So I posted this as a comment in the latest trailer but I felt I explained the situation pretty well, so here's a blog/forum post:
So you think the faces in L.A. Noire look.... off. The animation is great, but you're still in Uncanny Valley, USA. I thought it would be worth it to explain my understanding of why that's the case (please call me out if I'm totally bsing). The major feature of L.A. Noire's tech is its amazingly realistic animation but it can't reasonably use hi-rez textures or bump maps.
Because the heads and faces are generated from video/depth capture, you cannot predict the location or existence of vertices (unlike with other motion capture that connects your movement to a skeleton that controls the 3d mesh). Thus you cannot have one texture map and one bump map per character, but rather you need one for EVERY frame of animation per character. If you wanted perfect hi-rez textures, you'd be looking at a book of discs. Furthermore, the bump maps that give most hi-end 3d its realistic feel can't be easily generated by this tech because it would require a whole second set of images (albeit grayscale) captured at the same time as the textures/vertices and I'd be highly suspect of the accuracy.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are extremely realistic looking 3d faces that would require painful amounts of work to drag out of the uncanny valley on the animation side. What we're left with are faces that will look great in motion, and since it's a videogame, I think it's for the best.
So basically how my night went down yesterday: finally got Batman: Arkham Asylum downloaded/installed (picked it up for 14 bones on Steam) and decided I would play it.
So I start it up and copy-pasta the CD Key, and it says my graphic drivers are out of date. "Well, that's reasonable" I thought and promptly did so without too much trouble. Then I boot B-man up again and the Windows LIVE bar overlay pops on the top of the screen.
Now, through a lack of an Xbox and the existence of Steam, I have never had to make a Windows/Xbox LIVE account before. A friend of mine has expressed a little frustration with it, but I never really worried too much.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here. "Hey," I imagine it saying, "Hey. Listen. We need that CD key again." "Er, kay then..." I think to myself as I copy-paste the sequence for the second time. After this, I'm ready to start, but LIVE pips in, "You can make an account or play the game now." Well, I just wanted to get in the game at this point, so I hit the cancel button. "You can't save if you aren't logged in!," it retorts. A bit peeved, I proceed to alt-tab and fill in the account creation form and hit submit. This hangs for several minutes before completing. I set up my gamertag and get back in the game. I log in and wait while it "locates my account" before... "-Oh shit, I totally forgot I have to update," LIVE remembers. "Wait, I don't want you installed on my computer, I just want to play the game!" I cry out uselessly as a progress bar begins to snail its way across the screen. LIVE points out, "This'll take a while, and you might have to restart your computer." "Yea, whatever." Once finished, LIVE boots me out to the desktop, where it plays with a shoddy looking install app and sucks me back into the game. "Okay, fucking finally." I sigh, "let's go Dark Knight on some fools." "..." "What is it, LIVE." "Well, about that CD key," LIVE mumbles awkwardly. "The fuck." "Wait wait, stick with us, we just lost it and well, could you do it again? Oh, and without that handy copy-paste function that you thought was a really neat time-saver the first time around?" "Fuck you Windows LIVE," I growl as I muddle through the sequence a third time. "Hey now, we want you to play the game as much as you do," LIVE staunchly asserts. I hit the "Activate CD key" button. "-Oh shit, I totally forgot I have to update," LIVE remembers. A second time. "..." LIVE proceeds with its download and quits the game to the desktop. "Uhh... LIVE? You done? Gonna give me any sort of indication of your update completion, or anything?" Windows LIVE does not respond. Both thankful and thoroughly suspicious, I start up Batman once more. "Yo dood, you ready to beat up some bad guys?!!" LIVE joyfully sings as I log in. "...yea?" And I'm greeted with the "create new save file" screen.
and then I played Batman and it was fucking awesome. Oh and my only other major gripe with LIVE is the nauseating design. Please, the fewer bright blue gradients, curved-edged tabs and Aero windows I see the better. The color combinations are ugly. The navigation ripped out of the OS does NOT give it that "branded" feel, because it's overlayed on my game. Although, I do enjoy the clean, new Xbox swirlies on their website.
While I'm probably blowing things out of proportion, or at least had a uniquely bad experience, I'd like to hear what kind of experiences with Windows LIVE others have had, and general thoughts about it if anyone has them. Also, I didn't get into it much here, but how does it compare to Steam for you?
1000 Backstabs!So I've finally procured the Spymaster achievement in TF2 and have also admitted that I am fairly addicted to the game. What doesn't help this fact is that my roommate and girlfriend have recently become interested in playing it, too. I tend to focus my skill across all classes, but I'm especially good as a spy. My roommate also plays predominantly spy and scout, but my girlfriend will only play soldier. And she is pretty bad at it, but forever optimistically pessimistic. I have to share my computer with her, and I'll watch her, cringing when she dies or complimenting her when she blows stuff up. I am yet to receive a hat other than the cheater's lament. BLARG.
Also I found this really hilarious machinima of TF2 called the Dynamic Action Team which you should watch all 5 episodes of right now. Check out the first two here and the last three here.
MIIIINSC!I also started playing Baldur's Gate again. With the Tutu mod, I started as a half-elf CN mage/thief and intend to really try and get into roleplaying a mischievous rogue. It's been tough to work against my hardcore by-the-numbers mentality but I think I can do it this time. I'm wondering if anyone would maybe like to see a blog of my exploits, with hopefully good commentary, etc.?
Finally I'd like to talk about my current MMORPG dilemma...
DarkfallMortal Online
....So, I don't know if you know about these two MMOs, but Darkfall and Mortal Online are two indie developed fantasy MMORPGs that are really trying to cater to a niche audience which hasn't seen much love since Ultima Online, many years ago. They both feature restriction-free exploration and pvp, as well as skill systems, full loot and an fps method of combat. Their major differences, from what I understand, include that Darkfall is more focused around sieging and definitely has capability for gargantuan combat (1000+), whereas Mortal plays up the realism and roleplaying therewith.
I had been following Darkfall for two years before it released, and have played both beta and post beta. The gameplay has always been heartpounding and well thought out, however my major problem with the game is the lack of a realistic world and roleplaying experience. When I went in, I was envisioning something where you could travel from town to town as a merchant, or play as a sneaky bandit or explore the world and find interesting things. From my experience, DF has an enormous world filled with cities and interesting nooks and crannies, but the most interesting thing you might there is a rare spawn of monsters. Playing as a mysterious traveler, wandering from town to town, is unheard of in DF, since one is quickly hunted down by a horde of the inhabitants of any you might visit.
When I first heard of Mortal Online, I was somewhat negatively inclined to it, since I was supporting DF so strongly. Although they are both indie companies, Aventurine built up Darkfall from scratch while Star Vault has licensed the Unreal 3 engine, along with its new Atlas technology (for creating MMOs), as well as SPEEDTREE. I respect Aventurine more in this respect, because they've really gone against the odds to create a pretty dang complete and stable experience, but I'm currently leaning towards MO in respect to their approach to this niche gameplay.
Darkfall recently opened up a new spotlight section to their forums where they've been keeping the community up to date with new information (pretty nice, actually) but more recently they made it public that they have no intent to impose a skillcap on character development other than the limit of 100 points in every skill of the game. I was fairly put out, to put it shortly, since I have felt that a skillcap would help solve many problems with the game's differential character power, economy and lack of diversity. Mortal of course has a skillcap in a fairly logical way, but is still in a limited beta missing many features, which has now pulled me up onto the fence between the two games.
There has been a long running loathing betwixt the communities of DF and MO, as they both cater to a very similar niche and could potentially ruin each other or both. I find this mutual hatred pretty silly, but it makes it hard for me to maintain my middling opinion, when I want both to realize my dreams of a perfect RPG experience with actual people filling all the roles. For the moment I am waiting on Mortal's release to see whether it will fulfill it's aspirations or if I should hobble back to Darkfall after their soon to come late October expansion.
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Beset by 200,000 beta applicants and massive hype (without any advertising), the Aventurine team has surmised that their current resources wouldn't support the huge influx of players and have pushed back their official release by a month. It's somewhat disappointing, however they're letting thousands of players into a free trial in order to stress test and whatnot.
I gave up WoW a year or so ago, and sold my account for a cool $300. The thought of a Star Wars MMO interested me, however I'm a mac gamer, thus I was limited until I only recently bootcamped my computer.
As for The Old Republic, I'll see about it, though I'm not especially enthused. With the new movies, Star Wars has shifted into a Jedi focused mindset, specifically many of them, battling. There is something inherently wrong with this, the mysticism and mystery of the Jedi, that power... has become mundane. I heard about SWG in the beginning, when being a jedi was a very hard thing to do. And it should be that way.
I've been playing a lot of TF2, Spore, and Age of Chivalry at the moment. However there is one underdog game that I have been looking forward to for a long time, now: Darkfall Online. Unlike so many shameless marketing-ploy-MMO's, this is an indie game built to revolutionize the industry and I hope it will. And it's coming out within the year, so don't hassle me for plugging it while the gaming news media ignores it.
Honestly, a lot of people are jumping the gun as to whether or not this will be a bad thing. Hopefully it'll be obvious once we buy the first edition that there's tons of hours of gameplay to be had in the terran campaign alone and only the most ridiculous will finish before the next "episode". Not to mention that I hope they are somehow priced competitively; maybe the original $30~ and the others $10-15~, thus adding up to essentially one ($50-60) game.
I don't put it past Blizzard to be a money grubbing whore, either, but I'd like to have some hope as to the future of the company and its flagship games (except WoW).
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