Author Topic: Miscellaneous Links for the Miscellaneously Inclined: 2011 Edition!!! (Read 64973 times)

metroid composite · « **Reply #425 on:** August 02, 2011, 06:18:37 PM »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gTT59NibGw
(video) Trailer for Knights of Badassdom.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/19/aj-hateley-art-video-game-book-covers/
Fake vintage book covers for video games.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2011/07/retro-future-space-futurism-update.html
Vintage science fiction drawings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4
(video) Interesting video about prospective game graphics technology.

Grefter · « **Reply #426 on:** August 03, 2011, 11:55:10 AM »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6LmoRT2Ckc

Lady Gaga singing a song from her new album as a Piano ballad. Mostly linking for Metroid I suppose considering I wouldn't think you would seek out Howard Stern segments.

For everyone else. This is what is wrong with over producing your music. You can ruin a perfectly well made song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeWBS0JBNzQ this being the original which while not the most over the top one she has done certainly is a good case of a song that didn't need that driving dance beat like at fucking all. It definitely didn't need the anthems and it really REALLY doesn't need that hilarious saxaphone part.

I can't wait for 10 years time when she has made all the money should could ever want and straight up makes whatever music she wants without anyone else producing her stuff. I don't imagine it will be albums full of emotionally driven piano tracks but I am confident that she will be sick of churning out boring as fuck Party tracks at least.

metroid composite · « **Reply #427 on:** August 04, 2011, 01:29:07 AM »

Yeah, there are a ton of those around; not the first vocal+piano Lady Gaga track; the internet has tons of these.

And...honestly? I'm under the impression that Gaga can mostly do what she wants. She's listed as the primary producer on all of her songs for the current album. (She only co-produced a couple songs on her first album, admittedly).

And I'm not exactly under the impression that she dislikes dance beats. I often hear it claimed that her music is heavily influenced by New York's club music scene, which would make sense as that's where she came from. (It's not that weird--I have a female coworker who writes dubstep). And...some of her stuff seems to be an attempt to take some of this mainstream (Love Game in particular apparently has a lot of the darker underground influence). Additionally...I doubt executives told Lady Gaga to rap in a language she doesn't even know, or instructed her to insert random phrases of French in her songs. (Especially since stuff like this didn't start showing up until her second set of releases).

Although, granted, I'm now noticing a pattern that the Lady Gaga songs I think are fantastic are mostly co-produced with RedOne, and most of the other songs are ones I find ok, but unremarkable (with a few exceptions like Paparazzi).

Grefter · « **Reply #428 on:** August 04, 2011, 03:28:21 AM »

I know that there is plenty around met, just more is good >_>

I know she has a great deal of creative control in the songs and that she is involved in the production of all the tracks. You do not need 4 freaking producers on a single track though.

It isn't that executives tell her to do things. She does things herself because she knows it will sell or get publicity. I will never really doubt at this point that she is very talented and good at what she does.

I just see all these really well done piano pieces she does live (while not all universally good, but you know, live music just does that sometimes). She keeps doing performances like this and they are her roots. She could just as easilly do a live singing performance over a studio track (which she has probably done for TV performances? Awards shows?), but she consitently comes back with these solo piano performances which can be so fantastic.

I want to see what she does when she isn't performing for an audience or angling somewhat for financial gain. I might get something like a bit more heartfelt and technically proficient Ben Folds album.

Luther Lansfeld · « **Reply #429 on:** August 04, 2011, 10:16:46 PM »

http://boingboing.net/2011/08/03/a-comic-about-the-real-scientific-process.html

Pretty funny and true. Also the comments section is stupid; this isn't a hyper-serious thing, did you see that it was drawn in MSPaint?

Captain K. · « **Reply #430 on:** August 05, 2011, 01:35:03 AM »

Quote from: metroid composite on August 02, 2011, 06:18:37 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gTT59NibGw
(video) Trailer for Knights of Badassdom.

That would be more amusing if Role Models hadn't already covered LARPing perfectly.

More Larping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aim455kzabI&feature=player_embedded

EVO 2011 sets some records:
http://shoryuken.com/2011/08/04/evo-championship-series-2011-breaks-online-viewership-records/

metroid composite · « **Reply #431 on:** August 09, 2011, 02:46:10 PM »

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-comment-in-source-code-you-have-ever-encountered?answertab=votes#tab-top
Best code comments.

http://news.yahoo.com/swedish-man-caught-trying-split-atoms-home-153341057.html
see url

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/you-you-can-take-stanfords-intro-to-ai-course-next-quarter-for-free
Free online AI course from Stanford.

Anthony Edward Stark · « **Reply #432 on:** August 11, 2011, 05:04:18 AM »

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/2011_08spoilers.asp

Spoilers scientifically proven to be not a big deal. The joy of a story proven to be in the telling.

In other news, everyone but me a bunch of fat babies.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #433 on:** August 11, 2011, 08:37:21 AM »

From Suikosource's front page

"While conducting an interview on 4gamer for their new upcoming RPG Frontier Gate a couple Konami employees stated that they were designing Frontier Gate from scratch as they had previously disbanded their Suikoden team and had therefore lost all their RPG-creation know-how.

Needless to say this is grim news for the Suikoden community. But, it does not mean a new team cannot take over the Suikoden name later. Konami has done this before with other franchises, such as Silent Hill. There is also still the possibility of re-releases of existing content and side projects, such as the Pachislot machine."

I mean, I fully expected this, but...

(4gamer is 100% japanese and I can't read it, but that seems pretty straightforward)

Anthony Edward Stark · « **Reply #434 on:** August 11, 2011, 08:55:00 AM »

Yeah, read that on NeoGAF last week. Does Konami have anything but MGS and that soccer game?

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #435 on:** August 11, 2011, 09:12:27 AM »

People seem to hold some hope for Silent Hill after Shattered Memories. Certainly more than they hope the Castlevania series will perk back up I imagine.

Dhyerwolf · « **Reply #436 on:** August 11, 2011, 09:17:08 AM »

I believe the main Suikoden creator basically did a bit of a cock tease over potentially going back to Konami a year ago too. That said, didn't a new team already take over the Suikoden series anyways?

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #437 on:** August 11, 2011, 09:53:16 AM »

I see no reason to believe that, considering they disbanded the team in the first place. But even then, you're handing it over to someone who doesn't know what an RPG is. So we probably get someone trying to knock off Bioware again and get FFXII: Suikoden edition. woo hoo.

Grefter · « **Reply #438 on:** August 11, 2011, 10:50:54 AM »

The guys in charge of FF12 at least know how to make an RPG of some kind though.

Oh noes we might get someone making a Suikoden game that feels unpolished and fails to take into account basic RPG design choices that were refined 2 generations ago! That would almost be like what over half the franchise does. That would be terrible and new.

Honestly? If someone else takes up the mantle and tries something new with it that is remotely interesting and actually tries to bring it back into the future continuity instead taking place prior Suikoden 1 then I will be happy. The series is fairly consistently either a complete and total throw back of varying degrees of quality or it is Suikoden 3 where it was trying something new and interesting. I will take new and interesting again if someone is willing to deliver it.

Edit - Goddammit, I make another post that is like I am savagely attacking CK when I don't mean it to be.

I just think you are looking at the series through an idealised nostalgic lens just remembering it as something you like. Not actually remembering all the parts that make up the series. As much as we love them, they aren't really pushing the envelope there.

metroid composite · « **Reply #439 on:** August 11, 2011, 04:24:20 PM »

http://www.designmadeingermany.de/2011/15183/
horror-inspired bowling balls

http://www.fbtb.net/2011/08/02/vetaimiwkefwtheqlxqlihwfikwhbdgfvtdlzdjboeotrajevcrowgggvqgepshzexetyyulz/
Starships in the shape of every letter.

http://brandimpact.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/a-box-you-want-to-uncheck-on-linkedin/
If you use Linkedin, uncheck this box.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #440 on:** August 11, 2011, 07:59:32 PM »

Oh, no, no. I just haven't made this argument before, or at least made it clear.

FFXII is basically unplayable. It's fundamentally a jRPG design with wRPG combat, forgetting that the only thing keeping wRPG combat tolerable is that combat is not as large an aspect of gameplay. My pessimism springs from the idea that, if you don't have a design team with an established style, they'll try to imitate what's successful right now, and we'd get something like that again.

Ignoring of course that what made Suikoden successful in the first place (yes, even back in the first game) was the lore and sense of continuity within the world, not something I'd expect newcomers to be able to pick up on or take the time to research.

Anthony Edward Stark · « **Reply #441 on:** August 11, 2011, 08:10:00 PM »

Quote from: Cmdr_King on August 11, 2011, 07:59:32 PM

FFXII is basically unplayable. It's fundamentally a jRPG design with wRPG combat, forgetting that the only thing keeping wRPG combat tolerable is that combat is not as large an aspect of gameplay.

You might be able to make arguments in this vague direction with the original version, but the fundamental design isn't totally dysfunctional like FF13 is, and it shows in the re-release. I think the one gigantic flaw in FF12's combat system is that the gambits and gambit slots are keyed to game progression, whereas it is my understanding in the re-release that you start out with all gambits and gambit slots available for use. It was an amazingly shitty design decision and even Square managed to figure that out.

The game is basically as automated as you want it to be. You can manually do everything or you can automate all the totally braindead parts of jRPG combat (my guy's health is low what do I do?

That guy is made of fire what do I cast on him?

) or you can automate almost everything. Combine that with the fact you could cut down on the time you spend in combat by making it seamless so you can buff and such outside of combat, and I think that shows that FF12 had some really good ideas that were underappreciated by the fanbase because they were too different.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #442 on:** August 11, 2011, 08:34:35 PM »

That's not really the problem though. I'm thinking specifically of KotOR, because there's more than a little similarity. Imagine how much fun KotOR would be if...
a) each area averaged double the number of enemies
b) each enemy averaged 120 seconds to kill, rather than 30
c) executing each action took 10-15 seconds, not 6-8
d) you can't easily swap good equipment from one character to another if you want/need to change your party
and most importantly
e) there were long segments of the game where you went from one dungeon to another without breaking for NPC interaction, sidequests, and other experience gains.

That's pretty much FFXII. It's an immense slog that seems almost intentionally designed to wear the player down and keep them from finishing. The issue here is that, and perhaps Japan will surprise me, any blend of east-west design will have similar flaws because the only reason Bioware DOESN'T make them is because they've been doing this a long time and have a good sense of how to design it properly. Combined with any japanese gamer having long memories of games like Dragon Quest? Yeah.

metroid composite · « **Reply #443 on:** August 11, 2011, 09:50:10 PM »

To be fair, JRPGs also get better when:

*dungeons aren't excessively long
*enemies take 30 seconds to kill instead of 120
*You don't have ridiculous FMV-length actions
*You can change equipment/party members easily
*NPC interactions and gameplay alternate at a regular pace

In fact, you can take this out of RPGs altogether. Portal/Portal 2 is best when:

*test rooms aren't excessively long
*If you're searching for a place to put an obvious exit portal, it takes you 2 minutes instead of an hour
*It doesn't play a 15 second FMV every time you shoot a portal
*If you're in a level where you have to goop things up, and you realized you dropped the wrong goop, it doesn't take you five minutes to fix the mistake.
*Glados/whoever talks to you while the puzzle is going on, and tells you to give up, instead of 30 minute stretches of the game with no voice overs at all.

In the abstract, these just seem like good design to me.

Grefter · « **Reply #444 on:** August 11, 2011, 10:56:31 PM »

<3

Also yeah with all that taken into account? Using KotOR vs FF12 there is pretty laughable. That was Bioware's first outing with that specific kind of combat and character juggling (BG and BG2 are fairly different beasts to KotOR). Square (and the team going into FF12) had a great deal more experience with it even at that point.

Edit - Oh and forgot to have the snark of, imagine KotOR was like Dragon Age 2? What? (I kid it isn't quite that bad, but it is shades of most of those!)

NotMiki · « **Reply #445 on:** August 11, 2011, 11:48:42 PM »

FF12 is best appreciated as a dungeon crawl. When you're exploring places you have no business being and you're rewarded by finding a cool boss in the middle of nowhere is where the game gets entertaining.

Dark Holy Elf · « **Reply #446 on:** August 12, 2011, 12:58:39 AM »

Unplayable sounds like it is going a bit far for FF12 (food for thought: more people have finished the game than would recognise the name Suikoden, almost without a doubt) but it does look thoroughly mediocre.

Quote

Ignoring of course that what made Suikoden successful in the first place (yes, even back in the first game) was the lore and sense of continuity within the world, not something I'd expect newcomers to be able to pick up on or take the time to research.

S1 had continuity within the world? Really curious about what you meant by that. Anyway, I'd say Suikoden's success owes considerably more to its high standard of writing (what's the worst game in the series again? The one that failed at that). In theory, that could be easy enough for someone to pick up on. That's actually the really nice thing about the series to me; as much as I like it (the name Suikoden is just one I associate with "this writing actually won't suck"), it wasn't exactly bringing much of anything to RPGdom in areas of gameplay or aesthetics (okay, S4 is pretty. Fuck off, S4) so uh all people need to do to resurrect it is to write a good story.

And I sorta figure that the medium will keep pumping out the occasional good story along with the piles of anime, D&D, and sci-fi tripe every once in a while, no matter what happens.

Luther Lansfeld · « **Reply #447 on:** August 12, 2011, 01:02:20 AM »

Quote from: Dark Holy Elf on August 12, 2011, 12:58:39 AM

(food for thought: more people have finished the game than would recognise the name Suikoden)

;_;

Anthony Edward Stark · « **Reply #448 on:** August 12, 2011, 01:21:00 AM »

S1 had the sense that the events you were part of were affecting a greater world outside, maybe? They made references to other nations that pressured the Empire and could be properly leveraged, for instance.

Dark Holy Elf · « **Reply #449 on:** August 12, 2011, 03:11:51 AM »

Yeah, but you're crazy if you think that's important to why people enjoyed the game. You can delete the "Mathiu baits Jowston into making an attack at Kasim's forces" plot point and the game is the same for all major purposes.

News:

Author Topic: Miscellaneous Links for the Miscellaneously Inclined: 2011 Edition!!! (Read 64973 times)