Bay 12 Games Forum

Just got to Khan's castle, completed the outside area with the behemoth dudes. Currently stuck in the cutscene at the end of that level: the king, captain of the guard, and a small squad walk up from the bottom of the screen, and the game goes in to cutscene mode, and stays that way. Nothing happens.

Re: Lightning Shield: the elemental resist auras (Element + shield + M3) are very low-key compared to all other effects. Look for a translucent set of lines on the ground circling your dude. (For lightning, the lines will be purple.)

Just got the demo. Pretty fun, although it's choppy and causes overheating. Also, I'm awful at this.

Anyone working on finding the magical configuration settings / console commands to remove all unnecessary gfx like lighting, fog, smoke, bloom, shaders, etc. like the ones everybody uses for tf2 and alien swarm? That'd be a big help.

The various starcraft AIs showcased were certainly impressive. Certainly an improvement over the standard, which frequently resulted in matches where your opponent builds a dozen SCVs/probes/drones, then gathers resources indefinitely without building anything else. I would be interested to know if they would be able to adapt on the fly to the introduction of new units with entirely new abilities (for example: a unit that can alter terrain, or a unit that can capture other units), and make use of these new units intelligently, while a game is in progress without any changes to their code. Given the description of the Overmind's capabilties, and its mechanics, this might actually be the case.

The brief description of the Jeopardy bot was also encouraging.

The next step is an RTS A.I. that makes use of the chat function to communicate with allies and enemies, that is capable of deceptions, feints, bluffs, and double-crossing its own allies for the long-term victory. It should also learn about its opponent's psychological weaknesses while communicating, and use that information to manipulate his or her emotions, leading to easily-exploitable mistakes in execution.

I feel your pain. In 15+ years I've yet to see a truly good game.

Quest for Glory series: semi-interesting story, mediocre gameplay. Meh.
Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander: Better economy model than all other strategy games, better implementation of warfare, but still meh overall. The actual gameplay is utterly tedious, and the battles aren't actually satisfying.
Die by the Sword: Imprecise, but playable implementation of physics-based swordplay. Gets boring after an hour or two though.
Hammerfight: Better physics, more solid and streamlined interface, but still only a few really interesting hours. Would have been amazing with multiplayer.
Dwarf Fortress: Interesting concept, but bland gameplay overall. May hold my attention if Toady codes true sentience in to the members of the game's races.
Minecraft: Same problem as DF - bland, but even less depth.
All Blizzard games: Again, just bland, with nothing to grab or hold attention. Not saying the games are poorly-made - the concepts are poor, not their execution.

My requirements for a legitimately good game would be:

Strategy(RTS or TBS): A.I. that is truly intelligent. Can out-think and surprise the people that coded it. Nothing pre-scripted. Learns within and across games. Reacts to macro and micro situations in ways that actual humans would. Can keep up with the exploded economy in the late-game, so that your horde of super-units is met by a bigger horde of super-units, as opposed to one (that specific example is from SupCom).

RPG/MMO/any game where you talk to dudes: NPCs whose speech is procedurally generated, and completely indistinguishable from human interaction, if there is social interaction with NPCs at all. Do it right, or don't do it. Don't be that guy. You know, Oblivion.

Any game with single-unit control (fighting games, platformers, etc.): Actual battles. Visceral. Emergent from the game's physics engine. None of this pre-coded "special move" bullshit. The physics engine should be fully accurate, such that any weapon or fighting style can be used, and it will behave predictably, according to how it functions in the real world. No health, no numerical damage. DF makes an admirable attempt at this, but text is just not the correct medium. Such a game would require an interface that can take inputs for all joints, and all ranges of motion simultaneously, as well as giving accurate feedback for inertia and material textures.

... before long he looked like a zombie (advanced rot, his eyes popped, etc.) ... after that he began getting severe boils and bruises all over his body ...

jesus christ

Your friend doesn't want to play DF because she's met people who do, and she's afraid of becoming a smug asshole like them.

So I guess economically speaking: gold nugget blocks will always be the best option. Hopefully you didn't build half of your construction out of gold bars because of my initial mistake!

I'm waiting on my bro to finish out his year (succession game) before I start anything, so I'm planning some stuff out in the meantime. Thanks again!

doubt anyone's going to see this; I have one last character still appearing as a graphic; it is ÿ (looks like y with an umlaut)

I've checked the language files, this character doesn't appear in them (or I've already replaced it with the previous batch replaces)

Are there any other files that control the spelling of words in Dwarf Fortress?