LP Update/Comment Thread

[nu1x]

Only your gentle voice gave me strength to endure this hell. This looks like some legit torture device, I bet it was used as such. Truly, not for the faint of heart.

[IskatuMesk]

Why is nothing getting done?

Stress is completely maxed out. No sleep, no rest, nothing.

Why?

Two black marks have appeared in the cat's ""good"" eye and continue to grow.

Our financial situation continues to deteriorate and grandparents want to declare a second bankruptcy or something similar.

The months tick by leading to what is expected to be a second eviction.

Very little food and water to spare.

Constant arguing and bickering. I think they plan to separate again.

Religious undertones reaching ridiculous heights, even by these standards.

The toll of the last year and a half is this close to breaking me.

[recalrico]

Hey
Hopefully you’ll get past your latest episode.

Would you consider creating a guide or how-to in regards to performing science on games and observation techniques. I'm pretty impressed by the stuff you notice. I've watched your LPs and tried it myself but I'm not as successful. Though that might be because I have not tried a large enough number of western titles.

[IskatuMesk]

!!Science!! is all about understanding how things work, identifying certain relationships, and then sticking a penis into those relationships. It helps that I've worked closely with making mods and games for a long time, so I understand where things tend to go all afuck at the slightest provocation.

For example, physics engines are built on the silly concept of decolliding instead of colliding, and they often don't update as quickly as the actual engine does (so it's easy to force things to intersect). Of course, such decollisions will then pass force to objects and send them flying. Similar concepts can apply to games without physics, too - in many old Mario games it's possible to walk through walls by hitching on specific pixels of collision. This is also why the Souls games and Skyrim produce exponentially more severe bugs the higher framerate they are - they are shitty console ports intended for very shitty fps. Higher fps means more chance of things breaking. If I recorded at 60fps instead of 30 I'd probably see marginally more bugs to come as a result of such things.

AI is easy to break because a universal in Western games is that they don't have real AI. For example, many of the monsters in Diablo 2 rely heavily on broken hardcode that doesn't work correctly. So, things like the Sand Reavers plainly don't work. Also, the movement systems and related collision for AI units can have major hacks surrounding them (lords of game testing) that cause all kinds of weird interactions.

A lot of the bugs in games like GoW:A, where the game was unable to be progressed in two locations, the first because I hit an enemy with a stunning projectile during a transition, and the second when I entered an area and it failed to load, and nearly all the non-netcode related bugs in Hunted, are a result of interns using high level scripting to handle things, and then that code not being closed or handled in a manner that keeps it safe from being interrupted. The floating in the air occurs in Hunted when you interrupt the door transition in a specific way. When you interact with the door your character script changes states and you lose collision. If you can interrupt that animation and leave the door while still being in that state, which is simply accomplished by mashing buttons wildly, you have a good chance of keeping that state and turning into the Wizard of Oz.

I always keep an eye out for anything that looks like it was just arbitrarily thrown in (movable objects and cranks in ducksiders 2) or extremely lazily thrown together (all of Souls) and then try to do things with it their demo level wouldn't have done (get stuff in the way of cranks, get in the way of moving doors/objects, putting AI in odd places). Sometimes you uncover truly fucked up things, like Darksiders 2 and its invisible AI geometry, which opens up a ton of !!science!! if you can figure out where areas are that they used that for shortcuts (everything involving flying is a hack in that engine, so ergo, you can break air units super easily).

Some engines are pretty solid (God of War 3) but when handed incompetent B teams (God of War: Ascension) result in exponentially more bugs. GoWA was basically identical as far as the engine was concerned but everything script-wise about it was super lazily thrown together, so you got stuff like half the enemies twitching or freaking out, events that were clearly never tested even once, shortcuts on the weapon that result in tons of stretching, and potential ways to just get stuck.

Once you get accustomed to breaking easy stuff like physics it gets much easier to figure out how related systems can be broken. For example the grappling hook in ducksiders 2 always results in your character doing very weird shit when it's used, even if it doesn't hit you. The fact it displaces you has all kinds of weird connotations. Like it could force you through geometry. When I jumped onto the ledge that's like the first thing an actual game tester would do - see what happens when the two things interact. Incidentally, the resulting bug I got was a thousand times more severe than I could have guessed (I expected to just shoot off the ledge, not teleport to inescapable geometry!)

I guess the next game testing game I do whenever I get around to it I can go more into detail about the stuff I am looking to break.

[mark_009_vn]

Yes... talking about breaking stuff... how is Anal Combat: Expand Horizon coming along?

[IskatuMesk]

I quit it half an hour in.

[nu1x]

Considering the household stress is like a job for you (a shitty one), consider moving out and getting an easy job ? Would be more manageable at this point I think, and real life is not that hard, in fact, pretty easy if all you want to do is just get by, and not climb some corporate dickladder.

I don't know where you got the impression that you could not manage certain things, you are pretty intelligent and could do whatever.

Point in case, moving out from my parents is the best decision I made in life.

[IskatuMesk]

Jobs are for dorks and there's no way I could sustain myself by moving out.

Simply not on the table.

Intelligence and logic mean nothing in the face of stress, anxiety, and depression. If it was all about being smart I'd just have offed myself already.

[IskatuMesk]

Resuming work on editing what I have recorded of Divinity. We've also recorded a little more.

[recalrico]

Thinking about getting Watch Dogs mainly for the purposes of science. I think I can't go wrong seeing that it's made by the same guys who made ass creed. What do you guys think?

[IskatuMesk]

I heard watch dogs is hilariously fucked up. Ass creed has some of the most ridiculous and widespread bugs I have seen (boats in particular come to mind) outside of bethesda titles.

I have begun recording my next major run. Put on your hard hats.

[KnoutOut]

I am hard when you are.

[IskatuMesk]

A new AWP is up.

Apparently, our landlords have told Neville they "don't plan to move in". They want us to pay them directly next term as opposed to real estate. This seems to indicate we won't get evicted.

However, on Friday, the cat goes to the vet and we will find out if those corneal black spots are harmless or life threatening tumors.

Everything is on edge, but I am recording Lords of Game Testing 2 and processing it along with Divinity.

[nu1x]

What, are you really playing through that game (CLoS 2) ? It must be spilling over to real world and making everything half-assed. The game haunts you IRL.

I'm only half joking.

[IskatuMesk]

Actually... it's not as bad as the first one so far. Yes, it is terrible and unforgivable, but you can skip QTE's and the native camera shake seems gone.