Prez wrote on Jun 7, 2013, 21:24:
I hear the debate about capital punishment all the time, but it always seems to crop up in cases like the Ramirez one, where there is absolutely zero doubt of the person's guilt, which is baffling to me. Regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, can anyone here argue that Ramirez has a chance of being exonerated by DNA or witnesses coming forward? He is PROUD of the ghastly murders and crimes he has committed, and has said so in more than one interview. There are some cases (like this one) where guilt is just a no-brainer.

If you are against capital punishment in all cases, fine, but if you are simply worried about putting an innocent man to death (which is obviously a noble concern), what you should be pushing for is a better set of guidelines when and how capital punishment should be used.

Cutter wrote on Jun 7, 2013, 21:10:
Death penalty needs to come back with a vengeance. Do it like China. Drag them out back of the courthouse after the trial, shoot them, bill the family, dump the body in a landfill.

Beelzebud wrote on Jun 6, 2013, 15:01:
Is it really too much to ask for a Symphony of the Night style game, but with a modern engine?

Creston wrote on Jun 6, 2013, 11:34:
It's quite interesting to see how when Bush did this everyone was screaming bloody murder, but now that Obama is taking it far further than Bush ever did, it's pretty much silence across the board.

fiftykyu wrote on Jun 4, 2013, 21:38:
Wow, lot of strong feelings about this game. It does seem to be the sort of game that people want to evangelise, i.e. if you like it, you really like it. My copy was a random gift from someone who loved the game and wanted to spread it around, luckily I also enjoyed it. Gave away two myself so far with one resulting in a "shrug" and the other a "praise the sun" to use the Dark Souls lingo.

With only a PC for gaming nowadays I do regret missing out on Demon's Souls, since apparently there are various callbacks to that game sprinkled about in Dark Souls. Hopefully it's just flavour/fanservice and not important stuff.

Also agree with this. I died so many times before finally beating the Four Kings with my current level 1 character, but if nothing else I mastered how to jump down the shortcut and run past all the darkwraiths to reach the fight...

Quinn wrote on Jun 4, 2013, 17:02:

Redmask wrote on Jun 4, 2013, 12:45:

Quinn wrote on Jun 4, 2013, 12:15:
I'm not saying the game is as a matter of fact bad. Some people obviously dig this shit. I don't.

Ok, goodbye, there are a ton of other games with quick save and all that for you to enjoy.

Quicksaving wasn't my main point. I could do without.

What I do find curious is that normally a "checkpoint" system is more than frowned upon, especially in this community. But when a simple checkpoint save is replaced by *gasp* campfire! it's somehow completely ok.

But again the save issue isn't and wasn't the main point. What you apparently agreed on was.

Rattlehead wrote on Jun 3, 2013, 17:26:

PropheT wrote on Jun 3, 2013, 16:15:
Where in the game are you having checkpoints spread out that far apart?

Hmmm let's see.
Tomb of the Giants
The catacombs
New Londo ruins
Demon Ruins
Darkroot gardens is HUGE and only has 2 checkpoints(1 is hidden).
Lost Izalith(my least favorite part of the game)
Pretty much any area where the lordvessel is needed has only 1 checkpoint if i recall, it's been a while since I've played the game.

Quinn wrote on Jun 4, 2013, 12:15:
As far as I know, I was playing the game 'the intended' way. I blocked, I dodged, I rolled. But there were moments where I felt like the devs were simply fucking with the player. Suddenly add a poison attack on a type of enemy you've fought before; walking up a spiraling stairway to end up on a tower with an enemy that one-shots you... I don't call that "hard". I find it fucking annoying, which is why I alt-F4ed at some point and uninstalled the game.

...

eRe4s3r wrote on Jun 4, 2013, 02:23:
Yeah, I found that I grew incompatible with a game like Dark Souls.... but I guess I am more fed up with it because the level design was weird... because I never had any idea where I was and where I was going. Maybe that is part of the challenge some people like.. but i certainly did not.

But while I can see your point, to me a game like Dark Souls would be acceptable only with quick-save. Exactly because I don't give a game a lot of chances if it frustrates me for some reason... yes.. I think I just got dumbed down by the games of the past 15 years. I played Baldurs Gate 2 without a guide to 100% completion on hard ,p . I found every secret and hidden thingy in Dust Elysian Tail. But I can't be arsed to complete even a single of it's "challenges" with more than 3 stars. To me, the fun part is finding stuff, to get to hard to reach stuff where you sometimes need a lot of skill, it is not getting a perfect run "1 false step or not paying attention and you ded and have to spend next 10 minutes retreading" that is especially prevalent at the beginning of the play experience.


I don't think Dark Souls tests the skill really (at the beginning it is trial and error, and don't tell me you didn't die to the rats on your first play, cursing why the fuck there was no anti-poison anywhere), I think it rather tests how much you can take before giving up on a game. Not sure that is a good way to design a game, but some people seem to like it.

FU wrote on Jun 3, 2013, 13:42:
Don't worry. All reports indicating that they castrated part 2, to some degree. Everyone should be able to win at any game nowadays.

D4rkKnight wrote on Jun 2, 2013, 00:59:
If you dont want the bulleted version:

Morrowind is an intelligent, mature rpg

Skyrim is a simple, action rpg.

Morrowinds biggest fault is its combat - which has barely any feeling to it. If you could take Skyrims (already crappy but certainly better) combat and drop it into Morrowind - it would hold up awesome. The graphics improvements help tremendously but the combat can't be fixed.

Quboid wrote on May 16, 2013, 12:31:
They've updated that comment, fixing the typo in the last paragraph (it's r_base_fov, not _fox - I'm sure none of you would have figured that out).

Apparently this is the vertical FOV so don't go overboard. What's the vertical equivalent of 80? Is it a simple aspect ratio conversion, i.e. 50 on a 16:10 display?

Edit: according to that thread the default FOV is 50.625 so if that's true and the game's too narrow, either my formula is wrong or 80 isn't enough. 90 (vertical FOV of 56.25 according to my formula) might be better.

nin wrote on May 15, 2013, 08:23:

mag wrote on May 15, 2013, 01:03:

jimnms wrote on May 14, 2013, 23:49:
I got the Metro: 2033 free with a video card. I loved it, and was close to pre-ordering this one. Then I looked at my Steam page and saw that I finished it in 17 hours. I looked at the friends view that shows your friends time and notice no one else had more than 17 hours on it either. Even with GMG's 25% off I didn't think it was worth it for a < 20 hour game, so I'll wait for it to hit ~$10.

FWIW, I'm 95% positive Steam doesn't accurately keep track of time spent in Metro 2033. I spent a couple hours and it said 30 mins, when I first got it.

I always thought it rounded down to an hour (ie you didn't get any credit until you completed a full hour), but that was just a guess...

Xbox 720 job ads point to X86 processing, PC architecture.

Frijoles wrote on May 15, 2013, 11:58:

Darks wrote on May 15, 2013, 10:33:
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm sick and tired of 3D as a whole. They have ruined movies with this crap, you cant even go to the theaters and watch a good movie in Imax anymore without it being in 3D. And the 3D is not even that good.

Wrong 3D. They're not talking about actual 3D (like with Nvidia glasses). The UI is modeled in the game, not a flat 2D interface like most games have. They specifically give us an example:

The main reason for maintaining a fixed FOV is because we have 3D elements like the watch and weapon ammo that need to remain visible.

These are actual models in the game. Why they couldn't get that to work with an adjustable FOV, I don't know. But this has nothing to do with playing the game in 3D. The biggest bug I see in the game right now is that the shadows are flickery as hell.

jimnms wrote on May 14, 2013, 23:49:
I got the Metro: 2033 free with a video card. I loved it, and was close to pre-ordering this one. Then I looked at my Steam page and saw that I finished it in 17 hours. I looked at the friends view that shows your friends time and notice no one else had more than 17 hours on it either. Even with GMG's 25% off I didn't think it was worth it for a < 20 hour game, so I'll wait for it to hit ~$10.

Jerykk wrote on May 14, 2013, 12:29:

mag wrote on May 14, 2013, 02:29:

eRe4s3r wrote on May 14, 2013, 01:33:
19 purchases 0 issues

(also i fixed my GMG store checkout issues, was on my end.. bah)

I've only made one GMG purchase, and it went through and all, but my CC company did contact me very quickly about a potentially fraudulent use of my card. And they've never said a word about what on paper would seem sketchy uses (various other international purchases online, purchases in other countries with no warning or other connection). So I'm not sure what makes GMG seem so sketchy to banks.

I think they assume that any site with "gaming" in it is related to gambling. GMG is also based in the UK. If you've never bought anything from the UK before, it's not surprising that banks would consider it suspicious.