Reaif
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Posts posted by Reaif
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So I installed 7 on an older machine...
Athlon XP 2200+
1.5GB ddr400
Geforce 5200 128 MB
Some kind of dumb pcchips mobo. (M848-ALU)
It seemed to work OK for the most part. Internet browsing was fine, documents were fine, didn't try any games because the system would start to lag a bit when multi-tasking in any form at all. That kind of thing is acceptable for some people, but the major problems arose with the network. I couldn't even copy a small file from my Ubuntu file server with Samba, or from my other XP machine. This was caused by the drivers I believe, because 7 couldn't find any for it, and because the motherboard's network drivers have only ever been made for xp. I ended up installing the old XP ones, and it turned out better than expected, and worse than expected. Surprisingly good, I could get internet and fair download speeds after installing that driver, but the bad surprise was that the system would totally lock up whenever I tried to copy any files over the local network. Kind of like how Vista pre-sp1 locked up with network file transfers, but it would freeze explorer.exe, and you would have to restart that process to even do anything.
Aero on the other hand worked fairly well even on that. Best performance of course comes when you turn on the most basic visual themes, but what could you expect with a 5200? Perhaps with a non-integrated nic card (that has vista drivers at least released for it) and an upgraded vid card (probably at least something in the 7000 series for nvidia), it could work out quite well.
In the end, I formatted the drive and put xp back on it. Athlon XP's simply perform best in that os.
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I saw something on this previously, and have been really wanting to play it. I am really curious about the gameplay and all that now that it is out. Anyone have anything to say about that?
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I know your story is pretty much hashed out, and you were looking for advice on some of the other things in game-making, so I will only say something small about that. All events that happen to your characters, should do one of two things. 1) The event must develop the characters and their personalities/relationships. 2) The event must develop the plot/story. While different games have different balances of this, a truly well made rpg will do those two things simultaneously a lot of the time.
Anyway, as far as gameplay and stuff goes... This is one of the harder things to do with tools such as rpg maker, but the player needs a variety of things to do in the game. And by variety of things, I mean minigames that play a role in the actual game, and some kind of optional goal which is fairly difficult to reach. Let me try to think of an example of this... ... ... Don't know if anyone has played Mystical Ninja starring Goemon on the N64, but there were a LOT of good minigames in there that really spiced things up. In fact, I wish I had that game right now... I know that game is more of a platformer/action game than an rpg, but it seems like a prime example of how to do good minigames.
The next thing is the battle system. It is very difficult not to do one or both of two bad things in an rpg. 1) the battle system is too dull and repetitive, so you begin to hate battles, and fall asleep during them. 2) the battle system is to attention intensive, so you begin to hate battles during times when you may need to grind out some xp to make a boss easier/make some money/make an enemy drop a particular item, etc. A good compromise would perhaps be an option which will basically take things from automatic to manual, the compromise being that you can do a lot more damage/do a lot better on manual than you can on auto. If you did something like this, I would make sure that boss battles would be near impossible on auto mode.
In addition to the battle system/core gameplay, it is good to have a trick up your sleeve to make your game more original, but the new trick needs to be very deep, and almost be a game in and of itself (ie: the junction system in ff8. Something you can really work on to strategize for specific battles, or for an overall battle efficiency.) If your trick is not as awesome as that, or is a little bit shallow and can be mastered fairly quickly, you'll need more than one trick. Maybe introduce different things as the game progresses, and then increase the difficulty of the battles accordingly.
I hope this helps you out.
I think that is about it for me. I have put a lot of thought into game creation lately because I am currently working on (translation: usually put off and hardly ever work on) a game at the moment. The type of game I'd like to create is more of an action/adventure style rpg kind of like Secret of Mana. I was gonna use either Game Maker, or Torque Game Builder for the engine. Torque is more powerful, but is much harder to use... and more expensive than game maker.
Edit: wow this post wasn't intended to be so long.
Edit 2: And one last thing about the graphics. If possible (can't remember if rpg maker supports this or not), we are in an HD age, and it is always fun to have things like high def sprites and high frame rates. Not sure if that kind of thing is appropriate considering your production team (ie you) and your time/resources/ability to do that kind of thing may not allow that kind of thing. And most importantly, in a home rpg like this one, graphics are SECONDARY to good gameplay and story. Make sure those two things are solid before you spend a lot of time hashing out graphics.
Also, the music is really important when trying to portray a certain feeling in certain scenes. That is, of course, granted. One thing I think is a must for get-in-a-fight-and-enter-battle-mode rpg's is to have battle music that changes. I can't even tell you how much I hate having to listen to the same battle theme OVER and OVER again for so many hours. So here are my recommendations: 1) have a system in the game in which a user can choose from different tracks in a menu of some kind. (this does not include having an mp3 or whatever that the user can switch and rename) 2) Change the battle music as the player progresses, so that when certain events in battle happen, or as certain stages in plot are passed, the music in battle will change. I HATE the battle music for ff10 simply from having heard it too often. You shouldn't have to mute the game and turn on a different sound track in order to enjoy it after the current music grows dull.
Anyway, this is probably more than you were hoping to get from a response. We'll see if this isn't the last time I edit this post. Just please don't make the classic mistakes that people making games tend to make. I know it is more work, but it is SO worth it. A good game is the culmination of lots of small good things.
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I do say, jolly good. Best fan game I have played in a long while. Makes me want to check on a few projects that I once followed, but have since forgotten about...
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I personally use the klite codec pack, media player classic, and winamp for music (original I know). When I worked for Dell back in the day and customers had issues with codecs, I was supposed to point them to cole2k for codecs.
It's a pretty good one, but I like the klite one better. I'll have to try out that CCC whatever pack most people here use.
As far as VLC goes, I just don't like the interface, and have had trouble with it in the past. I was using Zoom player for video for a while, but I went back to MPC cause it works a little more smoothly, and lets you use double click to full screen instead of only alt+enter. The Zoom player is nice as an alternate however because it lets you play the stuff with multiple audio streams and subtitles and the like.
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I'd like to add another comment about Crisis Core, and to be a little more descriptive of it. If you are in to the whole Final Fantasy 7 thing, it does give a lot of background story which is nice. As far as the game play goes... we'll just say that it is really repetitive, and gets to be really annoying if you have a short attention span like I do. The gameplay is fun and all, but after you do the EXACT same "dungeon" for the hundredth time, it really starts to drag. That being said, the dungeon/map layout is very generic, and there are a very limited number of enemy models, which level up and get really annoying as you move along.
The method for leveling yourself up and beefing up your character is almost a game in itself however, and I found it to be lots of fun as long as I wasn't having to steal 100 hp+ materias at a time. If you learn the system well, you can really use it to your advantage to make your guy really beefy and cruise through the plot. And we can't forget the usual Squeenix strategy in game making in that they make the main part of the game fairly easy, but to get everything, it requires a ridiculous amount of work to complete the game with all side-quests and bonus items and whatnot.
In summary, if you don't mind doing the same thing over and over again, and have interest in the back story for FF7, I'd recommend it.
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If it turns out that they are allowed you screw you, one thing I would recommend is to ask them for formal paper work (the actual papers you signed) from the time of hire, stating that they can screw you over.
I know that companies tend to be a little less organized (in my experience) than they would like to admit, and they might have trouble finding the correct paper work which gives them rights over you.
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You ARE aware that you can still get it later in the game, right?
You ARE aware of the odds involved in getting that other one right?
Sorry for the sarcasm, but the odds of actually getting that thing is about 1/1000 every time you come to open the chest, which you can only do after you go 2 or 3 screens away, which takes a few minutes each time (if you are super quick). Mostly I think XII was a punishment to people who are obsessive and want to get EVERYTHING that can be had in the game. Maybe that is what some people go for. A game that will have you running around mindlessly for 300+ hours killing the same crap over and over again. With that kind of playability, who needs WoW?
OK, I'm done ranting. Perhaps there should be an FFXII rant thread...
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To be off topic for a moment, I feel very similarly about FF12 in that I hate having to rely on a guide to know which freaking chests to miss, but mostly the thing that chaffed in that game was the amount of time wasted spent grinding and traveling. I was able to fix that however because of a special cheat code (I used code breaker) which allows you to frame skip. It makes the game so much more fun when you can go through the lame stuff very quickly. Kind of funny that they added frame skip to the international version so you don't even need a code to use it.
Anyway, back on topic.
From the trailers, I think I like the looks of Versus XIII a little better because the story seems more character driven, instead of event driven like what XIII seems to be. I really like the idea of having a few characters that you get to know quite well and empathize with. I'm sure they will both be good games though, just by looking at the shear amount of time we have had to wait for them... Right?... RIGHT!?!?
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http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx
The server is kinda jacked up right now, though.
So, I may be somewhat stupid here, but I have been trying to even find the place to request a key code, but have been unable to. I do find something that looks like I might be able to find a key, but it gives me a message saying that I don't have rights to get a key code. Does that mean that it's too late to get a code? I have been trying to get this done for about 30 minutes now. I don't care particularly for the iso download quite yet, but I would like one of these keys.
When I click on the link you gave there, it brings me to a page that says "Windows 7 beta Coming soon!" From there I was able to get to a few other places which looked like I might be able to start requesting things, but I have not been able to find the actual page where you log in with your windows live ID, and then request the key. Kind of boggling here.
Edit: oops, didn't see that last post
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Well, I finally finished the game and got all the jiggies. It was actually kind of painful, but I am kind of anal that way. Getting all the TT trophies was hard because of one challenge in particular. It's one of the ones in the ToT which is somewhat of a rail shooter. I think I spent around 3 or 4 hours on that one at least. Oh well, at least it is finished now. Now I can start school with a clean slate, and won't feel like I need to play that game when I should be doing homework.
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I was going to recommend Noir because it feels so much like it is from that era. When I looked it up however, it aired in 2001, which really surprised me. It feels like it is coming straight out of the early 90's. I like this anime because the characters' lack of... something... is quite refreshing. It reminds me of a time when anime characters weren't plagued by a sense of "can't hurt people, and can't kill them, even if they are trying to kill you at the moment."
And one more thing that you probably weren't looking for exactly, is an anime movie called Millennium Actress. Once again, not exactly in your timeline, but an older feeling one as well. This is actually a drama I believe, and is one of the 3 or 4 movies/shows I have EVER seen that have made me cry... and not in a sad or bad way. The Japanese for it is Sennen Joyu. Here is a link to the IMDB page. This movie is on my "absolute favorites" list.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291350/
Edit: Oh and as far as subs/dubs go, I would recommend the subs for Noir, and I haven't seen Millenium Actress in anything but Japanese with subs, so I can't say. My general rule is that unless the Japanese is painful to listen to, I go with subs.
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I have to admit, I did not technically join the xbox owners club for this game, but it was pretty close. I don't own an xbox, but when I saw the cheapo price on amazon, I picked it up. Fortunately, I am borrowing a friend's xbox, so I can actually play it, but this is the first time I have bought a game for myself when I didn't even own the console that it goes with.
So far in the game I have around 25 jiggies, and I have to admit, I am really enjoying the game, but there are times when I get really bugged. I seem to have a hard time using the guns on vehicles, or using the ammo-less weapons to kill enemies. So on those challenges where you have to defend things... I hate those ones.
I'd probably be a bit further in the game, but the end of the semester seems to have sneaked up on me, and I have to take my finals. Just took the first one today.
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One thing you might be interested in is Editing, or being an editor for a publishing company. Might not be your thing, but you get to critique all kinds of literature. I don't know what it takes to become such, but it is certainly worth looking into at least. The reason I even mention it, is because you seem to be into the technical aspect of things, and editing seems to fit that persona.
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Guess it really was old news lol. It seemed so fresh at the time though... Oh well.
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So after I created this thread, I went and told my wife about it, and she reacted in a really strange way. As soon as I told her, she said that I had already told her about this a while ago. It would seem that somehow I knew about this previously, and just forgot that I knew, or something weird like that. Or it could be that we are going crazy...
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Same here. Here's my solution. .
That is almost EXACTLY what my solution looked like. Though I think my point-to-the-left thing was a little more to the right.
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I didn't see any other threads mentioning this, and I did a search before hand to see if it had, so please don't kill me if this has already been posted.
Anyhow, on to the meaty goodness. I was reading a certain magazine at a much-too-early time in the morning, and came across this article, which I have scanned for your enjoyment, and perhaps frustration as well.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/bad_breath/Stuff/cavestory.gif
Suffice it to say, Cave Story on the Wii? With upgraded sprites?!?!? Awesomeness. Even though I have this game and have played it a few times already, I will so buy this when it comes out.
The interview with Pixel is pretty good too.
PS - Sorry for the low res scan. I scanned it from my own copy, and there didn't seem to be any quality settings that I could play with.
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I just finished the game. 3:6 was really annoying because the solution I had was filling up all the bars, but not all at the same time. I had to sit and wait for about 10 minutes without moving anything for all the proper particles to line up exactly right and fill the bars. I took a screen shot of it, hoping that it would indeed be my solution lol.
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Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_function#On_the_complex_plane
Basically it boils down to the Taylor series representations for sin, cos, and exp adding up correctly.
Wow Taylor series... It's been a while. Though I am definitely going to have to refresh on it, because I have to take calc 3 next semester, and I hear they use a lot of series' in that class... *Sigh*
But seriously, I am probably screwing myself over next semester. So far I am signed up for Linear Algebra, Calc 3, Engineering Dynamics, and Chemistry (one of the earliest ones). Sounds like a death trap to me.
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You would use it to circulate the oil. The stuff is somewhat of an insulator, being so viscous and all, that circulation is a good idea. Also, it would mostly be an annoyance to remove the fan if it functions just as well with it on than without it. And apparently the bubbles did some good there too. whodathunkit?
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Kind of funny. I had heard of doing this before from my father-in-law of all people, but after watching that video, my friend and I decided to go and get a bunch of mineral oil and do this. So at midnight or so, we hit up 2 walmarts and bought all their mineral oil. You have to buy it in smaller containers there, but it is fairly cheap, so it comes to about the same price you could get elsewhere. Gonna use it for an old rambus mobo I have laying around here. I even have a recently vacated fish tank we can put it in lol.
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Oil immersion is really cool, cause you don't need any moving parts to keep it cool, and it stays VERY nice and cool. Mineral oil right?
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I had wanted to use a small psu for it (pico psu ftw) but didn't know where I could find one at the time. Now I know, so if no one is interested in buying it as is, then I will go ahead and purchase one and install it. There is actually plenty of space inside for such a small psu. Back when I was first working on it, I had decided to put in a small desktop psu without its casing. That is what lead to the heat issues. As it is now though, you could easily fit another desktop hard drive in it. (maybe not TOO easily, but easily enough.)
EDIT: Come to think of it, if anyone is interested, just tack on $100 and I will go ahead and put a pico psu in it instead of requiring you to have your own.
Windows 7
in General Discussion
Posted
The XP 2200+ is a single core. Nothing dual about it. It doesn't even pretend lol. I am fairly sure that the Athlon XP series is all single core.
And yes, I did install Vista and ran it on there for a long time. While it was kind of stinky, it ran alright. The system was for my wife, and she liked the pretty looks, and I liked that Vista was hard for viruses to attack. She isn't what I would call a power user, so it worked fine for quite a while. The system started slowing down really heavily after a while though, so much so that she could not play a basic video files (avi, mp4, etc) in full screen without the thing skipping frames and going out of sync and stuff.
Now the system has XP on it once again, and it runs super.
Edit: oh and the video memory thing, totally true. It just needs a little extra (256 at the least), but you can do it with 128. You just have to turn it on manually.