Ok where do I start, Starcraft 2 Beta is finally with us, the game I have been waiting for 12 years.
Yes here I gush again about the game I hold so dear
Is this not the most bad ass Starcraft illustration ever made... my money is on someone in the cinematic team cooked that one up, you sir... I salute you:
Link: www.johnberube.com
I remember when the announcement video came out, an amazing cinematic, teasing me with It's visual depiction of a universe I thought id never see again, rendering in gorgeous 21st century definition:
An amazing leap from the originals cinematic
:-D
It ended with the phrase 'It's about time'
And then the developers proceeded to mull about for another 3 years!
But alas they did good work in this time.
I spent the last few months fretting about getting a Beta testing key to play and use the game and It's editor before It's release. As I had an idea for a MOD to sell on there proposed built in e-store.
Well after trying to win a key in a monthly competition which I managed to get 3rd place in (key on for 1st!) I was dying...
I watched as the beta ease release in pain, watching others play and enjoy it... and then I checked my inbox and I had only gone and received a key!... blood rushed to my head and face... I felt a sudden warm burning sensation as my face filled with blood, id imagine at this point any lesser man would have fainted with a mix of fear and joy.. is this real, is this a joke, what if it doesn't work I don't want to get my hopes up, I bet it'sa cruel joke and I'm going to be devastated.. I can't look...... I sat there stunned... then scrambled to see if it was the real deal and if it worked... and it did! and it was joyous, and it was everything I had ever hoped for (rare for someone as pessimistic as me)
Id literally spent the day just resigning myself to never getting the key and watching others thru an impervious metaphorical pane of glass stroking at it from the other side, id even downloaded the game illegally knowing full well it wouldn't work without a login, just sat there watching it install with It's sexy installer graphics and sound effects, and then watching it load, and watching the animated 3D background as the operatic music swells, as it teased me with it;s login screen and as it threw me right out with a helpful denied message of woe and suffering... on top of all this I was having worst day ever for many other suddenly compounding reasons... so receive the key was just nerd bonerdom.
So here I am, I have played it a fair bit, and It's outstanding, sure many kinks and irks but for a Beta, It's pretty damn spiffy one, It's prettier than I thought it would be, some units (Terran) look shit and having looked at them closer.. It's because they are shit. My outstanding optimism will sadly probably nose dive from It's dizzying height once the game is released, as no doubt every lil issue I come across now, I just assume they will surely fix it and improve it by release. But even if it nose dived it would still be pretty damn high. The only thing spoiling my SC2 experience thus far has been my loosing, but even that is taking a slow turn for the better as my brain scrambles to work out the complexity thrown at it without so much as a intro guide... you get thrown right in at the deep end into competitive online play, online play against other beta testers.. a demographic surely made up of mostly pro gamers and mad enthusiasts... that's my excuse anyway.
The editor now I hear may not make much if any appearance in the beta period, which is lame, but having the key will still surely be helpful in seeing the capabilities. And I have already managed to hack out some 3D models and textures from the game and re-render them outside the game. My MOD idea consists of a lot of re-texturing of existing units, so I can actually start that before the game is even out.
My modified Battle Cruiser, just playing about, some of the Terran unit models suck so bad compared to the others.
And Blizzards ooh hi-def realtime cutscene version of the Battle Cruiser that I rendered, man that is one bad ass model, let alone hat It's used in realtime for the cutscenes.
This game is highly sexual.. nerd boners all round
Starcraft 2 in all It's 3D glory below:
And the original:
Oh yeah bad ass graphics at 640x480 max
So yah the game is sweet, I don;t even care that I'm loosing so much.. ok I do care, but it just makes me want more. And I'm finally getting the hang of it. Though It's all relative because as soon as I get the hang of it, it will no doubt shove me up against even tougher players and I'll be back to feeling like a dumbs again
:-)
I still haven't figured out quite how the ranking works and how I ladder up...
It was disturbing quite how little it 'felt' that playing Starcraft 1 didn't help... I thought id be starting of with at least some semblance of competitiveness, oh no the game has changed quite a bit, just enough but not too much, just enough change to shake everything up and completely stop you relying on almost any exact tactic or build order you were ever comfortable with, and that's good... but I did spend and still do spend a good deal of time midst battle just going... ok wf do I even build to counter that unit I have no idea. But that phase will pass... well once Blizzard stop mucking about changing all the unit stats around during the beta period at least
:-)
I look at learning Starcraft as a real long term thing, not like I would think about ANY other game, as this is the only thing I'd ever dram of playing competitively and as a 'sport'. It's something I'll work on over years and enjoy for decades I hope, especially if they keep bring out the content updates with the 2nd Campaign and the 3rd planned.. oh yeah I'm a big fat nears when it comes to this... I even have a Starcraft 2 hat and shirt.. but I won those... and.. they don't come close to fitting me so It's all good... In fact I promised if I got the key i'd sit in all my nerd attire I won and just like play all day straight and fly in some twinkles or corn dogs or some horrible American delicacy and pretend I'm the fat comic store guy from the Simpsons and thoroughly enjoy the lack of balance nutrition... so goin to do that... watch this space
Add lights around underside of cliff faces
Can floor tile in an arranged way so that all hexagons line up and could fade from one color to another?
Make some floor decal doodads for printing on
Make more patterns and weaves for flooring
Widen up the pits, they should have massive overhangs, scale is rubbish here, no idea how powerful boolean/cropping terrain is in order to even do this?
do same thing again with concentric circles rotated off each other and inset into ground, mockup with tron hard edge into space
Add some hexagons protruding from ground like pillars
need some lights
rock clusters?
hexagonal piles and clusters say around ramps or jutting out the sides of cliffs
tilted ground hole with hex coming out
Giant electric tree with lava crack like veins at base
what about water, make it look like those glowing outdoor pools
bridges
Yes I have finally received my Fanatec Porsche Force Feedback Wheel woo yay woo
I have watched the thing travel the world by boat, travel Germany by road and now It's here after countless delays and setback the wheel I ordered in June -_-
I was expecting it in September.. no such luck it seems, some folk have had this pre-ordered over a year ago... anyway... what is this thing, this shiny technological masterpiece...
It arrived with good timing in one way as Dirt 2 just came out so I can play it first with my new wheel!! all the newness and awesomeness!
Here it is, taken at night so photos a bit grainy/blurry and washed out etc, but it still looks cool!
And here are some videos below in the links of me messing about with it in Dirt and Shift, I need to make a video of Richard Burns Rally which is by far the most fun despite It's age.
Naturally videos and pictures do little to convey the forces that are being applied to your hands as you drive, so use your imagination
;-)
Sure it was expensive, but it is the only wheel on the planet that supports everything, xbox, PS3, PC and looks good while doing it as a bonus.
It has immense force feedback, Rally Driving will jolt your arms all over if you are not careful, racing games will give you the subtle feedback as tyres are about to loose grip and when you need to counter steer a slide thus preventing a crash (they will at least if they properly simulate tyre deformation and contact patch which few do). Overall it provides a big deal of immersion into a game which may normally be a rather passive experience, suddenly you are drawn in and engaged and given extra sensory perceptions that not only make it more entertaining but easier to drive well.
It isn't as well made as a real porsche wheel, it has some defects, stitching is rough to touch, buttons have a bit of a gap and one button is really wonky to touch, the wheel is quite hard; theres no padding under the leather so it feels a bit hollow and hard, but compared to other gaming wheels.. it licks them all and it is a bit cheaper than a real Porsche wheel
:-)
This is It's closest competition:
hahahahah.. look at it... hah... get out of here, It's not any cheaper either really. Pedal Shifter on it are better though by the looks of it, which isn't difficult as the Fanatec's are so useless and rough I had to unscrew them and just use the buttons underneath, which work fine and I quite like them but it makes shifting while steering very difficult.
Biggest pest with this wheel is no game works with it properly by default, not the wheels fault as games are A. designed for retards who cannot drive, and B. are designed for weak ass regular geared wheels.
But you can always tweak and hack and disable all the dampening and aids to unleash It's power if you want.
Richard Burns rally needed a Max Torque tweak hidden away in some physics file which made the game... scary, I recommend using Drift Mode and a lower FFB if you do this though to simulate some kind of power assisted steering.
--
Below I shall detail how I went from a casual arcade gamer to full blown racing nerd with a wheel to proove it.
--
First racing game for me was really Need for Speed Underground, I don't count any games before that especially not the very first which would have been Burning Rubber on the Amstrad CPC+ shown below for amusement
It was a shit game then and it sure as hell is shit now
Anyway NFSU was a great introductory game, it was fast, easy enough to control with a keyboard, exciting stuff...
Then came NFS Most Wanted, which I felt was a great game too, nice graphics for It's time and this time I played on xbox with a analog controller giving much greater control over steering and acceleration.
Then came Forza 2, I tried the demo, thought it was an amusing insight into how real cars might handle, amusing in that they must all handle like ass thanks to It's overly difficult handling down to bad tyre physics.. ok the ewer not bad but they were on the sadistic side when it came to locking up.
I thought the game was bland and boring, and it is... really... but I changed my mind later...
I next got myself into Colin Mcrae Dirt, wow what a blast, it was fun but way more challenging than previous arcadey games I had played, still in the arcade realm though it is no sim.
The graphics also blew Forza out the water and still do, it looked the part and was a blast, so I splashed out on a Microsoft Force Feedback Wheel. Relatively cheap lil thing especially as I got %% off due to damaged packaging.
And it was an epic experience playing it with the wheel, took ages to get used to it, but once I had there was no going back. The level of immersion shot thru the roof, the fun, the swet on my brow... It's the best fun id had gaming in a long long time.
I then tried Forza Demo again and it came alive.. .suddenly it made sense with a wheel, what is the point of a car simulator if you then drive with a thumb stick... it makes no sense. With the wheel the feedback made the cars fun and drivable, it gave you a sense you would eventually just know and feel/untuit when a car was about to screw up and you would have already automatically counter acted it via the wheel.
The graphics were still horrendous and the gameplay was still dreadful, but the driving was fun with all the nuances you would expect.
I quickly realised the wheel I had while good for It's price, was no match for the high end wheels that only worked on PC and PS3.
I looked at PC Car Sims and thought of buying a wheel, but all the PC sims looked dull... lifeless even more so than Forza.
Then I heard Need for Speed were doing a 'sim' racer, and Forza 3 was coming.. and Dirt 2... and I danced, oh how I danced
Dirt 2 above... in game.. no really in game, graphics so good It's actually sexier than real life, I could lick it
How crap does Forza look now.. this is Shift looking very nice indeed
NFS Carbon had came and gone and had been shit, NFS Pro Street had came out, was a piece of shit, NFS Undercover had came out and was a piece of shit... pattern forming stuff... fortunately NFS Shift was by someone else entirely, and they have done a brilliant job, it feels like pretty damn good sim under the hood especially after some hacks. And the graphics and immersion are way above what anyone else other than Codemasters has been able to deliver.
Anyway, I heard of this Fanatec wheel when Forza announced they were supporting it shown below with a motion rig.. and i'm like finally!
Forza 3 looked really good too (from a distance), the wheel looked like a must have... then I saw the price... thought harder about it... and decided what the hell, I earn money to spend it and have fun, and this definitely looked like a top top quality product not only in aesthetic thanks to the Porsche styling genuine leather and paint and genuine badge... but more importantly it was quality gear inside that only the likes of the Logitech G27 can come close to... and man that wheel looks like a toy POS to me.
Anyway Forza 3 then came out, I bought it, turned out to be ok, but still ugly and dull as sin compared to what NFS and Codemaster were putting out, but it was all forgivable-ish as the handling was huge leaps better and it was class leading before. They have now full tyre modelling for deformation which is a big deal in how it affects the car handling and tyre slip/grip.
Forza is a driving game, Shift is a racing game.. big difference. Driving around on your own in a nice car in Forza is actually a pleasure on the few scenic road tracks it has.
Forza still has a plasticy look to it down to the bad car shaders which they could get away with better if they did any post/color correction or even get basic exposure right. They should really use normal maps on the cars instead of high poly as you can see dings and dents in them which could be easily avoided and make it fast enough to have more cars on track., another huge huge let down as It's limited to 8 cars a race.. ugh what a waste of time driving round a 10km track with 8 cars thinly spread over it.
Looks pretty good above sure, but in game and on older tracks especially it looks pretty sad at HD res.
Sorry for the rant/history lesson, but I want to show how I went from casual arcade racer to full blown top of the line limited edition force feedback wheel. I'm even looking at some of the hardcore PC car sims that I previously wrote off as ugly and dull. Got into outdoor 60mph karting And thinking how I can realistically buy a Lotus Elise to do the real thing-ish...
And theres also GT5 to look forward to on the PS3, which looks better than Forza, but it still looks like it might be quite sterile and dull in gameplay... though who knows, I shall wait to try it before judging, I commend them on the amount of content the game will have and if they add weather and day/night I will have to have some pretty bad gameplay to not still be a great game.
-Edit
Ok another GT5 preview article just came out and the thing looks outstanding on paper, they are adding weather and night racing... yay oh yay! finally! ooh and damage-to what exact extent i'm not sure but they even say they have interior damage for 100 or so cars'
How such a major part of racing has been left out of most.. nay all games, I don't know. All you ever hear about during F1 races or Rally or GT or anything is how the weather effects the tyres. My only hope now is for some real endurance race type stuff, but to have the computer pick the tyres for yo.
Which reminds me of another point I love that in Forza you can go in a tweak the car's setup and parts, it has It's own fun to it, but I'd also like to be able to forget about that entirely and just be a race driver sometimes too and have an expert team behind me setting all the stuff up and leave me to racing and trust my car is ALWAYS competitive, in Forza I feel like half the time I loose is cuss my car is junk... yah It's alll the cars fault
;-)
And that above is all I've got to go on right now regarding the night racing
:-P
You'd have thought being given a world exclusive they would have put bigger images in -_-
--
So is this wheel worth the money... yes, and if you want a longer answer to that... yeeeeeeesssss
it was worth my money, whether it is worth yours depends on how much you value your money and how much you would enjoy racing games really.
Now who wants to buy me the full setup for Christmas? I want to nerd out!!!!! they have a motion rig coming soon too... I need more money for this hobby
:-D
And before you say that the 3 screens is overkill, It's actually quite a big deal with car games, as without periphery vision you can't make tight turns as accurately as you can't see the apexes or see cars to your left and right that you may drive into. Aaand you judge speed from your peripheral vision, stuff whizzing by on your far left and right really makes you feel and see the speed you are doing which is why sims feel like you are driving slow and to the 200mph you are doing in game, try driving with a box on your head and a slot for your eyes... tunnel vision is not cool to be race driving with.
Starcraft
The best Real Time Strategy game ever made
I'm eagerly anticipating the next iteration of the game 11 years after the first one! It's been long overdue
It's really taken a decade for computers to get to the point where they can recreate the graphics of the original 2D game but in full 3D. So I'm glad they waited till now to do it, and I hope they do it properly!
The original required all but a 90mhz processor and 16mb of ram! And is still updated to this day, and despite first requiring the now ancient Mac OS 7.6 and Windows 95 it still runs today on the latest Intel Macs running os 10.5 (a full 8 OS cycles later)
It's a bit low poly still as it has to work on a full range of computers, the game is'nt meant to be on the bleeding edge, It's not a FPS, it needs to be accessible and run at a high FPS with thousands of units on the screen.
I just noticed how the units and building for Terran have changed in Starcraft 2 as they are working on it still.
On the left are the new units, on the right the old ones, which appear more cartoony and less defined/low poly looking.
Thank god they fixed that, it looked awful before. Looking at it still though some units/buildings in the other races look like they need a rehaul too, hopefully they are still working on that in the same manner... hangon.. yup looks like they are indeed loking at screenshots stuff is changed every screenshot almost:
Starcraft 1 of course went through massive changes as it was being built, starting all the way back in 1996. I've managed to dig up some old alpha screenshots of that below.
Ooh just found a website with some more information on units changes:
Link: www.starcraftwire.net --- P1
The above unit has been removed entirely.. thankfully!
yay looks like the zerg are also getting up-ressed:
Not bad considering these units are about 40 pixels wide when displayed in game
:-P
And now for some really really old screenshots below:
The Zerg race was originally known as the "Nightmarish Invaders".... lol
Link: www.sclegacy.com --- starcraft-evolution-12
Link: home.planet.nl
1996:
A rather curious video of the beta version:
Link: uk.youtube.com
And then the final version of Starcraft as we know it:
Man I just found my old games:
Yah I'm a nerd, and yes that's 3 copies of Starcraft:
And yes that one is still in It's wrapping-ish
I bought one copy and the cd key did'nt work online, so they sent me another copy, by mistake they sent me 2 new copies, only one of which I think worked online I think? I really can't remember
Ah and six or 7 years later I'm still playing the damn thing
:-D
Ok where have I been and what have I been upto!
... not much ...
Working on this and that, but mostly... I hate to admit it... I've been lost in playing Fallout 3 and now GTAIV
Major productivity boosting stuff, both games easily have a 100 hours of play time in them before completion.
Both amazing games, if you can look past a few bugs and your machine is high spec.
I have finally solved my light math/ auto exposure problem thanks to Wesley Bourne, I'll be posting more on that when I get some good examples of it together...
But really, nothing much to report other than lots of game playing and mince pie eating really.. tis the season to get fat and sleep loads.
Oh and I moved ISP to O2 and right now I can highly recommend them especially if your already a O2 mobile customer as you get money off. i've downloaded 70gb and Uploaded 60gb already and I've only been on a few weeks. Nice and fast!
I realized something rather profoundly obvious the other day, how when I need to or have to do something I offload it onto the future so... I'll do it tomorrow, or later.. as if the me doing it later is another person.. offloading work to someone else, but of course.. that other person is me. So it really does nothing but delay the inevitable. Your going to be just as 'you' later as you are now, and the work is going to be just as boring then and your going to want to offload it onto someone else or your future self just as much then too.
I just found it rather funny, how internally I felt or had this idea that doing something later was like another person or something, hard to describe. It's hard living and dealing with the NOW all the time we build up all these concepts of the future and life as a line and progression when really all there is is 'now', so offloading into the future is just a way of pissing off my future 'now'.
I was thinking how if I had done something hard or important every day for the last year.. 5 years or so on.. how id be rewarding myself now, all the hard work would have been done by someone else, a past me and id be enjoying it now. That's another interesting way of looking at it, give your future 'now' a gift instead of offloading work onto it, think how your future 'now' will feel if you go and get that work out the way right now.
I know what I mean
:-)
