Jesus, can this just come out already!?
Jesus, can this just come out already!?
Yeah this is getting silly, time hasn't passed this slowly for a video game release since my preteen years.Originally Posted by Smashbox
Haha, I keep finding myself checking the date throughout the day, like I expect it to change or something. :p
Has it? HAS IT!?
I take photos of space and talk about it sometimes: http://ofspaceandthings.tumblr.com Also, I am making a game for which there is a development log: http://elegythegame.tumblr.com/
hey people not sure if this has been said already but on the offchance its not, spotted a "modding the demo" post in 2k forums yesterday & was able to squeeze some more fun from the demo.
to increase difficulty you need to edit Basegame file found in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown-Demo\Engine\Config
its the sixth line down,
GameDifficulty=+0.0
default is 0
0 - easy
1 - normal
2 - classic
3 - impossible
impossible seems a bit masochistic
classic seems the way to go.
Er, that is graphics. I agree that it looks a bit strange, but it's a stats-based game, not an action game. I totally agree that they should be able to fix it (it can't be that difficult to modify the AI's aim point if the game rolls a 2 and they miss) but still, I don't think it's such a massive issue. Except shooting around cover, that's a bit strange.
Again the old "the original had it therefore this one must too!" misses the point that the original was a 2D isometric top-down grid, where it's a lot easier to do things like random maps and line of sight and so on.
Really, the only tactical option TU gives is being able to choose any action at any time, but often due to the way that games implement TU units, actions scale with the character so it still amounts to "stand still and shoot lots of times", "move one and shoot once", and "move and don't shoot".
I disagree. Don't get me wrong, the new system "works" and makes the TB combat a lot smoother. It flows quite beautifully, but in the end you have 2 chances to do something and that's it. If your second move is 1 step forward or 10 doesn't make a difference and if you see an alien within that first step it doesn't matter because by then you'll have used your second move and you're soldier is where he is, regardless. It definitely is less forgiving in that it doesn't let you pull back simply because that 2nd move is your last no matter how far you actually move.
That's a fair point, but I think that fits better with XCOM's unforgiving nature. In the original reaction fire from hidden aliens was a significant killer such that a careless (or even just a blind) move could kill without any hope of recovery. If anything it encourages even more careful play - peaking around with 1TU while the enemy can't do anything seems sort of like exploiting the mechanic a bit to me.
Even then it's a relatively small loss when you consider what XCOM is all about. If anything it encourages even more careful play.
No, I just hate internet excuses.
No, Time units make it less tactical, and more random. See earlier posts.
And apparently, you havent even played the demo, so I will ignore any comments about your problem with half cover. (ever play shooters? you can still shoot at people through objects, or you can just see their nose behind it, works the same. now please shut up about it, it is the least important aspect of this game.)
Last edited by QuantaCat; 28-09-2012 at 06:49 AM.
- Tom De Roeck.
monochrom & verse publications
"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."
Yes, because not having a way to pay on places wich sell it cheaper is totally a bad excuse.
Hey, we cleared that up. I just dont know anyone without a bank account, as its impossible to get a job without a bank account in Austria. So if you really dont have one, Im 1) very surprised and 2) standing corrected. Also, a lot of people seem to forget you dont need a visa card just for paypal. (heck, even amazon sends bills, where you dont need a bank account for, just pay it in cash at a bank)
- Tom De Roeck.
monochrom & verse publications
"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."
It's not really all that surprising, I'm a student, and the place were I study is 10 minutes away from my family's home, so I'm still living with my family, wich means I don't need a bank account for anything, since I don't have a job.
I really can't wait for the memorial bar with the plaques and shot glasses.
Huh? I got one when I was 16, to pay for things mostly. But how do you pay student fees or buy expensive books without a bank account? :-S Or get money out of cash machines to buy food/drinks.
Student fees: I don't have, since my mother is a teacher I get free studies, and even if I had, she'd use her account.
Expensive books, or any kind of matherial I need, really: Mother, I'm out of paper, ink and need a new book for classes, hand me some cash.
The third one: My mother is my cash machine, all of my money would come out of her anyway.
The original is largely made of prefab as well. Visually, the only hard part is connecting those, they did that with tiles of grass/sand/whatever. That is not significantly harder now I think. At least this is what I have observed in my playthroughs of the original. It looks like they had all sizes of prefab stuff, with some rules attached and then randomized that.
Last edited by kingmob; 28-09-2012 at 01:54 PM. Reason: forgot to quote... again
Remember it's easy to do it on a 2D isometric grid, but not very easy to do it today when we have lightmapping, BSP-based engines, performance considerations, AI navigation meshes/issues, working out culling, etc... 3D complicates things quite a bit. But IIRC Unreal 3 ended up using mostly static meshes and less in the way of BSP mapping (which you can't really do dynamically, you'd have to wait for the map to compile which would make load times ridiculous or it'd look horrible) so maybe they could have tried to do something with that.
But I've never mapped in UnrealEd or really had much to do with the Unreal engines, so I'm not certain how difficult something like that would really be nor the performance concerns. But it's not really a trivial issue, and the fact that it was easily done on a 2D isometric tile engine doesn't mean much.
Most of my experience with the UED was UE1 and UE2 (mostly UE1), but one could reasonably do a pseudo-random tile-based map thing.
Subtract a big-ass room the size of the entire map + the size of every required tile
Build each tile so that it fits in that room.
Use movers to move the tiles into place while the map is "loading"
Insert player into starting point in lego'd map
Rely on dynamic lighting to a large degree.
If memory serves, there were a few proof-of-concept maps for UT (the original) that did that.
AI gets harder, but there are still ways around it:
The way path-finding worked in UE1 (if memory serves) was that you had the various paths made based upon item placement and pathnodes (the pink apples!). So if you restrict yourself to having largely the same layout (just cosmetic differences), you just make sure to not rebuild paths when you save the map. NPCs (monster or otherwise) spawn in the buildings and they navigate to the nearest path.
With a few tweaks to the engine/pathnode class, you make it regenerate the path "on load". Which still shouldn't be TOO expensive.
But if you want to get super pretty, you are boned. Since a lot of that relies on pre-rendered lighting and what not, so perf would die.
Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.
Saw this one floating around.
Im a little bit put off when the animation didnt even try while shooting in cover. Still, Oct 11 cant come soon enough.
Add me: Steam, Raptr: mnem
The temptation is so strong... I must fight it... I should start by not watching any more videos...
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