It's a dude making opinionated reviews about shows, including the various star trek ones. They're kept on the funny side and a lot of them are outright killing me :3
It's not only seniors, unfortunately... How many times it happened to me to talk to a girl in a bar, and when she asks what I do for a living:
"-I'm a level designer.
-Like an architect?
-No, I build levels in video games.
-Oh, you're a programmer then! (<- my personal favorite... or not!)
-I just design them in 3D, I barely have any skill in programming.
-But you're a geek, right?"
Pleeease.
You're a digital design artist, creating 3d environments for real-time computer simulations.
My plan is to wait for the patch to come out, then watch how it works. If it seems to produce better results for hosting obscure maps, I'll jump back into mapmaking and also reverse my decision to not purchase HotS.
I thought so too at first - until it dawned to me that I'm probably gonna buy HotS anyway D:
I met once a heavy turtling terran (playing zerg). So heavy he started with a PF first instead of CC on his natural. Thats the best thing that can happen to you. Just take 3 more bases and tech up to brood lords. BL + infestor hardcounters everything terran can throw at you when microed properly. Just fungal the hell out of his vikings/bio and you win, Brood Lords do the cleaning
Exactly.
What you are saying is that you want Zerg's offensive power to be so strong that they can still overrun an entrenched Terran (cost-efficiently). Terran is the turtle race, and a turtle terran is not going to be easy to break.
But as long as he is turtling the only thing he can do to you is hellion harassment or medivac drops. If he spends so much money on turrets/tanks/defense you can just pump out more bases and win.
And that's not just theory. I'm a master-league terran (ok, I was before I stopped actively playing :P). And I've even played against a bunch of real pros.
I know that, if I turtle up, every Zerg is just laughing at my face. The key to winning against Zerg on a diamond+ level is to be aggressive and rely on timing pushes and drops so the Zerg can't just macro up like a fiend.
If you can force a Terran into a defensive stance and know how to exploit it you have almost won. If he turtles it makes it even easier.
Is this the price we pay for the digital age, where we live every possible moment through the tv?, where we have already experienced all of life through the phone, books, or internet? Is there nothing left for the world to offer?
If you feel like this then go parachuting, hiking or do some other crazy stuff. Things you can read about or see, but not experience through TV.
At least from the name it sounds like the time a unit needs to wait after X shots. Essentially reloading their spent ammo clip.
But that mechanic is used nowhere, and I could never get anything to work with the Reload Time.
So it's either not in use or I'm too stupid to make it work. Both very likely.
we have always told each other everything, we said we wouldn't keep secrets from each other... It's radical honesty,
And I just want to make it so shes not mad at me... Ik that it's religion and that it won't work out... But she still likes me, just we can't date stuff, but how can I have her not to be mad?
I see pretty much 3 options here:
Be the hypocrite and tell them you're becoming religious - or at least agnostic (=not ruling out God's existence, but just not being sure about it)
Tell them that one of the most important things Christianity teaches us is tolerance and that they should be a damn bit more tolerant (perhaps a different choice of words..).
Just be friends and - who knows - maybe things will cool down after a while.
Religious people wouldn't be such a pain if they all believed in what their religion actually tells them. It's fun how they believe in the stupid concepts (existence of God, virgin mother, etc) but not in the important ones (charity, tolerance, etc).
We humans always find new and old ways to make life hard for each other :/
With this knowledge, how can you even assume that ANYTHING is going to be the same after the events on the citadel?
Well, you cure the Genophage and turn the Krogan into a potential thread to the universe. You save the Rachni which is pretty much the only organic race even more dangerous than the Krogan. It's pretty obvious that the universe won't ever be the same.
The problem is that you don't see any of it. You say things will change? Well, according the the ME3 ending they really don't. At least you don't have a hand in it. The Reapers disappear. The Relays will be destroyed. That always happens. And maybe the Synthesis or destruction of technology. But you don't see it's consequences. But what about your decisions? What about all races? You don't get to see anything about the things you have done.
The worst problem is that even I can work out a different ending for ME3 which opens less plot holes, would provide more choices and bring the series to a better end. And I don't consider myself a good story writer at all.
Think about this ending:
Quote:
The final battle starts normally, you do your Hammer ground assault, link the Crucible to the Citadel.
Now, the Cruicible is basically just a massive artillery cannon, drawing energy from the Citadel and unleashing it via a massive laser beam (not unlike the Reapers').
However, the weapon needs more time to destroy all Reapers so the Liberation Fleet has a last stand in order to protect the Crucible at all cost. Maybe that would be a nice place to pit the Illusive Man as the final boss against Shepard, just like Saren from ME1 he's a result of non-human enhancements and subconscious Reaper indoctrination and he wants to shut down the Crucible from inside the Citadel (that's where you are right now, just like you'd be in the actual ending).
After you've defeated him you see how the last dozen-or-so Reapers rally and try to leave the system. You're faced with a decision:
A: Order the fleet lick their wounds. Rescue survivors, evacuate doomed ships and help liberate earth from the last Reaper minions. However, the dozen Reapers escape into dark space. No one knows how long they'll be gone, but one is for certain: They will return. And when they do the universe must be ready again. Bearing that knowledge all sentient races manage to put aside their differences.
B: Order the fleet to chase the Reapers to destroy every last of them. The Liberation fleet has enough vessels left to engage the last Reapers without the help of the Crucible (which is damaged and overheated). The Reapers are finally destroyed, but so is basically the entire Liberation fleet. Which leads to a few important conclusions:
Unless you liberated the Quarian homeworld from the Geth, the entire Quarian flotilla is destroyed, including the liveships. The race is extinct.
Depending on how much War Assets you've acquired and the Normandy's upgrades the Normandy might be destroyed, only you and your two companions survive as you weren't on board.
Apart from your decision there'll be a few other consequences:
The Crucible will overheat after the Reapers flee. If you've upgraded it well there are emergency systems that undock the Crucible and let it drift far enough away that the explosion won't destroy the Citadel. If you haven't upgraded it well enough the Citadel will also be destroyed, which ends in your death.
Look at that! I've spent 5 minutes writing down a rough sketch and it still looks better than what Bioware gave us:
It doesn't create plot holes like the stranded Normandy or the Catalyst kid because there aren't even there.
It gives you a different ending depending on your decisions and War Assets, which is lacking extremely in the actual ending.
It actually fits into the rest of the story just as nice as the acutual ending! There is nothing important throughout Mass Effect that hints at how the game actually ends. So it could very well end like this without creating discrepancies with the rest of the story.
It gives a nice end to the Illusive Man, showing that even he cannot control the Reapers, but became their puppet out of initally good intentions.
It allows you to pick a "good" end where most people survive, the races unite in peace, etc
It allows you to pick a "bad" end with WWII consequences: Races extinct, Citadel (= Icon for civilisation and technology) destroyed, countless millions of lives lost when the Fleet was destroyed. Without the Council or a military status quo anything could happen. Geth, Rachni and Krogan are free to do as they wish, the universe might be left in a state of Cold War.
And that's only about the general plot direction.
Didn't you (optionally) rescue a Turian sniper squad somewhere? How ballers would it be if you saw a short cutscene showing how they take position inside the buildings during the defend-the-missile-trucks mission and giving you fire support.
Or see Elcor with back-mounted cannons (if you got that War Asset) walk next to the tank line that you see when you fight your way through the ruins a little earlier?
My main gripe would be the function of EMS and everything that happens in the 'pre-ending' (scenes on Earth). I was both expecting and hoping for this epic final battle where all my (important) assets would come into play. I.E. if you had saved Aralakh company, they'd show up during the defense mission, and if you had secured both the Geth and Quarian fleets they'd... play a more obvious role. That kind of jazz. Now, EMS is nothing but high score and assets are virtually only ten lines of text in a database each.
I could put up with EVERYTHING story-related if they did this. I've read each and every entry in the War Assets database and I've been itching to see some of them come into action. It was very disappointing that the only thing that changes is that you hear "<Quarian/Geth/Turian/...> Fleet ready" from Joker :/
Might it be because Wikipedia for the longest time specifically stated that Blizzard had started development on a Warhammer 40000 game, but negotiations broke down, and so they retooled it into Starcraft?
Actually, in the start of the Starcraft omnibus, Chris Metzen says that Starcraft was originally going to be a STARWARS game, not a warhammer one.
I couldn't find more info about the "starcraft omnibus". Maybe someone else can enlighten me?
Here's another lengthy feature about the subject: Link
I brought this up with my local GW manager, and he explained to me that back in the day all of the Warcraft guys used to play Warhammer. They came to GW one day and asked if they could make a game, GW being the old crabby man that it is refused and then Warcraft came out, Starcraft soon to follow.
Fun fact:
Quote:
The games "Starcraft" and "Warcraft" are rumored to be based on the table top game "Warhammer" and "Warhammer 40,000", it is rumored that Warcraft was supposed to be a Warhammer PC game in development but a fall out between Gamesworkshop and Blizzard occurred. One link to this rumor can be found in "Warcraft III", if you repeatedly click a griffon rider he will say "This Warhammer costs 40K", 40K being a shortening of 40,000.
However, Warhammer:40k, Alien and Starship Troopers were iconic of the science fiction space genre that I'm sure Blizzard has drawn ideas and inspiration from them. Like many others did. And that's not a bad thing. They didn't blatantly copy but evolved the ideas into something else. That's how humans do it since the dawn of time: We copy, learn and improve.
Watch this video: http://vimeo.com/19447662
(if you don't have the patience, skip to 3:15)
It shows how incredibly much the original Star Wars movie copied from other sources. Still - wasn't that one of the greatest movies ever made?
i don't think Blizzard have real financial problems, it's more than actually they are too ambicious:
- 3 simultaneous developments: D3, HotS and one more expansion for WoW (last time blizzard tried 2 simultaneous developments it finished with "sc: ghost" cancelled)
- the "promise" of 2 games per year. blizzard are you serious? (you can't manage more than 1 project at same time and trying 2 games per year?)
- a fourth simultaneous development with that "secret project" they have a while ago
- WoW, as any other MMoRPG, have a lifespan. They try to cover it with more an more patchs but it will only prolong the agony of the beast
more than financial problems they have too many taps open. They grew arrogant with WoW incomes and just noticed the mistake, but they need to keep their pride and publish the games they promised
Not quite true.
They've been simultaneously working on Sc2 and WoW. And SC:Ghost wasn't developed by Blizzard but by an outside studio. They canceled it because it didn't stand up to their expectations. If they really had money issues at that point they'd have rushed it out and sold the hell out of it. Even a bad game sells as long as it has the name Starcraft tagged onto it.
It's much more likely that Vivendi / Activision Blizzard are pressuring them for a timely release. Stuff that hasn't been finished until then has to be shipped in patches.
Why don't they just push the release a few months more?
Even Blizzard can't spend a decade for each of their games. "Not living up to it's standard" is synonomous with "we didn't have time for that" at Blizzard.
Right, so I finished it in 2 days (took me 26 hours of hardcore addiction playing).
Afterwards I've read about peoples' complaints (e.g. the weak revelation of the Quarians' face, the story similarities to a certain other game which was released not too long ago, lack of quality, and so on) but I can't share most of these complaints.
I've played Mass Effect 1 and I really liked it, although it was far from being a perfect game (those boooring ground exploration missions..).
Then ME2 came along and it did things very differently. Partly for the better, partly for the worse.
But ME3? There is NOTHING ME3 doesn't do better than ME2.
Social interaction with other characters is on an entirely different level. You really get a close look into their heart, get attached to them. I shed a big fat tear for every comrade I've lost.
Together with them I've attended funerals of relatives, war memorials, bars, or maybe just some quiet place for a bit of peace before the killing starts again.
You seem to have much more freedom of choice than in the previous installments. Your actions may now decide the fate of an entire species, or might severely help or cripple you in your war efforts. They've also revamped the Paragon/Renegade (good guy/bad guy) system so being a Renegade doesn't mean you steal lollies from babies anymore. Instead it means that you're known doing what it takes to get the job done. A change I really welcome.
Combat is done really well. It's similar to ME2 but there's a greater variety of weapons and powers. Enemies act intelligent, stay in cover or try to overwhelm you if they have the superior numbers.
Later in the game they're throwing horde after horde at you, the different enemy types require different tactics and can sometimes really scare you off.
The story is of such epic proportion - Basically your mission is to unite all races and get as much war assets (troops, materiel, researchers, resources, technology, morale) to lead the final strike against the Reapers. I'm sure I spent at least an hour reading through the war asset descriptions and I loved it. All the time I've had this tingling feeling of something utterly epic approaching.
If you imported ME2 saves it's even better.
Some people I've decided to help in ME1 actually joined my cause - I've read it in a news article.
On the other hand a few decisions I made in ME2 forced the Quarians into fighting the Geth even harder. So after I've settled their dispute their fighting power wasn't as great as you'd expect.
There are a lot of inside jokes for those who played the previous games. Calibrations? EDI's taste of humor? Wrex's suggestion to eat stupid people? Heck, I've even found my old Space Hampster which I've bought in ME2! Come to think of it.. I never named him..
There's also more RPG to it than in ME2. More customization of your weaponry, powers and other equipment. Weapon mods are back too. Works out pretty well.
I don't wanna praise it into heavens. It's not a perfect game. I didn't like a few parts of the story, a few gameplay things could've been better, etc pp.
In my eyes it's all-around a huge improvement to ME2. Not without faults but a worthy end for one of the greatest franchise I've ever played.
PS:
Regarding all the DLC monetizing: I don't really like it. But most of the current DLCs are weapons, armors or similar stuff I think. They hardly add anything to the actual game.
A day-one DLC that adds a new character? Meh, do not like to pay extra for this :(
HOWEVER: I've played the game without this DLC and it's STILL A FUCKING GREAT GAME.
EA's money leeching is damn ugly, but that doesn't change the fact that this game was outright awesome.
0
On that note I'd like to mention http://sfdebris.com/
It's a dude making opinionated reviews about shows, including the various star trek ones. They're kept on the funny side and a lot of them are outright killing me :3
0
Pleeease.
You're a digital design artist, creating 3d environments for real-time computer simulations.
/necro
0
I thought so too at first - until it dawned to me that I'm probably gonna buy HotS anyway D:
0
Exactly. What you are saying is that you want Zerg's offensive power to be so strong that they can still overrun an entrenched Terran (cost-efficiently). Terran is the turtle race, and a turtle terran is not going to be easy to break. But as long as he is turtling the only thing he can do to you is hellion harassment or medivac drops. If he spends so much money on turrets/tanks/defense you can just pump out more bases and win.
And that's not just theory. I'm a master-league terran (ok, I was before I stopped actively playing :P). And I've even played against a bunch of real pros.
I know that, if I turtle up, every Zerg is just laughing at my face. The key to winning against Zerg on a diamond+ level is to be aggressive and rely on timing pushes and drops so the Zerg can't just macro up like a fiend.
If you can force a Terran into a defensive stance and know how to exploit it you have almost won. If he turtles it makes it even easier.
0
I consider switching to chrome now. You can't imaging my disappointment when I clicked "Options" on my Firefox AdBlock and I saw no Cats there :/
0
If you feel like this then go parachuting, hiking or do some other crazy stuff. Things you can read about or see, but not experience through TV.
0
That is what happens when women leave their home to buy new kitchen supplies.
And this happens when men have the say. I'm not sure what's worse - or more funny.
0
At least from the name it sounds like the time a unit needs to wait after X shots. Essentially reloading their spent ammo clip.
But that mechanic is used nowhere, and I could never get anything to work with the Reload Time.
So it's either not in use or I'm too stupid to make it work. Both very likely.
0
I see pretty much 3 options here:
Religious people wouldn't be such a pain if they all believed in what their religion actually tells them. It's fun how they believe in the stupid concepts (existence of God, virgin mother, etc) but not in the important ones (charity, tolerance, etc).
We humans always find new and old ways to make life hard for each other :/
0
Well, you cure the Genophage and turn the Krogan into a potential thread to the universe. You save the Rachni which is pretty much the only organic race even more dangerous than the Krogan. It's pretty obvious that the universe won't ever be the same.
The problem is that you don't see any of it. You say things will change? Well, according the the ME3 ending they really don't. At least you don't have a hand in it. The Reapers disappear. The Relays will be destroyed. That always happens. And maybe the Synthesis or destruction of technology. But you don't see it's consequences. But what about your decisions? What about all races? You don't get to see anything about the things you have done.
The worst problem is that even I can work out a different ending for ME3 which opens less plot holes, would provide more choices and bring the series to a better end. And I don't consider myself a good story writer at all.
Think about this ending:
Look at that! I've spent 5 minutes writing down a rough sketch and it still looks better than what Bioware gave us:
And that's only about the general plot direction.
Didn't you (optionally) rescue a Turian sniper squad somewhere? How ballers would it be if you saw a short cutscene showing how they take position inside the buildings during the defend-the-missile-trucks mission and giving you fire support.
Or see Elcor with back-mounted cannons (if you got that War Asset) walk next to the tank line that you see when you fight your way through the ruins a little earlier?
I could put up with EVERYTHING story-related if they did this. I've read each and every entry in the War Assets database and I've been itching to see some of them come into action. It was very disappointing that the only thing that changes is that you hear "<Quarian/Geth/Turian/...> Fleet ready" from Joker :/
0
The only real thing you're doing is looking at accusations people often throw at Blizzard and give your own opinion. Opinions are not facts.
Actually I've never heard the accusation that Blizzard "stole" ideas for Warcraft I. I've only heard such things about Starcraft.
It's really hard to find actual intel about the topic, because neither Games Workshop nor Blizzard officially said much about this.
I've found the following on TVTropes.org:
I couldn't find more info about the "starcraft omnibus". Maybe someone else can enlighten me?
Here's another lengthy feature about the subject: Link
And someone actually asked a GW dude about it:
Fun fact:
However, Warhammer:40k, Alien and Starship Troopers were iconic of the science fiction space genre that I'm sure Blizzard has drawn ideas and inspiration from them. Like many others did. And that's not a bad thing. They didn't blatantly copy but evolved the ideas into something else. That's how humans do it since the dawn of time: We copy, learn and improve.
Watch this video: http://vimeo.com/19447662
(if you don't have the patience, skip to 3:15)
It shows how incredibly much the original Star Wars movie copied from other sources. Still - wasn't that one of the greatest movies ever made?
0
Not quite true.
They've been simultaneously working on Sc2 and WoW. And SC:Ghost wasn't developed by Blizzard but by an outside studio. They canceled it because it didn't stand up to their expectations. If they really had money issues at that point they'd have rushed it out and sold the hell out of it. Even a bad game sells as long as it has the name Starcraft tagged onto it.
It's much more likely that Vivendi / Activision Blizzard are pressuring them for a timely release. Stuff that hasn't been finished until then has to be shipped in patches.
0
Even Blizzard can't spend a decade for each of their games. "Not living up to it's standard" is synonomous with "we didn't have time for that" at Blizzard.
0
Right, so I finished it in 2 days (took me 26 hours of hardcore addiction playing).
Afterwards I've read about peoples' complaints (e.g. the weak revelation of the Quarians' face, the story similarities to a certain other game which was released not too long ago, lack of quality, and so on) but I can't share most of these complaints.
I've played Mass Effect 1 and I really liked it, although it was far from being a perfect game (those boooring ground exploration missions..).
Then ME2 came along and it did things very differently. Partly for the better, partly for the worse.
But ME3? There is NOTHING ME3 doesn't do better than ME2.
Social interaction with other characters is on an entirely different level. You really get a close look into their heart, get attached to them. I shed a big fat tear for every comrade I've lost.
Together with them I've attended funerals of relatives, war memorials, bars, or maybe just some quiet place for a bit of peace before the killing starts again.
You seem to have much more freedom of choice than in the previous installments. Your actions may now decide the fate of an entire species, or might severely help or cripple you in your war efforts. They've also revamped the Paragon/Renegade (good guy/bad guy) system so being a Renegade doesn't mean you steal lollies from babies anymore. Instead it means that you're known doing what it takes to get the job done. A change I really welcome.
Combat is done really well. It's similar to ME2 but there's a greater variety of weapons and powers. Enemies act intelligent, stay in cover or try to overwhelm you if they have the superior numbers.
Later in the game they're throwing horde after horde at you, the different enemy types require different tactics and can sometimes really scare you off.
The story is of such epic proportion - Basically your mission is to unite all races and get as much war assets (troops, materiel, researchers, resources, technology, morale) to lead the final strike against the Reapers. I'm sure I spent at least an hour reading through the war asset descriptions and I loved it. All the time I've had this tingling feeling of something utterly epic approaching.
If you imported ME2 saves it's even better.
Some people I've decided to help in ME1 actually joined my cause - I've read it in a news article.
On the other hand a few decisions I made in ME2 forced the Quarians into fighting the Geth even harder. So after I've settled their dispute their fighting power wasn't as great as you'd expect.
There are a lot of inside jokes for those who played the previous games. Calibrations? EDI's taste of humor? Wrex's suggestion to eat stupid people? Heck, I've even found my old Space Hampster which I've bought in ME2! Come to think of it.. I never named him..
There's also more RPG to it than in ME2. More customization of your weaponry, powers and other equipment. Weapon mods are back too. Works out pretty well.
I don't wanna praise it into heavens. It's not a perfect game. I didn't like a few parts of the story, a few gameplay things could've been better, etc pp.
In my eyes it's all-around a huge improvement to ME2. Not without faults but a worthy end for one of the greatest franchise I've ever played.
PS:
Regarding all the DLC monetizing: I don't really like it. But most of the current DLCs are weapons, armors or similar stuff I think. They hardly add anything to the actual game.
A day-one DLC that adds a new character? Meh, do not like to pay extra for this :(
HOWEVER: I've played the game without this DLC and it's STILL A FUCKING GREAT GAME.
EA's money leeching is damn ugly, but that doesn't change the fact that this game was outright awesome.
0
Make sure to sleep long in the coming months. In 9 months you might not have this luxury anymore :3
Still, congratulations!