LP Update/Comment Thread

[IskatuMesk]

I roMANced this keg of coffee something HARD earlier.

I also encoded the first relevant video in like a month. yey

[ArcCain]

Progress!

[IskatuMesk]

This train is very slowly gaining steam again. It will be a while before you see results, but when you do, it will be a very big update.

[nu1x]

Take your time, there's no rush , I didn't even watch all the LPs yet. You need to rest from time to time you know.

[IskatuMesk]

I have made a few minor updates to the LP thread. Noteworthy are those changing all VLC notes to saying it's no longer recommended whatsoever due to the large amount of bugs and issues it has, adding Kingdom Hearts remix to the to-do LP list (no timeline for that, but I have both of the current releases and will do them some day), and some other cleanup. I have also made note that I do eventually plan to attempt to run some Western Classics, like Awesome Possum, which will undoubtably be agonizing.

Now that 2015 is upon us, it's time to consider the future once again. I would like to repeat the old adage of "I hope the next year goes better" but that's just a given now.

I want to get into finishing the new Hunted compilation and Divinity: Original Sin. I have 4 segments (I'd guess about half the game) completed of the first, awaiting drive space to resume recording. In the meanwhile I am slowly starting on and chiseling down unrelated work. Eventually my goal is to resume Castlevania: Lords of Game Testing, despite stopping at the worst possible place to stop at. While it was recommended I should consider shelving it for the time being, I think getting it done sooner than later will probably be better, because then I can start on the second one, get it done, and never speak of the atrocities suffered ever again.

I am certain I have some League videos lying around, and am currently trying to decide their fate. A compilation seems most likely. Nothing major, but for anyone who watches those, noteworthy. I haven't played in months due to depression and sickness, so they're old recordings. I am not sure if anyone still plays, so I can't predict any additions beyond that.

While I had planned to immediately make a new Apex F dev video to talk about the new AI changes and some other stuff I posted about earlier, I got sick and depressed and shelved it. I'll consider it again after outstanding work is finished.

Alright, that's videos. What about bigger projects?

Apex F - Frozen. Nothing has happened for months. I need HKS for data editing because honestly I don't think I'll be able to get into it for a long time. He's waiting for a proper m3 importer so we can get started on the long, arduous task of fixing that disgusting game's graphics. Last I heard, Blinkhawk was making one. He commented that the format is a mess and work is slow. No ETA. Still want to get this rolling. I won't lie - if this project dies, I've strongly considered turning it into an audiobook, though it wouldn't be the kind of balls-to-the-wall casting strictness of Retribution, to save my sanity. As the first 15 missions already have a few dozen hours of dialogue written that would need to be adapted, the full project would be truly epic scale and would be years in the making. Thus, hesitant to consider even talking about it. But the idea is there. At the least, I may try to write it out OR use it for the Unreal 4 ARPG project, because I've invested a ton of design energy into it over the last few years.

Black Sun - The Audiobook was released a while ago. HKS is very very slowly and casually looking into Unreal 4. I'm still keeping an eye out for any rippable assets that might help us out. No real hope for starting this up again for now.

Starsworn - My ARPG project would be attempted if the Sc2 project falls through. This would be an Unreal 4 project. Currently, my intention is just to wait everything out and focus on videos until I know for sure what is going to happen with sc2. If it turns out to be too much trouble, I'll sub Unreal 4 and begin flailing. There'll have to be no turning back from there. It's do or die now. I'm just getting too old for nonsense like Retribution and losing 1.5 years of work over people being unreliable cunts. At least HKS is reliable, so he might be able to pave a road to Unreal 4 given time.


Cat - stable.
Housing - expecting to be evicted again when the lease runs out.
Money - dry. Had to buy a car after Neville cracked an engine. Now I own a car I don't even have the ability to drive. Great. That was all I had. I can't even afford Unreal 4.
Pneumonia - Still sick, but can work.

2015 is shaping up to be a shitty year already, so let's hope for once things don't turn into a worst-case scenario. I'm really just out of patience for this crap now.

[ArcCain]

Housing - expecting to be evicted again when the lease runs out.
Money - dry. Had to buy a car after Neville cracked an engine. Now I own a car I don't even have the ability to drive. Great. That was all I had. I can't even afford Unreal 4.

The fuck? Shit man.

[recalrico]

Noticed in a few videos you refer to something called "z fighting". A situation where some textures seem to flicker. What is it exactly? I didn't see it in your faqs.

[IskatuMesk]

ARGH THE CAT MANGLED ITS EYE AGAIN THERE IS NO END TO THIS BULLSHIT


Z-fighting - I immediately thought this was covered but I guess I forgot. I'll be sure to add this explanation, then!

Z-Fighting - When Goku faces off with an antagonist of exceptional power level. Both individuals are layered on top of each other in a steamy bloodbath, causing things to flicker in and out in a wild display of Chi. When a Developer is especially lazy and sticks objects inside of each other in such a way that their surfaces occupy the exact same space, the engine may not know how to cope with the legendary battles to ensue. In particularly shitty engines (Sins of a Solar Empire) you may also see Shadow Z-fighting, which can result from things like the shadow maps being so low res that huge pixels flicker all over the place and give them same appearance, or the engine can't handle certain things, like fake fog, overlapping the shadows, and they fight for sorting dominance. Go get em, Brolly!

/edit

HKS notes that apparently sorting becomes lazier the further distance you are in a lot of games (he made note of Just Cause 2 where bodies of water just flicker in and out of existence wildly). I will update the description in the thread as such.

[IskatuMesk]

Jesus, there's a ton of idle time in Divinity, and battles are really slow, too, so I try to speed those up when it seems appropriate. I think I am going to reconsider co-oping any similar RPG's in the future, at least as far as LP's are concerned, because editing this is way more work than I thought it would be.

Also, Martin's mic is fucking atrocious, so I tried to cut him out entirely when applicable.

I am *finally* almost done editing the Divinity float, which will open space for my attempt to continue actual recordings again. Yay!

[ArcCain]

Nice to hear.

I figured you would find this funny: In a recent update to Dark Souls 1 (PC) they added so you can play at 60FPS. If you slide down a ladder whilst playing on this frame rate it will catapult you through the floor, into the world space. Just some food for thought.

[nu1x]

Nice to hear.

I figured you would find this funny: In a recent update to Dark Souls 1 the added so you can play at 60FPS. If you slide down a ladder whilst playing on this frame rate it will catapult you through the floor, into the world space. Just some food for thought.

Really ? I thought it was only the omnipresent dsfix that everyone is using ? Also, yes, game breaks in multiple ways if you 60 FPS, but it was never supported anyway.

[wibod]

Nice to hear.

I figured you would find this funny: In a recent update to Dark Souls 1 the added so you can play at 60FPS. If you slide down a ladder whilst playing on this frame rate it will catapult you through the floor, into the world space. Just some food for thought.

Really ? I thought it was only the omnipresent dsfix that everyone is using ? Also, yes, game breaks in multiple ways if you 60 FPS, but it was never supported anyway.

It's a bug specifically with 60fps, it's because shitty console devs don't know how to not tie things to the framerate. It's also why dark souls plays noticeably faster at 60fps.

[IskatuMesk]

Dark souls, being a game that relies heavily on "code" borrowed from gamedev.net and clearly having never been tested, was never made for 60fps. When you raise the framerate on something and the game wasn't built to handle it, especially on collision detection, and the devs have no incentive to do anything about it, then yeah, falling through the worldspace will be pretty common.

I was made aware of this with the Dsfix thing I was using (why such a thing is even necessary to begin with is really just telling of the quality of developer From Software is), but when I was recording I never ran into it because of fraps and its automatic fps locking (which it does even if you tell it not to because, you guessed it, fraps devs are fucking lazy and never update their software).

[recalrico]

Too bad you can't do a LP of Bayonetta 2. I played through the main campaign and I'm happy to say that they got rid of the quicktime events (there is still button hammering for points/damage). The QT timing windows on the original are very narrow.

[IskatuMesk]

That's Wii-U right? I can probably emulate it sometime. I think Wii emulation is pretty decent. I haven't tried it yet, though. Sometime I will (though I may need better hardware).