XD

Your bad indeed. I'd like to say we lost because of you, but...well, that (probably) wouldn't be true, sadly

[Silencer]

Eh, my last alt could have helped with lynchings, I figure, but who knows. I stopped following aaaaaages ago. Sounds like some hefty power roles were ignored and thus dominated the end-game. XD

[Satan]

Oy! Hey! None of that in here! There era dedicated forums for that for a reason. Don't bore the rest of us with your soul destroying game. And don't make me moderate a moderator!

[Silencer]

Satan, on 01 May 2013 - 06:58 AM, said:

Oy! Hey! None of that in here! There era dedicated forums for that for a reason. Don't bore the rest of us with your soul destroying game. And don't make me moderate a moderator!

Don't tell the site owner where he should be posting?

[Brujah]

Silencer, on 01 May 2013 - 05:32 AM, said:

Eh, my last alt could have helped with lynchings, I figure, but who knows. I stopped following aaaaaages ago. Sounds like some hefty power roles were ignored and thus dominated the end-game. XD

Yeah, Khell had the bright idea to let the Serial Killer run rampant. He couldn't be reasoned with no matter how hard I tried. He's stubborn.