donbot
2101 replies · 21974 views
^ After seeing one of your Halloween sets...I wouldn't mind
Donnie is your TR a big buggy too?
I started out fine but once I got to the shanty town the game kept on crashing for some reason.
It then got better once I moved on from the shanty town.
Being lazy and remiss here of late, characteristics I've picked up from most members, I don't know if this Marloes shot is new or not? So I thought I'd post it here because it's great, and if it is new then you can be placated that there are more of them on the recently updated Next(UK) site where this came from:
Donnie is your TR a big buggy too?
I started out fine but once I got to the shanty town the game kept on crashing for some reason.
It then got better once I moved on from the shanty town.
Already in the shanty town? 
It's been pretty smooth sailing for me.. no crashes. Just a few slight buggy movement/interactions here and there, and the odd wall texture popping in and out, but nothing gamebreaking.
My best death.. o_O
I had that death too! 
Yeah I'm at the shanty town, though I think I skipped a lot of the optional stuff. e.g., I only ventured into an optional tomb for the first time in the Shanty Town. I know there were at least one and possibly two others I just walked by unentered.
It's a very enjoyable game though a lot more scripted - so far - than previous TR games.
Which ones are A Team? I never saw it.
Some of the lines such as "As I was there at your beginning; now I shall be there at your end" are directly cribbed from Gladiator, lol.
The Reaper is bluffing and deflecting constantly with personal attacks rather than explanation. He also apparently gets 'mad' at the end! It's a fraud!
^And the A Team too it seems o_O
That reaper speech reminds me of the 'architect' scene in The Matrix series.. arrogance included. ME3 had a pretty cool cinematic trailer too, incidentally
And the results are in
- SimCity launch a complete disaster -
SimCity's requirement for an always-on Internet connection is backfiring, as the game servers are currently going up and down like a yo-yo. How quickly can EA solve this problem?
by Christopher MacManus, CNET
Good luck trying to move into the new SimCity.
Ever since the city management game launched on Tuesday, countless gamers have found themselves battling error messages and random disconnections that prevent them from experiencing what SimCity was supposed to deliver in the first place -- fun. In response, publisher Electronic Arts says it's working around the clock to try to fix the problems and add more servers so people can play without worry.
SimCity Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis issued the following statement to frustrated builders last night, hoping to soothe their nerves:
"This has been an exciting and challenging week for the team here at Maxis, the culmination years of planning and development. We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from our fans which has made it even more upsetting for us that technical issues have become more prominent in the last 24 hours. We are hitting a number of problems with our server architecture, which has seen players encountering bugs, and long wait times to enter servers. This is, obviously, not the situation we wanted for our launch week and we want you to know that we are putting everything we have at resolving these issues.
What we are doing is deploying more servers over the coming two days, which will alleviate many of the ongoing issues. We are also paying close attention to all the bug reports we are receiving from our fans. We've already pushed several updates in the last few days. Our live ops team is working 24/7 to resolve issues and ensure that bug fixes roll into the game as quickly as possible.
This team has put everything into this game and won't stop until things are smooth. We ask our fans to be patient as our team works diligently to fix the issues. We share your passion for SimCity and thank you for your support and understanding."
SimCity's connectivity woes originate from heavy server load caused by a high influx of new users who must log in to play. EA touts multiplayer features such as sharing vital resources with neighbors and saving your game to the cloud (so you can play anywhere), but the requirement also acts as one of the few remaining safeguards against software piracy.
It's frankly absurd that SimCity -- with its previous titles that you could always play offline -- now requires an Internet connection to play and stay in the game, even in single-player mode. However, that's the world we live in these days and it doesn't seem likely to change.
The other issue is that EA hasn't allocated the appropriate resources to handle the surge of gamers coming into the servers during launch week, which seems silly considering the enormous fan base that waited 10 years for a new SimCity game. The bean counters at EA should've known there would be huge traffic, and heck, didn't they learn anything from Activision's messy Diablo III launch?
The solution seems simple: let people play SimCity's single-player mode offline, hence alleviating the server load, and maintain the always-on Internet requirement for multiplayer. That would probably solve this debacle and give most people what they really wanted in the first place.
In the meantime, SimCitians can keep up with a routinely updated forum topic that relays server downtime, hotfixes, and improvements. The latest notification echoes the commitment to fixing server issues, but also indicates the developers issued a hotfix that includes "various improvements" and disables a "few non-critical gameplay features (leaderboards, achievements and region filters)" -- a temporary move likely designed to lessen the load on servers.
Be careful if you can log in, as some players report losing significant portions of their cities after hours of work, because SimCity servers would randomly shut down or the game experienced issues saving to EA's cloud save function. I saw dozens of similar complaints with some light searching. Ouch.
Despite the calamity, many SimCity builders found a way into the lagged servers and kicked off an architectural tour de force not seen since the construction of the pyramids. Katsarelis reports that in just a 24-hour period, SimCity gamers created more than 38 million buildings, 4.6 million miles of roads, and laid 40 million pipes "filled up with poop."
The producer also notes that gamers started over 18 million fires in SimCity, but the real fires are occurring in social media. You can easily spot hordes of frustrated SimCity players on Twitter, Reddit, NeoGAF, and many other outlets for gamers. A petition with over 8,000 signatures on Change.org asks EA to abandon always-on DRM in SimCity and future games.
CNET Editor Jeff Bakalar, assigned to review SimCity, ran into problems trying to connect at least twice a day since Tuesday: "I had planned on reviewing the game for launch -- and I'm not joking here -- I've yet to been able to even play the game. Once."
I have some pics I want to show you
The last ones remind me of The Far Side a little.. I used to love that comic so much. You know it?
Which ones are A Team? I never saw it.
And the results are in
The last ones remind me of The Far Side a little.. I used to love that comic so much. You know it?
No, no idea on that one - can you get me into the picture? 
btw, I watched Prometheus yesterday, again. Even more questions arised
It's been a shambles hasn't it
The PC Gamer guys talked about it at length in their last podcast. I dare say there's a lot of people, like your good self, who have just recently dipped back into PC gaming because of this game too, and this is the experience they get. Not a great first impression is it
Has it affected you much?
Those vehicles look very similar to the ones in Prometheus...! I remember now- with Prometheus I liked the spacecraft/vehicles but the astronaut suits were not so aesthetically pleasing.
I liked Avatar's (also James Cameron) spacecrafts as well. They were designed along the same line as those in Aliens.
Yea Donny. 'I robot' designs remind me of Apple Inc's design schema writ large and placed everywhere. All those cheap plastic shells. (N) 
BTW, I was checking out youtube and apparently, Arnold and Chuck Norris are in SC! Can you spot the movie references?
I think there's references from Predator, Conan, Total Recall, Terminator 1/2, Twins...!
"What happened to you commander? They got you pushing too many pencils?"
'You got a real prretttty mouth..!."
--------------------------------------------------
That being said, I watched the cutscenes (35 minutes CGI) for the 4th game recently and it's strangely nostalgic & satisfying since the 1st/2nd were games from my teenage years. A lot of questions & loose ends from the original story are answered here and settled. An arc is finished. It's kind of funny that one would have to wait 15 years to do so...!
There is one last game- about the Protoss's struggle against the genocide of their species- and it is likely that the starcraft story is done after that.
I would say that was a good assessment the PC Gamer guys made on people such as myself getting back into PC gaming due to Simcity. This is the first PC game in a WHILE that I was genuinely excited in playing and started playing only to encounter all the errors you have read about no doubt and heard of.
And as far as affected, I actually had no issues on the early March 4th launch date up into the next day. Once the 6th rolled around it was just one calamity of a server issue after the next. The fact queue timers were created just to attempt to log-in and not actually play the game gave me a good laugh. Some people had to wait up to an hour or more just to get the timer to reset itself
Yeah, the no local saves thing is indeed unsettling.. not only in the short term, but the long term too. They've already shut down online support for a bunch of their old games, but at least most of those remain largely playable in single player. Not so if you can't even save your game though 
Looks like they're throwing a free game at you all for a bandaid apology though.. let me know what you get
BTW, I was checking out youtube and apparently, Arnold and Chuck Norris are in SC! Can you spot the movie references?
I think there's references from Predator, Conan, Total Recall, Terminator 1/2, Twins...!
Pretty good impression - I thought it was actually him for a moment. What does the Chuck one say?
Yeah, the no local saves thing is indeed unsettling.. not only in the short term, but the long term too. They've already shut down online support for a bunch of their old games, but at least most of those remain largely playable in single player. Not so if you can't even save your game though
Looks like they're throwing a free game at you all for a bandaid apology though.. let me know what you get
Ah yes, the free game 
Not sure if I want any more products from EA though They can burn in hell for what they have done to Simcity. Fix our game and give players what they want! They can keep their free game I just want the original one to work as it should be.
And dude, I can't stop staring at your set. The way she moves and swings that torso 
I don't know. I don't know much about Chuck Norris. But that character is clearly mix of a 1980s truck driver/construction worker and Chuck Norris!
Pretty good impression - I thought it was actually him for a moment. What does the Chuck one say?
There was an article on 3/11/13 in the WSJ about the publicly traded software/hardware videogame companies. I have a few questions:
"Today, the media-technology environment is markedly different than during the last gaming cycle. More people are playing games on mobile phones and tablets. There is also new competition for control of the living room, including more capable DVRs and Internet-connected TVs.""But Nintendo is the most exposed console maker to gamers defecting to tablets and phones"
I am out of the loop with this: How do you feel about this and do you think that these statements are accurate? Tablets & phones offer tetris-like garbage or tiny screens/keyboards compared to PCs/consoles. They aren't interchangeable.
How do you feel about these three companies: EA, Take-Two, and Activision Blizzard? Which major is most respected in the industry by order? I know that all three possess some profitable franchises eg. EA sports, GTA/bioshock, and Warcraft/Starcraft/diablo.
Ah yes, the free game
And dude, I can't stop staring at your set. The way she moves and swings that torso
Is it still broken? 
It's almost obscene how sexy she is. She's already a 10, but the tattoo makes her go to 11 
Ah yes, the free game
And dude, I can't stop staring at your set. The way she moves and swings that torso
Is it still broken?
It's almost obscene how sexy she is. She's already a 10, but the tattoo makes her go to 11
I'm quite partial to her belly myself.
A sexy belly must be one of the most underrated bodyparts.
I don't know. I don't know much about Chuck Norris. But that character is clearly mix of a 1980s truck driver/construction worker and Chuck Norris!
Me neither really.. he isn't really the most quotable figure though. He's more about the name. And the beard. And the facts.
He's from the south, but he's not exactly a hillbilly sort.. I wouldn't have picked him as one of the inspirations for that guy, but I might be wrong. Isn't that '..real pretty mouth' line from Deliverance?
There was an article on 3/11/13 in the WSJ about the publicly traded software/hardware videogame companies. I have a few questions:
"Today, the media-technology environment is markedly different than during the last gaming cycle. More people are playing games on mobile phones and tablets. There is also new competition for control of the living room, including more capable DVRs and Internet-connected TVs.""But Nintendo is the most exposed console maker to gamers defecting to tablets and phones"
I am out of the loop with this: How do you feel about this and do you think that these statements are accurate? Tablets & phones offer tetris-like garbage or tiny screens/keyboards compared to PCs/consoles. They aren't interchangeable.
No, not interchangeable.. but certainly more accessible. 'Serious' gamers are still playing on PC/consoles, but it's no doubt expanded the casual gamer market massively. Every man and his dog has a smartphone these days, and especially in an age where touchscreen interfaces are somewhat novel, it's not really surprising that games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja became huge hits.
How do you feel about these three companies: EA, Take-Two, and Activision Blizzard? Which major is most respected in the industry by order? I know that all three possess some profitable franchises eg. EA sports, GTA/bioshock, and Warcraft/Starcraft/diablo.
In the industry, I'm not really sure.. but amongst gamers I'd say Take-Two by far is the most respected. Blizzard too, if you can separate them out (since they're largely seen as developers rather than publishers). Activision and EA are generally considered the biggest asshats in the industry. Take-Two you never really hear that much about, and you get the impression that they give their developers like 2k and Rockstar a lot of creative freedom in their endeavours, whereas Activision and EA meddle. You can see their greasy fingerprints all over the games they publish, and there's not really anything subtle about the way they go about their moneygrabbing. Probably why they're #1 and #2 though
I'm quite partial to her belly myself.
A sexy belly must be one of the most underrated bodyparts.
Who are your favourites?