New Testingstan

Agent Bert Macklin wrote:Jesus. no key customizations for The Stick of Truth on the PC. Goddammit!

What do you expect for an Ubisoft game (after THQ imploded)?

It is not that Obsidian Entertainment doesn't know how todo a PC game, but publisher requirements (either THQ or Ubisoft) can really shape how the game develops. And exposing those options probably wasn't paid for so Obsidian couldn't easily do it in the time/money budget they had.

Back when Project Eternity was doing it's kickstarter, Obsidian was very up front that their titles under publishers are very much developed to a checklist of explicitly required or denied features.

How much would it really cost to put in key mapping?

Maybe it's not a question of costs but of contractual obligations, like Xon said? I dunno.

Also keep in mind that these big corporate kind of games come with *severe* time management restrictions.

Every single task that any one person does has been budgeted in advance by weeks or months. Changes to this plan are frowned upon and cost the company money as they reschedule tasks or send people into crunch time to make up time lost for the distraction.

The actual process of programming configurable buttons could only take a day. Maybe even less then a day (These estimations are extremely generous, it would probably take several days). But that day has to be hammered out in advance. And once it's been hammered out, it has to only take the allotted time. And once it's taken the allotted time, it has to be rigorously tested by the QA department in an entirely new build, and the QA department itself has only been allotted a specific set of time to test this particular feature. And once it's been tested, the Art deparment has to have had time scheduled to come up with the art assets for the various button prompts that show up on screen, and the QA process starts over again.

Problems at any of these steps begin immediately reverberating with the schedule the company is on, with increasingly obnoxious corporate red tape involved at every step of the process as you increase in size or profile.

so yeah more concept trailers:


http://youtube.com/watch?v=pH_tYB_Ntlg

From the description wrote:This War Of Mine is a game that provides an experience of war seen from an entirely new angle. For the very first time you do not play as an elite soldier, rather a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city. During the day snipers outside stop you from leaving your refuge, so you need to focus on maintaining your hideout. At night you get a chance to scavenge nearby locations for items that will help you stay alive.

Make life-and-death decisions driven by your conscience. Try to protect everybody from your shelter or sacrifice some of them to endure the hardships. During war, there are no good or bad decisions; there is only survival. The sooner you realize that, the better.

Sounds potentially interesting, at least. The kind of thing we need more of.

Los, I have to ask, even though I know the answer already

Did you happen to get Titanfall on PC?

no

i couldn't run it on my computer to begin with and generally if i get a choice I'll go for the xbox version of a game anyway

damn it los


damn it

I was hopeful, anyway. I got a PS4 because it was cheaper and didn't want to buy a console specifically for titanfall when my PC can run it just fine.

It's a pretty good game, despite EA's every effort to prevent me from playing it.

for example, I can't use the closest regional server to me in Titanfall, because "Failed to get a token from Origin." I have to pick a different regional server.

And just now, I got dropped from a game I was having NO TROUBLE WITH, because "failed to get a token from origin"

EDIT: Oh that's just fucking incredible, that disconnect meant I lost all the progress I'd made over the past hour and a half

yeah i can't actually connect to any data centers on my own and can basically only join off of other people

it's a funny game sometimes

So, for about $40 from the Humble Store while it lasts, how could I say no? Of all the games, I only actually own RTW/BI anyway, so this was a great chance to complete my collection. But...how do they hold up, NT? Well, this is what I come to you for to find out! Plus anyone else who's interested can benefit from this as well, I imagine.

NOTE: Please, please, please don't tell me to "get this mod" or "it's way better with that mod" and so on. I'm interested in finding out how the vanilla games play, and I can always mess with mods later. I have a couple questions on that front, but I'll aim it at specific mods later on down the line; right now I'd like to focus on the vanilla games.

Rome: Total War w/Barbarian Invasion
So this is the one I own, and I love it to death. Sure Rome II is out now, but this game is a fucking classic and it's tons of fun painting the world red. And then there's the BI expansion, which is rather different but no less fun.

Rome: Total War Alexander
This focuses on the namesake, obviously, but I heard it's not like a typical Grand Campaign but more like a smaller scale scripted thing? I dunno, but I have it now so whatever.

Medieval 2: Total War
So I've never played this, though it interests me. Thoughts?

Medieval 2: Total War Kingdoms
From what I understand this is just a series of campaigns rather than one new Grand Campaign such as BI?

Empire: Total War
Ah, the ambitious one yet riddled with bugs at launch. But in a fully patched vanilla state, how is it today? Stable? Playable? Any glaring annoyances that remain?

Napoleon: Total War
An "expansion" to ETW, though concentrating on Europe. From what I heard, it's what ETW should have been, had CA not cut and run.

Total War: Shogun 2 + Fall of the Samurai
I've heard great things about this one, especially the expansion. Alas my computer only meets the minimum specifications, but that should let me play with it a bit. Plus it's Steam, so I can always just download it again when I get a better rig. I also have all the DLC except the Blood Pack, but for two bucks I might as well get that, too.

And the extra games I got along with it, just for completeness:

Total War Battles: Shogun

Viking: Battle for Asgard

So NT, please impart your wisdom upon me! Thanks!

I figure if you love RTW then the others will just be progressive improvements

Stofsk wrote:I figure if you love RTW then the others will just be progressive improvements

Yeah. TBH I'm most interested in ETW: that game really fascinated me, but I know it had a ton of problems and that even with patching I heard it still had issues and then the story of how CA "cut and run" with NTW. So I was wondering if anyone here played it if they could fill me in on how it is. Since I'm really enjoying M2TW right now it'll be a bit before I make the switch to ETW.

This first clip is mine, the other three belong to Stark.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=slsSTI_qgbA


http://youtube.com/watch?v=PQsHmaIx9T0


http://youtube.com/watch?v=D9LyNe_mZZU


http://youtube.com/watch?v=NNRjQmsG2d4

Man, what a dumb game. COD with robots.

I had a couple of awesome moments earlier.

In a narrow, curved corridor, I came across someone. He had a better cq weapon out so I started screaming in terror as I swapped weapons and ran backwards. Thanks to the power of Rocket Parkour, I ninja-bounced from wall to wall so fast down the narrow hallway he couldn't sprint after me and couldn't get a bead on with his shotgun, and one switch to the auto-pistol later, he was not a problem anymore.

Also, this one time I came around a corner while in the air around the second story of a building, and there was an angry titan hanging out, so I double jumped at the wall as he opens fire, shooting grenades at him, and ninja-ran backwards around the curve of the wall and around the corner while cloaking, lost his pursuit as I hopped on the roof, and then rained more nades on him.

also i'm so bad at this game, I just realized today how great the minimap is for hunting down pilots

Are you guys playing Titanfall on 360 or One?

Los is on the xbone, I'm on the PC

So, Empire: Total War...

Yeah, I should do that naval battles tutorial. Because damn that was a farce. My three ships against three pirate ships, and I lost every one of them. To no losses against the pirates. The worst part? I saved just before (because I had no idea what I was doing) and reloaded after that disaster and then auto-resolved...which killed two pirate ships to no losses of my own.

Yeah, that's right, Total War's auto-resolve did better than I managed when taking command.

That's my experience with R:TW to a tee.

Crazedwraith wrote:That's my experience with R:TW to a tee.

Well I'm not so bad there. Then again I only ever get up to Medium battle difficulty and my "tactics" basically involve smashing my infantry into their infantry and then running in cavalry when they're engaged and call it a day. So I'm not actually sure if auto-resolve would work better than that in terms of losses suffered, but dammit at least I can win the fucking battle.

Darksi4190 wrote:Are you guys playing Titanfall on 360 or One?

The 360 version isn't out until April 8

Man, everybody's moving to Xbox One and I can't afford one yet. It really blows.

Get the Titanfall bundle, costs exactly the same as the regular X1 but has a free game.

Does adding an Xbox One to your Live account do anything to the price? I know you can have it on both consoles, but I haven't been able to find anything about fees or anything like that.