TheTerminator2004

<br>Are you sure? <img src="http://thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/Dark/blush.gif" class="bbc_emoticon" alt=":blush:"> <br><br><snip!><br><br><br><br>Wow, seriously, what mods are you using in those? I'm playing through Morrowind again atm (Never got round to completing it before), and while I personally think the vanilla graphics hold up extremely well, despite their age, those screens are pretty amazing<br><br>Incidentally, if noone else wants it, I'll take Bioshock 2. But you may do better to just pm me the cd key, then destroy the disc, rather than post it to me. Since it's available on Steam, in theory someone can just register the cd key there, and just be able to download it. Assuming it's not already registered to your account, anyway.<br>

Spyro: Ripto's Rage! (I think) As for mine... http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm181/The_Terminator2004/golden_sun_cover.jpg

I've already read through several of the support topics on their official site, and none of the EA nor Bioware employees ever come to help people having trouble with the DLC. All I see are other players having to help each other. This was the problem I had. There is a support ticket system somewhere, and a live chat for getting support, but I never managed to find either.

I would suggest contacting their customer support, but from my experiences trying to solve the probloems I had with the DLC, I imagine that will probably be pointless - when I tried, I couldn't even find a customer support website that worked, let alone that was actually helpful. Then again, the US support may be better. I live in the UK, so it wasn't much use to me.

Things are taking slightly longer than planned, since I made the silly mistake of accidentally deleting a folder full of crucial libraries, which all need to be set up in exactly the right way for my game to work. I've spent the past 3 hours trying to fix it, and I still can't get everything working again. No idea how long this'll take to fix. Other than that one setback however, I've been making steady progress, though I'm still a long way from having anything to show off. Once I can get back to coding, it shouldn't be too long before I have a main menu working. Once thats done, the actual game screen will come next. This will show the world map, and allow the player to move around. The gameplay will be added in bit by bit after that.

I dunno, in the most recent release, I lost all 6 of my masons because they decided to carry on making doors instead of drinking anything. And yeah, military is still bugged - dwarves won't train at all if you order them to, the only way you can get any training done is by making them inactive, in which case they'll go and do solo training drills - which isn't ideal. And I've still lost entire squads because they got stuck in some kind of horrible training loop and died of thirst. The invincible megabeasts are more of a problem when they turn up in your fort. The randomly generated ones often end up being made of stone, or not having any heads, or something, and thus being impossible to kill by conventional means. Of course, drowning them in magma still works, mostly. There have been reports of some being made of steam though, which might be able to survive that (I forget exactly).

Yeah, it's still pretty broken atm. The military doesn't work properly, and my dwarves have an annoying habit of working themselves to death on a regular basis. Not to mention all the invincible forgotten beasts - those are fun. Once those three things are fixed, that'll be pretty much all the major bugs dealt with though, I think.

<br><br>The idea is, the world etc is generated when you start the game, and then it remains constant for the entire game. So rather than generating an area, then discarding it when you go somewhere else, it just generates the entire place at the start, civilisations and all. The world will still change over time (people will be born, and die, battles fought, cities captured, etc), but not randomly. <br><br>Although, having a game which constantly changes could lead to some interesting gameplay mechanics too, now you mention it... maybe I'll give that a go in my next one<br><br>I probably will split it into some kind of overworld, and local maps though, like you say. It would probably be easier to deal with - generate one big map, with cities, dungeons, etc on it, and then switch to a close-up view when something happens (for example, a city, or the inside of a cave - or even just a field if you have a battle in the middle of nowhere), which would be generated the first time you enter it (thus avoiding generating detailed maps for every single tile, the majority of which would probably never be used).

So I threw together a quick loop to show the results of my world gen algorithm on screen, so I could check whether it works or not. It shows all land with a height below 100 as blue, all land between 100 and 300 in height as green, and everything between 300 and 500 as grey. Its hardly a shining example of good graphics (not to mention I used an individual sprite for each tile of land - 1025x1025 individual images, each 1 pixel big, isn't exactly the most efficient way to draw stuff - hence the 1 FPS :P), but it gives a rough idea of the kind of landscapes I'll get. I have to say, I'm not wildly impressed - it seems to be good for maps with 1 big feature, like a mountain, rather than a whole, diverse world, with many different mountains, lakes, etc. Also, it isn't very customisable. I'll probably have to redo it, but I'm going to get the basic game working first. The final worlds will hopfully be much bigger too, which may help. Heres some screenshots:

Well, smallish to start with. I plan to do it in stages, until I either get bored and give up, or have everything I've mentioned above, plus more. Things are going slowly at the moment, but hopefully in a week or two I'll have something playable to show off (By 'playable' I mean the player will be able to walk around, and not much more). I'm not the fastest programmer in the world...

It'll only be similar to Dwarf Fortress in terms of the size and complexity of the world (and probably the horrible graphics :P) - although DF focuses more on working out rainfall, drainage, etc, so it can realistically place rock layers/ore veins - which I won't be doing, of course. Mine will spend more time generating races and civilisations. Things are coming along quite smoothly so far. I have the basic framework for my game all set up (Using the excellent Slick), and have finished writing up my algorithm for generating the landscape. So far it only creates a heightmap, but the results seem promising. I have discovered that I'm going to have to write most of the game engine before I can do much more on that (the maps are too big for me to fit on the screen, so I need to be able to scroll around them to see much - though I need to figure out a way to make a minimap too for the player to use). I'm going to work on making it possible for the player to move around the world next, then go back to world gen - making rivers/forests, and possibly redoing the heightmap algorithm if it doesn't produce good enough results. I've also found a couple of small graphics tilesets which I may use as placeholder graphics until I find some better ones. If anyone knows any other collections of free sprites, please let me know :) So yeah, things are coming along nicely. Fingers crossed they'll carry on that way.

I notice pretty much every argument against it so far has been based on the fact that, currently, the entire thing is filled with all kinds of horrible stuff. Violence, drugs, terrible pay, unwilling girls being forced into it, children. But surely, the entire point of legalising it is that government regulation would put a stop to that? Brothels would have to impose strict limits on what clients are allowed to do. They would have to maintain a minimum level of security (CCTV cameras in each room? Security staff on hand, ready to respond to any trouble? Bouncers quite happy to bar entry to any unsavoury types who are likely to cause problems?). They would have to ensure a minimum amount of protection is used at all times, and that the staff (and they would be staff) would have to undergo regular medical examinations to ensure their health. Maybe staff would have the right to refuse to serve any customer (within reason). Establishments would have to undergo regular, thorough government inspection to ensure all standards were being followed, with the punishment of hefty fines, or being shut down completely, for failing to follow the rules. Anyone registering their brothel with the authorities (as all businesses have to do) could be subject to a CRC check as a matter of course (same as anyone wanting to be a teacher, or nurse - maybe even stricter). Maybe any staff would be too. Girls would have to be of a minimum age to work there, and there would be various other employment regulations too no doubt (on top of the ones that apply to all jobs). No doubt there would be myriad other regulations and standards put in place too. And of course, if the government knows exactly where every brothel is, then they can plan police schedules, CCTV, etc based on that - to deal with any problems occuring nearby (if any would occur), which the brothel security was either unaware of/unable to deal with. I think a fully legalised, highly regulated industry, with well-enforced standards, would remove the vast majority of problems caused by prostitution in it's current form. As for porn... porn is already legal, to a large extent, and I don't think anything really needs to be changed with that. The internet has made it extremely easy to get hold of, should you wish to, and I don't see much point in making it any more public. As has been said, it would remove the feeling of naughtiness - which I think would be a bad thing, not least because it helps remind people that what goes on in a porn film is very different to the reality of life, and the two should not be mixed up.

Right, I have a long summer ahead of me with not a lot to do, so I figured I'd practice my Java programming skills to make a game. Which will be a challenge both because its Java (which isn't known for being great to make games in), and because I want to focus heavily on procedural generation - which is not only hard, but extremely underused by most developers, so therefore there isn't a huge amount of useful info available. It's going to be an interesting experiment in game design. Why am I posting here? Partly so I have somewhere to collate all my thoughts and ideas, and partly to get people's opinions, suggestions, etc. For those of you who don't know, procedural generation is, basically, randomly generating stuff. The landscape in Oblivion, for example, was originally procedurally generated, and then edited by hand. I want to take things a lot further than that, however - I want to generate an entire world, races of people (and maybe other creatures too) and civilisations, with random structure (so they won't all be ruled by a king, served by his lords, each of whom controls a castle, etc - they may be ruled by a council of elders, or a dictator, or whatever). The world generation in Dwarf Fortress is the closest thing to what I want to do, but it is somewhat different - I don't want to go into dealing with rainfall distribution/drainage/etc like DF does, but I do want to generate governments (which DF doesn't), and new creatures/races (which DF sort of does, in a very limited fashion, with its forgotten beasts). It will have procedurallu generated storyline/quests/characters etc, procedurally generated towns/castles/dungeons/other places, and quite possibly procedurally generated items as well (beyond your basic steel swords, yew bows, steel chainmail, etc - though I may need to generate those too, depending on how similar to the real world the procedurally generated ones will be) I'd also quite like to generate histories/cultures too, but that isn't necessary for the actual gameplay - just stoyline/interest, so can be done later. I'm working on the basis that a deep, interesting, immersive world is an essential part of any role playing game (its what made Morrowind, for example, great), and being able to procedurally generate interesting worlds will make for not only a fun, immersive experience, but one will be unique every time - thus greatly extending the replay value of the game. I have a rough idea of how I'm going to do most of that, and I've already started writing an algorithm to generate the landscape itself (using plasma fractals, whch maths fans may have heard of). The procedural generation is my main interest in this (the results may be superficially similar to DF in many ways, but I believe the implementation is completely different), so thats been my main focus so far. Before I can program lots of it, however, I need to design the actual game - which is what I'm working on atm. Also, advance warning: this is basically me putting my thoughts down on paper. They may not entirely make sense, they probably will be incomplete, and they will most definitely not be easy to read. But any input/advice/constructive criticism would be very welcome :smile: Sorry for the length and rambling nature of all that, I'm still putting my thoughts together at the moment :smile: If people are interested, I'll probably post regular development updates as I go along (I'll need something to keep me motivated until it reaches a playable state). I hope to have some kind of working version by late September, but I doubt it'll be anywhere near finished till much, much later than that. I might also release versions that are little more than a map generator while I work on that, just to show I have something :tongue: Oh, and also, I have absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever. So if anyone is any good at drawing sprites (pixel art, most likely 16x16 tiles, with transparency), and wouldn't mind helping out a bit, I'd appreciate it! :smile: This game, if it gets as big and complex as I hope it will (unlikely), may potentially be profitable, in which case I will sell it instead of releasing it for free as I go along (though free versions before that point are likely). If I do end up selling it, I'll be happy to negotiate some kind of payment, but as I don't know if it'll reach that point, I can't promise any reward other than my eternal gratitude. I'm still in the brainstorming stages at the moment, so I'd love to hear other people's ideas and suggestions. The more the merrier EDIT: fixed smileys. Whoever thought replacing the codes which everybody knows, like :), with stupid different ones like : smile:, is an idiot.

How much does it generally cost to set up a base on a planet, normally? And how much profit does it tend to make? I'm tempted to get back into Eve and have a play around with it.

For those who don't already know: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/14/fallout-new-vegas-dated-e3-trailer/

I have dual monitors atm, and I don't know how I managed without it. I used to have a 15" monitor, then I got a 22" widescreen, and that was a big improvement. Then it occurred to me that I may as well put the old screen to good use, and I'm so glad I did. Even though they're different sizes and resolutions, the extra space is so useful. Games don't make any use of it at all, with a few exceptions, which is a shame, but I guess its not really common enough to be worth it. Supreme Commander had a cool multi-monitor setup, you had the actual game on one screen, then a big strategic map on the other, which you could zoom in, and give orders on, like the main window. Was kinda handy, but ultimately nothing special. It would be nice if more games made the effort though, because it was still kinda handy, especially if you're fighting two battles at once in different places.

Hopefully this means GPG will be spending all their time on their upcoming game, Kings and Castles, which looks like it might just possibly be a good game. The video blogs they've been doing of its development are certainly great, anyway. As for Dungeon Siege... I've never played the first two. I should probably go back and give 'em a go some time.

If the game installed fine, it won't be the disc. If it crashes when you try and play, its either a problem with your PC, a problem in the game, or both. Once its installed, the only reason you need the disc is the copy protection.

Well, that small group of people have been copying media without the publisher's permission, since the invention of the printing press (it was the rich merchants who'd had a monopoly on book-selling up until that point who persuaded parliament to pass the Copyright Act, so they could try and maintain control of distribution), and it hasn't stopped the various media industries from making billions in profits. Besides, it is a fact that local security is never uncrackable. Anything located on the user's PC, even if it has to phone home, can and will be cracked. Physical hardware security (such as what you get in a console) is much more secure, but unless publishers plan to start selling special PCs with their games, on which to play them, that isn't really a feasible option. And it would have to be a totally new PC, with all the DRM hardcoded into a special chip somewhere - any special hardware that the user has to plug into a normal PC (such as the usb dongles used by some high-end software manufacturers) still relies on software drivers to work - and those can be easily cracked. Even a special type of PC would be cracked, given enough time - just like every games console. The only way to guarantee that it is very unlikely a game will be cracked (not impossible), is to store the entire game content on a remote server somewhere, in a system like OnLive. Which needless to say, is inconvenient to the point of being unusable for the majority of people. Theres no way it would work in most of the UK, for example, with our ancient phone network. So yeah, short of completely changing the way the games market works (and I for one can guarantee I will never pay a subscription to access games on a remote server), there is no way to prevent piracy. Even if you were to turn the internet off completely, people will just go straight back to swapping discs in school, or sending games through the post.

Another option: crack it. I'm not gonna post a link (its easy enough to find one), of course, but it's probably the simplest way to actually be able to play the game. I cracked my copy, and while I do have to start Rockstar Social club (though I can just click skip log in, so no need for an account), thats pretty much it. I'm not sure if multiplayer works, mind - I haven't tried. I think they recently released a new patch which removes some of the DRM, but I'm not sure exactly which bits - might be worth checking out.

This is the thing: filesharing is not the cause. It's an effect. Yes, there are a small number of people who will always pirate, no matter what. But they wouldn't have bought the game/film/album anyway, so they're irrelevant. Everyone else who downloads, does so for a reason, and it is those reasons which publishers need to be addressing. They may download a game because they have no way of knowing what it will be like, or if it will even run on their PC, before they buy it (in which case publishers need to provide a decent demo or trial - something they don't do, or don't do well, for a lot of modern games, and then expect people to gamble £50 on an unknown. No refunds on games once you've opened/installed them, remember). Maybe they lost their CD, or are unable to download the game again for whatever reason (Steam account got hacked? It happens surprisingly often), and just want to be able to play the game they paid for. Maybe the game's DRM is stopping them from playing it, and they need a crack. There are plenty of valid reasons, and plenty of ways to make them irrelevant. There are other reasons which might not be considered quite so valid by some, but which are also very common. For example, games which retail at exorbitant prices (or unbalanced prices - plenty of modern games get sold for $30-40 in the US, and 50-odd euros in Europe) - some people will rather download, and then buy the game when it's cheap. Or games which are released in one region earlier than another (Ghostbusters is a classic example of this, coming out in the US several months earlier than in the rest of the world). Clearly these are all problems which are easily solved by the publishers - release games everywhere at once, at reasonable prices. In the olden days of having to transport physical copies of a game all over the world, differing release dates was understandable. But now, there is absolutely no reason for a game sold on Steam to only be available to people in the US. Thats the reason I didn't buy Assassin's Creed when it came out, it was listed in Steam, but it wouldn't let me buy it. Judging by reviews, though, its a good thing I didn't buy it. Not that I have any way of actually knowing (short of downloading it), seeing as they didn't release a demo. But yeah, piracy is an effect, not the cause. Publishers make stupid mistakes, or try and screw over their customers, and then when those customers resort to filesharing as a solution, they slap loads of restrictive DRM on - ironically, only causing more people to download it.

Firstly, stealing a car, and copying a song, or game, or whatever are completely different. When you steal a car, there is a victim - the person you stole from loses their car. When you download music off bittorrent, or whatever, there is no victim. Someone who has a copy of the song, makes a new copy, and gives it to you. They still have their copy, but now you have one too. The only reason the RIAA et al want it stopped is because they feel that people who download music or games etc do so instead of buying them, and therefore they are losing money because of this. There is little evidence to support this (other than a couple of studies which were a) flawed, and b) funded and performed by the MPAA - and thus can't exactly be trusted). There is little evidence suggesting this isn't the case either, of course - I can count the number of studies in this area on one hand - but theres more evidence than the copyright organisations have. As for downloading a game because of the DRM... I've done it before. An example would be Mass Effect 2, where I bought the Digital Deluxe edition, but when I tried to play it, found that theres a bug in the DRM which, for some reason, stopped the game from authenticating online (and thus locked me out of all the DLC). I did spend a fair amount of time trawling around the Bioware forums looking for a solution, even attempted to get in touch with EA customer support (but in true EA style, their entire customer support website happened to be offline for a extended period of time). In the end, I was forced to download all the DLC off bittorrent, and crack it. A perfectly legitmate course of action imo. How often do you think legitimate users have been forced to download cracks or whatever off bittorrent? Its happened to me several times, and I've heard plenty of other people complain about having to do it in the past, so I'd dare say that its quite common, and quite understandable.

While its (probably) true that if people didn't download, publishers wouldn't impose restrictive DRM, its not the fault of people downloading games. Its the publishers fault for thinking that imposing more restrictive DRM will stop the problem. There is no evidence to show that illicit downloading is a problem - and almost all of the few studies that have been done indicate that it doesn't have any impact. Some have even suggested that it has a benefit! The vast majority of people who download a game, do not do so instead of buying it. There are a lot of reasons people download, almost all of which are not a lost sale, but I've written looooong posts on this before, so I really cba going through them all again here. Suffice to say that 90% of illicit downloads come from people downloading because they've lost their disc, or because they've installed the game but can't play it because of the copy protection, and so need a crack, or simply because they're interested in a game, but it costs £50, theres no demo available, and no other way to try it out before buying. £40-50 is far too much money to spend when you can't even be sure what you're getting will actually work on your PC - and of course, you can't get a refund on a game once you've opened it. As for whether games are worth the price they're often sold for... well, as the saying goes, everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. I personally think the prices many AAA titles are sold at these days are exorbitant, and would never pay more than £20-25 for a game, at most. Clearly, however, lots of people are willing to pay more than that, otherwise they wouldn't be sold at that price. I think its just another example of how weak-willed gamers, as a whole, tend to be. Just like the MW2 outrage ("We're all going to boycott your game because you got rid of dedicated servers!" *game comes out, everyone rushes off to buy it anyway*), its more a case of everyone complaining about how outrageous and disgusting the prices are, but being so desperate to play the game that they break, and go buy it anyway.

Any official Sony one would be best. I have one I still use, which I've had since I first got a PS2 (which was around 2002 IIRC). Official controllers are far superior to any others you can get, no question. Should be plenty knocking around on ebay.

I hope they release walking in stations soon. Seriously, how many years has it been now? Other than that, I'm not particularly interested in any of the other ideas they have for expansions. Planetary interaction might be fun, and I might give it a go, but I agree it probably won't be anything special.