fobwashed

@Hizang: Very slowly tho -_-;;

@SpikeSpiegel: Thanks! Glad you're enjoying them. I'd love to follow someone else's progress as well. Lemme know if you know of any others doing the same so I can keep up.

@Enigma777: Soon it'll be more than just potatos. Soooooon. . .

@MistaSparkle: Yea, doesn't it? That was over a year ago. Man it's slow going. I'm finally at a point though where it's starting to be more design and less just coding the engine. In a lot of ways, design is harder since it's not just figuring out how to do something specific and more figuring out why to do it. I may write up some blog posts about the design behind the game but I think that may have to wait till after I'm actually done with the game so as not to spoil anything.

What's New?

I've been up to a load since the last update but it's such a scatter shot of areas that I think it'll be hard to cover everything. I've started making notes in a separate document as I'm making changes and adding things which helps me keep track of what's going on to a certain extent. I'll try to hit the big notes.

Saving

The biggest of notes is that I've finally got saving and loading working correctly and in a hot manner. I'm working on both the PC version and the 360 version concurrently so this means I've got the save features working on both. Right now, it's still bare bones but I've got it all down to a point that I feel very comfortable with the system I've got set up and can choose to save whatever I want pretty much whenever I want. Saving is obviously a very important aspect of any game but I feel it'll be doubly so in my game as the mechanic will actually work with the gameplay. I don't mean this in just a basic, you can use tents to restore mana on a save point, or along the lines of say ink ribbons in old Resident Evil games. I've sort of decided that I'll hold off on revealing some core elements till I'm far along enough that I can show them properly so as not to spoil what I'm going for just yet. Anyway, In the short video I'm posting, you can see that the game can be saved at any point. It also runs in the background once the saving occurs so that on the 360, it won't slow anything down gameplay wise and can be used in a checkpoint fashion. Speaking of 360.

Xbox Live

I've implemented XBL into both the 360 and PC versions of the game. As far as I know, XBL has only been implemented into a scarce few PC games, and I'm not even sure if it's of any use so I may or may not remove it from the PC version in the future, but as of right now, you can hit the home key and bring up the PC version of the XBL menu with friends lists and whatnot. The 360 version has a bunch of back end stuff going on for saving as well. The press start screen is only there so that on the 360 build, you can choose what save device to use. Funny enough, you can save my non-game to the cloud =P It's got basic functionality such as asking to change save devices if the currently selected one has been removed (though who would do this in a real world situation I have no idea).

Continuing work on the dialog system

I've been putting more effort into the dialog system and it's turning out pretty nice. I'm still going to need to make refinements (and an actual interface) but the system I have for implementing the lines of dialog is coming along nicely. To understand the actual unique things I'm trying to do with dialog, as with the save system, I'll have to show it once they're all in place together. I'm beginning to see why developers rarely show really early anything having to do with their games as it's embarrassing to show off pieces of an incomplete puzzle. While I'm also keeping this blog as a means to track progress personally, I also feel very self conscious of my work and really don't like how downright shambly it is at the moment. Especially the combat. . . That's sorta fallen by the wayside as I've gotten more and more into other aspects of the game, but seeing as how they're all equally important to me and to the experience I'm trying to create, I don't think that's really a bad thing.

Improvements to Loading

Previously, the loading would just be a fade to black then a fade back in. It's not easy to tell from these videos, and especially on PC since load times are non-existent on PC but some of the changes I've made make a pretty big difference on the 360 build. The biggest difference is that previously, I had the game fade to black, and THEN begin to load the next stage. The way I've got it set up now is a separate thread will start to load the game as soon as the fading begins. This actually makes the load seem a lot shorter since all that fading time is now loading time. Also, I've restructured my loading class so that I can run whatever I please on a separate thread as the loading is taking place. I expect for loads to take much longer as I add more content (textures, sounds, music, etc) so now I'll have an area to play around and give the player something interesting to do as the game is loading. Depending on how long the loads end up being, this can be just a variety of text (Call of Duty, Bastion) or something the player can actually interact with (Assassin's creed, Bayonetta). The player class is never released, so I don't think it'd be difficult to allow something like that to take place. The boxy fade in and out is just something I threw in as an example to someone else making a game that wanted to know how to do it.

More Back End Boring Stuff

As I'm doing all this, I'm constantly reading up on and trying to learn more about game design and programming. I've come across some really great stuff having to do with pathfinding and AI. This lead me to breaking off any objects in my game that have AI into a separate subclass. I've also learned that it's more efficient to run AI/Pathfinding on waves of enemies instead of all of them at once. What I mean is, if I have 50 objects that need to check paths, ai, etc, it's better to run say 10 of them per update (which happens 60 times a second) rather than all 50 objects every update. I've set up that whole shebang and it was an ordeal at first but now that it's implemented, I feel much more comfortable having the AI do some more complex stuff without worrying about it really slowing down the game. The pathfinding stuff I've been boning up on is also really damn interesting. If you're interested, look up A* (A-star) and you'll realize it's used for almost every game you play from civilization to starcraft to uncharted. Really great stuff. I can't wait till I can start designing some real enemies rather than mindless potatoes that just move towards the player and try to attack.

Wanna Help?

If anyone has some free time and wants to do something stupid for fun, I'd be much obliged if any of ya'll could record a couple lines of VO. Pretty much, I'm going to be using just greeting clips for NPCs to give the player a feel for the voice without voicing the entire thing. What I'm specifically looking for is maybe a neutral greeting, a happy greeting and an annoyed greeting. While it most likely won't make it into the final game, I need them for testing purposes since I need to start building it into the dialog system soon and I feel sort of silly recording a bunch of lines myself =P Anyway, if you're interested, just send em my way and I'll be sure to plug your name in any vids they appear in and in the credits if they actually get used in the game right proper -_-;;

Doing a quick scan, I don't see this up on the BF3 forums so I thought I'd share it. Found it originally on Digg.com and thought it was absolutely ridiculous/awesome. Fast forward to 3:35 to see the insanity.

Notify if it's been shared before, I'll remove. Just. . . wow though.

The Elder Scrolls games in particular have always had problems with there not being enough variety in loot. It must be really difficult for them to make a game that has a large variety of loot in such a huge game because of the sheer size and free roaming nature of the game.

They prolly can't assign specific loot to individual chests since they can't accurately determine what level or place in the game a player will be when reaching said chest. Even handing out specific armor pieces in non main quest lines would be difficult to do since again, who knows if the player will reach that quest at level 5 or level 30. What would be way over powered for an early level player may still be grossly underpowered for a late game player taking on the quest. The few times I've run into the set pieces that get given out, (theives guild questline), they almost seem super overpowered at low level. I have a hard time thinking I'll find anything to replace the pieces I got from that quest in the near future if ever. This pretty much makes everything I find from this point on armor wise just stuff I might pick up, never to wear but to either disenchant or to sell and that's disappointing.

Unless you've got a more rigid structure game where the developers can limit where a player can go until a certain level either by making the enemies more difficult or just having blocks in place to prevent them from even getting into areas, we're stuck with what we've got here. Also, doing that would sorta ruin the core of what I think of the Elder Scrolls games to be. I suppose they could go the diablo route and just have a bunch of different modifiers that can randomly be applied to loot, but I sorta think that's boring too. Dunno. It's really too bad because games like these benefit a lot from awesome loot and it's totally missing from all of Bethesda's games =\

This poll boils down to "Do you take responsibility for your mistakes if there is a personal cost?" and not surprisingly, it's roughly half and half. I feel like all the excuses given for walking away are just that, excuses. "This is the reason why I'm not responsible for my actions." Since these people won't take the blame for their actions, I guess I'll just go ahead and blame their parents. Your parents are awful people.

Just a few weeks back, some guy and his kids were playing in a pool and broke my window throwing a ball. After being startled awake from the shattering glass, I stepped outside to see them continuing to play in the pool as if nothing happened. It wasn't until I confronted them and pointed out that it just happened, there's a wet ball in my place, they're the only ones out there, that the "adult" in the pool finally admitted fault. If I weren't home, I bet you they wouldn't have done a goddamn thing and I would have had to cover the cost of replacing it myself.

Every single person in here would be pissed if they found a scratch or a dent on their car that wasn't there when they parked and curse the asshole that did it and ran. Half of you, are that asshole. Congratulations.

At least, he really sounds like it to me. I dig his voice either way.

You can do all the touristy stuff like going to Hollywood, Korea Town, Little Tokyo. . . don't go to china town unless it's just to have dim sum.

Mostly you can get a huge variety of ethnic food. I know a bunch of good places for the aforementioned cultures + a couple Mexican stops that's sure to please. If you'll be there with a lady companion, or if you just like to shop yourself, there's the Beverly Center, The Grove, Americana and a bunch of single street shopping locations that are a little less traveled but have really nice (expensive) boutique shops and eateries. All in all, there's a ton of stuff to do in the L.A. area just because there are so many people living there. Though, I think 80% of it is somewhat ghetto. It's also pretty damn dirty unless you're in the nice areas (which is the 20% that's not ghetto).

If you're looking for something specific, PM me and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction.

Skyrim

Hey. . . what's that over there?

Modern Warfare 3

Left Trigger, Right Trigger, repeat. . .

Rayman: Origins

Easier to swallow at 50.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

I can see through walls.

Batman: Arkham City

Detective mode takes a break.

Saints Row the Third

owoh~ HEEEEEEyyeeeehh~ owoh~ HEEEEEEEyyeeehh~ HEEEEYYyyeehhheeyeeey~

@gamefreak9 said:

@huser said:

@Fobwashed said:

@xobballox: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/circus-arts/adrenaline-strength1.htm

It looks like yes, we have untapped strength that we don't normally access due to how it'd negatively effect our bodies. But the use of this hidden strength is dependent on delivering adrenaline and more importantly, increasing your heart rate to transport extra blood and oxygen to allow your muscles to work harder. It could be argued that zombies, already moving without either, don't need it and would just have this extra strength. But to this, I counter-argue, show me. I've never seen zombies moving cars and individually breaking through barriers so the claims that they have this immense strength is just a claim with nothing (fictional) to back it up. Aside from say, the tank in Left 4 dead. But we're not talking about super mutations, just your regular old zombie. While, on the flip side, I've seen zombies held off by boarded up doors, chain link fences, etc. Hell, even in those few vids I posted up earlier, none of them show that kind of uber, full steam ahead strength. No dice grandma.

More to the point, people just doing regular old everyday activities can badly damage their muscles. Even if the zombies ARE capable of overcoming the built in limits, they'd do it at the cost of destroying their already decayed muscle tissue rapidly. IE if they were punching you they might clock you with a serious blow, but then basically be weak if not crippled thereafter.

It's one of my critiques with the otherwise fabulous Zombie Survival Guide. Yeah zombies can go all day, yeah they feel no pain, but those don't multiply together into a horde being able to batter down defenses. There's a reason people feel pain and you only need to imagine a leper colony to see what damage just day to day life can do to a human body if you don't feel pain as well. Leprosy results in the numbing of extremities, the stuff falling off is a SIDE EFFECT not a direct result of leprosy. And so you see the damage of not realizing you are bashing the crap out of your toes, poking your face too hard, or scratching your hands up, etc. And these are humans that after a while are TRYING to be careful and have still functioning repair mechanisms.

Zombies would be effective (if at all, they are still at most roughly human) at breaking down a single set of barriers, after which they will probably have uselessly damaged arms and maybe face.

Yeah but we are talking about a FRESH zombie, so no we don't take into account the zombie getting into the house, your already holding hands with it and the strongest will win. Also my source for powerful zombies is "I am Legend", those could jump high and exhibited really high strength because of the end of body limitations. Nobody claimed you'd be able to throw a car... but being 5 times stronger than you were before and your an average joe... well you can probably beat the strongest person in the world. And if the strongest person in the world was a zombie, then maybe yeah he would be able to come close to lifting a car.

This'd take the question into the realm of "What is a zombie?". I don't believe that the I am Legend creatures are zombies for a couple reasons, the most important one being the cure. In the movie (I haven't read the book), the things are still alive and I feel the core of being a zombie is "Living Dead". That makes the idea that they sleep, have a heart rate, body temperature and can be cured and returned to a human state automatically deny them of zombie status. I don't remember, but I think they may also feel pain. Otherwise they'd have no problem chasing people during daytime. If anything, I think they're far more vampire than zombie.

IF the I Am Legend is a zombie, and the zombie in question, I would concede that zombies in fact gain a considerable amount of strength when turned, but even if this were the case, it's the only example of them obviously gaining strength compared to a bunch where they aren't. That's a big if though and I don't think many people would agree that those things are zombies -_-;;

@ReyGitano said:

@Fobwashed said:

Kinect solves all your problems. You ARE the controller.

There's still one problem that doesn't fix.

@nintendoeats said:

1. Controllers are ugly and we want to hide them away.

I was just kidding about the kinect =P There's a lot wrong with it, but to me, the aesthetics isn't one of its problems. I actually think it loks kinda cool -_-;;