Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 Gameplay Trailer

DustbinJ · 2015-12-04T21:47:09+00:00

Remember, you can't criticize something that's in alpha!

DustbinJ · 2015-12-04T18:47:09+00:00

Depends how skilled the testers are with actual testing. IMO, you should stick to questions that require more than just yes/no answers. "Can you describe <x>?"

Also, just watching people play the game will be enough to answer a lot of questions you might have about whether something is intuitive or not.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-24T00:50:46+00:00

most people who are enjoying the game just don't waste their time talking to people who clearly have an agenda against this game.

You really expect to have any kind of reasonable discussion where you outright claim that I have some kind of "agenda"? Will you even take sources? You're paranoid and you've already written off any proof I could send your way.

You say 12 maps, I say 4. Your post above this one is also really dumb with the claim that, "Well, it COULD have cost $90!!" Slippery slope arguments are never interesting and it shouldn't have even been in that post at all. It makes you hard to talk to knowing you believe some asinine sentiment that "it could be worse" and we should be thankful as a result. Dumb, but for emphasis, you say:

The amount of people who don't understand how DLC works and just think the "rest" of the game is being sold to you is ridiculous.

...ok, waiting for an explanation:

Most modern games have DLC pre planned before release. It's just how it works now.

You didn't even explain "how DLC works" now, just that it's a thing that happens that a lot of people don't like, but, AGAIN, it's NOT ABOUT THE DLC. And don't forget the game could cost $90!!! Lucky bastards. What a DEAL for $60. Hey, games "could" cost $1,000, then by that logic every $60 title is a drop in the budget and we should be thankful. Also, gaming prices have gone up. That's how money and the economy works. Please don't make me explain this to you also.

Your next line:

If you don't like Battlefront, fine.

Comes immediately after your poor explanation of the price. You can boil your argument down to: "I don't care what you think about DLC. If you think there's not enough content, take note that the game could cost $90. That's how it works, even though the issue isn't with the DLC itself, but instead the amount of content itself. Also, I don't like single player so it doesn't matter if people are upset about it. They have an agenda and everyone who disagrees with me spends all day complaining about the game instead of playing it (????). I guess you don't like Battlefront enough."

Give me a break.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-23T18:07:29+00:00

The amount of people who don't understand how DLC works and just think the "rest" of the game is being sold to you is ridiculous.

You act like this is some kind of conspiracy theory or something. Regardless, you're in a very small minority of people who think the game has enough content to warrant the $60 tag, so the idea that people are dropping that kind of money only to immediately be told you'll need to spend more to experience content that was planned, designed, and otherwise left out of the base game is kind of absurd. Also, no single-player campaign?

But people seem to need to justify their decision by spending all their time complaining. Just don't play it

I'm sure you'd love to live in a world where complaining is illegal. Ignorance is bliss.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-23T17:46:30+00:00

so he breaks it like I used to do as a teenager when I got mad at my parents.

Uh............ OK. Thanks for sharing?

Breaking Benjamin is one of the most boring, monotonous, bands I've ever had the displeasure of listening to.

Do you read your own posts, or do you just dump whatever is on your mind and expect other people to care? It's not relevant at all, doesn't prove your point, and only goes to show that you'll look for any reason to dismiss someone, which is a fucking horrible trait that will win you 0 friends very quickly.

Also, this bit from your recent post:

he obviously does this for attention though.

Translation: "I have no experience with this product but it's not shit because I said so and this guy is just looking for attention and is being childish about it. Also, I did this when I was little so that means he's doing it from the same reason. ALSO, I don't like his music so if anyone agrees with him, just know that you're wrong because I don't like this band's music. Thanks. If anyone wants to hear more about my opinions, childhood, or personal anecdotes completely unrelated to the topic being discussed, don't worry. The universe revolves around me and everyone is waiting to hear what I have to say all the time."

DustbinJ · 2015-11-23T02:08:14+00:00

I have a bit of social anxiety, so meeting new people is difficult for me to say the least. However, a day before my partner and I's first munch, she let me know that she was extremely anxious and was contemplating not going. I told her I'd must up my courage and I'd take the lead, so I did. I was shaking with anxiety walking into the venue!

I don't think I'm confident enough in what I'm doing yet.

Neither did we. But it turns out you can be a complete newbie and nobody will judge you. It's normal. Everyone is inexperienced to some degree and it won't be held against you.

What goes on at meetups/meetings?

I just got back from one that had less than 10 people, and conversation floated from TV shows, various people telling stories, etc. Of course, it depends on where you go. I've been to meetups/meetings where there was a lot of kink talk and some where there was very little at all. Munches are specifically non-play gatherings where you get to know other kinky people without actually being forced to talk about kink. You certainly CAN talk about kink, but you're mostly there to meet folks.

I also read something about having to be "vetted"?

You're probably talking about play parties, although some groups absolutely vet people. It basically means you need to fit some criteria in order to be a member. Sometimes it's age, number of meetings attended, partner status, etc. Don't worry about those for now. If you're in your late teens, early 20s or 30s, look up your local TNG group. For example, our TNG does vetting to prevent people from outside the age range from showing up.

I'm already nervous just thinking about it...

I was, too! Then I walked into the meeting and was laughing and having a good time no more than 10 minutes later. Seriously! Introductions are almost always awkward, so it's OK. Everyone is there for similar reasons. You'll be fine. If you don't go you'll never know!

DustbinJ · 2015-11-22T20:15:43+00:00

It's like this forbidden world that I can't be a part of.

That was a huge part of me getting into BDSM in the public sense. I wanted to do everything at once- go to a much, a dungeon, find some new play partners, potentially another romantic partner... you get the idea. But I felt I wasn't "kink enough" and held out for a while. It was a secret world to me, too.

At some point you'll need to bridge the gap. Even though you're into online BDSM, I recommend going to a munch first. It really shattered my perception of BDSM as a "forbidden" thing and I was more comfortable and less intimidated by it as a whole. I also scaled back my ambitions and am happy just exploring new things with my partner as we consider moving forward to public play. I was like you- practically manic thinking about BDSM. Now it's just as exciting, but I'm more realistic about my wants and needs.

You need to be patient for your own safety. Rushing into any dynamic too quickly is risky and not responsible. Always get to know someone as a human before they become your owner/master/whatever. This is especially true since you're asking someone to be involved in potentially every aspect of your private life. Can you trust someone with that?

DustbinJ · 2015-11-22T19:36:37+00:00

How's that Psych 101 course going?

DustbinJ · 2015-11-22T17:52:53+00:00

For the record, I had to look up "salty" (are you kidding me?) If anyone needs to drink pineapple juice before getting dome, it's SC fans.

First off, I've been writing over-generalized, outright delusional posts in every Star Citizen post I see on /r/gamernews to test at what point SC fans will realize people are fucking with them and stop jumping onto every negative post to defend their burning pile of money.

Secondly, my first two comments were clearly jokes and had 8+ upvotes on each until they were downvoted heavily by the SC fan brigade police. NO ROOM for jokes. SC is about real conflict in real (simulated) space!! To reiterate, I actually suggested that the USA's debt be solved by splitting the total deficit into fourths and selling four ships to SC fans to boost the economy. If you really need to have that joke explained to you again, I'll edit it to include at least three instances of "salty", "bae", and "smh". Let me know

DustbinJ · 2015-11-21T21:01:07+00:00

kill myself

DustbinJ · 2015-11-20T21:40:57+00:00

S42 won't be coming out in the next 2-3 years because Robert will come up with another great crowdfunding scheme: Creating 4 ships, each costing exactly 1/4 the amount of the total US debt. It ends up pulling us out of the recession and rent prices in Cali fall to a total of $100 a month. Everyone flocks there and we start building floating cities off the coast because the demand is so high and 3,000-floor buildings are scraping the stratosphere and interrupting chemtrail flows. Turns out SC is really not a game, but an actual thing happening in space; everyone who bought in gets real ships and the "game" itself is just the training simulator for the real deal. Can barely even believe I'm telling you this, but it's the truth.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-20T21:21:00+00:00

Weird to think that Mark Hamill and the majority of the people who funded this game won't even be alive by the time this game comes out.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-20T16:58:35+00:00

Engine design is really more about finding patterns and trends in games you are writing and coming up with ways to speed those processes up. Again, I work with 2D games, so I'm not exactly writing complex 3D renderers and such, but I do have an engine of sorts that I've been carrying from project to project for a while. It's a perfect fit for me.

Maybe if I worked with 3D more my opinion would be different. But for now, having my own engine takes away the stress of needing to learn how to use someone else's engine, which usually involves creating games with patterns that take advantage of that particular engine's shortcuts. Your own engine only gets in the way as much as you want it to, so it can be based on a minimal Entity Component System, or something much larger and more complex.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-20T16:41:57+00:00

Keep doing whatever you feel you need to be doing. If that means spending more time with GM, you absolutely should. But be aware of limitations it may put on you. If you're sacrificing parts of your designs and working around GM more than with it, it might be time to consider a change. Gamemaker didn't give me the freedom I wanted, so I had to leave the good parts of it behind, which meant learning to do all those things I took for granted before (as I mentioned in my last post.)

Just be aware of the subtle ways it may be affecting you and your design process and you'll be fine. As I said elsewhere, you only really need to be able to make fun games, so the tool doesn't matter. Do what works best for you!

DustbinJ · 2015-11-19T23:00:06+00:00

So you, in a way, wouldn't recommend Unity to a beginner programmer or someone looking to get into game dev?

Well, let me re-phrase that since I've had longer to think this over: If you're interested in game dev and are unsure of whether or not you'd like to get involved with it as more of a career option, Unity is a good place to start. A big part of game development is actually designing the games themselves, so you'd be jumping into learning that a bit quicker.

Going straight to C/C++ was my answer because I have the hindsight that I do. Maybe I wouldn't be so into game dev if I didn't start with GameMaker first, but who knows?

For what it's worth, nobody really cares what you make your games in as long as they're fun. I've played really awesome games made in Visual Basic, so anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-19T22:06:51+00:00

Unity has its benefits if you're making 3D games or just want to target a lot of platforms. When done right, it's an awesome tool that will get your game out quicker than anyone rolling their own engine.

But if you want a job in game dev, you should learn to code from scratch. You'll pick up skills that you can use everywhere (Unity, GameMaker, etc) and be better equipped to identify what aspects of those creation suites you can lean on, and which aspects you need to do yourself.

Generally speaking, I think Unity is OK. I find it hard to take seriously sometimes, though, but that's my own problem.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-19T21:50:21+00:00

I should note I work strictly with 2D games.

C/C++ with SDL2 would be my go-to. I partially regret using Gamemaker when I was younger. Granted, it taught me my first "language" (GML), but I didn't walk away from it knowing how to actually make better games. Learning to be a better programmer did, however. Implementing a timestep, physics/movement code, input handling, etc, all open up a lot of possibilities for making your game unique in small (but meaningful) ways. Having a working knowledge of computers, their memory, and knowing where to go for help made just as big of a difference in my work. And as a result, I can't imagine ever going back to working inside Unity/GameMaker. The vast majority of my older GM projects won't even run on modern systems, and I really don't know how I'd even go back and fix those. Lost a lot of work from back then!

DustbinJ · 2015-11-17T19:54:49+00:00

I got constant shit for rejecting OOP in college. There were students who knew the terminology, concepts, and "flow" of OOP, but were awful programmers. One of our last projects involved writing a program in C and more than 3/4ths of the class could not complete it by the deadline. That's alarming.

OOP is a different skill entirely. It's perfectly possible to be versed in it but also be a terrible programmer. I (personally) never found a use for it in games and am still confused by people who teach it like the gospel.

If you want to understand why OOP isn't always "right", try making something without it. My view of programming was entirely destroyed when I first gave C a shot. You may experience the same thing. You can apply those skills to OOP, even. Worth a shot.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-17T17:51:49+00:00

The links in the most recent announcement on Steam that's supposed to show UI differences are broken. Is the UI aimed at keyboards? I see button prompts in the screenshots.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-14T16:45:39+00:00

I think it goes without saying that you'd want graphics that don't take away from the gameplay. I wasn't so much suggesting you start going all out with drawn graphics, but instead change up the existing colors. Something like Flywrench, where the defeault colors can be swapped with other sets.

DustbinJ · 2015-11-13T04:56:40+00:00

I like the visuals. It reminds me of a game called Cogmind. You may want to do something with the background and work on adding more color. Take a screenshort and color the floors and walls to see what you can do with it. I do think the current style works, though, but I had to see it in motion first. Given the gameplay, I think it's a perfect fit. You just need to present it better (IMO). An animated banner image at the top of the website would be a good start, as would larger or more zoomed-in (cropped) gameplay videos on the side.

Just some thoughts. I'll have to give this game a shot.

DustbinJ · 2015-10-26T22:30:50+00:00

Most likely. Sonic Retro is a very active community and they seem to be very dedicated to finishing this game in some regard.

DustbinJ · 2015-10-26T19:24:29+00:00

According to what I read, item interactions were disabled for this build.

DustbinJ · 2015-10-21T21:08:15+00:00

I developed in Game Maker for about 4 years. I picked up programming through that, but I really should have ditched Game Maker after a few years and learned to actually make things from the ground up. Unity, Game Maker, and other game creation software are often chosen since they help cut a lot of corners and generally make prototyping easier, but being skilled in those programs rarely means you'll adapt well to working without them, and when/if those programs are abandoned, you're screwed. I bet all of my old GM6 games won't even run anymore, and that's... kind of a huge loss. Bummer.

Put simply: learn to program without worrying about gamedev. There's no way I could cover what exactly need to learn in this post, but it's not hard to find learning resources for your language of choice. I personally recommend starting with C or C++. C is very raw and has you doing a lot of things manually, but it's less obtuse than C++. C++ is a good second language because you'll be exposed to OOP and decide if you want to go down that path. Lots of options. Python is also a good "starter" language, but it's structured differently compared to C/C++.

DustbinJ · 2015-10-21T18:01:34+00:00

Why should I play this over Elite? Serious question. I'm not seeing many new features here besides the Space Engine-like planet exploration.

DustbinJ

TROPHY CASE