Yeah it's super weird. When I learned using the Unreal level editor back I. The day one if the first thing tutorials taught you was scaling. There always was a point made about how bug a character is and how big a door for example should be for it to look natural.
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Giant Bomb #6 | You'd be hard pressed to find 10 better threads this year.
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Yeah it's super weird. When I learned using the Unreal level editor back I. The day one if the first thing tutorials taught you was scaling. There always was a point made about how bug a character is and how big a door for example should be for it to look natural.
Haunted
Member
I mean, looking at the Arkham Origins example, it's easy to see how this decision happened. While they design the big boss fight on the bridge, they realise there's simply not enough playable space for the various phases and swooping QTEs they plan on. So they scale the environment up, a simple solution that would probably go by unnoticed with everything that's going on... Players rarely realise the scale of the space they're in if there aren't any everyday objects placed everywhere to compare the character to.
Too bad that bridge IS FULL OF CARS. Fucking stupid.
Ryan went back to his home planet.Damn.. As soon as you mentioned your little nephew I knew where this post was going and it still broke my heart..
If it was me I would probably pull a Santa Claus and tell him that Ryan left to focus on his personal life after getting married. I really hate lying to children like that, but the questions isn't going to go away and I don't think I could personally handle telling the truth to someone that young..
NumberThree
Member
I remembered reading about this and found the article on Gamasutra, here's what Remedy had to say about level design back in 2002:
Maybe those developers only read the first paragraph?
edit: Or like Haunted said, they first designed it smaller and then just scaled everything later when they realized it didn't work. And WoW is just a mess, nothing about the game's scale makes sense.
Game they enjoyed: 'That was so dummmmbbbb'
Game they disliked: 'That was so dummmmbbbb'
Cannon Goose
Member
Unregardless.
LackingSaint
Neo Member
The GB staff has commented a BUNCH of times in podcasts and live shows that, talking to Game Devs, they realise "How could anyone look at this and say "yeah that's fine, ship it"" is a pretty nonsensical statement that ignores how game development actually works. Usually it's a matter of changing one thing forcing them to change several things, and when you're pushing up against release window things like "car is too big" don't really take precedent over "bug that makes it so the game can't be finished".
Consider how they'd fix this problem; obviously they can't just make Batman bigger, that would drastically alter how the levels have been designed. So make all of the cars smaller? And then work on making all the hit-boxes smaller? Would the textures still work properly on these smaller models? Whoops now there's a game-breaking bug where Batman dies if he touches a car and we have to release the game and we don't know how to fix it or why it's happening
SteveWinwood
Member
Seasame street taught me kids can handle way more than people give then credit for. I'm serious. Tell him the truth.
Heart warming and sad story.
I would talk to his parents first before telling him - does he already know what death means, would it be his first experience, and so on.
I blame Chris Christie.
I'm aware it's a word, but it's a bullshit word. I used to use it until I realised how dumb I sounded using it.
Haunted
Member
Wow, Brad bought a second Terrorblade Arcana and gave it to Crispy to celebrate his 1000th win.
So generous.
And as said in the previous post, any designer worth his salt is obviously aware of the issue, but not allowed to fix it, usually for deadline reasons.
The point is that an experienced environmental artist could make sure that this kind of mistake doesn't occur in the first place.
So generous.
I do know how game development works (I've worked for a games publisher for a couple years), yet at the end of the day, if you end up with a shit result that's, frankly, unacceptable for a supposed $60 AAA game, as a consumer you must be allowed to poke fun at the chain of decisions that led to that result.
And as said in the previous post, any designer worth his salt is obviously aware of the issue, but not allowed to fix it, usually for deadline reasons.
The point is that an experienced environmental artist could make sure that this kind of mistake doesn't occur in the first place.
This is a great post. Yeah, some of their stuff is a little inappropriate for a 9 year old - but just like Jeff pointed out, Garden Warfare is a game built for a non-existent utopian society where kids aren't already playing Modern Warfare - he's probably heard/seen worse already. At least your nephew has you to guide him and show him more positive experiences.
Talk to his parents, if they're cool with it, be honest about Ryan. It's better he learns about this stuff first when it's not a close friend/family member, and it's also one of the reasons parents buy their children pets.
"Known Shippable - Won't fix" - one of the worst phrases in game development and the AAA industry should be ashamed of the accepted culture behind it. Even a lot of gamers seem resigned to the idea that bugs are just one of the costs of playing modern games.
Publishers need to spend more of their title budgets on QA; if that means games are smaller in scope, so be it. Testers should be working alongside the developers from day 1 of production, familiarising themselves with the dev environment and tools. Staffing should then organically ramp up from there. Fuck all this outsourcing to a QA company in the last six months bullshit - it also makes crunch way worse too.
walltowall
Member
Ryan IS missed every week!
Not judging but....... You don't have issue with a 9yr old listening to down right coarse and inappropriate language while giving your tacit approval, but you struggle with explaining that Ryan died??
It's a good idea to ask is parents about the explanation on death, it would probably be a good idea, if you haven't done so already, to ask his parents their take on their son hearing the word "fuck" in multitudes while watching quick looks.
But people are crazy about Early Access and Betas, many clearly value a good experience over a super polished one.
Such a great post. I also tried to make my nephew watch the giantbomb. He knows I am really into the whole website, but I haven't had the pleasure to actually make him watch them, but again, its his life. Too bad he follows other shitty Youtube personality for me to actually stop recommend him the website.
I personally think, kids these days are more grown up than many people here think. I personally think that if you break the news to him about Ryan's passing, while he may be sad, will benefit him in the long run. But again, you are not his parents so...
Honestly, I worked at an elementary school for 7 years. The 9-10 year olds know way more than people give them credit for. As someone that doesn't interact with kids outside of work, I was constantly surprised. Somewhere between 2nd and 3rd grade you can start to notice a definite change in their demeanor.
Granted, it was a school in south central, so maybe those kids "grow up" a little faster.
Has Vinny been told about this?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/258760/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/258760/
NumberThree
Member
You could see it was installed when they went to big picture mode on this week's UPF (they also commented on it, but I don't remember what).
Haunted
Member
I like how everyone except Giancarlo went into that Strider EB trying to prove its superiority and was reminded that it's... actually pretty shit.
Arcade/Genesis Strider > NES Strider
Arcade/Genesis Strider > NES Strider
Honestly, that's just Euro Truck Simulator 2 with a manufacturer's license attached.
I was really disappointed they didn't at least also play the Genesis version. That video would have been way better that had they not just talked about the other versions, but actually played them.
They played it on one of those vintage game livestreams a couple of years ago. Was worse than I remembered.
Pretty cool art direction, though. The Supreme Soviet or whatever that was turning into a giant robo-centipede was pretty badass.
Damn.. As soon as you mentioned your little nephew I knew where this post was going and it still broke my heart..
If it was me I would probably pull a Santa Claus and tell him that Ryan left to focus on his personal life after getting married. I really hate lying to children like that, but the questions isn't going to go away and I don't think I could personally handle telling the truth to someone that young..
And this is why kids grow up sheltered..
He's going to have to learn eventually. Kids are far more capable of processing and handling this kind of information than 'adults' usually give them credit for.
The Dear Leader
Banned
If you guys need some entertainment on the weekend, watch Jeff Green play Dark Souls, he just tried to talk to a lamp, thinking it was an NPC.
http://www.twitch.tv/greenspeak
http://www.twitch.tv/greenspeak
Typographenia
Member
On the note of Dark/Demon's Souls, when did the acceptance of the series start in the GB offices?
I know Rorie was on board from basically the beginning, and Vinny was the first one super curious about it/gave it a shot on GB. When did Brad and Patrick get into the series? I would assume Patrick was post-999, but I don't recall. Brad, I have no idea where that came from. Suddenly, it was just there (to me).
I know Rorie was on board from basically the beginning, and Vinny was the first one super curious about it/gave it a shot on GB. When did Brad and Patrick get into the series? I would assume Patrick was post-999, but I don't recall. Brad, I have no idea where that came from. Suddenly, it was just there (to me).
razgriz417
Member
I'm not 100% certain but I think Patrick got into the idea of trying Dark Souls after messing around with Monster Hunter. I recall him saying something about finally understanding attack priority and committing to moves from Monster Hunter. I think that was after 999, not sure if Fire Emblem was before or after that. I know Vinny went back and finished Demon's Souls on his own and mentioned it on the podcast a while back (before Patrick started branching out games wise) but I can't remember exactly when. First time I remember Brad mentioning anything about Dark Souls during the Child's Play 24 hour weekend where he pledged to play if they broke some donation goal.
If anyone else has a clearer idea, please feel free to correct me
All software has bugs. 'Known shippable' means they actually conducted enough testing to find said bug. Now, not all software has major bugs, but the 'AAA industry' is actually pretty good about those, nowadays, BF4 and Bethesda games notwithstanding.
Batman being out of scale with the cars was probably a known tradeoff; maybe they wanted the overpass to look packed with cars as you fly over it, but couldn't afford to put a ton of not-huge cars in. Maybe on playtesting most players didn't really remark on it, since they were too busy darting somewhere else.
Likewise with the WoW example, I'd imagine they wanted that door to be seen from very far away, as part of the scenery around Stormwind -- it'd look ridiculous to anyone who walked all the way up to the lighthouse, but they probably thought very few people would do that.
Vinterbird
Member
Does anyone know if the 15 dollar discount codes can be stacked when ordering on the shop?
No, but if you email Rorie at support he can combine them into a new code for you.
yeah i was just thinking about that, its super weird that all of a sudden like 10 years after it released they are basically doing a demon's souls endurance run. i remember the coverage of it when it first came out they could have not been more dismissive of it.
and Vinny played like 50 hours of dark souls but hardly ever spoke about it.
it was only when roary started playing it and then vinny did his thing that they started talking about it a lot.
I work in the development of Enterprise Software, and while we don't classify things as "Known Shippable" (our internal term is Deferred), the amount of bugs that we move to the backlog to be fixed in future releases is daunting to say the least.
The only thing a person could program that wouldn't have bugs is a Hello World, and even then I wouldn't put it past someone missing something.
Do people like the fact that there are KS bugs? Trust me, no. What you should be fighting for is the reduction of the acceptable percentage of KS bugs vs. fixed bugs.
Haunted
Member
As someone who also really really liked LoS1... the sequel is a bitter disappointment.
Tons of stealth sections in various forms (all shit) diffusing the great character action combat that made the first one enjoyable. It's an unfocused mess in many areas (gameplay, design, story) and overall just a real disappointment.
By far the biggest of 2014 so far.
As someone who also really really liked LoS1... the sequel is a bitter disappointment.
Tons of stealth sections in various forms (all shit) diffusing the great character action combat that made the first one enjoyable. It's an unfocused mess in many areas (gameplay, design, story) and overall just a real disappointment.
By far the biggest of 2014 so far.
Ouch. I'll pick it up when it's $20.
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
Man, I wish patrick could just play BOI without comparing it to spelunky every 14 seconds. Even that worth reading article he posted is just him talking about BOI and the differences between it and spelunky. Maybe just look at it on it's own merits?
Messofanego
Banned
This made me well up. Thanks for the heartwarming story. I love sharing my love for gaming with my kid cousins and anyone really. My mom constantly asks if I'm listening to those guys if I'm not doing work, and whenever she sees Jeff she identifies him as "that fat one"
He's 9, I think he can handle the concept of Ryan passing away but that's up to you when or if you even want to relay that. Keep sharing this lovely hobby with others
Freedom = $1.05
Banned
He's comparing one roguelike to another. It's not like he's comparing it to madden 95.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Gears 3 seems like it did something similar in the final area (I think it was a hotel or something). It's all hallways but the doors are like 20 feet taller than Marcus, who is, thus far, the largest human who has ever lived.
For Gears, you could excuse that it doesn't take place on Earth, so their physiology doesn't necessarily compare to normal humans.
Eh you should be used to it by now, he's done that since quite literally the day he joined the site. I just sort of started tuning it out when he was constantly comparing Dragon's Dogma to Skyrim when the only thing those games have in common are that they take place in a large sprawling fantasy world.
Honestly it bugged me more in the Banner Saga QL where he was comparing that game to Fire Emblem constantly when the only thing they have in common is turn based combat on a grid. Banner Saga was clearly aiming towards something more like FFT with their isometric camera angle and all.
SteveWinwood
Member
why we gotta pingeon hole stuff man
why cant things just be their own things
why cant things just be their own things
Typographenia
Member
That sounds like something a Steve Winwood would say.
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