While the graphics are mind-blowing (in my opinion), what almost excites me more is how this engine will potentially dramatically improve the content creation pipeline. Being able to bring fully detailed ZBrush sculpts into the engine, no decimation, with very high-resolution textures, is an exciting prospect. The GI gets me all tingly too. As a programmer and someone that tinkers on and off with UE4 & ZBrush, I can't wait to see what can be done with this engine. Unity has got their work cut out for them...

It's great to see young people using their brains and designing stuff with 3D printers but...uh $14.99 for his "SafeTouch Pro"? Really? You can buy a box of 100 nitrile gloves for about the same price and then you can use your fingers as intended lol. You can even reuse them too after disinfecting them (something you'd technically have to do with PLA as well).

I'm sticking with The Isle...I'd rather be the mutant dinosaurs. The game trailer looks pretty basic but I guess time will tell.

I love the two cars up front that seem terribly inconvenienced by the plane and bring a new meaning to tailgating...gotta love Quebec drivers.

"Wouldn't that be a zule?"

We all know Zuuls comes from refrigerators not donkeys/zebras mating...sheesh.





... yes, watching too many old movies from my childhood during the pandemic lol.

A wank a day keeps the virus away?

I'm curious, wouldn't this legislation have similar issues as gun registries? I can't see how this is going to deter or stop criminals/terrorists from using drones to commit crimes. I'm sure firmware can be changed to disable the internet requirement and custom drones can still be built that don't require an internet connection (even if it becomes illegal to do so.) I have to assume that this legislation would be more to deter idiot drone owners, who are otherwise law-abiding, from making poor decisions and flying drones in densely populated areas, near airports, etc. I really don't see how this will stop serious criminal activity.

From the article:
"Playing a long RPG with tons of choices is fantastic, but it also feels like a luxury of youth."

This pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject as well. In my 20s, when I was just starting my career, I didn't have a ton of obligations. Since my wife was also into PC gaming, cracking off a 4 hr session of co-op NWN was awesome and doable. Now in my 40s, free time seems to be a luxury. I've got way more responsibilities at work leading a team of developers; my daughter has her extra curricular activities, needs help with homework, or just wants to play; my dog demands attention; then there is house maintenance; and in-between all of that my wife and I try to find time for each other. Throw in trying to keep an aging body in-shape and free time is a luxury. As much as I'd love to spend 4 hrs a day questing or world building, I just can't. Any free time I do have is usually spent keeping up on new software stacks or just ... spacing out for 1/2hr lol.

So I can relate to this article. On the flip-side though, I don't think a lot of these short-session games that just have you doing shallow, mundane/grinding tasks are really any better. Sure, it's easier to leave that type of game for a few days and come back without having to remember the 20 tasks you were trying to accomplish - but these shallow games also feel like a waste of valuable time.

I love big open worlds, with rich dialogue and choices - heck I've committed to playing RDR 2 on the PC because I've been waiting for that game for what feels like forever. With that said, I've got more unplayed games in my Steam library than I care to admit, all of them purchased because they were deep, involved games...and I had every intention to play them. But, almost invariably, when it came time to sit down and play, the reality of knowing I'd have to invest a significant amount of time to get the most out of those games felt exhausting.

There are so many great games out there now, from AAA and indie developers, that there truly isn't enough time in a day to play them all. So I believe there is still an audience for the 100+ hr game, I'm just not sure it's me anymore.

Anyone else having trouble getting audio to work. Audio isn’t muted on my iPad or my PC but I don’t get any sound when streaming (and yes audio streaming is enabled in the app). Not sure what else to try....

OMG I've been waiting for this for what feels like forever and sort of forgot about it since Apple rejected the last submission - figured it would never happen. I've got so many unplayed or neglected Steam games. Can't wait to try this on my iPad Pro 2.

I just found out about this game and I must admit I'm pretty excited to try it. I played the Space Hulk board game (2nd ed iirc) as a kid and loved it - I never really got into the iOS version, but this looks great!

I was kind of thinking the same thing. Some of the scenes looked better with ray-tracing off whereas at other times it looked better with it on. Still, it's only going to get better (and easier for developers to use effects that previously would have required some shader trickery).

dizave wrote on Sep 18, 2018, 21:04:
Man, this tech does not show off very well. Don't get me wrong, this game looking like it's going to be really fun and it looks great already. The tomb raider demo was a joke when they unveiled these new cards.

I was in elementary and then middle-school in the 80s and while I was lucky enough to have an IBM AT (and later an Atari ST 1040) most of my distractions were board games and RPGs (GURPS, AD&D, Car Wars, Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, etc) and yeah, those sometimes affected my homework and studies. In high-school my distractions transitioned to guitar playing, late night sessions of Quake 2 Rocket Arena 2, then Counter-Strike, etc. My grades probably suffered occasionally but probably more so due to various turmoil in my life (e.g. constantly changing schools, divorced parents, etc). So unless this study eliminated environmental factors and the general stress that kids deal with in school and at home, I'm not sure how accurate these studies can be.

Even when I was a teen, the internet didn't really exist as it does now, with the constant distractions and near-endless entertainment and social media - so I can see how that would affect a child's grades. But playing computer games an hour or two a day? I doubt the impact is that much different than the distractions previous generations dealt with.

With that said, I will admit that a lot of free-to-play mobile games are designed to be WAY too addictive for children/teens. I've deleted more than one app off my daughter's iPad because she was getting addicted (or at least constantly talking about it every 5 minutes).

"One day after the steak was noted…"

They must have been really hungry from all that playing...

deqer wrote on Sep 6, 2018, 12:24:
"In memory of the tragedy in Jacksonville, we will be offering a 25% discount on all loot crates"

This is so slimy. Wow. How does that equal to a settlement for a plaintiff in a court case.

I hope they don't try to use this offering as part of their defense in court.

Where did you read that? I think the user below said that jokingly, as that seems like something you’d expect EA to do. No way would they actually do that (because...profits)

So I downloaded this to give it a try and I was very … underwhelmed. I've been a long time fan of sandbox and open world space games, such as Starflight, Elite II, Sundog, Privateer, and have been following Star Citizen for quite some time. I never took the plunge because of the fundraising tactics, ridiculously priced ships, and all the promised features seemed to be rather far fetched.


So first impression (running 980Ti, i7-2600K, 32GB RAM, SSD) is that the game runs alright with my older rig and looks fantastic. I *loved* all the attention to detail and how the environment can affect you (vacuum/pressure, lack of oxygen, etc); the ship interiors are just gorgeous. Being able to go from a space station to a ship to a planet, with the amount of detail shown, is just ridiculously cool and has so much potential.

That being said, the netcode is a HUGE let down. My internet connection is 250 Mb/s down and 16 Mb/s up, with generally low latency to most places in the US, but I experienced frequent rubber-banding and general sync issues (falling through floors, etc). I figured the lag might just affect the open world part of the game, due to poor server performance and too many people, so I tried the FPS portion and experienced the same issues. Clearly the netcode is not up to snuff. This is something they really need to focus on as it absolutely kills the experience.


There also doesn't feel like a lot to do and given how long this game has been in development and how much money RSI has raised, I'm kind of shocked they aren't further along. Yes they've accomplished amazing technical feats such as the incredible planetary landings (Elite II had them but not with this fidelity); yes the ships feel real and look great; yes you feel like each ship will feel different to operate. Unfortunately, in its current state, the whole thing feels like a big tech demo - almost like RSI forgot they are making a game and that it needs to not just be graphically incredible but also fun.


I'm going to give it a few more tries but unless RSI starts focusing more on gameplay content, I don't see Star Citizen being much of a game any time soon. I'm thinking it'll be at least another 2-3 years of development before it actually starts to feel like a game worth paying for.

Does each download include a free copy of the latest malware/spyware flavour of the month?

Anyone interested in the history and details of this lawsuit with regards to the BattleTech franchise in general, check out this lawyer's set of videos - in particular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiWjKXroQf0

As a long time fan of BattleTech with an original 3025 Technical Readout containing the cool "unseen" designs (Macross-based mechs), it pisses me off that Harmony Gold doesn't actually seem to have the rights to claim copyright violation in the first place. It sounds like they are just bullying other companies while not having a legal leg to stand on - but with litigation being so costly, there has been no opportunity for a judge to smack down Harmony Gold's BS.

We tend to get a lot of grass spiders in our unfinished basement in the spring and I have a zero-tolerance policy for them. We occasionally get those super-fast million-legged centipede things and those die as well. I look at it this way: if I came into their lair, I'd be dead; so I return the favour. I will usually relocate grass hoppers and lady bugs if they wander inside. Outside, I have no problem with bugs, unless it is it's wasps.

The problem with not thinning out the insects that get into your home is that they reproduce very quickly and next thing you know, those one or two spiders are now ten or twenty. Cobwebs collect dust and, I'd imagine to many people, make a home seem dirty. So I'm not buying what the article is saying. If you've got other pests in your house, especially mosquitoes, I'd rather address the root cause versus inviting more insects inside to take care of them.

El Pit wrote on May 14, 2018, 10:09:
Looks like Mad Max but with all the colors of the 1980s.

Mad Max was the 80s